00:00 [BIRDS CHIRPING]
00:01 [CROWD CHEERING]
00:03 [BELL RINGING]
00:06 [CROWD CHEERING]
00:08 [BELL RINGING]
00:09 Well, there's a recording of starlings
00:12 near the Bristol Channel.
00:14 And starlings have suffered a 70% decline.
00:17 There used to be a massive roost of starlings in Newcastle
00:21 20-odd years ago.
00:22 Like a million birds would come into the city.
00:25 And now they've virtually gone.
00:28 And they've mostly been lost to--
00:31 their habitats changed.
00:33 And there's been a huge decline in the birds.
00:34 In the UK, starlings no longer nest in large parts of Wales
00:38 and southern England.
00:39 In fact, there was an 87% decline in the birds
00:43 from 1967 to 2015.
00:45 This is just one example of how our climate is changing.
00:49 I mean, Iceland last year had a funeral service
00:52 for a glacier that just melted and disappeared and died,
00:55 effectively.
00:56 And it's too late.
00:57 We need to address climate change now.
01:00 When you hear the sounds of some of these places,
01:02 the tiger forest in Finland, or hippopotamus in the River Mara,
01:07 or the frogs in Gamboa, when you allow the natural world
01:14 to speak for itself, it's the most eloquent way of describing
01:18 what we're about to lose.
01:20 Humans are also affected by environmental noise
01:22 to the point of it creating physiological burdens.
01:26 The European Environment Agency estimates
01:28 that environmental noise in Europe
01:30 can cause 12,000 premature deaths and 48,000 new cases
01:35 of ischemic heart disease per year.
01:38 But by listening to these places,
01:40 it becomes very obvious that it's
01:43 part of our responsibility to look after these places.
01:46 Although we might simply go and listen and enjoy
01:49 the sounds for what they are, what I do hope
01:51 is that it raises awareness for these precious sounds
01:55 may well be disappearing.
01:56 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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