Mark Carwardine: wildlife conservation through words and pictures

Mark Carwardine has spent much of his career bringing threatened wildlife within public view. As a conservationist, zoologist, photographer, author, broadcaster and wildlife tour guide, he has joined field expeditions to endangered species with the work of explaining what he found. His best-known project, Last Chance to See, began with journeys alongside Douglas Adams and grew into a lasting body of books and broadcasts.

Expeditions that became Last Chance to See

In 1989, Carwardine and writer Douglas Adams travelled in search of eight endangered species for a BBC Radio 4 series. Their journeys ranged across several continents: they looked for the aye-aye in Madagascar, the Komodo dragon in Indonesia, the kākāpō in New Zealand, the Amazonian manatee in Brazil, the Yangtze river dolphin in China, the Juan Fernández fur seal in Chile, the northern white rhinoceros in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Rodrigues fruit bat in Mauritius.

The radio project led to Last Chance to See, the book Carwardine and Adams published in 1990. Its travel writing and accounts of endangered animals brought conservation into a form that could reach beyond specialist readers. Adams contributed his characteristic humour; Carwardine brought the experience of a conservationist reporting from the field. A new edition appeared in 2020 to mark the book’s thirtieth anniversary.

The project returned to television in 2009, when Carwardine joined Stephen Fry for a six-part BBC2 series. They revisited the species featured in the earlier work to see how their circumstances had changed over two decades, and also looked at new subjects, including blue whales off Baja California, Mexico. In 2010, Carwardine and Fry made a BBC2 special about the northern white rhinoceros, following the reintroduction of zoo-raised animals into the wild.

Broadcasting beyond one project

Last Chance to See is the most visible thread in Carwardine’s broadcasting career, but not the only one. For many years he presented Nature, a weekly half-hour programme on BBC Radio 4, as well as other programmes for the station. In spring 2010, he co-presented The Museum of Life on BBC2, a six-part series exploring research and wildlife collections at London’s Natural History Museum. Later that year, he and Fry presented a programme about the effects of the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

One moment from the 2009 television series travelled particularly far beyond its original audience. On Codfish Island in New Zealand, a male kākāpō called Sirocco hopped onto Carwardine’s head and attempted to mate with him while he was filming. Fry’s commentary and the encounter became an international television moment. It showed the unexpected intimacy of wildlife filming, while the larger series kept attention on the endangered animals the pair had set out to document.

Books, photography and encounters with wildlife

Carwardine has written more than 50 books, with much of his work focused on animals and the natural world. Alongside the Last Chance to See books, his titles include field guides to whales, dolphins and porpoises, whale-watching guides, Shark, and The Shark Watcher’s Handbook, co-written with Ken Watterson. His publishing includes practical reference works as well as accounts designed for general readers. He also writes a monthly column for BBC Wildlife magazine and has contributed hundreds of articles to newspapers and magazines.

Photography is another part of that work. Carwardine has built a collection of wildlife, nature and environmental photographs taken on all seven continents and in more than 100 countries. He chaired the judging panel for the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition for seven years from 2005. In 2020, he published two e-books on wildlife photography, covering digital workflow and camera settings.

He has also worked in wildlife travel. Carwardine was a founding director of the travel company Discover the World and now runs wildlife trips, including whale-watching and wildlife photography tours. The role connects his field experience with opportunities for others to observe wildlife, while his books and broadcasts make that knowledge available to a much wider audience.

Why Mark Carwardine deserves a place in British Legacy

Carwardine’s place in British Legacy rests on a distinctive combination of field conservation and public communication. The BBC Radio 4 expeditions with Douglas Adams took listeners towards species that few could expect to encounter themselves; the 1990 book carried those journeys into print. The later television work with Stephen Fry returned to the same animals and asked what had changed. Together, these projects made the condition of endangered wildlife a continuing subject for British radio, television and publishing, rather than a brief appeal detached from the places and species at stake.

His contribution also extends across the practical forms through which people learn about nature. More than 50 books, specialist guides, magazine writing, photography and wildlife tours put information and encounters within reach of different audiences. Programmes about the Natural History Museum and the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster show a wider interest in research and environmental consequences beyond the original expedition series. These achievements give the British connection substance: Carwardine has worked through British broadcasters, publications and institutions to bring knowledge of global biodiversity to the public. His career demonstrates how careful observation, accessible explanation and repeated attention can support public understanding of conservation.

Sources

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Adapted in part from Mark Carwardine by Wikipedia contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Text has been edited and combined with the existing article; this adapted text is shared under the same licence. Contributor history.