Our Planet

In his almost thirty-year tenure at the BBC Natural History Unit, ALASTAIR FOTHERGILL was responsible for the landmark series The Blue Planet, Planet Earth, and Frozen Planet, among a range of productions. Since 2006, he has also worked for Disney, directing six wildlife movies for its Disneynature label. In 2012, he set up Silverback Films with Keith Scholey, which produced The Hunt series for the BBC and Our Planet for Netflix, the first natural history Netflix original documentary series. This book is Fothergill’s fifth. A fellow of the Royal Geographic Society and recipient of its gold medal, he also has honorary doctorates from the universities of Durham, Hull, York St. John, and Bristol. He lives in Bristol with his wife, two sons, and two Jack Russell terriers.

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.

FRED PEARCE is a freelance author and journalist based in London. He has reported on environment, science and development issues from 64 countries over the past 20 years. Trained as a geographer, he has been environment consultant of New Scientist magazine since 1992. He writes regularly for the Guardian newspaper, including the weekly Greenwash column, and recently published a 12-part investigation of the ‘climategate’ emails affair at the University of East Anglia. Fred’s books have been translated into at least 14 languages.