Welcome to the first half of a two-part recording made on November the 12th at the Manchester Art Gallery - and the inaugural Emily Williamson Festival.
The Festival was created by author and campaigner Tessa Boase and activist and event organiser Tina Lindsay to honour the memory of Emily Williamson, who in 1889, determined to stop the ‘murderous millinery’ of the plumage trade, founded an all-female group that just fifteen years later had become the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the RSPB.
In the first part of this recording we heard from Professor Melissa Bateson, Emily Williamson’s great, great niece, and a fascinating panel discussion chaired by zoologist and wildlife TV presenter Megan McCubbin, with a panel consisting of biologist, nature writer and campaigner Amy-Jane Beer; Beccy Speight, CEO of the RSPB, Juliet Vickery, CEO of the British Trust for Ornithology and President of the British Ornithologists Union, and the Chief Executive of BirdLife International Patricia Zurita.
In this second part of the recording, Megan begins by turning to the panel again to discuss what she calls ‘the elephant in the room’ – the fact that everyone on the stage is a woman...and later invites questions from the audience. Because the audience weren’t mic’d the three questions that were asked are inaudible but the answers given by the panel are far too important just to edit out – so at Tessa’s suggestion Off the Leash's Charlie Moores will be repeating those questions and editing them in...we end with an evocative reading by Amy-Jane Beer of an essay she wrote after an evening spent on the Knepp Wildland Estate listening to one of the most remarkable singers on the planet…
Off the Leash Podcasts has been proud to support the Emily Williamson Festival, celebrating female voices in conservation and Emily's legacy, which goes to show that one voice - anyone's voice - can make a difference. The Festival website remains live of course, if you’d like to learn more please go to emilywilliamsonstatue.com/festival