GK Chesterton once wrote a story about a man who broke into his own house like a burglar in order to recover a sense of its exotic desirability — the residence in question was somewhere like Tooting. Sir David Attenborough pulls off the same trick in his latest series, Wild Islands, which manages to make the flora and fauna of these islands as exciting and worthy of protection as the fun stuff on the savannah.
Instead of a big cat chase we see white eagles hunting a barnacle goose, orca whales after a seal (frankly, there are far too many seals so we should cheer on the killer whale), and instead of a pensive encounter with gorillas we find the great man contemplating... puffins.
It’s a real feat. Because it’s easy to get worked up about the rainforest (and so indeed, we should) but who’s going to get excited about the dormouse just outside Oxford? Actually, we can probably muster a kindly interest for the dormouse (so cute! So Alice in Wonderland!) but its habitat is another matter. Because, as Sir David points out, “Though rich in places, Britain as a whole is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, Never has there been a more important time to invest in our wildlife.”
And that, folks, means us engaging with big and small issues, from building over species-rich grassland to astroturf. You have astroturfed over the bit of grass in front of your house? About 60 per cent of Britain’s flying insect population has disappeared in the past 20 years; insecticides and plastic grass come into it. HS2 chewed up ancient woodland, which is irreplaceable. Did we, do we, care? And what about the small planning regulations that can make a big difference? If every development included eaves or gable ends; if houses had swift boxes, the swift population would shoot up. Does the London Plan prioritise biodiversity? We need a Nature Recovery Network in London. Over to you, Mr Mayor.
Trouble is, all this is less sexy as an issue for would-be activists than, say, climate change, but the extinction crisis is as important as the climate crisis. Sir David has done what he does best, which is to make us see the beauty and preciousness of the natural world: if the creatures at risk are right under our noses, that should make us care more, not less.
