Ray Mears has inspired millions around the world with his television programmes about bushcraft. The self-taught, self-deprecating Mears is an optimist who would like people to feel confident that they could survive in the wild. Even so, he doesn't think most people would make it through a global climate crisis, as he tells Sanjida O'Connell.
You grew up in an urban part of Britain. How did you become interested in wildlife and nature?
The area wasn't very urban when I was growing up. I was right at the edge of London's green belt, a place of trees and rare species. I found fungi like morels in spring, and rare plants such as toothworts and wild cherry in the woods. It was only a 20-minute walk to the North Downs. Having all that on my doorstep, how could I not be interested in nature?
You've said that you spent a lot of time studying bushcraft in academic libraries when you were growing up. Do you do much research now?
As with any subject, it gets harder to find the answers as you get deeper into it. I still do a lot of work in some areas and it's worth it. Two things concern me. There is so much spurious information about plants out there, a kind of New Age simplistic view of botany which doesn't take into account the chemicals in botanicals. The other area is anthropology: knowledge from indigenous peoples, whose lifestyles are vanishing. I use all possible sources of information - books, experts, as well as following my own instinct, which has proved to be good. Instinct is an unconscious reading of empirical signs, and the more involved you are in a subject, the more you know how and where to prioritise research and the better your instincts become.
Do you consider yourself a scientist?
No, I don't see myself as a scientist, although my methods are not dissimilar to those of a scientist. But I'm fascinated by science and I love reading New Scientist.
You started teaching bushcraft when you were just 19. How did that come about?
I was out walking with someone who was in the army and as we passed a hedgerow, he asked me if there was anything we could eat. I said pignut, the edible root of a member of the parsley family. I dug one up and it turned out to be rather large. That led to my first job, teaching the British army survival skills.
Should bushcraft be taught formally?
I didn't go to university because there was nothing I wanted to study then. Now I'd be interested in medicine or ethnobotany. But the best way to teach bushcraft is to pair a new dog with an old dog, because it takes time to learn and pass on skills. My concern with the education system is that time is very limited. Some knowledge of the countryside and how to be comfortable in it would be useful, and it is very important to teach children natural history. We're expecting them to take on the burden of being custodians of the planet in the face of global warming so we need to give them the right tools.
The public have become cynical about "survival" programmes. Do you ever set things up for TV?
The series I make are quite different from programmes presented by people like Bear Grylls. His are entertainment and mine are documentary. We don't set things up as such. We plan what to film but we don't have a script. I tear it up if I'm given one. I don't mind if my pieces to camera are rough round the edges because that's real. No one can make me say anything I don't want to and so sometimes people say I can be difficult to work with, but whether they're right or not, I care passionately about the programmes I make. I have worked with the same crew for years and they can respond to natural events, which is what gives you real emotion. It's a harder way to work, though, as you need more time and money.
Click link to continue: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427341.000-ray-mears-well-struggle-to-survive-climate-change.html?full=trueRay Mears has inspired millions around the world with his television programmes about... more
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