CCI welcomes patron Sir David Attenborough
20th November 2023
Image: Sophie Busch/CCI
CCI was delighted to welcome our honorary patron Sir David Attenborough and his daughter Susan Attenborough to the CCI campus last week. Together they met with staff from each of the CCI partners including the CCI Council and learnt about a selection of different CCI projects.
Sir David and Susan were briefed on the latest phase of CCI’s Endangered Landscapes and Seascapes Programme which has recently seen $30 million committed specifically to restoring Europe’s seas. They also learnt about a couple of projects supported by the CCI Collaborative Fund and met with students from the unique interdisciplinary MPhil in Conservation Leadership course, taught by the University of Cambridge together with the other CCI partners.
Professor Jeremy Wilson, RSPB’s Director of Science and current CCI Council Chair, welcomed Sir David on behalf of the CCI community. Below he shares his speech.
Good afternoon and welcome everyone
I’m Jeremy Wilson, RSPB’s Director of Science, and I was privileged to take the CCI Council Chair at the start of November. May I begin by thanking you Sir David and Susan for taking the time to visit us today. Your support for CCI has been steadfast and inspirational from the start, and it is heart-warming for us to have it renewed today.
That support makes all the more difference in light of recent challenges. The arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020 profoundly changed our lives. The David Attenborough Building falling almost silent for so many months was a severe blow for a partnership and community founded on the creativity, innovation and inspiration of pursuing common cause under one roof. And now in 2023, we are in transition as we look to recruit a new, permanent Executive Director, whom we look forward to welcoming in spring 2024.
But despite these challenges there is much to celebrate. First, the vibrancy of the David Attenborough Building is well and truly back as I hope you have experienced today. Speaking as a staff member of a charity whose move to home and hybrid working for many is likely to be a permanent one, then the energy and stimulation of in-person collaboration here in the David Attenborough Building, which it is easy to take for granted, is more important than ever.
Secondly, we have been hugely fortunate to secure as our interim Executive Director the services of David Gibbons, another who has given unstinting support to CCI from the very start, and I would like to offer heartfelt thanks to you David and all in your team for your calm, surefooted stewardship during this period of change.
We have also recently welcomed the Wildlife Conservation Society as our 11th partner; we are delighted to welcome new Council members in Kathy Gill of the Cambridge Conservation Forum and Professor Rachael Garrett, Moran Professor of Conservation and Development here in Cambridge University, and we have interest from several prospective future partners and associate partners. And, as of October, the CCI’s flagship Endangered Landscapes (and now also Seascapes) Programme led by David Thomas has launched its third phase of large-scale ecosystem restoration projects, supported by the Arcadia Fund.
So, there is a great deal to look forward to. But we will need to work hard as a Council, partnership and community in coming months to bring a focused ambition to the CCI’s strategy; and as individual partners and through our wider collaborative networks to understand how we can bring greater collective power to CCI’s elbow and extend CCI’s global reach and impact. In short, we need to lay firm foundations for David Gibbons’ successor to lead the CCI from its teenage years to adulthood.
I will end where I started. Your support Sir David and Susan is the wind at our back as we look to CCI’s future, and your words below the green wall “There are few things more important in the world today than what you are doing here” ring all the louder for us today than even they did when this building first opened its doors.
Thank you so much Sir David and Susan for joining us today, and thank you Council for your support.

Professor Jeremy Wilson, current CCI Council Chair, welcomes Sir David and his daughter Susan to CCI.

Sir David and his daughter Susan learn more about CCI’s Endangered Landscapes and Seascapes Programme

Sir David meets with Prof. Rachael Garrett, (University of Cambridge) and Fiona Sanderson (RSPB) to learn about a West Africa agroforestry project supported by the CCI Collaborative Fund.

Sir David and his daughter Susan meet with students on the unique interdisciplinary MPhil in Conservation Leadership course, taught by the University of Cambridge together with the other CCI partners.