Rethinking My Life Choices

By Aashish Poudel

“David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet” is a British documentary film narrated by Attenborough himself, which presents a first-hand experience from his long and celebrated life as a broadcaster on wildlife and nature. His career is prized by documentary series collections like the Life Collection that comprises exhaustive observation of plant and animal life on Earth. I watched the documentary recently and the poignant display of loss of natural habitat, decline of diversity and destruction of wildlife urged me to reconsider my life choices, enabling me to learn and implement specific measures in redressing the havoc that has been created so far.

Attenborough begins the documentary from a deserted area ravaged by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, narrating his life experiences from a child to his adventurous adult years of traveling remote parts of the world observing nature and wildlife. Some key moments in his career indicate how diverse, pristine and flourished nature was in the past, and how this has been upended due to the ruthless and uncontrolled devastations carried out by humans in the past half century.

For instance, he remembers when he visited places such as the African Serengeti, where endemic animals require a big portion of pastureland to maintain grazing patterns. However, over the years, he has noticed a considerable decline in wildlife. The loss of wildlife and sabotage of nature can be seen as every passing year, it is more difficult for him to find varieties of fishes, orangutans, and other species. Similarly, different parts of the Arctic and the Antarctic are losing more ice during the summer as ice caps melted at an inconceivable degree. To meet the growing need for a rising population, corporations started killing whales, cutting down trees like never before and the irreparable damage was exacerbated. As Attenborough describes the documentary as his "witness statement.” He presents us with how worse the situation could be by the end of this century if no steps are taken to redress the situation. In that case, he predicts that Earth will be inhabitable dryland with smoke and harmful gases, and humankind will be extirpated from the face of the planet.

As the latter part of the documentary suggests, this apocalypse can be prevented if we take required measures. As Attenborough says, we must restore biodiversity and let wildlife grow in order to bring back the balance. Uplifting countries out of poverty, allowing communities to be financially independent on trade, providing universal health care and improving the education status of girls will be the first few steps we should take to control the growing population. It should be followed by using renewable energy such as solar, wind, water and geothermal to sustainably power all human energy usage while work should be done to preserve forests and coastal areas around the world. This will bring us closer to rectifying the global climate change. Attenborough, in his narration, highlights work done by countries like Costa Rica, Bhutan and Norway that have been exemplars so far in mitigating these effects. In doing so, he gives us hope for a bright future.

On the whole, the documentary not only presents an alarming case of a looming havoc, which, if not checked, will decimate all of humanity, but also outlines specific scientific demarches that we can take together to save both the planet and our species. I personally had an eye-opening experience in watching the documentary. It urged me to reconsider all the life choices that I have been callously making so far and critically think if, in some way, I can make changes that will reduce carbon footprints. Moreover, it provided me hope that we can solve the problem if we believe in science and act soon. Making people aware of the issue, urging them to make changes in their lifestyle, and gather a mass consensus that the state and the government should act quickly are some of the immediate measures that I should adopt to play my part. Then, we can ensure that coming generations will have a world where wild lives are not on the verge of extinction, and flora and fauna are flourishing biodiversity and bounty in nature.

Therefore, the documentary was a very visceral experience for me, something that was both very cautious and added purpose to my life of bringing back the balance of wildlife and diversity.