Alastair Fothergill studied zoology and joined the BBC Natural History Unit in 1983, working on The Really Wild Show, Wildlife on One and David Attenborough's The Trials of Life. He was appointed head of the Unit in 1992, and during his tenure he produced Attenborough's award-winning series Life in the Freezer. He was awarded the Royal Geographical Society's Cherry Kearton Medal and Award in 1996.
In June 1998, he stood down as head of the Natural History Unit to concentrate on his work as series producer, initially on the multi-award-winning The Blue Planet,. In 2006 he completed his next major series Planet Earth, which won the Cinema for Peace Clean Energy Award at the Cinema for Peace Gala Berlin in 2008. He was executive producer of Frozen Planet (2011) and The Hunt (2015). He has also presented several television programmes, including The Abyss.
In 2008, he signed a multi-picture deal with newly formed Disneynature. In 2012 he left the BBC to co-found Silverback Films, which makes landmark natural history series for various clients including Netflix and the BBC.
In 2016, Alastair was made a Fellow of the Royal Television Society for his work in natural history programming. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2019 Birthday Honours for services to film.

The Times described Fred Pearce recently as one of Britain's finest science writers. An author and journalist based in London, he has reported on environment, popular science and development issues from over 60 countries over the past 20 years, specialising in global environment issues. He is the environment and development consultant for the New Scientist and writes regularly for the Daily Telegraph, the Guardian, the Independent the Times Higher Education Supplement and Country Life. In the US he has written for the Boston Globe, Audubon Magazine, Foreign Policy, Seed, Popular Science and Time and has written reports and extended journalism for WWF, the UN Environment Programme, the Red Cross, UNESCO, the World Bank and the UK Environment Agency. He is syndicated in Japan, Australia and elsewhere and his books have been translated into at least ten languages, including French, German, Portuguese, Japanese and Spanish.

He was voted BEMA Environment Journalist of the Year in 2001 and has been short-listed for the same award in 2000, 2002 and 2003. He is a past recipient of the Peter Kent Conservation Book Award and the TES Junior Information Book Award.

He is a regular broadcaster on radio and TV, and has given public lectures on all six continents in the past two years.

'Fred is one of the few people that understand the world as it really is' - James Lovelock, scientist

'[Fred is] one of my heroes' - Rt. Hon John Gummer MP, former UK environment secretary

Praise for The Landgrabbers:

'Brilliant: Fred Pearce has lifted the lid on an issue that has yet to register with most people. Anyone who cares about the fate of the planet should read this.' Chris Mullin


Fred's books include: The Landgrabbers, Peoplequake, Deep Jungle, When the Rivers Run Dry, The Last Generation, Confessions of an Eco Sinner and Ian and Fred's Big Green Book for children.