Our Planet

Alastair Fothergill was the executive producer of The Hunt. Previous to that, he was the executive producer of Frozen Planet for the BBC – a series he conceived following the success of Planet Earth, which he produced. Director of the associated feature film Earth, he has also co-directed four feature films for Disney.

Alastair studied zoology at the University of Durham, joined the BBC Natural History Unit in 1983 and was appointed head of the NHU in 1992. During his tenure, he produced the award-winning series on the Antarctic, Life in the Freezer. In 1998, he stood down to concentrate on producing the hugely successful The Blue Planet.

In 2012 he co-founded the independent production company Silverback Films, which produced The Hunt for the BBC. Alastair is the author of four books.

Raised in East Africa, Keith Scholey studied zoology at the University of Bristol, gaining both a BSc and PhD. In 1982, he joined the BBC Natural History Unit as a researcher on the David Attenborough series The Living Planet. Later he became a producer and then series producer, running series including Prisoners of the Sun, Wildlife on One, and the Wildlife Specials and creating and producing Big Cat Diary. In 1998, he became head of the BBC Natural History Unit and subsequently controller of all BBC Factual Productions. He is now is the joint director of Silverback Films, based in Bristol, where he has directed and produced three Disney nature feature films--African Cats, Bears, and Dolphin Reef--and been responsible for the Discovery series North America and Deadly Islands and the Netflix original documentary series Our Planet. Keith lives in Bristol.

The Times described Fred Pearce recently as one of Britain's finest science writers. An author and journalist based in London, he has reported on environment, popular science and development issues from over 60 countries over the past 20 years, specialising in global environment issues. He is the environment and development consultant for the New Scientist and writes regularly for the Daily Telegraph, the Guardian, the Independent the Times Higher Education Supplement and Country Life. In the US he has written for the Boston Globe, Audubon Magazine, Foreign Policy, Seed, Popular Science and Time and has written reports and extended journalism for WWF, the UN Environment Programme, the Red Cross, UNESCO, the World Bank and the UK Environment Agency. He is syndicated in Japan, Australia and elsewhere and his books have been translated into at least ten languages, including French, German, Portuguese, Japanese and Spanish.

He was voted BEMA Environment Journalist of the Year in 2001 and has been short-listed for the same award in 2000, 2002 and 2003. He is a past recipient of the Peter Kent Conservation Book Award and the TES Junior Information Book Award.

He is a regular broadcaster on radio and TV, and has given public lectures on all six continents in the past two years.

'Fred is one of the few people that understand the world as it really is' - James Lovelock, scientist

'[Fred is] one of my heroes' - Rt. Hon John Gummer MP, former UK environment secretary

Praise for The Landgrabbers:

'Brilliant: Fred Pearce has lifted the lid on an issue that has yet to register with most people. Anyone who cares about the fate of the planet should read this.' Chris Mullin

Fred's books include: The Landgrabbers, Peoplequake, Deep Jungle, When the Rivers Run Dry, The Last Generation, Confessions of an Eco Sinner and Ian and Fred's Big Green Book for children.