‘David Attenborough has uplifted our bond with nature — he’s made generations love and protect it’

The extraordinary natural historian, ecological advocate, writer and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough turns 100 today. Environmental filmmaker Ashwika Kapur speaks with Krishnendu Mukherjee about Attenborough’s documentaries, his wonder and precision — and filming with him, jumbos and jam tarts — sending birthday wishes and gratitude in Times Evoke.When did Sir David Attenborough first enter your life?I grew up in Kolkata in the 1990s when natural history television programmes were not readily available in India. However, I was an animal-mad child — by the time I turned five, the balcony of our flat was already a sanctuary for rescued birds, frogs, rabbits and squirrels. My father encouraged my love for animals. He sourced a small treasure trove of David Attenborough tapes from abroad and brought them home, one on each trip. I watched ‘Life on Earth’, ‘The Trials of Life’, ‘The Private Life of Plants’, etc., on a tiny TV set. I thought I was being entertained — I had no idea I was being shaped. After college, the assumption was I’d do something ‘sensible’ like law or banking — instead, I picked up a camera and left for Africa to be a wildlife filmmaker. That decision had been made for me years ago by a gentleman on a small TV. He walked me through rainforests, deserts and mountains and left an indelible mark.I then met Sir David in 2014 at the Wildscreen Film Festival, often called ‘the Green Oscars’. My first film ‘Sirocco — How a Dud Became a Stud’, about an eccentric New Zealand kakapo bird, had won me an award. However, the real prize for me was that David Attenborough was there in person. In 2017, I got an opportunity to work with him. I got a project at Humble Bee Films in Bristol. They were producing ‘Attenborough and the Giant Elephant’. Generally, people who work on these shoots tend to be a small number of crew Sir David has known for decades. Yet, I pitched what I thought was a long shot. Nobody was capturing the behind-the-scenes of the shoot. I asked if I could — to my disbelief, they said yes.What was filming with Attenborough like?Day one was at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) library. Sir David was very warm and witty. He came in, said hello to everyone, sat down and pulled out this tiny old phone. Somebody on the crew gently ribbed him about being one of the last people on Earth without a smartphone. He said, totally deadpan, ‘Of course it’s smart — it even has a calculator in it.’ There were other surprises. We took a tea break and Production had set out a large spread with biscuits, jam tarts and a huge bar of chocolate. Being halfBengali, I’m not the most disciplined when it comes to sugar. But that morning, I was astonished — while the director was talking David Attenborough through shots, his hand moved to the first jam tart. Then, a second. Then, a third. Then, the chocolate. In a world where everyone is constantly logging their macros and taking pictures of oat milk, it was the most liberating thing I had seen.One day, I plucked up the nerve to mention to him that we’d met briefly at Wildscreen and I’d given him a DVD of my first film, only to learn afterwards that he watched just VHS tapes. He asked me about the film. I told him about Sirocco, the hilarious flightless kakapo who’d become an unlikely sensation. He was amused. ‘That sounds wonderful,’ he said. ‘It’s so hard to make wildlife films that are actually funny.What a marvelous species to begin a career with.’ I was thrilled for days.What is David Attenborough like when he’s filming?His work is a masterclass in craft. He learns the script but every take is slightly different. He is constantly fine-tuning. Moving a word, replacing a phrase, sharpening a sentence, because he understands the science underneath the words better than anyone else. Between takes, he’s hunched over the script, quietly tweaking. He’s done with a take only when he thinks it has gone right. If there’s a tiny stumble, he is the first to spot it and ask to go again. Watching him hold himself to that standard was quietly humbling.Later, the shoot moved to ZSL Whipsnade Zoo for a piece-tocamera with a baby elephant. Generally, the years give us experience and, very quietly, take our sense of wonder in exchange — with David Attenborough, they have not. When the keeper brought the calf out, he lit up and greeted her with such gentle warmth. After every continent, every species, every marvel he has filmed, the wonder in him is wholly undimmed. That is the real magic of him.Some critics argue Sir David’s earlier work celebrated nature when it should have rung alarm bells — what is your view?I think the question, understandable as it is, slightly misses the man. You only fight for what you love. And before Sir David Attenborough, we simply did not understand the planet as we do today. Bats were thought of as ‘vermin’. Snakes were ‘demons’ to be killed. The deep ocean was a ‘frightening abyss’. He’s spent half a century, patiently and beautifully introducing us to all of it — and we fell in love. Through his eyes, we saw cuttlefish as artists, dung beetles as engineers and bowerbirds as the most hopeful little romantics on our planet. There is no number for all the children who, across the world, decided to dedicate their lives to nature because of him. He changed how we humans see this planet — for most of our history, we’ve treated the natural world as a threat, a resource or a backdrop. Thanks to David Attenborough’s shows, generations of people in living rooms across the globe came to know the wild like never before — the love he ignited underpins so many of today’s conservation movements, climate marches and moments of grief felt over a species lost or a forest burned.You only protect what you love — and he gave that love to us. He reframed our relationship with the planet.We face climate change and ecocide today — which messages from Attenborough’s work resonate most in this emergency?There are two, each giving meaning to the other. The first is the message of ‘A Life On Our Planet’, which he made at 93 and described as his witness statement — ‘The story of global decline during a single lifetime.’ His numbers are staggering.Since he began filming in the 1950s, wild animal populations have more than halved — the speed of change exceeds anything in the last 10,000 years. We need that message headlining every conversation about climate and biodiversity.The second is hope. Sir David has shown nature is astonishingly resilient. In the abandoned city of Pripyat near Chernobyl, he showed how, without human presence, the forest has reclaimed the town and wildlife has returned. The point is not despair — it is that the natural world will recover, if we give it half a chance. Of course, for decades, as he himself says, his programmes showed the beauty of nature instead of how it was in trouble — but what he’s done since is enormous. His episode on plastic pollution, featuring a pilot whale carrying her dead calf which had possibly ingested plastic or albatross parents unwittingly feeding plastic to their chicks, did something rare — it changed behaviour immediately and at scale. Around 9 in 10 British viewers reported altering their use of plastic in the weeks after. His other films have followed in that spirit.This is a man who could have spent his nineties resting on a peerless reputation — he chose instead to spend them ringing the alarm bell. He spent the first half of his career teaching us to love the natural world. He has spent the second half, telling us we are about to lose it. The wildlife storytellers of my generation have inherited that responsibility. Could you mention some intriguing species shown by Attenborough?First, the kakapo — the wonderful flightless parrot from New Zealand I first saw wobbleing across our TV set in ‘The Life of Birds, which then became the subject of my first film. Attenborough has given us the most heart-stopping wild moments ever. The marine iguana hatchling, sprinting for its life from a congregation of writhing racer snakes, could outdo any Hollywood chase! He gave us the first proper film of a snow leopard in the wild. He’s filmed orcas hunting in coordinated packs and shown birds of paradise and their theatrical displays. In ‘The Green Planet’, he taught us to love plants — to make people cheer for a seed is quite a feat! The one image that has stayed with me since childhood is his legendary encounter with mountain gorillas in 1979. That incredible moment on film was entirely unscripted — one gorilla gently looked him directly in the eyes while two baby gorillas climbed into his lap. He abandoned his script entirely, having the most spontaneous heartfelt response. Attenborough has described that as one of the most extraordinary and privileged moments of his life — I still haven’t recovered from it. On his birthday, on behalf of many, I’d like to thank David Attenborough for making us fall in love with our beautiful Earth. Views expressed are personal