Four and a half billion years old.
An astonishing planet.
We know it's changing -
faster now than at any other time in human history.
But do we understand exactly what the future holds?
Over the next seven years, this ambitious series will chart
the health of six of our planet's most vulnerable habitats
through a time of great change for our natural world.
From Iceland's frozen wilderness...
..to the rainforests of Cambodia.
These habitats have been chosen
because they're changing at breakneck speed.
In seven years' time, life here could be very different.
I'm one of six presenters who will witness first hand
the scale of the transformations ahead.
We're going to be following the scientists and local communities,
each working hard to find solutions and to make a difference.
And we'll follow animals learning to adapt
over these next seven critical years.
I'm in California, on the front line of climate change,
to find out how wildlife and people are being impacted.
I'm standing on a glacier in Iceland.
Witnessing the devastating effect of global warming.
This is Kenya.
Now, it's supposed to be the wet season,
but it's as dry as a bone.
I'm in Brazil to find out how deforestation is threatening
the largest tropical wetland anywhere on Earth.
I'm in Cambodia.
Home to one of the fastest growing economies on the planet.
Uncovering the hidden cost of economic development.
I'm here in the Maldives, in the Indian Ocean,
which is a place in immediate and present danger
from the effects of climate change.
Together, we hope to better understand the future
for our changing planet.
Nestled in the heart of the Indian Ocean,
the Maldives is far more than just white sands and palm trees.
Beneath the waves...
..lies a world of wonder.
Nowhere is life in the ocean more complex, or colourful,
than our coral reefs.
And this is one the greatest coral reef systems on the planet.
The coral reefs here are a biodiversity hot spot
and one of the natural wonders of our world.
But there's trouble in paradise.
Change here in the Indian Ocean is not just something far off
in the future. It's something that's already happening.
Ocean warming is killing coral reefs at an astonishing rate.
We've already lost half of our reefs.
And without action, it's predicted that over 70%
of the world's remaining reefs will be damaged by ocean warming
and acidification by the end of this decade.
With the Indian Ocean heating quicker than anywhere else
in the tropics, the reefs surrounding the Maldives
are set to see some of the most dramatic changes.
We're here to find out what effects that will have on the wildlife
that relies on the reef.
Animals come to reefs for a range of reasons,
one of which is food.
The more varied the food offering, the more varied the visitors.
For scientists here in the Maldives, one of the clearest markers
of a thriving reef is the presence of these - manta rays.
These reefs support the greatest concentration
of reef mantas on Earth,
making it the ideal place to study these giants.
This boat is a floating base camp for the Manta Trust.
They're at the cutting edge of manta ray science and conservation.
Right here in the Maldives is their most important study site.
This international team of marine biologists will be studying
changes in the Maldives' manta population.
Niv Froman is a project leader.
Manta rays heavily rely on coral reefs.
Coral reefs is where food is produced.
Because manta rays rely heavily on what the reef generates,
they can be used as an indicator of how healthy the reef is.
Despite being one of the bigger animals in the ocean,
they feed on one of the smallest - plankton.
Billions of tiny plants and animals, including baby corals,
that form the base of the ocean food chain.
Plankton is abundant because of coral reefs -
that generates that productivity that the mantas rely on.
Researcher Hannah Moloney is investigating the impact
rising sea temperatures will have on the mantas' food supply
in the coming years.
So, you've created a PhD topic that involves you
swimming alongside mantas all day, every day. Tough break!
What is it you're hoping to find out?
What evidence are you hoping to gather from this study?
Even the smallest amount of sea level temperature rise
is predicted to have more than 50% of a decline
in zoo plankton biomass in tropical regions worldwide.
And with these changes in the smallest animals in the ocean,
it's going to have an impact on manta rays here in Maldives.
So, we're going to swim beside the manta rays
and actually collect some of the food that they're feeding on.
Manta rays are solitary animals.
However, they can be seen feeding with friends,
and this is a strategy to be able to get the most amount of plankton
in the shortest amount of time.
So, basically, lazy feeding.
It's like picking apples from a tree compared to
going to a buffet dinner.
To understand how changes in their food supply affect the mantas,
first we need to work out how much plankton they're eating and where.
And a remote inlet, called Hanifaru Bay,
just happens to be their favourite dining spot.
When you look out to the blue, you can see the dark shape of wing tips
carving the surface from the mantas beneath.
Right here, right now is probably the best place on the planet
for a wildlife encounter that has to be seen to be believed.
Weighing as much as a buffalo,
these graceful giants eat around five kilos of plankton a day,
carefully funnelling it through their paddle-like head fins.
Although they look like flying carpets,
they're actually one of the smartest fish in the sea.
Their large brains enable them to create mental maps
of the reefs around the Maldives
and hold long term memories of the best feeding spots.
Oh...
There is nothing quite like diving with manta rays.
It is a deeply emotional experience,
something that really hits you in the heart.
But these iconic ocean animals - like whales and dolphins
and sharks and mantas -
they're incredibly important to ocean ecosystems,
and they can tell us so much about their health.
Initial analysis reveals the plankton here
is exceptionally rich in nutrients.
Over the next seven years, Hannah will be able to show
exactly how the quantity and quality changes as temperatures rise.
The more we understand about where the mantas are feeding,
what they're feeding on, how they're feeding,
the more we'll be able to protect these gentle giants into the future.
The manta population here is currently stable,
but as their food supply declines over the coming years,
Niv predicts it'll have a big impact on the next generation.
He's already noticed the reproductive rate of these mantas
is a third of that of populations in Hawaii and Mozambique.
To help ensure they keep breeding,
he's become something of a manta gynaecologist.
That is some fancy looking kit, Niv. What is all this?
We're using this equipment to take ultrasound examinations of manta rays.
Mantas have very slow growth rates.
Here in the Maldives, actually, they only reproduce once every five
to seven years, and gestation lasts 12 and a half months.
You don't have to take many mantas out to have
a big impact on the population.
Absolutely, and that's why issues like climate change
can really drive the species quickly to extinction.
Understanding how well the populations are doing,
how often they are reproducing,
we can then determine how well our reefs are, also.
Do you have a business card saying "Manta midwife"?
If not... I don't, but I probably should get one made.
You definitely should!
Once in the water, we head to a popular manta cleaning station
and cross our fingers.
Here one comes.
We have a manta!
Look at that.
Niv's heading in with the ultrasound.
I think he's got it.
That is insane.
I can't believe I've just seen a manta midwife in action!
I think that may just be the coolest bit of science I've ever seen.
While he processes our images,
Niv shows me a future addition to the reef.
Niv, when I first heard that you were going to try
and scan a moving manta, I have to admit,
I was sceptical, but you nailed it.
So, what you are seeing here is a baby manta,
and it will come very clear in a moment.
Right there.
That's the baby. It's a pretty big baby, actually. Wow!
So, this marvellous, magical manta is an expectant mum.
It is. She is, yes.
That is just fantastic.
This is the most visual proof you could ever need
of how important these seas are to the mantas, right?
Absolutely. One pregnancy term is a huge investment.
So, it requires a lot of energy, requires a lot of food.
And that's why with climate change - and the reduction in nutrients
and plankton availability - the animals will be weaker
and will not have enough energy to invest in reproduction.
They might decide to skip a reproductive year
until food is abundant enough.
So, understanding what factors affect their ability to reproduce
might allow us to then mitigate those negative effects.
So that's why the work you're doing here is so important.
This is the most important time of their entire life cycle,
and they're relying on these reefs.
Lose the reefs, and they have a very uncertain future.
Exactly.
Niv has confirmed that the manta we scanned is pregnant.
Such great news for this manta population.
These pregnant females tell us the reefs here are still producing
enough food to sustain mothers and their growing pups.
But if plankton concentrations halve, as predicted,
mantas in the Maldives could be in serious trouble.
We'll be keeping up with Niv and the team to see what the future holds
for these giants over the next seven years.
This is the land that doesn't stay still.
Spewing geysers.
Active volcanoes.
Thundering waterfalls.
And creeping ice giants.
Iceland is forever shape-shifting, moving.
Icelandic culture is so connected to the glacial ice
that each of the 269 glaciers has a name,
each one a character in the landscape.
Iceland's largest ice cap is an astonishing 1,000 metres thick
in places and entombs 8% of the country in ice.
But the changes unfolding here are clear to see.
I'm standing on a glacier in Iceland,
where in 2019 they held a very poignant funeral.
They were mourning the loss,
the melting away of a glacier due to climate change.
But it won't be the last,
because all of these iconic glaciers are disappearing.
Sitting on the edge of the Arctic, where temperatures are rising
almost three times faster than the rest of the world,
Iceland is also suffering from increasing ice melt.
Snaevarr Gudmundsson has been a glaciologist for 30 years.
He's been studying this particular glacier, Breidamerkurjokull,
for the last 15, tracking how quickly it's vanishing.
I've come to look at a glacier.
The only glacier I can see is some considerable distance over there.
Well, I just wanted to show you where the glacier was in 1937.
Here? Yeah.
And we know it because
the local people put a plate here
and stamped the distance to the glacier terminus...
Yeah. ..for several years.
But what terrifies me is that we are standing here now in 2021,
and the glacier is...?
4km away.
At beginning of the 20th century, this glacier was only retreating
about 10-50 metres per year,
but now it's retreating about 250 metres.
OK, so, this is 1937.
If we head off in this direction, we might find some other markers. Yes.
Snaevarr's markers can help us track how this glacier
is disappearing from the landscape.
But to really see the inner workings of a melting glacier,
I'm heading inside it.
Haukur Ingi Einarsson is my guide.
He's been taking people into ice caves for the past seven years.
Wow!
The ice caves, they are constantly disappearing and reforming.
So, it's when the meltwater runs underneath the glacier,
it carves out a path for itself, the river.
Ice cave formation is a natural seasonal phenomenon,
but as melt rates increase, more water flows through them,
and they become less stable.
I'm watching an enormous quantity of water that's melting
and gushing out from under this glacier.
And the truth is, that next year, this cave won't be here.
I wouldn't be surprised if we were standing in front
of the entrance after maybe eight or nine months.
That makes you realise how quickly this glacier is retreating.
On average, Breidamerkurjokull loses
over seven million litres of water every minute -
and that's just one glacier in one small part of the Arctic.
We read a lot about the impacts of climate,
but it's only when you stand here dripping wet,
listening to that cascading water,
that it really hits home how urgent the issue is.
I guess people come and they want to experience beautiful nature.
But seeing this is a great opportunity to tell people
that they can still change their behaviour and affect the future
by acting differently and making different choices.
It's one of the most magical places that I've ever been.
This glacier is disintegrating,
it's melting before my, and your, very eyes.
What's left behind is a poignant reminder -
a very, very big one -
otherwise known as Jokulsarlon.
This is all glacial meltwater from the glacier we were just inside.
It stretches for eight kilometres
and is the deepest lake in all of Iceland.
100 years ago, it didn't exist.
Breidamerkurjokull is now one of Iceland's fastest
retreating glaciers, and over the next seven years,
it could lose at least another mile of ice.
But what does all of this melting ice mean on a global scale?
Our poles - the Arctic and the Antarctic -
act as the sort of air conditioning units for our planet.
They keep the rest of the planet relatively cool.
But with all of that melting ice, they're not working
as efficiently as they were just 100 years ago.
North of Iceland, sea ice has covered the Arctic Ocean
for 2.5 million years.
This ice sheet expands and contracts with the seasons.
In winter, it reaches down to within just 125 miles of Iceland's coast.
And in summer, it retreats northward again.
But with current global warming, some scientists predict
that in as little as 13 years, the Arctic Ocean could see
its first ice-free summer.
Less ice means more boats.
The race is on to exploit these newly-accessible waters
for global trade.
An oceanic superhighway is opening up.
On the north coast of the island,
I'm meeting some bold young scientists on a mission
to uncover the impacts of these new shipping lanes
on Iceland's migrating humpback whales.
I love a bit of whale watching - very exciting animals,
and you never know what you're going to see.
But today is even better,
because this is whale watching with a very real mission.
Humpback whales are incredible creatures.
In spring, the mothers guide their young calves across 5,000 miles
of ocean, from the Caribbean to the nutrient-rich waters off Iceland,
just south of the Arctic sea ice.
It's a difficult and dangerous journey.
Often, mother and calf swim with their flippers touching,
likely a sign of affection and reassurance.
But that commute is about to get a whole lot tougher,
as oceanic traffic in the Arctic is set to explode,
bringing with it a raft of new dangers.
Marine scientists Tom Grove and Alyssa Stoller
founded Whale Wise in 2018 -
a small research group with big ambition.
Oh! Look at that for a view!
Oh...
White beaked dolphin, four metres away.
As the sea ice melts further north, it could become an important gateway
to the whole of the Arctic region.
With the sea ice melting, then we're going to get
this sort of... Polar Silk Road is what they call it.
So, large vessel traffic making its way from Europe and North America,
across the Arctic, and then down into the Pacific.
And the reverse - people coming from, I guess,
the Far East over the top to Europe. Yeah.
So, obviously those large vessels - which are much quicker,
much louder, and will become much more numerous -
could disrupt the communication and the feeding behaviour of whales,
which can impact them on a population scale.
As shipping traffic increases,
coastal development along its routes will quickly follow to serve it.
In the north-east of Iceland, they're planning to build
a large port in a very small, remote fjord, called Finnafjordur.
Is there any evidence to suggest that there are
any whales in that area?
There have been a couple of surveys by the government that just
passed through that found hundreds of humpback whales there.
Prompted by this information, in August 2021,
the team decided to use underwater microphones to listen in
to what was happening beneath the waves.
So, we've deployed a hydrophone at this location so we can listen
to the sounds of the whales - to understand what whales are there,
what they're doing, why they might be even in this region,
whether it's for feeding or for some other activities -
across an entire year.
Tom and Alyssa aren't claiming they can stop the creation
of the Polar Silk Road or prevent a port from being built.
They are realistic.
They want data.
We can start to collect baseline data about their migrations.
Because if we can find a pattern, we can say, "OK, you can have
"your shipping routes, but maybe don't go in this exact area."
If you can map out where the humpback whales are,
and then if you can know that humpback whales are responding
to vessel traffic negatively, then you've got quite strong impetus
to re-route shipping traffic.
But how do you find out if a humpback whale finds
heavy traffic stress-inducing?
You blow its nose.
Easier said than done - but after three years of practising,
Tom and the team have perfected their method.
We're collecting behavioural data,
and we're also collecting blow samples from several different areas
around Iceland with varying vessel traffic.
And in each of these blow samples, we can measure the concentration
of stress-related hormones, such as cortisol,
as a proxy for physiological stress.
If they can show a link between boat encounters and increased stress,
at a local level in Iceland,
they can use this data to help protect the whales
against increased shipping traffic across the wider Arctic.
Ooh, ho, ho, ho!
Superb!
Who'd have thought that we'd be out chasing whales
to collect their snot? If I'd have told my parents
that I was going to be doing that, when I was a teenager,
well, they would have said, "Get a proper job," to start with.
Release!
Oh! Hello.
OK, I might have got one.
Whoo! Is there a sample? Yeah.
She's totally covered! Oh, wow!
Well, that was some top flying and some top catching.
But hold on, I need to see if there's been some top snotting.
Yes.
That looks like a really good sample.
OK, so what happens to these now?
We're going to take all of our samples to the clinical research
facility and process the samples there.
The one thing that's really striking with your study
is that you couldn't have done it ten years ago.
You wouldn't have had a drone, the capacity to analyse all of this.
Yeah. Very lucky in a way to be around now,
but whales are under threat.
We don't understand most of their lives, and I find that crazy.
And the idea of kind of just living my life without trying
to help them in some way is just fairly unthinkable.
Over the next seven years, Tom and Alyssa's research could be crucial
for the future of these humpbacks.
We'll be back to follow their results and to reveal how
the whales are coping as the seas here begin to fill with boats.
Ooh!
What about that? In the fading light of day,
a parting shot from a humpback.
Keeping all of its snot to itself on this occasion.
But I've got to confess, although it was more than
half a lifetime ago, I remember all of that energy,
all of that ambition, all of that drive that Tom and Alyssa have.
What they're doing - using this innovative technology
and their imagination, working together with lots
of other scientists - is allowing us to better understand
these creatures and how they live,
so that we can adapt our behaviour so both they and we
can live together more harmoniously.
But the most impressive thing that I've seen today is action.
They're actually doing something.
Top work.
When you think of Cambodia,
wildlife probably isn't the first thing that comes to mind.
But this is a zoological treasure trove.
The Amazon of Asia.
Home to iconic giants...
..ancient oddities...
..and everything in between.
Years of isolation due to civil war have left forests here pristine,
unexplored and brimming with biodiversity.
With many species still unknown to science,
we're only beginning to unravel its mysteries.
But things are changing.
For nearly two decades, Cambodia has been home
to one of the fastest growing economies on the planet.
Everywhere you look, money is changing hands.
This rapid economic growth has lifted millions out of poverty.
All that growth, all that development, it's great,
but behind closed doors a much more sinister trade is thriving...
..the trade in endangered wildlife.
Valued at up to £17 billion a year, endangered wildlife trafficking
is now the fourth largest illegal trade in the world.
The economic boom has resulted in more people with more money
to spend on rare animal delicacies and traditional medicines
that were preciously out of their reach.
As demand soars, one mammal is paying the price
more than any other - pangolins.
These scaly anteaters are the most trafficked mammal on the planet,
with an estimated one million taken from Asia and Africa
in the last decade.
At this rate, some experts predict pangolins will be extinct
in Cambodia before we even finish this series.
I want to find out what can be done to save these charismatic
little creatures and the wealth of other animals
being targeted by traffickers.
Demand for endangered animals comes primarily from China and Vietnam.
But I'm interested in supply, and that's why I'm in Cambodia.
See, in a remote southern part of this country is one of the most
prized wildlife hunting grounds in all of Asia.
The Cardamom rainforest.
Nearly two million hectares of pristine,
wildlife-filled wilderness.
Javan rhino have already been poached to extinction here
for the supposed medicinal value of their horn,
along with tigers, prized for the alleged healing properties
of their bones, whiskers and paws.
I'm about to see the full scale of what the Cardamom wildlife
is up against.
My driver, Sung, says that there's something I should see here.
Oh, my God.
There are over 4,500 chainsaws, home-made guns,
and 22,000 snares here.
All of them seized off poachers and loggers
in the surrounding Cardamom forests.
This is how extinctions happen.
And this is how we're in the situation we're in right now.
But one group of people have decided enough is enough.
The Wildlife Alliance.
These armed rangers are fighting back against illegal hunting here -
by water, land and air.
So far, the rangers have recovered over 300,000 snares,
made 876 arrests, and eliminated elephant poaching
from nearly two million hectares of forest.
And that's just one part of their work.
Nick Marx leads the Wildlife Alliance's rescue
and rehabilitation team, who dedicate their lives to giving
trafficked animals their freedom back.
I arrive just in time to meet a very special guest
heading out for her daily walk in the forest.
Little one.
A sun bear.
We call her Kolab, which means rose.
She's been hand raised from a tiny baby.
As a result, she's not frightened of people.
So, as she grows up, we must kind of wean her away from people.
She mustn't see people as friends or playthings.
Frankly, the most dangerous thing for her from now on will be humans.
Sun bears are prized targets for poaching -
their meat is a symbol of social status.
And as people's spending power increases, demand is spiralling.
Thankfully, this curious little bear faces a brighter future.
It'll be at least another year before Kolab is independent enough
to be released back into the wild.
But Wildlife Alliance aren't just bringing back individual animals
into the forests - they're bringing back species.
Perhaps I shouldn't be saying this, but...
Tigers are now locally extinct in Cambodia, and we do have
a little idea about maybe bringing them back.
That would be really amazing.
I guess it would be a pivotal moment.
With support from the Cambodian government, Wildlife Alliance
hope to reintroduce tigers before the end of the decade.
If so, we'll definitely be back to witness this momentous event.
In the meantime, one of the residents here
is ready to taste freedom...
Oh, my God...!
Yes!
..a pangolin.
You are beautiful.
Can you just hold him here? Course I can.
He was donated to us by a gentleman who found him
walking around in the streets of Phnom Penh,
which is unusual habitat for a pangolin.
This guy was probably an unwilling dinner guest
at somebody's lavish party, and he got lucky and he escaped.
We're attaching this radio tag so that we can track the pangolin
and see what his movements are,
and just make sure that he goes safely back into the wild.
They're nocturnal, so don't want to release him now. Yep.
We'll release him after dark,
after we've given him a nice plate of ants.
Aw, one of the luckiest pangolins out there!
Under cover of darkness, and armed with ants,
we headed out to bid our scaly friend farewell.
So what we're going to do is, we're going to try and get him down
with the smell of the ants, and we'll put the ants beside the door,
and then encourage him to make his exit.
Oh...!
This is amazing.
So, perhaps he's ready to go.
My heart...
He's just mopping it up.
It's good for it to be when they want to go,
rather than when we decide to throw them away. Yeah.
So, it's the moment of truth.
WHISPERING: Oh, my gosh!
Nick... There he goes.
Bless him!
What we're hoping is that there will be a greater awareness
for wildlife, that local people and government will respect
and become more greatly interested in conserving Cambodian wildlife.
With all of them, they're like... our children going away.
Ah, well, congratulations.
Thank you. You're his guardian angel.
Oh... All of you here at Wildlife Alliance.
When I think about biodiversity loss and all of the endangered
and critically endangered species out there...
If we let people like Wildlife Alliance,
and others, do their work...
I don't know, I'm kind of optimistic.
With Wildlife Alliance fighting their corner,
the Cardamom forests have a chance of recovering and thriving.
But the ricochet of the ongoing economic development
reaches beyond just these jungles.
I'm heading to see how it's pushed one of Southeast Asia's
most important wetlands to the brink of collapse.
The Tonle Sap lake.
Home to fishing cats,
crocodiles,
and the largest waterbird population in Southeast Asia.
It is the most productive freshwater ecosystem on Earth,
thanks to a unique annual event.
Usually, the Tonle Sap lake drains into the Mekong
via the Tonle Sap river.
But once a year during the monsoon season
the Mekong swells to such an extent
that it forces the Tonle Sap river into reverse,
pouring water back into the Tonle Sap lake.
This seasonal pulse from the Mekong expands the lake
to five times its normal size.
Along with all this water come fish, lots of them.
The annual migration of fish in and out of the Tonle Sap lake
is actually one of the biggest animal migrations on Earth.
And where you get fish, you get fishermen.
It turns out that more fish are caught in that lake
than are caught in all the rivers and lakes of North America combined.
One of the million fishermen who depend on this fish bonanza
for their livelihood is Mr Leur.
Suostei, Leur. Ah, suostei.
He's head of the village of Mechrey, a floating community
that has lived entirely on water for generations.
Everything here revolves round fishing.
But recently, the fish and the water in the lake
have started to disappear.
This meagre catch jars with the lake's historic reputation
for catfish the weight of grizzly bears
and eight-foot stingrays.
Was it a particular year that you noticed
that things changed on the lake?
The drop in fish stocks has coincided with a dramatic fall
in the flood pulse from the Mekong -
largely due to a growing number of hydroelectric dams upstream.
While the cheap clean electricity they create is powering
economic development and improving the quality of life
for people across Southeast Asia...
..the dams have helped reduce the annual flood pulse
to the Tonle Sap lake by nearly 60%.
If the current trend continues, by the end of the decade,
this event that helps support nearly five million people
may cease entirely some years.
Despite the growing threat, everywhere on the Tonle Sap lake
there were signs of resourcefulness and resilience.
Nowhere more so than at Mr Leur's.
Thank you.
Leur now has a floating vegetable garden...
..crocodile farm supplying the leather industry...
..and a fish farm - all attached to his house.
He even hunts rats to give the family a source
of supplementary protein.
Thankfully, rat wasn't on the menu today.
No, today it was snake.
It's still wriggling about.
And Mrs Leur needed a hand in the kitchen.
What does it taste like?
Why does everything taste like chicken?
Most people wouldn't really think about eating snake,
but it is a really good source of protein.
This bit I've done before.
Thank you.
Let's do this.
MRS LEUR LAUGHS
You're telling me this. I'm trying.
It doesn't taste like chicken.
THEY LAUGH
It is hard to imagine what the next seven years hold
for Mr Leur and his family,
but he seems determined to find a way forward.
These communities, this is the only way of life
they've ever known for generations and generations.
The existential threat hanging over them is so real.
And yet, Leur, he's inventive, and he's still got hope and spirit.
It's just incredible to see that.
And you just think, if you were going to be facing
such a huge threat to your whole way of life, wouldn't you want
to be facing it under the leadership of somebody like Leur?
The damaging impact of economic development
on our rivers is nothing new.
River communities around the world are facing similar challenges
from upstream dams.
But with some experts predicting the entire river system
could collapse in the next three to five years,
the Mekong is at breaking point.
But there is a glimmer of hope for this bellwether of a waterway.
An international team of scientists and policy makers,
like Bradley Murg, are working to save the Mekong
using data from space.
Brad, I've got to ask, is there any hope for the Mekong?
If you'd asked me a couple of years ago,
I would have been much more pessimistic.
But seeing this new data source, seeing this new Mekong Dam Monitor,
this is a completely different world of understanding
the Mekong than we've ever had in the past.
Using imagery from satellites orbiting the Mekong,
along with sensors on the ground, the Mekong Dam Monitor
gives a near real-time view of the river's flow.
Mapped over time, it reveals with irrefutable clarity
which dams in which countries are responsible for altering
the flow downstream to places like the Tonle Sap.
The hope is that with that new data as a focal point
for collaboration and coordination,
there's really no more possibility to hide any more.
But what we want to see, really, is concrete policy change.
It's so clear that the answer to the Mekong disaster
doesn't lie with Cambodia alone.
It needs all six countries that the Mekong flows through
to come together and find a political solution -
and that is a massive challenge.
Because essentially, what you're saying is,
it's all together, or it's just not going to work.
In 2020, the Cambodian government abandoned plans for new
hydropower development on the Mekong for the next ten years.
And all the Mekong countries are expanding
their solar power projects.
But the next few years will be make or break for the river,
and the Tonle Sap as we know it -
and we'll be documenting every step.
When they said come to the Maldives, this was not what I had in mind.
But at the centre of the Maldives is this place, Male, the capital.
On a 6km island, more than a quarter of a million people -
making it one of the most densely populated places on the planet.
The growth and development here has been remarkable.
But unbeknownst to most residents, the future of their country
is intimately entwined with the future of their coral reefs.
Coral is everything here -
it's vital to the economy,
it is a home and a habitat for fish,
it forms the very bedrock that these islands are built on -
and ever more important in this changing Indian Ocean,
it is the best natural barrier and protection that these islands
and their people could ever have.
Corals are soft, squishy animals, but the hard external skeleton
many of them produce as they grow acts as a 3,500 square mile
living shield around the islands of the Maldives.
Protecting the communities, schools and skyscrapers
built on the back of the coral
from 97% of the force of storms,
flooding and wave erosion.
The question is, for how much longer?
Our tropical coral reefs are at crisis point.
Even small rises in sea temperature can cause them to get stressed
and to die in widespread and catastrophic bleaching events.
Corals are home to microscopic algae that give them
their vibrant colours.
In return, the algae supply vital nutrients to the coral.
But when they get too hot, corals expel the algae,
in what scientists call bleaching.
If the waters stay warm, the algae don't return,
and the coral dies.
And when the coral dies, the structure of the reef
begins to collapse...
..exposing coastal communities to the full force of the ocean.
Without its coral shield to protect it from storm surge
and rising sea levels, 80% of these islands
could be uninhabitable within 30 years.
But around the world, biologists and researchers,
like Ali Shareef, are working to halt this trend
and bring our coral reefs back from the brink.
Ali, hi. Hi. How are you doing?
Very good. How are you? Yeah, excellent.
So, we have had two bleaching events in the Maldives.
One in 1998, which killed off about 80% of the corals
and took about a decade to recover.
And then again in 2016, coral here bleached and died.
The ultimate goal is to breed corals with greater resilience
to temperature change.
But before they can start rearing corals,
Ali needs to pinpoint when they reproduce.
Corals release their spawn at the same time every year
under the cover of darkness and close to the full moon.
When they've found a coral that is ready to spawn,
then comes the fun part.
They'll cover it in a bag, which is kind of like a coral condom.
It will collect all those reproductive cells,
which can then be developed safely away from predators,
and then reintroduced back into the wild.
It's a great way of increasing the success of coral
and helping it to succeed.
There's still a lot to figure out.
But I'm excited to see if Ali and the team do manage
to successfully breed corals capable of surviving
in the warming waters.
Their hard work could be what saves the Maldives
for future generations.
Despite the fact their country is built on coral,
most Maldivians are unaware of how closely entwined
their lives are with these tiny animals.
Shaha Hashim runs a reef conservation project
focusing not on tiny coral, but on tiny people.
So, today we are going to take kids snorkelling,
and it's going to be the first time for most of them
to really experience underwater life.
You'd think living on an island, with the sea right there,
that all the kids here would spend their whole lives in the sea.
Yes. But unfortunately, most Maldivian kids these days
don't know how to swim.
The rapid urbanisation of the Maldives has left
40% of the population without ready access to a beachfront,
and resulted in a generation of kids with less connection to the ocean.
So, this will be the first time you go in the sea? Yes.
Are you excited? Yes.
That's so cool.
I'm very, very excited that I get to see it with you for the first time.
Me, too!
You can sense that they're nervous, but excited.
It's kind of a really profound moment.
I seen fishes. Fishes!
Cucumber fish! Cucumber fish?
Wow. That's a new one on me.
It's always really uplifting and heart-warming being with kids
when they're experiencing something new in the outdoors
for the very first time,
but particularly something like this.
This could be the next wave of Maldivian conservationists
and marine biologists.
Even if it isn't, just knowing that this could be the start
of a love affair with the sea for them is pretty special.
Over the next seven years, so much could change
for these coral reefs and the wildlife they hold.
These Indian Ocean seas are changing faster than
just about anywhere else on Earth,
and it's a race for our scientist friends to keep up.
As we come back in years to come, we're going to see that change
in real time.
And all the efforts to try and protect these seas
are so critical, because the treasures here
are more precious now than they've ever been.
Next time...
We visit three more extraordinary but vulnerable habitats.
Liz follows how innovative techniques
are helping to preserve California's wildlife.
Oh! It's right there!
Ade joins a community dedicated to saving
Kenya's great elephant herds.
And in Brazil, Gordon finds out how eco-tourism
could safeguard the future of its most iconic predator.
This is a dream come true.
Four and a half billion years old.
An astonishing planet.
We know it's changing,
faster now than at any other time in human history.
But do we understand exactly what the future holds?
Over the next seven years, this ambitious series will chart
the health of six of our planet's most vulnerable habitats
through a time of great change for our natural world.
From Iceland's frozen wilderness
to the rain forests of Cambodia,
these habitats have been chosen
because they're changing at breakneck speed.
In seven years' time, life here could be very different.
I'm one of six presenters who will witness first-hand
the scale of the transformations ahead.
We're going to be following the scientists
and local communities, each working hard
to find solutions and to make a difference.
And we'll follow the animals learning to adapt
over these next seven critical years.
I'm in California, on the front line of climate change,
to find out how wildlife and people are being impacted.
I'm standing on a glacier in Iceland...
..witnessing the devastating effect of global warming.
This is Kenya.
Now, it's supposed to be the wet season, but it's as dry as a bone.
I'm in Brazil to find out how deforestation is threatening
the largest tropical wetland anywhere on Earth.
I'm in Cambodia, home to one of the fastest-growing
economies on the planet.
Uncovering the hidden cost of economic development.
I'm here in the Maldives in the Indian Ocean,
which is a place in immediate and present danger
from the effects of climate change.
Together, we hope to better understand the future
for Our Changing Planet.
Step away from the cities of North America's west coast
and you soon discover the rugged side of California.
Nowhere more stunning than its wild Pacific coastline,
stretching over 3,000 miles and abundant with marine life.
From sea otters to humpbacks,
it's home to some of the most important wildlife on the planet.
This is the Pacific coast of California,
home to a complex marine ecosystem,
playing a crucial role in keeping our planet healthy.
The nutrient-rich waters here are among the most productive on Earth,
supporting over 1,000 different species.
But this habitat is changing - and fast.
California's seas are warming.
In 2018, the state recorded its highest sea surface temperature
since records began.
And these warmer waters have seen the arrival of new visitors
in unprecedented numbers.
The great white shark has got to be one of the most fascinating
and awe-inspiring predators on the planet.
And now, here in California, there are more of them than ever before.
So the challenge for scientists is to find out what effect
this might have on ecosystems,
as well as any potential encounters with humans.
Most of the new arrivals are juveniles,
that historically prefer the warmer climes
of southern California and Mexico.
But scientists suspect ocean warming is opening up new habitats
further north.
The juvenile sharks have already moved nearly 400 miles up this coast
in the last decade.
Over the next seven years, this could increase,
bringing them into more and more new environments.
So for scientists like Chris Lowe,
studying this keystone species is vital.
This is basically a nursery.
What's changed is numbers.
We are seeing far more sharks.
So the question is - why?
We're just looking at California,
but I have colleagues in Mexico who are studying shark nurseries there,
and they're seeing changes as well.
So what we're starting to see right now,
we can't tell - is that just the effects of a population increase?
Or is that climate change? Or is that both?
I filmed with Chris seven years ago when juvenile white sharks
first started showing up in northern California.
It soon becomes clear just how many are now coming to these shores.
SHE GASPS
Oh, my God, it's right there!
Oh, that was amazing.
I properly saw it.
That wasn't just a shadow, that was, like, a shark.
Is it unusual to find a seven- to eight-footer this close to shore?
Absolutely not.
And they're still juveniles until they're what length?
Until probably ten feet for males, 12 to 14 feet for females?
Rising water temperatures are seeing white shark nurseries appearing
as far north as Monterey Bay.
And in the next decade,
Chris predicts juvenile sharks could be found as far as Alaska.
Here in Santa Barbara,
you might have found one or two sharks ten years ago.
Now there are nearly 30 in this bay alone.
The fact they're tolerating each other in such close quarters
suggests a bountiful food supply.
With each shark consuming up to 18 kilos of prey at a time,
the big unknown is the impact they're having
on the local wildlife.
There's an ecosystem here that's established itself.
And now sharks are coming in and they're staying longer.
What does that mean for all the other creatures in this ecosystem?
They're going to have impacts on prey populations,
they're going to eat things down.
Now maybe the worms come back in huge numbers
because there are no stingrays to eat the worms or the clams.
So we don't know what the cascading effects of that will be.
If Chris can work out the impact
the sharks are having on this ecosystem,
he and his fellow conservationists will gain crucial knowledge
that could help to keep the ecosystem more balanced.
Using a combinations of drones, underwater cameras,
satellite tags and remote sensors,
Chris is gathering information on individual sharks to build a picture
of their movements and what they're eating, when and where.
So we use acoustic transmitters to help us track individuals
and figure out where they go,
and they give us the temperature and the depth of the water that
the shark is moving through.
So it has a unique ID code.
And what's picking up the signal from this?
Our acoustic receivers that are on the seafloor
that are always listening.
Now we just need to find an unidentified shark to tag.
All right, guys, go in nice and easy.
It's right behind you, guys.
As soon as they know you're on them,
they'll kind of speed off and the first place you look is behind you.
OK. Double back. OK. Yeah.
It looks about a seven-foot shark.
He's dropping down on it now.
Oh, my God, there it is.
Yeah, yeah, there it is.
LAUGHING: There it is!
Keep coming up. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Slow down, slow down, slow down.
Got it.
The transmitters that we put in their body cavities last ten years.
Ten years. I mean, the amount of data you're going to get
about their movement and their environment is just fantastic.
So catching them gives us so much more information.
So it's worth the effort?
It is.
Scientists and residents along this coastline are concerned
about how the sharks might affect this environment - for good reason.
Unexpectedly, in 2014,
a vital predatory sea star that had lived in these waters
for centuries suddenly and without warning began to die.
The repercussions were catastrophic,
as sea stars consume vast quantities
of kelp-eating sea urchins.
Without sea stars to control them,
sea urchin numbers increased 60-fold
and in the past seven years have eaten their way
through more than 95% of California's precious kelp forest.
Local fishermen and conservationists are responding to the problem,
removing as many of the urchins as they can by hand.
But in the next seven years, the battle to keep the population
in check will become even harder if they can't find a way
to re-introduce a key species to rebalance this delicate ecosystem.
What happened to the kelp here shows how removing
a predator can cause an ecosystem to collapse within just a few years.
But what happens when you add a top predator?
We'll soon find out.
And this time, it's not just the wildlife that could be affected.
Is there anything in their movements and their behaviours
that you've seen in the six years since I last met you
that concerns you?
How they interact with people and, more importantly,
how people interact with them.
This stretch of coast is home
to some of the busiest beaches on the planet.
But most people are unaware they're sharing the water
with hundreds of young great whites.
So far Chris's research shows they have no interest in humans.
But he's started to notice some rarely seen behaviours.
One of which, we had front-row seats for.
THEY GASP
Oh, my God!
It just breached. Holy crap. Beautiful!
Did you see that?
It just jumped right out of the water. Oh, my God!
We just saw a great white shark breach.
That was so cool.
That's the closest we've ever had one breach next to us.
You're welcome.
Shark whisperer. Mm, that was awesome.
That was incredible.
How rare is what we just saw, Chris?
HE CHUCKLES
You know what it's like to win the lottery?
You just won the lottery. That behaviour is amazing.
Adults may breach when they're chasing food that breaks the water,
and that's part of their ambush behaviour.
But these young ones, they're eating things on the bottom.
So why do that?
It could be, you know, the parasites that are on them
create these itches and launching themselves out of the water
and slamming on their backs might dislodge some of those.
The other thing is, maybe they're playing.
That's how animals learn, right?
If they are playing,
this breaching behaviour could get them into trouble in
the coming years.
Over the course of the series,
some of the juveniles Chris has tagged will become adolescents.
As they approach adulthood,
great whites transition from hunting fish on the seabed
to hunting marine mammals at the surface.
Mastering the ambush attack from below takes years of practice
and it's usually during this experimental stage
that sharks mistakenly bite humans.
If we can teach people more about what we're learning
about these sharks, they won't fear them the same way
and when an accident does occur, and they will,
the public won't go, "Oh, my God,
"there's too many sharks, we've got to get rid of them."
Understanding the behaviours
of these young sharks has never been more important -
for their future and the future of this entire ecosystem.
The oceans are warming because of climate change
and this place is changing at a pace that is unprecedented.
And, so, there will be major ecological shifts going on here
that will affect the entire food web,
and that includes the great whites.
So the work that Chris and his team are carrying out here
over the next few years is going to be absolutely crucial.
Over the next seven years, we'll be checking in
with Chris as he explores the impacts the great whites are
having on coastal wildlife,
working to find solutions to the challenges they present.
In the heart of East Africa lies Kenya.
It's a place I love and have returned to
time and time again.
Dramatic wildlife spectacles play out across
its endless grassland plains...
..and over its great lakes.
And, of course, it is home to huge herds of one of Africa's most loved
and iconic species - elephants.
LOW BRAYING
But things are changing,
as Kenya endures one of the worst droughts on record.
Every decade, the average temperature has been rising,
and rainfall more unreliable,
putting everything in this landscape under pressure.
If the rains don't arrive
at the end of the dry season in October,
every day becomes a matter of life and death.
This is Kenya in December 2021.
Now, it's supposed to be the wet season,
but it's as dry as a bone.
The rains still haven't arrived yet.
And they are now over two months late.
I am in Tsavo,
home to the single largest population of elephants in Kenya.
40% of Kenya's entire elephant population live here.
African elephants have roamed
and shaped this landscape
for over one and a half million years.
Without them, this ecosystem wouldn't exist as it is.
But some experts fear they could be gone in less than 30.
In 2018, I was tracking elephants on the front line of poaching.
All over Africa, poaching has been a constant threat,
but in the last decade, local anti-poaching organisations
here in Tsavo have been successful
in bringing elephant deaths down by 70%.
Unfortunately, there's an even bigger threat
facing our largest land animal.
And sometimes it can feel like it's impossible
to control - because it's invisible.
The land here, as far as I can see, tells us so much about
the cruel reality of climate change.
It actually looks a lot worse than I expected.
Over the next seven years, unpredictable rains,
extended dry seasons
and severe droughts will likely become the norm in Kenya.
Parts of the country may become uninhabitable
to both people and wildlife.
So what does this mean for our largest land animal
as its home dries out?
Adult elephants need to drink 225 litres of water
and find up to 300kg of food every day.
For mothers nursing young, the need is even greater.
Now the elephants stick close to their watering points,
where they eat all the available greenery,
but once that's gone, they're in trouble.
The mothers then have a tough decision to make.
Do they stay with the water?
Or do they travel distances of over 30 miles a day
searching for food?
I met up with Ilkiro Letaloi,
a highly knowledgeable guide who's been monitoring
and protecting elephants in Kenya for over 20 years.
He's witnessed first-hand how tough it is for the mothers
and their babies when the rains don't arrive on time.
How different is the landscape once it's rained?
Does it change dramatically?
Very dramatically. You can see this vegetation.
Most of the trees are like dead trees.
But we had a shower, just a little shower.
And you can see it germinate very quickly.
So, this is a family?
It is a family unit.
ELEPHANTS TRUMPET
Have things become tougher for these elephants?
It has been tough during this dry season.
You can see their bones.
It's just because of the drought.
So they're malnourished?
Yeah. They don't get much food.
ELEPHANTS TRUMPET
Now that we don't get rain, it will be very, very bad.
We will lose a lot of elephants.
For the babies, it will be very tough because they become
weaker and weaker and they will not be very strong to keep up
with the family units when they're moving long distances
to look for forage. Mm.
This season, we rescued a lot of young elephants.
Letaloi is part of a network of experts,
carers and guides who work for the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust -
the longest-running elephant rescue
and rehabilitation programme in the world.
In 2021, they rescued 13 baby elephants from Tsavo
because of the drought.
One of them was Taabu, who was found all alone,
picking at scorched grass.
He was flown 180 miles north-west to
the Sheldricks' elephant nursery in Nairobi,
where he's now receiving 24-hour care from human parents.
Keeper Julius has devoted the last 15 years of his life
to the baby elephants, even sleeping in their stables
to provide comfort and reassurance.
Oh, wow. Wow.
He's called Taabu. Taabu? Yes.
A drought victim rescued from Tsavo recently.
Drought victim? Yep.
How old is he?
Slightly above a year old. A year old.
Wow.
Let me see if I can... Taabu. Is it OK to come closer?
Just come closer. Yeah?
Taabu. Taabu.
They have been orphaned through different reasons.
One of it is natural reasons such as, like, drought.
Some of them are here because of human-related reasons. Mm.
Poaching, human-wildlife conflict.
Come and say good morning.
Say hi to him, Taabu.
I know, I'd be nervous as well.
We'll come out.
Let's roll down.
Give him some space in the morning. Here.
Hey, you.
They're off! Yep.
ELEPHANTS RUMBLE
So all of these elephants are carrying some sort of trauma?
That is right. Some are very, very stressed.
Some don't make it - just because of the stress.
The drought victims that are lucky enough to make it here
are often extremely emaciated.
Their care and feeding schedule must be carefully managed
to get them back to full health.
And they almost always become the greediest
and naughtiest orphans at the nursery.
There we go, there's another one.
Come on. Come on, baby.
This one's really small.
ELEPHANT GRUNTS
Playful and cheeky at the same time. Oh, my days!
Look at that behind me! No, those two are fine.
They're just saying hello. Hello. Yeah.
Hey, you. Come on, come on.
No, that's my chair. Yes. Ha-ha!
Checking me out properly.
She likes you.
Hello. I'm getting a morning kiss from an elephant.
Sometimes, when they are very excited, you hear them trembling.
Whoa-ho, ho! I want you to behave.
This is the little cheeky and playful at the same time.
His name is Bondeni.
He just gave me a little barge from behind.
Making sure the babies get the right nutrition
is a round-the-clock job for their keepers.
They feed every three hours and each drink 20 litres a day
of a specially developed formula to emulate their mother's milk.
Elephants are very intelligent
and develop strong family bonds, which are particularly tight between
mothers and young, so it's not just practical care these orphans need.
The dedicated team also provide a secure and loving environment
to support the infants through the loss of their mothers
and the trauma they've suffered.
Taabu and his new family spend their days in the forest
with their keepers, who guide them as they play and explore.
TRUMPETING
Their presence in the ecosystem is vital as they are what's known
as a keystone species.
As adults, these elephants will help plants spread their seeds
over long distances through their dung.
They will also create new habitats for other species
by shaping the environment around them.
Elephant plays a very big role in the wilderness.
They feed on the seeds and they will transplant them
to a different place.
You know, even if there's water,
like a couple of depth down in the ground,
they will be able to dig this water out.
So other animals will be browsing or grazing beside the elephants.
So you're saying without them... Many animals...
..this would fall apart? Yeah.
They belong in this home.
This is a home for all of us - wild animals,
we human beings, we all belong here.
They have a right.
They have a right, as we do.
SOFT WHISTLES IN SUCCESSION
Across Kenya, over 21 million people making a living as farmers
are also struggling for survival as they endure the ongoing drought.
The lack of rains means failing crops and little access to water.
Communities living in these arid regions are quite literally
surviving on a knife edge because they're having to deal with
more and more unpredictable weather conditions.
They are living and dealing with the effects
of climate change every day.
Not far from here,
there's an ingeniously simple solution.
It's a community-led model which stores water
in this seemingly barren landscape all throughout the dry season,
turning this parched soil into a life-giving oasis.
It could prove to be life-saving, not only for people,
but for Kenya's struggling wildlife, too.
It works on the principle of building a dam
across dried-up river beds and then waiting for the rains to arrive.
Every year, the levels of water are going down.
The rivers, which were flowing, are reducing
and that means there is a challenge of water
within those areas.
And the best solution we are able to see
within that area is the sand dams.
The idea of sand dams is not new.
There is evidence of their use during Roman times.
Worsening drought conditions have driven communities
to revive this forgotten water harvesting technique.
A sand dam is a concrete wall built across
a seasonal river during the dry season when no water is flowing.
In the rainy season, silt and sand get washed into the river
and build up behind the wall.
The sand and silt act a bit like a sponge,
soaking up and storing water
that would otherwise evaporate behind any normal dam.
Once the sand is saturated,
the river continues to flow over the dam and downstream.
Communities can then pump out the naturally filtered water
during the dry season when the river has dried up again.
The community will provide the sand,
the rocks and labour for the construction of the dam.
After just two years,
a sand dam has the potential to bring fresh water
to up to 2,500 homes, as well as irrigation for growing crops.
Eventually, it can transform the surrounding area
into a lush oasis, a miracle for the local people.
So in 2011, we came here to see the site where the community wanted
to do a dam and this place was totally dry.
Nine years later, water is flowing in the dam.
It's the end of the dry period in Kenya,
which we have gone for more than nine months without rains here.
But this river has enough water and is still flowing.
This innovative solution is also destined to bring
life-saving water to the wildlife of the Tsavo Conservation Area,
with the construction of 25 sand dams over the next five years.
These will be critical in sustaining whole communities of animals
during the expanding dry seasons here in Kenya.
Meanwhile, at the nursery,
the baby herd is enjoying
the first tentative drops of rain.
I really hope this marks the start of the much-needed wet season.
Ha! Ah, no, that's my hair!
HE CHUCKLES
That's my dreads, you can't take them.
Today's been really, really beautiful,
I've loved it.
At one stage, I felt like I was part of the herd.
ELEPHANTS BARK
And if it wasn't for places like this
and the work of the staff here,
we could easily lose this beautiful animal from our planet forever.
Severe droughts are likely to persist in Kenya.
But what gives me hope is the passion
of the people here on the ground,
caring for the next generation of elephants
and coming up with ingenious solutions to harvest water
when it rains, so they have a chance of surviving when it doesn't.
Over the next seven years,
we'll be back to join Taabu and his fellow orphans
as they continue on their journey,
hopefully, one day, back into the wild.
I'm in Brazil to find out how deforestation in the Amazon
is threatening the largest tropical wetland on the planet,
and to find out how placing a price tag on jaguars
can actually help protect them.
Covering almost half of South America,
Brazil is the most biodiverse country in the world.
It's not surprising,
when you consider it's home to around 60% of our planet's
most famous rainforest.
And one of its most important wetlands -
the Pantanal.
Less than 500 miles apart,
these vitally important ecosystems are intrinsically linked,
and both are under pressure.
Deforestation in the Amazon is having dramatic effects on
the Pantanal's weather systems.
And this unprecedented change is threatening
the stronghold of Brazil's apex predator.
The Pantanal is one huge, very beautiful swamp.
And it's home to one of the highest densities of jaguars on Earth.
But over the last 50 years,
it's seen an increasing number of cattle ranchers move in.
CATTLE BRAY
Roberto Klabin is one of many landowners working
with traditional ranchers in the Pantanal.
And he has noticed the ecosystem is changing.
The Pantanal is unique.
It's affected by rains that come from the Amazon.
The rains, the floods, they bring nutrients to the soil.
It's what gives life to this place here.
But we have been noticing that rains have been diminishing
in the Pantanal for the last years and this is something that
we have never experienced - such droughts as we are experiencing now.
The Amazon is the rainmaker of South America.
Altogether, the trees of the Amazon release
as much as 20 billion metric tonnes of water
into the atmosphere every single day.
But deforestation has inadvertently removed billions of tonnes
of water vapour from the atmosphere,
contributing to a 40% drop in rainfall in the Pantanal.
We are now worried about what's going on in the Amazon
because it controls everything here.
So if we have a change in the rains,
the Pantanal will disappear as we know it. Mm-hm. Yeah.
Since the 1990s, the Brazilian Pantanal has lost
74% of its surface water.
And the prediction is, that within 20 years,
large parts of it may have morphed into arid savannah.
Less rain, we have more fires.
You can see the results of recent fires here.
In 2020, wildfires destroyed 30% of the Pantanal
and are estimated to have killed in excess of 17 million animals.
More than a quarter of the Pantanal's jaguars
have been directly impacted by these recent fires -
through habitat loss and food shortages,
as well as injury and death.
Experts estimate that more than 3,000 jaguars live here,
a precious population that is under pressure and in decline.
How do we adapt to a place that is drier, hotter?
How do we keep the wildlife here?
Whilst Roberto can't single-handedly stop deforestation,
he has joined forces with a team of researchers
and come up with a plan to safeguard
the future of the jaguars against another threat -
persecution from cattle ranchers.
I had the idea of developing wildlife observation tourism
inside this ranch.
You can accommodate wildlife observation
and you can accommodate cattle.
There is space for everybody here.
Your vision is more about coexistence?
Yes, of course.
Central to the project is passionate biologist Lili Rampim,
who's been studying the jaguars here for almost ten years.
It's her team's mission to make this the best place
in the world to see these elusive big cats.
In this area for the past decade,
people have been forging a new relationship with the jaguar,
encouraging South America's biggest cat to emerge from the shadows.
So, what was a little ten-year-old Lilian dreaming about
doing with her life?
Animals. I just think about animals.
I just talk about animals.
I was... I was a very annoying child.
Lili and the team use using
a combination of camera traps and radio collars to track
and get closer to the jaguars here.
We can see their natural behaviour.
I thought I knew about jaguars' behaviour
and the thing is, I didn't know, and I still don't.
I keep learning every day.
People can come here and almost guarantee that they can see a jaguar
in the way that if you went to South Africa,
you could guarantee that you're going to see a lion or a leopard.
So we never guarantee 100%.
But 98.5% of the guests this year saw at least one jaguar.
Vultures there. Vultures in the trees and vultures overhead.
Yeah, probably, we'll have a carcass right here.
Anyone there, Mr Jaguar?
You can see that bite mark there. See, the ear was eaten already.
Oh, my God, so it's actually got the whole skull in its mouth.
The whole skull. That would've been a quick death.
For sure, for sure.
Jaguars kill up to 225 cows a year just on this one ranch.
Across the Pantanal, they have become the enemy of cattle ranchers.
But Lili and her team are working to change these attitudes.
So, in the past, if somebody found a cow or a calf
that had been killed by a jaguar, what would ranchers do?
They will kill the jaguar because every time that a jaguar
predates a cow, somebody is losing money. Mm-hm.
So we show that through ecotourism,
jaguars are much more valuable alive than dead.
The value of a cow, when you compare that to the value
of a foreign tourist coming in and spending hundreds,
thousands of dollars from that one,
say, that one jaguar in its lifetime,
how much revenue can come from that?
It's nine seats in one vehicle, so you do the maths.
You can tell them that they can't kill jaguars
because they're important,
because they're in the top of the food chain, they...
It'll be just, "Blah, blah, blah."
But once you are proving that, OK, by killing a cat,
you are losing money, they are changing their concept.
Mm-hm.
It's taken time, but the ranchers here are beginning to see
the benefits that ecotourism can bring to their families
through jobs and income.
They are coming round to the idea of working
and living alongside South America's apex predator.
How have you seen the relationship between people
and jaguars change over the years?
IN PORTUGUESE:
In other parts of the Pantanal, are jaguars still being persecuted?
I lived in Brazil for two years and only ever saw a glimpse of a jaguar.
I'm hoping with Lili, I'll have more luck.
She's picked up a signal from a radio collar
on one of the dominant males in this region.
So he's in this direction here, right. Let's try to find him.
So this jaguar's called Tupa?
Tupa. Tupa. Yeah, he is huge.
We've known him since 2016.
Already grown up and extremely confident. Really?
Even with the help of a collar,
it can still be difficult to find wild animals that are free to roam.
Cats is like us, they got their different moods,
so sometimes he just don't care about us,
sometimes he look at us like,
"OK, I don't want to talk with you today."
And the thing is, we respect, so,
that's the importance of reading their natural behaviour.
Onde esta?
Oh, yeah, there it is. Right there, right there, right there.
Oh, my goodness, look.
I do not believe that. LILI CHUCKLES
Oh, my God, that is so exciting.
He is huge, isn't he?
He's huge.
Last time that we captured him to put the collar,
he weighed about 123kg,
so it's a heavy cat. Wow.
This is a dream come true.
I would have been happy with a glimpse of a jaguar,
but to have such a magnificent
specimen to walk so close to us is,
yeah, is mind-blowing.
JAGUAR RUMBLES
I've had such a short amount of time here
and to see one of the biggest cats in the world
in front of us... Cool, right?
And the best thing about it is he's completely relaxed. Relaxed.
Getting this close to such a chilled-out jaguar
isn't normal in the wild,
but it's been achieved because Lili and her team
have been getting these jaguars used to the presence
of their safari jeeps.
The habituation process, it demands a lot of patience.
The hardest part is finding where the jaguars are.
Then you have the second stage,
which is trying to reach them very, very patiently.
So, in general, it takes one year of hard work,
and we keep reminding them that we are not a threat
and they don't need to run.
See the way that he's smelling,
one female that is around this area.
And her last cub, which is called Tori, just got independent,
which means that she's ready to become pregnant again,
which means that he might be looking for her to mate.
Tupa is well-known as the dominant male in this area.
I learn that he's mated with 15 different females here,
a sign of good genes.
But at around nine years old,
are Tupa's chances of siring another litter fading?
We'll be following his story over the coming years
to find out if he can continue his reign and father a new set of cubs.
How do you envisage the future for this place,
but also for jaguars across Brazil?
We are habituating jaguars because if nobody does nothing,
they will disappear, this is a fact.
We need to believe in the ecotourism,
that's the key, in my opinion. Yeah.
We already proved that it works here in Pantanal,
it will work in different parts of the world as well. Mm-hm. Yeah.
For me, there is something uncomfortable, unsettling,
about commodifying wild places.
We should want to protect them for their intrinsic value
because, morally, it's the right thing to do.
But this is not an ideal world,
so we have to find new ways, we have to have new visions,
we have to...there has to be game-changers.
And right here on the ground in the Pantanal,
you see the incredible work that they've done,
they've brought these animals out of the shadows for all to see.
After my time here, I feel really inspired.
Yes, things are tough for jaguars across Brazil,
but this project could really offer them a ray of hope
through this crucial time.
Almost 40 million people have made their home in California,
so you might not expect it to feel like much of a wilderness.
But there are outstanding wild places here,
and almost an acre of forest per person.
Home to an incredible display of species,
including the tallest living thing on Earth -
the giant redwoods.
But what was once a haven for wildlife
is becoming an arid deathtrap.
Wildfires have been ripping through California
with increasing intensity in recent years.
In 2020, a staggering four million acres burned.
Fuelled by the longest dry period in over a thousand years,
fires are burning hotter, faster and more intensely than ever before.
The impacts of these fires are devastating,
they're often lethal, they're felt throughout the state,
and the first casualty is always the wildlife.
Around the world, raging wildfires threaten the lives
of countless creatures.
The 2019 Australian bush fires alone killed or displaced
an estimated three billion animals.
With these infernos set to become 50% more common
by the end of the century,
it's only a matter of time before entire species are lost forever.
Here in California, there is a glimmer of hope.
I'm on my way to the headquarters of the Wildlife Disaster Network,
where a dedicated team of vets and volunteers
are rescuing the wildlife injured in fires.
The sheer scale of this crisis has forced them
to think on their feet and act fast.
Hello. Hey! Hi! How are you? I'm really well.
Vets Jamie and Eric set up the network in 2020.
The old adage was, you know,
wildlife will get out of the way.
And that may have been true years ago
when we had different types of fire.
But now with these mega-fires,
it's changing.
Now we're seeing areas that never had fires before
have these massive fires that are causing loss of life
for people and animals.
And it's...
It's a new reality. It's a new normal.
Many of the animals rescued from the flames
are critically injured or orphaned.
Often, they are both.
The team take the hardest hit to a rescue
and rehabilitation centre, founded by Sallysue Stein.
So, you'll see foxes and racoons.
And we have a baby bobcat, but he may not show his face.
LOW GROWLING
We took in about 3,700 animals in all of 2020
and that was a record for us.
We've already taken in over 4,700 this year.
Well, that's just crazy.
Yes, it is. That's overwhelming.
Yes. This is just a fraction of
the animals we know got hurt in these huge fires we had this year,
and it just breaks my heart to think of all the ones we aren't helping.
In this fire, we're only seeing cubs
and we think that the fire was so fast
and so hot that the cubs climbed up high,
but the big bears couldn't climb as high in the trees,
so the big bears didn't make it.
So that's another indication
that the fires are getting stronger and faster,
so much so that the bigger animals can't escape. Right.
And then the babies are left on their own hanging on
for dear life up a tree. Right, right.
So this is a bobcat we call Lava Bob. He's an adult bobcat.
Prolonged drought and a heatwave meant the Lava Fire of 2021
burned for more than two months,
consuming over 26,000 acres of forest.
When he came in, we didn't know at first if he was going to make it.
But you can see... I mean, he looks perfect.
He does. He's ready to go. He's ready to go?
When are you releasing him? I hope tomorrow.
Can I keep you company when you do it?
Yes, you can. You're invited.
In the clinic with Jamie and Eric,
today's patient is a fox they call Mr T.
When he came in, not only did he have those burn injuries
and he was skinny and dehydrated,
but he had basically singed all the fur and his whiskers
and his ears.
You've seen some pretty horrific stuff, haven't you?
Yeah, we've seen a lot.
I mean, we've seen animals with burns from, you know,
1% of their body all the way up to 40% of their body.
So this one's all healed.
He's got all this... All this hair is brand-new. New fur, yeah.
Little funding and scarce resources for their ever-growing patient list
are driving Jamie and Eric to pioneer innovative treatments,
like using fish skin for bandages.
When you eat fish, about 40% of that fish goes to waste,
and part of that waste is fish skin.
So you literally went to the local, what, fishmongers?
Yes.
What we found with this fish skin is it has collagen.
Collagen is a really important part of all of our skin,
and the collagen works like a little jungle gym.
It has a matrix.
And what happens is - is the cells will actually,
your epithelial cells will actually grab on to that matrix
and use it as sort of a jungle gym to move across the wound.
As the skin then heals underneath it, it'll eventually just fall off.
Amazing, amazing, it's a miracle bandage!
It really is.
Do you ever have moments where you just think it's too much?
Oh, sure.
When you're in a disaster or you're treating an animal,
you have to focus on your job.
Then you go home and you cry.
Because crying is a really good stress reliever.
Yeah. And be OK with that.
Aw, he's awake! Oh, hello, little guy.
You OK?
Has he got...? I'll get it.
I got it.
I am finding it really hard to get the words out
about how the people in there have affected me today.
You know, there's a lot of stuff going on on this planet
that makes you just despair at the human race.
And then you meet people like that and you're like,
"Where did you come from? Like, who, are you?"
Extraordinary. Absolutely mind-blowing, actually.
Sallysue, Jamie and Eric aim to return as many patients
to the wild as possible.
And after four whole months of rehab,
today, Lava Bob gets to roam free again.
Biologist Axel Hunnicutt joins the team for his release.
LOW GROWLING
He's good and wild.
He is. There's no question.
Yeah. He's ready.
Yes, you're cute, but it's time to go home, Bob.
LIGHT TAPPING
Aw, gosh.
CHUCKLING
That's so lovely to see him go back out there. Yeah.
When I first saw Lava Bob, I didn't know if he would survive.
He weighed 15lbs, and when we released him, he's over 40lbs.
So, how do we begin to solve this problem
so that this bobcat doesn't face another wildfire
of even fiercer intensity next year
and have to come back to Jamie and Eric?
Personal responsibility.
That's everything you do,
everything you buy has a consequence.
We're utilising a system that is only continuing
to promote climate change.
The animals, I feel, are the canary in the coal mine.
I mean, it's what the future is for humankind.
We can do things to make our world better.
And, you know, we may be one person, but we can do it.
You know, everyone can play their part.
I mean, I'm inspired, and I know you'll be inspiring lots of others,
you know, with your story, and we look forward
to continuing to tell your story.
So, the challenges ahead are huge,
but what's clear from talking to these amazing humans is
that we have everything at our fingertips to fix this,
and the most important thing, I think,
is to reconnect with nature first
and to learn how to prioritise it above all else,
above all the things we seem to think are more important
in the way we live our lives.
The projects we've witnessed are a snapshot of
the extraordinary network of conservation efforts
happening all across the world.
As year one of our seven-year project draws to a close,
we'll be keeping up with the inspiring people we've met,
and monitoring how the bellwethers of the natural world adapt
to the immense challenges that lie ahead for Our Changing Planet.