We can now destroy or we can cherish-the choice is ours.

Do we really require so many gardening programmes, makeover programmes or celebrity chefs?

Many individuals are doing what they can. But real success can only come if there is a change in our societies and in our economics and in our politics.

Human beings, because we're so clever, have removed every single one of those population limiting factors... So nothing controls our increase in numbers except our own wish. Since I first started making television programs, the population of the world has increased three times. That's an extraordinary notion. Can it increase four times? Can it increase five times? The Earth is a finite size. So a point will eventually come when we run out of food, when we run out of space and when we will have destroyed most of the natural world. So ought we to do something about it before that happens?

You can cry about death and very properly so, your own as well as anybody else's. But it's inevitable, so you'd better grapple with it and cope and be aware that not only is it inevitable, but it has always been inevitable, if you see what I mean.

Getting to places like Bangkok or Singapore was a hell of a sweat. But when you got there it was the back of beyond. It was just a series of small tin sheds.

Instead of controlling the environment for the benefit of the population, perhaps we should control the population to ensure the survival of our environment