Podcast reviews: Celebrating the natural world in all its imperilled glory across three diligent series

Alexander Skarsgard is the host of 'How We Fix This'. Photo: Danny Moloshok

Lucy White

Despite this summer’s washout, the birds, bees and butterflies are still busy and, we hope, passing on their genetic material to new generations.

Flora and fauna, and their allies, are celebrated in inventive ways in these three podcasts.

​Alexander Skarsgard wouldn’t be the first A-lister to involve himself in an eco podcast – see Cate Blanchett’s Climate of Change – but the Succession and Big Little Lies actor is the host of How We Fix This (Acast, Apple, Spotify). In a classic case of Using My Celebrity for Good, Skarsgard spotlights eight start-ups working on innovations that will put less pressure on Earth’s depleted resources.

There’s Brimstone, that has developed an omission-free alternative to cement manufacturing, and Planet A Foods, makers of cocoa-free chocolate in reaction to the cocoa bean being an endangered species – that could be extinct by 2050. Skarsgard’s bro-like delivery can be annoying but the intention is laudable and the trailblazers are inspiring.

​Sam Anderson grabs our attention from the start in the six-part series Animal (Apple, Spotify). He introduces us to “a yawning vortex of doom” through which his daughter’s escapologist hamster, Mango, disappeared. On day three they called off the search party. Except their dog remained fixated on a patch of wall...

Anderson’s storytelling is delightful as he celebrates dogs, wolves, puffins, manatees, ferrets and bats and explores why they’re equally important to ecosystems and humankind.

He explained: “I’ve decided to go out into the world to have a series of encounters with other creatures; animals that do not live in my house, not to claim them or tame them but to look into their eyes and see what I can see while we’re all still here to see it”. The results are full of sincere charm.

​Rapper Drake is, perhaps, another unlikely activist, specifically of the illegal wildlife trade. But that’s the topic of Pull the Thread: The Wild Life (Acast, Apple, Spotify), produced by his DreamCrew Entertainment company.

Investigative journalist Runako Celina brings a rich tapestry of voices to depict the full scale of the illegal, billion-dollar wildlife trade, including covert audio from a sting operation; retired DEA agent Wim Brown; wildlife conservation advocate Prince William, and the late Anton Mzimba, a ranger in the Timbavati Game Reserve, shot dead near his home in 2022 (of the 565 African rangers known to have died in the line of duty since 2011, 52pc of deaths were homicides). Celina deftly weaves in threads of colonialism, globalisation, and exploitation.