A Perplexing Comment by David Attenborough

“A Life On Our Planet” claims that 10,000 years ago, our ‘hunter-gatherer’ ancestors had no option but to live ‘sustainably’. It’s more complicated than that…..

A Diprotodon skeleton in ‘Megafauna Central’, Alice Springs, Australia. An example of an animal which may have been driven to extinction by a hunting and gathering lifestyle. Image: the author (Mike Pole).

Sir David Attenborough’s latest documentary, ‘A Life on Our Planet', is a welcome critique (in the sense that he finally got around to it) about just how badly we’ve messed our Earth up. His focus is on biodiversity, or rather how we’ve depleted it — and how by restoring biodiversity, we might be able to mend our planet.

It’s a well-made and hard-hitting documentary, and ought to be a wake-up call for those of us who aren’t already in a horrified daze. But in some of its detail, ‘A Life on Our Planet’, is thought-provoking. There’s probably more puzzlement over what Attenborough didn’t say, as over any comments he did make. In this piece, I highlight one curious thing he did say and will leave what he didn’t for another.

Hunters and Gatherers: The Initial Mistake

In ‘A Life on Our Planet’, Attenborough tells us how in 1971 he “set out to find an uncontacted tribe in New Guinea”. We’d frown on such behavior now, but … it was different times I suppose. Archival footage shows him and the tribe he eventually…