In honor of Sir David Attenborough’s 60th anniversary on television, Nature presentsthree films on subjects that Attenborough feels have been transformed most profoundly: filmmaking, science and the environment.
The three-part special, Sir Richard Attenborough's Life Stories, beginning Wednesday, January 23 at 7:00 p.m. on KUED is richly illustrated with the sequences he has spent six decades capturing (re-mastered in HD;, new interviews in which he revisits the content; stories and locations that were featured in his landmark series; and packed with the personal anecdotes of the BBC’s most accomplished raconteur. The series is a singular synopsis of a unique half-century.
In Life On Camera Sir David Attenborough revisits key places and events in his wildlife filmmaking career, reminisces through his old photos and reflects on memorable wildlife footage, including swimming with dolphins and catching a komodo dragon. Returning to his old haunts in Borneo, he recalls the challenges of filming on a seething pile of guano in a bat cave.
In Understanding tne Natural World, airing Wednesday, January 30 at 7:00 pm., Sir Attenborough shares his memories of the scientists and the breakthroughs that helped shape his own career. He also recalls some of his more hair-raising attempts to bring new science to a television audience, such as when he stood in the shadow of an erupting volacano as lumps of hot lava that crashed around him were being charged by a group of armed New Guinean tribesmen.
In Our Fragile Planet, airing Wednesday, February 6 at 7:00 pm., Sir Attenborough reflects on the dramatic impact that we have had on the natural world during his lifetime, such as the disappearing rain forests and coral reefs, endangered species such as the blue whale, manatees, sea otters, chimpanzees, and orangutans. He notes how the vulnerable Panamanian golden frog is now quarantined for safety so it doesn’t succumb to a highly infectious fungus which has already made the Monteverde Toad from Costa Rica extinct.
He tells surprising, entertaining and deeply personal stories of the changes he has seen, from his early travels with the London Zoo collecting animals; showing viewers the world’s rarest living animal, the giant Galapagos tortoise, Lonesome George; to covering the work of Dian Fossey, whose life’s mission to study and protect the endangered mountain gorillas in Rwanda inspired him to become a conservationist.
But Attenborough also reviews the revolution in attitudes towards nature that has taken place around the globe. He cites the creation in 1961 of the World Wildlife Fund, the first international organization to spend money on conservation projects around the globe, and protections put into place in Borneo and Malaysia to protect birds and turtles.
He concludes with a warning about the consequences of sea ice melt: exposing the dark sea water that doesn’t reflect the sun’s heat to keep earth cool. Unlike ice and snow, it absorbs the sun’s heat, raising the sea temperature and its level. Climate change, he says, is already affecting the lives of not only wild animals, but ourselves.
Sir David Attenborough
Please visit our website at www.kued.org/jobs for information about job opportunities at KUED.