You know, it is a terrible thing to appear on television, because people think that you actually know what you are talking about.- David Attenborough
You can only get really unpopular decisions through if the electorate is convinced of the value of the environment. That's what natural history programmes should be for.
Well, I am having a good time. Which makes me feel guilty too. How very English.
The whole of science, and one is tempted to think the whole of the life of any thinking man, is trying to come to terms with the relationship between yourself and the natural world. Why are you here, and how do you fit in, and what's it all about.
The question is, are we happy to suppose that our grandchildren may never be able to see an elephant except in a picture book?
The only way to save a rhinoceros is to save the environment in which it lives, because there's a mutual dependency between it and millions of other species of both animals and plants.
The fundamental issue is the moral issue.
Television of course actually started in Britain in 1936, and it was a monopoly, and there was only one broadcaster and it operated on a license which is not the same as a government grant.
People must feel that the natural world is important and valuable and beautiful and wonderful and an amazement and a pleasure.
People are not going to care about animal conservation unless they think that animals are worthwhile.
Many individuals are doing what they can. But real success can only come if there is a change in our societies and in our economics and in our politics.
It's a moral question about whether we have the right to exterminate species.
It was regarded as a responsibility of the BBC to provide programs which have a broad spectrum of interest, and if there was a hole in that spectrum, then the BBC would fill it.
It seems to me that the natural world is the greatest source of excitement; the greatest source of visual beauty; the greatest source of intellectual interest. It is the greatest source of so much in life that makes life worth living.
It is that range of biodiversity that we must care for - the whole thing - rather than just one or two stars.
