He shot a tiger and a crocodile, hated ‘rabbit huggers’ and rowed with Charles on the issue of green energy. So which royal eminence was the first to stand up for the environment – ​​and do it HIS way?

With Prince William on the Earthshot stage in Singapore and Charles continuing to beat the drum for our natural heritage at every opportunity, it’s easy to forget that it was another member of the family who led the way on the environment.

The late Duke of Edinburgh, who died in April 2021 at the age of 99, was a longtime conservationist who raised concerns about collapsing biodiversity long before it became fashionable to do so.

As he once said, “If we as human beings have this power over life and death, not just over life and death, but over extinction and survival, we must exercise it with some kind of moral sense.

“Why make something extinct if it doesn’t have to?”

It is believed that Philip’s interest in conservation began in the Royal Navy in the 1940s and 1950s.

In an interview with Sky News, Dr Claude Martin, former director of the World Wildlife Fund, once suggested that the Duke of Edinburgh’s passion for wildlife might have started with an interest in birds that developed during his time at sea.

“Ever since he was in the Navy, he started getting interested in birds…” he said.

‘That wasn’t the only trigger for him, but it did make him interested in the world.’

Philip’s interest in photography may also have contributed to this. And then a friendship developed Sir Peter Scott, a conservationist with whom the Duke helped establish the World Wildlife Fund in 1961.

Philip was the first president of WWF International from 1961 to 1982 and president from 1981 to 1996.

He was the charity’s patron and later also became president emeritus.

In 1970, WWF established conservation’s highest award – the Duke of Edinburgh Conservation Award – to recognize and encourage significant achievements in the global environmental field.

During his travels abroad, Philip was pictured with seals in Antarctica, pandas in China and feeding elephants in Africa.

For more than five decades, Philip’s efforts on behalf of WWF were invaluable, visiting projects in more than 50 countries, promoting conservation issues at the highest levels of government and helping with fundraising and awareness.

The Duke of Edinburgh has made efforts to raise awareness of issues such as poaching, deforestation and pollution at a time when such topics were far from mainstream.

He also wrote several books about the threats facing many of our planet’s creatures, most notably the Wildlife Crisis in 1970.

In addition to being president of the WWF, he also held the position of president of the Zoological Society of London (ZSL).

In 1961, the association named one of its awards the Prince Philip Award, given to teenage conservationists.

Closer to home, he was also deeply involved in the management of royal estates including Balmoral, Sandringham and Windsor Great Park.

But the same year he became president of the WWF’s British National Appeal, he and the Queen took part in a tiger hunt during a royal tour of Nepal.

The royal couple even posed with the body of a two-meter tiger in Ranthambore, India, with the Maharaja of Jaipur, allegedly killed by Philip along with a crocodile and six mountain sheep.

When questioned, Philip insisted that the tiger was crippled and had simply been put out of its misery, and that there was no harm in keeping its fur once it was dead.

It’s hard to imagine Prince William taking the same position today.

“I think there’s a difference between being concerned about preserving nature and bunny hugging,” he told the BBC. “Even naturalists drive cars.”

Unfortunately for Charles, Prince Philip’s views on global warming also occasionally differed from those of his eldest son, as he struggled to accept that renewable energy provided a complete answer to global warming.

Indeed, for Philip, overpopulation – and humanity’s devouring of resources – was a problem more important than climate change.

The author of Philip’s 2020 biography, Ingrid Seward, said: ‘Philip thought the biggest problem facing humanity was the population expanding far too quickly to support the planet. Of course, it is a delicate issue these days and one that no politician seems willing to address.

‘Philip thought engineers and scientists would figure out ways to make food – which is happening to some extent – but overpopulation would leave us without water.

‘So he was pragmatic and would have supported Cop26, although he would say there was a lot of talk and not enough action.’

As with so many other aspects of his life, the Duke of Edinburgh made his decision based on the evidence in front of him, not caring whether it bothered others or not.

But despite his sometimes controversial views, Philip worked tirelessly for the planet.

One of Philip’s most memorable campaigns was his mission to save monarch butterflies, which were threatened by numerous factors, including climate change and deforestation.

In 1988 he visited Mexico to support a conservation group trying to save the species and while there Philip took a beautiful photo standing among the animals as they began their migration.

It is the same image that the Queen proudly displayed behind her during her video speech at the COP26 summit in 2021.

Here, Queen Elizabeth told leaders how the ‘impact of the environment on human progress was a matter ‘close to my dear late husband’s heart’.

As early as 1969, the former Duke of Edinburgh warned, she said, that pollution would “dwarf every other problem” if left unchecked.

She also praised Prince Philip for lighting the flame of environmentalism in King Charles and his son, Prince William.

The Queen said: ‘It is a source of great pride to me that the leading role my husband played in encouraging people to protect our fragile planet lives on through the work of our eldest son Charles and his eldest son William. I couldn’t be more proud of them.”

In the 2020 documentary ‘A Planet for Us All’, William described Prince Philip as ‘ahead of his time’. He added, “My grandfather and my father have been in the conservation world, the environmental world, for years.”

The royal also praised his grandfather while he was a guest on the Climate of Change podcast series with Cate Blanchett and Danny Kennedy, where he sat down to discuss how Prince Philip and King Charles inspired him to tackle his own goals.

“I think my grandfather and my father, who have had a deep passion and interest in this field for many years, sparked my interest and curiosity,” William said.

“So growing up I was surrounded by this kind of adventure and the idea of ​​exploring and being out in the garden.”

Between the Prince of Wales’ Earthshot Prize, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s pledge to become carbon neutral, and Charles’ long history of outspoken environmental activism, the royals are following in Prince Philip’s trusted footsteps.