A Letter from Pen Clements, Writer, Australia

Dear Sir David,

You know that question, ‘If you could invite whoever you wanted to a dinner party, who would you choose?’

Well, I would like to have you at the head of my table. In fact, I wouldn’t invite anyone else because I’d rather have you all to myself.

If you were my honoured guest, I would ask you about the changes you’ve seen in your lifetime travelling our planet. I would ask you to expand on your statement from ‘Can We Save Planet Earth?’

 ‘In the past, we didn’t understand the effect of our actions. Unknowingly, we sowed the wind and now, literally, we are reaping the whirlwind. But we no longer have that excuse: now we do recognise the consequences of our behaviour. Now surely, we must act to reform it — individually and collectively, nationally and internationally — or we doom future generations to catastrophe.’

I would listen to your answers, because there is one thing I am sure of. No-one can replace you. Not just because you are unique, but because your documentaries are. No-one will make them again.They are records of a vanishing world.

 

I bought your book, ‘Life on Earth,’ when I was a teenager. I went on to study geography, then anthropology. I watched as many of your documentaries as I could. Now I have teenagers of my own and they watch them too.

Those documentaries (and your voice) have formed a continuous background thread through my life, through my own work in the environmental field and the fiction I write. I am grateful for it.

Thank you.

 

Pen Clements

 

Queensland, Australia

@penclements

A Letter from Diane Lasek, Writer/Producer, Atlanta, USA

To Sir with Love,

 

I took a walk in the forest tonight wondering about all of the things that I wanted to write in my thank you letter to David and I happened upon a hawk and an owl, both involved in hunting down their dinner.  I thought about how getting close to this is so important in my life and I’m sure is to many millions of other lives.   How when we are in nature, we can be a little bit like David Attenborough.  We can stop, look up, observe and wonder and somehow feel connected to it all.

 

It all started my freshman year of college at UNC-Wilmington.  My Paleo-Anthropology professor brought in a Life on Earth tape, which featured Primates. And I can only say that listening to “That Voice” and seeing “That Face” for the first time was akin to something as profound as Rumi meeting Shams.  At that point, I fell in the rabbit hole and have never quite gotten over the wonder of this man and his grand ability to takes us all on a multitude of journeys and adventures to learn about the plants and animals on this beautiful Earth.  I was 19 then, I am now 51 and no other influential person in my life has made such an impact on my thinking as David has.  And this has definitely encouraged my desire to teach children about Nature.

 

Years later, ten years into a career at Turner Broadcasting in Atlanta, Ted Turner bought the rights to The Trials of Life.  Having heard about this, I went on my own journey to a lunch meeting with David in Washington DC, while he was in town receiving an honorary dinner with President Clinton for being knighted by the Queen.  Needless to say, this lunch was one of the top highlights of my life – never to be forgotten.

 

At that lunch I had asked him what he wanted to do next.  He said “I want to do a series on Plants.”  I said ‘you’ve already done Plants David.’  He said “Not like I want to do them.”  So, after persistent pressuring of the people around Mr. Turner to convince him to finance this project – he did, and we got The Private Lives of Plants, another astounding series!

 

My passion for protecting the environment started as a young child, but I think that learning about all of the living creatures and plants through all of these great programs has only made me more passionate about leaving this planet better than we are currently leaving it now for future generations.

 

I will close in saying that at the end of one of the episodes of The Life of Birds, David spoke about the destruction of bird habitats that we are causing.  He said “We must care and protect them better than we are.”  I sat at the foot of my bed and wept.  And when I was through, I thought my God, David Attenborough has finally done it! He’s made me cry!  But it was a lovely cry because he is right.  We must do a far better job than we are doing in caring for the creatures and plant life whom we share this beautiful green planet with.  So THANK YOU DAVID!  THANK YOU!

 

Diane Lasek

 

Atlanta, Georgia

Writer/Producer

Children’s Environmental Educator/Activist

 @Iamwoodstock