The 2018 Stroud Festival of Nature gets underway this weekend, with a very special guest speaker lined up to give an educational talk on the opening day.

TV presenter, conservationist, writer, campaigner and filmmaker Chris Packham will be speaking at the Subscription Rooms in Stroud on Friday as the 2018 festival gets started. “This will be the tenth Stroud Festival of Nature and we couldn’t be happier to welcome Chris Packham to our town,” said Festival Director Helen Royall. She added: “Chris has done so much to promote conservation and nature throughout his career, we were overjoyed when he confirmed his attendance.

“We had planned for Chris to deliver one talk on the Friday evening but when tickets went on sale they were snapped up in record time, so he kindly offered to appear earlier in the day. Unsurprisingly the tickets for his afternoon talk have sold out as well which is great news. Our guest speakers are always so popular, a couple of years ago we welcomed George Monbiot who was so very passionate and knowledgeable on all things to do with conservation.”

The festival is part of a summer long programme of community events designed to inspire people to get involved in conservation and nature, and, as Helen explains, hopes are high that this year’s festival will be the best yet. She said: “As in the previous nine years, the festival will be held in the vicinity of the Stratford Park Arboretum where there will be a host of stalls attended by nature experts and conservationists.

“Visitors are invited to come to the Stroud Nature marquee and collect a passport and take it away and find a nature expert on one of the other stalls. They will ask you to complete an activity for a page in the passport. Once completed the page will be stamped. Once all the pages have been stamped you can collect a certificate that declares you a ‘Stroud Nature Ambassador’ and ‘Guardian of the Natural World’.

“This year we’ve gone into a lot of schools in Gloucestershire and run educational workshops which the children have really loved. We’re committed to educating and interacting with children about nature and the environment. We’ve seen a real momentum shift away from plastics in recent times, with major companies making more of an effort to limit unnecessary packaging and some food outlets ditching plastic straws. People are realising we need to act now for the benefit of future generations.”