Huw graduated from London University with a History and Politics degree – not the typical background for someone working in natural history television but a long passion for wildlife was rewarded with a job at Partridge Films, one of the leading independent natural history film companies in the 90’s. After three years with Partridge, making educational films for National Geographic, amongst others, he went on to work with Mike Birkhead Associates, where he made two BBC Natural Worlds in the US; Badlands, which involved living in a trailer house in South Dakota for a year and becoming fairly intimate with prairie dogs, and Grand Canyon, which took another year in the field.

He joined the BBC NHU in 1995 where he worked on long running series like ‘Wildlife on One’ and ‘Big Cat Diary’, as well as some of the Unit’s biggest blue chip landmark series, including ‘Land of the Tiger’, ‘Andes to Amazon’, and Sir David Attenborough’s ‘Life of Mammals’. In 2003, he became part of the ‘Planet Earth’ team, under Alastair Fothergill, and produced three episodes for this hugely popular and multi award winning series.

Following Planet Earth, he was appointed Series Producer of ‘South Pacific’, a six part landmark series for BBC2. This series was the recipient of a number of awards including an Emmy for best cinematography.

In 2009 he left the BBC to join Wild Horizons and, under Keith Scholey, was the Series Producer for ‘North America’ – Discovery Channel’s first foray into fully funded blue chip, landmark natural history programming.

He is now the Series Producer for ‘Castaways’, a presenter led series on islands for Discovery International and Animal Planet, and ‘The Hunt’, a major blue chip series for BBC1 looking at the world’s predators and prey. Both are being made by the newly formed Silverback Films, set up by Alastair Fothergill and Keith Scholey.

In addition to his TV work, he has written and presented a number of Radio programmes on subjects ranging from raccoons in Chicago to the Gobi desert in Mongolia. Huw has also contributed nearly a dozen pieces for Radio 4’s long running news strand, From Our Own Correspondent.

Alastair Fothergill was educated at Harrow School and the Universities of St. Andrew’s and Durham. He joined the BBC Natural History Unit in 1983. He has worked on a wide range of the department’s programmes, including the BAFTA award-winning ‘The Really Wild Show’, ‘Wildlife on One’, ‘The Natural World’ and the innovative ‘Reefwatch’, where he was one of the team that developed the first live broadcasting from beneath the sea. Alastair went on to work on the BBC1 series ‘The Trials of Life’ with Sir David Attenborough.

In 1993 he produced ‘Life in the Freezer’, a six-part series for BBC1 celebrating the wildlife of the Antarctic, presented by Sir David Attenborough. While still working on this series, he was appointed Head of the BBC Natural History Unit in November 1992, aged 32.

In June 1998 he stood down as Head of the Unit to concentrate on his role as Series Producer of ‘The Blue Planet’, a landmark series on the natural history of the world’s oceans. In 2001 Alastair become Director of Development for the Natural History Unit.

In 2002 he co-presented ‘Going Ape’, a film that took Alastair to the Ivory Coast in Africa. He has produced ‘Deep Blue’, a cinematic movie of the world’s oceans and he was one of the presenters and executive producer of the innovative live broadcast ‘Live from the Abyss’.

He was Series Producer for the Natural History Unit’s landmark series, ‘Planet Earth’, the ultimate portrait of our planet. He subsequently co-directed the cinematic version ‘Earth’ to great worldwide acclaim.

He was Executive Producer on the Unit’s major landmark series ‘Frozen Planet’, a natural history of the Polar Regions, which aired to record audiences and critical acclaim in autumn 2011. In addition to his work with the BBC Natural History Unit, Alastair co-directed four cinematic movies for Disney as part of their Disney Nature label. One of these movies featured the big cats of East Africa, African Cats, and was released in April 2012. The second movie features Chimpanzee was released in April 21012.

In November 2012 Alastair left the BBC to set up his own production company Silverback Films. He has co-directed two further cinema films for Disney Nature. Bears was released in April 2104 while Monkey Kingdom, that features macaques in Sri Lanka, releases in April 2015. Silverbacks Films is also making a new landmark series for BBC 1, The Hunt, which looks at the relationships between predators and their prey. This series is due for broadcast in autumn 2015. Silverback Films has also started work on another landmark series for 2019 called Fragile Planet.

Alastair is fellow of the Royal Geographic Society who awarded him their Patron’s medal in 2102. He has honorary doctorates from the Universities of Durham and Hull. Alastair lives in Bristol with his wife Melinda and his two sons.