There’s avery good chance you have heard of Ruud, the Dutch-New Zealand naturalist whose passion for insects saw him start a talkback radio show (Ruud's Awakening) in in 1987 in which which he offered environmentally friendly tips to gardeners.

It earned him the name of “the bugman” which he carried to the NZTV series Maggie’s Garden Show from 1992 until December 2003.

This led to successful international series for Animal Planet called Buggin with Ruud.

For services to entomology, conservation and entertainment Ruud was appointed an honorary Member of the NZ Order of Merit in 2018.

In this episode I catch up with Ruud and find he is as passionate about communicating the importance of respecting nature as when I met and worked with him on a documentary I directed back called The Bug House in 2001 about the insects that live in our houses which is available under the documentaries tab on my Substack byanbruce.substack.com

Today Ruud is working with teachers and school children as part of his ongoing work to educating us about the importance of nature and why , in his words, we “need to be gentle with it”.

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