David Attenborough, a number one voice on local weather change and biodiversity loss whose landmark documentaries reworked well-liked understanding of the pure world for a world viewers, marks his a centesimal birthday on Friday.
Attenborough’s pure historical past sequence, reminiscent of “Life on Earth”, wherein he had a well-known encounter with mountain gorillas in Rwanda, have introduced probably the most distant corners of the planet into dwelling rooms worldwide.
“He’s taken us all to places that we would never otherwise go. That’s a huge gift,” botanist Sandra Knapp, director of analysis at London’s Natural History Museum, advised AFP.
The BBC is main the celebration of the Briton’s centenary with a full week of programming devoted to his life.
Classic episodes of sequence together with “Planet Earth II” and “Blue Planet II” are being reshown together with others reminiscent of “Life in the Freezer” and “Paradise Birds” out there on the BBC’s iPlayer service.
The centerpiece will probably be a 90-minute stay present on his birthday from London’s Royal Albert Hall.
Knapp mentioned Attenborough’s packages had “expanded people’s horizons” and been an inspiration to many.
Jean-Baptiste Gouyon, professor of science communication at University College London (UCL), mentioned Attenborough had made pure historical past as well-liked as soccer.
Attenborough’s packages succeeded in instilling within the public an unparallelled ardour and marvel for the pure world, mentioned Gouyon.
Attenborough’s lifelong ardour for the pure world started as baby, and he went on to check geology and zoology at college.
Prince William, inheritor to the UK throne, has described him as a “national treasure”. Attenborough was additionally a agency favourite of the late Queen Elizabeth II, who knighted him in 1985.
Showing Attenborough’s cross-generational enchantment, U.S. singer-songwriter Billie Eilish has praised his “deep love and knowledge of our planet”, including: “The animal kingdom brings out the childlike curiosity within us all.”
Mountain gorillas
Attenborough has typically mirrored on his “luck” in with the ability to “find and film rare creatures that few outsiders have seen in the wild”.
And he has mentioned he has been in a position “to gaze on some of the most marvelous spectacles that the wild places of the world have to offer”.
In 2006, he added his voice to these elevating the alarm on local weather change and biodiversity loss.
He declared himself “no longer skeptical” in regards to the situation, having waited for conclusive proof that humanity was altering the local weather.
Attenborough’s broadcasting profession spanning practically eight many years has been carefully related to the BBC, which he joined within the early Nineteen Fifties.
“Life on Earth”, launched in 1979, has alone been watched by 500 million folks worldwide, whereas dozens of documentaries and related books have made him a family title.
Recalling the sequence’ spotlight, when he unexpectedly discovered himself up shut with a bunch of mountain gorillas, Attenborough described the expertise as “bliss” and “extraordinary”.
“I was simply transported,” he mentioned forward of his centenary, reliving how the grownup feminine twisted his head and regarded straight into his eyes and her two children sat on him because the cameras rolled.
‘Modern colonialism’
Still making documentaries properly into his nineties, he used his 2025 movie “Ocean” to sentence the commercial fishing strategies of rich nations, which he referred to as “modern colonialism at sea”.
Despite his fame, the broadcaster — whose brother was the late actor and movie director Richard Attenborough — has at all times refused to be seen as a star.
Gouyon mentioned Attenborough at all times made positive to direct the viewer’s gaze again to the subject material.
On the menace to the pure world, Attenborough has mentioned he hopes humanity will be capable to change course.
“Perhaps the fact that the people most affected by climate change are no longer some imagined future generation, but young people alive today… will give us the impetus we need to rewrite our story, to turn this tragedy into a triumph,” he mentioned on the U.N. Climate Summit in Glasgow in 2021.
“We are, after all, the greatest problem-solvers to have ever existed on Earth,” he mentioned.
At 100, Attenborough not wanders the world’s jungles and deserts. But he has continued to inform the story of the planet nearer to residence.
In “Wild London”, broadcast in early 2026, he marvels on the wildlife of the British capital, his birthplace, from foxes and beavers to hedgehogs and harvest mice.
After all his travels, he has confided that his favourite place stays Richmond, an prosperous and leafy suburb in southwest London.
He has lived within the riverside city for a few years, and nonetheless resides within the household residence he shared together with his late spouse Jane and their two youngsters.
© 2026 AFP