'We need to present them with compelling narratives. It's easy for these things to fall by the wayside,' Dr Veríssimo says. 'There are many priorities in people's lives, many things that we need to attend to. Rather than spending 'extreme effort to get the perfect shot', he argues documentary-makers need a good balance of positive and negative messages accompanied by persuasive calls to action. 'We spent decades just sharing information with people under the assumption that if we just tell them the tiger is endangered, they'll care about it, because they'll understand. Studies into the impact of programs fronted by Attenborough - Blue Planet II, Planet Earth II, Seven Worlds, One Planet and Extinction: The Facts - suggest even those documentaries that focus on entertaining us with the wonder of nature can help raise awareness about the natural world.īut generating interest, for example, in species such as pangolins or in the problem of plastic pollution is not the same as triggering environmental action. 'But the zero doom and gloom, which we had in many, many documentaries of the BBC Natural History Unit, is … not the right amount.' What the research shows 'There's definitely a fine balancing act,' Dr Veríssimo says. 'Even though it could be quite distressing to some people … I think, in order to effect change, you really have to show the worst situations.'ĭiogo Veríssimo, an expert in social marketing and biodiversity conservation science at the University of Oxford, says both positive and negative messaging are needed when it comes to communicating environmental messages. Others said that when Attenborough did talk about environmental destruction, he failed to point the finger at the true culprits, such as overconsumption.Īnd although he has presented more hard-hitting conservation messages recently, Attenborough is widely known for arguing (as late as 2018) that too much 'doom and gloom' turned people off.īut Ms Males believes the negative images of marine life suffering as a result of plastic were key to the power of Blue Planet II. Some, for example, argued that for years the hyper-real images of untouched nature that dominated his back catalogue gave the false impression that the wild is alive and well.

In early 2022 the United Nations agreed, bestowing on him its highest environmental honour, The Champions of the Earth Award.Īt the time, Inger Andersen, the executive director of the UN's Environment Program, said of Attenborough: 'If we stand a chance of averting climate and biodiversity breakdowns and cleaning up polluted ecosystems, it's because millions of us fell in love with the planet that he showed us on television.' Is inspiring a love of pristine nature enough?ĭespite once being voted the third top celebrity that 'no-one can hate' (after singer-songwriter Dolly Parton and skateboarding legend Tony Hawk), Attenborough has had his detractors over the years.

Watch the blue planet seas of life