King issues 'extremely urgent' message to Gen Z over climate change

The King will urge people to put nature at the centre of their everyday lives in a film he hopes will alert new audiences to the threat of climate change.

The Prime Video documentary, Finding Harmony: A King’s Vision, will explain the monarch’s decades-long mission to encourage humankind to work with nature, for the benefit of both.

Narrated by Kate Winslet, and showing the King explaining his philosophy of “harmony”, the feature-length film is being broadcast around the globe with a message designed to appeal to younger generations in particular.

Kristina Murrin, the chief executive of the King’s Foundation, Charles’s charity, said the message behind the film is “extremely urgent” due to the ever-growing threat from climate change.

‘Uphill struggle’ to be heard on the environment

Murrin told The i Paper: “The earth is asking us to change our actions at the moment. And hopefully this film will inspire some people to do that.”

Put simply, the King’s vision of “harmony” is that humans are “nature ourselves” and “a part of nature, not apart from it” – that the environment is at the core of human well-being and prosperity.

While ideas like forest bathing and sustainability have gained in popularity in recent years, the film will show how sympathetically working with nature has been at the core of the King’s own practices – in how he personally tends his gardens at his private residence in Highgrove, Gloucestershire, and in his public-facing campaigns on the environment, urbanism and community regeneration – for decades.

The King’s Foundation’s work includes educational projects at Highgrove and Dumfries House in Ayrshire, which are all based on the philosophy of harmony, including sustainable textiles and furniture-making, heritage crafts and the teaching of traditional artisan skills.

The film, which will be released on 6 February in 240 territories worldwide, shows the King watching archive television footage of himself making the case for protecting the environment.

The monarch says in the documentary that his battles to be heard on the environment over the years have been an “uphill struggle” but stresses that we have to look after the earth because “it’s unlikely there’s anywhere else”.

King hopes to inspire young people

While Charles made the case for this vision in his 2010 book, Harmony: A New Way of Looking at Our World, it is hoped that the Amazon documentary will reach Gen Z (those born between 1997 and 2012) and Gen Alpha (those born after 2012) audiences who may not be aware of the King’s lifelong campaign to protect the planet.

Murrin said: “We hope the film appeals to all age groups, but we know that younger people are taking a lot of their information visually, rather than necessarily reading books now.

“So hopefully we’ve presented this in a format that will get them engaged, will make it understandable and hopefully inspiring to them.

“And also really showcase to a lot of young people, who don’t know the long journey His Majesty has been on about this, and there’s a clip in the film where you see him talking about these messages decade after decade after decade.

“And I think that’s an important message for young people to see that actually this is a narrative that’s been there, and we hope that they will pick up on.

“So again, about it appealing to young people, they more than anyone will inherit this planet and have a desire to kind of look after it.”

Ways that people could be inspired include parents taking time to show their children different plants when they visit local parks, Murrin said, while businesses can put sustainability at the heart of their way of working and teachers can incorporate an understanding of nature into the classroom.

She added: “The population of the planet has grown, and yet we know that actually, we have the resources, we have the facilities for this to be an extraordinary place for us all to live, but we can’t ignore nature, we can’t expect that it will just keep providing, when we’re not considering the needs of it.

“And so I think it is a timely message – hopefully it resonates with people.

“Hopefully they can apply it in small or large ways that feel applicable to them. But look, the earth is asking us to change our actions at the moment. And hopefully this film will inspire some people to do that.”

When the film was first announced last year, the King said: “Nature is our sustainer – we are a part of nature. Therefore, what we do to her, we do to ourselves.

“For much of my life I have sought to promote and encourage ways we can work with, rather than against nature. In other words, to restore balance to our planet which is under such stress…

“Never has it been more important for the world to make a concerted effort to protect and prioritise our planet, and to restore our relationship with it.”

Gardener King uses no pesticides

This week The i Paper visited Charles’s gardens and the King’s Foundation projects at Highgrove, all of which the monarch takes a close interest in.

In his gardens, which the then Prince of Wales began to create shortly after buying the estate in 1980, he has encouraged this harmony, with the assistance of a team of 11 gardeners and two apprentices.

There is no use of pesticides and the plants and soil are organic, while no mains water is used for irrigation – the productive walled kitchen garden is sustained from rainwater collected from run-off from the main house and in tanks that can hold 54,000 litres.

Imperfections are celebrated as part of nature’s way rather than corrected or ripped out, while trees that lose branches or have to be felled from disease are given new leases of life by students learning how to make furniture on the foundation’s CREATE course on the estate.

Trunks and branches of oak and beech trees that came down during storms have been rehomed in a stumpery, where they now lie covered with moss and are havens for insects and other wildlife.

The stumpery also features a gnome the King moves to different places around the garden in a playful nod to the informality of the setting, amongst woodland planting and a national collection of 160 varieties of broad leaf hostas.

In the arboretum, featuring three Himalayan birches donated by the late Queen Elizabeth and the King’s collection of acers, there are more of the monarch’s personal touches, including low hurdles that he created himself during lockdown from hazel coppiced on the estate.

Weeds are not removed but allowed to flourish, with some “edited” out if they begin to take over, and the wildflower meadow is cut by experts using traditional scythes once a year. Cattle and sheep are let in to graze the meadow as part of the natural cycle.

In the Thyme Walk, within the Main Lawn, where 22 varieties of the herb are grown, topiarised rows of golden yew are a perfect example of nature being allowed to take over a little.

Ryan Bowden, gardener at the King’s Foundation, which is the custodian of Highgrove Gardens, explained that one of the topiary bushes, in the shape of a wedding cake, is starting to lose one of its tiers but instead of correcting this he is letting it take a more organic form.

Courses in fashion, textiles… and physics

At Dumfries House, the main headquarters for the King’s Foundation, the charity runs education and training programmes for schoolchildren, older students and anyone wanting to improve their skills. Courses include hospitality, building arts and crafts, fashion and textiles, horticulture and even a Stem course which teaches pupils about the relationship between physics and nature.

Jacqueline Farrell, education director at the King’s Foundation, said that a four-day intervention course run at Dumfries House, for pupils at risk of non-attendance at school, involves the children getting out and experiencing nature and shown the skills of “Grit” – growth, resilience, independence and trust.

Farrell said the statistics from the programme this year are “phenomenal”, adding: “We’ve seen increases in commitment from the pupils returning to school and actually engaging in the class.”

The broad range of projects and courses at Dumfries House has allowed the directors to come up with evidence for how “harmony” works in practice, which can be picked up by FE colleges, universities and local education authorities across the country.

Farrell said: “We’re very much a research and development lab up in Scotland here at Dumfries House.

“We can trial things quite quickly, we can explore demand and need fairly quickly and demonstrate proof of concept to allow others to replicate what we do.”

How you can find harmony with nature:

Gardens

Cut out pesticides, give space to weeds and grow a diverse range of plants like wildflowers that encourage bees and other pollinators – embrace imperfections.

If you don’t have a garden, try growing flowers in a window box to attract bees.

Kids

On a visit to your local park, take an interest in what is growing and show your children – whether it’s the colourful blossom on a tree or a plant in a border – so they can learn about nature from an early age.

Schools

Link learning where relevant to nature – such as taking science outdoors to forest gardens, showing how gravity works with fruit on trees, and physical exercise as a way to teach about biology.

Businesses

Look at ways to make your business more sustainable and in harmony with the environment – through your supply chains – and encourage well-being among workers, such as access to outdoor green space during breaks and lunchtime.