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00:24Grasslands are the largest land ecosystems on Earth.
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00:37Monitoring and protecting them is essential,
00:40as they affect the health of our whole planet.
00:55The steppes of Kazakhstan are part of the most extensive grasslands we have left.
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01:07Home to the elusive saiga antelope.
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01:21Scientist Albert Salam Guraev is studying these unusual-looking herbivores.
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01:33In this vast area, it's not that easy to find a saiga.
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01:40Albert's study site covers 13 million acres.
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01:45And the only way of tracking these nomadic antelope is with GPS technology.
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02:00Most people use darts to tranquilize wild animals before collaring them.
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02:28So the team has developed a different technique.
02:39For it to succeed, they need to be as fast and agile as the saiga.
03:10To avoid dangerous levels of stress,
03:13each chase is limited to four minutes per animal.
03:34I have to try again.
04:11Stay up!
04:31I have to try again.
04:47Colors are only secured to healthy young adults.
04:52They should provide the most reliable data over the coming years.
05:03Over the next five days, they must fit 20 collars.
05:16It's worth the effort, as saiga are important animals for the health of the ecosystem.
05:29They graze for 20 hours a day, and that stimulates the growth of fresh grass.
05:39If the saiga were to vanish, the consequences would be catastrophic for the grasslands.
05:55Historically, the saiga was a state resort they use for the meat and skin.
06:02By 2003, unsustainable hunting and outbreaks of disease caused the saiga population to crash to barely 21,000 animals.
06:15One of the fastest declines for a mammal species ever recorded.
06:26Much of Albert's work now is focused on saiga protection across their range.
06:34And GPS collars are the only way to be certain where that is.
06:44Saiga traveled great distances to avoid the cold of winter in the north and the heat of summer in the
06:50south.
06:57The maximum migration we recorded was 1,100 kilometers for one individual.
07:10But human development can block saiga migrations.
07:21Albert's data helps protect these critical routes.
07:27We are proud of our work because based on our tracking data and ground monitoring,
07:34we extend over the five million hectares of protected area.
07:47With safe passage, saiga are making an incredible recovery.
07:55Numbers have just been declared at an astonishing 2.8 million.
08:01The highest ever recorded.
08:18Nothing has ever forgotten the effect of Jacob's study.
08:22Crimson's data.
08:22There are over the five million,ただ the number of children.
08:23There are many different kinds of grasslands in the world.
08:25But they usually have one thing in common.
08:33Grazes.
08:35We gather in their leben in all shapes and sizes.
08:42Our species has given us quite a few followers.
08:43As long as you've been known when he died today.
08:43Their relentless nibbling and trampling stimulates fast growth.
08:54And as the grasses grow, they're doing something amazing.
09:04They absorb carbon from the air.
09:12Which is then transported down into the roots, where some of it is transferred into the soil.
09:24If undisturbed, it can stay there for hundreds of years, locked safely away from the atmosphere.
09:34Where, right now, there's too much of it.
09:43And because grasslands cover around 40% of all land, their potential for storing carbon is immense.
09:55But that can only be realised if the ecosystem is healthy.
10:13Countless species are bound together in a powerful web of life.
10:26Like here, in southwest Uganda, in the rain shadow of the Ruwenzuri Mountains.
10:41Dr. Papetra Akhite is a grassland ecologist.
10:47She's dedicated her life to understanding tropical ecosystems.
10:55Knowledge she passes on to her students.
11:02The life of a teacher is one interesting life.
11:06When I want to inspire the younger people, I take ecology out of the textbook and take them out into
11:14the field, like we are here.
11:15And then you will understand ecology.
11:18Here.
11:19Oh, that's an entire grasshopper there.
11:22Amazing.
11:23Yellow legs.
11:26The grasslands are very rich ecosystems.
11:33The biodiversity within grasslands have always been underestimated.
11:37We have a lot of Uganda cove, which happen to be our, the Uganda national animals.
11:44Waterbuck.
11:46Buffallows.
11:48We have a lot of warthogs.
11:51So there's heavy grazing in grassland ecosystems.
11:57Grasses cope by regrowing quickly.
12:00But in doing so, they draw nutrients and minerals from the ground.
12:07These need replenishing.
12:10And the best source of fertilizer are the animals themselves.
12:24But getting this dung into the soil requires a helping hand from a creature that likes to emerge at night.
12:47Okay, it's now night.
12:49Let's see if there's anyone coming out to do some more building of the mound.
12:56There are some waka termites coming out.
13:00It's actually lovely.
13:05There are more termites living beneath the savannah than there are animals above it.
13:11Between them, they consume a third of all herbivore dung.
13:22The mound is a nest where there's a lot of reproduction.
13:26The more termites we have, the more services we get from them.
13:39As termites recycle the nutrients back into the soil, they complete the relationship between grass and grazers.
13:55In any ecosystem, there is always this interconnection.
13:59Nothing is living in isolation.
14:01So from the smallest thing to the biggest, they actually interlinked.
14:06And their survival is so connected.
14:11Will it come?
14:14She's fearing the light.
14:26As night falls in the savannah, many animals take advantage of the cooler air.
14:35Especially hippos, which can weigh over three tons and eat more than 50 kilograms of grass in a single session.
14:49Their constant mowing suppresses trees and bushes, keeping the grasslands open.
15:04But hippo numbers in Queen Elizabeth National Park are down by 90%.
15:13Recent increases in poaching and disease have decimated the population.
15:24When grazer numbers drop, the landscape responds.
15:30And not in a good way.
15:37Jimmy Kisembo has lived and worked in this park for over 15 years and is witnessing this decline first-hand.
15:54With fewer grazers, bushes are taking over.
16:02And this means there's less grass to eat, unbalancing the savannah even more.
16:12It threatens to destroy this once pristine habitat.
16:24Jimmy Kisembo is here to meet fellow conservationist, Joseph Arinatwe from the Uganda Wildlife Authority.
16:39He leads a team of local community members, pushing back against the takeover.
16:49There are several invasive plant species that are causing a real problem.
16:56But most importantly, this one, which is also called Kalema Njojo.
17:05Kalema Njojo means defeater of elephants.
17:12These animals are on the rise here, due to improved anti-poaching and the recent ban of the elephant ivory
17:20trade.
17:31But even the elephants can't touch Kalema Njojo.
17:36It's far too tough and spiky to eat.
17:47Meaning that what is hard for elephants, nothing can manage it.
18:02Problem plants have taken over an estimated 580 square miles of the park so far.
18:10And less than 2% of this has been cut back.
18:25The work can only be done by hand.
18:33Previous efforts with machinery have spread the seeds and made the problem worse.
18:42These bushes threaten to destroy one of Uganda's greatest wildlife strongholds.
18:55For Joseph and his team, it's a war of attrition.
19:04So, should I hope we are winning this battle?
19:07We have the confidence that we are winning.
19:10And it's just a matter of time and resources.
19:14I wish you good luck.
19:16Otherwise, our park is gone.
19:19We'll be gone if we don't work hard.
19:20It's either now or never.
19:44Some of our greatest wildernesses are beyond the reach of most people.
20:00Tundra means treeless plain.
20:06At this high latitude, it's too cold for forests to survive.
20:22A unique biome of grasses, sedges, mosses and lichens thrives here.
20:39We're out here in North East Greenland.
20:42We are in one of the most remote locations that you can get to.
21:07Professor Torben Christensen leads a team of scientists monitoring this ecosystem.
21:24This valley is only free of snow for three months of the year.
21:31Not long for the team to collect the data that they're after.
21:39It's also the time for tough plants like arctic willow and polar grasses to do all their growing.
21:48During this summer, there's a lot of biological activity here.
21:53And the plants are very fast in utilizing this time where they can do their photosynthesis,
22:00their exchange of carbon with the atmosphere.
22:07An invisible process that Torben and his team are here to assess.
22:15This experiment we're looking at here is a fantastic, very simple technique to measure the exchanges of greenhouse gases
22:23between the ecosystem and the atmosphere.
22:27Did you also check the other one over there?
22:29Yeah.
22:30Nice.
22:30Perfect.
22:35These instruments can calculate both the amount and direction of carbon moving in and out of the ground.
22:44Growing plants absorb it.
22:47But it can also be released from the soil by microbes and bacteria.
22:54If there is more drawdown than released, then we start to get accumulation of carbon.
23:04And that's what the data shows.
23:07That across this vast landscape, the carbon drawdown is massive.
23:23These types of ecosystems, they have been consuming carbon dioxide since the last glacial times.
23:31They are even doing it today.
23:39The carbon that's taken in by the vegetation is building up in the Arctic soils.
24:03The tundra is so important to the planet's climate.
24:07Torben's team wants to know how it could be affected as the world heats up.
24:19Temperatures in the Arctic are rising up to three times faster than anywhere else on the planet.
24:31It's a major problem for the carbon stored in the Earth.
24:40Hermafrost is where the soil is being frozen more than two years in a row.
24:47Here it's been frozen for thousands of years.
24:52It covers 14 million square kilometers in the northern hemisphere.
25:01When the Earth is frozen, the breakdown of organic matter, like dead grasses, slows right down, so the carbon release
25:10is minimal.
25:20But rising temperatures are threatening this ice-bound store.
25:30We have known this area for 28 years, and this collapse that happens right under our feet was quite unexpected.
25:51What's happening here is fascinating, but also a bit frightening.
25:59The foundation was made out of ice.
26:02That ice has now melted.
26:05And this has caused a complete collapse.
26:17With the soil defrosted and exposed to the air, carbon is escaping back into the atmosphere.
26:32A piece like this is a little piece of 1700 billion metric tons of carbon that is stored in the
26:41Arctic at large.
26:46This type of permafrost collapse is happening all around the top of the planet.
27:01The concern is that with the warming that we are causing, we are starting a feedback mechanism
27:09where the warming leads to increased releases of carbon, where the warming leads to increased releases of carbon to the
27:14atmosphere.
27:16And that in turn leads to further warming.
27:23That's a bad trajectory for mankind.
27:33To win this fight, we need to drastically reduce fossil fuel emissions, and support nature in drawing the excess carbon
27:42back down to the Earth.
27:52One group of scientists believe there's an ally that's critical to changing the fortunes of the planet, right below our
28:00feet.
28:04The Netherlands famously allows you to do high-risk research.
28:09We are allowed to try all kinds of new techniques to unlock the secrets of the underground.
28:16Dr. Toby Kears works as part of a team of scientists in an organization called SPUN, the Society for the
28:24Protection of Underground Networks.
28:32Oh, this is beautiful. You have to see this. This is good.
28:37This is what we have here, is a plant root growing in the lab that is colonized by a symbiotic
28:45fungal network that encases the root system.
28:50Mycorrhizal fungi are a class of soil fungi that trade resources with plant roots.
28:57It's a partnership where the plant is feeding carbon into the fungal network in exchange for phosphorus and nitrogen and
29:06all the nutrients that the fungi collect.
29:11The fungal network penetrates into the root system itself and forms these beautiful structures.
29:19The partnership between fungi and plants is one of the oldest on Earth and it underlies basically all terrestrial ecosystems.
29:32To be able to see inside the fungi themselves and to see the nutrient flows, we have to use a
29:38much more powerful microscope.
29:43Toby takes living fungal networks to be imaged at a physics laboratory on the other side of town.
29:57Tom works with really powerful microscopes that can see things that we simply could not see in my lab.
30:05We can see the traffic patterns inside. A lot of the things that are moving are carbon.
30:12It starts to bring us towards an understanding of how carbon can be drawn down into the soil and kept
30:20there.
30:20So now I'm just going to switch to the fluorescence.
30:25Whoa!
30:27It was so cool.
30:28It's so full of carbon.
30:31And it's all flowing.
30:32It's all flowing.
30:35Right now what we're looking at is carbon moving through the living fungal network.
30:42It wasn't until we could start labeling the carbon with fluorescence that the game really started to change.
30:50Because now we were able to pinpoint exactly the carbon inside the network.
30:58This year for the first time we harmonized all the data sets that had ever been published where people actually
31:05measured how much carbon was going from root systems into mycorrhizal fungi.
31:11It's a big number.
31:15Our estimates are about 13 billion tons of CO2 per year are processed by plants and then fed to mycorrhizal
31:24networks below ground.
31:26That's equivalent to about a third of all emissions from fossil fuels.
31:36These mycorrhizal fungi, they are an ally in our fight against climate change.
31:47But the clock is ticking to find and safeguard these amazing networks.
31:57We're not protecting these fungal systems.
32:00And I think one of the big problems is that there are no maps of the fungi themselves.
32:08We don't know where the Amazon of the underground is.
32:13Part of Spon's goal is to identify where these places are.
32:26We go to those spots and we actually work with local scientists and collect soils to understand what fungal communities
32:34are there.
32:44Just to give you a bit of perspective, we have sampled about 0.01% of terrestrial Earth.
32:52So that means 99.9% of terrestrial Earth has not been sampled for these fungi.
32:59So we have a big job ahead of us.
33:12Grasslands are huge.
33:16As well as capturing carbon, they help produce our food.
33:26Our staples of wheat, barley, oats and rice are all cultivated grass species.
33:32We have a lot of plants.
33:39But the way we farm them is harming soil biodiversity.
33:47Digging and tilling can break up fungal networks and release the carbon they hold.
33:58Globally, a third of all soils are degraded and getting worse.
34:05Not only contributing to climate change, but threatening global food supplies.
34:23Many farmers recognise this and want to boost underground biodiversity.
34:30Returning soil to health.
34:35This unproductive field has been set aside to let nature help it heal.
34:44And student Robby Sidhu is monitoring its recovery in an unusual way.
34:52I think it's really important to develop new ways of looking at how we can
34:57help save our planet as the climate crisis moves forward.
35:01Try new approaches that we haven't looked at before.
35:20The first time I listened to soil was in my own garden and I plugged the microphones in and wasn't
35:28prepared for the amount of noise that I heard and the variation of the noise that I heard.
35:36Robby Sidhu is trying to make sense of this subterranean chorus.
35:40Robby Sidhu is trying to make sense of this subterranean chorus.
35:43There's a lot of cracks and pops and rustling going on.
35:48It's soothing to listen to in a weird way.
35:54Bioacoustics is a promising way to observe soil biodiversity without disturbing it.
36:03We're thinking of this field work as kind of an orchestra that we're listening to.
36:08And now we're going back into the laboratory and trying to identify what all the instruments are.
36:16It's quite surprising to hear the rustling from the root systems and the percussiveness of the insects.
36:29These methods are in their early stages, but the difference between healthy and unhealthy soil is obvious.
36:40As things become more restored, you get a lot more noise from an improved ecosystem.
36:48It's really exciting to be at the edge of something that could garner quite important results going forward.
36:56A lot of the methods of monitoring soil at the moment are quite invasive, quite expensive, quite time consuming.
37:05Whereas monitoring the acoustic aspects of soil is quite easy.
37:10This tool is a simple way to understand if our efforts to restore nature are working.
37:24All of the animals and the biology that lives in the soil is what captures that carbon the most.
37:31And if we can encourage that biology to flourish, then we're doing our job in terms of capturing carbon.
37:39And listening to the soil is an important way that we can do that.
37:47It's only been a few years, but already when we compare this field that's being regenerated to those around it
37:52that are still in constant use,
37:54we can hear a difference and it's getting louder.
38:13If protected, all of the world's grasslands can help us fight climate change.
38:23Like those found in the prairies of North America.
38:32There are those who believe that wild prairies can co-exist.
38:33But less than a fifth of these ecosystems remain.
38:37And over a million acres are lost to crops every year.
38:52There are those who believe that wild prairies can co-exist.
39:01We're going to go see if we can find bull bison. He's kind of, I'd say solitary, but I think
39:05there's a group of like three of them up here.
39:09It's pretty typical this time of year outside of the rut that they're on their own for the most part.
39:19Here in Montana, there's a large area of prairie that looks wild, but it's really just a shadow of its
39:28former self.
39:33The biggest difference between the prairies today and the prairies, let's say 150 or 200 years ago, is the absence
39:39of big herds of large mammals, predators and migratory birds.
39:46Large indigenous grazers, things like bison, have been replaced by domestic species, cattle for the most part.
39:59For wild animals to return, they need substantial areas of land.
40:08The best available science says that a fully functioning prairie ecosystem needs to be about 3.2 million acres.
40:14That's 5,000 square miles.
40:16And that's just how much land a project called American Prairie intends to rewild.
40:23That's Yellowstone National Park, Glacier National Park, and then eventually we hope to create this kind of comparable large protected
40:29area for wildlife right in the middle of the state here.
40:33Much of the land has been owned by ranching families for generations.
40:41And many have made their feelings clear about rewilding.
40:55There is a fear that native animals, especially predators, will have an impact on their livelihoods.
41:05We know our neighbors are always going to be ranchers, no matter what this looks like.
41:09So how do you extend the effects of a wildlife refuge by increasing wildlife tolerance on the other side of
41:16a fence?
41:20Success is only guaranteed if everyone works together.
41:37Brother and sister, Grant and Glenna Finkbeiner, help run the family's livestock operation.
41:45Well, we ranch.
41:47We got a lot of different enterprises.
41:52We're fifth generation ranchers now.
41:55Pretty much in this area since late 1800s.
42:01We still have large herds of elk.
42:04You know, it's not crazy to see a thousand head elk coming out of the trees.
42:10Predators as well.
42:13Had a lion come through and it killed 20 ewes.
42:18Considering that year the ewes were averaging in the market $230 a piece.
42:28It adds up pretty quick, the economic loss.
42:43Many ranchers around here still kill a lot of predators.
42:47If they saw a wolf, they'd shoot it immediately.
42:53I feel as though getting rid of all the predators kind of upsets the ecological balance.
43:06To improve carnivore numbers, American Prairie has a plan to incentivize ranchers to see them in a different way.
43:27These cameras are owned by the American Prairie and they use them to see and manage how much wildlife is
43:32in an area.
43:36Camera traps are set.
43:41And every picture taken of a contentious species earns the landowner money.
43:51It helps compensate for any financial impact the wildlife might cause.
44:01Over 60 sites have been photographed so far.
44:06Capturing over 30,000 images.
44:12Including the rarest predators.
44:33Schemes like this improve relations with nature.
44:38Which is doing better as the project grows.
44:47But persecution has driven some species to extinction in Montana.
44:53With a little help, even those lost can be returned.
45:00The reason we're working where we are is because the habitat is intact enough,
45:05that what you can do is just add animals back into it.
45:11The Fort Belknap Indian Reservation is home to the Arnie and Nakoda people.
45:19Over 650,000 acres of intact prairie and the site of an incredible reintroduction program.
45:28Why Fort Belknap? Because it's an Indian reservation. It is a sovereign nation.
45:32So they are able to make essentially unilateral decisions about how much or how little wildlife will be in their
45:39lands
45:39without the need to get approval from the State Wildlife Agency or the Federal Wildlife Agency.
45:47Scientists are joining students from the Reservations College to reintroduce a small but vital predator back into the ecosystem.
45:58Thank you guys for being here. Tonight we are going to release two foxes that have been brought up from
46:03Colorado.
46:10Student Ethan Work is part of the Swift Fox reintroduction team.
46:17The work's tough, it's hard, but being able to see the foxes on the landscape is rewarding in itself.
46:24They eat small rodents and prairie dogs and insects, so they're kind of like a pest control.
46:32Swift foxes are so fascinating. They're very, very small, about the size of a house cat.
46:38And what's so special about them is you can only find them in these large tracks of intact short grass
46:44prairie ecosystems.
46:49The foxes that we have in the pen here with us today, they've been fitted with a GPS collar and
46:54were placed into an acclimation pen for five days.
46:57And now we will release them to find a new home on Fort Belknock.
47:15There it is.
47:26There he goes.
47:34Oh, Godspeed little buddy.
47:49Look the other way. You're free now.
48:00I'm gonna call this box North because he has no sense of direction
48:11let's first step
48:12into his new hole
48:28he's hoping
48:30we're gonna watch him catch him
48:38they got it
48:42he missed
48:44their land was taken, most of their habitat was taken
48:48so having a place to go is crucial for them
48:50and being able on the reservation here to provide that is
48:54pretty great
49:01and it's not only the native animals that benefit from this project
49:07thriving prairies can help us to draw down and store huge amounts of carbon
49:15I think we're so close
49:16it seems so very doable
49:18to be able to rewild this place and bring it back
49:21so all of us can enjoy
49:22that wild North America
49:24that came so close to being lost forever
49:29I think I will see this place in a wild state
49:32before I retire, let alone before I die
49:35this is not something that takes a hundred years
49:37you could do this in 40 years and have this place be wild again
49:59we know how to protect and rebuild the ecosystems we rely on
50:11and the work has begun
50:13in grasslands right across the world
50:18saving species
50:19keeping soil healthy
50:22and locking carbon beneath the ground
50:25this is all about urgency
50:27it's even hard to sit here and talk about it
50:30and not be in the field sampling
50:32and restoring ecosystems that have been degraded
50:40it won't be easy
50:43but the payoffs are huge
50:52there are wild possibilities
50:55just ahead of us
51:05building a future for nature
51:07benefits us all
51:14there is a future
51:15and everyone will be involved
51:17definitely
51:25with nature on our side
51:29we can overcome even the greatest challenge
51:57future Probably by the fall
52:15I will hope you will truly work
52:15your best
52:15caring forinfluxed
52:15A big
52:21Transcription by CastingWords
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