AN INSPIRING FILM: PROTECT BIODIVERSITY AND REDUCE CLIMATE CHANGE Adam Higazi Research Affiliate, Department of Anthropology, University of Amsterdam, and African Studies Centre, University of Oxford Email: [email protected]

David Attenborough (b. 1926) is rightly celebrated as one of the world’s leading naturalists and as an outstanding communicator of science and natural history. His broadcasting career spans close to seventy years and includes many ac- claimed BBC documentaries, from Zoo Quest (broadcast 1954–63) to Life on Earth (1979), (1984), The Private Life of Plants (1995) and I and II (2001 and 2017), to pick just a few. Attenborough is also a prolific and vivid writer. His book Life on Earth, originally published in 1979 and revised and updated in 2018 for its fortieth anniversary, is a bril- liant, concise and richly detailed evolutionary history of life on , from the first evidence of life some four billion years ago to the emergence and spread of Homo sapiens from about 300,000 years ago. The book tells the story through palaeontology, zoology, botany and finally biological anthropology. In the early part of his career, Attenborough also produced some significant ethnographic films and made forays into ethnomusicology, with remarkable recordings of local musical traditions in different parts of the world. I men- tion all this to give context to Attenborough’s 2020 Netflix film,A Life on Our Planet. It reflects current scientific and public concerns over the environment but is based on Attenborough’s unique vantage point after a lifetime of learn- ing, broadcasting, writing and travel. The film is accompanied by a book,1 which is also to be recommended as it expands on the issues raised in the film. This short comment piece is based on my watching of the film and reading of the book, and on reading some of the wider literature on these issues. Natural history broadcasting and writing has tended to shy away from en- vironmentalism. Attenborough’s earlier nature programmes present wildlife as existing in unspoilt habitats beyond human influence. While informative and educational on evolution, animal behaviour, plant diversity and natural processes, the interrelations between humans and ecology were not often con- sidered. The scale and causes of local and global environmental destruction were also not well publicised. This has gradually changed over the past decade, but A Life on Our Planet addresses such issues directly and is a much more

1 D. Attenborough, with J. Hughes, A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future (London: Witness Books, 2020).

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personal environmental statement by Attenborough. It is both well-articulated and informative. The film (and book) has three main parts – a witness state- ment, then a projection of ‘what lies ahead’ if no action is taken and finally ‘a vision for the future’, which proposes solutions to the problems identi- fied. The witness statement is structured chronologically, from 1937, when Attenborough was eleven years old and there were 2.3 billion people in the world, 280 parts per million of carbon in the atmosphere, and an estimated 66 per cent of Earth was ‘wilderness’. By 2020, Attenborough was 94, the world’s population had more than tripled to 7.8 billion, atmospheric carbon was 450 ppm, and remaining wilderness was estimated at 35 per cent. The film gives a powerful overview of the destructive impacts of, essentially, industrial and consumer capitalism on terrestrial and marine habitats. The film’s principal focus is on the world’s biological diversity, which clearly is diminishing and in peril as habitats are destroyed. The film accu- rately and visually depicts environmental crises that are affecting all parts of the world. This includes climate change, and the film correctly makes the link between collapsing biodiversity and the climate crisis. The book, more effectively than the film, links the protection of habitats and biodiversity to indigenous people’s rights and the need for local participation in conservation initiatives. In sum, the solution is based on rewilding, protecting and recov- ering biodiversity, and shifting completely to renewable energy. This would involve protecting remaining forests and ceasing any further deforestation, while also replanting forests; increasing marine conservation areas to replenish diversity in the oceans and to improve fish stocks; using advanced technology to raise the productivity and environmental standards of intensive farming, and shift more to a plant-based diet and away from intensive cattle ranching. The need for education, particularly of girls, to reduce high population growth rates is also mentioned. The philosophical justification and ideal outcome of such a paradigm shift would be to live ‘as part of nature and not apart from nature’ and to use the natural world as our ally in addressing the environmental chal- lenges we face, including climate change. In principle, the proposals are excellent and reflect clarity of thought and ambition for sustainable living. Rewilding to rebuild habitats and at the same time increase the uptake of carbon is now a mainstream and accepted plank of the environmental movement. Attenborough argues strongly in favour of this. But how can such enlightened ideas be achieved in practice, given the scale of vested interests in maintaining the status quo at the global level? The details for practical implementation are of vital importance. Policies should be supportive of and supported by local people, for example in conservation areas where re- wilding occurs. The financing, legal frameworks, land use agreements, energy use and so many other issues need to be worked out. Positive conservation

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examples that generate local support and benefit could be drawn upon. But the scale of what is proposed is larger than this and would likely require the end of consumer capitalism.2 The film is not about pastoralism, but that should not put readers of this journal off. It is about the growing biodiversity and climate crises thatare affecting all the world and on current trajectories will get far worse. These issues are relevant to everyone and are felt across pastoral areas. The destruc- tion of savannah and tropical biodiversity, for example, has several causes, among them the continued expansion of cultivation, plantation agriculture and ranching – driven by population pressure and by corporate interests, includ- ing large-scale land grabs by political and business elites and global capital. Pastoralism is a sustainable production system that, if well managed, can be consistent with biodiversity conservation. It is also tied to socio-cultural di- versity and indigenous ecological knowledge. In research, it will be important to ask and explain if and how pastoral systems could coexist with rewilding. Local specificity is clearly important and this research should be done across different social and biotic environments. A common refrain uttered ruefully by pastoral Fulɓe in northern Nigeria is ‘walaa ladde’ – there is no bush left. Pastoralists not only like and need ‘wild places’, they value and understand them and have helped historically to shape many of them. Rewilding pro- grammes in Europe include the reintroduction of bison, which reportedly have beneficial impacts on floral diversity and local ecologies.3 The issues raised by , and more broadly by the environmental crisis we are in, also point to a need for research on pastoralism to engage not only with socio- cultural and political-economic issues, important as they are, but also more knowledgeably with ecology, climate and the natural sciences.

2 For a superb synthesis that addresses both the scientific dimensions of climate change and biodiversity loss and the political economy and history of these crises, in geological time, see: S. Lewis and M. Maslin, The Human Planet: How We Created the Anthropocene (London: Pelican, an imprint of Penguin Books, 2018). 3 https://rewildingeurope.com/rewilding-in-action/wildlife-comeback/bison/

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