Philippa Forrester for Wild Woman: Empowering Stories from Women Who Work in Nature

Join us to celebrate an engaging blend of conservation stories and humorous, personal anecdotes from Philippa Forrester about women who, like her, choose to live and work in the wild.

Surviving in the wilderness has long been associated with men, and conservation and environmental biology have traditionally been male-dominated subjects. Yet many remarkable women also choose to live and work in wild and challenging landscapes.

In Wild Woman, Philippa Forrester considers the grit and determination required for women to maintain connections to wildlife and shares stories of female conservation heroes and other extraordinary wild women working in nature.

Talking to women from around the world, Philippa studies and celebrates what it means to be a wild woman. From the sixteenth-century botanist who was the first woman to circumnavigate the globe to modern-day women responding to bear attacks in Yellowstone, working to rewild reserves in South Africa, photographing Caribou in the Arctic and more, Philippa examines how these women benefit from a life spent in the wilderness and also considers what the natural world gains from them.

Relating some of her own experiences from three decades spent travelling around the world and working in some of the wildest places on Earth, Philippa asks: what does it take for a woman to live or work in the wild?

Philippa Forrester’s career as a presenter began with Children’s BBC and spans three decades of primetime TV, including much-loved series like Robot Wars and Tomorrow’s World as well as natural history programming. Philippa has written and produced award-winning documentaries for the BBC, Animal Planet and Discovery and has published three books. She has degrees in English Literature and Ecology and Conservation and graduated from Bath Spa University with an MA in Writing for Young People.

For six years, Philippa lived and worked in Wyoming encountering wolves, grizzly bears, moose and the odd cowboy. She returned to live in the UK in the summer of 2020. Back home, she is rediscovering her own patch of wilderness and the joys of the English countryside, especially her favourite wild animal, otters.