Sir David referenced conservationist Sir Peter Scott’s cause, the International Whaling Commission, and praised him for getting people and nations around the world to work together to preserve whale stocks.
“He got nations around the world to agree that whales were being exterminated and this would be a crime beyond description, and that nations must stop whaling everywhere, and nations around the world did so,” Sir David said.
“They did so knowing that it would actually rob them of a certain amount of national income, so that was a huge advance.”
He added that the Paris Agreement – a treaty within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – is “another big advance”.
He said: “I would like to think that the reason the political figures have got that sort of policy that they will know will be at a cost to the national economies is that they are beginning to realise that people worldwide wish that to happen, because they wish to protect the natural world, and I think that view has been helped by what (the Natural History Unit) and other units around the world are doing.”
