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Contact: Amy Nicholas, Marketing & Communications Manager, Wildscreen
0117 328 5952 / 07938 005766
Release date: Friday May 21 2010
Bristol Festival of Nature
With just three weeks to go, organisers of this year’s Festival of Nature have announced new highlights to entice visitors from Bristol and further afield to the free event on 12 & 13 June on the Harbourside. Familiar faces and names from the TV world will be taking part in this year’s Festival, including Miranda Krestovnikoff – presenter on BBC Coast, Dale Templar – producer of Human Planet and Mary Albion & Mike Dilger from The ONE Show.
The new education officer on the Bristol Dinosaur Project, Ed Drewitt, will be chairing a talk on “How to Get Your Dream Job”. The panel includes local author Martin Kiszko who has just completed a new children’s book on environmental issues, illustrated by Aardman’s Nick Parks and Will Goodchild music producer and composer for film, television and concert performance.
 In addition, the tents which form the centrepiece of this year’s Festival will be a hive of activity, allowing visitors of all ages to see, hear and feel their way through the secrets of Bristol’s biodiversity and beyond
For example, in the ‘Wild Bristol’ tent, visitors will be able to discover life-like meadows and woodlands specially created for the Festival. To tie in with the UN’s International Year of Biodiversity 2010, the results of a storytelling project will be unveiled with local schoolchildren sharing their stories of Bristol’s flora and fauna. A ‘spot the animal’ activity run by Bristol Zoo will challenge the Festival’s younger visitors to record different animal species as they explore the tent.
The University of the West of England will be hosting a ‘bug zone’ where visitors can explore the creepy-crawly life of invertebrates, while a team from At-Bristol will give visitors the opportunity to get hands-on and gain a fascinating insight into the life within the city’s own floating harbour. And the public will also have the chance to challenge their views of that summer nuisance, the wasp, with staff from the city’s council explaining how the different species that live in the UK actually bring benefits to our gardens and open spaces.
Penny Starr, Festival Director, commented: “Whatever the weather this year, there will be plenty going on in each of the Festival’s enormous activity tents to keep visitors entertained. With fun, inspiring and educational activities for all the family taking place, our aim is to make visitors aware of the fantastic diversity of wildlife which exists both right on our doorstep and afar. All of this will be complemented by exclusive talks and workshops, live entertainment acts through the weekend and our ever-popular food market.
“We have a terrific range of organisations taking part in the festival representing so many different interests of both natural history and wildlife and we are enormously grateful to all of them for getting involved.”
For more information, visit www.festivalofnature.org or check out the Festival’s own Facebook group – search for ‘Festival of Nature’.
Top Festival Highlights:
Nature and The ONE Show – a talk from producer Mary Albion, 1.30pm Saturday
Two free ‘underwater’ IMAX screenings, 11am Saturday and 11am Sunday
Bristol Gardening Question Time, 1.30pm Sunday
How to get your dream job – hosted by Ed Drewitt, 3.00pm Saturday
Learn how to grow your own environment garden – Amphitheatre, both days
Take part in Science Cafes in venues across the city from 7th June onwards
For more information on all of the above visit www.festivalofnature.org
Previous press releases
Wednesday 27th May 2009
Bristol Festival of Nature 2009
Friday 27th March 2009
Wildscreen supports WWF’s Earth Hour
Tuesday 10th February 2009
Wildscreen takes west’s finest wildlife filmmakers to India
Monday 2nd February 2009
Find ARKive's threatened marine species using Google Earth Wednesday 7th January 2009
Wildscreen chairman receives OBE Thursday 10th April 2008
Attenborough launches Wildscreen's Google Earth Layer
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