Chris Packham on voicing the Big Cat Week programmes

Chris Packham is back in the wild, so to speak.

The presenter and environmentalist, 60, is voicing Russia's Wild Tiger and Thailand's Wild Cats for National Geographic WILD's annual Big Cat Week.

Russia's Wild Tiger tracks the battle for survival of big cats, including exploring the fate of Siberian tigers, while Thailand's Wild Cats explores the jungles of Thailand which are home to some of the rarest wild cats on earth, namely the clouded Leopard, the Indian fishing cat and more.

Packham, who has previously presented the BBC's Springwatch, Autumnwatch and Winterwatch programmes, was targeted by arsonists who set fire to a car and burned down the gate to his property last year.

He caught the masked attackers on CCTV as they drove a vehicle up to the gate of his Hampshire home before setting it alight - causing thousands of pounds in damage.

The eco campaigner talks about why he loved voicing the Big Cat Week programmes and why he won't give up on his activism.

WHAT CAN WE EXPECT FROM THE PROGRAMMES YOU'RE NARRATING?Well, firstly, I like the idea of these weeks that we have - they turn into more of a celebration. And I think that rather than having a one-off programme which can generate a bit of interest, if you have a week of programming, it tends to focus people more.

National Geographic run their big cat initiative as well, where they provide funding for research and conservation. So there are ulterior motives and I obviously champion and support that.

If you have a week it's more than a gig, it's a festival.

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT THESE FILMS?

The first thing I can say is what I like about this style of filmmaking, is that some parts of it are what I would call sort of long form narrative. Very often, when we watch programmes now, documentaries about animals, we see quite short sequences, and they give us remarkable insights into their behaviour and ecology, but we don't see it in anywhere near real-time.

HOW IMPORTANT ARE WILDLIFE SHOWS AND ARE THEY DOING THEIR JOB IN RAISING AWARENESS?

I always say that wildlife programmes are a great way of instigating an interest, but they won't be able to fully satisfy it.

I think wildlife programmes, particularly programmes like this, have a much stronger conservation message now than they used to have. And again, obviously, Nat Geo, they've got their initiative which runs in parallel with this, which is about proactively conserving and researching the animals, and that's coming to the fore. And obviously, I'm very pleased to see that.

I'd like to see it go even further, frankly, because many of these species, well all of the cat species that we look at, even leopards now, are in trouble in some parts... So it's really important to highlight that it's not a utopia out there - these animals are struggling. And if we don't help them, then it's going to backfire for everyone, including us. I don't think we've reached that point.

THERE ARE THINGS LIKE VEGANUARY. BUT DO PEOPLE NEED TO MAKE MORE LONGER-TERM CHANGES DO YOU THINK?

My life now is a constant audit, constantly looking at what I do, how I do it, and thinking about how I can do it in a more, not just sustainable way, but regenerative way. I think we have to constantly ask ourselves, what do we do? How do we travel? What do we eat? What do we buy outside of food? All of these things.

And obviously there are a plethora of ways that we can have a less damaging impact on the planet and its wildlife, and by simply changing the way that we live - and you mentioned Veganuary, and obviously, there is no ambiguity that we as a planet are eating too much meat. Now I am vegan, and I have been for some time; if you cut down, I'm happy, because that's moving in the right direction.

YOU'VE HAD SUCH A BRILLIANT CAREER BUT DO YOU STRUGGLE A BIT WITH BEING IN THE PUBLIC EYE?

I use my small platform, my small voice, to try and affect positive change for wildlife and the environment. And I have to ask people to therefore change their mind, like we've been talking about. I'm asking them to stop doing things, and I want them to start doing things.

But the human species, for all of its imagination, ingenuity, and internet, creativity, and all of its other fantastic attributes, is not very good at changing its mind, and certainly not quickly.

When I'm campaigning on these issues, essentially what I'm doing is I'm asking people to change their minds more quickly than they're comfortable with, and a percentage of them... some of them will think, 'He's got a point, I'll have a think about that'.

Others will think 'Well, that's not for me, I'm going to carry on eating meat' or whatever it happens to be, and then others are going to say, 'actually, this bloke is a troublemaker, we've got to push back'. And their way of pushing back isn't imaginative and it isn't creative, and it isn't going to resolve the situation with any sort of positive outlook because it's not about compromise or dialogue, it's about terrorism and bullying.

So I see it as part of a process.

YOU'RE WORKING WITH YOUR STEPDAUGHTER MEGAN, DID YOU WORRY ABOUT HER PUTTING HERSELF IN THE SPOTLIGHT MORE?

She's a lot younger, she's 26, but we are of the same mindset. We are equally supportive of each other's predicament, and the predicament is that we have no choice; we've got to try and change things, because that's what we're here for. We've evolved into having a mission.

I used to be someone who just liked wildlife, I used to be someone who studied it scientifically, I used to be someone who made TV programmes about it, because I was enthusiastic about it. I now have to be someone that has to try and make a difference, whether it's planting trees in my garden or trying to convince an audience to support the big cat initiative, and help these magnificent animals, and Megs is of the same mindset.

So she is as determined, probably even more sort of outwardly robust, and our mantra is really simple: any damage that they try to do to us, we will push back 10 times harder.

A little while ago, they burned my gates down and it's left me with thousands of pounds worth of damage. And I thought to myself, what can I do about this?

And I thought, 'Well, I'll tell you what, I'm going to get my money's worth', not in terms of buying new gates, but upping the quality and the consistency of my campaigning in terms of those causes.

And so ultimately, I will pay to have new gates, but they will pay because I will push back even harder.

National Geographic's annual Big Cat Week stars on WILD on Monday, February 7 with Russia's Wild Tiger.