Having finally seen the magnificent 5-disc DVD series of the BBC’s Planet Earth I strongly urge everyone to buy, beg, borrow or steal a copy and see it. Better still, arrange a public screening for friends and acquaintances. It’s important that you should, for it not only shows scenes and places of staggering beauty we are unlikely to ever see with our own eyes, but it shows sights that are fast disappearing from our planet.
Narrator David Attenborough sums it up. “A hundred years ago, there were one and a half billion people on Earth. Now, over six billion crowd our fragile planet. But even so, there are still places barely touched by humanity. This series will take you to the last wildernesses and show you the planet and its wildlife as you have never seen them before.
It does exactly that, stunningly. Produced by the BBC Natural History Unit headed by Alan Fothergill, the man who produced the BBC’s landmark series The Blue Planet in 2001, Planet Earth first aired in 2006 and was four years in the making. At over US$32 million it was the most expensive nature documentary ever commissioned by the BBC, and was co-produced by the Discovery Channel and NHK, who bore 70% of the cost. The series has been an outstanding success, broadcast in over 130 countries. The public loved the epic scale of it, the scenes of new and unusual places and the sheer technical virtuosity of it all.
The series comprises 11 episodes, each featuring a global overview of the different habitat on Earth. At the end of each 50-minute episode, a 10-minute feature takes a behind-the-scenes look at the incredible challenges overcome during filming. To capture all the footage required by the producers, 71 cameramen and women filmed in204 locations in 62 countries on all seven of the world’s continents, spending more than 2,000 days in the field.
Shot in high definition, Planet Earth used state-of the-art time-lapse photography and NASA satellite imaging to awesome effect. To see great deciduous forests blush from Summer to Fall in a matter of seconds is an astonishing sight. Moving in low orbit over Africa seeing it spread out below you from Atlantic to Indian Ocean is staggering. So is the sight of the entire Amazonian Basin from the Atlantic to Andes with the river and network of tributaries a glistening silver streak through the rain forest. Most dramatic of all is the aerial photography. Adapting the latest Hollywood action techniques using a camera housed in what’s called a Heligimbal, a gyroscopically-stabilised device attached to the underside of the helicopter, enabled aerial cameramen to capture rock steady images in amazing close-up of individual creatures from such a height that the animal did not hear the noise. Then, drawing back in long shot, showing the animal in its environment until it becomes but a speck in the landscape, is awe-inspiring technology.
Yes, but…..
And yet…. there is something unsettling about all this recorded beauty and technical virtuosity. There is no doubt the media have in the past several decades done a truly spectacular job of bringing the beauty of our planet and its wildlife to our screens and notice. That is something that we needed and for which we can be grateful. Though we know species are becoming extinct at an accelerating rate and that wildlife habitat is being destroyed at unprecedented speed, there is nevertheless, a curious disconnect. It is as if seeing these beautiful images is somehow enough. Though we know we may never actually see these animals in real life someone has and, having seen them, it is enough. That everything is OK out there. But it’s not true. It is not OK out there. Species matter in more ways than we know and both they and their habitat is disappearing fast. What we may well be admiring before too long are libraries of very pretty archival footage of creatures and landscapes that no longer exist.
Eco-Sermon for the Chattering Classes
The producers of Planet Earth obviously felt something of the sort when, halfway through airing the series back in 2006, they faced criticism from some green campaigners, who said they were glossing over the environmental problems faced by the planet. They defended their approach claiming, almost certainly correctly, that the public did not want to see heavy-handed environmental messages on prime time. Nonetheless they had to admit that while filming they had witnessed first hand scenes of environmental degradation and increasing scarcity of wildlife. The result was the fifth CD in the set, Planet Earth-The Future.
Do not buy or go see a version of Planet Earth without this fifth disc. It is what completes the whole. Without it the result is beautiful, but irredeemably flawed.
Planet Earth – The Future while reprising footage, highlights the conservation issues surrounding some of the species and environments featured in the Planet Earth, using interviews with the filmmakers and eminent figures from the fields of science, conservation, politics and theology. Alas, unlike Planet Earth, which was aired to hundreds of millions Planet earth -The Future will only be seen a few hundreds of thousands, put out as it was on BBC’s highbrow Channel 4 and only included in the BBC DVD set, and not Discovery Channel.
This is a sad because it addresses many of the uncomfortable issues we are going to have to face and the hard choices we are going to have to make. We are not living on this world in a sustainable manner and it cannot go on as it is for much longer. If we are to survive with anything like a life worth living we are going to have to do things differently. Clearly we can only save species and habitat if we convince the people who live in close proximity that it is in their interest to protect it. In other words, eradicate poverty. Clearly we must stop polluting and over fishing our oceans, we must look after our water tables and forests and stop squandering fresh water. We can no longer avoid the fact that there are too many of us. Over time we need to reduce world population by about a half and do it naturally and without coercion. That’s possible through empowerment of women, improved standards of health, education and income. Once fed and gainfully occupied, most of us want our planet to be a beautiful place and to share it with other species.
We are going to have to wean ourselves collectively off our addiction to ever increasing and meaningless consumption. Though all the scientists and wise men interviewed in Planet Earth - The Future said the challenges we faced were pressing and severe, none were pessimistic about our future. They all firmly believed we can transcend materialism and manifest the will to do this.
If not Carbon – what about no fish in the Sea?
To tell the truth, I’m none too clear about this global warming and Co2 being the be all and end all of it. I suspect it is a huge oversimplification and I worry that all the many other aspects of conservation and sustainability may be being overlooked. Nonetheless those of us, who throw out the baby with the bathwater because they doubt some part of the science or because they simply don’t like tree huggers, are doing neither themselves nor us any service.
Whatever the truth of global warming only a cretin would seriously assert the world is headed in an ecologically good and sustainable direction. You have only to look around you in Bali to see the filth and stench from the trash and sewerage now so common to the beaches and highways of South Central Bali. And yet Bali, despite poverty in some areas, is a rich small island. The collective will of its people, if it wished, could solve its problem in a decade and be a model of sustainable development to the world. Despite the efforts of some committed individuals, the essential fact is that the people who stand to gain from continued and untrammeled development of Bali are either without scruple or simply lack the imagination to see that Bali is a finite resource that is progressively losing its appeal to foreign travelers. They actually manage to convince themselves that cosmetic band aids will stave off the day - at least until they move on or retire.
We can’t all be activists and organizers, but we can inform ourselves without pandering to knee-jerk contrarianism or washing our hands in despair at the complexity of it all. We can make a difference in the work place, if we choose. We can use our vote when we have one, we can support the people who are doing something and - there are things we can do as individuals. If nothing else we can decide to tread lightly in this world. If you haven’t already done so, go online someplace and measure your carbon footprint. It’s easily done. And then see what you can do to reduce it.
We are mortal and our planet is doomed anyway, albeit a few billion years down the pike, so we might as well bestir ourselves for whatever time remains to us. Why ever not?
Tom Faunus
Note: anyone wishing to arrange a group viewing of Planet Earth may contact the writer at the e.mail provided.
