Diane Parkes speaks to a environmental film-maker about close encounters with inquisitive bears and a walrus – and the pressing need to protect a precious ecosystem from global warming.

As a researcher, photographer and cameraman who has worked in the Arctic and Antarctic for more than 30 years, Doug Allan is well placed to discuss the environmental damage to the Poles.

And he is hoping that Polar, a film and music production being performed at Birmingham’s Symphony Hall this month, will help inspire people to take action to protect these precious ecosystems.

Footage taken by Doug and a team of wildlife film-makers will be shown in high definition on a 32ft screen at the venue accompanied by live music.

On screen the audience will be watching immense frozen landscapes, aquamarine icebergs, melting ice caps and the diversity of wildlife in these extremes – polar bears, whales, seals, penguins and other Polar birds.

A score arranged by conductor and orchestrator John Harle and played by City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra will feature music by Mozart, Stravinsky, Purcell, Tchaikovsky, Bach and Beethoven.

And Doug hopes the performance will not just be enjoyable – but also inspiring.

“I really like the whole concept,” says Doug, who first visited the Antarctic in 1976 when he worked as a research diver for the British Antarctic Survey. “And I hope that people who go to the performances are inspired to want to know more about the polar regions and to want to take action to save them and these wonderful creatures.

“The Arctic and the Antarctic are such incredibly special places that we need to do all we can for them.”

Moving on from researcher to photographer and cameraman, Doug has returned to the Poles countless times. An expert in stills and film footage, he is particularly renowned for his underwater images and has won a string of awards.

He has also filmed for many of the BBC’s nature blockbusters including Planet Earth, The Blue Planet and the current series The Frozen Planet.

And, over the years, he has seen for himself the impact of global warming.

“The results of climate change have been recorded in both the North and South Poles,” he says. “For example when I first went to the North of Baffin Island in the Arctic the weather was predictable. In April, May and June time you got eight to ten days of calmish blue sky followed by a blow and then it would be calm again.

“But today when you go there is no longer this systematic weather system, it is much less predictable.

“In Antarctica you can see how the colonies of penguins have changed. There was a penguin colony that we filmed for Life in the Freezer in 1993 and I went back there for Frozen Planet and it had reduced by about 20 per cent.

“And, as the land changes, colonies become displaced and move to other parts, sometimes displacing other, smaller penguins. That could be a problem for penguins such as the Adelies.

“There are bases on Antarctica where they have been recording the temperatures over periods of time and they have the evidence that the climate is changing. For example at the American base Palmer they have shown that temperatures have increased by about five degrees since 1963.

“That is a huge change. If you are looking at a change from minus five to plus one then that will be serious melting.

‘‘And that affects everything.”

Despite these changes Doug still has a deep love for the poles.