Direct Talk

There are about 4000 bird species
around the world

and 40% of them are migratory

travelling between
colder and warmer environments

for either breeding or wintering.

Biologist Sacha Dench is
often called the "Human Swan."

This is in recognition of her record breaking
7000-kilometre paramotor flight,

tracking Bewick's swans, across
11 countries, from Arctic Russia to the UK.

She is also Ambassador

for the United Nation Convention
on Migratory Species.

Through her paramotor trips
tracking birds from the air,

she has raised awareness of the problems

facing many species and habitats
around the world.

Direct Talk met Sacha at her home to find out
about her passion for conservation

and why she risked her life

to draw global attention
to migrating species of birds.

Saving Migrating Birds From Extinction

I never set out to do
anything particularly extreme

and I'm not an adrenaline junkie,
so I would never, for example,

bungee jump or base jump.

I don't like that feeling of
unbridled falling for example.

But I'm not inherently scared of
flying the paramotor.

I'd imagine it is a bit like a
motorcycle of the air.

It's something that
it takes quite a long time

to understand and get good at.

But once you are
comfortable with the aircraft,

it does feel a bit like
an extension of yourself.

Through Sacha's paramotor trip

crossing borders
between 11 different countries,

Sacha highlighted how conservation
needs to be tackled globally,

as the loss of habitat,
and the threats to migrating bird species

varies from country to country.

But it was one bird in particular which
really caught the public's imagination in 2017.

The goal of this expedition was to uncover
new information about the Bewick's swan

Her trip following swans from
Russia to the UK was the first of its kind.

She also became the first woman
to cross the channel by paramotor.

The reason particular why
flying in a paramotor was useful

for getting an idea of
a bird's eye view of the world,

was that you fly at similar altitude
and speed as the birds

and you suffer many of the same challenges.

It's a really useful tool in conservation
to be able to look at a site from above

because you can see where
the areas might be being developed.

If there's point source pollution,
you can see that from the air as well.

We knew that the swan numbers
were declining rapidly.

We lost almost 50% in the previous 20 years

and they're using a flyway.

A flyway is a connection
of different of wetlands

and there are many other birds
and other bird species

that are using the same migration route
in the same sites.

So, whatever might have been
going wrong for a big white,

very visible bird like the Bewick's swan,

could also be going wrong
for the smaller birds.

So, it was a fabulous indicator for

problems for migratory birds in general.

Wetlands are essential for birds

and according to United Nations research,

35 percent of the world's wetlands
have disappeared in the last 50 years.

The team put GPS trackers on several swans

to see which sites
along the route they were using.

And from the air Sacha recorded and monitored
the birds with specialist equipment.

By getting a bird's eye view,
and landing in remote communities,

Sacha could talk to hunters

who may be unaware of the threat
to the birds they were sometimes shooting.

One of the interesting things to discover
that you could only really discover from

flying with the birds was why and how
so many are killed on power lines.

It is only by flying with them
that I could see that actually -

particularly on the autumn migration,

when it's often overcast.

So, there were low clouds.

The birds are being forced to fly
at quite a low level

and that puts them right
at the same height as the power lines.

When you're at a bird's eye view
at the same height or slightly above them,

they're silhouetted against a solid land and
then they are absolutely impossible to see.

So that was a really interesting thing.

Another key thing is that it is
such a small and fragile looking aircraft,

that when you land, people are pretty shocked

that you can travel, particularly
someone like that in such a tiny aircraft,

that there is no, you know, concern about
this foreigner that might have turned up.

Instead, they want to ask you
three things: which is

where have you come from?

Isn't it dangerous and how can I help?

And that was the perfect opener for
a conversation about looking after the Swans.

Most of the hunters think that

you're protecting swans
because they are in fairy stories.

They don't believe that
the numbers are declining

or how the hell, you can count them.

So, we could sit down and actually go,
this is how we count them

and have much more of a dialogue.

And then they were going, okay, well, yeah,

we do shoot Swans some of the time,
but we didn't really believe that.

And so, they're part of
the swan champions now

In 2019, Sacha started
Conservation Without Borders –

a charity supported by David Attenborough
and other leading environmentalists.

More trips were planned, and the next bird
Sacha and her team tracked was the Osprey,

which was once extinct in the UK.

The Osprey breeds in Scotland
and in Northern Europe

and goes and spends
the wintertime in West Africa.

I set up Conservation Without Borders

to try and do more expeditions

following the lives of
migratory species, birds,

but also marine and other species.

Because we'd found a way of
bringing together people,

finding, creating an incredible story,

bringing together people and research
to try and find solutions for the birds.

In essence most of the problems
that are a challenge for migratory birds

are the same challenges for people.

So, these issues of climate change,
issues of plastic,

loss of habitat,

pollution, and loss of our water supplies,

all of these issues are
the same issues that we're facing.

We are also connecting people

from developed countries
with less developed countries.

We are connecting the warmer areas
with the colder areas.

So, it connects people also
across boundaries of politics and language.

We chose the Osprey to track

because it is another bird
that has potential to be really inspiring.

A - It is quite a large bird of prey.
It is very visible.

And being the top predator in the food chain,

it is also a great indicator
of the health of a flyway.

It also has an incredibly inspiring story.

It was persecuted to extinction
in decades and centuries past

and it is now making a comeback

because people have decided
to make an effort to do so.

So, it's a symbol of what can be changed
if we try to do that.

Sacha grew up in Australia.

Her father was British, so there were
many trips to the UK to see relatives.

My mum lived in the Australian outback
and my father lived in Sydney on the coast.

So, I had a pretty free rein to either
run around the bush with friends, camp.

And in Sydney
I spent a lot of time in the ocean.

I guess my childhood made me
definitely feel part of nature.

For Sacha, in early 2020,

the devastating effect of climate change
became personal.

The worst bush fires in Australia
many had ever seen,

destroyed her family home,
where her mother was still living.

I had spent the whole night,

all through the night in the UK
calling my mum

as she does not use Facebook and that was
where all the updates were coming from.

And so I was on the phone, saying
"Mum it's closer than you think."

Everything from Sacha's childhood
was destroyed.

But fortunately, her mother got out in time.

My mother's been in
the local bushfire brigade for years

and has fought different fires,

but this was on a scale that
no one had seen before.

It was 11 kilometres high
because it had joined with the thunder,

with the clouds and
it formed pyro cumulonimbus.

So this basic fire front and storm wall

was sending lightning bolts
and fire kilometres ahead of it.

That was made so much worse
by climate change.

And so that made climate change
now really personal.

With the effects of
climate change foremost in her mind,

Sacha set off in June 2021 on a new adventure
flying around the entire coast of Britain,

powered once again only by a paramotor,
in an attempt to break two world records.

So a little bit apprehensive.

But I am running through
lots of scenarios in my head about

what could go wrong and
what I could do about them.

So, yeah, hopefully,

the joy of flying will come back with time.

This time she would be powered by
a battery rather than a petrol engine.

The goal was to raise awareness of
how climate change was affecting nature,

and was due to end in time for the
United Nations Climate Conference COP 26.

The purpose of this project
was to fly around the UK,

speak to people who had solutions
for climate change,

for a shift away from petrochemicals,
for example,

and see whether if you added up
all those different projects together,

did it look like we could really
reach our net zero targets?

But I couldn't very well do that flying
also in a paramotor that was using petrol.

So, I was prepared to put some
"skin in the game"

and try flying using battery power.

I stopped off at all kinds of places
at farmers trying to farm differently

with industries, trying to shift away
from using fossil fuels

and meeting inspiring individuals,
trying to rewild, for example.

We had lots of media coverage,
lots of people following on the way

and making a film with a UK celebrity
for national television.

So, we were trying to reach an audience

that weren't potentially
already thinking about these things.

But in November 2021,

just as she was about to end
this mission in Scotland, tragedy struck.

After a mid-air collision with a cameraman
who was flying nearby,

Sacha fell 150 feet to the ground.

Her colleague died.

She has spent the last 18 months
working to recover mobility

as she suffered catastrophic injuries
to her legs.

I mean, so, yeah, after the accident

I was in and out of operations for weeks
where I was barely conscious.

Mentally, obviously,
I was in a very black space

and I was in a hospital room for six months.

So that's not good for anybody either.

And so, yeah, for the first few months,
I was still wanting not to be here anymore.

The first reaction from the surgeons
as I came in was to

to say they would be amputating both my legs
because of the extremity of the damage.

150 feet fall on two straight legs.
Yes, it's pretty serious.

And I'd also broken all my ribs,
my hip, my sacrum.

I was lucky that there was no damage
to my internal injuries, to my head.

But they were going to amputate my legs
and the people around me at the time asked

because I was so active
and the outdoors is my life,

whether they could try and save them.

And they agreed to have a go.

But with no promises on the understanding,
that I might not walk again.

But it was the mental effects
of the traumatic accident that lingered,

and have taken as long to recover from.

For the first few months, I couldn't see
how I could come back from that.

I felt that physically
I was never going to be myself again

and might be forever dependent.

I felt that losing a friend
in those circumstances is awful,

and I wasn't sure that I was mentally,
that I could be myself.

And then a psychologist turned up

and I feel like what she did to me
in that very first meeting

where we had a conversation and then
she mapped out on a piece of paper

lots of different small areas of work
that I could do.

And each one of those sessions
was a bit like her teaching me

to build a ladder to get myself
up to the next stage.

And I'll remember the day
I first saw the light

and I kind of told her that

that was like, you know, I feel now as though
I can potentially go out and be myself again.

18 months after her accident,

Sacha has embarked on
another trip for Africa.

But this time she will be tracking
the return flight of the Osprey

from Guinea in West Africa to Scotland.

And she will remain on the ground
with her team,

using drones to follow the birds.

Her journey to mobility remains ongoing,

but she is still determined
to return to doing what she loves.

I feel like myself again,
I'm a slightly different self.

Physically, I'll have to do things
slightly differently,

but I have the same drive
and passion that I had before.

Our strategy over the next few years
is the 2030 global challenge,

and that is a whole series of expeditions.

We would most like to do next
is the East Asian Australasian Flyway,

and that is an incredible
bird migration highway.

It goes from Alaska and the Russian Arctic

down through Asia and
all the way down to Australia.

The aim is to show people

that actually by collaborating across
those different cultures on the big issues

faced not only by the birds, but they're also
the same issues faced by people.

That is how we're going to
drive massive change.

So whatever industry you are in,

find your wings and
be a voice for conservation.

Find your wings for conservation.