BASE CAMP EDEN: BEN FOGLE ON HIS TIME AT THE BBC

“I was very lucky, as I was approached by BBC Country File and they asked me if I’d like to become a presenter. This is something I hadn’t really ever thought about- becoming a presenter? It had never really crossed my mind. I loved watching Blue Peter and I thought being a Blue Peter presenter might be fun, but it wasn’t something I genuinely thought about.

So, I decided to have a go and I worked on that show for 8 years, during which time I got to do some pretty fun things. I got to take part in the world lawn mower racing championships where you sit in a little mower and race around a course. I crashed it and ended up in hospital incidentally. I took part in the world conker championships and the World oyster eating championships; I managed to eat 88 oysters in 3 minutes! I took part in the world stinging nettle championships; I managed to eat 200 leaves in one hour and I felt very sick afterwards with a very sore tongue! I took part in the world tin bath racing championships where you sit in a little metal tin bath and race across a harbour. I sank and got hyperthermia in that. I also took part in the man versus horse race, a 21 mile race across the black mountains racing against horses- and yes I got beaten by a horse.

So my early sporting achievements weren’t bettered by any of those challenges. But I loved being in the outdoors and I developed a real passion for the countryside; I discovered what we have on our doorstep which you’re all discovering today [ at Eden]. It was about the same time that I was asked by the BBC if I would like to present a programme called Animal Farm. I did that for 10 years and that was one of my favourite programmes. I got to work with the lions, the tigers, the elephants and finally I was fulfilling my childhood dream, working alongside vets. I got to work with animals on a daily basis which was just fantastic. We witnessed the highs and lows, the cycle of life as it’s called. Animals passed away but many animals were born and again all of these experiences started changing me as a person, started changing my values in life and I suppose another of these tipping points, these moments when you realise what other people do and what work goes on, was when I became an ambassador for WWF, The World Wildlife Fund for Nature.

As an ambassador they sent me off to Nepal to watch a Rhino relocation project down on the border with India. A lot of us think of Nepal as being just mountains but they’ve got lowlands there too. I went to one of the big National parks called Badia, and the idea was that there were too many Rhino in one of the national parks and not enough in the other. So they wanted to move these enormous creatures from one park to the other and the only way to do that was to go out on elephant back, huge Indian elephants- they’re the biggest thing I’ve ever seen-they would take 5 of us on top of each elephant, in a convoy of 20 elephants with 5 people on each one. These included vets, antitheists, scientists, and we all went out for a 5 day trip, walking through this forest until we found a rhino.

When it got darted, a huge sledge was bought in on the back of elephants and we had to lift one of these rhino that weighs many, many tons- more than a car- onto this sledge and then get the elephants to haul this thing out. It was like watching an episode of King Kong, I’d never seen anything quite like it, and the reality that people worked for these conservation groups made me decide that this was what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to do as much for nature and working for wildlife as I could.