NARRATOR: Planet Earth,
now home to nearly eight billion people.
And yet there are still places
that remain pristine.
Where a spellbinding variety of life
continues to thrive.
These are the last regions that could be called...
Eden.
In the heart of Southeast Asia
lies the tropical island of Borneo.
Around the size of Texas,
its ancient forest has remained unchanged
for 140 million years.
Bathed in sunshine
and quenched by abundant rainfall...
over time these hothouse conditions
have spawned some 60,000 species
of plants and animals...
TRUMPETS
NARRATOR: Making Borneo possibly more biodiverse
than any other island.
Evolving in isolation,
over 6,000 of its inhabitants
are found nowhere else on Earth.
Remarkably, this wealth is built
on a foundation of shallow, nutrient-poor soil.
And yet, somehow,
life has triumphed...
turning this into a paradise
unlike any other.
Dawn breaks
over Borneo's flooded lowland forest.
A mosaic of tree-lined waterways
and swampy thickets.
A unique habitat that has given rise
to a one-of-a kind primate.
CHATTERING
NARRATOR: Proboscis monkeys,
named after their outstanding noses.
CALLING
NARRATOR: For an alpha male,
the bigger the nose...
the bigger the harem.
They live in groups of 20 or more.
This two-year-old female is no longer dependent
on her mother,
but still needs the protection of her tightknit family.
They survive mainly on a diet of leaves
that are low in calories
and difficult to digest.
Unless you have a barrel belly...
STOMACH RUMBLING
NARRATOR: ...and 48 hours to ferment them.
Young leaves aren't as tough,
but there are fewer to go around.
And breakfast finishes off their supply.
Now the tenderest shoots...
are on the other side of the river.
Patrolled by the largest reptiles in the world.
Saltwater crocodiles.
Up to 20 feet long.
They'll devour any animal
they can sink their four-inch teeth into.
But if the monkeys are going to eat,
they'll have to cross.
The alpha male leads the way.
The rest rapidly follow.
SQUEALS
NARRATOR: The babies must cling onto their mothers.
LOUD SPLASH
NARRATOR: Each impact carries soundwaves
up and down the river.
Now too big to be carried,
for this youngster,
a solo plunge is a daunting prospect.
This is a 40-foot leap of faith.
At the surface, she's desperately vulnerable.
But these unique monkeys
are semi-aquatic.
With partially webbed hands and feet,
they can propel themselves quickly but quietly...
SCREAMING
NARRATOR: ...covering a distance of up to 60 feet.
HONKS
MONKEY HONKING
NARRATOR: Made it.
She joins in the buffet of fresh young leaves.
As females mature,
they seek out mates in other groups,
but for now,
this family is all she needs.
Close bonds and specialist adaptations
allow proboscis monkeys to prosper
in this water world.
Moving inland,
Borneo's forest
rises to form a towering canopy.
BIRDS SQUAWKING
THUNDER RUMBLING
NARRATOR: By noon, the first of the daily downpours
tops up the humidity to 100 percent.
THUNDER RUMBLING
NARRATOR: With twice as much rain as Florida...
this Eden is a sultry
90-degree paradise...
nurturing the tallest tropical trees in the world...
that play a crucial part
in the combat of climate change.
Each of them absorbing more carbon than any others.
BIRDS SINGING
NARRATOR: 120 feet up...
the world's largest tree-living ape...
the orangutan.
A 30-year-old mother...
and her three-year-old son...
are having a mid-morning snack.
She'll dedicate eight years to rearing him.
Aside from humans,
it's the longest infancy of any ape.
Until he's fully weened,
it's vital she gets enough to eat...
or her milk will run dry.
But she needs more than low-calorie leaves.
Her challenge is to find some energy-rich fruit...
and fast.
Arms that span more than six feet
and 80 pounds of body weight
help to bend branches and sway through the canopy.
Still fueled-up from his morning feed,
her son does a good job keeping up.
But he mustn't put a foot wrong.
A fall from up here would be fatal.
By the time they've covered a mile,
his mother needs a pick-me-up.
Leaves and bark offer some sustenance,
and it's an opportunity to teach her son
the 500 or so species of edible plants
that Borneo has to offer.
While his mother takes a power nap...
Nakal lives up to his name...
Malay for 'naughty.'
For him, life is an adventure...
and this is the ultimate playground.
All mothers know that kids like to push their luck.
Sometimes, a little too far.
Around one in ten infants die...
mostly from falls.
Nakal has learnt a valuable lesson.
The other great threat he faces is starvation.
In this rainforest,
finding fruit is a treasure hunt.
Scattered far and wide,
it ripens at different times.
But orangutans build up 3D mind maps
that detail not only where to find it,
but when it's good to eat.
Finally, after a morning of travel,
fruiting trees.
But they've been overrun by a troop of macaques.
HIGH-PITCHED SQUEALING
NARRATOR: Nakal voices his annoyance.
But he's just a pipsqueak.
SQUEALING
NARRATOR: They're more nuisance than a threat,
so his mother makes it clear:
'Mess with him...
you mess with me!'
Fruit provides the orangutans
with the calories they crave.
Over Nakal's long childhood,
his mother will pass on the knowledge he needs.
The wisdom of many generations...
allows Borneo's orangutans
to enjoy the riches available here.
By early afternoon,
as the tropical sun dries out the forest floor,
legions of plant-eating insects
home in on anything edible.
Armies of termites emerge.
Up to 7,000 per square yard.
Many specialize in consuming trees...
from the inside out.
The trees deploy defense systems,
sealing their wounds with healing resin.
But this meranti tree
has its very own protection...
Assassin bugs.
This inch-and-a-half-long female
repurposes resin
to weaponize her forelimbs.
Dressed to kill...
she comes to the tree's defense.
There's no escape from the viscous viciousness
of this femme fatale.
Once the termite is swaddled in sap,
she skewers it with her stiletto mouthparts...
and slowly syringes out its insides.
With so much prey to tap into,
this tree is the ideal place to raise a family.
A passing male could be the perfect partner.
What follows is completely new to science.
A courtship dance
thought to test his tenacity.
# TANGO MUSIC PLAYING
NARRATOR: If he can't withstand her gluey grip,
they won't stick together.
Hmm! Suitably impressed,
she delicately dabs resin on the tip of her abdomen...
ready to cement their relationship.
The babies, with their menacing mittens,
will spend their entire lives liquidating termites.
INSECTS BUZZING
NARRATOR: There are close to 200,000 species
of insect in Borneo.
INSECTS BUZZING
NARRATOR: It's the ideal foraging ground
for one of the rarest bears on Earth.
The Bornean sun bear.
Only the panda is more endangered.
His four-inch-long claws
rip open a termite mound with ease.
Dense fur protects him from meals that might bite back.
SURPRISED GRUNT
NARRATOR: But it's no defense against a reticulated python.
Growing to more than 30 feet long,
they have been known to swallow a little bear whole.
Nosing around his forest sanctuary,
pickings are slim.
That's why this bear is so small.
No bigger than a large dog.
But a sense of smell
a thousand times more refined than ours...
can identify an aroma from 100 yards or more.
And he's caught the merest whiff
of one of the jungle's most sought-after prizes...
Honey!
But to sniff it out...
he'll have to go ape!
Lightweight and agile,
he's known as a 'monkey bear.'
He pinpoints the hive by trial and error.
He's spotted the hive.
Buzzing bees mean golden honey.
Just one last tree to climb to reach the jackpot.
BUZZING
NARRATOR: At almost ten inches,
that tongue is longer than any other bear's.
Perfect for honey slurping.
Now, that dreamy dessert...
plus drowsy afternoon heat...
can only mean one thing...
It's siesta time.
He busies himself making a lofty bed.
Ah! Relax.
Mmm, that breeze feels good!
By late afternoon...
gloom gathers at the forest floor.
But even as the light dwindles
and photosynthesis fizzles out,
feeding doesn't have to stop.
Borneo's vegetation is ingenious.
Of its 15,000 different plant species,
the highest diversity of anywhere on Earth...
one family has turned from strictly vegan...
to meat-eating.
Pitcher plants.
Some lure in unsuspecting insects
with a perfumed promise of nectar...
only to dissolve their victims
in a bath of enzymes.
This giant pitcher
offers a sugary reward...
to a sweet-toothed...
tree shrew.
In return...
for a welcome deposit of nitrogen...
found in shrew poo.
But one pitcher has gone a step further
away from its carnivorous diet...
and become...
vegetarian.
In this Eden, plants can be
every bit as enterprising as animals.
BIRDS SQUAWKING
NARRATOR: As the last rays of evening sun
light up the treetops...
for another of Borneo's most resourceful residents,
the chore of finding food
is far from over.
Oriental pied hornbills
are one of Borneo's largest fruit-eating birds.
SQUAWKING
NARRATOR: Weighing in at over two pounds,
this male...
and his faithful partner...
need to eat a third of their bodyweight every day.
Their seven-inch bills
are precision instruments...
designed to pick off
even the tiniest fruits.
With sunset fast approaching,
they're still hungry...
but these highly intelligent birds
have worked out where to go to
for an evening meal.
Heading to where Borneo's uplands
rise from the forest...
they perch at the yawning mouth
of a vast cavern.
INSECTS BUZZING
NARRATOR: Over thousands of years,
rainwater has eaten away
at these limestone crags...
dissolving the rock to form cave networks
that stretch for hundreds of miles.
A highly-desirable home for something.
Predators gather.
A Wallace's Hawk Eagle
arrives in anticipation.
LOUD BUZZING
NARRATOR: A sigh rises to a scream...
as 300,000 wrinkle-lipped bats
are disgorged from their roost.
HIGH-PITCHED SQUEALING
NARRATOR: A fast-moving feast...
for a perfectly poised cave racer snake.
Armed with three-inch-long rapier talons...
the hawk eagle is designed for aerial interception...
snatching ten or more bats
every evening.
Spurred on...
the hornbills launch their aerial assault.
But without the hawk's grasping talons...
it ends in frustration.
Time to consider a tactic
better suited to his hardware.
He repositions as close as possible
to the streaming column of bats.
With binocular vision to judge distance...
and that precision beak...
he needs to time it just right!
He gives the first catch to his partner.
He'll grab half a dozen more bats...
and they'll be content.
Only now has the full behavior
been caught on camera.
Of all 54 species of hornbill,
the oriental pied has the most diverse diet.
This intelligent bird has learned to cash in
on every chance that Borneo's varied habitats
have to offer.
With their bellies full,
the hornbills retire to their night-time roost.
WINGS WHOOSHING
NARRATOR: But there are places in this jungle
that never sleep.
Every night, the bats from this one cave
are thought to harvest over two tons of insects.
On their return,
their excrement falls like rain...
building over centuries
to form a mountain of guano.
More than 50 feet high...
and 100 feet long.
It sustains an incomparable ecosystem
of tens of thousands
of cockroaches...
and a swarm of other scavengers.
Foot-long centipedes...
giant spiders...
even cave crabs.
And fresh meat is highly prized.
But it's the cockroaches
that get to the victim first.
Stripping it to the bone within hours.
Borneo's caves have created a unique habitat...
based on growing stockpiles
of forest minerals.
Over thousands of years,
the unparalleled diversity of this Eden
has been driven by a lack of nutrients...
thriving on ingenuity
and the daily rhythms of this singular island paradise.
But recent decades have seen rapid changes
that affect all of the forest inhabitants.
Long ago, stories were told
of sacred spirits that inhabit the jungle.
Part man,
part animal.
Almost five feet tall...
this is a male orangutan.
At 20 years of age,
his wide facial flanges
are a sign of virility.
But he needs to get clear of the thick undergrowth
to catch the attention of a passing female.
At around 200 pounds,
he's clearly at the upper limit for a life in the treetops.
BRANCHES SNAPPING
NARRATOR: Up here, his stage is set.
CALLING
NARRATOR: Male orangs serenade
to draw in prospective partners.
CALLING
NARRATOR: His flanges are thought to project the song,
and with less vegetation to dampen the sound
it beams almost a mile.
CALLING
NARRATOR: It's known as a 'long call.'
CALLING
NARRATOR: Scientific research
suggests he's singing his own praises...
extolling health and status.
CALLING
NARRATOR: Who could resist such a performance?
Bad luck, it's a juvenile male.
And that grin is no greeting,
it's a threat.
Okay, if that's the way you want to play it.
THUNDER RUMBLING
NARRATOR: The afternoon rains now threaten the performance.
Undeterred...
with his makeshift umbrella...
he continues singing in the rain.
CALLING
SOFTER CALLING
SOFTER, MOURNFUL CALLING
NARRATOR: There's a reason these mournful long calls
go unanswered.
Wilderness abruptly gives way to oil palm.
In the last two decades,
80 percent of orangutan habitat has been felled.
Paradise has been lost to plantation.
Thousands of these gentle apes are left marooned
in small pockets of rainforest.
Many males may never breed again.
Elsewhere, virgin forest still exists...
and orangutans are protected by parks and sanctuaries.
Borneo's ancient habitats...
have been woven together by millions
of intricate relationships...
plant and animal.
As long as we can keep this unique trove
of treasured species safe...
this island's sacred forests...
will be
forever Eden.
NARRATOR: The Eden team
ventured deep into the jungles of Borneo
to film previously unseen animal behavior.
In Borneo, there's always something new to discover.
NARRATOR: Using state-of-the-art camera technology,
they captured dramatic imagery
from above...
and below.
Cutting-edge macro lenses revealed new science
about the secret lives of Borneo's insects.
But the team's greatest challenge
was filming a family of rare Bornean orangutans...
high up in the world's tallest tropical trees.
Camerawoman Justine Evans is no stranger to Borneo.
She's been coming to the ancient rainforest of Danum Valley
for 25 years.
I have to say that this is
the most beautiful forest I've ever seen.
NARRATOR: But outside of protected areas like this,
deforestation and palm oil production
have led to an 80 percent loss
in orangutan habitat over the last two decades.
JUSTINE: I think nothing quite prepares you
for the sight of the unrelenting landscape
of palm oil.
Just the monoculture
on such a grand scale,
it-it's, uh... it's shocking.
Every time I go back to Borneo,
I wonder what I'm gonna find
and whether I'm going to see the orangutans.
NARRATOR: Justine will have to climb high up into the canopy
to stand a chance of filming orangutans in their world.
The team get to work erecting a platform...
positioned across from a fruiting tree
that a mother and her infant have been known to visit.
After six hours,
everything is in place.
Justine will be at eye level with the orangutans.
But the platform is only three feet long
by three feet wide.
It's going to be a tight squeeze.
JUSTINE: There's about enough space for the camera
and the tripod and me.
And that's the edge,
all the way down about
100 feet to the ground.
All we need now is some orangutans to come along.
NARRATOR: For the next seven days,
Justine waits patiently
from dawn to dusk
for the mum and baby to show.
I've been here since half five in the morning, and it's now...
3:00pm.
It's a long time to be sitting on an aluminum tea tray.
NARRATOR: Without any notice,
the rainforest dumps an inch of rain
onto Justine and her camera.
JUSTINE: It's extremely wet out here,
so Tim's come up and we're trying to evacuate all the kit.
We went from sunny to pouring with rain within ten minutes.
Tim's heading down and I'm gonna follow.
NARRATOR: A week into the shoot,
without so much as a glimpse of an orangutan,
Justine swaps the sit-and-wait approach
to tracking them on foot.
JUSTINE: I'm dreading the prospect of dragging
all our kit through this forest, running around on the ground,
trying to follow and orang is really tricky.
NARRATOR: And this tropical jungle is infested with bugs
and blood-sucking leeches.
I thought I felt something on my finger earlier.
NARRATORS: Orangutans have an intimate knowledge
of where fruiting trees lie.
The crew are relying more on guesswork.
JUSTINE: Is there any way for us to follow?
NARRATOR: Finally, one of the trackers radios a sighting.
JUSTINE: This is the first opportunity I'm gonna get
hopefully to see the orangutan,
and it's great that we've got a female
with the young, that's exactly what we're after.
NARRATOR: But the family is moving too quickly
through the canopy for the crew to keep up.
JUSTINE: It's cat and mouse.
I think this orangutan is trying to shake us off, personally.
NARRATOR: After hours of searching
through dense rainforest,
Justine is finally rewarded
with an intimate view.
JUSTINE: There she is.
Wow! It's the first time I've seen her.
It's the female orangutan,
she's just come in to a little clear spot.
They have led us,
after a few hours of going
through quite thick vegetation,
to a very high fig tree.
And it's absolutely chocka with fruits.
NARRATOR: Over the next ten days,
trudging more than 70 miles,
Justine was able to revisit the young family
and capture their tender moments together.
JUSTINE: When you film any of the great apes,
you feel that connection, it's unmistakable.
The emotions that you see running through them
is... is so relatable.
I've come away feeling obviously
very rewarded by the experience,
but tinged with a sadness
because of the bigger picture in Borneo.
NARRATOR: As long as areas like Danum Valley are protected,
orangutans stand a chance,
and all the species that call Borneo home
will be kept safe
for the future of us all.