John Burn-Murdoch

speaker

196 appearances 3 recordings 1 series first heard Aug 2026 last heard 17 Aug

John Burn-Murdoch’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 3 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 3.

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Radical · Britain's Lost Species: Should We Resurrect Our Extinct Wildlife? (Derek Gow) · 13 Aug 2026 podcast

My guest this week is Derek Gow.

Derek is a British farmer, conservationist, author and re wilder.

He's long been an outspoken advocate of large-scale species reintroductions, but he's now doing something about it himself, which is especially radical.

On his farm in Devon, Derek has been breeding British indigenous animals, some of which have been extinct in this country for hundreds of years, with the aim to inspire us to go further and faster on reintroducing native species into the wild.

Think wild boar.

beavers, water vole, even wild cats like the lynx, all being reared on his farm with the hope that one day these species will again be allowed to roam free.

So why is Derek doing all of this?

Well, according to a 2020 assessment of global biodiversity by the Natural History Museum, the UK only has half its natural biodiversity left, which puts it in the bottom ten percent of all countries globally.

Derek wants to change that.

Not just because he wants to write what he sees as an historic wrong

But he also wants to harness the innate behaviour of our native species, in particular beavers, to restore and protect delicate ecosystems.

Now some farming and animal rights groups, it's fair to say, are not happy with the species reintroduction movement.

They have concerns over safety, environmental impact, even legality.

And these concerns come after reports of underground reintroduction networks where members risk arrest, jail and hefty fines by carrying out covert and unlicensed releases of beavers and other native species.

Derek says he's not one of those beaver vigilantes and that everything he does on his farm is perfectly legal.

But he is sympathetic with those people who are frustrated with the limits of the law and he wants to change the way we think about species reintroduction and be much more radical.

So with all of that in mind, I hope you enjoy my conversation with Derek Gao.

Derek Gao, welcome to Radical.

Great to have you with us.

Okay, hi.

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