Dr Khalil Thirlaway is our 2024 Chair of Judges for the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing. Khalil is a science communicator and storyteller, and the co-host of the Natural History Museum’s podcasts, Wild Crimes and Our Broken Planet, who specialises in finding creative ways to connect with audiences. His work explores the intersections between science, nature, society and politics.
How does it feel to be a judge on this year’s Wainwright Prize?
It’s an honour to judge the Wainwright Prize and its absolutely stacked longlist, but the real treat is that after I read all these fascinating books I get to discuss them with a panel of other folks who care about nature and people’s relationships with it as much as I do! I’m really looking forward to chairing the judging sessions and exploring the similarities and differences in how the various books resonated with everyone.
As we enter our second decade as a prize, looking back, what do you think has been the biggest challenge and change of nature writing in the last 10 years?
Nature writing, as well as much of the nature-related sector both globally and in the UK, is at a really important transitional stage where it needs to decide what it is, who it’s for and what it wants to accomplish. It’s not enough to point at a flower or a moth or a mushroom and say “Isn’t that lovely?” as if nature exists in isolation. It’s becoming more and more vital to understand and explore the myriad multivalent connections between people, history, politics and nature. Not only does this hold the key to meaningful nature writing in a time of ecological and humanitarian crisis, but it also acknowledges the fullness and richness of natural history and opens up nature narratives to audiences who have been previously under-served and under-represented by mainstream nature-related media. Environmental justice means justice for every living thing, including every single human.
Why do you believe nature writing is so important, both for yourself and others?
It’s a cliche, but there’s nothing like a good book to powerfully transport you into an experience. Writing really allows the author and the reader to explore a shifting mix of narrative, experience, emotion, context, tangent, evidence and so much more. It’s a crucial and deeply meaningful part of our relationship with nature. Other media have their own strengths and contributions to that relationship, but it’s important not to forget the power of great writing and engaged reading.
Do you have a favourite nature or conservation book that you’ve read previously that’s deepened your understanding of the natural world?
I remember reading Jared Diamond’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee when I was a child, and being fascinated by the connections being drawn between things we’re taught very separately at school: biology and history. Over time discussions around Diamond’s approaches and conclusions have evolved, but the notion that the natural world affects the political, and vice versa, has always stuck with me.
Do you have a place you visit that feels intrinsic to your connection with nature?
I connect with nature even as I walk the streets of South London. I’m sharing a respectful nod with a crow on the way to the shops, stealing a moment of quiet connection with a fox as I walk home from the pub, cheering for the wayward hart’s tongue fern that’s growing out of a storm drain on my road. That said, I cherish any chance to get out into some proper woods and smell the rich soil full of life and death and change and constancy.
We can look at the natural world with a social, historical and political perspective. Through which of these lenses do you feel you see or connect to nature most strongly?
They’re all the same lens! I completely refute the idea of separating the social from the historical or the political. The very idea of them being separate is one of the biggest obstacles to progress in our collective relationship with nature. If I had to pick one though, it’d be the political. The politics of what nature matters and what doesn’t, how much it’s worth, what communities it’s okay to exploit and destroy in the service of industry or conservation, who is most affected by the environmental crisis and who has the power to change things.
Following our recent general election, what’s your hope for political leaders and those with power when it comes to protecting our planet?
The bar has been set staggeringly low in terms of environmental issues, both in the UK and much of the Global North. The new UK Government have said some promising things about things like clean energy targets, but my well of faith in those with power has been pretty comprehensively drained by now. We can’t expect political leaders to retain focus and deliver on promises unless we keep up our scrutiny and hold them consistently accountable for their actions (and inaction), and that will be a crucial role for us, the people. That said, there have been some hopeful happenings in some parts of the world. For example, Brazil’s left-wing government has been putting massively increased resources into defending the Amazon and other natural ecosystems, as well as indigenous rights, after the fall of the previous far-right government who had decimated those protections.
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