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Breakfast with Bristol24/7: Savita Custead
“I could go vegan for this banana bread,” says Savita Custead as we sit down at a table in Spicer+Cole on the corner of Queen Square and Welsh Back, early on a beautiful sunny morning. “Except that I’m about to smother butter all over it!” She laughs and takes a sip of her coffee. Savita squeezed our breakfast in around her packed schedule, planning the final details of this year’s Festival of Nature among many other things, but it doesn’t seem to faze her. She gives the impression of being entirely unflappable.
This cafe is her local now – she’s just moved to a new home nearby and is full of excitement about living near the harbour and being close to some of Bristol’s best green spaces. She’s living and breathing her work of trying to get more Bristolians engaged with nature: I feel inspired to go out into Queen Square already, and we’re only two minutes in.
“I’ve been here for 15 years,” Savita says when I ask about her North American accent. “I moved from Canada in 2003 and came over to do my masters degree in science communication and education. And, like so many people in Bristol, I didn’t ever leave.”
is needed now More than ever
Having ruled out a job in a purely scientific field (“I spent one summer in a pathology lab, helping with autopsies, and that sealed the deal that it wasn’t the life for me”), when a job at Bristol Natural History Consortium came up, she jumped at the chance.
“It wasn’t even a formal organisation at that stage, just a group of partners who all had a real interest in natural history,” Savita says as we tuck into our food. “For the first couple of years, I was an employee of Bristol Zoo, and had an office there. I spent about 18 months working on getting us registered charity status.”
Now, Bristol Natural History Consortium has 14 partners from national government departments including DEFRA, to the two universities, Bristol City Council and the BBC’s Natural History Unit. “In terms of the structure and the range of partners, as far as we know the consortium is the only one in the world,” Savita says. “To have them working together by consensus is great, and perhaps even unique.”
The Festival of Nature is their largest public event. Part of Bristol’s calendar of festivals since 2003, it was born from the developing partnerships between Bristol’s charities and institutions who wanted to work together further. “Rather than creating a committee or working group, the very first thing they did was put on a Festival of Nature,” Savita explains. “The thought was, if we’re going to do something together, let’s do something for the city, and something that no single organisation could do on their own.”
Since the early days, the festival has grown vastly – from just a weekend event in Millennium Square, to the current three-week programme of free events stretching along the River Avon from Bristol to Bath, attracting 30,000 visitors.
“One of the big themes that people will see this year is bats,” Savita says. “Scientists call the Avon a ‘bat superhighway’ – a researcher said this to me with a completely serious look on his face. We’ve got some amazing drone footage of the Avon from a bat’s eye view, and we’ve also got a big walks programme, encouraging people to use all the paths.”
On the longest day of the year, which falls within the programme, there is a series of sunrise walks to help people really see the wildlife and the landscape.
Attending the festival is just the beginning: “We’re asking people to do one of five things at the festival, and take one other thing away with them to do later – things like creating habitats for wildlife, supporting some of the 101 organisations who come to the festival, or helping us to count species.
“Last year we recorded 20,000 actions for nature during the festival. We hope everyone will take part, celebrate nature and have a really great day out. And, let’s be honest – we all have less time to just go for a walk or spend time in nature, so that’s why it’s important to run a festival like this.”
The Festival of Nature runs from June 8-25, 2017.
Spicer+Cole
1 Queen Square Avenue
BS1 4 JA
1 x flat white £2.55
1 x peppermint tea £2.55
1 x vegan banana bread £2.95
1 x salmon bagel £4.95
Total: £13
Illustration by Anna Higgie: www.annahiggie.co.uk
Read more: Breakfast with Bristol 24/7: Ailsa Fineron
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