Sir David Attenborough, UN Champion of the Earth - Lifetime Achievement

Before I was a television producer, I was a zoologist. The natural world means a lot to me. I've always believed that few people will protect the natural world if they don't first love and understand it. And television was a way of helping them to do so. I've traveled to every part of the globe. Here in New Guinea. I'm in South America, southeast woodlands of Australia. Here on the pampas of Argentina. In Africa. And making films about the creatures that live there. And all I knew is I wanted to try and understand the natural world. How complicated it is and how it works. And how it affects the way in which we live. I realized that although I felt I was out there in the wild, wandering through a pristine natural world, that was an illusion. Those forests and plains and seas were already emptying. He is the last of his kind. Sadly, this magnificent animal is getting rarer and rarer. Even this small precious patch of rainforest in northern Queensland is under threat. Indeed, you might say that if you have the guts to tackle certain things, which you should have, you will certainly be causing problems. Right now, we're facing a man-made disaster of global scale. We are risking the continued existence of this Earth. The longer we leave it and not doing things but going on talking about the problems, the worse it's going to get. The moment of crisis has come. We're warming the Earth far too quickly, adding carbon to the atmosphere faster than at any time in our planet's history. We are causing a rate of biodiversity loss only matched in the fossil record during a mass extinction event. This is the true tragedy of our time. This is not about saving our planet. It's about saving ourselves. We live in a finite world. We human beings depend upon the health of the natural world for every breath of air we breathe. The dangers that now face the Earth are global and can only be dealt with if nations sink their differences and unite to act globally. This is an urgent problem that has to be solved. Every year that passes makes those steps more and more difficult to achieve. We must not give up hope. I think the world is waking up to what we've done for the planet. And I feel privileged that they should listen to what an old bloke like me is talking about. People see that it's an important truth that has come to them through their television set and that it's something they can do something about. We alone are able to imagine the future. When we work together, there is no limit to what we can accomplish. All we require is the will. After a lifetime's exploration of the living world, I'm certain of one thing. Just treat the natural world as though it's precious, which it is. And don't squander those bits of it that we have control of.