40 David Attenborough Quotes Showing His Dedication To Earth

Cherish the natural world, because you're a part of it and you depend on it
- David Attenborough

It's surely our responsibility to do everything within our power to create a planet that provides a home not just for us, but for all life on Earth.
- David Attenborough

The truth is: the natural world is changing. And we are totally dependent on that world. It provides our food, water and air. It is the most precious thing we have and we need to defend it.
- David Attenborough

This is now our planet, run by humankind for humankind. There is little left for the rest of the living world.
- David Attenborough

I know of no pleasure deeper than that which comes from contemplating the natural world and trying to understand it.
- David Attenborough

What humans do over the next 50 years will determine the fate of all life on the planet.
- David Attenborough

An understanding of the natural world, and what’s in it as a source of not only great curiosity but great fulfilment.
- David Attenborough

An understanding of the natural world is a source of not only great curiosity, but great fulfilment.
- David Attenborough

People must feel that the natural world is important and valuable and beautiful and wonderful and an amazement and a pleasure.
- David Attenborough

It is that range of biodiversity that we must care for - the whole thing - rather than just one or two stars.
- David Attenborough

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.
- David Attenborough

The fact is that no species has ever had such wholesale control over everything on Earth, living or dead, as we now have. That lays upon us, whether we like it or not, an awesome responsibility. In our hands now lies not only our own future, but that of all other living creatures with whom we share the Earth.
- David Attenborough

The living world is a unique and spectacular marvel yet the way we humans live on earth is sending it into a decline.
- David Attenborough

We’re replacing the wild with the tame. Half of the fertile land on earth is now farmland. 70% 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% are the animals we raise to eat. The rest, from mice to whales, make up just 4%.
- David Attenborough

Since I started filming in the 1950s, on average, wild animal populations have more than halved. I look at these images now and I realize 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.
- David Attenborough

Food production can’t increase as rapidly as human reproduction. Demand will eventually outstrip supply. Malthus goes on to say, if we don’t control human reproduction voluntarily, life could end in misery, which earned him a reputation as a bit of a pessimist. But Malthus’ principle remains true. The productive capacity or the Earth has physical limits, and those limits will ultimately determine how many human beings it can support.
- David Attenborough

Human population density is a factor in every environmental problem I have ever encountered, from urban sprawl to urban overcrowding; disappearing tropical forests to ugly sinks of plastic waste, and now the relentless increase of atmospheric pollution.
- David Attenborough

I was born into a world of just under two billion people today there are nearly seven billion of us. Whenever I hear those numbers I can honestly say I find it incredible, triple the number of human beings in what seems like the blink of an eye and the world transformed utterly.
- David Attenborough

I’ve spent much of the last 50 years seeking wilderness filming animals in their natural habitat and, to some extent, avoiding humans. But, over the years, true wilderness has become harder to find.
- David Attenborough

Today we’re living in an era in which the biggest threat to human well-being, to other species and to the Earth as we know it might well be ourselves. The issue of population size is always controversial because it touches on the most personal decisions we make, but we ignore it at our peril.
- David Attenborough

Never before have we had such an awareness of what we are doing to the planet, and never before have we had the power to do something about that. Surely we all have a responsibility to care for our Blue Planet. The future of humanity and indeed, all life on earth, now depends on us.
- David Attenborough

Bringing nature into the classroom can kindle a fascination and passion for the diversity of life on earth and can motivate a sense of responsibility to safeguard it.
- David Attenborough

The best motto to think about is not to waste things. Don’t waste electricity; don’t waste paper; don’t waste food. Live the way you want to live but just don’t waste. Look after the natural world and the animals in it and the plants in it too. This is their planet as well as ours. Don’t waste them.
- David Attenborough

Instead of controlling the environment for the benefit of the population, perhaps it’s time we control the population to allow the survival of the environment.
- David Attenborough

As I see it, humanity needs to reduce its impact on the Earth urgently, and there are three ways to achieve this: we can stop consuming so many resources, we can change our technology, and we can reduce our population. We probably need to do all three.
- David Attenborough

There are some four million different kinds of animals and plants in the world. Four million different solutions to the problems of staying alive.
- David Attenborough

The final chapter is ours to write. We know what we need to do. What happens next is up to us.
- David Attenborough

Young people - they care. They know that this is the world that they're going to grow up in, that they're going to spend the rest of their lives in. But, I think it's more idealistic than that. They actually believe that humanity, human species, has no right to destroy and despoil regardless.
- David Attenborough

The whole of life is coming to terms with yourself and the natural world. Why are you here? How do you fit in? What’s it all about?
- David Attenborough

The question is, are we happy to suppose that our grandchild may never be able to see an elephant except in a picture book?
- David Attenborough

We have a finite environment—the planet. Anyone who thinks that you can have infinite growth in a finite environment is either a madman or an economist.
- David Attenborough

If people lose knowledge, sympathy and understanding of the natural world, they’re going to mistreat it and will not ask their politicians to care for it.
- David Attenborough

There are 3 times as many people on the planet now than there were when I started making natural history programs
- David Attenborough

Nature is our biggest ally and greatest inspiration.
- David Attenborough

Nature once determined how we survive. Now we determine how nature survives.
- David Attenborough

The greater the biodiversity, the more secure will be all life on Earth.
- David Attenborough

The future of life on earth depends on our ability to take action.
- David Attenborough

We need to work with nature, not against it.
- David Attenborough

No one will protect what they don’t care about, and no one will care about what they have never experienced.
- David Attenborough

I wish the world was twice as big - and half of it was still unexplored.
- David Attenborough