Sir David Attenborough

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1:12Sir David Attenborough:Hello, I'm James Reynolds and in BBC Conversations, we celebrate the 100th birthday of Sir David Attenborough. David Attenborough began his broadcasting career as a BBC trainee in 1952, working in the then new medium of television. Who thought it would last? Within a couple of years, he was on screen presenting a wildlife series called Zoo Quest. He travelled the world, filming encounters with animals, including lemurs, birds of paradise and Komodo dragons, bringing those exotic species right to British audiences. It was a huge hit and the start of what's been a seven decade long career, transforming how so many of us see the natural world.

1:57Sir David Attenborough:In 1978, whilst making the groundbreaking series Life on Earth, he famously mesmerised audiences by rolling around with baby gorillas and their mother in Rwanda. She put her hand on the top of my head and turned my head towards her to look in one another's eyes. And then she stuck her finger, which was huge, I mean, like a great sort of articulated banana, and opened my mouth, put it in my mouth, lowered my jaw and looked inside my mouth. So it was extraordinary.

2:34Sir David Attenborough:Just one of those astonishing moments. I remember growing up and watching that clip again and again. Our first conversation then is with four wildlife cinematographers inspired by David Attenborough's work. Wendy Kirure is in Kenya. Joao Paulo Krajewski is based in Brazil. Brad Besterlink is in Botswana. And Victoria Bromley is right here in the UK. Victoria and Brad have both worked directly with David Attenborough. They began by describing their experiences.

3:05Wendy Kirorei:Well, I've been really lucky to work with him three times in my career. So the first time, it was my first research job for the BBC's Natural History Unit. The next time, he was the narrator for my documentary on pangolins. And then last year, I directed an immersive event for the Natural History Museum, Our Story, with David Attenborough, which we collaborated on. I mean, it could be potentially quite intimidating, you know, when you've got somebody with 70 years experience in your field. But he is incredibly generous and he puts you very much at ease, I would say.

3:37Sir David Attenborough:I was very privileged to get an opportunity to work with him. Within minutes of actually meeting him, you are completely set at ease. and his enthusiasm and passion and inquiry towards the animals, the behavior and what he's seeing on screen just kind of puts everybody in the same place with the same ambition at the same time. And he does that with such grace and he's such a fun, kind, playful character. A number of times we had to stop because he would just get so lost in the moment of the film, just totally in awe of what he was seeing in terms of the behavior and just seeing leopards doing a certain piece of behavior that he never even believed was possible.

4:17Sir David Attenborough:And I think that that speaks to the nature of the man. So passionate about the natural world and really making it accessible to people.

4:26Wendy Kirorei:The thing about meeting David is you realise that that passion that he's talked about before, searching for fossils in quarries in Laetitia as a boy, that enthusiasm is undimmed and he's still excited. He's still so keen to share that enthusiasm that he has for nature and the natural world. And even to the point of, we were sort of discussing a script in his house and a woodpecker flew onto a feeder outside his window and he just stopped, you know, and just took a moment and was so excited that we haven't had one of those for ages. And it's just there, just that love just pours out and it's contagious.

5:05Sir David Attenborough:With Hippos, it was exactly the same thing. You know, he was delivering part of the narrative and then he burst into laughter and he just follows the film because he's so excited about a piece of behavior that he's seen. And he's just, it's so comical that he's like, has to catch himself and bring himself back. That's how invested he is in what he's looking at and how passionate he is about seeing behavior and seeing the natural world in all its glory, so to speak. João Paulo, you filmed a scene of Amore Il in Brazil, which was narrated by David Attenborough. That must have been an exciting achievement.

5:35Sir David Attenborough:Oh yeah, that was my first time. That was 10 years ago, a little bit more. And of course, like in Brazil, We used to watch the films, the BBC films, with Sir David. But of course, most of them were translated. So I didn't know his voice until I was able to get DVDs with Planet Earth One and other films. And then it was just incredible to see how the images and everything you see on wildlife just matches his voice. It was unbelievable. And then, of course, for me as a Brazilian, working on such films was a dream. And then in 2015, we went to this beautiful island off the coast of Brazil to film for Blue Planet 2.

6:18Sir David Attenborough:It was an amazing behavior that when I was doing my PhD at the island, I learned with a professor that some more eels, they leap out of the water, sometimes a meter high to catch crabs on top of rocks. So we were there for about a month to get that behavior with producer Miles Barton to film really, really hard to figure out when the Moray would attack. So incredibly hard to film. And then after 25 or 30 days or something like that, there was still a couple of shots that they needed. So I went there with my camera. I got a couple of shots, sent to Miles in Bristol. And then he decided to include a couple of shots.

6:59Sir David Attenborough:And one of these shots is a Moray coming out of the water on dry land and then going to one pool to another. Sir David says a line right on top of my image. So it was an absolutely amazing experience. Let's bring in Wendy, a cinematographer in Kenya. How much has David Attenborough's work had an influence on your own work?

7:21Wendy Kirorei:I grew up in the Great Rift Valley in Kenya, and this is where the Marseille Mara is, among other things. So growing up in Kenya, the only free content that you can watch on entertainment and documentaries was National Geographic, BBC, and it was purely David's work. So we grew up knowing he was the only voice for wildlife. So you'd walk to restaurants, that is playing, you walk to hotels, you walk to shopping centers, that was the only available entertainment. So growing up, I saw a lot of this, and later on when I went to film school by the time I was in second year, my dream was to do my first documentary in the Masai Mara, purely influenced by watching a lot of his work growing up.

8:04Wendy Kirorei:And this later on actually gave me the courage to understand wildlife besides seeing it in my hometown and understand that you need the patients to go out there, actually spend time with the animals, know them and actually tell their stories.

8:18Sir David Attenborough:A question for you all. What have you learned from those seven decades of his work?

8:24Wendy Kirorei:For the past years watching his work, One thing I've learned is many a times we look at ourselves being apart from nature. As human beings, we look at animals and the planet as a distant thing away from our livelihoods. And listening to him, how he narrates in a very poetic way about wildlife and nature, it made me understand that actually we are part of it.

8:45Sir David Attenborough:When I hear his work, his voice, and the films he works on, it's a whole lesson on not only wildlife, but also how to enjoy your life with something that you really so passion for what you do for wildlife. Respect for animals, because all the content and the way he narrates is extremely respectful to the wildlife world. He's also a scientist, you know, everything that he speaks to. And then it's about understanding the natural world. It's about real facts. So that I think it's a complete picture of someone who really enjoys what he's doing. He knows what he's doing and he's passionate about it.

9:26Sir David Attenborough:And then for me, it's amazing that, I don't know, my impression, I don't know if your impression is the same one, but he's still improving. So every time you hear a new film with him, his voice is changing. The way he's doing is basically carrying people to really appreciate, to really feel that enthusiasm that he has. So it's an amazing combination of artistic skills, information, love for wildlife and respect. Picking up on what you're saying there, John, one of the biggest things is the sort of legacy that he's created over the last several decades has really opened up a pathway for people to see and respond and access natural history storytelling.

10:09Sir David Attenborough:I mean, we've always been storytellers, but the natural world has always been distanced from us. And what he's done is opened up a sort of pathway of communication and understanding between a viewer and the natural world. And something that has really sort of conditioned all of us to get this sort of portal into the natural world and understand it and appreciate it and engage with it on an emotional level. That's the joy of it. I mean, you know, we've moved away from your more scientific base, which is where it all started. And he's made it personable and accessible. And I think that that is probably the greatest legacy is turning the world towards an understanding and a compassion and a portal into the natural world.

10:54Wendy Kirorei:Absolutely. Something that didn't exist, he's brought into being. And for me, I think what's so impressive is to think of all of his travels, all of his understanding of not just, you know, natural history, but also how our world has changed in the course of his lifetime. I think a lot of people, having seen the big changes, particularly since the 1950s and the impact that humans have had on our planet, could despair. But what's very inspiring about David is he probably has seen more of the world than anyone. He has a very comprehensive understanding of the state of the world. And yet he still has hope.

11:30Wendy Kirorei:He still has optimism and confidence in humanity. and our ability to come together and share in the passion for, not just a passion for the natural world, but a care and a duty and a guardianship. He's certainly not somebody who's afraid of new developments. He's very excited by technology and new approaches, and it's something that's also defined his career. But he ultimately, I think coming back to that sense of a bigger picture view, I mean, not many people live to 100. and I think sort of step back. He's seen humanity come together to save the whale, you know, and he has seen, you know, in the 1970s, people believed that, you know, we were about to lose the great whales and now their numbers have bounced back.

12:16Wendy Kirorei:He's seen what's possible and if he can believe, I believe that we have a chance.

12:23Sir David Attenborough:Filmmakers Victoria, Brad, Wendy and Joao Paulo. I'm James Reynolds. You're listening to BBC Conversations from the BBC World Service.

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13:38Sir David Attenborough:Today's episode is sponsored by NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast. Ever Google a money question and end up 12 tabs deep with 12 different answers? This podcast is your shortcut back to clarity. NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast breaks down financial decisions with a team of trusted journalists. They explain the why behind decisions like investing, home buying and choosing credit cards with clear research-backed insights. No jargon, no misinformation. Make your next financial move with confidence. Follow NerdWallet's Smart Money podcast on your favourite podcast app. David Attenborough's early documentaries were simply about observing, enjoying and explaining the natural world.

14:23Sir David Attenborough:More recently, though, some of his programmes have highlighted environmental issues he's seen developing and even getting worse over the decades. As we heard in our first conversation, Sir David has inspired people around the world to get involved with caring for our planet's wildlife and ecology. We're going to hear now from three conservationists. Paola Kahumbu works in Kenya, focusing on protecting the elephant population. Charumisra is in India, where he works to help conserve snow leopards. And Rachel Graham is a conservationist in Panama who works with sharks and rays.

14:59Wendy Kirorei:So David has been really a tremendous inspiration for my work. He's normalized being so into wildlife and nature for anybody who is a lover of wildlife globally. And he's given me a lot of the impetus to pursue careers in wildlife research and conservation. so I'm very grateful to him for that.

15:25Sir David Attenborough:And you've said that on his series the co-hosts are actually the species themselves.

15:32Wendy Kirorei:The best part is that he's, I love his humility. He is not only a purveyor of joy about wildlife and he gets right down on the ground with them or in the sea with them but he also brings them to life. He helps give them a voice when all of these wildlife do not necessarily have their own voice, especially the marine species. And he makes them their co-hosts. In fact, they're the stars of the show. And that's phenomenal. For most people, I think Sir David brought nature into their homes through television. When I was growing up in India, there's not like many televisions around. And, you know, my parents didn't have too much money, but they had lots of books.

16:16Wendy Kirorei:And when I was still a kid, I might have been 14 or 15 years old. I got a copy of his book, The Living Planet. And that really opened my imagination for the natural world. I still remember reading about the Himalayas, the Kali Gandaki River of the Himalayas and so on. And that stayed with me throughout my life. And I think that really sparked this genuine curiosity and wonder about nature. Yeah, I think I share a lot of what Rachel and Charu have said. You know, I run a conservation organization called Wildlife Direct, and we were so inspired by Sir David's ability to basically make nature and wild animals accessible to everyone.

17:02Wendy Kirorei:And it's not just that they're amazing and it's nerdy. I feel like it's very intimate and natural. But the most important thing that he's done for me, my organization, and I think Africa in general, is to awaken us to the fact that we can be the authors of our own stories. His ability to tell stories about Africa's wildlife has kind of like woken everyone up. We should be telling our wildlife stories. We should be out there learning about these creatures, making films ourselves and sharing them with our networks. because his work, maybe initially it was all about awe and wonder, but it moved very much to there is a problem, there is a warning out there, and we need many, many more champions to tell these stories.

17:48Wendy Kirorei:I want to add to what Paula said. She's absolutely right. I mean, Sir David has been such a catalyst for hope and curiosity and that connection with nature, either through TV sets or through his books. and one of the examples of this is you know we found out a lot about some of the migratory patterns that's occurring with sharks and rays and turtles and other big fin fish in the western Caribbean between Honduras, Guatemala, Belize and Mexico and as such we're really trying to drill down and understand how this connection between these four countries is forming actually a super highway of sorts, like a shark superhighway.

18:28Wendy Kirorei:And this has just generated so much curiosity and excitement with folks in the four countries and governments, communities, and especially fishers who used to fish a lot of these more critically endangered species and now have become their stewards. And they are passing on their knowledge to the next generation and the students. And so they're taking little parts of what Sir David had been sharing with all of us, and each of them are becoming Attenboroughs of sorts. Yeah, I would just add that what's amazing about Sir David, perhaps it reminds us as scientists, I'm also an ecologist, did my PhD on elephants, and then my goal was to just, you know, be that geek in the forest studying elephants.

19:16Wendy Kirorei:But actually, saving elephants is less about science and it's more about emotion. It's more about connecting people to those animals. And that is what Sir David, I think, really taught all storytellers is how to make them relatable, not just animals, but their habitats, their ecosystems. We can fall in love with any species or ecosystem if we can relate to it. So the future storytellers need to be relevant locally. That's what I personally believe quite strongly. We did a series of children, child presenters, 14 of them from across Africa. And I'm blown away by how it's not just the audience who related to these kids, it's how those kids became fanatic conservationists because they were selected for their stage presence to be hosts of a TV show about wildlife.

20:07Wendy Kirorei:So I do think that local relevance and resonance with the people on the ground is very important. And in a continent like Africa, where we have over 2000 languages, we need people to be telling the stories in all those languages and bringing in our cultural knowledge and indigenous heritage to deepen that connection. Because Africa still has such a wealth of iconic species, but they're all at risk as things change so rapidly. In lightning speed, we're moving into cities where we're demanding a more commercial life. But when we get children to watch films and then take actions in nature, we see a phenomenal transformation.

20:48Wendy Kirorei:And I'm hearing parents telling me how much impact it's having on their children. So my thinking is it's not just grownups, it's kids. Kids are so powerful in making it interesting and exciting and lovable for other children? There's going to be millions. There are already millions of little Sir Davids out there. And the reason I say this is because his impact has been generational, right? I mean, some people have impact around the world, but his goes across generations. I've seen my own child, my own son, as he was growing up, I've got a video of him when he was like, maybe three or four years old, imitating Sir David, trying to be Sir David, telling stories of his own imaginary world.

21:36Wendy Kirorei:So I feel that the kind of impact, the remarkable impact Sir David has had already on our generation, as well as the next generation, I think he and his voice will continue in amongst a lot of the children around the world who will take on the mantle of conservation and communicating in conservation after Sir David. I'm pretty sure about that.