Bruce Parry. What a guy. In the marines he was head of all physical aspects of British Commando training at the ripe old age of 23. He’s led numerous arduous expeditions, faced extreme natural conditions and come nose to nose with some of the world’s most dangerous animals.

But he’s best known for his TV work. Bruce is the face and brains behind the extraordinary series’ Tribe and Amazon, when he wholeheartedly embraced every (yes we mean every) aspect of lives lived by remote tribes in far flung places. 

But Bruce is also a tireless campaigner. He’s a firm supporter of Survival International, supporting the world’s tribal people and inspired some of the world’s leading recording artists to record an album for the cause. Now he has joined the likes of Sting, Stephen Fry and Harrision Ford to put his name to the Prince’s Rainforests Project. 

Set up by Prince Charles, the ‘PRP’,  is working to stop the destruction of the forests which are currently disappearing at an alarming rate – an area the size of a football pitch every four seconds. PRP see this as a disaster for people, for wildlife and for climate change. We couldn’t agree more.

We caught up with Bruce to find out more about the Project and his extraordinary adventures and found his positivity, energy and enthusiasm highly infectious.

Sally: You have first hand knowledge of the rainforests. Is the loss of the forests apparent to the people who live there?

Bruce: Undoubtedly yes. Obviously many of the tropical forests around the world are very vast spaces at least they are traditionally so, so there are some areas still where there are people living in total ignorance of what is going on around them, completely unaware that their bubble is about to burst forever.

But they are very much in the minority. I think that most people engaged in life in the world’s tropical forests are fully aware that their lives are changing dramatically. All of the ways that they get out, either by road or by river, as they go further out towards the towns and the roads, they can see that the wood is just being taken away in all areas and it’s really just accelerating at a quite disturbing pace.

S: How can we convince individuals over here that they can make a difference to what’s happening so far away for such complex reasons?

B: I think that all of us need to be aware that we all have a great deal of power even though it seems so far away and the forces at play seem so strong.

We all have the power of voting, with the ballot box as well as with our purses. It’s very important to know that everything that we purchase in our daily life can very often have a profund effect on the planet.

But also beyond that there are other things that people can do by lobbying. The Princes Rainforests Project in particular is an incredibly useful tool that people can sign up for and put their voice behind the very forward thinking policies that they have been putting out there.

So that when it comes to big international forums like Copenhagen, the people who are standing and saying what they believe in have the weight of many, many thousands of people behind them.

S: We wrote an article recently on Daisy about palm oil and the issues surrounding that and the destruction of the rainforest. How do people go about finding out about things they shouldn’t be buying?

B: You have touched on the most interesting subject of all there because it’s so difficult you know…I think that it’s great that more and more up and down the country people are having these conversations and as the momentum builds the information will become more available.

We’ve really got to look at the big picture; why it is that the corporations are allowed to overwhelm the national boundaries? The way that our institutions are put together is what’s forcing these issues, the ‘eating of the planet’ as I would put it, and I think that all of us need to re address that and look at what is best for us as a planet, not necessarily us a nation or a group of individuals.

We’ve really got to start to think about us together in one place. When we start thinking like that all of these other things will fall into place.

S: If we buy food that’s been produced locally, I guess we know that it hasn’t had any impact on the rainforests?

B: Of course, seasonal growth, local, organic – all those things are incredibly important and its incredibly nice to come back to the UK to see that those things are being talked about more and more. It’s great.

S: How have your experiences living with these tribes effected the way that you live when you come home?

B: Yeah it has. Whenever you go and live with a group of people that have a completely different philosophy of life to your own, then it makes you question your own philosophy of life and every single aspect of my life, or my previous life, has changed a little bit as a result of living with other people.

So whether it’s family values, stress free living or anything that we kind of miss the point of in our culture and they are seemingly have very little in material terms but have so much in spiritual and family and joyous terms. I think that I have managed to take a little bit of that and put it into my own life, which has been a real joy actually and I am very grateful to them all for it.

S: So do you think that most of the tribes that you have experienced are generally more contented than we are?

B: I think really it’s hard to generalise as ever. Some tribes are going through extremely traumatic time and their cultures are being turned upside down as the result of coming into conflict with other much more powerful cultures like our own – and when I say powerful I don’t necessarily mean better; seemingly better, so I think there are plenty tribal people who at the moment are going through incredible upheaval and are having a terrible time.

But I do also think that a lot of the traditional ways, the original ways that they had to live do hold some incredible examples for understanding of a way of being that we sadly have lost along the way. They seem less riddled with the institutional strength that we have they seem much freer and that seems a wonderful way of life.

They certainly have more free time. They have more joy of life often and they are often more content. But they are still human communities and they shouldn’t be romanticised; they are perfectly capable of manipulating their own environment and are capable of greed and jealousy and all the other human emotions that we have.

But they have a stronger connection with nature which I think is a very important thing and I think that in many ways allows them to feel a sense of contentment that we often in our urban environment feel that we are missing out on. I think that is very evident to me that we often in our own cultures feel that we are missing something but we can’t quite put our finger on. 

As a result we go into this mad dreadful time of consumerism and retail therapy and all these things that we are riddled with just trying to fill that void that we seem to have lost somewhere. Often I think it’s nothing more than the loss, the connection with nature actually. The tribal people have that which hopefully we will find out again ourselves.

S: A lot of people would remember you for trying, what could be considered outrageous things, like smoking unusual drugs and getting naked with the tribes. Has being with the tribes made you questions western conventions like staying dressed all the time!?

It’s so strange that violence is prevelant on the telly but nudity is deemed inappropriate. We really have mixed our moral ethics up quite a bit over the years but you can see why and I don’t have hatred for any particular view, I try and see it for what it is.

Some of our puritanical past has got a little bit to answer for but I don’t hate that, I just see that what’s happened and we have come a long way in our amazing culture here but we have picked up a little bit of baggage.

It is nice when you go back and some of those tribal groups are taking substances, plant, organic substances that give them an incredibly strong connection with the earth but with our lack of history with Shamenism we think is quite dangerous.

But it doesn’t mean to say they are wrong. In fact I think there is a lot to learn from those sorts of things (Ed’s note: Er don’t try this at home kids!) and a lot to learn from being free and naked and enjoying the outside world.

S: Too damn cold over here!

B: That too yes!

S: What’s been your most terrifying experience during your travels?

B: Well for me ‘terrifying’ is when I have to perform. I don’t mind being normal and natural and hanging with the group and being myself but as soon as I have to do anything which is a performance then I get absolute fear so things like jumping over a cow, naked covered in cow poo, are terrifying, not because I thought that the cow was dangerous but the mere fact that I was having to do some kind of performance.

I don’t mind people pointing arrows at me. I don’t mind people pointing guns at me or any of that stuff but as soon I have to do any kind of performance I am absolutely petrified.

S: Have you had any close encounters with wildlife in the rainforests?

B: Yeah I have come across Sumatran rhino snorting right next to me which was interesting and elephants as well in the jungles in Sumatra that got a bit frisky. And of course in the forest you don’t see them, you hear them, but you don’t see them until very, very last minute and so they get scared and you get scared and you just hope that they run in the right direction.

S: What’s happening next for Bruce Parry?

I am going to do a one off Tribe episode hopefully with a group of people in Columbia and then the next series that is looking like it is going to go ahead is about the Arctic.

Very much like the Amazon was in the public consciousness as a metaphor for things that are very important in the world today, the Arctic similarly.  We hope that we can go and perhaps look at methane release, global warming, ice melt, mammoths being pulled out of the ice, we can look at sea banks, land grabbing and so on. It’s a very important part of the world. I think everyone’s eyes are focussed on it – wouldn’t it be nice to go and look at it from the grass roots perspective from the people on the ground?

S: We like to feature Green God’s on Daisy Green. Inspiring men who are also handsome. Would you like to nominate a Green Goddess?

B: Trudie Styler is doing some lovely stuff. I saw the film Crude the other day which is focused on an area I have visited myself and I thought she was very impressive, involving Sting as well.

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