Garden of Eden is no more and we are in new age, says Attenborough
THE WORLD had entered a new geological age, dominated by humans, Sir David Attenborough said last night as he accepted a major award from the World Economic Forum, at its annual conference in Switzerland.
Sir David said: “The garden of Eden is no more. We have changed the world so much that scientists say we are now in the age of humans.”
He told the gathering of politicians, business leaders and economists: “If people could truly understand what is at stake, I believe they will give permission to businesses and governments to get on with the practical solutions.
“What we do in the next few years will profoundly affect the next few thousand years.”
Sir David will today be interviewed on the conference stage by the Duke of Cambridge and will show extracts from Our Planet, his sequel to the BBC’s Planet Earth, which will be shown on Netflix in April.
He said: “Never has an understanding of the natural world been so important to ensure a safe future for our planet.
Hilde Schwab, of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, who presented the award, said: “He is truly one of the world’s most beloved figures.”
The Forum said Sir David had “played an extraordinary role in both reinventing and developing the medium of television, and in connecting people to the wonders of the natural world, bringing distant peoples, animals and habitats into living rooms across the planet”.
The conference, in the Alpine ski resort of Davos, is attended by some 2,500 delegates and is one of the world’s key forums for economic discussion.
Meanwhile, it was revealed that more than 3,000 pups have been born at the UK’s largest grey seal colony, setting a new record for the site.
Rangers at Blakeney National Nature Reserve in Norfolk recorded 3,012 seal pups born this winter, the first time the colony has surpassed the 3,000 mark and the highest number since records began 30 years ago.