You know those incredible looking nature documentaries Best Buy, or any other generic electronics and appliance store, has playing on those huge overpriced HDTVs it's trying to sell? Chances are they're from the BBCs increasingly large selection of superbly filmed series (like Planet Earth or Life) that highlights one aspect or another of the amazing planet we live on. Planet Earth was epic in its undertaking and Life was utterly breathtaking, and now they've gone and done it again with their series Human Planet, which started on April 17th and is running just three more nights on the Discovery Channel at 7pm (until the 24th). If you miss it now, you can buy (or rent) it on DVD and Blu-ray as of the 26th (just two days later), but if you can watch it right now just by turning on the TV...
Before we move on, here's the trailer, just to give you a taste.
Seriously, why aren't you watching this? If you're the type that can only be bothered to tune in for Shark Week (okay, good for you), you might want to consider amending that tendency, just this once, to try out this documentary series chronicling the amazing diversity of human lifestyles that constitute the wildly different cultures in varying terrains. I know a shark ripping a seal to pieces in slow-motion is incredible, but there's something truly sublime about watching a man jump out of a canoe with a harpoon two times the length of his body to kill a whale. That's right. A man. In a canoe. Killing a whale. And it's not that Japanese-style way that's awful, it's the pure-survival version that gives it a sense of nobility.
Come on. Give it a try.
From the frozen Arctic to steamy rainforests, from tiny islands in vast oceans to parched deserts, people have found remarkable ways to adapt and survive. We've done this by harnessing our immense courage and ingenuity, learning to live with and utilize the other creatures with which we share these wild places. Human Planet weaves together eighty inspiring stories, many never told before, set to a globally-influenced soundtrack by award-winning composer Nitin Sawhney. Each episode focuses on a particular habitat and reveals how its people have created astonishing solutions in the face of extreme adversity. Finally we visit the urban jungle, where most of us now live, and discover why the connection between humanity and nature here is the most vital of all.
Episode 1: Oceans: Into the Blue
As an air-breathing animal, the human is not built to survive in water. But people have found ways to live an almost aquatic life so they can exploit the sea's riches. From a 'shark-whisperer' in the Pacific to Brazilian fishermen collaborating with dolphins to catch mullet, this journey into the blue reveals astonishing tales of ingenuity and bravery. Two and a half minutes on one breath. Filmed underwater in real-time, a Borneo free-diving spear-fisherman journeys 20 meters down to the sea floor to catch fish. Dive 40 meters down to the dangerous world of the Pa-aling fishermen, where dozens of young men, breathing air through a tangled web of pipes attached to a diesel engine, capture thousands of fish in a vast net. Daredevil Galician barnacle-collectors defy death on the rocks for a catch worth £200 per kilo.
Episode 2: Deserts: Life in the Furnace
Humans can survive for weeks without food, but only days without water: it is the essential element of life. Yet many millions live in parched deserts around the world. This episode discovers how the eternal quest for water brings huge challenges - and ingenious solutions - in the driest places on Earth. On one day of the year the Dogon people of Mali can fish in the sacred water of Lake Antogo. It’s every fisherman for himself, as two thousand men rush into the lake to catch the fish trapped by the evaporating water. When the rain finally arrives in the desert it's a time for flowering and jubilation - and love. The Wodaabe men of Niger put on make-up for an intoxicating courtship dance and beauty contest.
Episode 3: Arctic: Life in the Deep Freeze
The Arctic is the harshest environment on Earth: little food grows, it's dark for months on end, and temperatures stay well below freezing for much of the year. Yet four million people manage to survive here and this episode tells their remarkable stories. In springtime, Amos and Karl-Frederik set out across the sea ice with their dogs to catch a Greenland shark. Inuit mussel-gatherers venture underneath the sea ice at low tide for a perilous race against time as they gather their food.
Episode 4: Jungles: People of the Trees
The rainforest is home to more species of plants and animals than any other habitat on the planet. But for humans, life there is not as easy as it looks. Life in the trees requires great skill, ingenuity and sheer bravery. In Brazil, we join a unique monitoring flight in search of an un-contacted tribe. Deep in the Congo forests, Tete defies death by scaling a giant tree using nothing more than a liana vine, and he must then negotiate an angry swarm of bees - all to collect honey for his family. In West Papua the Korowai tribe show-off their engineering skills by building a high-rise home 35 meters up in the tree tops.
Episode 5: Mountains: Life in Thin Air
From lush cloud forests to bare summits that take your breath away, the higher you climb the tougher life gets on a mountain. In the Altai Mountains in Western Mongolia the vast open spaces make hunting for animals almost impossible, so the locals have forged an astonishing partnership with golden eagles which can do the hunting for them. On the precipitous cliffs of the Simien Mountains of Ethiopia we join a young boy locked in a dramatic battle with fearsome gelada monkeys which are hell-bent on raiding his family's meagre grain harvest.
Episode 6: Grasslands: The Roots of Power
Grasslands feed the world. Over thousands of years, we humans have learned to grow grains on the grasslands and domesticate the creatures that live there. Our success has propelled our population to almost seven billion people. This episode reveals that, even today, life in the 'Garden of Eden' isn't always rosy. Walk with the Dorobo people of Kenya as they bravely attempt to scare off a pride of hungry lions from their freshly caught kill – it’s three men and fifteen lions. In a perfect partnership with nature built up over generations, Maasai children must literally talk to the birds. The honeyguide leads them to find sweet treats, but they'll have to repay the favor.
Episode 7: Rivers: Friend and Foe
They provide the essentials for human life: fresh water, food and even natural highways, but rivers are also often capricious and unpredictable, treacherous and demanding. A fisherman in Laos has self-strung a wire across the Mekong River to reach an island that has one of the richest inlets to fish.
Episode 8: Cities: Surviving the Urban Jungle
Pigeons are an urban pest in our city environments. With a pH of 4.5, their droppings are more acidic than vinegar. One feral pigeon alone can produce up to 12kg of excrement per year, that’s a lot of corrosion to our city buildings. It is unknown exactly how many rats live in New York City but there are well over 96 million. That’s at least 12 to every person. Second to humans, Mexican Free Tailed bats are the biggest population of mammals living in the urban environment. The Congress Street Bridge in Austin houses 1.5 million of them, making it the largest bat colony in North America.
For more, check out the Human Planet Website or find them on Facebook!
