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FORCE OF NATURE For more than 65 years, David Attenborough has been beaming the natural world into our lounge rooms. Now he’s urging us all to do our bit to ensure our planet’s survival for future generations. by Steven MacKenzie The Big Issue UK
that could cause a terrible thing in five years’ time? People will say, ‘Well, that’s five years’ time, meanwhile I’ve got to deal with coronavirus, or something’.” Do the large-scale attempts to stem the spread of the virus prove that in extreme circumstances political muscle can be flexed, and mass behavioural change from the rest of us is possible? “Problems are short-term and longterm,” Attenborough replies. “The shortterm we deal with and the long-term ‘we’ll do tomorrow’. But tomorrow never comes. And then suddenly we discover it’s too late.” Even when he’s making fun of my hygiene, every word Attenborough speaks sounds like eternal wisdom. That famous, rich, whispery voice makes whatever he says sound like he’s imparting a great secret of the world – and most of the time that’s exactly what he’s doing. Over a career spanning more than 65 years and celebrating the wonders of the natural world, Attenborough has been a spokesman for the planet, becoming probably its single most precious natural resource. And now that a crisis has come, just knowing he’s around is a balm for our harried times.
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he Big Issue meets Sir David Attenborough in London in early March, which seems like an age ago. Later that day Italy will announce a full lockdown of the country. For a 93-year-old, Attenborough demonstrates a cavalier attitude towards handshakes when he greets me. Apart from the clamminess, I assure him my hands are otherwise clean. “I’m going to put this in neat alcohol for five minutes,” he jokes, holding out his arm as if trying to self-isolate it. Unprecedented measures are being taken to fight the coronavirus pandemic. But, irrespective of how much toilet paper and hand sanitiser we stockpile now, we’ve ignored the impending threat of the climate emergency for years. “Because it’s not happening tomorrow,” Attenborough states in those familiar tones that have soothed generation upon generation of nature lovers around the world. “If there was a risk of you getting coronavirus tomorrow – which there is – and someone next door had got it, you would find you were in quarantine quite quickly. But somebody next door to you who was doing something
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Attenborough came of age in the 1950s – at the same time as commercial air travel and TV, which enabled him to pioneer natural history programs. His Life on Earth series, beginning in the 1970s, brought 650 species in 39 countries to 500 million viewers. In recent years, monumental documentaries like Blue Planet, Frozen Planet and Planet Earth have shifted the axis on how we view the world. Attenborough was one of the first to experience first-hand the rich diversity and magnificence of wildlife worldwide, but over the decades he has realised that he also may be one of the last. His next documentary, A Life on Our Planet (its launch date, like everything, is postponed) is “a witness statement”, examining the changes that have happened
PHOTO BY KEITH SCHOLEY/OUR PLANET/NETFLIX. INSET PHOTOS BY GETTY
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We are part of the natural world. If we damage the natural world, we damage ourselves.
in the span of one lifetime. In the 1920s, when Attenborough was born, the world’s population was less than two billion; today it’s more than seven-and-a-half billion. As humanity has unrelentingly multiplied, biodiversity has been devastated. The film maintains that the planet we live on could have been a Garden of Eden – and that it could be again if we reverse the damage we’ve done. Using that analogy, what was the serpent? “Mammon!” Attenborough exclaims. In the moment I wonder if “Mammon” might be a rare kind of snake I haven’t heard of, but Attenborough notices my puzzled expression then does what he does best – explains in a way his audience can understand. “Well, I suppose individual selfishness,” he clarifies. “Greed. Arrogance about our independence in the natural world and the extent to which we depend upon it.” He could go on listing human faults but concludes with a sigh, “That’ll do.” The solution to our survival is simple, Attenborough believes. If we re-wild the world, the stable balance of biodiversity will ensure our survival. But for people living increasingly insular lives, how can we remind them of their place in the cycle of life? “Independent of how you spend your life and what you think is important in your life, the plain fact is that every mouthful of food you eat comes from the natural world; there’s no food that nourishes you that doesn’t come from the natural world. Every lungful of air that you take is refined by the natural world; oxygen breathed out by plants. If you can’t breathe and you can’t eat, you don’t exist.” He shifts to the therapeutic potential of nature. “In times of crisis the natural world is a source of both joy and solace. I mean, that’s high-flown talk but people…know that the natural world produces the comfort that can come from nothing else. And we are part of the natural world. If we damage the natural world, we damage ourselves.” With the enthusiasm of someone a quarter his age, Attenborough has become a figurehead of the climate movement, energised in the past few months by Greta Thunberg and a fresh generation of young campaigners. While Attenborough has documented wildlife over decades, it’s humans that have evolved more than any other animal. “We haven’t changed physically, of course, but we’ve changed our mental attitudes,” he explains. “Kids these days are
DAVID ATTENBOROUGH: A LIFE ON OUR PLANET HAS BEEN PRODUCED BY SILVERBACK FILMS AND WWF. THE FILM WILL BE AVAILABLE TO WATCH IN CINEMAS AND GLOBALLY VIA NETFLIX LATER THIS YEAR. FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TO REGISTER FOR UPDATES, SEE ATTENBOROUGH.FILM.
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that there was no hope of actually dealing with the problems, I don’t know what I’d do.” In an even softer whisper he repeats, “I don’t know what I’d do.” Lifting his eyes, he continues. “I can’t, I can’t – however realistic it is – I couldn’t accept that. I would have to do what we’re doing now, which is to persuade people as far as you possibly can that they should do something, which implies that it’s therefore possible to improve things. And I think it is.” Attenborough has come to simple conclusions about what needs to be done now. Short-term thinking has to end; raising the standard of living for all people in all countries is a must. “You put forward partisan points of view with all the energy that you can find to give them. I’ve been feeling these things for a long time, but I’ve never put it into as vigorous and clear-sighted an argument,” he says. At the end of the film he outlines what we can do, explaining the benefits of smaller families, less meat consumption and a disinvestment in fossil fuels. But he stops short of insisting that you have to have fewer children, you have to eat less meat and you should boycott certain businesses. “If you believe human beings have basic rights as a human being, one of them is free action. Those are inalienable rights – or should be. You can only hope that you persuade people so they recognise where these things come from,” he says, still harbouring optimism that we can get our act together. In the 1940s, Attenborough did national service in the navy, and compares the massive wholesale changes that have started to happen to steering a large ship. “You spin the wheel and nothing happens at all for at least five minutes, if not 10 minutes. You think, ‘But I’m going into the cliff!’ It takes a long time to turn around. “We’re in an unprecedented situation,” he emphasises. “We know quite a lot about the history of the world. We go back 500 million years and there is no species with anything like the power homo sapiens have over the natural world. There is nothing remotely like the situation we’re in at the moment. There’s no moral to be taken from what happened in the past. We’ve got a completely blank sheet of paper in front of us.”
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knowledgeable, aware of what’s happening and are concerned. They are vocal. I haven’t known a generation of children that could be placed alongside these today.” Attenborough’s programs also spread the message, but people who tune in are likely to already be aware of the climate emergency. How do you preach beyond the converted? “There was a situation when the only people who watched natural history programs were people who were converted in the sense that they understood things about natural history, but that is no longer the case. Simply statistically, the audience who see these programs are all conditions of humanity – all ages, all income groups. And it should be that everyone is concerned because it’s where we live. It affects every moment of our lives. How could you not be concerned?” Well, why aren’t some people? “To start with, they didn’t know what the problem was. When I was a boy, municipal governments on the coast of England were pouring raw sewage into the sea, on the grounds that the sea was so big that it would wash it all away. They never even considered the possibility that there’s another side of the ocean; it was washing up on somebody else’s doorstep. That’s how ignorant we were. The world has changed since then. You know, there are three times as many people in this world as when I started making programs, let alone when I was born. Three times as many people in the world,” he emphasises. For a child born today, in a world never more chaotic, what do you think their life will be like when they’re 93? “Well, I don’t know,” he pauses. “It depends how optimistic you are about the struggle we are all occupied with. If we lose, then the world will look a fairly boring place. It’ll be a poorer place and I think the political structures will be different. Life will be more totalitarian. Migrations of human beings will be a serious problem. The deserts will spread in Africa and a lot of people will be displaced. So there will be fairly serious consequences. I hope that won’t happen and nations will get together, make sure it doesn’t happen.” How optimistic are you today that we’ll manage to avoid the most serious consequences? “I couldn’t live…” he begins, then stops. “If I was seriously – seriously – convinced