Sir David Attenborough: Humanity is a plague (Picture: PA)

Veteran broadcaster and naturalist Sir David Attenborough has warned human beings have become a ‘plague on the Earth’.

The 86-year-old warned the effects of population growth and climate change would be evident for all to see in the next 50 years.

‘We are a plague on the Earth. It’s coming home to roost over the next 50 years or so,’ he told the Radio Times.

‘It’s not just climate change. It’s sheer space, places to grow food for this enormous horde.


‘Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us, and the natural world is doing it for us right now.’



He added: ‘We keep putting on programmes about famine in Ethiopia – that’s what’s happening. Too many people there. They can’t support themselves – and it’s not an inhuman thing to say. It’s the case.

‘Until humanity manages to sort itself out and get a co-ordinated view about the planet, it’s going to get worse and worse.’

Sir David, whose new series ‘David Attenborough’s Natural Curiosities’ starts on Eden next Tuesday, also said his iconic style of presenting may soon become extinct, claiming he wasn’t sure if there was any need for a ‘new Attenborough’.

‘The more you go on, the less you need people standing between you and the animal and the camera waving their arms about,’ he told the magazine.

‘It’s much cheaper to get someone in front of a camera describing animal behaviour than actually showing you (the behaviour). That takes a much longer time.

‘But the kind of carefully tailored programmes in which you really work at the commentary, you really match pictures to words, is a bit out of fashion now… regarded as old hat.’

David Attenborough’s Natural Curiosities begins on Eden at 8pm next Tuesday (Sky 532/ Virgin 208).

His current BBC One series Africa continues at 9pm on Wednesday, with the next episode focusing on southern Africa.