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Hindustan Times
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Mumbai loses its ‘bird man'
MUMBAI: 'Birds teach, they are always revealing some secret, they act as a barometer of the city's general health,' Sunjoy Monga had once told HT. He was to go birding in Lokhandwala this weekend,' said Ravi Vaidyanathan, his friend and partner in his lifelong obsession. It's a date he couldn't keep, for on Wednesday evening, Monga, 63, succumbed to a nine-year battle with blood cancer. An award-winning wildlife photographer and author of several books on nature and birds, Monga was a beloved son of Mumbai. His advocacy for the natural world saw him write a regular column for HT titled 'Mumbai Safari'. He will also be remembered for his 'Bird Race', an annual bird-spotting event that inspired a love of birds in hundreds of Mumbaiites over the years. He's also left a treasure trove of writing for birders. 'A great tree has fallen,' said Pravin Subramanian, who organised the Bird Race with Monga since 2007. 'Monga started his bird-watching journey with legends like Humayun Abdulali and Salim Ali. Back then, there were only two books for bird enthusiasts to follow. Monga filled this void by writing comprehensible books for all.' Deepak Apte, former head of BNHS, said, 'I met Monga in the early '90s, when he led nature trails for the BNHS. He introduced us to the world of scientific bird watching, teaching us to identify birds and listen to bird sounds.' Bittu Sahgal, founder-editor of conservation magazine 'Sanctuary Asia', remembered Monga fondly as a 'crack birder-naturalist'. Speaking about Monga's time between 1990 and 1994 as associate editor at the magazine, Sahgal said, 'Sunjoy was viscerally a part and parcel of 'Sanctuary Asia' magazine at its very start, and a key reason we were able to navigate our way through the science and interpretation of the counterintuitive world of wildlife conservation and natural history. Together, we almost convinced Sir David Attenborough to shoot a few sequences of 'Life on Earth' in India in the early 1980s!' Monga organised Mumbai's first bird race in 2005. It's an exercise he organised annually - now known as 'Wings - Birds of India' - and took to 33 other Indian cities. Inspired by the Hong Kong bird race, Monga called upon all birdwatchers to set aside 12 hours, keeping their eyes peeled for avians of all species. During the first race, 100-odd enthusiasts sighted 277 species of birds in and around Mumbai – and the legacy continues to this day. 'I joined as a participant in the third bird race and have been one of the organisers for the last seven,' said Vaidyanathan. 'Back then, we would jot all our findings in log books and Sunjoy would compile the data. It was Sunjoy who highlighted the death of the wetlands in Uran, where around 12 years ago we were able to spot 60-70 bird species in an hour. Today, even Lokhandwala Lake, in his backyard, is rapidly losing its winged visitors.' Raju Kasambe, programme manager, lands, at The Nature Conservancy, an environmental organisation, remembered, 'At the end of each race, Sunjoy would put together an amusing presentation with a lot of takeaways. It took a lot of grit in the early years to put together a checklist of birds and hand it over to 30 groups, then analyse each sheet and the data, but he did it every year. A lot it has migrated to the e-bird app.' In 2007, Monga launched another project close to his heart. Called 'Young Rangers', it was a training programme that introduced school children to the wild and sensitised them to the environment. It wound up a few years later but is fondly remembered. Monga was a member of the governing council of the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) for several years. Like many naturalists, Monga's expertise was much sought-after. He was a part of the Executive Committee of the MMRDA's Environment Improvement Society, Maharashtra Nature Park Society and honorary Warden of the Sanjay Gandhi National Park. 'Birds were his driving force,' recalled Yuhina Monga, his daughter. 'His terminal illness did not deter him from going bird watching. He would frequently go with his camera by the Lokhandwala Lake and capture birds. In particular, he had a special connection with owls and would collect figurines of different species from all over the world and keep them on display.'
Sky News AU
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sky News AU
Sir David Attenborough's longtime friend Sir Michael Palin urges him to 'give up and retire' as broadcast legend turns 99
Sir David Attenborough's longtime friend Sir Michael Palin made an off-the-cuff remark about the British broadcaster's legacy as he entered his 100th year. On Wednesday, the legendary BBC presenter celebrated his 99th birthday with the premiere of his awe-inspiring new documentary Ocean. Ocean showcases breathtaking visuals of the depths of the planet's body of water and features the return of Attenborough's infamous hearty voice. The planet's undersea habitats are emphasised through the ocean's vital importance as a source of food, life, and biodiversity. However, beneath the murky depths is something more sinister, as scenes of the mysterious deep blue shift to expose its ruined coral and debris. Sir Michael Palin, who profiled Attenborough for his documentary Life on Air: David Attenborough's 50 Years in Television in 2002, poked fun at his longtime friend at the world premiere of Ocean in London on Tuesday. Palin joked he wished Attenborough would "give up and retire" after the 99-year-old added Ocean to his trove of more than 100 documentaries. The tongue-in-cheek quip came as he said the broadcaster's success prevented octogenarians like himself from seeming accomplished. "I've ceased to be surprised by anything David does," Palin told 9Honey on the blue carpet. "The fact that he got to 80 years old - or 82, which I am now - he was still making programs, and I've been waiting for him to give up and retire so we can all have a nice, quiet life, and don't have to have him setting the torch out there ever further." Palin championed Attenborough's "enthusiasm", warmth and "great sense of humour". "His interests are really wide-ranging, which I think really is part of why he is so good at what he's doing, because he has a good worldview," he said. Attenborough was born in 1926 in Isleworth, Middlesex to University College principal Frederik and his wife Mary. He first applied to join the BBC in 1950 as a radio producer, but his application was rejected and he was offered a TV job instead. The world-famous veteran naturalist has since roamed the globe and shared the planet's most fascinating insights through his famous nature documentaries Life on Earth and The Blue Planet. With an eight-year career, Attenborough has become synonymous with natural history broadcasting and public trust regarding environmental and natural history issues. The eight-time BAFTA award winner was voted the most trusted figure, on average, for climate change information in Britain, alongside climate scientists and charities, according to a Climate Outreach study in 2021. In Ocean, Attenborough expressed sadness at the current state of the world's ecosystems as he approached "the end" of his life. "When I first saw the sea as a young boy, it was thought of as a vast wilderness to be tamed and mastered for the benefit of humanity," he said. "Now, as I approach the end of my life, we know the opposite is true. "After living for nearly a hundred years on this planet, I now understand that the most important place on Earth is not on land, but at sea.' He said the ocean is "in such poor health," but hoped it could "bounce back to life". "I would find it hard not to lose hope were it not for the most remarkable discovery of all," he said. 'If we save the sea, we save our world. After a lifetime of filming our planet, I'm sure nothing is more important.' In the wake of his 99th birthday, Attenborough's comments about his dietary changes to stay healthy and extend his life resurfaced. 'I have certainly changed my diet. Not in a great sort of dramatic way," he said in 2017. "But I don't think I've eaten red meat for months. I do eat cheese, I have to say, and I eat fish. "But by and large, I've become much more vegetarian over the past few years than I thought I would ever be."
New Statesman
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New Statesman
David Attenborough at 99: 'Life will almost certainly find a way'
Over a career spanning seven decades, David Attenborough has brought the strangeness, beauty and wonder of the natural world to British television, in programmes such as Life on Earth and Blue Planet, and campaigned for environmental conservation. In Ocean, published on 8 May to coincide with Attenborough's 99th birthday, he and his long-time collaborator Colin Butfield turn their attentions to this last great wilderness, still the most unexplored habitat on Earth. In a series of emails, Attenborough and the New Statesman corresponded about the damage mankind has done to the ocean, as well as its incredible resilience and how it could be restored. You have filmed in deserts and jungles, mountainsides and grasslands. What is it about life under the waves that draws you back to the ocean? Over the decades I have made documentaries about many different habitats and regions across the world. The oceans cover such a large proportion of the globe that they inevitably include many fascinating habitats and creatures. However, the underwater world has always been harder to access, let alone film. Now scientists are constantly discovering new things. In less than a century, technological developments have progressed so far that scientists are able penetrate much deeper into the ocean. We are also able to get better images than ever before, and together that makes it an exciting time to film in the oceans. It is also an important time. We are beginning to realise just how much we rely on a healthy ocean and the amount of damage we are doing to it. In Ocean, we also try to tell that story and reveal the benefits to all of us of allowing life under the waves to recover. The impact of human society on the warming seas is well documented, but there remains a sense that in the deep, life goes on as it has for millennia. Is that true, or does what we do on the surface have consequences thousands of metres down? The deep ocean is certainly not the featureless abyss we once thought, but has many remarkably different features and habitats. We still know relatively little about the deep compared to almost every other part of the ocean. As far as we know, life progresses at a slower pace in the deep. There is less oxygen and fewer nutrients, and we think cellular processes happen more slowly. As a result, many species live a long time and reproduce late in life. We certainly do already influence the deep in a number of ways. Many deep-sea species appear to rely on nutrients falling from nearer the surface, so the reduction in marine life from these parts of the ocean will probably affect the deep too. Furthermore, many species migrate between the deep and surface water, so catching those species in more accessible waters alters the deeper ecosystem. We are all too aware these days of the damaging presence of plastics across the globe, but especially in the oceans, where it has been found even in the deep. But that is not all. Indiscriminate fishing practices and accidental interference on and near the surface probably also affect the deeper areas of the oceans. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe There has been an incredible recovery in whale populations in the past 40 years. Do you believe similar revivals are possible for other species threatened by humans? The story of the recovery of the great whales is indeed one of great hope, though the job is not done yet. International agreements have allowed whale populations to increase in numbers at a surprisingly rapid rate, especially for such vast, slow-growing creatures. There is no reason why this should not be possible for many species. We now understand so much more about how the ocean works. We need to fish with more care for the environment, avoiding indiscriminate damage. We have seen that when we protect areas properly, even migratory species that only pass through them can benefit. More than that, it is becoming increasingly clear that setting up properly protected areas in the ocean can allow such a regeneration of fish populations that, in a remarkably short time, stocks beyond the protected areas also increase, allowing fishing communities to catch more fish, rather than less. Does the ocean have the ability to regenerate in the same way the ozone layer does? Will life always find a way? We have certainly seen, in most ocean habitats, that if given time and space, life can recover surprisingly fast – often much faster than the equivalent area on land. The exception is probably deep-water habitats, where things are much slower growing and live longer, and as a result, recovery is also slower. Viewed over geological time, life will almost certainly find a way. Our planet has experienced mass extinctions before and new life has always evolved to replace that which went extinct. However, this process takes hundreds of thousands of years, so if we were looking at it from the perspective of what we need, as humanity, to thrive, then a stable ocean with abundant marine life is vital. If we protect parts of the ocean, there is every reason to believe that the recovery in marine life within those areas will be so substantial it will spill out into the surrounding ocean. It's win-win-win. We would have more fish to eat, incredible marine reserves full of wonderful life, and the process of restoration would draw down more carbon from the atmosphere, helping us stabilise the climate in a way that is cost-effective and unintrusive to our daily lives. Around 250 million years ago, the 'Great Dying' killed 96 per cent of marine species, possibly as a result of global warming depriving oceans of oxygen. How might today's warming affect deep-sea species? Changes in oxygen levels in the ocean are indeed causing profound problems. In the upper levels of the ocean, we see what are known as 'dead zones', where oxygen levels are so low they create near-anoxic environments where little life can live. Many of these are not small patches but enormous swathes of coastal sea. It is important to note that climate change is not the only contributing factor to these dead zones: agricultural run-off, in particular fertiliser, creates algal blooms that very quickly change the oxygen levels in an area. As for the impact of oxygen levels on deep-sea life, it's hard to say for sure. One of the particular challenges of the deep is how difficult it is to study and how small a percentage of that area we have adequately explored. What we can say for sure is that there are many traces of human activity affecting the deep. We are catching fish at ever-deeper levels and studies have also shown pollution from human activities is finding its way to the deep sea. The deep-sea environment is of vital importance to stability on our planet, yet we're still quite a long way off understanding how it works and how our actions affect it. Global coral bleaching has affected 84 per cent of the ocean's reefs this year, primarily due to rising temperature levels. Is the damage now irreparable? Prolonged ocean heat waves, which are one of the major causes of coral bleaching, are getting so regular and extreme that many predictions for the future of coral reefs are dire. However, there is some hope. As far as we know, coral bleaching has always happened from time to time. Under normal circumstances, heat waves are short enough that the coral quickly recovers. However, if a heat wave continues for too long, the reef gets swamped with algae and the coral dies. What we have discovered is that where there are healthy fish populations, algae growth is kept in check by grazing fish, which gives the coral more time to recover. This will not work indefinitely. If we continue to warm the planet, then in time most coral reefs will indeed disappear. However, keeping fish populations healthy will buy the coral more time and give us a fighting chance of still having coral reefs in the future. 'Ocean: Earth's Last Wilderness' by Sir David Attenborough and Colin Butfield is published by John Murray. 'Ocean with David Attenborough' is in cinemas now [See more: The second birth of JMW Turner] Related
The Age
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
David Attenborough has a new film for his 99th birthday – and it's surprisingly optimistic
David Attenborough is doing what he does best for his 99th birthday next Thursday … presenting a new film. The legendary British natural historian, broadcaster and documentary filmmaker, who has hosted such landmark series as Life on Earth, The Living Planet and Frozen Planet over more than 70 years, is still hard at work. His latest documentary, Ocean with David Attenborough, opens in cinemas around the world on his birthday. 'He's remarkable,' co-director Colin Butfield says on a Zoom call from England. 'He's coming to the premiere, he's in fantastic form. I've just written a book with him, which is tiring enough for me, and I'm 52. I don't think he's ever going to stop working.' Ocean has Attenborough reflecting – in that famously authoritative voice – on what he has learnt over his lifetime. 'After living for nearly 100 years on this planet, I now understand that the most important place on Earth is not on land, but at sea,' he says. 'To this day, we have seen more of other planets than we have of the ocean. Now we are making discoveries that completely change our understanding and could offer a better future for everyone on Earth forever.' The film shows some alarming threats to the ocean's vitality, including industrial bottom-trawling. A chain or metal boom is dragged across the seabed, turning it into an underwater desert, to catch a single species, with almost everything else caught in a net discarded. 'Lines of baited hooks 50 miles long reel in millions of sharks every year,' Attenborough adds. 'We have now killed two-thirds of all large predatory fish.' Also concerning are huge trawlers harvesting krill in Antarctica, threatening the food supply of almost every creature there, to supply fish farms, health supplements, and pet food. Another bad sign is mass coral bleaching in Florida, the Caribbean, the Maldives, and the Great Barrier Reef, attributed to heatwave conditions around the world.
Sydney Morning Herald
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
David Attenborough has a new film for his 99th birthday – and it's surprisingly optimistic
David Attenborough is doing what he does best for his 99th birthday next Thursday … presenting a new film. The legendary British natural historian, broadcaster and documentary filmmaker, who has hosted such landmark series as Life on Earth, The Living Planet and Frozen Planet over more than 70 years, is still hard at work. His latest documentary, Ocean with David Attenborough, opens in cinemas around the world on his birthday. 'He's remarkable,' co-director Colin Butfield says on a Zoom call from England. 'He's coming to the premiere, he's in fantastic form. I've just written a book with him, which is tiring enough for me, and I'm 52. I don't think he's ever going to stop working.' Ocean has Attenborough reflecting – in that famously authoritative voice – on what he has learnt over his lifetime. 'After living for nearly 100 years on this planet, I now understand that the most important place on Earth is not on land, but at sea,' he says. 'To this day, we have seen more of other planets than we have of the ocean. Now we are making discoveries that completely change our understanding and could offer a better future for everyone on Earth forever.' The film shows some alarming threats to the ocean's vitality, including industrial bottom-trawling. A chain or metal boom is dragged across the seabed, turning it into an underwater desert, to catch a single species, with almost everything else caught in a net discarded. 'Lines of baited hooks 50 miles long reel in millions of sharks every year,' Attenborough adds. 'We have now killed two-thirds of all large predatory fish.' Also concerning are huge trawlers harvesting krill in Antarctica, threatening the food supply of almost every creature there, to supply fish farms, health supplements, and pet food. Another bad sign is mass coral bleaching in Florida, the Caribbean, the Maldives, and the Great Barrier Reef, attributed to heatwave conditions around the world.
