Sir David Attenborough: let’s not be too negative, shall we?

Nary a day passes without some bad news about the environment. Endangered species continue to be poached and hunted mercilessly. Diminishing forests continue to be cut down further still. Our baleful stewardship of the planet continues to wreak havoc with ecosystems worldwide.

Pretty depressing, yes. Yet giving into despair won’t help us much.

That’s according to Sir David Attenborough, a doyen of conservationist in the United Kingdom who has for half a century been bringing the wonders of the natural world to television screens. “We do have a problem. Every time the bell rings, every time that image [of a threatened animal] comes up, do you say ‘remember, they are in danger’?” Attenborough, who is 92, acknowledged in an interview with The Observer newspaper.

Yet harping on the issue can be counterproductive, he believes. “How often do you say this without becoming a real turn-off? It would be irresponsible to ignore it, but equally I believe we have a responsibility to make programmes that look at all the rest of the aspects and not just this one,” he posited.

That is to say, viewers may get inured to content that focuses only or primarily on the negative. There is some truth to that. Confronted by the enormity of challenges that we are facing as we seek to heal the planet and save its biodiversity (or what’s left of it), people may end up feeling helpless and hopeless. They may feel that they’re powerless to do anything about it.

Rather, Attenborough argues that by focusing on the wonders of nature in its full glory he can make a larger impact by introducing people to them. “We all have responsibilities as citizens but our primary job is to make a series that is gripping and truthful, and talks about something important – and to tell it in its round fullness,” explained the beloved television presenter, who has been the star of numerous acclaimed wildlife documentaries, the latest of which is Dynasties on BBC Earth.

“If they [people] appreciate the wonder, then they care about it, and that’s when it brings you to your other mission – which is to make people interested, then more likely to care and conserve, and become active in saving the planet,” he elucidated.

Some conservationists openly disagree, however. “I find this [view] intensely frustrating,” George Monbiot, a well-known journalist who covers environmental issues, wrote in a Twitter post in response. “For decades, Attenborough has created a false impression of the health of the living world, and repeatedly *failed* to highlight the realities. Now he makes a doctrine of this failure.”

But Attenborough has his defenders too. “While there is definitely cause for alarmism, conservation is inspired in the wonder and joy of nature,” one commenter agreed, adding that there should be a place for both warnings about the parlous state of biodiversity and paeans to its wonders.