The Edge Breakfast - FULL CHAT: Colin Butfield

Episode Date: November 24, 2025

This is a podcast from Rover. Colin Butfield, thank you so much for coming on the show. You're a man that I think has probably seen more than any of us will ever see in our lifetimes. Oh, thanks for having me on. Yeah, I don't know if that's quite true, but I've seen it's lucky enough to travel a quite a bit, see a fair few things. Well, we've seen pop stars and you've seen all of Mother Nature. So I'm not sure maybe what's more helpful long-term for the planet, but that's okay. Where do you think, first of all, what's the most remote place you've ever had to get to?

Oh, definitely for me, it was somewhere in the middle of Spalbard. So Spalbard is this island. Yeah, exactly. It's this island. You get to the top of Norway, then get on another plane, then get off the plane, then get on skittos, then drive skidooze for about seven hours. And that's quite remote. So at that point, you're pretty far north, about 70. two degrees north, they count as, which from a New Zealand perspective is really quite a long way away.

How do you stay? Is a skidoo like the, do you sit down on a skidoo? What do you stand? I'm trying to imagine what a skidoo looks like. I know what in my mind. You could sit down on it if you want, I guess. Okay, imagine like a jet ski on those. Yeah, like a snowmobile. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So, yeah, so they're great. And actually, the ones they have up there, they have, like, heated handlebars. They have, like, It's sort of insulated, but it's really quite, until you need to stop, it's actually you're pretty good. And then you have to stop. You definitely don't want to have to go for a pee on the journey. You've just got to last the eight hours because nothing's good.

You haven't done that. You haven't done the name drop yet. Is this a trip that you did with David Attenborough? It's not, sadly. But it was a trip for a series that he did called Our Planet. So series on Netflix, so it was about seven or eight years. ago. He did the voice for that, but he wasn't on that particular trip. Of course, the guy has been to that, been to small, but as he's been to pretty much everywhere else on the planet.

I mean, that is one hell of a name to drop as a colleague. What is David Edinburgh in a nutshell like to work with? He's amazing, basically. So one of the things right, growing up, I watched this programme like everybody else did. And then to find yourself several decades later working with the guy and actually recently making a film and a book with him, and it's quite extraordinary. I think everybody says, like, don't meet your heroes. And I think we've probably all had examples of that that we won't share on it. He's not one of them. He's exactly what you'd hope he'd be.

He's a super enthusiastic, basically pretty normal guy. I mean, he didn't become super, super famous until he's in his 60s or 70s. So he stayed pretty normal. And, yeah, so he's just as fascinated in the world as you'd imagine. He's constantly coming up with stories on new ideas. is or, you know, he's just an all-round good guy, I think. Ash, you've got to work out. Exactly what you're like.

You've got to work out what he's taking on the regular when he's out on shoots because isn't David Ambrough like 100 now or something? Yeah. I mean, that's why he's doing the VOs now. He's like, oh, just chill but in my home studio. I've already been there. I know what it looks like. Get me some good footage and then I'll just bring the money-maker voice. I imagine you would take Colin on like the world, like in terms of I don't know, when you have those euphoric moments at the top of

mountain you just go oh my god like the world is so vast and it starts you start over well i would start overthinking like life and what it means and what's important and what's not what's been the real takeaway when you have experienced things that that few of us will ever get to you know the thing is i was really nodding along when you said that because i actually love that feeling you know when you are somewhere really remote or you're diving and you know you're quite deep down or you're something where you're kind of sort of small, fragile and irrelevant, but in a really good way, like it almost takes away those pressures of everyday life, all the things we all sweat about and worry about. Actually, you're just one of eight billion people, and that's probably

been about 117 billion of us that have ever lived, and many more of us will come after us. And you're just on this ridiculously cool world spinning around this ridiculously massive universe. And it kind of, I actually quite like it. I like the sense of perspective of maybe it should just enjoy this and not overly worry about things that are, you know, don't sweat the small stuff, I suppose. So I quite like it. You do get that dizzying moment of I'm really tiny and miles away from anywhere, but I like it. I enjoy it. Speaking about sweating the small stuff, is the world as stuffed as we hear about it being in media and things like that? Like there's always stories about the ozone layer, the environment, we're killing the earth. Is it that stuffed?

you know the honest answer is yes and no so in other words that i'm not fudging the answer here because it's genuinely yes if we carry on like we are like all of that stuff you hear how far along we are with climate change how many species have gone extinct how much forests have been chopped down i mean i don't know it depends where you get your sources from but you get them anyway decent that's all true we really are on the edge of some pretty scary stuff the flip side which is the bit that never gets reported and why the earth's shop prize is so amazing which i'm a part of is the really amazing things that are happening. Like, people don't talk about the astonishing inventions people make

or the incredible nature restoration projects that are absolutely vast that people are doing. So you never get that counterbalance. So the reason I said yes and no is the scary bit scary, for sure, but you're not being counterweighted by all the incredible stuff that's happening. And, yeah, it's fun to be a part of that sort of thing as well, because otherwise I think you get quite depressed. I read you mentioned about, it was a really encouraging,

fact about the ocean and parts of the ocean that are like rehabilitating themselves. Can you share that? Yeah, definitely. So I mean, we've just been working on a film about the ocean, David Attenborough, Ocean with David Attenborough and also work on the Earthshop Prize and the big thing about restore ocean. So one of the great joys I've got is spending ages looking for the best restoration projects in the ocean. And the really cool, encouraging thing is by and large, the ocean recovers much faster than the land. Because of the way New York, nutrients flow into it. So you can leave, if you left like a patch of farmland in New Zealand or in the UK where I'm from, it will maybe take 20, 30, 40 years before you started to see

proper vegetation come back, maybe even 150 before it looked like a native woodland. In the ocean, you leave a patch of ocean, like a kelp forest around New Zealand for 10 years that have been formerly trashed, that kelp will come back, that life will come back, it will restore super fast. So we've had the pleasure of filming stuff all over the world that has really bounced back, including absolutely massive rain protected areas. I mean, like, bigger than, there's one we filmed up Hawaii that's bigger than all of the national parks in America put together. Wow.

And the recovery is just, you know, you get that bounce back. And it's extraordinary when it happens. Absolutely extraordinary. I know Robert Irwin's part of the Earth Shot Prize. Our boy, Bobby. Yeah, he was a big thing in Brazil recently. What happened in Brazil? Because I know he missed it.

It's a sad that I had known this much about. Robert Irwin. But he missed it because he was on Dancing with the Stars. And of course, Prince William sent him a cheeky message. And we were like, oh, there's now princes. Exactly. So, yeah, so the Earthshot Prize, it's this idea set up by Prince William that celebrates an awards 15 finalists and five winners each year of the different projects to change the future. So all really incredible stuff, like restoring narration, cleaning air, stopping waste, that type of stuff. And, yeah, Roberts are part of the Prize counts. I met him in Singapore at a previous award show. He's an awesome guy,

awesome guy, really full of just genuine, well, you've met him, but full of genuine enthusiasm and excitement for this. So in Brazil this year, there was the latest award show for the Earthsional Prize and they awarded the five finalists and celebrated all the amazing changes that have happened. And they highlighted some really cool stuff like some of the winners included this incredible company that have been restoring buildings. So they take these huge skyscrapers, as one in Sydney in particular, that when they're past their end of use, normally they'd just be smashed the pieces and then they build a new one with all the material and energy needs.

They've been stripping them back and then building around them. So they keep most of it. They've been a massive nature restoration project in the highest, celebrating the high seas treaty, which has been really cool. And then Lagos Fashion Week where they're really highlighting reused materials, recycled materials, upcycle materials. So it's been great. just a really positive celebration

or all kind of the good stuff people do, which we should remember sometimes. It's easy to point out the bad stuff. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's becoming very clear that it's all negative stuff that we see in the media and then it's kind of,

we miss all the positive stuff that's happening. You must have seen so many animals in your time as well, working with David Edinburgh. What is the animal or the creature that surprised you the most? This feels like a Pokemon question. Which is the rarest one of ever saying,

no course? is the best one, the most interesting one. Okay, well, for me, this is very personal about it, because I kept missing them. I kept feeling like I was, I'd always wanted to see a Manteret. And they're not actually that hard to see, but I kept missing them. I just kept being, it was one of those things. I remember once being on an island where I went diving three times a day for 10 days. On the 11th day, I didn't get up first thing in the morning, possibly due to a few extra

sundowners in the evening. that was the one died they saw Manta Rays you know go down to the beach two boats I get on the one that doesn't see

Mansourate so it was like they're like which one's called on we won't go to that way what about the old snow leopard one of the most elusive cat

of the cats oh my gosh so a friend of mine did film them in Pakistan I have never seen one you know how hard those things are to film

they have to live elevation for so long waiting to see them off to absolutely miles away the reason we get such good shots

to them these days and normally to camera traps or really long lenses. But yeah, they have to live at incredible altitude for weeks and weeks on end and yet to do that. That's definitely one on the list. You must meet some crazy people. And I mean that in a complimentary way. Like the kind of person that's going to hold themselves up in some hidden bunker in Pakistan

at a high altitude, like do you just meet the most insane people in your wonderful people who are just dedicated to what people would think of very niche causes but are just spectacular? Yeah, definitely. And I mean, we mentioned Earthshot earlier. I think that's one of the ways I do it is because you search far and wide for all these finalists, these people that are shortlisted. And then we have the incredible job of going and filming all 15 of them every year. So we've done it for five years. So those are a lot of incredible ideas. And you normally find them that, you know, there's somebody that's just got one idea and they're absolutely sweating. And then you look at it and you realize it can suddenly scale and scale to an incredible degree. So, you know, there's somebody that's just got one idea and they're absolutely sweating. And then you look at it and you realize it can suddenly scale and scale to an incredible degree. So, So there's some guys just up the road from me that won at one year, which as a charity, a company called Knopla, that started making plastic out of seaweed. But they did it at such a scale. They make things like little capsules full of water for, you know, on marathons and things, instead of throwing away plastic bottles.

You just made up the seaweed capsule and eat it and the water comes out. They make all the beer packaging at the cricket in London. So, you know, just people that think about things in a completely different way and then scale it up. Wow. Yeah. Colin, what haven't we asked you about your profession and about your career that when you get off the phone or out of interviews, you go, I really would have liked to have talked about that. Oh, okay, good question. Probably where I think we're going to see the greatest change over the next few years.

I think what the most exciting things to look out for in the next couple of years. I think that's a great part of my job is to always look forward. So I've got a question for you, Colin. If you were going to think about what the most exciting things would be for us to look out for in the next week again. Yeah, yeah. Good question. It's really good question.

It's good. That just comes to you. That was great. Universe just dropped it into my psyche. You know, the brilliant thing is because for years we've been talking about, oh, you know, once this nature bounces back, once you start to see the tiger's return, once you see the kelp forest regrow, all of this sort of. stuff and it always seems like it we're talking about in the future and for the first time we've got

to the point where we can actually film a lot of these things because it's actually had long enough you know it takes 20 or 30 years for these things to really bounce back to craziness so for the first time I think we can start to actually really film and show what large-scale recovery looks like what it looks like for our cities to be cleaner and greener and so instead of talking about an aspiration in the future because that's great you necessarily believe you you actually show it you actually show what it means and actually show what it feels like to swim through an restored ocean or to go through to see where they're absolutely clean the air or see what it means when a river has been restored. So I think we'll get some incredible new footage, some

incredible new stories and we're going to see a lot of it in the next few years. And humans need that. It's like when you're unfit and you just don't, you can't make yourself go to the gym and you're so depressed and everything's crap. And then you go a couple times and you notice a little bit of improvement and you know what it looks and feels and you go, oh, I, I want more of this. I can do this. So I think that gives me so much hope because I think human beings need to see what things could look like in order to it.

We're not, you know, many of us aren't very kind of a creative, I guess. We have to see it to believe it. So we see it. We get inspired by it and that can maybe inspire action. Because I think it feels like we're losing a battle, aren't we? Exactly. And sometimes it's easy to just kind of go like this. And also that's where that's storytelling, whether it's filmmaking,

whether it's things like Earthshot, whether it's more like Robert Irwin talking about it. It's we buy into other people, right? We don't, some people process things through stats and graphs, but most of us like an anecdote or a story or a really cool picture we can buy into. And that's when it will change, when we can actually start to connect with real things, real stories, real people.

And finally, we're at a point where I think we've got enough of those. We can actually do it. Love it. It's so good. You're a storyteller. I love how tattoos tell stories, so I look forward to seeing a giant snow leopard on your back next time. We catch up with you, Colin. Perfect. As soon as I see one in Pakistan, that'll be the first thing I do when I do.

Just make sure the needles will steer all if you're going to get a tattoo in Pakistan. I might do it in London when I get packed. Good idea. We can talk to you all day, Colin. Thank you so much for coming on. Thanks, mate. Oh, total pleasure. Thanks, guys. See ya.

See ya. What a legend. What a darling.