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Metro
18 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Metro
Sir David Attenborough almost killed by faulty scuba diving equipment
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Sir David Attenborough has detailed an unsettling incident in which he nearly drowned when scuba diving. The natural historian and broadcaster, 99, first appeared on screens in the 1950s, when he presented natural history programmes including Coelacanth and Zoo Quest for the BBC. His TV credits now span eight decades, with Sir David since presenting shows including Wildlife on One, The Blue Planet and Planet Earth, as well as the newly released film Ocean. However, he's now recalled a moment early in his career when he came close to a deadly situation. Speaking to Prince William at an event to promote his new documentary Ocean, Sir David was presented with an open-circuit helmet. Picking it up and putting it on his head, he spoke about testing a scuba diving outfit while filming on the Great Barrier Reef in 1957. 'When I put mine on for the first time I suddenly felt water and thought, 'this can't be right'. But by the time the water got about there I thought, 'I'm sure this is not right',' he said. 'Of course, you've got this thing screwed on top of you and you can't breathe or make yourself heard. I was saying 'get it off me'.' Sir David then spoke about the director leading the documentary initially refusing to take his concerns seriously. 'He grabbed it and said it was fine, but I again said there was a fault, and he put it on, and I'm happy to say, he went underwater and came up even faster than I did, because there was actually a fault on the thing,' he added. During the discussion Sir David also described his first dive as a 'sensory overload' and commented on how the reefs he first visited decades ago had now been devastated. 'The awful thing is that it's hidden from you and from me and most people,' he said. 'The thing which I was appalled by when I first saw the shots taken for this film, is that what we have done to the deep ocean floor is just unspeakably awful.' 'I mean, if you did anything remotely like it on land, everybody would be up in arms. If this film does anything, if it just shifts public awareness, it'll be very, very important, and I only hope that people who see it will recognise that something must be done before we destroy this great treasure.' The pair spoke as part of the promotional launch for Ocean, which sees Sir David 'drawing on a lifetime of experience to reveal Earth's most spectacular underwater habitats, showing that we're in the greatest age of Ocean discovery and highlighting its vital importance'. Sir David said he hoped the film could 'expose something new' and encourage viewers to act to save the destruction of the ocean. Despite his indelible impact on the world and environmentalism, last year his producer Mike Gunton told Metro Sir David hated being called a 'national treasure'. More Trending 'He hates it, by the way,' he said. 'I say hates it… If anybody says he's a national treasure, he sort of slightly raises his eyebrows and says, 'Really?' That's a generational thing.' When it was noted Sir David's work is of far greater importance than a title, Mike responded: 'You've hit the nail on the head.' View More » Ocean with David Attenborough is now screening in cinemas nationwide, and airs tonight, Sunday, June 8 at 8pm on National Geographic and is streaming on Disney Plus too. Got a story? If you've got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@ calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we'd love to hear from you. MORE: Full list of the lavish presents Royals have received since 2020 MORE: Royals arrive at VE Day 2025 service at Westminster Abbey
National Geographic
5 days ago
- Health
- National Geographic
How conservation icon David Attenborough holds onto hope
Sir David Attenborough's newest documentary film is 'Ocean with David Attenborough.' PHOTOGRAPH BY CONOR MCDONNELL © SILVERBACK FILMS AND OPEN PLANET STUDIOS Interview by Brian Resnick For seven decades, Sir David Attenborough has traversed the globe to document the kaleidoscopic diversity of Earth's ecosystems. At the age of 99, he's narrated so many television programs that his voice has become synonymous with the wonder of the natural world. But in his long career full of wild encounters, one memory still stands out. In 1957, when Attenborough was in his 30s, he traveled to a shallow warmwater cay on Australia's Great Barrier Reef, where, for the first time in his life, he donned scuba gear to examine corals up close. 'It was a sort of sensory overload,' he says. 'The countless tiny fish swimming between coral branches; the differences between the different coral structures. It opened up for me a whole new appreciation of the intricacies of life in the ocean.' Today that same view is likely to look disastrously worse. Globally, corals have suffered tremendous loss as a result of human-caused ocean warming, a fact that's not lost on Attenborough. In the new National Geographic documentary special Ocean with David Attenborough, the pioneering filmmaker reflects on the enormity of loss seen in his lifetime. Sure, there are still sumptuous images of the abundance of ocean life in the film, but they are met in equal measure with depictions of mechanized death and destruction—carbon-sequestering seagrass meadows are violently mowed down by commercial fishing trawlers, great glistening masses of writhing fish are hauled aboard ships by the thousands. Attenborough doesn't mince words: 'Ships from wealthy nations are starving coastal communities of the food source they have relied on for millennia,' he narrates. 'This is modern colonialism at sea.' (Fish flee for their lives in rare, chilling video of bottom trawling.) The film's final message, however, is remarkably optimistic. Attenborough fiercely believes in the ocean's power to recover when the right environmental protections are set in place. He holds hope even for that mesmerizing cay in Australia. 'I'd like to think that the reef I first dived on is one of the lucky ones.' David Attenborough introduces Prince Charles and Princess Anne to his pet cockatoo in 1958 at the studio where Zoo Quest, the BBC show that launched his career as a wildlife presenter, was filmed. PHOTO: CENTRAL PRESS/GETTY IMAGES BRIAN RESNICK: The film seems starkly different from much of your past work in the way it contends with topics like animal death and destruction. Why? DAVID ATTENBOROUGH: Unlike chopping down a rainforest on land, which can be clearly seen, trawling the ocean floor is largely hidden from view. Most people have no idea it's happening or of the scale with which it occurs. We wanted to be clear that this film is not antifishing. Humans have always gathered food from the sea, and biologically there's no reason that that cannot continue to happen. Indeed, many fishing operations and fishing communities do fish sustainably. But there are some forms of fishing, and some locations where fishing occurs, that damage the ocean for all of us. By showing the distinction, we hope that viewers will appreciate the difference between fishing that can and should continue well into the future and fishing that is destroying the ocean and depriving fishing communities of their livelihoods. In your narration, the audience might detect anger in your voice. Is 'anger' the right word? I certainly feel the senseless loss of the natural world, and I hope that emotion comes across. What is your advice for people dealing with grief over climate change or loss of the natural world? We shouldn't lose hope. It can be tempting to give up when confronted with the scale of humanity's consumption and the speed with which we are changing the climate and losing the natural world. But nature is our greatest ally. Wherever we have given nature the space to recover, it's done so, and, as a result of its recovery, our own lives are improved. The solutions aren't all about sacrifices and aren't all decades away. The marine protected areas we show have all brought benefits in just a few years to the people who live by them, and at the same time, those reserves have drawn down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and allowed marine species—from turtles to sharks to tuna—to recover. This is a real win-win for nature, for people, and for the climate. We just need to plan for the future, rather than only chasing immediate gains. What keeps you working? Because people I like working with keep asking me to. I enjoy the process of filmmaking. But stepping back, I can also see that this sort of storytelling has never been more important. Many of our societies have never been more removed from nature, less in tune with its rhythms and changes. That has brought many benefits, of course, but it does also mean that we don't necessarily notice the changes to our world as acutely as we once would have done. Whilst scientific publications and debates are vital, most of us are far more likely to engage with a story or a documentary. Our species has always used storytelling to create a shared identity and give explanation and context to the world around us. We are naturally interested in the stories of other people and places, so the onus is on all of us, as well as broadcasters and publishers, to find the ways to tell stories of the natural world and our relationship with it. (6 of the best Sir David Attenborough series to watch.) In the film, you talk about entering a later stage in your life. As you reflect on your life, how would you like your work to be remembered? I hope the collection of work, from Life on Earth through to the films I'm making now, will be seen as the documentation of the natural world in the late 20th and early 21st centuries as we understood it at the time. Perhaps one day it might also be seen to have documented the beginning of a new relationship between humanity and nature, a time when we realized that for our own species to thrive, we require the natural world to also thrive. 'Ocean with David Attenborough' begins airing on National Geographic June 7 and streams globally the next day, World Oceans Day, on Disney+ and Hulu. The film is currently in cinemas in select countries outside the U.S. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. A version of this story appears in the July 2025 issue of National Geographic magazine.
RTÉ News
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- RTÉ News
How David Attenborough reshaped how we see the natural world
Over the course of seven decades, Sir David Attenborough's documentaries have reshaped how we see the natural world, shifting from colonial-era collecting trips to urgent calls for environmental action, write Neil J. Gostling and Sam Illingworth. His storytelling has inspired generations, but has only recently begun to confront the scale of the ecological crisis. To understand how far nature broadcasting has come, it helps to return to where it started. When Attenborough's broadcasting career began in the 1950s, Austrian filmmakers Hans and Lotte Hass were already pushing the boundaries of what was possible by taking cameras below the sea and touring the world aboard their schooner, the Xafira. In one of their 1953 Galapagos films, a crewman handled a sealion pup, having crawled across the volcanic rock of Fernandina honking at sealions to attract them. A penguin and giant tortoise were brought on board Xafira. And as Lotte Hass took photographs, she'd beseech some poor creature to "not be frightened" and "look pleasant". This is a world away from today's expectations, where both research scientists and amateur naturalists are taught to observe without touching or disturbing wildlife. When the Hasses visited the Galápagos, it was still five years before the creation of the national park and the founding of the island's conservation organisation Charles Darwin Foundation. Now, visitors must stay at least two metres from all animals – and never approach them. At the same time, television was beginning to shape public perceptions of the natural world. In 1954, Attenborough was working as a young producer on Zoo Quest. By chance, he became its presenter when zoologist Jack Lester became ill. The programme followed zoologists collecting animals from around the world for London Zoo. Zoo Quest was filmed in exotic locations around the world and then in the studio where the animals found on the expedition were shown "up close". Attenborough has since acknowledged that Zoo Quest reflected attitudes that would not be acceptable today. The series showed animals being captured from the wild and transported to London Zoo – practices which mirrored extractive, colonial-era approaches to science. Watch: David Attenborough's Zoo Quest for a Dragon aired in 1956 Yet, Zoo Quest was also groundbreaking. The series brought viewers face-to-face with animals they might never have seen before and pioneered a visual style that made natural history television both entertaining and educational. It helped establish Attenborough's reputation as a compelling communicator and laid the foundations for a new genre of science broadcasting – one that has evolved, like its presenter, over time. After a decade in production, Attenborough returned to presenting with Life on Earth (1979), a landmark series that traced the evolution of life from single-celled organisms to birds and apes. Drawing on his long-standing interest in fossils, the series combined zoology, palaeobiology and natural history to create an ambitious new template for science broadcasting. Life on Earth helped cement Attenborough's reputation as a trusted communicator and became the foundation of the BBC's "blue-chip" natural history format – big-budget, internationally produced films that put high-quality cinematic wildlife footage at the forefront of the story. The series did not simply document the natural world. It reframed it, using presenter-led storytelling and global spectacle to shape how audiences understood evolutionary processes. Watch: Sir David Attenborough tells the story behind Life on Earth For much of his career, Attenborough has been celebrated for showcasing the beauty of the natural world. Yet, he has also faced criticism for sidestepping the environmental crises threatening it. Commentators such as the environmental journalist George Monbiot argued that his earlier documentaries, while visually stunning, often avoided addressing the human role in climate change, presenting nature as untouched and avoiding difficult truths about ecological decline. What makes Attenborough stand out is the way he speaks. While official climate treaties often rely on technical or legal language, he communicates in emotional, accessible terms Building on the legacy of Life on Earth, Attenborough's later series began to respond to these critiques. Blue Planet (2001) expanded the scope of nature storytelling, revealing the mysteries of the ocean's most remote and uncharted ecosystems. Its 2017 sequel, Blue Planet II, introduced a more urgent tone, highlighting the scale of plastic pollution and the need for marine conservation. Although Blue Planet II significantly increased viewers' environmental knowledge, it did not lead to measurable changes in plastic consumption behaviour – a reminder that awareness alone does not guarantee action. The subsequent Wild Isles (2023) continued the shift towards conservation messaging. While the main series aired in five parts, a sixth episode – Saving Our Wild Isles – was released separately and drew controversy amid claims the BBC had sidelined it for being too political. In reality, the episode delivered a clear call to action. Ocean With David Attenborough was recently launched in cinemas. Doug Anderson/Silverback Films and Open Planet Studios Attenborough's latest film, Ocean, continues in this more urgent register, pairing breathtaking imagery with an unflinching assessment of ocean health. After decades of gentle narration, he now speaks with sharpened clarity about the scale of the crisis and the need to act. A voice for action In recent years, Attenborough has taken on a new role – not just as a broadcaster, but as a powerful voice in environmental diplomacy. He has addressed world leaders at major summits such as the UN climate conference Cop24 and the World Economic Forum, calling for urgent action on climate change. He was also appointed ambassador for the UK government's review on the economics of biodiversity. On the subject of environmemtal diplomacy, Monbiot recently wrote: "A few years ago, I was sharply critical of Sir David for downplaying the environmental crisis on his TV programmes. Most people would have reacted badly but remarkably, at 92, he took this and similar critiques on board and radically changed his approach." Attenborough not only speaks. He listens. This is part of his charm and popularity. He is learning and evolving as much as his audience. What makes Attenborough stand out is the way he speaks. While official climate treaties often rely on technical or legal language, he communicates in emotional, accessible terms – speaking plainly about responsibility, urgency and the moral imperative to protect life on Earth. His calm authority and familiar voice make complex issues easier to grasp and harder to dismiss. Frequently named Britain's most trusted public figure, Attenborough has become something of an unofficial diplomat for the planet – apolitical, measured, and often seen as a voice of reason amid populist noise. Despite his criticisms, Attenborough's documentaries walk a careful line between fragility and resilience, using emotionally ambivalent imagery to prompt reflection. He shares his wonder with the natural world and brings people along with him. Ocean shows our blue planet in more spectacular fashion than Lotte and Hans Hass could ever have imagined. But it is also Attenborough's most direct reckoning with environmental collapse. With clarity and urgency, it confronts the damage wrought by industrial trawling and habitat destruction. After 70 years of gently guiding viewers through the natural world, Attenborough's voice has sharpened. If he once opened our eyes to nature's wonders, he now challenges us not to look away. As he puts it: "If we save the sea, we save our world. After a lifetime filming our planet, I'm sure that nothing is more important."
Perth Now
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
David Attenborough's urgent call to save our oceans
Sir David Attenborough turned 99 on Thursday, was feted by King Charles and presided over the London premiere of a stunning new movie that he hopes will force the United Nations to save Earth's oceans. Not a bad day for the world's most famous biologist. For someone who has spent his career describing the lifecycles of all creatures great and small, Attenborough is acutely aware of his own mortality. It's an immutable fact he leans into in his movie, Ocean with David Attenborough, to add even more weight to its urgent message. '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 says in the film in that unmistakable voice. '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.' A clown anemone fish on a coral reef in Raja Ampat, Indonesia. Credit: Olly Scholey It's his sincere hope, and that of everyone attached to the film — produced with funding assistance from WA's Minderoo Pictures — that Ocean generates a veritable tsunami of support that flows into the United Nations Ocean Conference in June. It's there the nations of the world have what could be the last chance to vote on dramatic increases in marine conversation, before entire underwater ecosystems suffer catastrophic failure. 'This could be the moment of change,' Attenborough says in the film. 'Nearly every country on Earth has just agreed, on paper, to achieve this bare minimum and protect a third of the ocean. Together, we now face the challenge of making it happen.' Should it happen, it will further burnish the legacy of a man who has effectively become the human face of the natural world, tirelessly communicating wonders, fears and struggles on its behalf. And to think his first job application to the BBC in 1950, for a gig as a radio producer, was rejected. The consolation prize, however, was a job with the national broadcaster's nascent television department, where he found himself hosting the first series of Zoo Quest four years later. David Attenborough in The Big Life on Air. Credit: supplied That show ran for a decade, and led to Attenborough's promotion into an administrative role at the BBC, where he spent a decade signing off on expenditure and commissioning shows by other people. He is erroneously credited with commissioning Monty Python's Flying Circus during that period – the honour goes to then-BBC1 controller Paul Fox – but Attenborough did greenlight Pot Black, a snooker show, when BBC2 transitioned to colour. But the inexorable pull of the natural world eventually convinced him to resign from his post, even as he was being touted as a future head of the BBC, and he eagerly dived back into wildlife filmmaking. And the planet is lucky he did. From the early 1970s to today, if it crawls, bites or flies, Attenborough has caught it on camera and beamed it into our loungerooms. It was the seminal 1979 series, Life on Earth, that really put him on the map. At the time, it was the most ambitious natural history series ever filmed, taking in more than 100 locations around the world and enlisting the expertise of 500 scientists over its three-year production. David Attenborough and King Charles III attend the world premiere at The Royal Festival Hall on May 6, 2025, in London, England. Credit: Kate Green / Getty Images for National Geogra To this day, it remains one of the most influential works to documentarians and established a benchmark for all subsequent wildlife filmmaking. The boy who grew up collecting fossils and natural specimens was suddenly one of the BBC's most valuable international commodities. In the years that followed he gave us a seemingly endless array of flora and fauna. Blue Planet. Planet Earth. Frozen Planet. Life. Mega-budget shows that wowed adults and children alike with never-before-seen moments of magic. But what once seemed endless now has a very permanent end in sight, and Attenborough is determined to go out with a bang. Ocean was shot over two years and contains many firsts for wildlife filmmaking, including capturing the first vision of industrial bottom trawling, the biggest mass coral bleaching event and the largest school of yellowfin tuna ever caught on camera. Australian underwater cinematographer Tom Park contributed incredible footage of coral bleaching at the Great Barrier Reef and said the emotion of being part of Attenborough's final film was hard to put into words. 'He's been an icon of mine for as long as I can remember, I grew up watching his films, and he's really a figurehead of the natural world,' Park told The Sunday Times. 'He's inspired generations of wildlife filmmakers, so to actually be able to have filmed part of his new film is the privilege of my professional career.' Underwater cinematographer Tom Park shot Great Barrier Reef sequences that featured in new film. Credit: Supplied Park's portion of the film chronicles the devastating impact of last year's mass coral bleaching event, which is becoming increasingly common as ocean temperatures rise. It's part of a larger section of the movie that focuses on humanity's destruction of the marine world and is considerably more grim than Attenborough's usual style. The vision of bottom trawling, a commercial fishing method that sees a weighted net destroy the seabed, is hard to watch, even for someone as experienced as Park. 'We've never seen anything like it on the big screen before,' the cinematographer admitted. 'Everyone knows bottom trawling is bad, we've seen the stats, but when you actually put vision to this idea of bottom trawling, and it's showcased how they do it in the film, it's remarkably shocking.' Of course, the point is to shock. To make the audience question why bulldozing the Amazon rainforest is an unthinkable horror, but doing the same to the ocean doesn't move the needle for most people. 'Unfortunately, the ocean is out of sight and out of mind for a lot of us,' Park said. 'For the everyday public, for the policymakers, the ocean is this hidden, underwater world. 'But if people understand, and they see the beauty and the fragility, hopefully this will create empathy, and that will lead to action.' That action better come fast, because a certain 99-year-old doesn't have time to wait. Ocean with David Attenborough is in cinemas now.
West Australian
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- West Australian
Ocean with David Attenborough: Conservationist calls on countries to protect our waters to save our world
Sir David Attenborough turned 99 on Thursday, was feted by King Charles and presided over the London premiere of a stunning new movie that he hopes will force the United Nations to save Earth's oceans. Not a bad day for the world's most famous biologist. For someone who has spent his career describing the lifecycles of all creatures great and small, Attenborough is acutely aware of his own mortality. It's an immutable fact he leans into in his movie, Ocean with David Attenborough, to add even more weight to its urgent message. '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 says in the film in that unmistakable voice. '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.' It's his sincere hope, and that of everyone attached to the film — produced with funding assistance from WA's Minderoo Pictures — that Ocean generates a veritable tsunami of support that flows into the United Nations Ocean Conference in June. It's there the nations of the world have what could be the last chance to vote on dramatic increases in marine conversation, before entire underwater ecosystems suffer catastrophic failure. 'This could be the moment of change,' Attenborough says in the film. 'Nearly every country on Earth has just agreed, on paper, to achieve this bare minimum and protect a third of the ocean. Together, we now face the challenge of making it happen.' Should it happen, it will further burnish the legacy of a man who has effectively become the human face of the natural world, tirelessly communicating wonders, fears and struggles on its behalf. And to think his first job application to the BBC in 1950, for a gig as a radio producer, was rejected. The consolation prize, however, was a job with the national broadcaster's nascent television department, where he found himself hosting the first series of Zoo Quest four years later. That show ran for a decade, and led to Attenborough's promotion into an administrative role at the BBC, where he spent a decade signing off on expenditure and commissioning shows by other people. He is erroneously credited with commissioning Monty Python's Flying Circus during that period – the honour goes to then-BBC1 controller Paul Fox – but Attenborough did greenlight Pot Black, a snooker show, when BBC2 transitioned to colour. But the inexorable pull of the natural world eventually convinced him to resign from his post, even as he was being touted as a future head of the BBC, and he eagerly dived back into wildlife filmmaking. And the planet is lucky he did. From the early 1970s to today, if it crawls, bites or flies, Attenborough has caught it on camera and beamed it into our loungerooms. It was the seminal 1979 series, Life on Earth, that really put him on the map. At the time, it was the most ambitious natural history series ever filmed, taking in more than 100 locations around the world and enlisting the expertise of 500 scientists over its three-year production. To this day, it remains one of the most influential works to documentarians and established a benchmark for all subsequent wildlife filmmaking. The boy who grew up collecting fossils and natural specimens was suddenly one of the BBC's most valuable international commodities. In the years that followed he gave us a seemingly endless array of flora and fauna. Blue Planet. Planet Earth. Frozen Planet. Life. Mega-budget shows that wowed adults and children alike with never-before-seen moments of magic. But what once seemed endless now has a very permanent end in sight, and Attenborough is determined to go out with a bang. Ocean was shot over two years and contains many firsts for wildlife filmmaking, including capturing the first vision of industrial bottom trawling, the biggest mass coral bleaching event and the largest school of yellowfin tuna ever caught on camera. Australian underwater cinematographer Tom Park contributed incredible footage of coral bleaching at the Great Barrier Reef and said the emotion of being part of Attenborough's final film was hard to put into words. 'He's been an icon of mine for as long as I can remember, I grew up watching his films, and he's really a figurehead of the natural world,' Park told The Sunday Times. 'He's inspired generations of wildlife filmmakers, so to actually be able to have filmed part of his new film is the privilege of my professional career.' Park's portion of the film chronicles the devastating impact of last year's mass coral bleaching event, which is becoming increasingly common as ocean temperatures rise. It's part of a larger section of the movie that focuses on humanity's destruction of the marine world and is considerably more grim than Attenborough's usual style. The vision of bottom trawling, a commercial fishing method that sees a weighted net destroy the seabed, is hard to watch, even for someone as experienced as Park. 'We've never seen anything like it on the big screen before,' the cinematographer admitted. 'Everyone knows bottom trawling is bad, we've seen the stats, but when you actually put vision to this idea of bottom trawling, and it's showcased how they do it in the film, it's remarkably shocking.' Of course, the point is to shock. To make the audience question why bulldozing the Amazon rainforest is an unthinkable horror, but doing the same to the ocean doesn't move the needle for most people. 'Unfortunately, the ocean is out of sight and out of mind for a lot of us,' Park said. 'For the everyday public, for the policymakers, the ocean is this hidden, underwater world. 'But if people understand, and they see the beauty and the fragility, hopefully this will create empathy, and that will lead to action.' That action better come fast, because a certain 99-year-old doesn't have time to wait. Ocean with David Attenborough is in cinemas now.
