1
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For me, as for countless others,


2
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the natural world is
the greatest of all treasures,


3
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and yet in my lifetime we have
damaged it more severely


4
00:00:45,040 --> 00:00:47,240
than in the whole of the rest
of human history.


5
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Indeed, significant parts of it now
are in danger of total destruction.


6
00:00:54,600 --> 00:01:00,480
When I first came to Borneo in 1956,
the rainforest stretched unbroken


7
00:01:00,480 --> 00:01:04,320
on either side of the river
for hundreds of miles.


8
00:01:04,320 --> 00:01:06,880
Today, it's very different.


9
00:01:12,440 --> 00:01:15,760
Just beyond the trees lining
the river bank,


10
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there is nothing
but oil palm plantations,


11
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and the forest
and all the rich variety


12
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of animals and plants that it had
once contained has been destroyed.


13
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And yet, as we have transformed
the natural world,


14
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so our attitudes towards it
have changed fundamentally.


15
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Again and again,
I have seen the impoverishment


16
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and desolation caused by the way
we have ruthlessly taken


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what we want from the land,
no matter what the cost.


18
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But I have also seen
how the natural world,


19
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given just the slightest chance,
can manage to survive.


20
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HE LAUGHS


21
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And I have met the far-sighted
and dedicated conservationists


22
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who've laboured to protect it,
people who, by their own example,


23
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have shown that there is something
that can be done about it.


24
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I was born in 1926,


25
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at the end of the age
of the great naturalist collectors.


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It was a time when it was
perfectly acceptable to go out


27
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and collect creatures from the wild.


28
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If the London Zoo wanted
a new animal or a replacement,


29
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they simply commissioned
a collector to go out and get it.


30
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And in the 1950s,


31
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as a young television producer
obsessed with the natural world,


32
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I was delighted when we got
permission to go along


33
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with an expedition
from the London Zoo.


34
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It was going to go to West Africa
and be headed by one of the zoo's


35
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animal-collecting experts,
Jack Lester.


36
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I thought it would be a good idea
if we called the series


37
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Quest for something or other.


38
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So I asked Jack Lester whether
in fact there was an animal there


39
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that we could have a quest for,
that no-one had seen before.


40
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And he said, "Oh, yes. And it's
called Picathartes gymnocephalus."


41
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So, I said, "Well, that's not
really very catchy,


42
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"Quest for
Picathartes gymnocephalus.
Is there another name?"


43
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And Jack said, "Yes. It's also
called the bald-headed rock fowl."


44
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I said, "Well, even Quest
for a Bald-Headed Rock Fowl


45
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"isn't likely to grab people."


46
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So in the end,
we just called it Zoo Quest.


47
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TRIBAL SINGING


48
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We spent weeks travelling
around the country


49
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collecting all kinds of mammals,
reptiles and birds.


50
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Everywhere we went, we showed people
a picture of Picathartes


51
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and finally found a village chief
who said the birds nested nearby.


52
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And so they did.


53
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In the finished programmes,
of course,


54
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we didn't reveal this immediately.
Instead, we ended each by saying,


55
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"So we went on to look
for Picathartes."


56
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Nonetheless,
we were a bit concerned


57
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as to whether anybody would
really care about Picathartes.


58
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But I was reassured when I was
travelling down Oxford Street


59
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in an open car and a bus driver
leant out of his cab and he said,


60
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"Hello, Dave. Well, are we
or are we not going to find


61
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"Pica-bloody-fartees?"


62
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So I knew that actually
we had made an impact with somebody.


63
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And the bus driver
got his answer in the last episode.


64
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ARCHIVE RECORDING:
'We took our places behind the hide


65
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'and now came the most tense moment
of the expedition,


66
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'the moment for which
we'd all waited so long.


67
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'Would we see the adult birds?


68
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'And then suddenly, we saw one,


69
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'a few yards away in the twilight
of the bush preening itself.


70
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'This was enormous excitement.


71
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'Then up it fluttered onto the nest.
And as it did so, the other parent


72
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'flew across and drove
the first one away.


73
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'This was a great thrill for us,
for as this happened,


74
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'we became the first Europeans
ever to see the white-necked
Picathartes on its nest.'


75
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Having filmed Picathartes, we
managed to collect a young nestling


76
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and brought it back,
together with sun birds


77
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and emerald starlings, to live here
in the bird house in the London Zoo.


78
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It had been my first opportunity
to film animals in the wild


79
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and this happy collaboration
with the London Zoo


80
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resulted in a whole succession
of Zoo Quest series.


81
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Sadly, after the first, Jack became
seriously ill, so I took over


82
00:06:05,680 --> 00:06:08,880
and tried to give the impression
that I knew what I was doing.


83
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'It's important to grab his tail
as soon as you grab his head,


84
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'otherwise he'll wrap
his great coils round you


85
00:06:16,400 --> 00:06:18,160
'and give you a very nasty squeeze.


86
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'I was more than happy
that we'd been able to take it away


87
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'without IT harming us.


88
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'First, I grabbed the tail
with my left hand


89
00:06:30,320 --> 00:06:33,280
'and then tickled his tummy with
my right, so that he doubled up,


90
00:06:33,280 --> 00:06:35,560
'lost his grip and out he came.'


91
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Of course, I wouldn't behave
like that today.


92
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Things have changed.


93
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Thanks to their breeding programmes,
zoos can get most of what they want


94
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without going to catch them
in the wild. But that was then.


95
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Caring for the creatures
we collected took so much time


96
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it eventually became part
of the programme's story.


97
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Once the animals we had collected
had settled in at the zoo,


98
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we got permission to take
some of the more interesting ones


99
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to the studios to show them off
on live television.


100
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And here he is,
twice as large, I should say,


101
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but still just as hungry


102
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and still making this extraordinary
little noise


103
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which he used to make
out there in Borneo.


104
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And here he is in the studio.


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He can bite.
He's got quite powerful fangs.


106
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I have been bitten by a python.
It doesn't hurt much.


107
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Well, helping me... Help...


108
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Helping me control this python is
Mr Lanwarn from the reptile house


109
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in the London Zoo who, in fact,
has it in his care now,


110
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but he's quite a handful now,
isn't he?


111
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These... You could quite imagine
how these powerful coils... Oh, yes.


112
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..could really give you
quite a crush.


113
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Our attitudes to wildlife
were so very different in the '50s.


114
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But then they were about to undergo
a transformation.


115
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Ducks and geese are decreasing
in the world rather rapidly.


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It would be a great pity, I think,
if they were allowed


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to disappear altogether
or even to become extremely rare.


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In these marshy fields, we built
special paddocks


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and in them, we've established
this collection of ducks


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and geese and swans.


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As a student, there was one person
perhaps more than anyone else


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who fuelled my excitement
about the natural world.


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He was the most celebrated
broadcaster of his time.


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On radio, of course.
There was no television.


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Little did I think
that, within a few years,


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he and I were to become friends.


127
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That man was Peter Scott,
who founded The Wildfowl
and Wetlands Trust


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and created its first reserve
around his home here at Slimbridge.


129
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Peter Scott made me realise
for the first time


130
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that there were species
of animal around the world


131
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that were in danger
of becoming extinct.


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It was a radical idea at the time.


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Well, if we decide that we have got
a responsibility to prevent animals


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from becoming extinct,
what can we do about it?


135
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Well, in extreme cases, we can,
and I think we should,


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take into captivity a proportion
of the population into some zoo


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or park or reserve and try and breed
them there and build up the stock.


138
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Now, here at the Wildfowl Trust,
we have done that with the nene,
or Hawaiian goose.


139
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The nene evolved
on the island of Hawaii.


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But in the 19th century, colonial
settlers brought dogs, pigs,


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rats and mongooses, all of which
preyed heavily on the nene.


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By the late 1940s, there were
only 30 individual birds left.


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Peter Scott, as a young man,


144
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had been a passionate hunter
of wildfowl.


145
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Now, he became their saviour.


146
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In 1950, he arranged
for a few of them


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to be brought halfway
around the world to Slimbridge


148
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so that he could try to breed them
in captivity.


149
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And he succeeded, because these
are some of their descendents.


150
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Wonderfully tame.


151
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And now they have been introduced,


152
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not only to other wildlife
sanctuaries, but back to Hawaii.


153
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Until I'd met Peter here at
Slimbridge and seen these nene,


154
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it had never occurred to me
that a species could become


155
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totally extinct in my lifetime.


156
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But Peter and the nene
changed all that


157
00:11:00,520 --> 00:11:05,640
and I began to wonder seriously
about what I myself could do


158
00:11:05,640 --> 00:11:10,000
to become involved
in the protection of wildlife.


159
00:11:10,000 --> 00:11:11,920
Come on.


160
00:11:11,920 --> 00:11:16,960
In those days, I was rather more
interested in mammals
than I was in birds.


161
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But nonetheless, Peter and I
regularly compared notes.


162
00:11:20,760 --> 00:11:24,200
One day, I ran into him
in the Natural History Museum.


163
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"Where are you off to next?"
he said.


164
00:11:25,880 --> 00:11:29,480
I said, "We're going to Madagascar."
"Madagascar!" he said.


165
00:11:29,480 --> 00:11:33,240
"The Madagascar pochard is one
of the rarest ducks in the world,


166
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"the only one that we haven't got
in the collection at Slimbridge."


167
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And I said, "Peter, if you want
Madagascar pochard, leave it to me.


168
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"I'll bring you back a pair."


169
00:11:42,880 --> 00:11:44,840
And off we went to Madagascar.


170
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Well, of course, actually, I was
in Madagascar looking for lemurs


171
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and we got the first film
ever of the indri,


172
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the biggest of the living lemurs,
and other things, too.


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The series was going down quite well
when I happened to meet Peter again


174
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and as I met him,
I suddenly thought...


175
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I forgot all about
the Madagascar pochard.


176
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So I went over and I said,
"Peter, I'm terribly sorry.


177
00:12:07,760 --> 00:12:13,520
"We did look very hard,
but we never found
your Madagascar pochard."


178
00:12:13,520 --> 00:12:16,480
"Didn't you?" he said. "Oh,
I was looking at the show last night


179
00:12:16,480 --> 00:12:20,520
"and there were about
1,000 of them behind you
as you were talking to camera."


180
00:12:20,520 --> 00:12:24,280
Clearly, both my memory
and my ornithology


181
00:12:24,280 --> 00:12:26,840
needed a bit of improvement.


182
00:12:26,840 --> 00:12:31,000
By now, Peter had his own natural
history series on television.


183
00:12:31,000 --> 00:12:32,720
It was called Look.


184
00:12:34,440 --> 00:12:37,320
At the same time,
he and others were devising


185
00:12:37,320 --> 00:12:40,840
a strategy for protecting
wildlife worldwide.


186
00:12:40,840 --> 00:12:45,160
A world wildlife charter
to meet what amounts to


187
00:12:45,160 --> 00:12:47,640
a state of emergency for wildlife.


188
00:12:48,800 --> 00:12:51,800
And now we've got
a World Wildlife Fund,


189
00:12:51,800 --> 00:12:54,640
which is being launched
to give it teeth.


190
00:12:54,640 --> 00:12:58,600
In 1961, Peter became one
of the founder members


191
00:12:58,600 --> 00:13:02,160
of the World Wildlife Fund,
as it then was.


192
00:13:03,320 --> 00:13:07,960
One of the most charismatic
and endangered animals of the time


193
00:13:07,960 --> 00:13:11,240
was a Chinese creature,
the giant panda.


194
00:13:11,240 --> 00:13:14,840
Its simple black and white form
made it an excellent subject


195
00:13:14,840 --> 00:13:18,360
for a logo and Peter designed it.


196
00:13:18,360 --> 00:13:23,000
This is his original and,
to my mind, much the best version.


197
00:13:25,080 --> 00:13:29,160
The Fund was the first
international body to spend money


198
00:13:29,160 --> 00:13:32,320
on conservation projects
around the world.


199
00:13:32,320 --> 00:13:35,800
And one of its first projects
was to help the endangered


200
00:13:35,800 --> 00:13:40,240
and rare animals
on the Galapagos Islands.


201
00:13:44,880 --> 00:13:50,400
And those extraordinary islands
still remain wonderlands today.


202
00:13:58,200 --> 00:14:01,960
This is the giant
Galapagos tortoise.


203
00:14:01,960 --> 00:14:05,720
They live longer than
any other animal on Earth,


204
00:14:05,720 --> 00:14:08,120
well over 150 years.


205
00:14:11,200 --> 00:14:13,640
They weigh up to
a quarter of a tonne


206
00:14:13,640 --> 00:14:18,440
and have shells over a metre across.
They really are giants.


207
00:14:20,240 --> 00:14:25,840
Some 15 subspecies of these reptiles
evolved on the Galapagos.


208
00:14:25,840 --> 00:14:29,960
But in the 17th century, human
beings discovered the islands.


209
00:14:37,280 --> 00:14:39,840
The tortoises were a valuable source
of fresh meat


210
00:14:39,840 --> 00:14:42,840
and visiting sailors
took them away by the thousand.


211
00:14:44,760 --> 00:14:46,360
By the middle of the 20th century,


212
00:14:46,360 --> 00:14:51,120
one third of the original subspecies
had been totally exterminated


213
00:14:51,120 --> 00:14:54,080
and only 3,000 of the remainder
still survived.


214
00:14:55,800 --> 00:14:59,600
In the early 1960s,
the World Wildlife Fund got involved


215
00:14:59,600 --> 00:15:01,800
with trying to halt the decline.


216
00:15:01,800 --> 00:15:05,200
They put money into
the Charles Darwin Research Centre


217
00:15:05,200 --> 00:15:08,840
on the Galapagos, which collected
tortoise eggs from the wild


218
00:15:08,840 --> 00:15:11,320
and carefully raised them
away from predators.


219
00:15:19,280 --> 00:15:22,680
By the 1970s,
when I first visited the Galapagos,


220
00:15:22,680 --> 00:15:26,320
the first captive-bred tortoises
were ready to be released.


221
00:15:31,200 --> 00:15:34,920
And a dramatic discovery
had been made on Pinta Island.


222
00:15:34,920 --> 00:15:38,520
The subspecies that evolved there
had long been thought extinct,


223
00:15:38,520 --> 00:15:42,680
but in 1971, a single male tortoise
was discovered there.


224
00:15:46,480 --> 00:15:49,840
He was brought back to
the Charles Darwin Research Station


225
00:15:49,840 --> 00:15:52,360
where he quickly became
a celebrity in his own right.


226
00:15:53,840 --> 00:15:58,960
This is the rarest living animal
in all the world.


227
00:15:58,960 --> 00:16:01,400
There is none rarer.


228
00:16:01,400 --> 00:16:04,440
This is Lonesome George.


229
00:16:07,200 --> 00:16:10,880
It was hoped that a female Pinta
tortoise might be found


230
00:16:10,880 --> 00:16:14,280
with which he could breed,
but it was not to be.


231
00:16:16,600 --> 00:16:21,040
Lonesome George, it seems, is doomed
to be the last of his kind.


232
00:16:23,680 --> 00:16:28,400
Sadly, he died in June, 2012.


233
00:16:30,840 --> 00:16:35,400
But other surviving Galapagos
tortoises have had to deal with
a different threat.


234
00:16:35,400 --> 00:16:36,920
Goats.


235
00:16:38,560 --> 00:16:41,560
They were brought to the island
long ago by both sailors


236
00:16:41,560 --> 00:16:43,880
and settlers and have now gone wild.


237
00:16:47,040 --> 00:16:49,400
They crop the vegetation so severely


238
00:16:49,400 --> 00:16:52,680
that there's little or nothing left
for the tortoises.


239
00:16:52,680 --> 00:16:56,520
So the islands' conservation
authorities decided to eradicate


240
00:16:56,520 --> 00:16:58,880
feral goats on several
of the islands,


241
00:16:58,880 --> 00:17:01,080
so that the vegetation could recover


242
00:17:01,080 --> 00:17:03,880
and the tortoises get
their natural food back.


243
00:17:05,800 --> 00:17:10,160
Now, on Isabella Island,
as I saw for myself in 2008,


244
00:17:10,160 --> 00:17:12,960
the plants have returned
to their former lushness


245
00:17:12,960 --> 00:17:15,440
and the tortoises' future
has been secured.


246
00:17:21,480 --> 00:17:27,080
Saving large, dramatic species was
one of conservationists' first aims.


247
00:17:27,080 --> 00:17:30,000
But soon, we realised
that true conservation


248
00:17:30,000 --> 00:17:32,600
means protecting
the entire habitat,


249
00:17:32,600 --> 00:17:35,920
of which this spectacular species
is just one element.


250
00:17:37,320 --> 00:17:41,480
And one way of doing that
is to establish nature reserves


251
00:17:41,480 --> 00:17:42,960
or national parks.


252
00:17:44,640 --> 00:17:49,320
The first national park in Africa
was created in 1925


253
00:17:49,320 --> 00:17:52,600
around the volcanoes that lie
in the heart of the continent.


254
00:17:54,120 --> 00:17:57,080
Its aim was to protect
the rare mountain gorillas,


255
00:17:57,080 --> 00:17:59,920
which were being killed
by trophy hunters and poachers.


256
00:18:00,960 --> 00:18:03,920
But what has happened there since
has made it quite clear


257
00:18:03,920 --> 00:18:06,320
that effective conservation
isn't just a question


258
00:18:06,320 --> 00:18:09,640
of governments drawing
lines on a map.


259
00:18:09,640 --> 00:18:12,840
Very often, it requires
the passion and determination


260
00:18:12,840 --> 00:18:17,600
of one highly-motivated individual,
as I saw myself in Rwanda.


261
00:18:20,040 --> 00:18:24,280
An American woman, Dian Fossey, had
been studying the mountain gorillas


262
00:18:24,280 --> 00:18:29,160
in the Virunga Volcanoes
National Park since 1967.


263
00:18:29,160 --> 00:18:32,000
By patiently sitting near
to them year after year,


264
00:18:32,000 --> 00:18:34,560
she had eventually won
their complete trust


265
00:18:34,560 --> 00:18:37,400
to a quite astonishing degree.


266
00:18:38,560 --> 00:18:43,680
In 1978, she agreed that we might
come with cameras to film them.


267
00:18:50,920 --> 00:18:53,400
She introduced us to the gorillas


268
00:18:53,400 --> 00:18:56,960
in the sense that they saw that we
were with Dian, so I suspect


269
00:18:56,960 --> 00:19:01,040
that that may well have been that
they therefore thought we were OK.


270
00:19:02,440 --> 00:19:06,840
But without Dian, that sequence
could never have happened.


271
00:19:27,720 --> 00:19:32,760
There is more meaning
and mutual understanding


272
00:19:32,760 --> 00:19:36,240
in exchanging a glance
with a gorilla...


273
00:19:37,840 --> 00:19:39,680
..than any other animal I know.


274
00:19:41,520 --> 00:19:42,920
We're so similar.


275
00:19:44,440 --> 00:19:49,120
Their sight, their hearing,
their sense of smell


276
00:19:49,120 --> 00:19:52,200
are so similar to ours that...


277
00:19:52,200 --> 00:19:54,720
we see the world in the same way
as they do.


278
00:19:56,600 --> 00:19:59,680
They live in the same
sort of social groups,


279
00:19:59,680 --> 00:20:03,960
making permanent family
relationships.


280
00:20:03,960 --> 00:20:09,960
They walk around on the ground as
we do, though they're


281
00:20:09,960 --> 00:20:14,480
immensely more powerful than we are
and so if ever there was


282
00:20:14,480 --> 00:20:17,920
a possibility of escaping
the human condition


283
00:20:17,920 --> 00:20:21,080
and living imaginatively...


284
00:20:24,680 --> 00:20:30,320
..in another creature's
world, it must be with a gorilla.


285
00:20:33,800 --> 00:20:36,880
And this is how
they spend most of their time,


286
00:20:36,880 --> 00:20:39,400
lounging on the ground
grooming one another.


287
00:20:42,200 --> 00:20:45,840
Sometimes they even allow
others to join in.


288
00:21:00,160 --> 00:21:02,280
What that sequence didn't show,


289
00:21:02,280 --> 00:21:05,760
but which the still pictures
I took at the time did,


290
00:21:05,760 --> 00:21:09,480
was the way the gorillas were
fascinated by our equipment.


291
00:21:09,480 --> 00:21:11,560
One of them was very interested in


292
00:21:11,560 --> 00:21:15,320
the long sort of sausage-shaped
housing that holds the microphone


293
00:21:15,320 --> 00:21:18,800
and you can see this young
male just feeling it,


294
00:21:18,800 --> 00:21:23,000
seeing what it is, and also
they were fascinated by the camera


295
00:21:23,000 --> 00:21:26,680
and they came to Martin Saunders,
who was the cameraman,
and were peering


296
00:21:26,680 --> 00:21:30,200
inside the camera to see if they
could see another animal inside it.


297
00:21:32,240 --> 00:21:37,360
And finally, the adult male,
the big silverback, appeared.


298
00:21:37,360 --> 00:21:42,000
Dian's name for him was Beethoven,
and Beethoven was a huge, powerful


299
00:21:42,000 --> 00:21:46,120
animal and really quite alarming,
because if he'd lost his temper


300
00:21:46,120 --> 00:21:50,680
with you, he could simply smash your
skull with one blow of his fist.


301
00:21:50,680 --> 00:21:52,760
The thing you don't do is to
pick up your camera


302
00:21:52,760 --> 00:21:56,400
and look directly at him.
That's a challenging thing to do.


303
00:21:56,400 --> 00:22:00,520
So I have quite a lot of pictures
of Beethoven gazing to


304
00:22:00,520 --> 00:22:03,480
the right or to the left or even
looking away from me.


305
00:22:04,560 --> 00:22:07,400
Yeah. So he is.


306
00:22:10,880 --> 00:22:14,000
But behind this extraordinary
encounter lay a tragic


307
00:22:14,000 --> 00:22:16,520
and shocking reality.


308
00:22:16,520 --> 00:22:21,720
We had arrived in Dian Fossey's
camp in January 1978,


309
00:22:21,720 --> 00:22:26,160
just days after Dian's favourite
gorilla, a young male, whose


310
00:22:26,160 --> 00:22:31,680
name was Digit, had been savagely
and brutally killed by poachers.


311
00:22:31,680 --> 00:22:35,480
Dian was grief stricken, it was
though she had lost a child, and


312
00:22:35,480 --> 00:22:40,000
on top of that she was in extremely
poor health, spitting blood.


313
00:22:40,000 --> 00:22:44,160
We became witness to
a slow-motion tragedy.


314
00:22:46,040 --> 00:22:48,080
Gorillas had been illegally killed


315
00:22:48,080 --> 00:22:51,920
in the Virunga Volcanoes National
Park throughout the '60s and '70s.


316
00:22:53,440 --> 00:22:57,560
When Dian had arrived,
there were about 500 left.


317
00:22:57,560 --> 00:23:01,480
But there were only about half that
number at the time of our visit


318
00:23:01,480 --> 00:23:06,280
and Dian had taken it upon herself
to organise anti-poaching patrols.


319
00:23:08,080 --> 00:23:10,600
Never before had it been
so clear to me


320
00:23:10,600 --> 00:23:13,280
that a species was
heading for disaster.


321
00:23:13,280 --> 00:23:16,440
It was just Dian Fossey who was
standing between


322
00:23:16,440 --> 00:23:19,120
the mountain gorillas and
extinction.


323
00:23:20,680 --> 00:23:24,760
On our last evening at her camp,
Dian called me to her sickbed


324
00:23:24,760 --> 00:23:29,120
and made me promise to do something
to help save the gorillas.


325
00:23:29,120 --> 00:23:31,800
And when I got back to
Britain, I kept that promise


326
00:23:31,800 --> 00:23:35,120
and got together with other
conservationists


327
00:23:35,120 --> 00:23:38,640
and jointly we created
the Mountain Gorilla Fund.


328
00:23:42,520 --> 00:23:46,200
The sequence with the gorillas
caused something of a sensation


329
00:23:46,200 --> 00:23:49,480
and helped people realise that these
relatives of ours


330
00:23:49,480 --> 00:23:52,200
were not only endangered
but had to be helped.


331
00:23:55,440 --> 00:23:57,640
Once Dian's health had improved,


332
00:23:57,640 --> 00:24:02,400
she resumed her efforts to protect
the gorillas and their habitat.


333
00:24:04,800 --> 00:24:07,440
She fought as hard as she could
to prevent great


334
00:24:07,440 --> 00:24:13,280
areas of the forest from being
cut down and turned into farmland.


335
00:24:13,280 --> 00:24:17,080
And she continued her battles with
the poachers, destroying their


336
00:24:17,080 --> 00:24:21,240
snares and arresting them when her
patrols captured them red-handed.


337
00:24:22,840 --> 00:24:27,080
Although there is no doubt that
Dian Fossey's anti-poaching methods


338
00:24:27,080 --> 00:24:31,120
were controversial
and certainly antagonised many
of the local people,


339
00:24:31,120 --> 00:24:34,800
nonetheless, it succeeded
in saving much of the forest.


340
00:24:36,160 --> 00:24:39,320
And today, in spite of the dreadful
civil wars that have


341
00:24:39,320 --> 00:24:41,560
since devastated Rwanda,


342
00:24:41,560 --> 00:24:45,280
there are twice as many gorillas
as there were when we were there.


343
00:24:47,160 --> 00:24:50,000
But they are still threatened
because of the great


344
00:24:50,000 --> 00:24:54,280
speed at which the human population
of the region is increasing.


345
00:24:54,280 --> 00:24:57,000
And that danger is, in fact,
a global one.


346
00:24:59,600 --> 00:25:02,440
You and I belong to the most
widespread


347
00:25:02,440 --> 00:25:04,760
and dominant
species of animal on Earth.


348
00:25:06,000 --> 00:25:09,480
We live on the icecaps at the Pole
and in the tropical jungles


349
00:25:09,480 --> 00:25:12,960
at the equator. We have climbed
the highest mountain and dived


350
00:25:12,960 --> 00:25:17,720
deep into the seas. We've even left
the Earth and set foot on the Moon.


351
00:25:18,920 --> 00:25:22,000
And we're certainly the most
numerous, large animal.


352
00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:26,120
There are something like
4,000 million of us today


353
00:25:26,120 --> 00:25:29,400
and we've reached this position
with meteoric speed.


354
00:25:30,600 --> 00:25:34,160
It's all happened within
the last 2,000 years or so.


355
00:25:34,160 --> 00:25:38,760
We seem to have broken loose
from the restrictions that have


356
00:25:38,760 --> 00:25:41,920
governed the activities
and numbers of other animals.


357
00:25:44,120 --> 00:25:48,280
That was St Peter's Square
in Rome in 1978.


358
00:25:48,280 --> 00:25:51,640
I said then that there
were 4,000 million - that is


359
00:25:51,640 --> 00:25:57,800
four billion of us on this planet,
twice as many as when I was born.


360
00:25:59,640 --> 00:26:02,240
Today, that has nearly
doubled yet again.


361
00:26:02,240 --> 00:26:05,440
There are now over seven billion
of us


362
00:26:05,440 --> 00:26:09,720
and by some estimates, there may
be nine billion in 2050.


363
00:26:18,960 --> 00:26:22,800
That growth is largely attributable
to medical advances


364
00:26:22,800 --> 00:26:26,720
and to the highly efficient ways
we have found to grow our food.


365
00:26:29,960 --> 00:26:34,480
In just a few thousand years,
the revolution of agriculture has


366
00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:37,600
spread to virtually
all human societies.


367
00:26:37,600 --> 00:26:41,800
Today, over a third of the surface
of the land is devoted to


368
00:26:41,800 --> 00:26:45,040
producing food for human beings.


369
00:26:45,040 --> 00:26:48,640
And that has changed some landscapes
in the most dramatic way.


370
00:27:00,160 --> 00:27:03,840
Our scientific and technological
ingenuity has enormously


371
00:27:03,840 --> 00:27:07,400
increased agricultural
productivity in the last 60 years.


372
00:27:08,440 --> 00:27:11,720
World grain production has
more than tripled.


373
00:27:11,720 --> 00:27:13,720
But even that has not been able to


374
00:27:13,720 --> 00:27:17,560
keep pace with the needs of the
world's growing human population.


375
00:27:20,440 --> 00:27:22,080
In some parts of the world,


376
00:27:22,080 --> 00:27:26,160
the natural forest was cleared
for agriculture many centuries ago.


377
00:27:27,920 --> 00:27:32,160
But elsewhere, that transformation
has happened in my lifetime.


378
00:27:33,760 --> 00:27:40,480
When I first came to Borneo in 1956,
all this was rainforest.


379
00:27:41,680 --> 00:27:45,160
Now, all those trees have gone.


380
00:27:47,320 --> 00:27:50,720
The logging industry took
out the wood.


381
00:27:50,720 --> 00:27:53,880
The palm oil industry cleared
what remained of the forest


382
00:27:53,880 --> 00:27:57,640
and replaced it with its own
uniform plantations.


383
00:28:01,880 --> 00:28:04,600
All those extra human
mouths have to be fed,


384
00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:06,400
and the country needs the cash.


385
00:28:07,600 --> 00:28:10,960
But the effect on the natural world
has been catastrophic.


386
00:28:14,120 --> 00:28:18,040
Few have suffered more than
the orangutans.


387
00:28:18,040 --> 00:28:21,680
Many adults were killed
as the forest was cleared.


388
00:28:21,680 --> 00:28:23,800
If their babies didn't die
with them,


389
00:28:23,800 --> 00:28:26,560
then they were usually taken and
sold as pets.


390
00:28:28,040 --> 00:28:30,680
A few fortunate ones ended
up in sanctuaries,


391
00:28:30,680 --> 00:28:34,240
like this one at Sepilok.


392
00:28:34,240 --> 00:28:38,920
These baby orangs are orphans,
mostly rescued from the pet trade.


393
00:28:39,920 --> 00:28:45,240
It's easy to see why they make such
engaging pets when they're young.


394
00:28:45,240 --> 00:28:48,680
Indeed, when I was here
50 years ago,


395
00:28:48,680 --> 00:28:52,200
I had one as a pet,
which I became very fond of.


396
00:28:53,800 --> 00:28:57,000
'His mother had been killed
by a villager as she raided


397
00:28:57,000 --> 00:28:59,080
'his banana plantation.


398
00:29:00,160 --> 00:29:04,160
'London Zoo, I knew, wanted to
establish an orang breeding colony,


399
00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:07,520
'so he joined our floating
menagerie.'


400
00:29:07,520 --> 00:29:11,280
'But it wasn't long before Charlie,
as we had christened him,


401
00:29:11,280 --> 00:29:12,960
'began to calm down.


402
00:29:12,960 --> 00:29:16,000
'Slowly, we managed to win
his confidence.'


403
00:29:20,080 --> 00:29:24,360
And then, for the first time,
four days after we'd had him,


404
00:29:24,360 --> 00:29:27,160
we encouraged him
to come right outside his cage.


405
00:29:33,400 --> 00:29:38,600
And here is Charlie,
safe and sound back in London.


406
00:29:38,600 --> 00:29:41,600
Hey, Charlie? Charlie?


407
00:29:41,600 --> 00:29:44,520
Whoa-dear, that's it.


408
00:29:44,520 --> 00:29:47,800
And with him is Mr Smith,
the head keeper of the Monkey House.


409
00:29:47,800 --> 00:29:48,960
And how is he, Mr Smith?


410
00:29:48,960 --> 00:29:52,360
Very much recovered from his
long and arduous journey here, David,


411
00:29:52,360 --> 00:29:53,840
and he's going to settle down


412
00:29:53,840 --> 00:29:56,920
and I think he's going to be with us
for a very long time. Good.


413
00:29:56,920 --> 00:29:58,600
And that he was.


414
00:29:58,600 --> 00:30:01,040
And a few years
after his arrival at the zoo,


415
00:30:01,040 --> 00:30:04,480
he took a shine to a young female
who was already there.


416
00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:09,200
Back in 1961, I went into the
Ape House in London Zoo


417
00:30:09,200 --> 00:30:11,320
to see Charlie, as I often did,


418
00:30:11,320 --> 00:30:14,520
and the head keeper came over and
he said,


419
00:30:14,520 --> 00:30:17,920
"I've got good news," he said, "You
are about to become a grandfather."


420
00:30:17,920 --> 00:30:19,200
"Really?" I said.


421
00:30:19,200 --> 00:30:22,360
"Yes," he said, "Your young Charlie
has fathered a baby,


422
00:30:22,360 --> 00:30:25,240
"and it should be born in a few
months' time.


423
00:30:25,240 --> 00:30:27,480
"And as grandfather," he said,


424
00:30:27,480 --> 00:30:30,080
"You have the privilege
of christening it."


425
00:30:30,080 --> 00:30:32,600
So, eventually, I decided
it should be called Bulu,


426
00:30:32,600 --> 00:30:35,280
which in Malay means
little hairy one.


427
00:30:36,880 --> 00:30:39,840
Bulu. Can we have Bulu?


428
00:30:41,120 --> 00:30:44,800
Now, this is Charlie's daughter.


429
00:30:46,520 --> 00:30:49,640
All right, dear, all right,
all right.


430
00:30:49,640 --> 00:30:52,720
'Bulu was the first orangutan
born in Britain


431
00:30:52,720 --> 00:30:55,520
'and she was just as endearing
as Charlie had been.'


432
00:30:57,120 --> 00:31:02,680
I look back on those days when
I had Charlie the baby orang with


433
00:31:02,680 --> 00:31:06,160
mixed feelings, because the fact
of the matter is that these


434
00:31:06,160 --> 00:31:10,720
are not pets, these are wild animals
and they should be in the wild.


435
00:31:12,320 --> 00:31:16,640
The problem is that although
many people in Borneo support the


436
00:31:16,640 --> 00:31:21,280
rehabilitation of orangutan, their
rainforest home continues to be


437
00:31:21,280 --> 00:31:26,080
destroyed as the rest of the world
increases its demand for palm oil.


438
00:31:27,800 --> 00:31:31,520
So, the question that hangs over
these orangs' future is,


439
00:31:31,520 --> 00:31:35,320
whether there will be enough forest
left for them to return to


440
00:31:35,320 --> 00:31:36,640
when they've grown up?


441
00:31:38,920 --> 00:31:42,080
Strong measures will have to be
taken if that is to be so.


442
00:31:49,640 --> 00:31:52,160
There is one place
where our destructive


443
00:31:52,160 --> 00:31:55,640
impact on the planet is less
immediately obvious.


444
00:31:59,240 --> 00:32:00,560
The oceans.


445
00:32:03,200 --> 00:32:06,200
I can see its tail,
just under my boat here,


446
00:32:06,200 --> 00:32:09,760
and it's coming up,
coming up, there!


447
00:32:12,080 --> 00:32:16,520
The blue whale is 100 feet long.


448
00:32:16,520 --> 00:32:19,960
30 metres. Nothing like that can


449
00:32:19,960 --> 00:32:26,760
grow on land because no bone is
strong enough to support such bulk.


450
00:32:26,760 --> 00:32:31,520
Only in the sea can you get such
a huge size


451
00:32:31,520 --> 00:32:35,160
as that magnificent creature.


452
00:32:43,640 --> 00:32:49,880
I had to wait until I was 76 years
old to see my first blue whale.


453
00:32:49,880 --> 00:32:51,440
Part of what made the encounter


454
00:32:51,440 --> 00:32:54,840
so special was that for much
of my lifetime, blue whales were


455
00:32:54,840 --> 00:32:57,760
being killed at such
a rate that it seemed quite


456
00:32:57,760 --> 00:33:01,440
possible that they would become
extinct before I ever saw one.


457
00:33:03,560 --> 00:33:07,400
The fact that they have survived
is a conservation triumph,


458
00:33:07,400 --> 00:33:10,680
and that only happened because
there was a fundamental change


459
00:33:10,680 --> 00:33:13,600
worldwide in people's
attitudes to whales.


460
00:33:18,920 --> 00:33:21,720
Men had hunted whales for centuries,


461
00:33:21,720 --> 00:33:25,240
primarily for the sake
of the oil in their blubber.


462
00:33:25,240 --> 00:33:27,600
And the skeletons of just
a few of them


463
00:33:27,600 --> 00:33:31,160
ended up here
in the Natural History Museum.


464
00:33:33,280 --> 00:33:38,480
When I was growing up, whale
products were used mostly in food.


465
00:33:38,480 --> 00:33:42,040
I must have unconsciously eaten
a fair amount of blubber


466
00:33:42,040 --> 00:33:45,160
because it was
an ingredient of margarine,


467
00:33:45,160 --> 00:33:49,000
and during the War, when meat was
really scarce, I certainly ate


468
00:33:49,000 --> 00:33:54,640
what was euphemistically called
Arctic steak, whale meat.


469
00:33:54,640 --> 00:33:58,760
But it never occurred to me that
whales could actually be endangered.


470
00:34:01,240 --> 00:34:03,040
But improved methods of tracking


471
00:34:03,040 --> 00:34:06,480
and killing whales was
reducing their numbers alarmingly.


472
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:11,960
600 yards of rope are drawn out in
the wounded giant's death struggle.


473
00:34:13,080 --> 00:34:18,000
By the 1960s, there were fewer
than 2,000 blue whales surviving,


474
00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:21,640
just 1% of their probable
original population.


475
00:34:22,880 --> 00:34:25,600
The species seemed headed
towards extinction,


476
00:34:25,600 --> 00:34:29,840
until whaling nations finally banned
the hunting of blue whales.


477
00:34:33,080 --> 00:34:36,200
What changed the fortunes
of the other great whales were


478
00:34:36,200 --> 00:34:41,360
anti-whaling campaigners who turned
whole nations against the industry.


479
00:34:41,360 --> 00:34:45,560
And once again,
Peter Scott helped show the way.


480
00:34:45,560 --> 00:34:48,240
It was Peter Scott who first made me


481
00:34:48,240 --> 00:34:53,360
and many, many others aware
of the plight of the great whales.


482
00:34:53,360 --> 00:34:57,720
By the 1970s, he and other
activists, like Greenpeace, were


483
00:34:57,720 --> 00:35:01,480
at the forefront of the campaigns
to prevent their slaughter.


484
00:35:02,520 --> 00:35:04,920
'It was an issue that
I could not avoid.'


485
00:35:07,240 --> 00:35:12,880
This beautiful, intelligent,
astounding creature


486
00:35:12,880 --> 00:35:14,440
is a killer whale.


487
00:35:14,440 --> 00:35:17,560
There are about 80 different
kinds of whales in the world.


488
00:35:17,560 --> 00:35:22,760
Whales, of course, are warm blooded,
like ourselves


489
00:35:22,760 --> 00:35:27,240
and, as we are belatedly beginning
to discover, extremely intelligent.


490
00:35:27,240 --> 00:35:31,200
Surely they are among the most
fascinating creatures in the world.


491
00:35:32,320 --> 00:35:36,320
The film that follows is
made by a group of people who


492
00:35:36,320 --> 00:35:40,440
passionately believe that
the whales should be protected.


493
00:35:40,440 --> 00:35:42,800
They call themselves Greenpeace.


494
00:35:57,680 --> 00:36:02,000
HE SPEAKS RUSSIAN


495
00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:05,040
Hello, Vostok, we are Canadian.


496
00:36:07,000 --> 00:36:11,720
We are asking you, from your
position of strength and power,


497
00:36:11,720 --> 00:36:13,720
to grant us the following request.


498
00:36:14,880 --> 00:36:18,440
Please, stop killing the whales.


499
00:36:18,440 --> 00:36:21,720
We are men and women
and we speak for children


500
00:36:21,720 --> 00:36:26,840
and we're all saying, "Please, stop
killing the whales."


501
00:36:26,840 --> 00:36:31,920
It would take nearly another
decade of activism by Greenpeace,


502
00:36:31,920 --> 00:36:35,480
and patient negotiation
by Peter Scott and others,


503
00:36:35,480 --> 00:36:40,440
before a total ban on commercial
whaling came into force.


504
00:36:40,440 --> 00:36:45,440
Since 1986, whales have only been
legally killed by indigenous


505
00:36:45,440 --> 00:36:48,960
communities or for scientific
purposes.


506
00:36:51,440 --> 00:36:54,960
I remember very vividly
Peter saying to me once,


507
00:36:54,960 --> 00:36:56,960
"I will die a happy man


508
00:36:56,960 --> 00:37:01,520
"if I can think that we have saved
the great whales."


509
00:37:01,520 --> 00:37:04,720
Well, as far as the blue whale
is concerned,


510
00:37:04,720 --> 00:37:07,960
we have gone a long way
to achieving that ambition.


511
00:37:11,240 --> 00:37:14,720
Today, the world's blue whale
population appears to be


512
00:37:14,720 --> 00:37:15,920
recovering slowly.


513
00:37:17,040 --> 00:37:20,560
It has doubled in the last 50 years
to perhaps as many as 4,500.


514
00:37:29,880 --> 00:37:32,680
Of course, it's not just
the big, charismatic species


515
00:37:32,680 --> 00:37:34,480
that we are exterminating.


516
00:37:34,480 --> 00:37:36,760
Life on earth is a complex web


517
00:37:36,760 --> 00:37:41,080
and we ignore the millions of tiny
creatures in it at our peril.


518
00:37:41,080 --> 00:37:44,360
One kind of animal is right
now in the grip of the greatest


519
00:37:44,360 --> 00:37:47,840
extinction event since the
disappearance of the dinosaurs -


520
00:37:47,840 --> 00:37:50,880
animals like this, amphibians.


521
00:37:50,880 --> 00:37:55,880
Globally the numbers of amphibians
are declining at an alarming rate.


522
00:37:55,880 --> 00:37:59,280
One third of all species are
now critically endangered.


523
00:38:02,200 --> 00:38:05,720
In the rainforest of Costa Rica
in the late '70s,


524
00:38:05,720 --> 00:38:08,760
we filmed the Monteverde Toad.


525
00:38:08,760 --> 00:38:14,040
Ten years later, inexplicably,
it had become extinct.


526
00:38:14,040 --> 00:38:17,360
It was only in the last few
years that the mystery of what


527
00:38:17,360 --> 00:38:22,200
killed the toad was finally solved
and that was not before many


528
00:38:22,200 --> 00:38:26,400
other species of amphibians
had also died out.


529
00:38:26,400 --> 00:38:30,680
In fact, while we were filming
Life In Cold Blood in 2007,


530
00:38:30,680 --> 00:38:33,840
I actually witnessed the extinction
in the wild


531
00:38:33,840 --> 00:38:36,400
of the Panamanian golden frog,


532
00:38:36,400 --> 00:38:39,160
which fell victim to
the same insidious killer.


533
00:38:41,880 --> 00:38:46,160
Individual males set up their
territories beside the river and


534
00:38:46,160 --> 00:38:47,360
then wait for the females


535
00:38:47,360 --> 00:38:50,680
to turn up,
and since good positions for the


536
00:38:50,680 --> 00:38:55,440
territory are not common they may
have to hold them against intruders.


537
00:38:57,760 --> 00:38:59,080
And here one comes.


538
00:39:01,520 --> 00:39:05,440
Just in case his call is inaudible
he makes his message clear


539
00:39:05,440 --> 00:39:07,200
with a wave.


540
00:39:13,440 --> 00:39:15,480
And his rival waves back.


541
00:39:18,040 --> 00:39:21,320
He repeats his message
so there's no misunderstanding.


542
00:39:25,120 --> 00:39:29,880
Sadly, there are no longer any
Panamanian golden frogs waving


543
00:39:29,880 --> 00:39:35,440
in the wild and the disease that
killed them is now sweeping round


544
00:39:35,440 --> 00:39:39,760
the world, exterminating hundreds
of different species of amphibians.


545
00:39:41,480 --> 00:39:43,000
The killer is a fungus.


546
00:39:44,360 --> 00:39:45,680
It's highly infectious


547
00:39:45,680 --> 00:39:49,040
and believed to have originated
in South Africa, from where it


548
00:39:49,040 --> 00:39:52,760
was transported by the international
trade in captive animals.


549
00:39:54,200 --> 00:39:57,200
It was spreading across Panama
while we were filming


550
00:39:57,200 --> 00:40:00,360
and when we had finished, scientists
collected the last few


551
00:40:00,360 --> 00:40:03,640
survivors and took them
into a specially quarantined


552
00:40:03,640 --> 00:40:07,840
building where other endangered
amphibians were being kept.


553
00:40:09,200 --> 00:40:11,040
Here they may breed and then


554
00:40:11,040 --> 00:40:14,800
if a cure for the fungus is found
or it runs its course in the wild,


555
00:40:14,800 --> 00:40:17,480
the frogs may be returned
to their former home.


556
00:40:25,600 --> 00:40:29,440
In the last 60 years I've come face
to face with many species


557
00:40:29,440 --> 00:40:30,760
that we've put at risk.


558
00:40:31,760 --> 00:40:34,560
Sea otters.


559
00:40:34,560 --> 00:40:35,880
Chimpanzee.


560
00:40:42,800 --> 00:40:44,080
Manatee.


561
00:40:45,200 --> 00:40:49,680
Sadly this magnificent animal
is getting rarer and rarer.


562
00:40:50,680 --> 00:40:53,600
'How many of these wonderful
things will still


563
00:40:53,600 --> 00:40:56,760
'be around in another 60 years?'


564
00:40:56,760 --> 00:40:58,680
What an extraordinary creature.


565
00:41:01,560 --> 00:41:05,240
Although the threat to the natural
world from humanity has never


566
00:41:05,240 --> 00:41:08,400
been greater than it is today
there are nonetheless


567
00:41:08,400 --> 00:41:11,000
causes for hope here and there.


568
00:41:11,000 --> 00:41:12,520
In recent decades,


569
00:41:12,520 --> 00:41:17,000
when people have become involved
with the local population of animals


570
00:41:17,000 --> 00:41:21,280
they have started to take part
in the conservation process and


571
00:41:21,280 --> 00:41:25,400
that's certainly the case here in
Borneo in the caves at Gomantong.


572
00:41:26,480 --> 00:41:28,040
The only visitors here


573
00:41:28,040 --> 00:41:33,080
when we first came in 1972 were
the local people and the people


574
00:41:33,080 --> 00:41:37,280
came to the cave for one particular
and extraordinary purpose.


575
00:41:44,280 --> 00:41:47,880
They collect what is surely
one of the strangest commodities to


576
00:41:47,880 --> 00:41:49,440
be found in any cuisine.


577
00:41:50,840 --> 00:41:54,360
It's so valuable that they
risk their lives to get it.


578
00:41:58,080 --> 00:42:01,640
They are harvesting the nests that
swiftlets construct


579
00:42:01,640 --> 00:42:03,720
using their own glutinous spittle.


580
00:42:07,880 --> 00:42:13,640
And this is the end product
of all this labour and sweat


581
00:42:13,640 --> 00:42:16,640
and danger and sheer courage.


582
00:42:16,640 --> 00:42:19,240
One can't help wondering who it was
who first looked at these


583
00:42:19,240 --> 00:42:21,240
extraordinary objects and said,


584
00:42:21,240 --> 00:42:23,840
"That'd be great for making soup
out of,"


585
00:42:23,840 --> 00:42:27,760
but whoever he was he lived
over 1,000 years ago because


586
00:42:27,760 --> 00:42:31,520
there are Chinese records in the
9th and 10th centuries which speak


587
00:42:31,520 --> 00:42:37,000
of the wonderful delicacy of birds'
nests that you can get from Borneo.


588
00:42:41,640 --> 00:42:43,920
I wanted to see what all
the fuss was about


589
00:42:43,920 --> 00:42:47,160
so I went into a local restaurant
in Sandakan


590
00:42:47,160 --> 00:42:51,400
to see what birds' nest soup
actually tastes like.


591
00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:53,800
The consistency perhaps
is a little odd,


592
00:42:53,800 --> 00:42:59,440
it's a little sort of gelatinous
but for the rest of it,


593
00:42:59,440 --> 00:43:05,600
well I'm afraid there is one great
secret about birds' nests,


594
00:43:05,600 --> 00:43:10,960
the fact of the matter is that pure
birds' nests taste of nothing


595
00:43:10,960 --> 00:43:15,000
whatsoever, provided that is,
it's been well cleaned.


596
00:43:17,720 --> 00:43:20,440
Even in the '70s
the birds' nests were


597
00:43:20,440 --> 00:43:23,360
so valuable that there was
an obvious risk that the


598
00:43:23,360 --> 00:43:25,640
cave would be overexploited.


599
00:43:25,640 --> 00:43:28,400
But today that risk is even greater.


600
00:43:28,400 --> 00:43:32,760
A nest like this is
worth as much as £100.


601
00:43:32,760 --> 00:43:36,120
If you take too many of them
then the birds will have nowhere


602
00:43:36,120 --> 00:43:41,440
to raise their young and the colony
is doomed, but a total ban


603
00:43:41,440 --> 00:43:45,840
would deprive the local people of a
very important part of their income.


604
00:43:48,160 --> 00:43:50,040
So a plan was agreed.


605
00:43:51,960 --> 00:43:56,800
Some caves should be
regularly harvested,


606
00:43:56,800 --> 00:43:59,720
others should be protected
from any human interference,


607
00:43:59,720 --> 00:44:05,440
and one should be open
for the public to visit and wonder.


608
00:44:05,440 --> 00:44:09,800
It's an almost ideal situation -
the local economy benefits,


609
00:44:09,800 --> 00:44:14,040
the wildlife benefits
and an ancient tradition, with luck,


610
00:44:14,040 --> 00:44:16,120
is kept alive for many
years to come.


611
00:44:24,280 --> 00:44:28,240
Other creatures in Borneo are now
also being protected by people


612
00:44:28,240 --> 00:44:29,840
who once put them in danger.


613
00:44:33,960 --> 00:44:38,440
This is Selingan Island
off the northern coast of Borneo


614
00:44:38,440 --> 00:44:42,880
and turtles come up here onto
beaches like this at night


615
00:44:42,880 --> 00:44:45,240
in order to lay their eggs.


616
00:44:45,240 --> 00:44:47,960
And back in the 1950s, local people


617
00:44:47,960 --> 00:44:53,120
would come to such places in order
to dig up those eggs and eat them.


618
00:44:53,120 --> 00:44:56,400
And I have to admit they weren't
the only people to do that.


619
00:45:01,240 --> 00:45:04,120
If turtles use this beach it
occurred to me that there


620
00:45:04,120 --> 00:45:07,680
might be a chance that we could find
a turtles nest with eggs,


621
00:45:07,680 --> 00:45:11,720
which would be a very welcome
addition to the rice, bananas and


622
00:45:11,720 --> 00:45:15,840
bully beef on which we'd been living
almost entirely for the past week.


623
00:45:21,680 --> 00:45:25,280
And here, buried three feet deep,
were the eggs.


624
00:45:27,360 --> 00:45:32,040
There were 88 eggs in that nest,
enough to provide us with breakfast


625
00:45:32,040 --> 00:45:37,080
for many days to come, and they were
all produced by one female turtle.


626
00:45:38,520 --> 00:45:41,000
'Looking back it all seems
rather shocking,


627
00:45:41,000 --> 00:45:44,120
'and I hadn't got a clue
how to cook them.'


628
00:45:44,120 --> 00:45:46,280
'We had cheerfully
added as much salt as


629
00:45:46,280 --> 00:45:48,480
'if we were dealing with
chickens' eggs.'


630
00:45:50,320 --> 00:45:55,000
'The result,
though no doubt very nourishing,


631
00:45:55,000 --> 00:45:57,200
'wasn't, I'm afraid,
particularly delicious.'


632
00:46:00,400 --> 00:46:03,320
Turtle eggs may not have
been to my taste


633
00:46:03,320 --> 00:46:05,280
but the local people loved them,


634
00:46:05,280 --> 00:46:09,160
and they were an important source
not only of nutriment but income.


635
00:46:09,160 --> 00:46:12,040
The trouble was that the human
population was growing


636
00:46:12,040 --> 00:46:16,280
so fast that the turtle eggs were
being collected in huge numbers


637
00:46:16,280 --> 00:46:19,360
and turtles worldwide
were in decline.


638
00:46:25,040 --> 00:46:28,160
In the decades that followed,
the Malaysian government


639
00:46:28,160 --> 00:46:30,240
stepped in to save their turtles.


640
00:46:34,120 --> 00:46:36,120
Harvesting the eggs was banned


641
00:46:36,120 --> 00:46:39,920
and a hatchery established
on Selingan Island, which people


642
00:46:39,920 --> 00:46:41,720
visit to see what's going on.


643
00:46:45,720 --> 00:46:49,400
During the breeding season, the eggs
are collected from the beach


644
00:46:49,400 --> 00:46:51,960
and reburied in the hatchery,


645
00:46:51,960 --> 00:46:55,600
each clutch being kept together
inside its own little fence.


646
00:47:00,880 --> 00:47:04,760
But it's only after dark that the
adult turtles reveal themselves,


647
00:47:04,760 --> 00:47:06,200
crawling out of the sea


648
00:47:06,200 --> 00:47:09,800
and laying their eggs to
the delight of the on-lookers.


649
00:47:09,800 --> 00:47:14,440
Maybe another location. Anybody
else? No take picture.


650
00:47:16,760 --> 00:47:20,200
The visitors pay good money
for the privilege of watching the


651
00:47:20,200 --> 00:47:24,240
turtles at close quarters and that
gives an income to the local people.


652
00:47:25,760 --> 00:47:28,400
That's about the age...


653
00:47:28,400 --> 00:47:31,040
Once the eggs hatch,
the youngsters are collected


654
00:47:31,040 --> 00:47:32,640
and taken down to the shore.


655
00:47:37,120 --> 00:47:41,200
Off you go. Off you go.


656
00:47:46,640 --> 00:47:49,760
Millions of baby turtles have now
been released under this


657
00:47:49,760 --> 00:47:52,680
conservation programme
and as a consequence


658
00:47:52,680 --> 00:47:56,560
the population of adult green
turtles here is now increasing.


659
00:48:00,480 --> 00:48:03,000
But the survival of green turtles
needs more


660
00:48:03,000 --> 00:48:06,720
than their protection by local
people at their nesting beaches.


661
00:48:12,240 --> 00:48:13,760
Turtles migrate.


662
00:48:13,760 --> 00:48:18,360
They swim across national borders
into unprotected foreign waters


663
00:48:18,360 --> 00:48:19,880
and that can be a problem.


664
00:48:26,360 --> 00:48:30,200
It's now clear that many
conservation projects will only


665
00:48:30,200 --> 00:48:35,200
succeed in the long term if they
transcend national boundaries and


666
00:48:35,200 --> 00:48:40,520
allow wildlife to cross frontiers
without hindrance, and that's


667
00:48:40,520 --> 00:48:44,680
exactly what's happening here in the
rainforest in the island of Borneo.


668
00:48:45,920 --> 00:48:51,080
Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei
signed the Heart of Borneo agreement


669
00:48:51,080 --> 00:48:55,480
in 2007, declaring
that the rainforest will be


670
00:48:55,480 --> 00:49:00,920
protected while allowing sustainable
use and access by local people.


671
00:49:00,920 --> 00:49:04,280
This sort of international
cross-border cooperation is


672
00:49:04,280 --> 00:49:07,640
vital if we are to safeguard
an area of wildlife


673
00:49:07,640 --> 00:49:10,160
and ultimately
the health of the planet.


674
00:49:12,560 --> 00:49:16,680
And thinking about the health of the
planet as a whole was not something


675
00:49:16,680 --> 00:49:22,680
many people did until one truly
extraordinary and historic event.


676
00:49:22,680 --> 00:49:24,240
The engines are armed.


677
00:49:24,240 --> 00:49:29,040
Four, three, two, one, zero.


678
00:49:29,040 --> 00:49:32,280
We have commit. We have...we have
lift off.


679
00:49:32,280 --> 00:49:37,200
Lift off at 7:51 AM
Eastern Standard Time.


680
00:49:37,200 --> 00:49:41,000
Pictures of the launch of Apollo 8
arrived in Britain


681
00:49:41,000 --> 00:49:46,640
back in 1968 by way of the BBC's
central control room here in the


682
00:49:46,640 --> 00:49:50,760
Television Centre in London where
I had a job as a network controller.


683
00:49:52,440 --> 00:49:54,440
What you
see at the top is the North Pole,


684
00:49:54,440 --> 00:49:59,480
in the centre, just forward to
the centre is South America,


685
00:49:59,480 --> 00:50:01,520
all the way down to Cape Horn.


686
00:50:01,520 --> 00:50:05,080
Those images were instrumental
in changing the way that


687
00:50:05,080 --> 00:50:06,880
many of us viewed the planet.


688
00:50:06,880 --> 00:50:09,520
We began to think globally.


689
00:50:12,440 --> 00:50:15,880
Looking at the earth from
outer space made us


690
00:50:15,880 --> 00:50:21,920
realise just how small our world is
and how finite its resources.


691
00:50:23,440 --> 00:50:27,920
It also helped us understand that we
have to cherish not just


692
00:50:27,920 --> 00:50:32,960
individual species, nor even
individual patches of wilderness


693
00:50:32,960 --> 00:50:37,600
but the whole planet as a single
integrated ecosystem.


694
00:50:40,720 --> 00:50:45,080
But back in 1968, few people could
imagine that the


695
00:50:45,080 --> 00:50:47,920
activities of just one species,
our own,


696
00:50:47,920 --> 00:50:51,720
could interfere with
the way that the planet worked.


697
00:50:51,720 --> 00:50:54,880
That we could actually change
the climate of the earth.


698
00:51:02,200 --> 00:51:06,240
It was in the oceans that this
threat first became apparent.


699
00:51:09,120 --> 00:51:12,120
I'll never forget the first time
I put my head


700
00:51:12,120 --> 00:51:16,800
beneath the surface of the sea
and saw all around me a coral reef


701
00:51:16,800 --> 00:51:22,040
'in all its complexity and richness,
and almost unbelievable beauty.'


702
00:51:24,800 --> 00:51:27,880
'I have been enthralled by coral
reefs ever since.'


703
00:51:33,120 --> 00:51:39,800
If the jungle is the place on land
where there are the greatest


704
00:51:39,800 --> 00:51:46,960
number and the greatest
variety of life then this,


705
00:51:46,960 --> 00:51:51,320
the coral reef,
is surely the jungle of the sea.


706
00:51:55,400 --> 00:51:58,880
Although coral reefs occupy
just 1% of the oceans


707
00:51:58,880 --> 00:52:01,320
they support
a quarter of all their fish.


708
00:52:05,840 --> 00:52:09,400
The fragility of these complex
ecosystems suddenly became


709
00:52:09,400 --> 00:52:11,760
alarmingly clear in 1998.


710
00:52:14,200 --> 00:52:19,080
Almost overnight, in oceans all
round the globe, coral turned white.


711
00:52:20,440 --> 00:52:22,760
The temperature of the sea had risen


712
00:52:22,760 --> 00:52:26,640
and it had devastated
16% of the world's coral reefs.


713
00:52:28,040 --> 00:52:31,960
Even the rise of a single degree
centigrade can be enough to


714
00:52:31,960 --> 00:52:34,440
kill the organisms that
build the coral,


715
00:52:34,440 --> 00:52:37,440
leaving their limestone
skeletons a naked white.


716
00:52:39,160 --> 00:52:42,240
If the rise is brief then
the coral can recover,


717
00:52:42,240 --> 00:52:46,760
but if it is sustained then
the coral may die completely


718
00:52:46,760 --> 00:52:50,600
and this coral bleaching
hints at an even bigger problem.


719
00:52:52,320 --> 00:52:55,360
The average temperature
of our planet has


720
00:52:55,360 --> 00:52:59,240
increased by 0.7 degrees centigrade
over the last century


721
00:52:59,240 --> 00:53:02,200
and it seems likely to rise
still further


722
00:53:02,200 --> 00:53:05,400
and that could lead to
changes in sea level.


723
00:53:07,840 --> 00:53:10,680
Even a very small rise in sea
temperature


724
00:53:10,680 --> 00:53:13,240
could have a devastating effect.


725
00:53:13,240 --> 00:53:17,120
Small islands like the one behind me
could be totally submerged.


726
00:53:17,120 --> 00:53:20,120
Major cities could be at risk.


727
00:53:20,120 --> 00:53:24,280
And the reason for that lies far
away from here where the


728
00:53:24,280 --> 00:53:28,800
change is already beginning to be
seen, at the Poles.


729
00:53:33,440 --> 00:53:39,800
I am at the very centre of the great
white continent, Antarctica.


730
00:53:39,800 --> 00:53:43,160
The South Pole
is about half a mile away.


731
00:53:43,160 --> 00:53:48,120
For 1,000 miles in all directions
there is nothing but ice.


732
00:53:49,920 --> 00:53:55,600
This white wilderness,
this emptiness is the North Pole.


733
00:53:55,600 --> 00:53:59,720
I'm standing in the middle
of a frozen ocean.


734
00:54:02,200 --> 00:54:06,040
I have been lucky enough to
travel in the polar regions several


735
00:54:06,040 --> 00:54:10,400
times in the last 30 years, making
films about their rich wildlife.


736
00:54:11,640 --> 00:54:14,840
His sole object in life
at the moment is to make quite


737
00:54:14,840 --> 00:54:19,600
sure that he and he alone mates with
every single one of them


738
00:54:19,600 --> 00:54:22,240
and for that he must fight.


739
00:54:22,240 --> 00:54:29,240
It's heavier even than...heavier
than the adult.


740
00:54:29,240 --> 00:54:35,080
These parent birds reunite once
they come back here onto their own


741
00:54:35,080 --> 00:54:37,920
patch of...patch of shingle.


742
00:54:37,920 --> 00:54:41,880
And although the Antarctic is
virtually lifeless over vast areas,


743
00:54:41,880 --> 00:54:45,640
there are one or two small oases
that teem with life.


744
00:54:46,760 --> 00:54:50,680
'Slowly I began to realise that
things were changing in ways


745
00:54:50,680 --> 00:54:53,760
'that will affect the wildlife
and eventually ourselves no


746
00:54:53,760 --> 00:54:59,360
'matter how far away from the Poles
we might be.'


747
00:55:09,080 --> 00:55:14,800
This is the ice that covered
the Arctic Ocean in September 1980.


748
00:55:14,800 --> 00:55:18,400
Since then there has been
a 30% reduction


749
00:55:18,400 --> 00:55:20,760
in the area covered by ice.


750
00:55:20,760 --> 00:55:25,920
And not only that, what ice remains
is only half as thick as it was.


751
00:55:28,280 --> 00:55:32,120
If the sea ice continues to
melt at this rate, there will be


752
00:55:32,120 --> 00:55:35,440
open ocean in the summer
at the North Pole within decades.


753
00:55:41,440 --> 00:55:44,600
The very whiteness
of the snow and ice


754
00:55:44,600 --> 00:55:47,600
contributes to the pace of change.


755
00:55:47,600 --> 00:55:53,160
Light bouncing off it takes 90% of
the sun's energy back into space,


756
00:55:53,160 --> 00:55:56,200
and this has helped to keep
the planet cool.


757
00:55:59,000 --> 00:56:03,200
But when the sea ice melts,
it exposes the dark sea water.


758
00:56:03,200 --> 00:56:06,640
That doesn't reflect the sun's heat,
it absorbs it,


759
00:56:06,640 --> 00:56:08,720
so the temperature of the sea rises.


760
00:56:13,480 --> 00:56:15,840
Here in the Arctic
the climate is warming


761
00:56:15,840 --> 00:56:19,120
twice as fast as the rest
of the earth and that could have


762
00:56:19,120 --> 00:56:24,240
global consequences including
rises in sea level around the world.


763
00:56:34,920 --> 00:56:40,160
Climate change is already affecting
the lives of not only wild animals


764
00:56:40,160 --> 00:56:43,320
but ourselves, all over the globe.


765
00:56:55,200 --> 00:56:59,680
I have spent my life filming
the natural world and I've


766
00:56:59,680 --> 00:57:04,200
travelled to some pretty remote and
exciting places in order to do so.


767
00:57:04,200 --> 00:57:07,040
I've enjoyed every minute of it.


768
00:57:07,040 --> 00:57:11,800
But every journey seems to have got
quicker and shorter,


769
00:57:11,800 --> 00:57:13,880
it's as though the world has shrunk.


770
00:57:15,560 --> 00:57:18,800
But then, sadly,
so have the wild places.


771
00:57:25,160 --> 00:57:29,360
The increasing size of the human
population is having


772
00:57:29,360 --> 00:57:32,960
a devastating
effect on the natural world.


773
00:57:32,960 --> 00:57:36,680
But, fortunately,
people are becoming aware of that


774
00:57:36,680 --> 00:57:40,000
and doing something about it
and I'd like to think that


775
00:57:40,000 --> 00:57:43,200
natural history films have
helped in that process.


776
00:57:44,240 --> 00:57:49,120
And there are some signs of hope -
animals that I thought might become


777
00:57:49,120 --> 00:57:53,440
extinct in my lifetime are still
with us and growing in numbers.


778
00:57:57,600 --> 00:58:01,840
We now have a better understanding
of the natural world than ever.


779
00:58:01,840 --> 00:58:05,720
We know how best to protect
it for future generations.


780
00:58:07,000 --> 00:58:09,640
I can only hope that we will.


781
00:58:29,200 --> 00:58:32,240
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