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.