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This city in Ukraine was once
home to almost 50,000 people.

It had everything
a community would need

for a comfortable life.

INDISTINCT CHATTER

But On the 26th of April, 1986

it suddenly became
uninhabitable.

The nearby nuclear power station
of Chernobyl exploded...

and in less than 48 hours,
the city was evacuated.

No one has lived here since.

The explosion was the result of
bad planning and human error...

mistakes.

It triggered
an environmental catastrophe

that had an impact
across Europe.

Many people regarded it
as the most costly

in the history of mankind.

But Chernobyl
was a single event.

The true tragedy of our time

is still unfolding
across the globe

barely noticeable
from day to day.

I'm talking about the loss
of our planet's wild places.

Its biodiversity.

The living world is a unique
and spectacular marvel.

Billions of individuals

of millions of kinds
of plants and animals...

dazzling in their variety
and richness...

working together to benefit
from the energy of the sun

and the minerals of the earth.

Leading lives that interlock
in such a way

that they sustain each other.

We rely entirely

on this finely tuned
life-support machine.

And it relies on
its biodiversity

to run smoothly.

Yet the way we humans
live on Earth now

is sending biodiversity
into a decline.

TREE CREAKS AND CRASHES

This, too, is happening
as a result of bad planning

and human error

and it, too, will lead
to what we see here.

A place in which we cannot live.

The natural world is fading.

The evidence is all around.

It's happened in my lifetime.

I've seen it with my own eyes.

This film is
my witness statement

and my vision for the future...

the story of how we came to
make this, our greatest mistake

and how, if we act now,
we can yet put it right.

I am David Attenborough

and I am 93.

I've had the most
extraordinary life.

It's only now that
I appreciate how extraordinary.

INDISTINCT CHATTER

I've been lucky enough
to spend my life

exploring the wild places
of our planet.

I've travelled
to every part of the globe.

I've experienced
the living world first-hand

in all its variety and wonder.

In truth, I couldn't imagine
living my life in any other way.

BIRDS CLICK

I've always had a passion
to explore, to have adventures

to learn about the wilds beyond.

HE EXCLAIMS

And I'm still learning...

Boo!

...as much now
as I did when I was a boy.

BIRDSONG

It was a very different world
back then.

We had very little understanding

of how the living world
actually worked.

It was called "natural history"

because that's essentially
what it was all about...

history.

It was a great place
to come to as a boy

because this is
ironstone workings

but it was disused.

All this was absolutely clear.

It was... Only just stopped
being a working quarry.

When I was a boy,
I spent all my spare time

searching through rocks
in places like this...

for buried treasure.

Fossils.

It's a creature
called an ammonite.

And, in life, the animal itself
lived in a chamber here

and spread out its tentacles
to catch its prey.

And it lived about
180 million years ago.

This particular one

has a scientific name
of Tiltonicerus

because the first one ever
was found near this quarry

here in Tilton,
in the middle of England.

Over time,
I began to learn something

about the Earth's
evolutionary history.

By and large, it's a story
of slow, steady change.

Over billions of years, Nature
has crafted miraculous forms

each more complex
and accomplished than the last.

It's an achingly
intricate labour.

And then,
every 100 million years or so

after all those
painstaking processes

something catastrophic
happens...

a mass extinction.

Great numbers
of species disappear...

and are suddenly
replaced by a few.

All that evolution undone.

You can see it.

A line in the rock layers.

A boundary that marks
a profound, rapid global change.

Below the line
are a multitude of lifeforms.

Above, very few.

A mass extinction
has happened five times

in life's
four-billion-year history.

The last time it happened
was the event

that brought the end
of the age of the dinosaurs.

A meteorite impact
triggered a catastrophic change

in the Earth's conditions.

Seventy-five per cent of all
species were wiped out.

Life had no option
but to rebuild.

For 65 million years

it's been at work reconstructing
the living world...

until we come
to the world we know.

Our time.

Scientists call it the Holocene.

The Holocene has been
one of the most stable periods

in our planet's great history.

BIRDS CHIRP

For 10,000 years,
the average temperature

has not wavered up or down
by more than one degree Celsius.

And the rich and thriving
living world around us

has been key to this stability.

Phytoplankton
at the ocean's surface

and immense forests
straddling the north

have helped
to balance the atmosphere

by locking away carbon.

Huge herds on the plains

have kept the grasslands
rich and productive

by fertilising the soils.

Mangroves and coral reefs along
thousands of miles of coast

have harboured
nurseries of fish species

that, when mature,
then range into open waters.

A thick belt of jungles
around the Equator

has piled plant on plant

to capture as much of
the sun's energy as possible

adding moisture and oxygen
to the global air currents.

And the extent of the polar ice
has been critical

reflecting sunlight back
off its white surface

cooling the whole Earth.

The biodiversity of the Holocene
helped to bring stability.

And the entire living world

settled into
a gentle, reliable rhythm...

THUNDER RUMBLES

...the seasons.

THUNDER RUMBLES
— HERD LOWS

On the tropical plains,
the dry and rainy seasons

would switch every year,
like clockwork.

THUNDER RUMBLES

In Asia, the winds would
create the monsoon on cue.

THUNDER RUMBLES AND CRASHES

In the northern regions

the temperatures would lift
in March, triggering spring...

and stay high
until they dipped in October

and brought about autumn.

BIRDS CAW

The Holocene was
our Garden of Eden.

Its rhythm of seasons
was so reliable

that it gave our own species
a unique opportunity.

CATTLE MOOS

We invented farming.

We learnt how to exploit
the seasons

to produce food crops.

The history of all
human civilisation followed...

each generation able
to develop and progress

only because the living world
could be relied upon

to deliver us
the conditions we needed.

The pace of progress

was unlike anything
to be found

in the fossil record.

Our intelligence changed
the way in which we evolved.

In the past, animals had to
develop some physical ability

to change their lives.

But for us,
an idea could do that.

And the idea could be passed
from one generation to the next.

We were transforming
what a species could achieve.

A few millennia after this began

I grew up at exactly
the right moment.

The start of my career in my 20s

coincided with the advent
of global air travel.

So, I had the privilege
of being amongst the first

to fully experience
the bounty of life

that had come about
as a result of

the Holocene's gentle climate.

NUMBERS CLICK

Wherever I went,
there was wilderness.

Sparkling coastal seas.

Vast forests.

Immense grasslands.

You could fly for hours
over the untouched wilderness.

And there I was, actually being
asked to explore these places

and record the wonders
of the natural world

for people back home.

And to begin with,
it was quite easy.

People had never seen
pangolins before on television.

They'd never seen sloths before.

They'd never seen
the centre of New Guinea before.

It was the best time of my life.

The best time of our lives.

The Second World War was over...

technology was making
our lives easier.

The pace of change
was getting faster and faster.

INDISTINCT CHATTER

It felt that nothing
would limit our progress.

The future
was going to be exciting.

It was going to bring
everything we'd ever dreamed of.

This was before any of us
were aware

that there were problems.

NUMBERS CLICK

My first visit to East Africa
was in 1960.

Back then,
it seemed inconceivable

that we, a single species

might one day have the power

to threaten the very existence
of the wilderness.

The Maasai word "Serengeti"
means "endless plains".

To those who live here,
it's an apt description.

You can be in one spot
on the Serengeti

and the place is
totally empty of animals

and then, the next morning...

WILDEBEEST GRUNT

...one million wildebeest...

WILDEBEEST GRUNT

...a quarter of a million
zebra...

ANIMALS YIP

...half a million gazelle.

GAZELLE SNORT

A few days after that...

and they're gone

over the horizon.

You can be forgiven for thinking
that these plains are endless

when they could swallow up
such a herd.

It took a visionary scientist,
Bernhard Grzimek

to explain that
this wasn't true.

PLANE ROARS

He and his son used a plane

to follow the herds
over the horizon.

WILDEBEEST GRUNT

ENGINE PURRS

They charted them
as they moved across rivers

through woodlands,
and over national borders.

They discovered
that the Serengeti herds

required an enormous area of
healthy grassland to function.

That without such
an immense space

the herds would diminish

and the entire ecosystem
would come crashing down.

The point for me was simple.

The wild is far from unlimited.

It's finite.
It needs protecting.

And a few years later, that idea
became obvious to everyone.

MAN, OVER RADIO:
Engines are on.

Four, three, two, one, zero.
— EMISSIONS ROAR

SIR DAVID:
I was in a television studio

when the Apollo mission
launched.

It was the first time

that any human had moved away
far enough from the Earth

to see the whole planet.

And this is what they saw.

What we all saw.

Our planet...

vulnerable and isolated.

One of the extraordinary things
about it was

that the world could actually
watch it as it happened.

It was extraordinary

that you could see

what a man out in space
could see

as he saw it at the same time.

And I remember
very well that first shot.

You saw a blue marble,
a blue sphere in the blackness

and you realised that
that was the Earth.

And in that one shot

there was the whole of humanity
with nothing else

except the person
that was in the spacecraft

taking that picture.

And that completely changed
the mindset of the population

the human population
of the world.

Our home was not limitless.

There was an edge
to our existence.

It was a rediscovery
of a fundamental truth.

We are ultimately bound by
and reliant upon

the finite natural world
about us.

This truth defined the life
we led in our pre-history

the time before farming
and civilisation.

Even as some of us
were setting foot on the moon

others were still
leading such a life

in the most remote parts
of the planet.

BIRDSONG

In 1971, I set out to find

an uncontacted tribe
in New Guinea.

MEN SPEAK LOCAL LANGUAGE

These people were
hunter-gatherers...

as all humankind
had been before farming.

MAN SPEAKS LOCAL LANGUAGE

They lived in small numbers
and didn't take too much.

MAN SPEAKS LOCAL LANGUAGE

They ate meat rarely.

The resources they used
naturally renewed themselves.

Working with their
traditional technology

they were living sustainably...

a lifestyle that could continue,
effectively, forever.

MAN SPEAKS LOCAL LANGUAGE

It was a stark contrast
to the world I knew...

a world that demanded
more every day.

NUMBERS CLICK

I spent the latter half of
the 1970s travelling the world

making a series
I had long dreamed of

called Life on Earth...

the story of the evolution
of life and its diversity.

It was shot in 39 countries.

We filmed 650 species

and we travelled
1.5 million miles.

That's the sort
of commitment you need

if you want to even begin making
a portrait of the living world.

But it was noticeable

that some of these animals
were becoming harder to find.

When I filmed with
the mountain gorillas

there were only 300 left

in a remote jungle
in Central Africa.

Baby gorillas
were at a premium

and poachers would kill
a dozen adults to get one.

I got as close as I did

only because the gorillas
were used to people.

GORILLAS GRUNT

The only way to keep them alive

was for rangers to be
with them every day.

The process of extinction
I'd seen as a boy...

in the rocks...

I now became aware was happening
right there around me...

to animals
with which I was familiar.

Our closest relatives.

And we were responsible.

It revealed a cold reality.

Once a species
became our target...

there was now nowhere on Earth
that it could hide.

HARPOON BLASTS

Whales were being slaughtered

by fleets of industrial
whaling ships in the 1970s.

The largest whales, the blues

numbered only
a few thousand by then.

BLOWHOLE WHOOSHES

They were virtually
impossible to find.

We found humpbacks off Hawaii

only by listening out
for their calls.

A moment ago,
we made this recording

With an underwater microphone
here in the Pacific near Hawaii.

Just listen to this.

WHALES SING ON TAPE

WHALES SING

SIR DAVID:
Recordings like these

revealed that the songs
of the humpbacks

are long and complex.

Humpbacks living
in the same area

learn their songs
from each other.

And the songs have distinct
themes and variations

which evolve over time.

WHALES SING

Their mournful songs
were the key

to transforming people's
opinions about them.

MAN SPEAKS IN RUSSIAN

MAN, OVER MEGAPHONE:
Hello, Boctok. We are Canadian.

Please stop killing the whales.

SIR DAVID:
Animals that had been viewed

as little more than
a source of oil and meat

became personalities.

MAN, OVER MEGAPHONE:
We are men and women

and we speak for children.

And we 're all saying

"Please stop killing
the whales. "

We have pursued animals
to extinction

many times in our history.

But now that it was visible,
it was no longer acceptable.

WHALE SINGS

The killing of whales turned
from a harvest to a crime.

A powerful shared conscience
had suddenly appeared.

Nobody wanted animals
to become extinct.

People were coming to care
for the natural world...

as they were made aware
of the natural world.

And we now had the means

to make people across the world
aware.

"LIFE ON EARTH" TV THEME PLAYS

SIR DAVID: By the time
Life on Earth aired in 1979

I had entered my 50s.

There were twice the number
of people on the planet

as there were when I was born.

You and I belong
to the most widespread

and dominant species
of animal on Earth.

We're certainly the most
numerous large animal.

There are something like
4,000 million of us today

and we've reached this position
with meteoric speed.

It's all happened within
the last 2,000 years or so.

We seem to have broken loose
from the restrictions

that have governed
the activities

and numbers of other animals.

SIR DAVID:
We had broken loose.

We were apart from
the rest of life on Earth...

living a different kind of life.

Our predators
had been eliminated.

Most of our diseases
were under control.

We had worked out
how to produce food to order.

There was nothing left
to restrict us...

nothing to stop us...

unless we stopped ourselves.

We would keep
consuming the Earth

until we had used it up.

Saving individual species
or even groups of species

would not be enough.

Whole habitats would
soon start to disappear.

I first witnessed
the destruction

of an entire habitat

in Southeast Asia.

In the 1950s

Borneo was three-quarters
covered with rainforest.

SIR DAVID, ON TV:
We heard a crashing

in the branches ahead.

And there,
only a few yards away

we spotted
a great furry red form

swaying in the trees.

The orangutan.

SIR DAVID:
By the end of the century

Borneo's rainforest
had been reduced by half.

BIRDS TRILL

Rainforests are
particularly precious habitats.

More than half of
the species on land live here.

BIRD WHOOPS

They're places in which

evolution's talent
for design soars.

BIRD TRILLS

BIRD CAWS

BIRD SQUAWKS

BIRD CLICKS

BIRD CLICKS

LEAVES RUSTLE

Many of the millions
of species in the forest

exist in small numbers.

Every one has
a critical role to play.

Orangutan mothers have to spend
ten years with their young

teaching them
which fruits are worth eating.

Without this training

they would not complete
their role in dispersing seeds.

The future generations of many
tree species would be at risk.

And tree diversity
is the key to a rainforest.

BIRDS WHOOP AND TWITTER

In a single small patch
of tropical rainforest

there could be
700 different species of tree

as many as there are
in the whole of North America.

And yet...

this is what we've been turning
this dizzying diversity into...

a monoculture of oil palm.

A habitat that is dead
in comparison.

And you see
this curtain of green

with occasionally birds in it

and you think it's perhaps OK.

But if you get in a helicopter

you see that that is a strip
about half-a-mile wide.

And beyond that strip

out there is nothing but
regimented rows of oil palms.

CHAINSAWS BUZZ

There is a double incentive
to cut down forests.

CHAINSAW BUZZES

People benefit from the timber

and then benefit again

from farming the land
that's left behind.

CHAINSAW BUZZES

TIMBER CREAKS

TIMBER CRASHES

TIMBER CREAKS

Which is why we've cut down

three trillion trees
across the world.

Half of the world's rainforests
have already been cleared.

What we see happening today
is just the latest chapter

in a global process
spanning millennia.

The deforestation of Borneo

has reduced
the population of orangutan

by two-thirds since I first
saw one just over 60 years ago.

We can't cut down
rainforests forever

and anything that
we can't do forever

is, by definition,
unsustainable.

If we do things
that are unsustainable

the damage accumulates...

ultimately, to a point where
the whole system collapses.

No ecosystem,
no matter how big, is secure.

Even one as vast as the ocean.

This habitat was the subject
of the series The Blue Planet

which we were filming
in the late '90s.

NUMBERS CLICK

It was an astonishing vision
of a completely unknown world

a world that had existed
since the beginning of time.

All sorts of things that
you'd no idea had ever existed

all in a multitude of colours,
all unbelievably beautiful.

And all of them completely
undisturbed by your presence.

For much of its expanse,
the ocean is largely empty.

But in certain places,
there are hotspots

where currents bring
nutrients to the surface

and trigger
an explosion of life.

In such places,
huge shoals of fish gather.

The problem is
that our fishing fleets

are just as good at finding
those hotspots

as are the fish.

When they do,
they're able to gather

the concentrated shoals
with ease.

It was only in the '50s
that large fleets

first ventured out
into international waters...

to reap the open-ocean harvest
across the globe.

Yet they've removed 90 per cent
of the large fish in the sea.

At first, they caught
plenty of fish in their nets.

But within only a few years

the nets across the globe
were coming in empty.

The fishing quickly
became so poor...

that countries began
to subsidise the fleets

to maintain the industry.

Without large fish
and other marine predators

the oceanic
nutrient cycle stutters.

The predators help
to keep nutrients

in the ocean's sunlit waters

recycling them

so they can be used
again and again by plankton.

Without predators

nutrients are lost
for centuries to the depths

and the hotspots
start to diminish.

The ocean starts to die.

Ocean life was also
unravelling in the shallows.

In 1998, a Blue Planet film crew

stumbled on an event
little known at the time.

Coral reefs were turning white.

The white colour is caused
by corals expelling algae

that lives symbiotically
within their body.

When you first see it

you think perhaps
that it's beautiful

and suddenly
you realise it's tragic.

Because what you're looking at
is skeletons.

Skeletons of dead creatures.

The white corals are
ultimately smothered by seaweed.

And the reef turns
from wonderland...

to wasteland.

At first, the cause of
the bleaching was a mystery.

But scientists
started to discover

that in many cases
where bleaching occurred

the ocean was warming.

For some time,
climate scientists had warned

that the planet would get warmer
as we burned fossil fuels

and released carbon dioxide
and other greenhouse gases

into the atmosphere.

LAVA ROARS

A marked change
in atmospheric carbon

has always been incompatible
with a stable Earth.

It was a feature of
all five mass extinctions.

LAVA ROARS

In previous events

it had taken volcanic activity
up to one million years

to dredge up enough carbon
from within the earth

to trigger a catastrophe.

By burning millions of
years' worth

of living organisms
all at once

as coal and oil...

we have managed to do so
in less than 200.

The global air temperature

had been relatively stable
till the '90s

but it now appeared
this was only because the ocean

was absorbing much of
the excess heat

masking our impact.

It was the first
indication to me

that the Earth was beginning
to lose its balance.

WIND WHOOSHES
— ICE CREAKS

The most remote habitat of all

exists at the extreme north
and south of the planet.

I've visited the polar regions
over many decades.

They've always been a place
beyond imagination...

with scenery unlike
anything else on Earth...

and unique species adapted
to a life in the extreme.

But that distant world
is changing.

In my time, I've experienced
the warming of Arctic summers.

We have arrived at locations

expecting to find
expanses of sea ice

and found none.

We've managed to travel by boat

to islands that were impossible
to get to historically

because they were
permanently locked in the ice.

By the time Frozen Planet
aired in 2011

the reasons for these changes
was well established.

The ocean has long since
become unable to absorb

all the excess heat
caused by our activities.

As a result, the average
global temperature today

is one degree Celsius warmer
than it was when I was born.

ICE RUMBLES AND CRASHES

A speed of change that exceeds
any in the last 10,000 years.

ICE CRASHES AND RUMBLES

Summer sea ice in the Arctic

has reduced by
40 per cent in 40 years.

Our planet is losing its ice.

ICE CRASHES

This most pristine
and distant of ecosystems

is headed for disaster.

Our imprint is now
truly global...

our impact now truly profound.

Our blind assault on the planet
has finally come

to alter the very fundamentals
of the living world.

We have overfished
30 per cent of fish stocks

to critical levels.

We cut down over
15 billion trees each year.

BIRDS TRILL

By damming, polluting

and over-extracting
rivers and lakes

we've reduced the size
of freshwater populations

by over 80 per cent.

We're replacing
the wild with the tame.

Half of the fertile land
on Earth is now farmland.

Seventy per cent of the mass
of birds on this planet

are domestic birds.

The vast majority, chickens.

We account for over one third of
the weight of mammals on Earth.

A further 60 per cent are
the animals we raise to eat.

The rest, from mice to whales,
make up just four per cent.

This is now our planet

run by humankind for humankind.

There is little left for
the rest of the living world.

Since I started filming
in the 1950s

on average,
wild animal populations

have more than halved.

I look at these images now,
and I realise that

although as a young man

I felt I was out there
in the wild

experiencing
the untouched natural world...

it was an illusion.

Those forests and plains
and seas were already emptying.

Um, so, the world
is not as wild as it was.

Well, we've destroyed it...

not just ruined it.

I mean, we have completely...

well, destroyed that world.

That non-human world is...
is gone.

Uh...
HE STAMMERS

Human beings
have overrun the world.

That is my witness statement.

A story of global decline
during a single lifetime.

But it doesn't end there.

If we continue
on our current course

the damage that has been
the defining feature

of my lifetime

will be eclipsed by the damage
coming in the next.

NUMBERS CLICK

Science predicts
that were I born today

I would be witness
to the following.

FIRE CRACKLES

The Amazon Rainforest...

cut down until it can no longer
produce enough moisture...

degrades into a dry savannah

bringing
catastrophic species loss...

and altering
the global water cycle.

At the same time, the Arctic
becomes ice-free in the summer.

Without the white icecap

less of the sun's energy
is reflected back out to Space.

And the speed
of global warming increases.

MUD CRASHES

Throughout the north,
frozen soils thaw

releasing methane

a greenhouse gas many times
more potent than carbon dioxide

accelerating the rate
of climate change, dramatically.

As the ocean continues to heat
and becomes more acidic

coral reefs
around the world die.

Fish populations crash.

Global food production
enters a crisis

as soils become
exhausted by overuse.

Pollinating insects disappear.

THUNDER CRACKS

And the weather is
more and more unpredictable.

Our planet becomes
four degrees Celsius warmer.

Large parts of the Earth
are uninhabitable.

HIPPOS SNUFFLE

Millions of people,
rendered homeless.

A sixth mass extinction event...

is well underway.

WIND WHIPS

This is a series
of one—way doors...

bringing irreversible change.

Within the span
of the next lifetime...

the security and stability
of the Holocene...

our Garden of Eden...

will be lost.

WIND WHIPS

APPLAUSE

Right now, we're facing
a manmade disaster...

of global scale.

Our greatest threat
in thousands of years.

If we don't take action

the collapse
of our civilisations

and the extinction
of much of the natural world

is on the horizon.

But the longer we leave it

the more difficult it'll be
to do something about it.

And you could happily retire.

But you now want to explain
to us what peril...

we are in.

Um...

And, in a way, I-I wish I wasn't
involved in this struggle.

HE CHUCKLES

Because I wish the struggle
wasn't there or necessary.

But I've had unbelievable luck
and good fortune...

um, and I certainly
would feel very guilty...

if I saw what the problems are
and decided to ignore them.

APPLAUSE

SIR DAVID, ON VIDEO: Climbing
over the tightly-packed bodies

is the only way
across the crowd.

WALRUSES GROWL

Those beneath
can get crushed to death.

WALRUSES GROWL

VIDEO CONTINUES PLAYING

SIR DAVID:
We are facing nothing less

than the collapse
of the living world.

The very thing that gave birth
to our civilisation.

The thing we rely upon for every
element of the lives we lead.

No one wants this to happen.

None of us can afford
for it to happen.

So, what do we do?

It's quite straightforward.

It's been staring us
in the face all along.

To restore stability
to our planet...

we must restore
its biodiversity...

the very thing
that we've removed.

It's the only way out of
this crisis we have created.

We must rewild the world.

REINDEER GRUNT

BIRDS WHOOP

BIRDS CAW

BUFFALO GRUNT

BIRDS CAW

ELEPHANT TRUMPETS

Rewilding the world
is simpler than you might think.

And the changes we have to make

will only benefit ourselves
and the generations that follow.

A century from now, our planet
could be a wild place again.

And I'm going to tell you how.

BIRDS TWITTER AND SQUAWK

Every other species on Earth

reaches a maximum population
after a time.

The number that can be sustained

on the natural resources
available.

With nothing to restrict us

our population has
been growing dramatically

throughout my lifetime.

CROWD CHANTS

On current projections

there will be 11 billion people
on Earth by 2100.

But it's possible to slow,
even to stop, population growth

well before it reaches
that point.

Japan's standard of living
climbed rapidly

in the latter half
of the 20th century.

As healthcare
and education improved

people's expectations
and opportunities grew

and the birthrate fell.

In 1950, a Japanese family
was likely to have

three or more children.

By 1975, the average was two.

The result is that the
population has now stabilised

and has hardly changed
since the millennium.

There are signs that
this has started to happen

across the globe.

As nations develop everywhere

people choose
to have fewer children.

The number of children
being born worldwide every year

is about to level off.

A key reason the population
is still growing

is because many of us
are living longer.

At some point in the future

the human population will peak
for the very first time.

LOW HUBBUB

The sooner it happens

the easier it makes
everything else we have to do.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

By working hard to raise
people out of poverty...

giving all
access to healthcare...

and enabling girls,
in particular

to stay in school
as long as possible

we can make it peak sooner
and at a lower level.

Why wouldn't we want
to do these things?

Giving people
a greater opportunity of life

is what we would
want to do anyway.

The trick is to raise
the standard of living

around the world

without increasing
our impact on that world.

That may sound impossible

but there are ways
in which we can do this.

The living world is,
essentially, solar-powered.

The Earth's plants capture

three trillion kilowatt-hours
of solar energy each day.

That's almost 20 times
the energy we need...

just from sunlight.

Imagine if we
phased out fossil fuels

and ran our world

on the eternal energies
of Nature, too.

Sunlight, wind,
water and geothermal.

At the turn of the century

Morocco relied on
imported oil and gas

for almost all of its energy.

Today, it generates
40 per cent of its needs at home

from a network
of renewable power plants...

including the world's
largest solar farm.

Sitting on the edge
of the Sahara...

and cabled directly
into southern Europe...

Morocco could be an exporter
of solar energy by 2050.

Within 20 years,
renewables are predicted

to be the world's
main source of power.

But we can make them
the only source.

It's crazy that our banks
and our pensions

are investing in fossil fuel...

when these are the very things

that are jeopardising the future
that we are saving for.

SIRENS WAIL

A renewable future
will be full of benefits.

Energy everywhere
will be more affordable.

Our cities will be
cleaner and quieter.

And renewable energy
will never run out.

TWINKLING NOISE

The living world can't operate
without a healthy ocean.

And neither can we.

The ocean is a critical ally

in our battle to reduce carbon
in the atmosphere.

The more diverse it is,
the better it does that job.

WHALES SING

And, of course, the ocean
is important to all of us

as a source of food.

Fishing is the world's
greatest wild harvest.

And if we do it right,
it can continue...

because there's
a win-win at play.

The healthier
the marine habitat

the more fish there will be

and the more
there will be to eat.

Palau is a Pacific Island nation

reliant on its coral reefs
for fish and tourism.

When fish stocks
began to reduce

the Palauans responded
by restricting fishing practices

and banning fishing entirely
from many areas.

Protected fish populations
soon became so healthy

they spilt over
into the areas open to fishing.

As a result, the "no fish" zones

have increased the catch
of the local fishermen

while at the same time
allowing the reefs to recover.

Imagine if we committed
to a similar approach

across the world.

Estimates suggest
that "no fish" zones

over a third of our coastal seas

would be sufficient
to provide us

with all the fish
we will ever need.

In international waters,
the UN is attempting to create

the biggest
"no fish" zone of all.

In one act, this would
transform the open ocean

from a place exhausted
by subsidised fishing fleets

to a wilderness that
will help us all in our efforts

to combat climate change.

The world's
greatest wildlife reserve.

When it comes to the land...

we must radically reduce
the area we use to farm

so that we can make space
for returning wilderness.

And the quickest and most
effective way to do that

is for us to change our diet.

Large carnivores
are rare in Nature

because it takes a lot of prey
to support each of them.

For every single predator
on the Serengeti

there are more than
100 prey animals.

WILDEBEEST GRUNT

Whenever we choose
a piece of meat

we, too, are
unwittingly demanding

a huge expanse of space.

HERD LOWS IN DISTANCE

The planet can't support
billions of large meat-eaters.

There just isn't the space.

BELL DINGS

ASPARAGUS SIZZLES

If we all had a largely
plant-based diet...

we would need only half the land
we use at the moment.

And because we would be
then dedicated to raising plants

we could increase the yield
of this land substantially.

The Netherlands
is one of the world's

most densely
populated countries.

It's covered with
small family-run farms

with no room for expansion.

So, Dutch farmers
have become expert

at getting the most
out of every hectare.

Increasingly, they're
doing so, sustainably...

raising yields tenfold
in two generations

while at the same time
using less water

fewer pesticides,
less fertiliser

and emitting less carbon.

Despite its size,
the Netherlands is now

the world's second largest
exporter of food.

It's entirely possible
for us to apply

both low-tech
and hi-tech solutions

to produce much more food
from much less land.

We can start to produce food
in new spaces...

indoors, within cities.

Even in places
where there's no land at all.

As we improve
our approach to farming

we'll start to reverse
the land-grab

that we've been pursuing
ever since we began to farm

which is essential

because we have an urgent need
for all that free land.

Forests are
a fundamental component

of our planet's recovery.

They are the best technology
Nature has

for locking away carbon.

And they are centres
of biodiversity.

Again, the two features
work together.

The wilder and more diverse
forests are

the more effective they are

at absorbing carbon
from the atmosphere.

We must immediately halt
deforestation everywhere...

and grow crops
like oil palm and soya

only on land that was
deforested long ago.

After all, there's plenty of it.

But we can do better than that.

A century ago, more than
three quarters of Costa Rica

was covered with forest.

By the 1980s, uncontrolled
logging had reduced this

to just one quarter.

The government decided to act

offering grants to land owners
to replant native trees.

In just 25 years

the forest has returned to cover
half of Costa Rica once again.

BIRDS CHIRP

Just imagine if we achieve this
on a global scale.

The return of the trees
would absorb

as much as two thirds
of the carbon emissions

that have been pumped
into the atmosphere

by our activities to date.

With all these things

there is one
overriding principle.

Nature is our biggest ally
and our greatest inspiration.

We just have to do
what Nature has always done.

It worked out
the secret of life long ago.

In this world,
a species can only thrive...

when everything else
around it thrives too.

We can solve
the problems we now face

by embracing this reality.

If we take care of Nature...

Nature will take care of us.

It's now time for our species
to stop simply growing...

to establish
a life on our planet

in balance with Nature...

to start to thrive.

When you think about it

we're completing a journey.

Ten thousand years ago,
as hunter-gatherers...

we lived a sustainable life

because that was
the only option.

All these years later

it's once again the only option.

We need to rediscover...

how to be sustainable.

To move from being
apart from Nature

to becoming a part
of Nature once again.

FILM PROJECTOR WHIRRS

SINGLE BEEP

Tonight, we've got rather
a different programme for you.

SIR DAVID: If we can change
the way we live on Earth...

an alternative future
comes into view.

In this future...

we discover ways
to benefit from our land

that help, rather than hinder,
wilderness...

ways to fish our seas

that enable them
to come quickly back to life.

WHALES SPOUT AND SPLASH

FOREST ANIMALS CALL

And ways to harvest
our forests sustainably.

We will finally learn
how to work with Nature

rather than against it.

In the end

after a lifetime's exploration
of the living world

I'm certain of one thing.

This is not about
saving our planet...

it's about saving ourselves.

The truth is,
with or without us

the natural world will rebuild.

In the 30 years since
the evacuation of Chernobyl...

...the wild has
reclaimed the space.

BIRDS CHIRP

Today, the forest
has taken over the city.

It's a sanctuary
for wild animals

that are very rare elsewhere.

HORSES SNORT

And powerful evidence

that however grave our mistakes

Nature will, ultimately,
overcome them.

The living world will endure.

We humans cannot
presume the same.

We've come this far

because we are
the smartest creatures

that have ever lived.

But to continue

we require
more than intelligence...

we require... wisdom.

There are many differences
between humans

and the rest of the species
on Earth

but one that has been expressed

is that we alone are able
to imagine the future.

For a long time, I, and perhaps
you, have dreaded that future.

But it's now becoming apparent

that it's not
all doom and gloom.

There's a chance
for us to make amends...

to complete our journey
of development

manage our impact

and once again become a species
in balance with Nature.

All we need
is the will to do so.

We now have
the opportunity to create

the perfect home
for ourselves...

and restore the rich,
healthy and wonderful world

that we inherited.

Just imagine that.