Sir David Attenborough doesn’t spend much time in front of the camera, but you almost certainly know his work from television.
He’s the soothing voice of such Netflix standards as Planet Earth , Blue Planet , and Our Planet , but he’s been around much, much longer than the streaming giant has, and he’s being honored for his lifetime of work in nature documentaries, Metro reported.
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Now 93 years old, Attenborough’s TV career spans 60 years of exploring and explaining the natural world for millions upon millions of viewers around the globe.
He’s received no shortage of honors for his work over the years, including a knighthood, having more than 10 plants and animal species named after him, and he’s the only person ever to be awarded BAFTAs for work done in black and white, color, HD, and 3D.
So it’s not a shock that in the U.K., he’s considered a national treasure.
Sir David’s latest honor is Britain’s TV Choice lifetime achievement award.
“Still working, learning and making programmes Sir David Attenborough isn’t just a British hero, he’s a global icon,” TV Choice said in its announcement of the award.
The magazine said that it wanted to show respect and appreciation for Sir David’s career and his contribution to natural history television.
Sir David replied, saying “What I do isn’t always entertaining, and sometimes people hear things they don’t like. But this is an honor and a great pleasure.”
Sir David remains active both on and off the screen.
His latest series, Our Planet , debuted on Netflix in April, and over the summer he put in appearances at Glastonbury and before a British parliamentary committee, where he delivered a scathing rebuke to leaders for inaction on climate change and warned of “great social unrest” over the next 20 years.
However, he also says he has faith that action can and will be taken to address climate change.
Comparing climate change to slavery, he said “There was a time in the 19th century when it was perfectly acceptable for civilized human beings to think that it was morally acceptable to actually own another human being for a slave.
“And somehow or other, in the space of 20 or 30 years, the public perception of that totally transformed.”
Here’s hoping he has many more years of filmmaking ahead of him!
