David Attenborough joins Instagram with a call to save the world

By Holly O'Neill
24th Sep 2020

David Attenborough joins Instagram with a call to save the world

Sir David Attenborough has joined Instagram at 94 with a call to save the world

Sir David Attenborough has joined Instagram for the first time, sharing a debut post to warn that “the world is in trouble.”

“I am making this move and exploring this new way of communication to me because, as we all know, the world is in trouble,” he said on his first Instagram post. “Continents are on fire. Glaciers are melting. Coral reefs are dying. Fish are disappearing from our oceans. The list goes on and on. But we know what to do about it. That’s why I’m tackling this new way, for me, of communication.”

Over the next few weeks, he will be recording messages “to explain what the problems are and how we can deal with them.”

Sir David’s collaborators Jonnie Hughes and Colin Butfield are managing his account. They wrote, “David Attenborough has spent a lifetime travelling, exploring the wild places of our planet and documenting the living world in all its variety and wonder. He’s also witnessed the damaged caused. Saving our planet is now a communications challenge. We know what to do, we just need the will. That’s why we want to share this message on Instagram. Because there is hope and together, we can inspire change. Social media isn’t David’s usual habitat so while he’s recorded messages solely for Instagram, like the one in this post, we’re helping to run this account.”

Jonnie Hughes and Colin Butfield have worked with Sir David on A Life On Our Planet, Sir David’s forthcoming book and Netflix documentary which will be reflections on his career and his firsthand experience of the decline of the environment.