By: Katie Anderholm Sub-edited by Teo Falchetta
Over the course of our Earth’s four-billion-year lifespan, we have experienced five mass extinctions. It is no small feat that our current society is years ahead of schedule for the next one.
David Attenborough recounts his life’s work in the documentary A Life on Our Planet, in an effort to bring awareness to society’s impact on the remaining wilderness. To set the mood for a look into humanity’s destruction of nature, Attenborough began in Pripyat, Ukraine and showed the abandoned city resulting from the nuclear devastation at Chernobyl. He proceeded to delineate his lifelong career of exploring the wilderness and acquainting his audience with wildlife that was previously unknown to the masses.
Throughout the film statistics showed the increase in population and carbon emission outputs, with their correlation to the decrease in remaining wilderness. Attenborough travelled to 39 countries and covered 1.5 million miles in pursuit of wildlife for his film, concluding that animals were becoming harder to pinpoint. With footage acknowledging the decline in wildlife, he recognized in A Life on Our Planet, “We have pursued animals to extinction many times in our history, but now that it was visible, it was no longer acceptable.”
Embed from Getty ImagesWith society’s attention now shifted, Attenborough advised for the restoration of stability to our planet. In an attempt to educate people about the welfare of animals, Attenborough’s use of digital mapping showed the depletion of rainforests, and his macabre films of inhumane whaling practices fuelled emotional outrage. He emphasized greatly that, “To restore stability to our planet, we must restore its biodiversity.”
Attenborough’s “if not me, then who?” attitude when questioned at the IMF Spring Meeting in 2019 exemplified his advocacy mission. A Life on Our Planet takes viewers on a journey through Attenborough’s personal experiences to provoke emotions about essential issues. This approach was both informative and fear-inducing, which helped illuminate the severity of the destruction of the remaining wilderness on Earth.
Embed from Getty ImagesDavid Attenborough has curated a collection of impactful films throughout his career that encapsulate his life’s mission to defend the wild. As I watched A Life on Our Planet, his passion for advocacy transcended through the screen. His call to action, paired with conceivable solutions, was able to change the tune of the film from helplessness to hope. I aspire to replicate his approach in my career by not just bringing attention to issues but also providing viable solutions to help mediate them.