For most people the idea of someone else telling them how many children they should have is simply unacceptable so when governments attempt to do jus… - David Attenborough

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For most people the idea of someone else telling them how many children they should have is simply unacceptable so when governments attempt to do just that it always causes controversy. In 1979 the Chinese government introduced its infamous one-child policy, changing family life in China forever. Families were encouraged to have fewer children. Those that didn't were fined. The policy was a direct response to the preceding decades of famine and starvation. It's still in place today. According to official figures, without the one-child policy, there'd be four hundred million more people in China, that's more than the entire population of the USA. Its unlikely that other governments could undertake such an extreme path without major civil opposition. In the 1970s the Indian government also sought to bring down its birthrate. To start with it took a less aggressive path, setting up festivals around the country where vasectomies were carried out for small incentives. m31s56

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About David Attenborough

Sir David Frederick Attenborough OM CH CVO CBE FRS (born 8 May 1926) is a British broadcaster and writer specialising in natural history who has mainly worked for the BBC since the early 1950s.

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Birth Name: David Frederick Attenborough
Native Name: Sir David Frederick Attenborough
Alternative Names: Sir David Attenborough
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I am at the very centre of the great white continent, Antarctica. The South Pole is about half a mile away. For a thousand miles in all directions, there is nothing but ice. And, in the whole of this continent, which is about one-and-a-half times the size of the United States and larger than Europe, there is a year-round population of no more than 800 people. This is the loneliest and coldest place on Earth, the place that is most hostile to life. And yet, in one or two places, it is astonishingly rich.

At a time when it's possible for thirty people to stand on the top of Everest in one day, Antarctica still remains a remote, lonely and desolate continent. A place where it's possible to see the splendours and immensities of the natural world at its most dramatic and, what's more, witness them almost exactly as they were, long, long before human beings ever arrived on the surface of this planet. Long may it remain so.

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Penguins underwater look somewhat like dolphins, and indeed the two families have similar evolutionary histories. Dolphins are descended from air-breathing land animals, just as penguins are descended from air-breathing flying animals. Both subsequently took to swimming for their food. They became beautifully adapted and streamlined. And now, both are superlative swimmers and highly accomplished fishermen.

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