David Attenborough urges business to protect nature from population boom

Lewis Smith - The Guardian Wednesday 18th January 2012

Corporations have a leading role to play to make sure "mankind doesn't spread willy nilly over every square yard of the globe", says naturalist

A crowded beach in Brighton ... the earth's population is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050. Photograph: Paul Carstairs/Alamy

Sir David Attenborough has called on big businesses to protect the natural world from the rapidly expanding human population.

The broadcaster and naturalist said the population increase is unstoppable and that action must be taken to stop the natural world from being concreted over.

Distancing himself from conservationists who regard big businesses as the enemy, he said companies and corporations, as the holders of much of the world's wealth, have a vital and leading role to play.

"It's not a mystery. Wealth empowers," he said. "And businesses have by no means been slow in helping. We've [conservationists] gone to multinationals over and over again."

He said there were exceptions, but that for the most part businesses that defiled the natural world in the 19th and to an extent the 20th century, such as by dumping waste in the sea, usually did so out of ignorance. "They didn't know any better," he said.

But he warned: "We've got to such a situation and dense population that we can no longer make these mistakes. The warning is clear and the job of people in the media like me is to make sure the warning is understood."

For full article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jan/18/david-attenborough-big-business-population