The first true blockbuster wildlife television series, Life on Earth, was broadcast on the BBC in 1979. Across 13 episodes, David Attenborough sought to explain the origins of life on our planet and how that has left us with the species that exist today.
The five-part series focuses on a different force of nature each episode, exploring how each has played its part in shaping and supporting wildlife around the globe. Episodes 1-4 cover volcanoes, sunlight, weather and oceans, while the final episode explores a new force: humanity.
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Sir David Frederick Attenborough (/ˈætənbərə/; born 8 May 1926) is an English broadcaster, biologist, natural historian and author. He is best known for writing and presenting, in conjunction with the BBC Natural History Unit, the nine natural history documentary series forming the Life collection, a comprehensive survey of animal and plant life on Earth.
Attenborough was a senior manager at the BBC, having served as controller of BBC Two and director of programming for BBC Television in the 1960s and 1970s. First becoming prominent as host of Zoo Quest in 1954, his filmography as writer, presenter and narrator has spanned eight decades; it includes Natural World, Wildlife on One, the Planet Earth franchise, The Blue Planet and its sequel. He is the only person to have won BAFTA Awards in black and white, colour, high-definition, 3D and 4K resolutions. Over his life he has collected dozens of honorary degrees and awards, including 3 Emmy Awards for Outstanding Narration.
After leaving the Navy, Attenborough took a position editing children's science textbooks for a publishing company. He soon became disillusioned with the work and in 1950 applied for a job as a radio talk producer with the BBC.[25] Although he was rejected for this job, his CV later attracted the interest of Mary Adams, head of the Talks (factual broadcasting) department of the BBC's fledgling television service.[26] Attenborough, like most Britons at that time, did not own a television, and he had seen only one programme in his life.[27]
Beginning with Life on Earth in 1979, Attenborough set about creating a body of work which became a benchmark of quality in wildlife film-making, and influenced a generation of documentary film-makers. The series established many of the hallmarks of the BBC's natural history output. By treating his subject seriously and researching the latest discoveries, Attenborough and his production team gained the trust of scientists, who responded by allowing him to feature their subjects in his programmes.[49]
Five years after the success of Life on Earth, the BBC released The Living Planet.[51] This time, Attenborough built his series around the theme of ecology, the adaptations of living things to their environment. It was another critical and commercial success, generating huge international sales for the BBC. In 1990, The Trials of Life completed the original Life trilogy, looking at animal behaviour through the different stages of life.[52]
Attenborough narrated every episode of Wildlife on One, a BBC One wildlife series that ran for 253 episodes between 1977 and 2005. At its peak, it drew a weekly audience of eight to ten million, and the 1987 episode "Meerkats United" was voted the best wildlife documentary of all time by BBC viewers.[60] He has narrated over 50 episodes of Natural World, BBC Two's flagship wildlife series. Its forerunner, The World About Us, was created by Attenborough in 1969, as a vehicle for colour television.[61] In 1997, he narrated the BBC Wildlife Specials, each focussing on a charismatic species, and screened to mark the Natural History Unit's 40th anniversary.[62]
As a writer and narrator, Attenborough continued to collaborate with the BBC Natural History Unit in the new millennium. Alastair Fothergill, a senior producer with whom Attenborough had worked on The Trials of Life and Life in the Freezer, was making The Blue Planet (2001), the Unit's first comprehensive series on marine life.[63] He decided not to use an on-screen presenter due to difficulties in speaking to a camera through diving apparatus, but asked Attenborough to narrate the films. The same team reunited for Planet Earth (2006), the biggest nature documentary ever made for television and the first BBC wildlife series to be shot in high definition.[64]
Attenborough was a key figure in the build-up to the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), and gave a speech at the opening ceremony.[100] In his speech he stated that humans were "the greatest problem solvers to have ever existed on Earth" and spoke of his optimism for the future, finishing by saying "In my lifetime I've witnessed a terrible decline. In yours, you could and should witness a wonderful recovery."[101]
Attenborough's programmes have often included references to the impact of human society on the natural world. The last episode of The Living Planet, for example, focuses almost entirely on humans' destruction of the environment and ways that it could be stopped or reversed. Despite this, he has been criticised for not giving enough prominence to environmental messages. In 2018 while promoting Dynasties, he said that repeated messages on threats to wildlife in programming could be a "turn-off" to viewers.[104]
In 2005 and 2006, Attenborough backed a BirdLife International project to stop the killing of albatross by longline fishing boats.[115] He gave support to WWF's campaign to have 220,000 square kilometres of Borneo's rainforest designated a protected area.[116] He serves as a vice-president of The Conservation Volunteers,[117] vice-president of Fauna and Flora International,[118] president of Butterfly Conservation[119] and president emeritus of Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust.[120]
In 2003, he launched an appeal on behalf of the World Land Trust to create a rainforest reserve in Ecuador in memory of Christopher Parsons, the producer of Life on Earth and a personal friend, who had died the previous year.[121] The same year, he helped to launch ARKive,[122] a global project instigated by Parsons to gather together natural history media into a digital library. ARKive is an initiative of Wildscreen, of which Attenborough is a patron.[123] He later became patron of the World Land Trust. In 2020, he backed a Fauna and Flora International campaign calling for a global moratorium on deep sea mining for its impact on marine life.[124]
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Attenborough advocated on behalf of the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and its conservation efforts, which have been impacted by the economic fallout from the pandemic.[125] In 2020, Attenborough was named as a member of the Earthshot prize Council,[126] an initiative of Prince William to find solutions to environmental issues.[127][128] He is a patron of the Friends of Richmond Park and serves on the advisory board of BBC Wildlife magazine.[129]
He has explained that he feels the evidence all over the planet clearly shows evolution to be the best way to explain the diversity of life, and that "as far as [he's] concerned, if there is a supreme being then he chose organic evolution as a way of bringing into existence the natural world". In a BBC Four interview with Mark Lawson, he was asked if he at any time had any religious faith. He replied simply, "no".[151] He said "It never really occurred to me to believe in God".[152]
Attenborough is a lifelong supporter of the BBC, public service broadcasting and the television licence. He has said that public service broadcasting "is one of the things that distinguishes this country and makes me want to live here",[158] and believes that it is not reducible to individual programmes, but "can only effectively operate as a network [...] that measures its success not only by its audience size but by the range of its schedule".[159]
Attenborough's contribution to broadcasting and wildlife film-making has brought him international recognition. He has been called "the great communicator, the peerless educator"[170] and "the greatest broadcaster of our time."[155] His programmes are often cited as an example of what public service broadcasting should be, even by critics of the BBC, and have influenced a generation of wildlife film-makers.[171]
Attenborough has been featured as the subject of a number of BBC television programmes. Life on Air (2002) examined the legacy of his work, and Attenborough the Controller (2002) focused on his time in charge of BBC Two. He was also featured prominently in The Way We Went Wild (2004), a series about natural history television presenters, and 100 Years of Wildlife Films (2007), a programme marking the centenary of the nature documentary. In 2006, British television viewers were asked to vote for their Favourite Attenborough Moments for a UKTV poll to coincide with the broadcaster's 80th birthday. The winning clip showed Attenborough observing the mimicry skills of the superb lyrebird.[188]
David Attenborough's television credits span eight decades. His association with natural history programmes dates back to The Pattern of Animals and Zoo Quest in the early 1950s. His 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.[273] He narrated every episode of the long-running BBC series Wildlife on One. In his later career he 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.[274]
Sir David Frederick Attenborough (/ˈætənbərə/; born 8 May 1926) is an English broadcaster and natural historian. He is best known for writing and presenting, in conjunction with the BBC Natural History Unit, the nine natural history documentary series forming the Life collection that together constitute a comprehensive survey of animal and plant life on Earth. He is a former senior manager at the BBC, having served as controller of BBC Two and director of programming for BBC Television in the 1960s and 1970s. He is the only person to have won BAFTAs for programmes in each of black and white, colour, HD, 3D and 4K.[ In 2018 and 2019, he received Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Narrator. He considers his 2020 documentary film, David Attenborough: A Life On Our Planet, his personal witness statement of his life and the future. 2ff7e9595c
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