WEBVTT FILE 1 00:00:02.000 --> 00:00:07.000 Downloaded from YTS.MX 2 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:13.000 Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX 3 00:01:12.489 --> 00:01:18.328 This city in Ukraine was once home to almost 50,000 people. 4 00:01:18.912 --> 00:01:23.041 It had everything a community would need for a comfortable life. 5 00:01:24.209 --> 00:01:26.628 [indistinct chatter] 6 00:01:26.711 --> 00:01:32.383 But on the 26th of April, 1986, it suddenly became uninhabitable. 7 00:01:34.385 --> 00:01:38.681 The nearby nuclear power station of Chernobyl exploded. 8 00:01:38.765 --> 00:01:41.643 [helicopter hovering] 9 00:01:42.644 --> 00:01:47.273 And in less than 48 hours, the city was evacuated. 10 00:01:50.777 --> 00:01:52.987 No one has lived here since. 11 00:02:03.832 --> 00:02:10.213 The explosion was a result of bad planning and human error. Mistakes. 12 00:02:11.381 --> 00:02:17.053 It triggered an environmental catastrophe that had an impact across Europe. 13 00:02:17.971 --> 00:02:23.476 Many people regarded it as the most costly in the history of mankind. 14 00:02:25.603 --> 00:02:28.940 But Chernobyl was a single event. 15 00:02:29.732 --> 00:02:34.112 The true tragedy of our time is still unfolding across the globe, 16 00:02:34.195 --> 00:02:36.489 barely noticeable from day to day. 17 00:02:37.323 --> 00:02:41.161 I'm talking about the loss of our planet's wild places, 18 00:02:41.244 --> 00:02:43.162 its biodiversity. 19 00:02:50.420 --> 00:02:54.340 The living world is a unique and spectacular marvel. 20 00:02:55.884 --> 00:03:00.513 Billions of individuals, and millions of kinds of plants and animals... 21 00:03:00.597 --> 00:03:01.472 [birds chirping] 22 00:03:01.556 --> 00:03:04.475 ...dazzling in their variety and richness. 23 00:03:06.603 --> 00:03:10.523 Working together to benefit from the energy of the sun 24 00:03:11.024 --> 00:03:13.151 and the minerals of the earth. 25 00:03:15.278 --> 00:03:20.700 Leading lives that interlock in such a way that they sustain each other. 26 00:03:22.785 --> 00:03:28.166 We rely entirely on this finely tuned life-support machine. 27 00:03:29.626 --> 00:03:34.464 And it relies on its biodiversity to run smoothly. 28 00:03:39.719 --> 00:03:46.392 Yet the way we humans live on Earth now is sending biodiversity into a decline. 29 00:03:46.476 --> 00:03:48.895 [leaves rustling] 30 00:03:51.940 --> 00:03:56.402 This too is happening as a result of bad planning and human error 31 00:03:57.278 --> 00:04:01.157 and it too will lead to what we see here. 32 00:04:04.410 --> 00:04:07.872 A place in which we cannot live. 33 00:04:12.585 --> 00:04:14.337 The natural world is fading. 34 00:04:14.420 --> 00:04:18.257 The evidence is all around. It's happened in my lifetime. 35 00:04:18.341 --> 00:04:20.551 I've seen it with my own eyes. 36 00:04:21.219 --> 00:04:25.890 This film is my witness statement and my vision for the future, 37 00:04:26.557 --> 00:04:30.270 the story of how we came to make this our greatest mistake, 38 00:04:30.353 --> 00:04:34.774 and how, if we act now, we can yet put it right. 39 00:04:52.417 --> 00:04:57.046 I am David Attenborough, and I am 93. 40 00:04:57.964 --> 00:05:00.550 I've had the most extraordinary life. 41 00:05:01.342 --> 00:05:05.096 It's only now that I appreciate how extraordinary. 42 00:05:06.055 --> 00:05:08.349 [speaking indistinctly] 43 00:05:11.144 --> 00:05:13.104 [Attenborough] I've been lucky enough to spend my life 44 00:05:13.187 --> 00:05:15.606 exploring the wild places of our planet. 45 00:05:18.735 --> 00:05:21.237 I've traveled to every part of the globe. 46 00:05:28.077 --> 00:05:33.916 I've experienced the living world firsthand in all its variety and wonder. 47 00:05:36.836 --> 00:05:41.132 In truth, I couldn't imagine living my life in any other way. 48 00:05:44.594 --> 00:05:49.640 I've always had a passion to explore, to have adventures, 49 00:05:50.141 --> 00:05:52.769 to learn about the wilds beyond. 50 00:05:52.852 --> 00:05:54.395 [exclaiming in surprise] 51 00:05:54.479 --> 00:05:55.730 And I'm still learning. 52 00:05:56.689 --> 00:05:57.690 Boo! 53 00:05:57.774 --> 00:06:01.277 As much now as I did when I was a boy. 54 00:06:02.403 --> 00:06:04.113 [birds chirping] 55 00:06:18.878 --> 00:06:21.172 It was a very different world back then. 56 00:06:22.715 --> 00:06:27.345 We had very little understanding of how the living world actually worked. 57 00:06:30.139 --> 00:06:32.767 It was called natural history 58 00:06:32.850 --> 00:06:35.728 because that's essentially what it was all about... 59 00:06:37.188 --> 00:06:38.439 history. 60 00:06:42.276 --> 00:06:44.362 It was a great place to come to as a boy, 61 00:06:44.445 --> 00:06:49.742 because this is, um, ironstone workings, but it was disused. 62 00:06:49.826 --> 00:06:51.828 All this was absolutely clear, it was... 63 00:06:51.911 --> 00:06:53.996 only just stopped being a working quarry. 64 00:07:07.718 --> 00:07:11.430 When I was a boy, I spent all my spare time 65 00:07:11.514 --> 00:07:14.183 searching through rocks in places like this... 66 00:07:15.601 --> 00:07:17.019 for buried treasure. 67 00:07:20.273 --> 00:07:21.107 Fossils. 68 00:07:22.859 --> 00:07:25.111 It's a creature called an ammonite. 69 00:07:25.194 --> 00:07:28.489 And in life the animal itself lived in the chamber here 70 00:07:28.573 --> 00:07:31.659 and spread out its tentacles to catch its prey. 71 00:07:33.286 --> 00:07:36.747 And it lived about 180 million years ago. 72 00:07:37.874 --> 00:07:42.462 This particular one has a scientific name of Tiltonicerus, 73 00:07:42.545 --> 00:07:46.132 because the first one ever was found near this quarry 74 00:07:46.215 --> 00:07:49.010 here in Tilton, in the middle of England. 75 00:07:50.428 --> 00:07:55.892 Over time, I began to learn something about the earth's evolutionary history. 76 00:07:56.767 --> 00:08:00.897 By and large, it's a story of slow, steady change. 77 00:08:03.566 --> 00:08:08.779 Over billions of years, nature has crafted miraculous forms, 78 00:08:08.863 --> 00:08:12.992 each more complex and accomplished than the last. 79 00:08:15.244 --> 00:08:18.706 It's an achingly intricate labor. 80 00:08:22.835 --> 00:08:26.297 And then, every hundred million years or so, 81 00:08:26.380 --> 00:08:29.675 after all those painstaking processes, 82 00:08:29.759 --> 00:08:34.847 something catastrophic happens, a mass extinction. 83 00:08:35.932 --> 00:08:41.562 Great numbers of species disappear and are suddenly replaced by a few. 84 00:08:43.648 --> 00:08:45.942 All that evolution undone. 85 00:08:48.027 --> 00:08:51.572 You can see it. A line in the rock layers. 86 00:08:51.656 --> 00:08:56.410 A boundary that marks a profound, rapid, global change. 87 00:08:57.161 --> 00:09:00.873 Below the line are a multitude of lifeforms. 88 00:09:02.416 --> 00:09:04.418 Above, very few. 89 00:09:07.505 --> 00:09:13.219 A mass extinction has happened five times in life's four-billion-year history. 90 00:09:15.805 --> 00:09:17.265 The last time it happened 91 00:09:17.348 --> 00:09:21.727 was the event that brought the end of the age of the dinosaurs. 92 00:09:22.979 --> 00:09:26.607 A meteorite impact triggered a catastrophic change 93 00:09:26.691 --> 00:09:28.818 in the earth's conditions. 94 00:09:31.529 --> 00:09:35.908 75% of all species were wiped out. 95 00:09:38.911 --> 00:09:42.832 Life had no option but to rebuild. 96 00:09:44.625 --> 00:09:50.214 For 65 million years, it's been at work reconstructing the living world... 97 00:09:52.133 --> 00:09:57.555 until we come to the world we know... our time. 98 00:10:05.396 --> 00:10:08.774 Scientists call it the Holocene. 99 00:10:14.280 --> 00:10:17.617 The Holocene has been one of the most stable periods 100 00:10:17.700 --> 00:10:19.827 in our planet's great history. 101 00:10:19.910 --> 00:10:22.163 [birds chirping] 102 00:10:22.246 --> 00:10:27.627 For 10,000 years, the average temperature has not wavered up or down 103 00:10:27.710 --> 00:10:29.920 by more than one degree Celsius. 104 00:10:33.924 --> 00:10:37.386 And the rich and thriving living world around us 105 00:10:37.970 --> 00:10:40.514 has been key to this stability. 106 00:10:44.685 --> 00:10:51.108 Phytoplankton at the ocean's surface and immense forests straddling the north 107 00:10:51.192 --> 00:10:56.238 have helped to balance the atmosphere by locking away carbon. 108 00:10:59.158 --> 00:11:00.993 Huge herds on the plains 109 00:11:01.077 --> 00:11:06.248 have kept the grasslands rich and productive by fertilizing the soils. 110 00:11:12.171 --> 00:11:15.966 Mangroves and coral reefs along thousands of miles of coast 111 00:11:16.550 --> 00:11:19.053 have harbored nurseries of fish species 112 00:11:19.136 --> 00:11:23.766 that, when mature, then range into open waters. 113 00:11:30.398 --> 00:11:35.361 A thick belt of jungles around the equator has piled plant on plant 114 00:11:35.444 --> 00:11:38.656 to capture as much of the sun's energy as possible, 115 00:11:39.240 --> 00:11:42.993 adding moisture and oxygen to the global air currents. 116 00:11:47.331 --> 00:11:50.376 And the extent of the polar ice has been critical, 117 00:11:50.459 --> 00:11:53.629 reflecting sunlight back off its white surface, 118 00:11:54.338 --> 00:11:56.298 cooling the whole earth. 119 00:12:00.261 --> 00:12:05.015 The biodiversity of the Holocene helped to bring stability, 120 00:12:06.142 --> 00:12:12.606 and the entire living world settled into a gentle, reliable rhythm... 121 00:12:13.941 --> 00:12:15.443 the seasons. 122 00:12:15.526 --> 00:12:16.444 [thunder rumbling] 123 00:12:16.527 --> 00:12:18.070 [lowing] 124 00:12:23.200 --> 00:12:24.660 On the tropical plains, 125 00:12:24.743 --> 00:12:29.957 the dry and rainy seasons would switch every year like clockwork. 126 00:12:33.711 --> 00:12:38.340 In Asia, the winds would create the monsoon on cue. 127 00:12:38.424 --> 00:12:40.217 [thunder rumbling] 128 00:12:46.223 --> 00:12:51.604 In the northern regions, the temperatures would lift in March, triggering spring, 129 00:12:52.771 --> 00:12:57.902 and stay high until they dipped in October and brought about autumn. 130 00:12:57.985 --> 00:12:59.737 [birds chirping and chattering] 131 00:13:02.156 --> 00:13:05.868 The Holocene was our Garden of Eden. 132 00:13:05.951 --> 00:13:08.621 Its rhythm of seasons was so reliable 133 00:13:08.704 --> 00:13:12.374 that it gave our own species a unique opportunity. 134 00:13:12.458 --> 00:13:15.002 [mooing] 135 00:13:15.085 --> 00:13:17.713 We invented farming. 136 00:13:20.633 --> 00:13:25.554 We learnt how to exploit the seasons to produce food crops. 137 00:13:27.431 --> 00:13:31.477 The history of all human civilization followed. 138 00:13:33.395 --> 00:13:37.107 Each generation able to develop and progress 139 00:13:37.191 --> 00:13:40.694 only because the living world could be relied upon 140 00:13:40.778 --> 00:13:43.239 to deliver us the conditions we needed. 141 00:13:46.575 --> 00:13:51.664 The pace of progress was unlike anything to be found in the fossil record. 142 00:13:54.917 --> 00:13:59.463 Our intelligence changed the way in which we evolved. 143 00:14:00.256 --> 00:14:01.549 In the past, 144 00:14:01.632 --> 00:14:07.721 animals had to develop some physical ability to change their lives. 145 00:14:08.514 --> 00:14:11.809 But for us, an idea could do that. 146 00:14:11.892 --> 00:14:15.938 And the idea could be passed from one generation to the next. 147 00:14:18.524 --> 00:14:22.069 We were transforming what a species could achieve. 148 00:14:26.323 --> 00:14:32.580 A few millennia after this began, I grew up at exactly the right moment. 149 00:14:35.040 --> 00:14:37.793 The start of my career in my 20s 150 00:14:37.877 --> 00:14:41.964 coincided with the advent of global air travel. 151 00:14:43.507 --> 00:14:46.969 So, I had the privilege of being amongst the first 152 00:14:47.052 --> 00:14:51.223 to fully experience the bounty of life that had come about 153 00:14:51.307 --> 00:14:53.892 as a result of the Holocene's gentle climate. 154 00:15:14.079 --> 00:15:17.541 Wherever I went, there was wilderness. 155 00:15:18.459 --> 00:15:20.794 Sparkling coastal seas. 156 00:15:21.920 --> 00:15:23.547 Vast forests. 157 00:15:25.132 --> 00:15:27.134 Immense grasslands. 158 00:15:27.217 --> 00:15:31.180 You could fly for hours over the untouched wilderness. 159 00:15:33.933 --> 00:15:38.395 And there I was, actually being asked to explore these places 160 00:15:38.479 --> 00:15:42.107 and record the wonders of the natural world for people back home. 161 00:15:44.234 --> 00:15:45.736 And to begin with, it was quite easy. 162 00:15:45.819 --> 00:15:48.238 People had never seen pangolins before on television. 163 00:15:48.322 --> 00:15:50.032 They'd never seen sloths before. 164 00:15:50.115 --> 00:15:52.326 They had never seen the center of New Guinea before. 165 00:15:58.123 --> 00:16:00.376 It was the best time of my life. 166 00:16:01.627 --> 00:16:04.505 The best time of our lives. 167 00:16:05.214 --> 00:16:09.426 The Second World War was over, technology was making our lives easier. 168 00:16:11.971 --> 00:16:15.724 The pace of change was getting faster and faster. 169 00:16:16.475 --> 00:16:18.477 [indistinct chatter] 170 00:16:21.480 --> 00:16:24.650 [Attenborough] It felt that nothing would limit our progress. 171 00:16:25.693 --> 00:16:28.779 The future was going to be exciting. 172 00:16:28.862 --> 00:16:31.824 It was going to bring everything we had ever dreamed of. 173 00:16:34.910 --> 00:16:39.289 This was before any of us were aware that there were problems. 174 00:16:52.886 --> 00:16:57.391 My first visit to East Africa was in 1960. 175 00:17:01.687 --> 00:17:06.900 Back then, it seemed inconceivable that we, a single species, 176 00:17:06.984 --> 00:17:12.489 might one day have the power to threaten the very existence of the wilderness. 177 00:17:16.076 --> 00:17:20.664 The Maasai word "Serengeti" means "endless plains." 178 00:17:21.290 --> 00:17:24.001 To those who live here, it's an apt description. 179 00:17:24.084 --> 00:17:26.754 You can be in one spot on the Serengeti, 180 00:17:26.837 --> 00:17:29.506 and the place is totally empty of animals, 181 00:17:29.590 --> 00:17:31.050 and then, the next morning... 182 00:17:31.133 --> 00:17:32.593 [bellowing] 183 00:17:32.676 --> 00:17:34.720 ...one million wildebeest. 184 00:17:34.803 --> 00:17:37.890 [bellowing] 185 00:17:41.185 --> 00:17:43.437 A quarter of a million zebra. 186 00:17:43.520 --> 00:17:46.023 [snorting] 187 00:17:48.150 --> 00:17:49.943 Half a million gazelle. 188 00:17:53.030 --> 00:17:54.656 A few days after that... 189 00:17:55.991 --> 00:17:59.328 and they're gone... over the horizon. 190 00:17:59.411 --> 00:18:03.499 You can be forgiven for thinking that these plains are endless 191 00:18:04.082 --> 00:18:06.293 when they could swallow up such a herd. 192 00:18:07.377 --> 00:18:08.962 It took a visionary scientist, 193 00:18:09.046 --> 00:18:12.716 Bernhard Grzimek, to explain that this wasn't true. 194 00:18:16.011 --> 00:18:21.433 He and his son used a plane to follow the herds over the horizon. 195 00:18:22.059 --> 00:18:24.436 [grunting] 196 00:18:31.610 --> 00:18:34.530 They charted them as they moved across rivers, 197 00:18:34.613 --> 00:18:37.783 through woodlands, and over national borders. 198 00:18:39.952 --> 00:18:42.371 They discovered that the Serengeti herds 199 00:18:42.454 --> 00:18:47.376 required an enormous area of healthy grassland to function. 200 00:18:48.627 --> 00:18:52.965 That without such an immense space, the herds would diminish 201 00:18:53.048 --> 00:18:57.010 and the entire ecosystem would come crashing down. 202 00:18:58.804 --> 00:19:03.016 The point for me was simple: the wild is far from unlimited. 203 00:19:03.100 --> 00:19:06.019 It's finite. It needs protecting. 204 00:19:06.520 --> 00:19:10.149 And a few years later, that idea became obvious to everyone. 205 00:19:10.941 --> 00:19:16.488 [NASA technician] Five, four, three, two one, zero. 206 00:19:18.448 --> 00:19:23.162 [Attenborough] I was in a television studio when the Apollo mission launched. 207 00:19:27.249 --> 00:19:28.625 It was the first time 208 00:19:28.709 --> 00:19:32.421 that any human had moved away far enough from the earth 209 00:19:32.504 --> 00:19:34.339 to see the whole planet. 210 00:19:35.716 --> 00:19:37.843 And this is what they saw... 211 00:19:40.554 --> 00:19:42.514 what we all saw. 212 00:19:43.932 --> 00:19:48.854 Our planet, vulnerable and isolated. 213 00:19:54.902 --> 00:19:59.489 One of the extraordinary things about it was that the world 214 00:19:59.573 --> 00:20:02.326 could actually watch it as it happened. 215 00:20:02.910 --> 00:20:09.041 It was extraordinary that you could see what a man out in space could see 216 00:20:09.124 --> 00:20:11.210 as he saw it at the same time. 217 00:20:12.628 --> 00:20:16.840 And I remember very well that first shot. 218 00:20:17.341 --> 00:20:20.093 You saw a blue marble, 219 00:20:20.177 --> 00:20:26.642 a blue sphere in the blackness, and you realized that that was the earth. 220 00:20:27.142 --> 00:20:31.104 And in that one shot, there was the whole of humanity with nothing else 221 00:20:31.188 --> 00:20:35.734 except the person that was in the spacecraft taking that picture. 222 00:20:36.735 --> 00:20:41.531 And that completely changed the mindset of the population, 223 00:20:41.615 --> 00:20:43.242 the human population of the world. 224 00:20:46.870 --> 00:20:48.997 Our home was not limitless. 225 00:20:50.624 --> 00:20:53.252 There was an edge to our existence. 226 00:20:54.795 --> 00:20:59.049 It was a rediscovery of a fundamental truth. 227 00:21:00.259 --> 00:21:04.346 We are ultimately bound by and reliant upon 228 00:21:04.429 --> 00:21:07.641 the finite natural world about us. 229 00:21:09.559 --> 00:21:13.438 This truth defined the life we led in our pre-history, 230 00:21:13.522 --> 00:21:17.067 the time before farming and civilization. 231 00:21:17.651 --> 00:21:20.862 Even as some of us were setting foot on the moon, 232 00:21:20.946 --> 00:21:26.451 others were still leading such a life in the most remote parts of the planet. 233 00:21:34.042 --> 00:21:40.090 In 1971, I set out to find an uncontacted tribe in New Guinea. 234 00:21:43.719 --> 00:21:50.309 These people were hunter-gatherers, as all humankind had been before farming. 235 00:21:51.518 --> 00:21:53.812 [speaking tribal language] 236 00:21:53.895 --> 00:21:57.691 [Attenborough] They lived in small numbers and didn't take too much. 237 00:21:58.191 --> 00:22:02.029 [speaking tribal language] 238 00:22:02.112 --> 00:22:04.448 [Attenborough] They ate meat rarely. 239 00:22:05.365 --> 00:22:09.911 The resources they used naturally renewed themselves. 240 00:22:10.871 --> 00:22:15.542 Working with their traditional technology, they were living sustainably, 241 00:22:16.126 --> 00:22:20.005 a lifestyle that could continue effectively forever. 242 00:22:20.797 --> 00:22:23.467 [speaking native language] 243 00:22:23.550 --> 00:22:26.303 [Attenborough] It was a stark contrast to the world I knew. 244 00:22:27.471 --> 00:22:30.724 A world that demanded more every day. 245 00:22:40.734 --> 00:22:44.988 I spent the latter half of the 1970s traveling the world, 246 00:22:45.072 --> 00:22:49.409 making a series I had long dreamed of called Life on Earth, 247 00:22:50.577 --> 00:22:54.915 the story of the evolution of life and its diversity. 248 00:22:56.708 --> 00:22:59.002 It was shot in 39 countries. 249 00:23:00.295 --> 00:23:03.673 We filmed 650 species, 250 00:23:03.757 --> 00:23:07.177 and we traveled one and a half million miles. 251 00:23:07.844 --> 00:23:10.305 That's the sort of commitment you need 252 00:23:10.388 --> 00:23:14.309 if you want to even begin making a portrait of the living world. 253 00:23:16.103 --> 00:23:17.395 But it was noticeable 254 00:23:17.479 --> 00:23:20.649 that some of these animals were becoming harder to find. 255 00:23:36.748 --> 00:23:39.417 When I filmed with the mountain gorillas, 256 00:23:39.501 --> 00:23:44.506 there were only 300 left in a remote jungle in Central Africa. 257 00:23:46.007 --> 00:23:48.426 Baby gorillas were at a premium, 258 00:23:48.510 --> 00:23:51.721 and poachers would kill a dozen adults to get one. 259 00:23:53.473 --> 00:23:58.019 I got as close as I did only because the gorillas were used to people. 260 00:24:00.313 --> 00:24:05.110 The only way to keep them alive was for rangers to be with them every day. 261 00:24:11.366 --> 00:24:16.580 The process of extinction that I'd seen as a boy... in the rocks, 262 00:24:17.581 --> 00:24:21.835 I now became aware was happening right there around me 263 00:24:22.627 --> 00:24:25.046 to animals with which I was familiar. 264 00:24:26.840 --> 00:24:28.550 Our closest relatives. 265 00:24:32.095 --> 00:24:34.097 And we were responsible. 266 00:24:36.933 --> 00:24:39.477 It revealed a cold reality. 267 00:24:40.937 --> 00:24:43.064 Once a species became our target, 268 00:24:43.565 --> 00:24:47.068 there was now nowhere on earth that it could hide. 269 00:24:59.748 --> 00:25:06.296 Whales were being slaughtered by fleets of industrial whaling ships in the 1970s. 270 00:25:10.508 --> 00:25:13.678 The largest whales, the blues, 271 00:25:13.762 --> 00:25:16.389 numbered only a few thousand by then. 272 00:25:21.102 --> 00:25:23.730 They were virtually impossible to find. 273 00:25:26.858 --> 00:25:32.197 We found humpbacks off Hawaii only by listening out for their calls. 274 00:25:32.781 --> 00:25:35.116 A moment ago, we made this recording 275 00:25:35.200 --> 00:25:39.120 with an underwater microphone here in the Pacific near Hawaii. 276 00:25:39.204 --> 00:25:40.372 Just listen to this. 277 00:25:41.998 --> 00:25:45.794 [whales singing] 278 00:25:47.379 --> 00:25:49.381 [whales continue singing] 279 00:25:52.342 --> 00:25:56.304 Recordings like these revealed that the songs of the humpbacks 280 00:25:56.388 --> 00:25:58.515 are long and complex. 281 00:25:59.849 --> 00:26:03.728 Humpbacks living in the same area learn their songs from each other. 282 00:26:04.604 --> 00:26:10.277 And the songs have distinct themes and variations which evolve over time. 283 00:26:10.360 --> 00:26:13.238 [whales singing] 284 00:26:19.327 --> 00:26:21.997 Their mournful songs were the key 285 00:26:22.080 --> 00:26:24.958 to transforming people's opinions about them. 286 00:26:27.002 --> 00:26:28.628 [speaking Russian] 287 00:26:29.462 --> 00:26:32.215 [protester in English] Hello, Boctok. We are Canadian. 288 00:26:33.800 --> 00:26:35.593 [over megaphone] Please stop killing the whales. 289 00:26:38.138 --> 00:26:40.473 [Attenborough] Animals that had been viewed 290 00:26:40.557 --> 00:26:43.768 as little more than a source of oil and meat 291 00:26:43.852 --> 00:26:46.521 became personalities. 292 00:26:49.024 --> 00:26:51.526 [protester over megaphone] We are men and women, and we speak for children, 293 00:26:52.277 --> 00:26:56.489 and we're all saying, "Please stop killing the whales." 294 00:26:58.533 --> 00:27:02.871 We have pursued animals to extinction many times in our history, 295 00:27:03.747 --> 00:27:08.209 but now that it was visible, it was no longer acceptable. 296 00:27:16.176 --> 00:27:20.680 The killing of whales turned from a harvest to a crime. 297 00:27:22.599 --> 00:27:26.144 A powerful shared conscience had suddenly appeared. 298 00:27:27.145 --> 00:27:30.690 Nobody wanted animals to become extinct. 299 00:27:32.150 --> 00:27:35.028 People were coming to care for the natural world... 300 00:27:36.029 --> 00:27:39.657 as they were made aware of the natural world. 301 00:27:42.702 --> 00:27:47.290 And we now had the means to make people across the world aware. 302 00:27:47.957 --> 00:27:49.959 [theme music playing] 303 00:27:54.923 --> 00:28:00.720 [Attenborough] By the time Life on Earth aired in 1979, I had entered my 50s. 304 00:28:01.262 --> 00:28:04.349 There were twice the number of people on the planet 305 00:28:04.432 --> 00:28:06.684 as there were when I was born. 306 00:28:08.520 --> 00:28:14.692 You and I belong to the most widespread and dominant species of animal on earth. 307 00:28:14.776 --> 00:28:17.862 We're certainly the most numerous large animal. 308 00:28:17.946 --> 00:28:22.200 There are something like 4,000 million of us today, 309 00:28:22.283 --> 00:28:26.121 and we've reached this position with meteoric speed. 310 00:28:26.788 --> 00:28:30.542 It's all happened within the last 2,000 years or so. 311 00:28:30.625 --> 00:28:35.004 We seem to have broken loose from the restrictions 312 00:28:35.088 --> 00:28:39.008 that have governed the activities and numbers of other animals. 313 00:28:46.808 --> 00:28:48.560 [Attenborough] We had broken loose. 314 00:28:49.519 --> 00:28:53.189 We were apart from the rest of life on earth, 315 00:28:54.691 --> 00:28:57.193 living a different kind of life. 316 00:29:00.989 --> 00:29:03.783 Our predators had been eliminated. 317 00:29:06.453 --> 00:29:09.289 Most of our diseases were under control. 318 00:29:11.207 --> 00:29:14.753 We had worked out how to produce food to order. 319 00:29:17.130 --> 00:29:20.383 There was nothing left to restrict us. 320 00:29:21.176 --> 00:29:23.136 Nothing to stop us. 321 00:29:24.387 --> 00:29:26.431 Unless we stopped ourselves... 322 00:29:27.557 --> 00:29:32.187 we would keep consuming the earth until we had used it up. 323 00:29:35.106 --> 00:29:38.693 Saving individual species or even groups of species 324 00:29:38.776 --> 00:29:40.528 would not be enough. 325 00:29:40.612 --> 00:29:43.948 Whole habitats would soon start to disappear. 326 00:30:12.060 --> 00:30:18.107 I first witnessed the destruction of an entire habitat in Southeast Asia. 327 00:30:19.025 --> 00:30:24.197 In the 1950s, Borneo was three-quarters covered with rainforest. 328 00:30:24.781 --> 00:30:26.908 [young Attenborough] We heard a crashing in the branches ahead. 329 00:30:28.243 --> 00:30:30.912 And there, only a few yards away, 330 00:30:30.995 --> 00:30:35.875 we spotted a great furry red form swaying in the trees. 331 00:30:37.001 --> 00:30:38.169 The orangutan. 332 00:30:41.840 --> 00:30:43.341 [Attenborough] By the end of the century, 333 00:30:43.424 --> 00:30:47.595 Borneo's rainforest had been reduced by half. 334 00:30:53.643 --> 00:30:57.313 Rainforests are particularly precious habitats. 335 00:30:58.147 --> 00:30:59.399 [birds chirping] 336 00:30:59.482 --> 00:31:03.069 More than half of the species on land live here. 337 00:31:07.824 --> 00:31:12.745 They're places in which evolution's talent for design soars. 338 00:31:27.510 --> 00:31:29.637 [birds squawking] 339 00:31:37.061 --> 00:31:40.273 [clicking] 340 00:31:57.832 --> 00:32:03.379 Many of the millions of species in the forest exist in small numbers. 341 00:32:06.007 --> 00:32:09.344 Every one has a critical role to play. 342 00:32:14.390 --> 00:32:18.436 Orangutan mothers have to spend ten years with their young, 343 00:32:18.519 --> 00:32:22.315 teaching them which fruits are worth eating. 344 00:32:25.652 --> 00:32:27.070 Without this training, 345 00:32:27.153 --> 00:32:30.907 they would not complete their role in dispersing seeds. 346 00:32:32.367 --> 00:32:36.829 The future generations of many tree species would be at risk. 347 00:32:37.789 --> 00:32:42.335 And tree diversity is the key to a rainforest. 348 00:32:42.418 --> 00:32:46.005 [birds chirping] 349 00:32:46.089 --> 00:32:49.050 In a single small patch of tropical rainforest, 350 00:32:49.133 --> 00:32:52.345 there could be 700 different species of tree, 351 00:32:52.428 --> 00:32:56.099 as many as there are in the whole of North America. 352 00:32:57.058 --> 00:33:03.523 And yet, this is what we've been turning this dizzying diversity into. 353 00:33:05.024 --> 00:33:08.069 A monoculture of oil palm. 354 00:33:11.614 --> 00:33:15.827 A habitat that is dead in comparison. 355 00:33:19.455 --> 00:33:23.960 And you see this curtain of green with occasionally birds in it, 356 00:33:25.420 --> 00:33:27.839 and you think it's perhaps okay. 357 00:33:27.922 --> 00:33:29.340 But if you get in a helicopter, 358 00:33:29.424 --> 00:33:32.760 you see that that is a strip about half a mile wide. 359 00:33:33.594 --> 00:33:35.221 And beyond that strip, 360 00:33:35.304 --> 00:33:40.560 there is nothing but regimented rows of oil palms. 361 00:33:49.652 --> 00:33:53.531 There is a double incentive to cut down forests. 362 00:33:55.491 --> 00:33:57.243 People benefit from the timber... 363 00:33:57.827 --> 00:34:02.123 and then benefit again from farming the land that's left behind. 364 00:34:03.249 --> 00:34:05.585 [chainsaw revs] 365 00:34:15.845 --> 00:34:21.476 Which is why we've cut down three trillion trees across the world. 366 00:34:21.559 --> 00:34:25.980 Half of the world's rainforests have already been cleared. 367 00:34:35.656 --> 00:34:37.241 What we see happening today 368 00:34:37.325 --> 00:34:42.371 is just the latest chapter in a global process spanning millennia. 369 00:34:48.753 --> 00:34:53.716 The deforestation of Borneo has reduced the population of orangutan 370 00:34:53.800 --> 00:34:59.180 by two-thirds since I first saw one just over 60 years ago. 371 00:35:06.437 --> 00:35:09.190 We can't cut down rainforests forever, 372 00:35:09.273 --> 00:35:13.945 and anything that we can't do forever is by definition unsustainable. 373 00:35:15.113 --> 00:35:18.074 If we do things that are unsustainable, 374 00:35:18.157 --> 00:35:24.205 the damage accumulates ultimately to a point where the whole system collapses. 375 00:35:25.665 --> 00:35:29.585 No ecosystem, no matter how big, is secure. 376 00:35:32.046 --> 00:35:35.216 Even one as vast as the ocean. 377 00:35:39.971 --> 00:35:44.559 This habitat was the subject of the series The Blue Planet, 378 00:35:44.642 --> 00:35:47.270 which we were filming in the late '90s. 379 00:36:01.200 --> 00:36:06.664 It was... an astonishing vision of a completely unknown world, 380 00:36:06.747 --> 00:36:10.877 a world that had existed since the beginning of time. 381 00:36:18.968 --> 00:36:22.388 All sorts of things that you had no idea had ever existed, 382 00:36:22.471 --> 00:36:26.767 all in a multitude of colors, all unbelievably beautiful. 383 00:36:30.771 --> 00:36:35.568 And all of them completely undisturbed by your presence. 384 00:36:43.784 --> 00:36:47.872 For much of its expanse, the ocean is largely empty. 385 00:36:49.790 --> 00:36:53.127 But in certain places, there are hot spots 386 00:36:53.211 --> 00:36:55.922 where currents bring nutrients to the surface 387 00:36:56.005 --> 00:36:59.258 and trigger an explosion of life. 388 00:37:05.097 --> 00:37:09.101 In such places, huge shoals of fish gather. 389 00:37:17.276 --> 00:37:19.779 The problem is that our fishing fleets 390 00:37:19.862 --> 00:37:24.116 are just as good at finding those hot spots as are the fish. 391 00:37:25.993 --> 00:37:31.457 When they do, they're able to gather the concentrated shoals with ease. 392 00:37:35.461 --> 00:37:38.756 It was only in the '50s that large fleets 393 00:37:38.839 --> 00:37:42.301 first ventured out into international waters... 394 00:37:43.177 --> 00:37:46.806 to reap the open ocean harvest across the globe. 395 00:37:49.058 --> 00:37:53.896 Yet, they've removed 90% of the large fish in the sea. 396 00:38:01.654 --> 00:38:05.199 At first, they caught plenty of fish in their nets. 397 00:38:06.450 --> 00:38:09.078 But within only a few years, 398 00:38:09.161 --> 00:38:13.457 the nets across the globe were coming in empty. 399 00:38:15.126 --> 00:38:17.962 The fishing quickly became so poor 400 00:38:18.462 --> 00:38:23.050 that countries began to subsidize the fleets to maintain the industry. 401 00:38:28.180 --> 00:38:31.726 Without large fish and other marine predators, 402 00:38:31.809 --> 00:38:35.062 the oceanic nutrient cycle stutters. 403 00:38:41.861 --> 00:38:46.532 The predators help to keep nutrients in the ocean's sunlit waters, 404 00:38:46.615 --> 00:38:51.245 recycling them so that they can be used again and again by plankton. 405 00:38:56.042 --> 00:38:57.335 Without predators, 406 00:38:57.418 --> 00:39:00.629 nutrients are lost for centuries to the depths 407 00:39:00.713 --> 00:39:03.924 and the hot spots start to diminish. 408 00:39:05.092 --> 00:39:07.595 The ocean starts to die. 409 00:39:13.017 --> 00:39:17.480 Ocean life was also unravelling in the shallows. 410 00:39:23.027 --> 00:39:26.405 In 1998, a Blue Planet film crew 411 00:39:26.489 --> 00:39:29.825 stumbled on an event little known at the time. 412 00:39:33.496 --> 00:39:36.832 Coral reefs were turning white. 413 00:39:41.170 --> 00:39:45.383 The white color is caused by corals expelling algae 414 00:39:45.466 --> 00:39:48.552 that lives symbiotically within their body. 415 00:39:55.768 --> 00:39:57.269 When you first see it, 416 00:39:57.353 --> 00:40:01.482 you think perhaps that it's beautiful, and suddenly you realize it's tragic. 417 00:40:02.108 --> 00:40:04.819 Because what you're looking at is skeletons. 418 00:40:04.902 --> 00:40:07.321 Skeletons of dead creatures. 419 00:40:15.121 --> 00:40:19.083 The white corals are ultimately smothered by seaweed. 420 00:40:19.750 --> 00:40:25.423 And the reef turns from wonderland... to wasteland. 421 00:40:30.344 --> 00:40:33.722 At first, the cause of the bleaching was a mystery. 422 00:40:33.806 --> 00:40:38.519 But scientists started to discover that in many cases where bleaching occurred, 423 00:40:39.103 --> 00:40:41.105 the ocean was warming. 424 00:40:42.106 --> 00:40:43.107 For some time, 425 00:40:43.190 --> 00:40:46.735 climate scientists had warned that the planet would get warmer 426 00:40:46.819 --> 00:40:50.823 as we burned fossil fuels and released carbon dioxide 427 00:40:50.906 --> 00:40:54.285 and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. 428 00:40:57.788 --> 00:41:00.040 A marked change in atmospheric carbon 429 00:41:00.124 --> 00:41:03.669 has always been incompatible with a stable earth. 430 00:41:04.462 --> 00:41:08.299 It was a feature of all five mass extinctions. 431 00:41:13.345 --> 00:41:14.388 In previous events, 432 00:41:14.471 --> 00:41:19.226 it had taken volcanic activity up to one million years 433 00:41:19.310 --> 00:41:22.104 to dredge up enough carbon from within the earth 434 00:41:22.188 --> 00:41:24.064 to trigger a catastrophe. 435 00:41:26.358 --> 00:41:29.862 By burning millions of years' worth of living organisms 436 00:41:29.945 --> 00:41:33.157 all at once as coal and oil, 437 00:41:33.240 --> 00:41:37.286 we had managed to do so in less than 200. 438 00:41:39.288 --> 00:41:43.709 The global air temperature had been relatively stable till the '90s. 439 00:41:44.210 --> 00:41:47.254 But it now appeared this was only because the ocean 440 00:41:47.338 --> 00:41:52.009 was absorbing much of the excess heat, masking our impact. 441 00:41:55.304 --> 00:41:57.473 It was the first indication to me 442 00:41:57.556 --> 00:42:01.185 that the earth was beginning to lose its balance. 443 00:42:09.360 --> 00:42:11.862 The most remote habitat of all 444 00:42:11.946 --> 00:42:15.824 exists at the extreme north and south of the planet. 445 00:42:20.412 --> 00:42:24.291 I've visited the polar regions over many decades. 446 00:42:24.375 --> 00:42:26.085 [imperceptible] 447 00:42:28.754 --> 00:42:32.299 They've always been a place beyond imagination... 448 00:42:32.883 --> 00:42:36.095 with scenery unlike anything else on earth... 449 00:42:37.763 --> 00:42:42.851 and unique species adapted to a life in the extreme. 450 00:42:46.605 --> 00:42:48.899 But that distant world is changing. 451 00:42:51.986 --> 00:42:56.991 In my time, I've experienced the warming of Arctic summers. 452 00:42:59.660 --> 00:43:01.704 We have arrived at locations 453 00:43:01.787 --> 00:43:05.916 expecting to find expanses of sea ice and found none. 454 00:43:09.128 --> 00:43:11.046 We've managed to travel by boat 455 00:43:11.130 --> 00:43:14.633 to islands that were impossible to get to historically 456 00:43:14.717 --> 00:43:17.678 because they were permanently locked in the ice. 457 00:43:20.681 --> 00:43:25.769 By the time Frozen Planet aired in 2011, 458 00:43:25.853 --> 00:43:28.981 the reasons for these changes was well established. 459 00:43:33.819 --> 00:43:37.448 The ocean has long since become unable to absorb 460 00:43:37.531 --> 00:43:41.702 all the excess heat caused by our activities. 461 00:43:42.578 --> 00:43:45.831 As a result, the average global temperature today 462 00:43:45.914 --> 00:43:50.377 is one degree Celsius warmer than it was when I was born. 463 00:43:55.924 --> 00:44:01.180 A speed of change that exceeds any in the last 10,000 years. 464 00:44:08.604 --> 00:44:14.318 Summer sea ice in the Arctic has reduced by 40% in 40 years. 465 00:44:16.612 --> 00:44:19.281 Our planet is losing its ice. 466 00:44:25.204 --> 00:44:31.085 This most pristine and distant of ecosystems is headed for disaster. 467 00:44:49.186 --> 00:44:52.439 Our imprint is now truly global. 468 00:44:53.232 --> 00:44:56.360 Our impact now truly profound. 469 00:44:56.944 --> 00:44:58.821 Our blind assault on the planet 470 00:44:58.904 --> 00:45:03.534 has finally come to alter the very fundamentals of the living world. 471 00:45:12.042 --> 00:45:17.131 We have overfished 30% of fish stocks to critical levels. 472 00:45:19.675 --> 00:45:24.054 We cut down over 15 billion trees each year. 473 00:45:24.138 --> 00:45:26.473 [warbling] 474 00:45:26.557 --> 00:45:31.311 By damming, polluting, and over-extracting rivers and lakes, 475 00:45:31.395 --> 00:45:37.067 we've reduced the size of freshwater populations by over 80%. 476 00:45:37.860 --> 00:45:41.488 We're replacing the wild with the tame. 477 00:45:45.784 --> 00:45:50.998 Half of the fertile land on earth is now farmland. 478 00:45:57.588 --> 00:46:03.260 70% of the mass of birds on this planet are domestic birds. 479 00:46:03.844 --> 00:46:06.763 The vast majority, chickens. 480 00:46:10.767 --> 00:46:15.939 We account for over one-third of the weight of mammals on earth. 481 00:46:16.899 --> 00:46:21.111 A further 60% are the animals we raise to eat. 482 00:46:26.366 --> 00:46:31.538 The rest, from mice to whales, make up just 4%. 483 00:46:34.917 --> 00:46:37.669 This is now our planet, 484 00:46:37.753 --> 00:46:41.048 run by humankind for humankind. 485 00:46:41.131 --> 00:46:44.718 There is little left for the rest of the living world. 486 00:46:51.099 --> 00:46:54.186 Since I started filming in the 1950s, 487 00:46:54.269 --> 00:46:59.858 on average, wild animal populations have more than halved. 488 00:47:02.653 --> 00:47:05.989 I look at these images now and I realize that, 489 00:47:06.073 --> 00:47:09.576 although as a young man I felt I was out there in the wild 490 00:47:09.660 --> 00:47:13.247 experiencing the untouched natural world... 491 00:47:13.830 --> 00:47:14.957 it was an illusion. 492 00:47:17.292 --> 00:47:22.214 Those forests and plains and seas were already emptying. 493 00:47:27.261 --> 00:47:30.264 Um, so, the world is not as wild as it was. 494 00:47:31.598 --> 00:47:35.060 Well, we've destroyed it. Not just ruined it. 495 00:47:35.143 --> 00:47:39.481 I mean, we have completely... well, destroyed that world. 496 00:47:39.565 --> 00:47:42.776 That non-human world is gone. 497 00:47:43.443 --> 00:47:47.197 Uh... The... Human beings have overrun the world. 498 00:48:29.323 --> 00:48:32.784 That is my witness statement. 499 00:48:33.452 --> 00:48:38.290 A story of global decline during a single lifetime. 500 00:48:43.253 --> 00:48:45.547 But it doesn't end there. 501 00:48:47.299 --> 00:48:49.551 If we continue on our current course, 502 00:48:49.635 --> 00:48:53.764 the damage that has been the defining feature of my lifetime 503 00:48:53.847 --> 00:48:58.268 will be eclipsed by the damage coming in the next. 504 00:49:09.946 --> 00:49:14.534 Science predicts that were I born today, 505 00:49:15.118 --> 00:49:17.829 I would be witness to the following. 506 00:49:22.834 --> 00:49:29.091 The Amazon Rainforest, cut down until it can no longer produce enough moisture, 507 00:49:29.925 --> 00:49:32.386 degrades into a dry savannah, 508 00:49:32.969 --> 00:49:35.764 bringing catastrophic species loss... 509 00:49:36.973 --> 00:49:40.394 and altering the global water cycle. 510 00:49:47.067 --> 00:49:51.947 At the same time, the Arctic becomes ice-free in the summer. 511 00:49:54.574 --> 00:49:56.743 Without the white ice cap, 512 00:49:56.827 --> 00:50:00.539 less of the sun's energy is reflected back out to space. 513 00:50:01.873 --> 00:50:05.419 And the speed of global warming increases. 514 00:50:11.800 --> 00:50:17.681 Throughout the north, frozen soils thaw, releasing methane, 515 00:50:18.181 --> 00:50:22.853 a greenhouse gas many times more potent than carbon dioxide, 516 00:50:23.979 --> 00:50:28.066 accelerating the rate of climate change dramatically. 517 00:50:35.699 --> 00:50:39.619 As the ocean continues to heat and becomes more acidic, 518 00:50:39.703 --> 00:50:42.914 coral reefs around the world die. 519 00:50:46.543 --> 00:50:49.463 Fish populations crash. 520 00:50:58.221 --> 00:51:04.186 Global food production enters a crisis as soils become exhausted by overuse. 521 00:51:13.320 --> 00:51:15.655 Pollinating insects disappear. 522 00:51:17.157 --> 00:51:18.116 [thunder rumbling] 523 00:51:18.200 --> 00:51:21.536 And the weather is more and more unpredictable. 524 00:51:27.209 --> 00:51:31.046 Our planet becomes four degrees Celsius warmer. 525 00:51:33.215 --> 00:51:37.427 Large parts of the earth are uninhabitable. 526 00:51:40.263 --> 00:51:43.475 Millions of people rendered homeless. 527 00:51:46.937 --> 00:51:49.815 A sixth mass extinction event... 528 00:51:50.899 --> 00:51:52.651 is well underway. 529 00:51:59.032 --> 00:52:02.869 This is a series of one-way doors... 530 00:52:04.120 --> 00:52:06.706 bringing irreversible change. 531 00:52:08.750 --> 00:52:11.294 Within the span of the next lifetime, 532 00:52:12.170 --> 00:52:15.423 the security and stability of the Holocene, 533 00:52:16.842 --> 00:52:18.927 our Garden of Eden... 534 00:52:20.595 --> 00:52:21.930 will be lost. 535 00:52:31.231 --> 00:52:37.237 Right now, we're facing a manmade disaster of global scale. 536 00:52:38.488 --> 00:52:40.907 Our greatest threat in thousands of years. 537 00:52:41.908 --> 00:52:43.493 If we don't take action, 538 00:52:44.077 --> 00:52:46.580 the collapse of our civilizations 539 00:52:47.330 --> 00:52:52.794 and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon. 540 00:52:53.461 --> 00:52:55.088 But the longer we leave it, 541 00:52:55.589 --> 00:52:59.092 the more difficult it'll be to do something about it. 542 00:52:59.801 --> 00:53:01.720 And you could happily retire. 543 00:53:03.096 --> 00:53:09.561 But you now want to explain to us what peril we are in. 544 00:53:10.645 --> 00:53:11.897 Um... 545 00:53:11.980 --> 00:53:17.527 and, in a way, I wish I wasn't involved in this struggle. 546 00:53:17.611 --> 00:53:18.612 [chuckles] 547 00:53:18.695 --> 00:53:21.364 Because I wish the struggle wasn't there or necessary. 548 00:53:21.865 --> 00:53:26.119 But I've had unbelievable luck and good fortune. 549 00:53:26.620 --> 00:53:31.666 Um, and I certainly would feel very guilty... 550 00:53:32.626 --> 00:53:38.048 if I saw what the problems are and decided to ignore them. 551 00:53:38.131 --> 00:53:39.633 [audience applauding] 552 00:53:41.259 --> 00:53:43.470 [Attenborough on video] Climbing over the tightly-packed bodies 553 00:53:43.553 --> 00:53:45.889 is the only way across the crowd. 554 00:53:45.972 --> 00:53:47.432 [groaning] 555 00:53:47.515 --> 00:53:50.060 Those beneath can get crushed to death. 556 00:53:56.191 --> 00:53:57.317 [walruses groaning] 557 00:54:07.494 --> 00:54:12.749 [Attenborough] We are facing nothing less than the collapse of the living world. 558 00:54:14.584 --> 00:54:18.004 The very thing that gave birth to our civilization. 559 00:54:19.422 --> 00:54:23.718 The thing we rely upon for every element of the lives we lead. 560 00:54:27.055 --> 00:54:29.182 No one wants this to happen. 561 00:54:29.849 --> 00:54:33.061 None of us can afford for it to happen. 562 00:54:36.564 --> 00:54:38.400 So, what do we do? 563 00:54:40.694 --> 00:54:42.404 It's quite straightforward. 564 00:54:43.363 --> 00:54:46.199 It's been staring us in the face all along. 565 00:54:48.576 --> 00:54:50.870 To restore stability to our planet, 566 00:54:51.788 --> 00:54:54.416 we must restore its biodiversity. 567 00:54:56.751 --> 00:54:59.129 The very thing that we've removed. 568 00:55:03.466 --> 00:55:07.470 It's the only way out of this crisis we have created. 569 00:55:10.306 --> 00:55:13.685 We must rewild the world. 570 00:55:13.768 --> 00:55:16.146 [uplifting music playing] 571 00:55:16.229 --> 00:55:17.856 [reindeer grunting] 572 00:55:20.316 --> 00:55:22.235 [birds hooting] 573 00:55:30.827 --> 00:55:32.412 [buffalo snorting] 574 00:55:38.543 --> 00:55:40.336 [birds cawing] 575 00:55:45.175 --> 00:55:47.177 [elephants trumpeting] 576 00:55:53.600 --> 00:55:57.520 Rewilding the world is simpler than you might think. 577 00:55:58.188 --> 00:55:59.898 And the changes we have to make 578 00:55:59.981 --> 00:56:03.943 will only benefit ourselves and the generations that follow. 579 00:56:05.111 --> 00:56:09.407 A century from now, our planet could be a wild place again. 580 00:56:10.200 --> 00:56:12.077 And I'm going to tell you how. 581 00:56:13.745 --> 00:56:16.081 [cawing and chirping] 582 00:56:19.834 --> 00:56:25.757 Every other species on Earth reaches a maximum population after a time. 583 00:56:27.133 --> 00:56:31.346 The number that can be sustained on the natural resources available. 584 00:56:34.265 --> 00:56:35.767 With nothing to restrict us, 585 00:56:35.850 --> 00:56:40.188 our population has been growing dramatically throughout my lifetime. 586 00:56:40.271 --> 00:56:41.439 [crowd chanting] 587 00:56:41.523 --> 00:56:43.149 On current projections, 588 00:56:43.233 --> 00:56:48.947 there will be 11 billion people on Earth by 2100. 589 00:56:49.823 --> 00:56:51.616 But it's possible to slow, 590 00:56:51.699 --> 00:56:56.996 even to stop population growth well before it reaches that point. 591 00:57:01.751 --> 00:57:03.711 Japan's standard of living 592 00:57:03.795 --> 00:57:07.382 climbed rapidly in the latter half of the 20th century. 593 00:57:08.675 --> 00:57:11.511 As healthcare and education improved, 594 00:57:11.594 --> 00:57:15.098 people's expectations and opportunities grew, 595 00:57:15.181 --> 00:57:17.517 and the birth rate fell. 596 00:57:19.144 --> 00:57:24.816 In 1950, a Japanese family was likely to have three or more children. 597 00:57:26.025 --> 00:57:29.988 By 1975, the average was two. 598 00:57:33.116 --> 00:57:36.744 The result is that the population has now stabilized 599 00:57:36.828 --> 00:57:40.039 and has hardly changed since the millennium. 600 00:57:41.916 --> 00:57:45.795 There are signs that this has started to happen across the globe. 601 00:57:48.548 --> 00:57:53.136 As nations develop everywhere, people choose to have fewer children. 602 00:57:57.557 --> 00:58:00.935 The number of children being born worldwide every year 603 00:58:01.519 --> 00:58:03.646 is about to level off. 604 00:58:05.732 --> 00:58:08.276 A key reason the population is still growing 605 00:58:08.902 --> 00:58:10.904 is because many of us are living longer. 606 00:58:13.531 --> 00:58:15.200 At some point in the future, 607 00:58:15.700 --> 00:58:19.913 the human population will peak for the very first time. 608 00:58:21.164 --> 00:58:22.665 The sooner it happens, 609 00:58:22.749 --> 00:58:26.336 the easier it makes everything else we have to do. 610 00:58:26.419 --> 00:58:28.338 [crowd cheering] 611 00:58:30.715 --> 00:58:33.676 [Attenborough] By working hard to raise people out of poverty, 612 00:58:34.385 --> 00:58:37.096 giving all access to healthcare, 613 00:58:37.764 --> 00:58:42.560 and enabling girls in particular to stay in school as long as possible, 614 00:58:42.644 --> 00:58:46.731 we can make it peak sooner and at a lower level. 615 00:58:48.566 --> 00:58:51.027 Why wouldn't we want to do these things? 616 00:58:51.110 --> 00:58:53.238 Giving people a greater opportunity of life 617 00:58:53.321 --> 00:58:55.448 is what we would want to do anyway. 618 00:58:56.115 --> 00:59:00.286 The trick is to raise the standard of living around the world 619 00:59:00.370 --> 00:59:03.831 without increasing our impact on that world. 620 00:59:03.915 --> 00:59:05.500 That may sound impossible, 621 00:59:05.583 --> 00:59:08.336 but there are ways in which we can do this. 622 00:59:17.762 --> 00:59:21.558 The living world is essentially solar-powered. 623 00:59:24.185 --> 00:59:25.728 The earth's plants 624 00:59:25.812 --> 00:59:30.817 capture three trillion kilowatt-hours of solar energy each day. 625 00:59:30.900 --> 00:59:32.068 [birds chirping] 626 00:59:32.151 --> 00:59:38.199 That's almost 20 times the energy we need... just from sunlight. 627 00:59:42.704 --> 00:59:46.040 Imagine if we phase out fossil fuels 628 00:59:46.624 --> 00:59:51.504 and run our world on the eternal energies of nature too. 629 00:59:52.505 --> 00:59:57.594 Sunlight, wind, water and geothermal. 630 01:00:00.555 --> 01:00:02.557 [indistinct chatter] 631 01:00:03.933 --> 01:00:05.852 [Attenborough] At the turn of the century, 632 01:00:05.935 --> 01:00:11.858 Morocco relied on imported oil and gas for almost all of its energy. 633 01:00:12.692 --> 01:00:16.613 Today, it generates 40% of its needs at home 634 01:00:17.363 --> 01:00:23.995 from a network of renewable power plants, including the world's largest solar farm. 635 01:00:27.999 --> 01:00:29.625 Sitting on the edge of the Sahara, 636 01:00:30.710 --> 01:00:33.338 and cabled directly into southern Europe, 637 01:00:33.921 --> 01:00:40.345 Morocco could be an exporter of solar energy by 2050. 638 01:00:47.101 --> 01:00:53.816 Within 20 years, renewables are predicted to be the world's main source of power. 639 01:00:55.151 --> 01:00:58.071 But we can make them the only source. 640 01:00:59.030 --> 01:01:05.411 It's crazy that our banks and our pensions are investing in fossil fuel... 641 01:01:06.371 --> 01:01:08.164 when these are the very things 642 01:01:08.247 --> 01:01:11.876 that are jeopardizing the future that we are saving for. 643 01:01:12.377 --> 01:01:13.961 [sirens wailing] 644 01:01:14.629 --> 01:01:18.132 A renewable future will be full of benefits. 645 01:01:18.883 --> 01:01:22.095 Energy everywhere will be more affordable. 646 01:01:23.388 --> 01:01:26.391 Our cities will be cleaner and quieter. 647 01:01:27.600 --> 01:01:30.770 And renewable energy will never run out. 648 01:01:46.285 --> 01:01:51.916 The living world can't operate without a healthy ocean and neither can we. 649 01:01:58.464 --> 01:02:03.553 The ocean is a critical ally in our battle to reduce carbon in the atmosphere. 650 01:02:06.514 --> 01:02:10.893 The more diverse it is, the better it does that job. 651 01:02:14.397 --> 01:02:15.606 [whales singing] 652 01:02:28.453 --> 01:02:34.041 And, of course, the ocean is important to all of us as a source of food. 653 01:02:36.878 --> 01:02:40.256 Fishing is world's greatest wild harvest. 654 01:02:40.339 --> 01:02:43.634 And if we do it right, it can continue... 655 01:02:44.719 --> 01:02:48.097 because there's a win-win at play. 656 01:02:49.098 --> 01:02:51.142 The healthier the marine habitat, 657 01:02:51.225 --> 01:02:55.188 the more fish there will be, and the more there will be to eat. 658 01:03:02.653 --> 01:03:06.365 Palau is a Pacific Island nation 659 01:03:06.449 --> 01:03:11.287 reliant on its coral reefs for fish and tourism. 660 01:03:15.500 --> 01:03:17.835 When fish stocks began to reduce, 661 01:03:17.919 --> 01:03:22.089 the Palauans responded by restricting fishing practices 662 01:03:22.173 --> 01:03:26.010 and banning fishing entirely from many areas. 663 01:03:29.263 --> 01:03:33.059 Protected fish populations soon became so healthy, 664 01:03:33.142 --> 01:03:36.729 they spilt over into the areas open to fishing. 665 01:03:42.318 --> 01:03:43.361 As a result, 666 01:03:43.444 --> 01:03:47.698 the "no fish" zones have increased the catch of the local fishermen, 667 01:03:47.782 --> 01:03:51.953 while at the same time allowing the reefs to recover. 668 01:03:56.832 --> 01:04:01.462 Imagine if we committed to a similar approach across the world. 669 01:04:02.505 --> 01:04:07.635 Estimates suggest that "no fish" zones over a third of our coastal seas 670 01:04:07.718 --> 01:04:12.557 would be sufficient to provide us with all the fish we will ever need. 671 01:04:18.271 --> 01:04:20.147 In international waters, 672 01:04:20.231 --> 01:04:25.861 the UN is attempting to create the biggest "no fish" zone of all. 673 01:04:28.072 --> 01:04:31.742 In one act, this would transform the open ocean 674 01:04:31.826 --> 01:04:35.621 from a place exhausted by subsidized fishing fleets 675 01:04:36.205 --> 01:04:41.419 to a wilderness that will help us all in our efforts to combat climate change. 676 01:04:43.087 --> 01:04:45.798 The world's greatest wildlife reserve. 677 01:05:02.440 --> 01:05:04.525 When it comes to the land, 678 01:05:04.609 --> 01:05:08.279 we must radically reduce the area we use to farm, 679 01:05:08.362 --> 01:05:11.198 so that we can make space for returning wilderness. 680 01:05:11.282 --> 01:05:16.329 And the quickest and most effective way to do that is for us to change our diet. 681 01:05:17.038 --> 01:05:19.081 [birds chirping] 682 01:05:22.001 --> 01:05:24.670 Large carnivores are rare in nature 683 01:05:24.754 --> 01:05:28.424 because it takes a lot of prey to support each of them. 684 01:05:29.133 --> 01:05:31.135 [wildebeest snorting] 685 01:05:35.097 --> 01:05:38.184 For every single predator on the Serengeti, 686 01:05:38.267 --> 01:05:41.354 there are more than 100 prey animals. 687 01:05:41.437 --> 01:05:43.439 [snorting] 688 01:05:45.775 --> 01:05:47.735 Whenever we choose a piece of meat, 689 01:05:47.818 --> 01:05:52.948 we too are unwittingly demanding a huge expanse of space. 690 01:05:57.828 --> 01:06:02.875 The planet can't support billions of large meat-eaters. 691 01:06:03.376 --> 01:06:05.127 There just isn't the space. 692 01:06:05.628 --> 01:06:06.587 [dings] 693 01:06:09.674 --> 01:06:12.760 If we all had a largely plant-based diet, 694 01:06:13.761 --> 01:06:17.556 we would need only half the land we use at the moment. 695 01:06:19.141 --> 01:06:23.145 And because we would be then dedicated to raising plants, 696 01:06:23.229 --> 01:06:27.024 we could increase the yield of this land substantially. 697 01:06:32.863 --> 01:06:37.952 The Netherlands is one of the world's most densely-populated countries. 698 01:06:39.203 --> 01:06:44.375 It's covered with small family-run farms with no room for expansion. 699 01:06:47.294 --> 01:06:52.842 So, Dutch farmers have become expert at getting the most out of every hectare. 700 01:06:55.636 --> 01:06:58.889 Increasingly, they're doing so sustainably. 701 01:07:02.184 --> 01:07:08.441 Raising yields tenfold in two generations while at the same time using less water, 702 01:07:09.108 --> 01:07:14.697 fewer pesticides, less fertilizer and emitting less carbon. 703 01:07:19.493 --> 01:07:20.703 Despite its size, 704 01:07:20.786 --> 01:07:26.250 the Netherlands is now the world's second largest exporter of food. 705 01:07:30.796 --> 01:07:36.761 It's entirely possible for us to apply both low-tech and hi-tech solutions 706 01:07:36.844 --> 01:07:40.514 to produce much more food from much less land. 707 01:07:42.725 --> 01:07:46.312 We can start to produce food in new spaces. 708 01:07:48.773 --> 01:07:51.692 Indoors, within cities. 709 01:07:55.029 --> 01:07:58.365 Even in places where there's no land at all. 710 01:08:12.087 --> 01:08:14.548 As we improve our approach to farming, 711 01:08:14.632 --> 01:08:18.761 we'll start to reverse the land-grab that we've been pursuing 712 01:08:18.844 --> 01:08:20.930 ever since we began to farm, 713 01:08:21.639 --> 01:08:27.728 which is essential because we have an urgent need for all that free land. 714 01:08:34.944 --> 01:08:39.990 Forests are a fundamental component of our planet's recovery. 715 01:08:41.617 --> 01:08:46.330 They are the best technology nature has for locking away carbon. 716 01:08:48.082 --> 01:08:51.001 And they are centers of biodiversity. 717 01:08:55.172 --> 01:08:58.175 Again, the two features work together. 718 01:08:58.717 --> 01:09:01.804 The wilder and more diverse forests are, 719 01:09:01.887 --> 01:09:06.350 the more effective they are at absorbing carbon from the atmosphere. 720 01:09:08.018 --> 01:09:12.773 We must immediately halt deforestation everywhere... 721 01:09:13.649 --> 01:09:20.322 and grow crops like oil palm and soya only on land that was deforested long ago. 722 01:09:21.448 --> 01:09:24.118 After all, there's plenty of it. 723 01:09:26.287 --> 01:09:28.414 But we can do better than that. 724 01:09:32.042 --> 01:09:37.756 A century ago, more than three quarters of Costa Rica was covered with forest. 725 01:09:45.472 --> 01:09:51.729 By the 1980s, uncontrolled logging had reduced this to just one quarter. 726 01:09:54.607 --> 01:09:56.567 The government decided to act, 727 01:09:56.650 --> 01:10:01.572 offering grants to land owners to replant native trees. 728 01:10:06.035 --> 01:10:08.162 In just 25 years, 729 01:10:08.245 --> 01:10:13.626 the forest has returned to cover half of Costa Rica once again. 730 01:10:14.293 --> 01:10:16.420 [birds chirping] 731 01:10:18.881 --> 01:10:23.093 Just imagine if we achieve this on a global scale. 732 01:10:25.804 --> 01:10:28.140 The return of the trees would absorb 733 01:10:28.224 --> 01:10:31.310 as much as two thirds of the carbon emissions 734 01:10:31.393 --> 01:10:35.522 that have been pumped into the atmosphere by our activities to date. 735 01:10:43.113 --> 01:10:44.823 With all these things, 736 01:10:45.407 --> 01:10:48.077 there is one overriding principle. 737 01:10:50.996 --> 01:10:56.335 Nature is our biggest ally and our greatest inspiration. 738 01:10:58.671 --> 01:11:02.675 We just have to do what nature has always done. 739 01:11:04.301 --> 01:11:08.555 It worked out the secret of life long ago. 740 01:11:14.436 --> 01:11:18.440 In this world, a species can only thrive... 741 01:11:19.858 --> 01:11:23.862 when everything else around it thrives, too. 742 01:11:29.827 --> 01:11:32.663 We can solve the problems we now face 743 01:11:32.746 --> 01:11:35.708 by embracing this reality. 744 01:11:38.377 --> 01:11:40.796 If we take care of nature, 745 01:11:42.298 --> 01:11:45.300 nature will take care of us. 746 01:11:48.095 --> 01:11:53.475 It's now time for our species to stop simply growing. 747 01:11:55.436 --> 01:12:00.774 To establish a life on our planet in balance with nature. 748 01:12:03.610 --> 01:12:06.113 To start to thrive. 749 01:12:09.533 --> 01:12:13.370 When you think about it, we're completing a journey. 750 01:12:14.913 --> 01:12:18.000 Ten thousand years ago, as hunter-gatherers, 751 01:12:18.709 --> 01:12:23.047 we lived a sustainable life because that was the only option. 752 01:12:24.089 --> 01:12:29.553 All these years later, it's once again the only option. 753 01:12:29.636 --> 01:12:31.930 We need to rediscover... 754 01:12:33.015 --> 01:12:34.641 how to be sustainable. 755 01:12:34.725 --> 01:12:38.645 To move from being apart from nature 756 01:12:38.729 --> 01:12:43.317 to becoming a part of nature once again. 757 01:12:48.447 --> 01:12:51.325 Tonight, we've got a rather different program for you. 758 01:12:54.203 --> 01:12:57.456 [Attenborough] If we can change the way we live on Earth, 759 01:12:58.457 --> 01:13:01.293 an alternative future comes into view. 760 01:13:04.880 --> 01:13:06.382 In this future, 761 01:13:06.965 --> 01:13:13.430 we discover ways to benefit from our land that help, rather than hinder, wilderness. 762 01:13:15.140 --> 01:13:21.105 Ways to fish our seas that enable them to come quickly back to life. 763 01:13:27.694 --> 01:13:32.199 And ways to harvest our forests sustainably. 764 01:13:35.828 --> 01:13:42.584 We will finally learn how to work with nature rather than against it. 765 01:13:45.254 --> 01:13:49.716 In the end, after a lifetime's exploration of the living world, 766 01:13:49.800 --> 01:13:52.094 I'm certain of one thing. 767 01:13:53.011 --> 01:13:55.973 This is not about saving our planet... 768 01:13:56.849 --> 01:13:59.434 it's about saving ourselves. 769 01:14:04.189 --> 01:14:10.529 The truth is, with or without us, the natural world will rebuild. 770 01:14:20.456 --> 01:14:24.710 In the 30 years since the evacuation of Chernobyl, 771 01:14:25.377 --> 01:14:29.006 the wild has reclaimed the space. 772 01:14:29.089 --> 01:14:30.924 [birds chirping] 773 01:14:40.267 --> 01:14:44.354 Today, the forest has taken over the city. 774 01:14:58.285 --> 01:15:02.998 It's a sanctuary for wild animals that are very rare elsewhere. 775 01:15:09.713 --> 01:15:14.760 And powerful evidence that however grave our mistakes, 776 01:15:14.843 --> 01:15:18.222 nature will ultimately overcome them. 777 01:15:22.726 --> 01:15:25.604 The living world will endure. 778 01:15:27.648 --> 01:15:31.401 We humans cannot presume the same. 779 01:15:34.238 --> 01:15:35.781 We've come this far 780 01:15:35.864 --> 01:15:39.701 because we are the smartest creatures that have ever lived. 781 01:15:44.456 --> 01:15:49.169 But to continue, we require more than intelligence. 782 01:15:51.213 --> 01:15:53.966 We require wisdom. 783 01:16:07.437 --> 01:16:11.900 There are many differences between humans and the rest of the species on earth, 784 01:16:12.484 --> 01:16:17.781 but one that has been expressed is that we alone are able to imagine the future. 785 01:16:19.116 --> 01:16:23.078 For a long time, I and perhaps you have dreaded that future. 786 01:16:24.079 --> 01:16:28.667 But it's now becoming apparent that it's not all doom and gloom. 787 01:16:29.751 --> 01:16:32.170 There's a chance for us to make amends, 788 01:16:32.921 --> 01:16:36.633 to complete our journey of development, manage our impact, 789 01:16:36.717 --> 01:16:41.388 and once again become a species in balance with nature. 790 01:16:42.472 --> 01:16:45.225 All we need is the will to do so. 791 01:16:45.726 --> 01:16:50.606 We now have the opportunity to create the perfect home for ourselves, 792 01:16:51.148 --> 01:16:57.195 and restore the rich, healthy, and wonderful world that we inherited. 793 01:16:58.530 --> 01:17:00.032 Just imagine that.