David Attenborough, a major voice on climate change and biodiversity loss, whose seminal documentaries changed the general knowledge of the natural world for a global audience, turns 100 on Friday.
Attenborough’s natural history programs, such as “Life on Earth” in which he had a famous encounter with mountain gorillas in Rwanda, have brought the most remote corners of the earth into living rooms worldwide, AFP writes.
“(He) has brought us all to places we would never go otherwise. “That is a massive gift,” botanist Sandra Knapp, director of research at London’s Natural History Museum, told our correspondent.
The BBC is at the forefront of celebrating the Briton’s centenary with a week of programmes dedicated to his life.
There are reruns of classic shows such as “Planet Earth II” and “Blue Planet II,” plus others such as “Life in the Freezer” and “Paradise Birds,” on the BBC’s iPlayer service.
The centerpiece is a 90-minute live presentation from the Royal Albert Hall in London on his birthday.
“Attenborough’s programmes have broadened people’s horizons and been an inspiration to many,” added Knapp.
“David Attenborough has made natural history as popular as football,” said Jean-Baptiste Gouyon, a professor of science communication at University College London (UCL).
Gouyon said: “Attenborough’s programmes have succeeded in creating in the public an unequalled passion and wonder for the natural world.
He studied geology and biology at university, but his lifelong fascination for the natural world began as a child.
Prince William, heir to the UK throne, said he was a “national treasure”. Attenborough was also a firm admirer of the late Queen Elizabeth II, who knighted him in 1985.
US singer-songwriter Billie Eilish has praised his “deep love and knowledge of our planet” saying: “The animal kingdom brings out the childlike curiosity within us all.” Attenborough’s cross-generational appeal is demonstrated in the fact that US singer-songwriter Billie Eilish has praised his “deep love and knowledge of our planet” saying: “The animal kingdom brings out the childlike curiosity within us all.”
mountain gorilla
Attenborough has often spoken of his “luck” in being able to “find and film rare creatures that few outsiders have seen in the wild”.
And he has said he has been able “to look upon some of the most marvellous spectacles that the wild places of the world have to offer”.
In 2006, he was among those who raised the alarm about climate change and biodiversity loss.
He said he was “no longer sceptical” on the matter, having waited for conclusive evidence that humanity was influencing the climate.
Attenborough has had a very long career in broadcasting, over 80 years now, and it has been very much connected with the BBC, which he joined in the early 1950s.
Life on Earth”, released in 1979, alone has been viewed by 500 million people worldwide, while dozens of documentaries and associated books have made him a household name.
Recalling the series’ pinnacle, when he came face to face with a group of mountain gorillas, Attenborough hailed it as “extraordinary” and “bliss”.
“I was just whisked away,” he stated before his birthday. “The adult female twisted my head and stared directly into my eyes, and her two youngsters perched on me as the cameras rolled.”
‘The new colonialism’
He continued to make films into his nineties and used his 2025 video “Ocean” to denounce the affluent nations’ commercial fishing tactics as “modern colonialism at sea”.
The presenter, whose brother was the late actor and film director Richard Attenborough, has always resisted being perceived as a celebrity despite his reputation.
“Attenborough always brought the viewer’s eye back to the subject matter,” Gouyon observed.
Attenborough has spoken of the threat to the natural world and said he hopes humanity will be able to alter course.
At the UN Climate Summit in Glasgow in 2021, he said, “Perhaps the fact that the people most impacted by climate change are no longer some imaginary future generation but young people alive today… will give us the motivation we need to rewrite our story, to turn this tragedy into triumph.”
“Anyway, we are the best problem solvers that have ever existed on Earth,” he remarked.
Attenborough is no longer roaming the world’s jungles and deserts, now he is 100.
But he’s kept telling the tale of the planet closer to home.
In “Wild London”, a show which aired in early 2026, he marvels at the wildlife of the British metropolis, his birthplace, from foxes and beavers to hedgehogs and harvest mice
He has admitted to travelling a lot but his favourite destination, he says, is still Richmond, a wealthy, leafy district in the south-west of London.
Having resided in the riverfront town for many years, he still lives in the family house he shared with his late wife Jane and their two children.
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