David Attenborough - A life on our planet

A must watch – A Life on Our Planet

This year has brought many unexpected changes to our lives. For us it has shone the spotlight more brightly on why we must act now for the planet and for the future of our children. We are the witnesses to another defining moment in our plane’s history and the individual decisions we are making right now will decide our fate.

Sir David Attenborough’s latest film A Life On Our Planet so eloquently but starkly shows the reality of what we have done to the planet. There are so many quotable moments in this documentary so I’ve selected this one where he sums up the human race as it is now:

There was nothing to stop us unless we stopped ourselves. We will keep consuming the earth until we have used it up.

This documentary is David Attenborough’s witness statement and it IS confronting at times because it has to be. During his extraordinary career he has brought the wonders of nature into our homes in his many excellent documentaries. In this one he finally (I susoect in desperation at our tardiness to make the necessary changes) he shows us the true reality of how we have disregarded nature and its integral importance to our survival. This is not about saving our planet, it is about saving ourselves. 

Without an abundant natural world we will not exist.

After sharing the grim reality he gives us five actions we can take as a community to turn the tide and create a positive future living in harmony with nature:

1. Decrease the population – this has already started happening and raising people out of poverty and educating women will allow this trend to continue.

2. Harness the power from nature for energy. Nature has given us an abundance of free sustainable energy sources let’s use them.

3. Create healthy oceans – enable oceans to become healthy and biodiverse once again so they can continue to provide food and sequester carbon from the atmosphere.

Did you know if we had no fish zones in just one third of our coastal seas the ocean could recover and sustainably provide all the food we need to feed the world population.

4. Reduce the land grab – we need half the land we use for farming to be allowed to return to wilderness. Farming animals for food is a land intensive activity and is simply unsustainable. There are pockets of innovative farming practises happening around the world producing much of the plant based food we need in small spaces.. We must find our way back to sustainable practices like eating a largely plant based diet.

5. No more deforestation - forests are fundamental to the planet’s recovery as they are home to great biodiversity. Natures biodiversity is essential to our survival. Healthy biodiversity means:
o Ecosystems like water ways and soil are protected.
o Nature can bounce back from unpredictable events.
o A more stable climate.
o Pollution breaks down and is absorbed more readily (except for plastic 😱).

There is no time to waste. We encourage you to make time to watch this documentary. Encourage family and friends and then decide what else you can do to make a difference.

Thanks for being on this journey with us and now we all need to up-the-ante and do more. Let’s keep discussing HOW!

Sue and Nikki