British naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough has given his most direct endorsement of a vegan diet in the latest episode of his BBC One series, Planet Earth III.
The longtime TV host highlighted the vast amount of land used by animal agriculture, and how freeing that up could help feed the world.
Delivering a piece-to-camera in a green field surrounded by vegetables and cute video effects of blossoming produce, in his most direct on-screen assessment of the food system and livestock industry yet – and in front of millions, Attenborough said: “If we shift away from eating meat and dairy and move towards a plant-based diet, then the sun’s energy goes directly into growing our food.”
As a naturalist with possibly the most enviable filmography, Attenborough has travelled the world and warned the world about the destruction we humans are causing. His new BBC One docuseries, Planet Earth III, has been airing since October, shedding light on deforestation and biodiversity loss. The seventh and latest episode, Humans, focuses on how animals and wildlife adapt to and survive in a rapidly changing human world. And it’s when he gave his strongest message of support for plant-based diets.
It’s not like the broadcaster hasn’t highlighted the issues of meat consumption before. In 2020’s A Life On Our Planet, he said: “We must radically reduce the way we farm. We must change our diet. The planet can’t support billions of meat-eaters.”
Highlighting biodiversity loss, he added: “Half of fertile land on Earth is now farmland, 70% of birds are domestic, majority chickens. There’s little left for the world. We have completely destroyed it.
“By 2080, global food production enters crisis, soils overused, weather more unpredictable… a sixth mass extinction is well underway. Our garden of Eden will be lost. I wish I wasn’t involved in this struggle. I wish I wasn’t there.”
But while his rhetoric has veered more towards human-caused destruction. But this time, he’s taken a more pragmatic, more optimistic, and yet more direct approach in an attempt to hit his point home better with viewers. On Sunday night, the 97-year-old made the aforementioned statement about the sun’s energy going into growing our food.
Expanding on that, he said:
“And because that’s so much more efficient, we could still produce enough to feed us, but do so using a quarter of the land. This could free up an area the size of the United States, China, the European Union and Australia, combined – space that could then be given back to nature.”
He had prefaced this moment with various nods to the effect of livestock farming on the environment. “Currently the vast majority of agricultural land — more than 75% — is used to raise livestock and this is very inefficient,” he said.
Attenborough also said: “We rear 70 billion farm animals each year and every one of them needs feeding… Producing food for such numbers of domesticated animals is having a profound impact on the natural world.”
