This 83-year-old British naturalist, director of what have quite possibly been the bestdocumentaries about wildlifethat have been filmed, will collect this fall the 2009 Prince of Asturias Award for Social Sciences. He has been able to chat VERY well with this dissemination expert for the small screen, whose title of Knight granted by Queen Elizabeth of England is the anecdotal fruit of his prolific career spanning half a century.
– What was your reaction when you learned that you had received the Prince of Asturias Award?
– For me it was a great honor. I was surprised to see that he was so well known in Spain. I live in Great Britain, and I don’t know how much of my work is known in non-English speaking countries. It is something that congratulates me.
– He has been traveling around the planet for 50 years. Are you exaggerating when you say that it is close to destruction?
– I am inclined to present the most positive part of the state of the natural world. However, in recent years I have also made films that reflect how in some places where there used to be jungle, now there is nothing … What you find are deserts, or pumps to extract oil. I know the problem well, and not just from my own experience. If you are a scientist, you have to look at the global data, that is, the whole picture. Now we can get that image with unprecedented precision. The satellite views we get from Brazil, the Sahara, parts of Africa or Europe are providing us with unusual data and landscapes, and you cannot help but be horrified by what is happening.
– What is the most urgent environmental problem that we must face?
– We can’t pick one thing out of all of them. I couldn’t tell you if the rainforests are more important than the oceans, or the other way around, as both are crucial. Perhaps the necessary attention has not been paid to what is happening to coral reefs. His loss is already terrible, and it seems that his situation will continue to get worse.
– Is climate change the catastrophe that is often presented to us in the media?
– There is no doubt, if we take a look at the records, that the climate is changing. Until about fifteen years ago it was not clear whether or not humans were responsible for this alteration. But in the last decade it has become absolutely clear that we are contributing to this change in a very significant way. And it’s going to get worse, possibly whatever we do. Even so, I believe that the future is still in our hands. Measures that can be taken should be taken.
– What role have nature television programs played in raising public awareness of environmental issues?
– The media have a great responsibility. They must ensure that they are well understood. It is often said that progress has not been made fast enough in this regard, and I agree. But the truth is that there has been a gigantic change in the last twenty years when it comes to alerting people to these problems. Not so long ago, the very idea of the existence of an environment ministry would have been absurd. Surely, people would have considered it ridiculous. Now all political parties have an environmental policy. If they didn’t, they simply wouldn’t get elected.
– That is, people began to worry about the fate of whales thanks to Jacques Cousteau’s programs, for example.
– Yes, Cousteau was really a pioneer. He invented the compressed gas bottle system and regulators that allowed autonomous diving, that is, the way we could observe the seabed. He led the way. Today the whole world cares about these cetaceans, although 99.9 percent of people who are aware of the problem will never ever see a whale underwater. The information comes to them through documentaries. Here’s a sample: the campaign to save the whales is a great triumph. The fact that their commercial hunting has been stopped except in some places like Japan is an important advance.
Luis Miguel Ariza
