At the very end of East Africa's Great Rift Valley, there's a 'land that time forgot'--the rolling grasslands of the Luangwa Valley. Seemingly untouched plains teem with Africa's most iconic animals. Some are unique to this place, others are critically endangered elsewhere. Here, prey exist in remarkable balance, each taking advantage of the secret at the heart of this Eden, the mighty Luangwa River and its dramatic annual transformation from dusty inferno to emerald paradise.
With much of it covered in ice all year round and with no daylight from October to March, the Arctic Ocean is one of the world's most remarkable oceans. Its home to a multitude of unique life forms, all highly adapted to cope with the extreme and seasonal conditions. The impacts of climate change are more strongly felt here than anywhere else in the world.
Sam Neill explores humanity's long-term future - a future where we make new homes for ourselves on other worlds as we flee from the slow but inevitable death of our sun.
A new force threatens our perfect planet. In the past, five mass extinction events were caused by cataclysmic volcanic eruptions. It was not the lava or ash that wiped out life, but an invisible gas released by volcanoes: carbon dioxide. Almost every part of modern life depends on energy created by burning fossil fuels, and this produces CO2 in huge amounts. Humans are changing our planet so rapidly, it’s affecting earth’s life support systems: our weather, our oceans and the living world. The greatest change to be made is in how we create energy, and the planet is brimming with natural power that can help us do just that. It’s these forces of nature - the wind, the sun, waves and geothermal energy - that hold the key to our future. Through compelling animal-led stories and expert interviews, we discover how CO2 is destabilising our planet. We meet rescued orphaned elephants in Kenya, victims of ever worsening droughts, and join ocean patrols off the coast of Gabon fighting to save endangered sharks. In the Amazon, we witness wildlife teams saving animals in the shrinking forests, and in San Diego we enter a cryogenic zoo preserving the DNA of endangered species before they become extinct.
The last episode examines the fragile interdependence that exists between forests' wide variety of residents, including bald eagles, hunting dogs and Siberian tigers. Over half of all the world's trees, evergreen and deciduous, stand in great assemblies. For many of us, they are places of mystery and darkness. They are key to our climate, and home to countless unique species. The boreal forest contains 750 billion trees, and it stores over 40 percent of the world's carbon, making it a vital element in the fight against climate change. In the past, we have destroyed them without hesitation. Yet, forests do have an astonishing ability to recover. If we choose to give forests time and space, they could reclothe the earth with much of the rich and varied communities of animals and plants of which we have, so recently, robbed it. A future with more forests is key to the resilience of our planet.
In the third episode, Will Smith crosses the Serengeti to catch one of the greatest events of nature. "An image, one and a half million wildebeests on the plains of Africa in the most dramatic migration on Earth, has stayed with me since around thirty years ago I picked up a National Geographic Magazine and saw it. And finally, I'm here to see it."
Here, prey exist in remarkable balance, each taking advantage of the secret at the heart of this Eden, the mighty Luangwa River and its dramatic annual transformation from dusty inferno to emerald paradise.