Movie Review/Ed Rampell

How We Can Put a Halt to Biodiversity Loss

“Extinction: The Facts,” a new documentary presented by Sir David Attenborough, details how we can save the world, its wildlife, and ourselves.

“Extinction: The Facts,” a documentary narrated by Sir David Attenborough, lays out compellingly that species around the world “are vanishing at rates never seen before in human history.” This rapid disappearance of wildlife will only accelerate “unless we take immediate action.”

Stanford’s Professor Elizabeth Hadly warns onscreen that, in the 21st century, the human race could be the new “asteroid” that causes the next mass extinction. The approximately 60-minute film details manmade practices driving widespread biodiversity loss.

The climate crisis, which Hadly describes as the “escalator to extinction,” is of course the leader of the doomsday pack when it comes to extermination threats. Startlingly, “Extinction” also argues that these lethal trends are exponentially unleashing plagues, including COVID-19.

A production of BBC Studios’ Science Unit, “Extinction” is produced and directed by Serena Davies, who previously helmed 2019’s “Climate Change: The Facts,” with Attenborough and Greta Thunberg. “Extinction” tells its riveting tale with exceptionally high production values, in particular its use of sumptuous cinematography that ranges from aerial long shots of Earth to extreme closeups of plants, insects, and beasts in the wild.

Intercut with this optical opulence are interviews with scientists, activists, academics, economists, conservationists, and caretakers, such as James Mwenda, protector of Africa’s last two northern white rhinos at Kenya’s Pejeta Conservancy. The documentary is held together by the onscreen presence of naturalist Attenborough, who is now 94 years old.

Dr. Peter Daszak, president of the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance, delivers what is arguably Extinction’s most hair-raising commentary. “We’re behind every pandemic,” the British zoologist and disease ecologist eerily asserts, “It’s our interaction with nature that drove COVID-19.”

However, as dire and damning as Daszak’s wakeup call about humanity’s own culpability may be, it also contains a kernel of opportunity, because some of the harm coming to the planet could be avoided.

To counter biodiversity loss, annihilation, and ecological apocalypse, the film calls for a strategic partnership between industry, the private sector, local communities, and government. Extinction provides specific case studies of this alliance and—though reviled by rightwing, laissez-faire fanatics—government regulations enacted to successfully save the environment and endangered species.

Another powerful scene includes flashbacks to Attenborough’s personal encounters in Rwanda’s forest with then-threatened mountain gorillas in scenes from Attenborough’s iconic 1979 Life on Earth series. Though they were on the brink of being wiped out at the time, these gorillas have been saved by proactive conservationist cooperation in Rwanda’s Virunga Mountains. Today, the gorillas are thriving, their population growing from about 250 to 1,000-plus.

“We are facing a crisis and one that has consequences for us all, but it’s not too late,” says Attenborough in the film. “I truly believe that together we can create a better future, if we make the right decisions at this critical moment.”

“Extinction” suggests that the price and peril of economic systems placing profit before the planet is that humanity itself is at risk of becoming an endangered species in what may turn into a “lost world.”

“Extinction: The Facts” premiered March 31 on PBS and will stream simultaneously on all station-branded PBS platforms, including PBS.org and the PBS Video app.

Ed Rampell is a film historian and critic based in Los Angeles. Rampell is the author of “Progressive Hollywood, A People’s Film History of the United States” and he co-authored “The Hawaii Movie and Television Book,” now in its third edition. This first appeared at Progressive.org.

From The Progressive Populist, May 1, 2021

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