FAMOUS ENVIRONMENTALISTS

SIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES

CAMBRIDGE IGCSE P6

SIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH- Sir David Frederick Attenborough is an

English broadcaster and naturalist.

- He is best known for writing and presenting natural history documentary series on BBC. This collection of programmes form a comprehensive survey of animal and plant life on Earth.

- He is the only person to have won BAFTA Awards for programmes in each of black and white, colour, HD, 3D and 4K. He is considered a national treasure in Britain and he is the most known TV presenter on the planet.

HIS FAMILY- Attenborough was born in Isleworth,

West London, but grew up in College House on the campus of the University College, Leicester, where his father, Frederick, was principal.

- He is the middle of three sons and the only surviving child among them.

- During World War II, through a British volunteer network known as the Refugee Children's Movement, his parents also fostered two Jewish refugee girls from Europe.

EARLY INSPIRATION In 1936 David and his brother Richard attended a lecture by Grey Owl and were influenced by his advocacy of conservation.

According to Richard, David was "bowled over by the man's determination to save the beaver, by his profound knowledge of the flora and fauna of the Canadian wilderness and by his warnings of ecological disaster should the delicate balance between them be destroyed.

The idea that mankind was endangering nature by recklessly despoiling and plundering its riches was unheard of at the time, but it is one that has remained part of Dave's own credo to this day."

HIS LIFEAttenborough was educated in Leicester and won a scholarship to Cambridge in 1945. He studied geology and zoology, obtaining a degree in natural sciences.

In 1947, he was called up for national service in the Royal Navy where he spent two years.

In 1950 he married Jane Elizabeth Oriel; she died in 1997. The couple had two children, Robert and Susan.

Robert is a senior lecturer in bioanthropology in the Australian National University in Canberra. Susan is a former primary school headmistress.

70 YEARS OF TELEVISIONDavid Attenborough's most influential work, 1979's Life on Earth, launched a strand of nine authored documentaries with the BBC Natural History Unit which shared the Life strand name and spanned 30 years.

He narrated every episode of the long-running BBC series Wildlife on One and in his later career has voiced several high-profile BBC wildlife documentaries, among them The Blue Planet and Planet Earth.

He became a pioneer in the 3D documentary format with Flying Monsters in 2010.

HIS BOOKS

David Attenborough's work as an author has strong parallels with his broadcasting career.

In the 1950s and 1960s, his published work included accounts of his animal collecting expeditions around the world, which became the Zoo Quest series. He wrote an accompanying volume to each of his nine Life documentaries.

His autobiography, Life on Air, was published in 2002.

Attenborough has also contributed forewords and introductions to many other works, notably those accompanying Planet Earth, Frozen Planet, Africa and other BBC series he has narrated.

SPECIES NAMED IN HIS HONOUR

At least 15 species, both living and extinct, have been named in Attenborough's honour. Plants named after him include an alpine

Arthropods named after Attenborough include a butterfly, Attenborough's black-eyed satyr, a dragonfly, Attenborough's pintail, the millimetre-long goblin spider, an Indonesian flightless weevil, and a Madagascan ghost shrimp.

Vertebrates have also been named after Attenborough, including the Namibian lizard, the bird Polioptila, a Peruvian frog and one of only four species of long-beaked echidna.

hawkweed, a species of Ecuadorian flowering tree, one of the world's largest-pitchered carnivorous plants, along with a genus of flowering plants.

STATE OF THE PLANET 2000

His closing message from State of the Planet (2000) was forthright:

The future of life on earth depends on our ability to take action. Many individuals are doing what they can, but real success can only come if there's a change in our societies and our economics and in our politics. I've been lucky in my lifetime to see some of the greatest spectacles that the natural world has to offer. Surely we have a responsibility to leave for future generations a planet that is healthy, inhabitable by all species.

LIFE OF MAMMALS 2002His closing message from The Life of Mammals (2002) adopted the topic of human population:

Three and a half million years separate the individual who left these footprints in the sands of Africa from the one who left them on the moon. A mere blink in the eye of evolution. Using his burgeoning intelligence, this most successful of all mammals has exploited the environment to produce food for an ever-increasing population. In spite of disasters when civilisations have over-reached themselves, that process has continued, indeed accelerated, even today. Now mankind is looking for food, not just on this planet but on others. Perhaps the time has now come to put that process into reverse. Instead of controlling the environment for the benefit of the population, perhaps it's time we control the population to allow the survival of the environment."

ABOUT THE AMERICANSIn a 2005 interview with BBC Wildlife magazine, Attenborough said he considered George W. Bush to be the era's top "environmental villain".

I don't think whole populations are villainous, but Americans are just extraordinarily unaware of all kinds of things. If you live in the middle of that vast continent, with apparently everything your heart could wish for just because you were born there, then why worry? If people lose knowledge, sympathy and understanding of the natural world, they're going to mistreat it and will not ask their politicians to care for it.

POPULATION MATTERS 2009In 2009, on becoming patron of UK population concern charity, Population Matters, he commented:

The growth in human numbers is frightening. I've seen wildlife under mounting human pressure all over the world, and it's not just from human economy or technology. Behind every threat is the frightening explosion in human numbers. I've never seen a problem that wouldn't be easier to solve with fewer people – or harder, and ultimately impossible, with more.

CAN WE SAVE PLANET EARTH? 2006He has written and spoken publicly about the fact that he believes the Earth's climate is warming. He summed up his thoughts in his 2006 documentary "Can We Save Planet Earth?" as follows:

In the past, we didn't understand the effect of our actions. Unknowingly, we sowed the wind and now, literally, we are reaping the whirlwind. But we no longer have that excuse: now we do recognise the consequences of our behaviour. Now surely, we must act to reform it — individually and collectively, nationally and internationally — or we doom future generations to catastrophe.

ABOUT OVERPOPULATION 2013When David Attenborough began his career, in 1950, Earth's human population was measured at just 2.5 billion people ... in 2012 he said:“We cannot continue to deny the problem. People have pushed aside the question of population sustainability and not considered it because it is too awkward, embarrassing and difficult. But we have to talk about it.″

In January 2013, while being interviewed by Radio Times, he said:“We are a plague on the Earth. It’s coming home to roost over the next 50 years or so. It’s not just climate change; it’s sheer space, places to grow food for this enormous horde. Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us, and the natural world is doing it for us right now.”

ABOUT FAMINE 2013In a Daily Telegraph interview in September 2013 he said:

"What are all these famines in Ethiopia? What are they about? They're about too many people for too little land. That's what it's about. And we are blinding ourselves. We say, get the United Nations to send them bags of flour. That's barmy."

OBAMA INTERVIEW 2015In May 2015, US President Barack Obama interviewed Attenborough at the White House in Washington D.C.

Together, they discussed the future of the planet, their passion for nature and what measures can be taken to protect the environment.

CURRENT PROJECTS

On radio, Attenborough has continued as one of the presenters of BBC Radio 4's "Tweet of the Day", which began a second series in September 2014.

In 2017, the BBC announced a sequel to The Blue Planet had been commissioned, with Attenborough returning as presenter.

SOME OF HIS TITLES

Member of the Order of Merit

Companion of Honour

Commander of the Royal Victorian Order

Commander of the Order of the British Empire

Fellow of the Royal Society

Fellow of the Linnean Society of London

Fellow of Zoological Society of London

Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries