Cuba is the Caribbean's most precious natural jewel.
Forests still blanket large parts of the island.
Her blue waters hide some of the richest coral reefs
to be found anywhere.
And while many of the wild lands and seas of the Caribbean
are in trouble, Cuba's extraordinary history has created
a true wildlife wonderland.
Fully half of Cuba's animals and plants are found nowhere else.
From their very own crocodiles and snakes to the smallest birds
and frogs on the planet.
My name is Colin Stafford -Johnson.
I've been a wildlife cameraman
for over 30 years, and have never
lost my boyhood fascination with this remarkable island.
I'm halfway through my Cuban adventure, and as my journey
continues, Cuba's unique animals and wild places transport me
to another world.
It's a good night tonight.
You see these sort of shadows appearing out of the waves
and initially you think, is that one?
And then suddenly, the wave retreats.
Every July, this is where green turtles come to lay their eggs.
Females that come to this beach would have been born here
perhaps 20 years ago or so.
Although these are very much Cuban turtles, they will wander
far from these shores during their lives, and somehow
they manage to find their way back to the very same place
where they were born.
It's one of the great mysteries, for me, of the animal world.
Turtles are having a hard time these days.
The oceans are not the pristine places they used to be.
And it's a miracle, really, that they make it back here at all.
TURTLE H ISSES
It's a really difficult process.
They have been buoyant all their lives.
They've been supported by the salt water.
And now they have to hold themselves,
feeling the full effects of gravity,
maybe for the first time in their lives.
It's not just a question of reaching the beach.
They know they have to travel right up beyond the spring tide mark.
That's where their eggs will be safe.
TURTLE H ISSES
As soon as she feels that her flippers are reaching
down deep enough into the sand, she goes into a trance and nothing
will stop her at that point.
TURTLE H ISSES
Once she has them laid, she covers up that hole.
That's all she can do.
SH E H ISSES
She will never meet her offspring, and those offspring
that are developing there will never meet their mum.
And hopefully, the eggs that she's left developing
in the sand will be successful.
And in a couple of months' time...
...they'll hatch and the little turtles will make their way
to the surface and
head to the ocean, just like she did, once upon a time.
I think when you visit the tropics for the first time, the thing
that really strikes you is just how much life is there.
There are more species living in the tropical zones
than all the other zones of the world put together.
And when you have that heat and light and fresh water in abundance,
and then stability over time, it seems that that is what has given
rise to so many different creatures.
BIRDS TWEET
The island I come from was scraped clean by the ice just a few
thousand years ago,
not long ago, even in terms of human history, really.
But these places have been stable and untouched for millions of years.
These are the great cradles of evolution.
BIRDS TWEET
Cuba is woodpecker heaven.
These old palm trunks are perfect nesting sites.
But finding a good tree often means sharing with troublesome cousins.
Here, two different kinds are close neighbours -
a West I ndian and a Cuban Green woodpecker.
The West I ndians are notorious and will do anything to avoid
the hard work of drilling their own nest.
And will even kill the other bird's chicks to take over.
WOODPECKERS CHIRP
This one thinks her green neighbour's nest is worth a try.
WOODPECKER CHIRPS
Luckily, the Cuban Green chicks are big enough to defend themselves.
CHICK CHIRPS
The parents return to find their chicks and family home
safe and secure.
Meanwhile, the raider heads off to try her luck
on another promising nest.
But the Fernandina's Flicker is at home and she's well able
to take care of herself.
BIRD SOUAWKS NOISILY
The West I ndian finally gives up and resigns herself
to finishing her own nest.
Her neighbours, including this Screech owl,
will just have to put up with the noise.
And the rubbish.
On the lower floor of the tree, the Cuban Green woodpecker chicks
are getting close to the day they leave.
For the parents, it's still a nonstop battle to keep them
fed and happy.
WOODPECKER CHIRRU PS
CHICK CALLS
Finally, the chicks are ready for the biggest step of their lives.
One needs a little persuasion.
CHICK CHEEPS IMPATIENTLY
CH ICKS CHIRRUP NOISILY
The parents will continue to feed them until the chicks are strong
enough to fend for themselves and deal with all the challenges
of life in Cuba's wild forests.
CACOPHANY OF BIRDSONG
Savannahs are really beautiful places, but I can't help realising
how vulnerable all the cavity nesters are.
Now, you would think there's lots of places to nest around here,
you see all these palm trees,
but they only actually nest in dead ones.
They are very few and far between.
You get a sense that there's a real competition for nesting spaces
because you'll get more than one cavity nester within the one tree.
And that really is a sign of...
that there's a lack of decent nesting habitats here.
And it's the woodpeckers that make the homes for all the other birds.
It's the woodpeckers that make the holes that the owls will occupy.
It's the woodpeckers that make the holes
that the parrots will occupy.
And they're facing another serious problem.
That big, old, dead palm behind me -
there's a pair of Cuban parrots nesting.
People want to keep things like parrots as pets.
And they don't quite realise, I think, what a massive impact
that has on the natural world.
The way that they get parrots in Cuba, like they do in most parts
of the world, is if you find a dead tree with a parrot nest up in it,
you just chop down the tree and then you take out
the young parrots.
And then, of course, the dead tree is not there next year.
So there's less and less nesting habitat.
A dead tree.
It's not a huge amount to ask for.
If we can't give them that, you know...
...a bit sad, really.
Like so much of its wildlife,
Cuba itself was born in the warm tropical sea.
For three quarters of the island is limestone,
formed from the skeletons of sea creatures,
settled as fine sands on the seabed.
Millions of years of pressure and upheaval created the rock
that forms most of the island today.
Limestone creates its very own wonderland.
As rain and water dissolves it over time, it riddles the island
with caves, both above and below water.
This is a cenote,
a vertical cave of collapsed limestone.
Many are hundreds of metres deep
and a very special
world unto themselves.
Over the eons, these peculiar places have become home to some
very unusual creatures.
And in Cuba, this is perhaps the most bizarre.
A garfish known as a manjuari.
One of the ancient fish designs,
manjuari have an extraordinary ability -
they can breathe air.
If their water becomes too stagnant and oxygen runs low, they can gulp
air from the surface to survive.
Manjuari give a unique insight into how the very first fish
evolved to leave the sea and survive on land
many millions of years ago.
A critical step in the evolution of life on Earth.
BIRDSONG
I've never been any place quite like this.
These mogotes, these spectacular, steep, limestone mogotes.
The agriculture that's found in the valleys
is very traditional, low impact.
And so, when you look at the mogotes covered in forest,
they really look like forested islands
in a sea of agriculture.
And when you wander through these valleys around here, you can see
this agriculture running right up to the mogotes.
So the only place, really, to see the kind of animals
that should be in this area, is by visiting the mogotes themselves.
This is really a remarkable sight.
You know, I'm so used to seeing limestone features in Cuba now,
that, from a distance, these appear to be little stalactites
all along the cliff.
And it's only when you get closer,
you realise some of them are moving in the wind.
WASPS BUZZ
And they're wasps nests, each of these is a separate
little colony of wasps.
Each one of these will have been started by a fertilised female.
She would have made the decision as to where to make the initial
attachment for the nest.
And she will give birth
to the whole colony -
workers that then assist her in building up the colony.
And over the season, it gets bigger and bigger.
Eventually, it will be abandoned.
Limestone is such a feature of Cuba, it really is, and it's difficult
stuff to walk around on.
It's incredibly jagged. Rain, when it falls, is slightly acidic
and it actually cuts through this rock.
Hence, that's why there are so many caves and crevices.
These, sort of, sheer limestone cliffs afford some protection.
I sort of sense that these are like fortresses, fortresses
for nature, a place where wildlife retreats in time of danger.
These sheer limestone cliffs attract the finest rock climbers in Cuba.
This is one of the very best - a cliff anole.
A lizard completely adapted to a vertical life.
For dexterity on these walls,
nothing can touch it,
except another cliff anole.
Fiercely territorial, this male is trying to hold his patch
of the cliff from allcomers.
Another male is attempting to move in.
This means war.
There's no violence,
just acrobatics, showing who's king of this cliff.
Anoles change colour depending on their mood.
The intruder has flushed dark brown.
He's not happy.
The original owner has the upper hand here.
Looks like the battle is over.
He's maintained his patch.
Low level aggression.
Cuba's limestone country
hides more than 20,000 caves and labyrinths,
a dark underworld, threading through the whole island.
For bats, this underworld is a lifeline,
one of the very last places to be disrupted by humans.
BATS SOUEAK
Every night, these long tongued bats head out for their journey
through the forest.
Unlike most bats, which primarily eat insects, long tongue bats
have a very sweet tooth.
Like any sugar addict, it's a craving that must be satisfied,
except their lives depend on it.
Every night,
the bats hunt down the sweet flowers of the forest -
giant hibiscus with liquid treasures in its heart.
The bats are wonderfully adapted to the job.
Tiny bristles at the tip of their long tongues give them extra
mopping power to soak up the nectar.
The bats also play their part in the game of life.
Diving headlong into the flowers,
yellow powder dusts them over -
pollen.
The bats carry the pollen from flower to flower,
and as they roam the dark forest, they fertilise other flowers.
The same vital tasks carried out by insects in the light of day.
All across the globe, bats are critical pollinators.
But so much of their work is unseen in the night.
They barely get any of the credit they deserve.
Cuba has been isolated for a long time.
And until human beings came here just 5,000 years ago,
this place just had everything that was required for life to evolve.
CACOPHANY OF BI RDSONG
Sometimes we overuse phrases like "unique", I think.
That really is what Cuba IS.
It's a relatively small landmass
that has so many creatures found no
place else in the world.
That's what makes it so special.
As soon as I step down into this little gully,
the whole atmosphere changes.
It's much more, sort of, moist and humid than the surrounding area.
Amongst the bird calls, you can hear these...
...tinkling sounds that almost
have a slightly, sort of, metallic sound.
That's the sound that tells me that they're an amphibian.
It's only the sounds that give them away because you could wander
through here, and if they remain silent, you'd have no idea
that they were here.
Oh, would you look at that!
The size of him!
Almost impossible to believe how small he is!
I think I remember a time when they were described
as the world's smallest frog.
But since then, maybe one or two other species have been found
on other islands, which are possibly a tiny bit smaller?
Now, officially science knows this as the.
Monte I beria Eleuth, named after the mountain
where they were first discovered but locally, they're known as
ranita - the little frog.
I prefer that.
Ranita.
They were only discovered about 25 years ago, and I guess
it would be very easy to overlook them.
You go walking through the forest and you hear those calls.
They could easily be mistaken for an insect.
You know, the world is all the richer for having little creatures
like this in it.
And these are the sorts of little creatures
that are disappearing every day...
...unnoticed, some before they've been discovered.
They really live at a totally different sense of scale, and even
little creatures, which I consider tiny, are enormous to them.
They really live in the land of giants!
They can do these enormous jumps for their size.
And that, I guess, is their way of avoiding predators.
If something comes across them,
they can just leap totally out of the way.
Besides that, I'm sure they taste bad.
Now, they have those warning colours.
They're telling a predator, "You don't want to eat me", and a
lot of amphibians have toxins in their skin,
but otherwise, they look incredibly vulnerable.
These little guys must have evolved on what would've been a great, vast
tract of primary forest once upon a time, before European man
came and, sort of, upset the apple cart.
They're very endangered now because the habitat
in which they evolved, has, for the most part, gone.
But they're surviving in little gullies and things which are damp
and full of leaf litter, which will have mimicked their original
rainforest home, and they can live out their entire lives
without realising that that great, big forest where they evolved,
hardly exists any more.
And I 'd love to have the time to spend here to try and, you know,
uncover the mysteries of these little creatures, because really,
no-one knows anything about them.
It's sort of hard to believe but people really don't know
what they eat, how they breed, when they breed.
And, in some ways, that's quite nice. I n some ways I think
it's good when the natural world keeps some secrets to itself,
that we don't know everything.
Keeps us guessing.
Cuba's classic American cars are not just for show.
60,000 still travel Cuba's highways.
And they survive for a reason.
Cubans have often been too poor to afford new ones.
For 60 years, a US embargo has placed enormous restrictions
on the country and its ability to trade and prosper
with the outside world.
The embargo has also slowed down the development of Cuba's wild
lands and waters,
meaning less pressure on the creatures that live there.
But an awful lot HAS changed since the first Europeans arrived.
Historically, the great forests of Cuba were cleared, essentially
any forest that could be easily accessed in the lowlands
were all cleared for things like sugar cane plantations
and for gathering charcoal, for timber, for building,
and all that sort of thing.
And I think sometimes people would come to a place
like this and they'd think, oh, it's all lovely and green.
But it's a very different green than it should be.
The reality is that Cuba's natural world is a shadow of what it once
was, and a huge amount of the damage
was due to a system that bedevilled
this part of the world,
and this place is a monument
to those savage times.
Now, sometimes when you wander around a place like these old ruins,
there's a real sense of nostalgia.
But this place has a very different feeling for me.
For me, there's just a real sense of sadness moving round in a place
like this because it was built by exploiting other people.
There were 450 slaves working on this particular plantation.
But perhaps a million over the entire island, which is a pretty
staggering statistic, a million people dragged from their homes
in Africa, over here, to work
this industry, incredibly difficult, hard, manual labour.
It's just hard to imagine these days.
It's just hard to...
...hard to imagine that people could treat others like that.
The first thing, of course, you had to do, if you want
to cultivate sugar cane or coffee on a vast scale,
was that you had to remove the native vegetation.
But so many of the animals that had evolved here,
so many of the endemic ones evolved very closely with the plants.
But when European man arrived,
he had no intentions of living with that forest.
It was all about clearing it, making land available.
And most of the wildlife that lived here, they had no answer for that.
The opulence of the big houses contrasted completely with the lives
of the people who lived around them.
I get a similar sense sometimes, when I'm sort of wandering
through the big old houses in I reland
that belonged to the landlords.
But no nostalgia here.
There was nothing good about those times.
From a human and a wildlife point of view.
Nothing like travelling by boat to get close to things.
This is really my favourite time of day.
It's listening to the world wake up.
BI RDSONG
Never tire of listening to the birds early in the morning,
no matter where I am in the world.
BI RDS CH I RRU P AN D SOUAWK
BI RD TRI LLS
That is a sound I recognise.
BI RD TRI LLS
Echoing from the cliffs, it's a wonderful sound.
But they know exactly what bird that is that's calling right now.
They're a family of birds that I've just always loved.
BI RD TRI LLS
That's the call of the Cuban Trogon, the national bird.
And their colours represent the national flag of Cuba.
Trogons, you can sort of creep up on them in the forest
and they tend to perch on a branch with their backs to you,
and then they slowly sort of look over their heads to see you,
slow motion, you can get really close to them if you're careful.
Shouldn't really have favourites amongst the birds, I guess.
But Trogons are one of my favourites.
There's something about them.
Something incredibly relaxing, I think, about being surrounded
by natural sounds.
And I guess that's not surprising
that when we evolved, this is what the world sounded like.
No combustion engines.
BI RDSONG
Just nature.
And it's a real example, like you've seen in so many parts
of the world, where it's the sort of physical geography
that has protected the forest.
Lots of the original vegetation is still here.
And so all the birds are here as a result.
These old forests in Humboldt Province may hide the answer to one
of the biggest mysteries in the bird world.
Are there any ivory-billed woodpeckers left on Earth?
These forests are the last place on Earth where the ivory-billed
woodpeckers were seen.
And many believe some may still survive here in Cuba.
Amongst bird watchers, it became the Holy Grail to find that bird.
It captured the imagination and I think, possibly, because some
film of it exists.
Back in the 1930s, someone actually filmed a pair
at a nest before it disappeared.
And it's a very evocative and sad piece of film to watch these days,
to know that such a magnificent creature has actually disappeared.
That we were responsible directly for its demise is something I think
that hits pretty hard.
But even to this day, there are people who I've met
who are convinced that the woodpecker still exist
here in some of the remnant patches of ancient forests
that still are here. Although it's a very slim possibility,
expeditions still come on a regular basis,
exploring these forests in the hope of seeing this almost, sort
of, mythical bird once more.
But it's a nice thought that just perhaps, just perhaps,
it's out there somewhere.
To the first settlers and explorers, Cuba was a bewildering maze.
The island itself has 6,000km of coastline and
off shore, more than 4,000 islands and small coral quays.
One of her most precious national treasures
are vast forests, all along its coast,
of a very special plant.
Mangroves -
the only trees that thrive in the sea.
Almost no others can survive the salt of the ocean.
So many parts of the Caribbean, the islands,
have lost their mangrove cover
and there's an active campaign in Cuba to look after them,
you're not allowed to cut them down.
There is no better coastal defence than mangroves.
They can absorb just about anything.
There's parts of the country where you'll see
where there've been big cyclones.
You can see the damage that's been done to the natural vegetation,
but the coastline itself has been protected.
If you look after your mangroves,
you don't have to worry
about your coast being destroyed.
It's that sort of coastal protection,
that's the reason why they're now being looked after.
It just so happens that they are extremely
important wildlife habitats.
And lots of fish and the like
that spend their lives on the reef,
actually grow up here.
So they're an essential part of the overall wellbeing of the sea.
This is like one great, big nursery.
The little creatures find great shelter here, where
they would be gobbled up if they were out on the open sea.
This gives them great protection.
There are very few currents here, very few sort of larger fish.
There's all sorts of food.
Every root seems to be covered in little sponges,
and urchins and polyps.
And you're just aware that there is life everywhere.
And I love places like that.
And I think when you're surrounded by lots of living things,
it's just good to know that's the way the world's supposed to be.
Cuba has its very own breed of crocodile found nowhere else,
and they like to eat hutia,
one of only two kinds of land mammals native to Cuba.
If they can catch one.
Once widespread, Cuban crocodiles are now only found in the swamps
of Zapata and on the Isle of Youth
off Cuba's southern coast.
Relentlessly hunted in the past,
they're now critically endangered.
Larger American crocodiles are invading their freshwater swamps
and interbreeding with the Cuban females, threatening to wipe out
the Cuban species completely.
I n the crocodile world,
the Cubans are regarded as being especially
intelligent and inquisitive.
CROCODI LE GROWLS
Beside their needle sharp teeth, mobility is their other weapon.
The Cubans are extremely agile and can sprint
at more than 15km an hour.
TH EY H ISS
It's breeding time.
And this female is looking for a mate.
CROCODI LE GROWLS
Eager to be of service,
the two biggest males spring into action.
TH EY GROWL TH REATEN I NGLY
Widely regarded as the most aggressive of all crocodiles,
in the past these huge reptiles were greatly feared by Cuban people.
CROCODI LE GROWLS
The victor of this brutal contest will father this year's
brood of youngsters.
Today, Cuba's unique crocodiles face a very uncertain future.
Perhaps 3,000 remain on the planet.
With so few surviving, every successful mating
is a cause for celebration.
These youngsters won't be independent for several months,
but straight out of the egg, Cuban crocodile babies display
the agility and resilience that has kept their kind alive
for so many millions of years.
Let's hope these survivors are a new beginning
and not one of the final chapters in the story of the Cuban crocodile.
Cuba now stands as a crossroads.
For decades, the outside world has been largely kept at bay.
And for most Cubans, the pace of life has changed very little.
I've been obsessed with Cuba ever since I was a child.
Remember from books I read and that idea of these faraway islands,
tropical islands, coral shores.
They were really the stuff,
the stuff of my childhood imagination.
For me, it's been an absolute privilege to explore wild Cuba,
to see so many of its natural riches,
and to realise just what a unique place this really is.
I've seen some remarkable creatures I've always wanted to see.
They're worth more than anything found in any museum in the world.
This place is full of absolute treasures.
But there's now huge pressure on Cuba to develop -
more industry,
more agriculture,
more tourists.
This place is a real cradle of evolution and many of the creatures
that evolved here can survive no place else.
This is their one and only home.
They have no second Cuba.
Under the sands of Caya Largo,
hundreds of new lives are stirring.
Their time has come.
Two months have passed since our female green turtle laid her eggs.
As the first babies break through, the eggs deep down
hatch frantically so they're not left behind.
So this baby turtle has never opened her eyes before now.
Powerful instincts propel her toward the sound and smell
of the sea.
From the moment she left the warm embrace of the nest,
she must fend entirely for herself.
DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYS
On the very first day of her life, there's a good chance she will not
even make it to the water.
This time, another hatchling has paid the price.
Less than one in 1,000 baby turtles reach adulthood.
Their best defence are other turtles.
It's why they hatch and break for the ocean together.
She's made it to the sea, but there are countless challenges ahead.
I n shallow water, she's easy prey and must get to deep water
where she has some chance of surviving.
If her luck holds, she will wander the open ocean,
travelling up to a thousand kilometres from home.
And 20 years from now, a mysterious switch will make her turn and head
back to Cuba to lay her own eggs.
The question is,
will Cuba welcome her with the same clean sands enjoyed by her
ancestors for so many generations before her?
Only time will tell.