“A sixth mass extinction is well under way. Our garden of Eden will be lost. I wish I wasn’t involved in this struggle. I wish I wasn’t there," said Sir David Attenborough. (Source: Wikimedia Commons) Sir David Attenborough is urging people to go vegetarian and cut back on meat-eating to save species from extinction and produce more food. “We must change our diet. The planet can’t support billions of meat-eaters,” he said in a new Netflix documentary, A Life On Our Planet.
“The true tragedy of our time is still unfolding – the loss of biodiversity,” Sir Attenborough added.
Notably, the growth of animal farming worldwide and rise in demand for meat and dairy are considered key factors in deforestation which happens to threaten the extinction of many wild species in the food chain, from insects to elephants and big cats.
“Half of fertile land on Earth is now farmland, 70 per cent of birds are domestic, majority chickens. We are one-third of animals on Earth. This is now our planet run by – and for – humans. There’s little left for the world. We have completely destroyed it,” the 94-year-old warned.
Highlighting the prediction by scientists that rainforest would turn into a dry savannah, altering the global water cycle, he said that climate change is accelerating dramatically.
He further stressed that biodiversity needs to be “restored”.
“Our planet is headed for disaster. We need to learn how to work with nature rather than against it. Human beings have overrun the world.”
In 2017, Sir David revealed that he had stopped eating meat. In 2020, he reportedly said: “I haven’t been a doctrinaire vegetarian or vegan, but I no longer have the same appetite for meat. Why? I’m not sure. I think subconsciously maybe it’s because of the state of the planet.”
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