David Attenborough has claimed that humanity needs to learn to show more restraint for the good of the natural world. Speaking ahead of the broadcast of Planet Earth III, a new instalment of his landmark natural history series, he talked about how one episode focuses on chimpanzees whose forest homes have been encircled by human settlements.
“The huge problem is the way we have gobbled up space as though it belongs to us and nobody else,” said Attenborough. “And the notion that you should actually have to restrain yourself in order to accommodate the natural world is not one which everybody feels. We need to persuade people that it’s quite a selfish thing to do.”
“Apart from anything else, we depend upon the natural world … and we had assumed that we could do what we like, because the natural world was always there. It is not always there. Simply because we have now become such a dominant species in terms of numbers, we have come to realise that we have to live together, and not just entirely on the terms that we choose.”
The broadcaster claimed that the BBC played a significant part in the general public’s awareness of the climate crisis, having allowed him to reference rising planetary temperatures and the disappearance of wilderness since the 1950s – which was initially seen as “an oddball thing to say”.
“It is the one organisation that has recognised that it’s an important issue, but also, it’s an issue which people are interested in, and … full of drama and excitement and worth watching,” claimed Attenborough in conversation with Planet Earth executive producer Mike Gunton. “The BBC has been faithful to that tradition … no other broadcasting organisation that I know of has.”
The upcoming series of Planet Earth is set to feature underwater scenes shot with a bespoke “whalecam”, a “drone ballet”, and footage of researchers teaching bald ibis chicks how to fly via a microlight. It will also include scenes of mating rituals between tragopan pheasants – a continuation of the broadcaster’s enthusiasm for turning the love lives of birds into attention-grabbing television.
“Bird courtship is just one of the most dramatic sequences you can get, because it’s designed to impress a female, and it impresses you!” said Attenborough. “It’s not only feathers, but they also have these extendable sacks on the throats, which they can inflate into the most wonderful patterns. It’s nature showing off, and by golly, you have to be without soul if you aren’t impressed by that sort of stuff.”
