‘Humanity is now at a crossroads’
Attenborough’s latest film is his most personal yet. By Georgia Humphreys
IF there’s anyone who can make the world sit up and listen, it’s Sir David Attenborough. The 94-yearold naturalist and broadcaster, who was born in west London, describes the life he has had as “extraordinary” and “fortunate”.
It’s one that has seen him visit every continent on the globe, and make some of the most impactful TV series in our history, including Planet Earth and Blue Planet for the BBC.
And now comes a new film, David Attenborough: A Life On Our Planet — which serves as his witness statement for the natural world.
“I think we are at a crucial moment,” he urges.
“Without being too portentous on this, I think humanity is at a crossroads, and the natural world is really under serious, serious threat and the consequences could be apocalyptic.”
It’s early March when I speak to Sir David about the feature, created by award-winning natural history filmmakers Silverback Films and global environmental organisation WWF.
Although I don’t realise it at the time, he ends up being one of the last interviews I would do face to face, thanks to coronavirus.
In a quote sent over by email reflecting on the Covid-19 pandemic, he notes how it has “caused, and will continue to cause, immense suffering”.
“If there is hope that can come out of it then that may arise from the whole world having experienced a shared threat and found a sense that we are all in it together,” follows the father-of-two, whose wife Elizabeth died of a brain haemorrhage in 1997.
A revealing and powerful first-hand account, A Life On Our Planet sees Sir David reflect, for the first time, upon both the defining moments of his lifetime as a naturalist and the devastating changes he has witnessed.
A conversation with director Johnny Hughes — which saw Sir David “asked very clever, very perceptive questions, and got me arguing about certain things” — was recorded over several days and then segments of it were used throughout the film.
Of course, whatever Sir David stars in, he commands attention. There’s a buzz of excitement in the air as he sits down at the table with me and other journalists, and we all fall silent.
But he’s not intimidating — far from it. He jovially pokes fun at himself, particularly when he gets some figures slightly wrong (“one of the things I’m hopeless at remembering is whether it’s 100% or 220% or whatever”, he quips).
A Life On Our Planet does actually end on quite a positive note as well, with Sir David saying that there is still time and humans can change things.
The film starts and ends in Chernobyl, Ukraine, and the team also travelled to the Maasai Mara in Kenya. The elephant in the room is that making such a big documentary like this must rack up quite a large carbon footprint. But Sir David matter-of-factly defends this issue when it’s pointed out.
“We’re all damaging the environment just by sitting here and breathing,” he suggests. “The amount of carbon dioxide that is going out through the window as a consequence of us meeting here is significant. And do we always say, ‘Now was that really worthwhile, you spending that breath?’
“If you behave economically and sensibly, I don’t think you should feel guilty if it’s cost you some ergs in your engine to get you from A to B.”
Being wasteful is “the real sin”, he adds. “Waste is immoral — the wasting of power, the wasting of paper, the wasting of energy,” he says. “We shouldn’t waste space; we are wasting space that could be occupied by the natural world.”