‘The greatest ambassador for life on Earth’: Tributes paid to David Attenborough on his 100th birthday

David Attenborough said he had been “completely overwhelmed by birthday greetings” for his centenary on Friday and thanked wellwishers “most sincerely”.

The naturalist said he had hoped to celebrate his 100th birthday quietly. Instead, the milestone will be marked with a live event at the Royal Albert Hall broadcast on BBC One, featuring music from his programmes as well as stories and reflections from public figures and leading advocates for the natural world.

In a recorded audio message shared on Thursday night, Attenborough said: “I had rather thought that I would celebrate my 100th birthday quietly, but it seems that many of you have had other ideas.

“I’ve been completely overwhelmed by birthday greetings, from preschool groups to care home residents and countless individuals and families of all ages. I simply can’t reply to each of you all separately, but I would like to thank you all most sincerely for your kind messages.”

The broadcaster, whose sonorous voice has described the wonders of life on Earth for billions of people, has inspired global efforts to treasure and protect wildlife during a lifetime that has coincided with mass extinction and the breakdown of a stable climate.

To mark his birthday, the Natural History Museum has named a newly discovered species of parasitic wasp – Attenboroughnculus tau – after him and is running an immersive exhibition, Our Story With David Attenborough, until August.

At Kew Gardens, staff recorded a birthday message paying tribute and calling on people to honour Attenborough by taking greater care of plants and fungi. The Australian Museum will pay tribute to its patron by offering free entry to a new exhibition, Bloodsuckers: Nature’s Vampires.

Tributes rolled in from the worlds of science, politics and popular culture. The naturalist Chris Packham said: “He is the greatest living broadcaster and has been the greatest ambassador for life on Earth the planet has and will ever see. And, equally importantly, he’s a nice bloke, an enthusiast, a passionate naturalist and a clever and considered communicator. And we love him because we trust him because he’s always told us the truth as we know it. And what a legacy that is!”

The actor Ian McKellen said Attenborough summed up “the best about the BBC”, making serious programmes for a popular audience. “His ability to communicate his own enthusiasms are very precious and he’s brought such joy to so many people,” he said.

Attenborough holding a Bafta award in 2014. Photograph: Jonathan Short/Invision/AP

Attenborough is recognised as a consummate storyteller, whose sparse narrative, dramatic timing and sense of humour connect viewers to ecosystems from the Amazon and the Atlantic to the Arctic and the African savannah. He is a passionate advocate for the natural world.

Thanks to the ubiquity of television and the groundbreaking work of the BBC Natural History Unit, Attenborough is arguably humanity’s most trusted interpreter of other species. He is certainly one of the most popular Britons, according to polls.

Alastair Fothergill, of the production company Silverback Films, said: “Working with David over the decades has been one of the great privileges of my life. Before him, wildlife television was often seen as niche or educational programming, but David brought the wonders of the planet into people’s living rooms in a completely new way.

“Suddenly, audiences everywhere cared about places and animals they’d never seen before. Not only did he bring a unique sense of wonder and emotion to these stories, he also gave audiences a huge sense of responsibility towards the planet.”

Attenborough was born in Isleworth, west London, in 1926 and brought up near Leicester, roaming the countryside in his childhood, cycling for miles to reach woodlands where he could find fossils under rocks.

After stints in the navy and publishing, he applied for a job at the BBC in 1950 and was soon making nonfiction factual programmes, including a series from London zoo. He rose rapidly inside the institution and was appointed controller of BBC2 in 1965, a post from which he later commissioned the first episodes of programmes such as The Old Grey Whistle Test, as well as developing the landmark documentary series Civilisation.

But his primary interest was in wildlife and documentary film-making, leading in 1979 to the 13-part series Life on Earth. In one acclaimed episode, he had an unexpectedly close encounter with an adult male gorilla in Rwanda. In an unruffled monologue, he reminded viewers: “It seems really very unfair that man should have chosen the gorilla to symbolise everything that is aggressive and violent, when that is the one thing that the gorilla is not – and that we are.”

At a citizens’ assembly on climate change in Birmingham in January 2020. Photograph: Fabio De Paola/PA

From this moment on, he became a celebrated and influential figure, though some said he did not do enough to highlight climate breakdown. The writer George Monbiot has said he was “astonished by Attenborough’s consistent failure to mount a coherent, truthful and effective defence of the living world he loves”.

Many others defended the film-maker’s approach, while Attenborough himself said he often raised environmental alarms, including in several entire series, such as 2000’s State of the Planet, but that too many dire warnings could be a “turn-off”.

In recent years, Attenborough has drawn even more attention to the damage being done to the natural world. He told the Guardian in 2018 that his goal was to make people care enough to do something; to draw people in and then, at the end of a programme or series, to hit them with an environmental message. This was particularly successful with Blue Planet, which sparked a global campaign against plastics.

Attenborough took to the stage at UN climate talks in Poland in December 2018 to warn of an existential crisis. “Right now we are facing a man-made disaster of global scale, our greatest threat in thousands of years: climate change,” he said. “If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon.”

Three years later, he told a younger generation at Cop26 in Glasgow: “In my lifetime I have witnessed a terrible decline. In yours, you could and should witness a wonderful recovery.”