The more you go on, the less you need people standing between you and the animal and the camera waving their arms about.
Interpretation
As you become more skilled, you rely less on others to capture the essence of nature.
David Attenborough's quote suggests that with experience and confidence, a person can navigate and connect with the natural world more directly, without the interference of others. It implies that one's understanding and appreciation of nature deepens as one becomes more self-sufficient in observing and documenting it.
In practice
In a documentary about wildlife photography, this quote can inspire aspiring photographers to trust their instincts.
I don't think we are going to become extinct. We're very clever and extremely resourceful - and we will find ways of preserving ourselves, of that I'm sure. But whether our lives will be as rich as they are now is another question.
I'm against this huge globalisation on the basis of economic advantage.
I would be absolutely astounded if population growth and industrialisation and all the stuff we are pumping into the atmosphere hadn't changed the climatic balance. Of course it has. There is no valid argument for denial.
There's a small worm called Loa Loa Filariasis. This parasite can survive in one environment exclusively- namely, underneath the skin and inside the eyes of human beings. Children and the elderly in tropical regions (usually the poorest) are the most widely affected. A painful, slow death is virtually certain. The worm can actually live in the host for 17 years before the host finally dies.
The fundamental issue is the moral issue.
It is vital that there is a narrator figure whom people believe. That's why I never do commercials. If I started saying that margarine was the same as motherhood, people would think I was a liar.
We should continue to mobilise against the destruction of the world's great habitats, and its terrifying implications. But the most persuasive argument we can make is to show we mean it, by restoring our own lost wonders.
I refuse to condemn your generation and future generations to a planet that's beyond fixing.
It's up to us as photographers to give voice to the natural world.
All the spring may be hidden in the single bud, and the low ground nest of the lark may hold the joy that is to herald the feet of many rose-red dawns.
The mountain gorilla faces grave danger of extinction - primarily because of the encroachments of native man upon its habitat - and neglect by civilized man, who does not conscientiously protect even the limited areas now allotted for the gorilla's survival.
The Earth is given as a common for men to labor and live in.
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