One of the great and much-loved constants of my life has been the presence of Sir David Attenborough in many of the natural world documentaries I have watched and have come to love.
A man who clearly loves, champions and advocates for his very precious subject matter, who possesses a wonder for the natural world which inspires and delights, and who effortlessly and passionately imparts that to others, David Attenborough is one of those people who can be considered a true treasure of humanity.
What has truly captured my imagination of late, as humanity battles yet more wars, climate change, environmental degradation and destruction and looming pandemics, is Attenborough’s well-informed optimism for the future.
He is honest, brutally and necessarily so, about the state of the world and how bad it could get, but he also believes things can get better; far from being empty promises or ideas, he has laid out how we can claw our way back from the brink and give renewed life to the natural world of which we are inextricably a part, whether we acknowledge it or not.
So, on his 100th birthday, his greatest gift to us, and surely we should be giving them to him since we owe him such a huge debt of gratitude (he did, however, get a small parasitic wasp named after him!), is the inspiration and courage to go on so that the fight for what is beautiful and awe inspiring and gregariously alive about this world of ours can continue to be so, long into the future in which you can hope Attenborough himself is somehow magically a part.
As Hans Zimmer said, we need another 100 years of him, at least.
On such an auspicious day, we must remember how much he has brought to us and our appreciation of the natural world …
And, rather wonderfully for this Aussie, we gave him a rather special 100th birthday gift …