Simon Reeve on his new show Wilderness: 'In Britain we are living lives that are too samey and safe'

Broadcaster and adventurer Simon Reeve is contemplating the climate crisis. “I think many of us fear that the world has gone to hell in a handbasket,” he says. “And that collectively we have completely managed to destroy the natural world.” But in his latest show he wants to offer some hope.

In Wilderness, Reeve travels to the Congo, the Patagonian ice sheets, the Coral Triangle and the Kalahari Desert, to cover the wildlife and the people who live there. As he puts it when we talk on Zoom, “I needed a bit of a reminder, to be honest, that there is still beauty and wonder out there worth understanding and fighting for.”

Appropriately for a 51-year-old professional adventurer, Reeve has the kind of background that would make a great story in itself. These days, his TV shows – which show