King Charles has taken part in a podcast with Cate Blanchett<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
It is the King’s second podcast appearance of the year, following his choice of favorite music in April<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
The chat with Blanchett, who also supports Prince William’s Earthshot Prize, highlights a key environmental concern and showcases the Millennium Seed Bank<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
King Charles<\/a> and Cate Blanchett<\/a> are teaming up for an important chat.<\/p>\n The Oscar-winning star, 56, sat down with King Charles, 76, to celebrate the world-renowned and innovative seed bank and its crucial role in preserving nature.<\/p>\n The Millennium Seek Bank was set up 25 years ago to save them before they\u2019re wiped out by climate and environmental pressures.<\/p>\n For the King, it is his second podcast appearance of the year, after he unveiled some of his favorite songs<\/a> in a special for Apple Music in March. <\/p>\n And for Blanchett, who has been involved with Prince William<\/a>‘s Earthshot Prize<\/a> since its inception<\/a>, it represented a new involvement with a member of the royal family.<\/p>\n Chris Jackson\/Getty<\/p>\n King Charles taking part in the podcast at Windsor Castle in July, 2025<\/p>\n The podcast, called Unearthed, is from the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, which runs the seed bank in Wakehurst, Sussex. Blanchett was joined by Kew’s senior research leader in seed conservation, Dr. Elinor Breman, in a sunlight corner of Windsor in July.<\/p>\n \u201cThe\u00a0future\u00a0of\u00a0life\u00a0on\u00a0Earth\u00a0may\u00a0very\u00a0well\u00a0depend\u00a0on\u00a0the\u00a0seeds\u00a0stored\u00a0within\u00a0this\u00a0bank,\u201d Blanchett says in her introduction.<\/p>\n At the heart of the mission is to ensure nature\u2019s biodiversity is kept for future generations and the long-term health of the planet.<\/p>\n Blanchett, who is ambassador for Wakehurst, says in the podcast, “There is an urgency to the work that the seed bank does. I was shocked to learn that 97 % of the wildflower meadows have been decimated. I don’t think it’s something that we quite understand here, because we look around us and in the immediate term, we see so much natural beauty. But we don’t think how fragile it is.”<\/p>\n Chris Jackson\/Getty<\/p>\n King Charles taking part in the podcast in July 2025<\/p>\n In the 22-minute conversation, the King spoke about one of his initiatives, undertaken to commemorate the coronation of his late mother Queen Elizabeth<\/a>, called the Coronation Meadows.<\/p>\n “I thought it was a good excuse because I knew about the real damage that has been done to all our flower-rich meadows since the war, really,” he says.<\/p>\n When Blanchett says, \u201cReally in\u00a0that\u00a0short\u00a0a\u00a0space\u00a0of\u00a0time,\u201d Charles adds it was \u201cabsolutely\u00a0incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n Chris Jackson\/Getty<\/p>\n Cate Blanchett, Dr. Elinor Breman and King Charles around the table at Windsor in July 2025<\/p>\n \u201cBecause\u00a0what\u00a0you\u00a0can\u00a0destroy\u00a0in\u00a0one\u00a0day\u00a0by\u00a0just\u00a0ploughing\u00a0it\u00a0up\u00a0takes\u00a0practically\u00a0a\u00a0hundred\u00a0years\u00a0to\u00a0replace,\u00a0and\u00a0it\u00a0requires\u00a0constant\u00a0management,\u00a0the\u00a0same\u00a0management\u00a0to\u00a0create\u00a0this\u00a0remarkable\u00a0diversity.\u201d He says that he\u2019s seen it on his regular travels to Transylvania, Romania (he usually goes once a year),\u00a0\u201cwhere\u00a0it’s\u00a0even\u00a0more\u00a0unbelievable.\u201d<\/p>\n There, he says, rescuing meadows\u00a0\u201cbefore\u00a0they\u00a0get\u00a0destroyed\u00a0because\u00a0they’re\u00a0unique,\u201d and reflect what meadows and fields were like in his home country \u201cin the medieval times.\u201d Preserved well, in this way, they are home to \u201csomething like 17 or 18 different species of orchid,\u201d he suggests.<\/p>\n Their conversation moves on to whether the pharmaceutical industry could do more to preserve the health of plants as so many drugs and medicines come from the botanical world. King Charles suggested it was “surely their interest to invest in the protection and enhancement and restoration of this biodiversity” from which so many treatments have been derived.<\/p>\n Chris Jackson\/Getty<\/p>\n King Charles makes his point during the recording of the podcast in Windsor in July 2025<\/p>\n Can’t get enough of\u00a0PEOPLE’s Royals coverage?\u00a0Sign up for our free Royals newsletter<\/a>\u00a0to get the latest updates on\u00a0Kate Middleton<\/a>,\u00a0Meghan Markle<\/a>\u00a0and more!<\/strong><\/p>\n Echoing Prince William\u2019s mission via the Earthshot Prize to find solutions that can have a positive effect on climate change and other challenges and to fund them accordingly, Blanchett says she is frustrated that “there’s so many extraordinary initiatives right there ready to be scaled up. There’s a willingness there, but there’s just, there’s not the direction of the funds.”<\/p>\n King Charles adds, “And there’s that lack of awareness too, as you were saying about the actual detail of all these things.”<\/p>\n![\"Chris](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0dfd008039c2a6f3dc5379314614db4c.jpeg\"\/)
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