A LIFE ON OUR PLANET

I was invited to a virtual event last Sunday by WWK-UK to hear from Sir David Attenborough about his new film on Netflix.

 A Life on our Planet is a feature-length documentary which tells the story of life on Earth and the ecological changes of the last century, many of which have been filmed and orated by this influential 94-year-old  commentator.

It is what he describes as his “witness statement”, as a conservationist who has visited every continent and made countless hours of TV programmes about the planet. A Life on Our Planet explores how natural habitats have changed and how we can save them.

Attenborough said he has had an “extraordinary life”, but “we are replacing the wild with the tame.”

It is quite an extraordinary message – a witness statement from a single individual who recently reached a record 1 million followers on the social media platform Instagram!

Will the message resonate I wonder? Geological time versus an individual’s lifetime – can it light humanities “blue behavioural touch paper” and transform our consumerist lifestyles?

Another extraordinary feature of the film is that it starts in Chernobyl where there are still no humans living there following the massive explosion which released  radioactive Caesium around the globe. Yet, there is an abundance of other forms of life , but an eerie silence, no birdsong and a  haunted feeling about its former inhabitants – with school notebooks left on the floors of empty schools. It represents a world of nature without Humans.

The documentary, created with Silverback Films and environmental organisation WWF, looks at some of the biggest challenges our planet is facing today, while also offering a message of hope and solutions into what can be done to stop this trend of destruction.

 Attenborough advocates that “Saving our planet is no longer a technological problem, it’s a communications challenge.” I agree.

The film does not just focus on the negative but tries to show how things can improve if humans do things such as rewilding areas and using renewable energy. As with any Attenborough documentary, the film features stunning scenery and wildlife footage from around the world, but also devastating shots such as large chunks of polar ice melting and all-encompassing pollution.

The film makes suggestions on how we can reverse the planet’s decline, such as with the use of renewable energy.

Film director Jonnie Hughes said of Attenborough:  “He has witnessed a serious decline in the living world over his lifetime (he began filming in 1954!). He has seen the rainforests retreating and the grasslands emptying and has searched ever harder for species hanging out in hidden corners of the world.”

He added: “He is dedicated to lending his considerable profile to efforts to halt and then reverse this decline, and he’s in a good place to do so.”