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Dear David Attenborough,

Belated wishes for your 100th birthday!

Last weekend, my kids and I were watching your 2020 documentary, David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet. Like countless families around the world, we have seen your amazing films and love your work. However, a crucial perspective about ecological crisis is missing in this film. An aspect, I believe, children need to encounter, which is why I am writing this letter.

Early in the film, you say, “My first visit to East Africa was in 1960. Back then, it seemed inconceivable that we, a single species, might one day have the power to threaten the very existence of the wilderness.” This is true. But children should also learn that not all communities of the world are equally to blame for the crisis.

They ought to know how European colonists and game-hunters killed wildlife in huge numbers across Africa, as evidenced in John MacKenzie’s book The Empire of Nature. They must know that British in India killed an estimated 80,000 tigers between 1875 and 1925 – romanticising the elimination of wild animals as a ‘royal sport‘ and describing it as a part of ‘civilising’ India. They must be aware about the mass killings of over 30 million bison by Anglo-American settlers, a phenomenon intrinsically connected to the genocide of Native American communities, whose survival depended on the bison.

American bison skull pile, Michigan, United States, 1892, Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Along with this history of destruction, children should learn about the communities for whom hunting meant something completely different. They should be familiar with the San indigenous community from southern Africa, who ask for forgiveness from the animals they hunt to feed their families. Or, the coastal and island communities that never hunt more fish than necessary, while observing seasonal restrictions in regions where fish breed.

This kind of restraint and economy is seen in the words and actions of Dersu Uzala, a hunter from the indigenous Goldi or Nanai community. Akira Kurosawa’s Oscar-winning film (1975) by the same name is based on the Russian explorer Vladimir Arsenyev’s memoir published in 1923. In the film, Dersu admonishes Arsenyev, “Why you throw meat in fire? Tomorrow we go away, tomorrow other fellow sit here. They don’t find no meat, so they no eat.” Arsenyev asks, “Who’s going to be here?,”  to which Dersu replies, “Lot of fellows. Weasel come here, woodchuck, crow come here, mouse too. Plenty other fellow in wilds.” In the book, Dersu stops a soldier from shooting a sea lion that they could not retrieve, calling it a sin. He also prevents the killing of a noisy crow near their campsite, saying the crow wants to eat too. 

Photo: An archival photograph of Arsenyev with Dersu Uzala, Photo: Wikimedia Commons. 

In the 2020 film you describe the mass migration of animals as follows: 

“The Maasai word “Serengeti” means........

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