Chimp Island • 2019

58:01

With a million species at risk of extinction, Sir David Attenborough explores how this crisis of biodiversity has consequences for us all, threatening food and water security, undermining our ability to control our climate and even putting us at greater risk of pandemic diseases. Extinction is now happening up to 100 times faster than the natural evolutionary rate, but the issue is about more than the loss of individual species. Everything in the natural world is connected in networks that support the whole of life on earth, including us, and we are losing many of the benefits that nature provides to us. The loss of insects is threatening the pollination of crops, while the loss of biodiversity in the soil also threatens plants growth. Plants underpin many of the things that we need, and yet one in four is now threatened with extinction. Last year, a UN report identified the key drivers of biodiversity loss, including overfishing, climate change and pollution. But the single biggest driver of biodiversity loss is the destruction of natural habitats. Seventy-five per cent of Earth's land surface (where not covered by ice) has been changed by humans, much of it for agriculture, and as consumers we may unwittingly be contributing towards the loss of species through what we buy in the supermarket. Our destructive relationship with the natural world isn’t just putting the ecosystems that we rely on at risk. Human activities like the trade in animals and the destruction of habitats drive the emergence of diseases. Disease ecologists believe that if we continue on this pathway, this year’s pandemic will not be a one-off event.

2020 • Nature

44:45

Forests and woodlands are the green lungs of the Earth and vital to mankind's survival. The air we breathe, the timbers we build with... the medicines we take. The list of benefits they provide is exhaustive. As is the list of other animals making a meal of these resource-rich environments.

S1E3 • World's Greatest Animal Encounters • 2020 • Nature

49:55

An ancient bear cult that has survived deep in the Transylvanian forests, where Europe's greatest land predator is a symbol of rebirth.

2023 • Nature

59:04

Naturalist and explorer Steve Backshall leads a team on a mission to summit a remote and unclimbed mountain deep in Greenland’s Arctic wilderness.

Undiscovered Worlds with Steve Backshall • 2019 • Nature

58:01

Asia's jungles are exceptionally diverse, but whilst they provide shelter, food and opportunity, they are also full of dangers and hidden threats. In monsoon forests, tigers tenaciously hunt their prey, and prehistoric-looking rhinos play courtship games akin to kiss chase. In tropical rainforests, female orangutans must search far and wide to find their perfect mates. And in the little-known forests of Iraqi Kurdistan, a new Persian leopard population is growing amid minefields.

S1E4 • Asia • 2024 • Nature

58:57

For a river that conjures up images of pyramids and pharaohs, the Nile turns out to be a truly surprising river that changes at every twist and turn of its journey. As its flows into increasingly arid latitudes on its journey north it becomes an evermore vital lifeline for animals and people, but only if they can conquer the challenges that this ever-changing river throws at them.

S1E2 • Earth's Great Rivers • 2018 • Nature