You can only get really unpopular decisions through if the electorate is convinced of the value of the environment. That's what natural history programmes should be for.

I just wish the world was twice as big and half of it was still unexplored.

I don't like rats, but there's not much else I don't like. The problem with rats is they have no fear of human beings, they're loaded with foul diseases, they would run the place given half the chance, and I've had them leap out of a lavatory while I've been sitting on it.

Fundamentally not to waste energy. If we were all to reduce our demands for energy, it would make an enormous amount of difference.

Everyone likes birds. What wild creature is more accessible to our eyes and ears, as close to us and everyone in the world, as universal as a bird?

Nothing in the natural world makes sense - except when seen in the light of evolution

You've got to be fairly solemn [about the environment]. I mean the mere notion that there are three times as many people on Earth as there were when I started making television. How can the Earth accommodate them? When people, including politicians, set their faces against looking at the consequences-it's just unbelievable that anyone could ignore it.