For the 100th episode of the Ecolution podcast, young host Evie Kenny meets Liz Bonnin. She opens up about her extraordinary life in front of the lens, the amazing animals and natural habitats she has connected with along the way and the importance of preserving our incredible planet.
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While Liz is best-known for her knowledge and love of nature, she has had a wide-ranging TV career including presenting RTÉ's Off The Rails, Top of the Pops, the Channel 4 morning show RI:SE and even had a stint on The Den! But, the natural world is her true passion, so Liz combined her presenting skills, degrees in Biochemistry and Wild Animal Biology to bring her conservation message to viewers on RTÉ, the BBC and National Geographic.
So, as such an inspirational presence within the world of science and conservation, who inspires Liz?
"The first person that comes to mind is Sir David Attenborough. I've been very lucky to meet two women who really inspired me too in the sciences, Jane Goodall and Sylvia Earle, two tremendous women who never even thought about retiring. They're living out their passion, and I have had the honour of meeting them. But Sir David, I remember when I first met him, I couldn't even speak because I'll never forget seeing on the television when I was growing up, that iconic scene of him meeting the gorillas and then going off-script and just talking passionately about, you know, the gorilla behaviour and how it was similar to us.
"I was blown away and mesmerized and to finally meet him. I couldn't put a sentence together, and over the years I've had the great privilege of getting to know him, working on different projects and hosting an in-conversation event with him. He’s the most amazing storyteller. The most passionate person I know when it comes to wildlife, he is as lovely and generous with his time and kind."
So, should you meet your heroes? It’s a big YES from Liz!
Questions came in from schoolchildren across Ireland. One of our young listeners asked if Liz enjoyed playing outside as a child?
Liz recalls a childhood spent in the great outdoors, which set the scene for her love of nature.
She says: "Before I moved to Ireland, I grew up in the mountains in the south of France and we were very lucky to have a little wood beside our house and my sister and I used to just go on these mad like beautiful adventures for the for a whole day and create stories about living on islands and just fabricating different storylines and imagining all different types of adventures surrounded by nature. That's the most enduring memory I have of being outside. We were surrounded by hedgehogs and snakes and insects and little birds. I just remember those times with joy."
Another contributing factor to Liz’s dedication to nature is her Caribbean heritage and the wonderful times she spent visiting family there.
"I was also running around barefoot with my cousins, you know, in the sea snorkelling. I was surrounded by magical things like little coral reefs, you know, and so I think from a very young age, nature was working its magic on me without me realizing, so I fell in love with nature from the start. I remember being obsessed with little birds because I couldn't understand how something so beautiful and small and perfect was alive. How did something that tiny have a tiny perfect little beating heart or how did its tiny eye move in its socket?
"I was just really fascinated by living things and the perfection of them. I think that's why I went on to study biology and chemistry and then biochemistry. I always had a fascination to understand how all living systems worked down to the minutia, down to the chemicals that were involved in, you know, all living processes, so it all started, yeah, from a really young age, observing."
With such a varied, colourful and exciting career, we asked Liz what is her favourite memory so far?
"One of them is in the Galapagos in a submersible going a kilometre beneath the waves into the depth of the darkness for seven hours that flew by like it was 30 seconds. Honestly, it was the weirdest thing and we followed the flanks of these volcanic islands. And then you're exploring the depths with huge spotlights and the biologist beside me, who was going, 'That's new to science! That's new to science! We've never seen that before!' It felt like being an astronaut of the Earth's inner space as opposed to outer space and I will never forget it as long as I live."
As such a fierce protector of the planet, Liz is well-placed to answer a common question. What are her top tips for climate conservation?
"A lot of the onus has been put on us as consumers, like we must find all the solutions, you know, change our plastic use, don't go on holidays, really kind of crack down on how we are damaging the planet. The biggest contributors to plastic pollution, and they all happen to be, surprise, surprise, fossil fuel who continue to make new plastic as they encourage us to clean up the beaches. I mean, it's actually the fossil fuel industry who started the campaign to clean up beaches. Now we do need to clean up the beaches, but it directs the focus on cleaning up the mess but not turning off the mess at the source.
"I've learned that actually one of the biggest things we can then do as consumers as citizens to help the environment is to make our voices heard and say, "You guys are the problem, and you need to stop." So it means speaking to your representative in Parliament, but it also means one of the most powerful things we can still do as consumers actually is making sure that all the electricit is all renewable, like 100% renewable, and asking our parents, and as you get older, putting your money in banks that don't invest in fossil fuels or damaging industries like mining. That sends a very clear message and hurts those industries where it matters most, which is profit, profit, profit. That's what they prioritize above the planet.
"You make your voices heard and where it really matters is where you put your money and that means not funding more fossil fuel extraction by putting your money in a bank that does fund still fund that."
While Liz clearly loves her job, one listener wonders what is the very best part of being on TV?
She says: "The best thing for me about being on TV is that I get to go on these incredible journeys. For example, I spent 5 weeks in Botswana just observing different herds of elephants, so you kind of got to know them as a family and you got to know their characters and how that one's really rowdy, that one's always causing trouble or she's really wise. She knows what she's doing, you know?
"I'm really obsessed with animal behaviour, so to better understand the dynamics of a family group or how orcas hunt, how they communicate, has been an absolute privilege really, so that's the best bit about being on TV. I can't believe my luck that somebody said, come on, we're going to get you to discover the world and tell other people about it because that's the ultimate dream for me as a biologist."
After chatting to Liz it's clear that while she has an extraordinary life and career under her belt, you get the feeling that there’s so very much more to come and hopefully the same could be said for Ecolution - 100 episodes and counting!
The podcast is produced by Nicky Coghlan, with Aoife O'Neill and hosted by Evie Kenny. This year we are on YouTube too - click here to see the playlist.
We've covered a plethora of topics from sustainable fashion to youth activism to the crucial role of bees in our ecosystem, Ecolution has met incredible kids, scientists, change-makers and activists across the world in its mission to bring us face-to-face with the climate crisis and empower us in the fight to save our planet.
Subscribe here to listen to all the episodes and you can read about the show so far on RTÉ Kids.
For more great audio content for young people visit rte.ie/jrpodcasts.
