'David Attenborough Effect': Meet the wildlife artists inspired by the legendary broadcaster
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As David Attenborough turns 100, Euronews Earth explores the real-life impacts of his extraordinary career.
Sir David Attenborough will likely go down in history as the most treasured wildlife broadcaster on planet Earth – and tomorrow, he turns 100.
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Starting his TV career as a trainee producer for the BBC in 1952, Attenborough oversaw the first-ever colour broadcast in Europe, and quickly became the leading voice of the world’s most popular nature documentaries.
To date, he has written, presented or narrated more than 100 films, including the award-winning ‘Life’ series which tracks the “extraordinary ends” to which animals and plants go in order to survive.
Alongside his melodic storytelling and clear passion for the natural world, Attenborough has ended up inspiring a new generation of conservationists, animal-lovers, and environmental activists.
The ‘David Attenborough Effect’
Attenborough’s work is so persuasive that fans have coined the term ‘the David Attenborough Effect’, demonstrating how the issues he highlights in his work have brought about real change.
A 2019 poll by GlobalWebIndex, which surveyed 3,833 people in the US and the UK, found that when Attenborough issued a call to action to combat plastic waste in the second series of Planet Earth, searches for “plastic recycling” spiked by 55 per cent in the UK.
In the wake of the documentary, survey participants reported a 53 per cent drop in their single-use plastic consumption.
RelatedBut it isn’t just ordinary people sitting at home watching TV who have been inspired by Attenborough’s work.
Following galvanising footage of bottom trawling in ‘Ocean’ – where boats drag heavy, weighted nets across the seabed to catch fish and kill everything in their wake – a ban on deep-sea fishing in parts of the Atlantic rich with marine life was upheld by the EU’s General Court.
David Attenborough is a ‘constant source of inspiration’
Artists Skip and Katherine Khangurra lives were changed by the David Attenborough effect. They set up their company Libra Fine Arts after watching the broadcaster’s shows.
“We both grew up watching Attenborough’s programmes on TV, captured by his remarkable voiceovers,” Katherine, 42, tells Euronews Earth.
“Skip, 57, is often inspired to draw after watching a series – whether it’s penguins from ‘Frozen Planet’ or gorillas from ‘Gorillas Revisited’. The filmmaking in these programmes is extraordinary, revealing incredible detail in every scene, sometimes even down to the individual hairs of each animal.”
The couple, who live in Windsor, England, say Attenborough’s work has been a “constant source of inspiration” for them, as it has been for many other artists around the world.
They once gifted Attenborough some of their wildlife cards, and received a “beautiful” handwritten note in response. “The time and care he put into writing to us personally really touched us,” Katherine says.
The next generation learning about wildlife
Now, Katherine and Skip use their art as a learning resource for families – helping parents to teach their children the names of different species and their traits and “connect” with wildlife.
“It’s wonderful to watch those moments of curiosity and connection, and especially lovely to see the next generation learning about animals and building that connection for the future,” Katherine says.
A 2022 study of 842 primary school students, which was published in the science journal Global Ecology and Conservation, found that children's willingness to conserve wild animals was positively associated with both direct (time spent outdoors) and indirect (watching nature programmes or reading nature books) nature contact frequency, their knowledge of species, and their likeability of species.
“Children's knowledge and likeability of species were also positively associated with nature contact frequency (direct and indirect forms),” the study states.
“Therefore, wildlife conservation would benefit from environmental education and child care policies that enable children to spend time outdoors and learn about nature in multiple ways.”
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