- 2 days ago
A look at the one environment that has been made by humans for humans - the city. Over half of the world's population now lives in the urban jungle. The city is built to keep untamed nature out, but nature cannot be pushed away. From bed bugs sucking our blood at night to rats in our restaurants, many animals have adapted to a life with us...
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00:05Only one creature has carved a life for itself in every habitat on Earth.
00:13That creature is us.
00:17All over the world we still use our ingenuity to survive in the wild places,
00:24far from the city lights, face to face with raw nature.
00:31This is the human planet.
00:50In all the wild places on Earth, we have risen to the challenges nature has thrown at us.
01:00Now we have created the habitat of our dreams, designed by us, for us.
01:12The pinnacle of human imagination and ingenuity.
01:18This is where we humans like to think we reign supreme.
01:24Driving out the nature we don't want.
01:30Shipping in what we do.
01:36But the natural world isn't easy to control.
01:43Can we humans ever really master nature in the urban jungle?
01:49And is it wise to try?
02:10Dubai is the ultimate modern city.
02:15Orderly, sparkling and squeaky clean.
02:21It's a temple to man's ingenuity, rising from the desert.
02:32But there's a menace in the air.
02:37Pigeons.
02:39Thousands of them are making a mess in this pristine metropolis, and Dubai doesn't like it.
02:49One man can help.
02:54The Arabs call him Al Hur.
02:57His name is David Stead.
03:00Good lad.
03:09His challenge is to keep Dubai pigeon free.
03:13Using falcons, an ancient Arabian solution for a modern urban problem.
03:24Well, birds of prey, of course, are hunting birds.
03:26And the falcons in the bird of prey family are the specialist bird hunters.
03:31They only catch other birds for a living.
03:34And as a result, the pigeons are most scared of falcons compared to any of the other birds of prey.
03:40So even a pigeon that has never seen a falcon in its life does have this almost genetic fear of
03:47the silhouette, the shape,
03:49of a falcon.
03:57Today, he is working for some of Dubai's top hotels with his peregrine falcon, Nimr.
04:06Nimr is a three-year-old falcon now.
04:09They become adult at one.
04:11So she's now quite a mature falcon.
04:14Although at three, she still has an awful lot to learn.
04:17Out of the whole team, she's probably the most arrogant.
04:22She has this tremendous attitude about her.
04:25And she knows who's in charge.
04:27And I can assure you, it's not us.
04:31City pigeons damage these buildings.
04:35Their corrosive droppings erode chrome and stone.
04:38And each bird can produce 12 kilos of mess a year.
04:51But David's aim isn't to kill or even catch them.
04:56He is hoping to scare them away.
04:59And Nimr loves the chase.
05:02After all, she's a peregrine.
05:05The fastest creature in the sky, capable of swooping 280 kilometers an hour.
05:16So once she's moved them on, he needs to tempt her back.
05:20And that's tricky.
05:24She's an extremely inquisitive falcon, which can be frustrating for me because I tend to lose all contact and control
05:32with her when she's flying and she sees something amusing.
05:39But there's always one way to a falcon's heart.
05:44The promise of a chicken dinner.
05:53Thanks to David and Nimr, Dubai's hotels remain pigeon-free.
06:05After all, no one wants pigeon-poo to spoil their million-dollar view.
06:14Sometimes, driving unwanted wildlife out of the town requires a much more modern solution.
06:29Sergeant Stan Schumacher is on a mission.
06:32For Sam 2, can you copy an Elf Jam call on Highway 7 and Highway 36?
06:37He works in Estes Park, Colorado.
06:42Every day, he patrols his patch on an unusual police vehicle.
06:48A Segway scooter.
06:55His job is to keep the streets free of trouble.
06:59And trouble here is particularly large and spiky.
07:12Once the elk come in, getting around town's a hassle.
07:16Pretty much from June to beginning October.
07:21Every summer, the town is invaded by elk stags.
07:25Sergeant Schumacher's job is to make sure that the locals can go about their daily business.
07:30Not easy at this time of year.
07:33They may look placid, but elk weigh over 300 kilos, can be three meters tall, and their antlers are lethal.
07:43They're pretty much everywhere in town.
07:45This whole valley is pretty much full of elk.
07:48At any given time, there could be anywhere from 5 to 1,500.
07:53The female elk love the urban grasslands.
07:58They live here year-round.
08:01We've got the two main golf courses.
08:03The grass is, of course, golf grass, so they absolutely love that.
08:07The male elk are only visiting, and it's not for golf.
08:14The boys are back in town for one thing.
08:18A stag party.
08:24At this time of year, the stags fight over the females and can be very dangerous.
08:33But it's not just the elk causing problems.
08:37Sergeant Schumacher also has to control the tourists.
08:42A lot of these tourists have no idea that these animals are wild.
08:46It's the craziest thing, but they, for some reason, they think these animals are tame.
09:04There's no messing with an irritable elk.
09:20In the wild west of the 21st century, the sheriff's white stallion has been replaced by a giant scooter.
09:29The elk do not like the Segway. I don't know what it is.
09:32I think it's the movement, because I'm not moving normal as a human would walk.
09:37And I'm scurrying around a lot quicker on that Segway, so the elk do not like it whatsoever.
09:45Today has been a good day for Sergeant Schumacher.
09:48He's run the troublemakers out of town.
09:53But not all the invaders who come to our cities are so easy to chase away.
10:01Some cities are plagued by creatures who are just as wily and streetwise as us.
10:10Jaipur, one of the fastest growing cities in India.
10:14Here, muggings and petty theft are part of everyday life.
10:19Shakuntla, a local market seller, is terrorized by street gangs, and these are not the local lads.
10:44She has to face them every day.
10:50They're a terrifying bunch.
10:58The posse of rhesus macaques hang out on the rooftops.
11:04One bite from these canines can inflict horrible damage.
11:22For the macaques, life in the urban jungle is even easier than life in the real one.
11:36Like us, they can be smart and slick.
11:50Chaipur's temples and streets provide endless pockets to pick.
11:55And their favorite place is the food market.
12:02The question today is, will Shikantla's stall survive all the monkey business?
12:18The attack is led by the gang leader, an alpha male.
12:33The macaques work as a coordinated team, ducking and diving.
12:42Attacking from all angles, the smaller macaques distract Shikantla,
12:48while the boulder males grab the loot.
13:10Life on Jaipur's streets is tough enough, but when your enemy is protected by a deity, there's nothing you can
13:17do.
13:18These monkeys are sacred to the monkey god Hanuman.
13:23It's not the monkey god.
13:25But it's not the monkey god, but it's not the monkey god.
13:28It's not the monkey god.
13:30It's not the monkey god.
13:31It's not the monkey god.
13:33It's not the monkey god.
13:38Monkeys could be a menace in the market.
13:41But there is a wider war going on under all our city streets.
13:54Some species have become a threat to our domination of our very own urban world.
14:01Jeff and Junior are on a stakeout, hunting down mortal enemies on the Manhattan front line.
14:09My job is a nighttime exterminator in New York City.
14:15Daytime guys where I work do bed bugs.
14:18We just do rats, mice, roaches in restaurants.
14:21What sort of time do you think we're going to be getting up in this place?
14:24I don't know.
14:26I said about midnight.
14:28It's not closed yet.
14:31I mean, I don't really have a problem telling people what I do, but we try to be as discreet
14:34as possible,
14:35just because I don't want people to think that they're eating in an area that's full of rats,
14:39but East Village is full of them, so you can't really, you can't hide that.
14:43Rats love fine dining too, but they don't leave tips behind.
14:47They leave excrement and disease.
14:51No one wants to admit that the Big Apple has a big rat problem, so Jeff and Junior only work
14:58at night.
14:59Trash is a big deal.
15:00Us being sloppy humans, throwing your trash out on the sidewalks and leaving the juices and meat juices and chicken
15:07bones everywhere.
15:08That's a buffet for them, you know what I mean?
15:11Tonight, they're laying traps in Chinatown.
15:15Wow.
15:17You okay?
15:20Another one of these, man.
15:22Another one of these.
15:24Wow.
15:25How do you even leave your restaurant like this?
15:29Oh, man, dude, look at this.
15:31Look at all this stuff.
15:34Sushi, rice, noodles.
15:38Rats will eat anything, from chop suey to the chopsticks themselves.
15:43We walk in at night because we have keys.
15:45We have to go when the customers are gone.
15:47And when the people leave the restaurant, the rats think it's time to come out.
15:51But we go in there later, like an hour after they close, so they're out partying.
15:55Go ahead.
15:55Oh, oh, there he is, there he is, there he is.
15:57Right there, right there.
15:58Right there, right there, right there, right there.
15:59See him?
16:01Oh, oh, he's going down, he's going down.
16:03Right there, right in the hole.
16:06Damn.
16:07Yeah, he was drinking coffee.
16:08Something.
16:09That's the last thing that this guy needs is coffee.
16:14Unbelievable.
16:15That's why I don't eat takeout, man.
16:17Yes, you do.
16:19Come on, let's go to the basement, man.
16:23Watch out, man, it's slippery.
16:28And there's another horror in the basement.
16:31Yo, look at the water box in the ceiling.
16:33Yo, you never see that right there behind the door.
16:36Cockroaches.
16:37This is professional extermination.
16:40Oh.
16:42You see this basement?
16:43What's in there, man?
16:45Old buildings connected by pipes and basements allow the rats and roaches to scuttle through the city unseen.
16:52It's disgusting in here.
16:53The water's dripping all over the place.
16:55We were basically trying to be quiet to hear noises for any, you know, any signs of rat activity, squeaking
17:01or anything.
17:01Shh, shh, shh.
17:01The little pitter-patter?
17:05The little fingernails?
17:06Yeah.
17:08Over here.
17:10Look at that.
17:11Look at that.
17:12That goes right into the...
17:13Oh, I can see the kitchen.
17:16For Jeff and Junior, it's a lifelong fight.
17:20It's said there's at least one rat for every person in New York.
17:24That's nearly nine million rats.
17:27As far as humans winning the battle over rats, nowhere close.
17:33I don't even know how you would stop it. I really don't.
17:37They're going to use every contraption they can devise in the battle with the pests.
17:42Well, this is...
17:43I don't want to call them out, but...
17:45Listen to that.
17:47All those people out there, they have no idea what's happening down here.
17:51And they're going to come eat here tomorrow.
17:5350% of all day, huh?
17:56Yeah, I...
17:58Yeah, no wonder.
18:0624 hours later, Jeff and Junior are back to assess the death toll.
18:12Ah, dude.
18:16The snap traps have worked.
18:18Oh, that's cute.
18:22And the glue mats.
18:24This one is decomposing.
18:28And the poison.
18:29Oh, dude.
18:31Look at the size of him.
18:33He's dead.
18:35Looked like he was been fighting or something, bro.
18:38Damn, look at them teeth, bro.
18:40Whoa.
18:41What's the weight on that?
18:43I'm telling you, man, my arm got tired.
18:45That's pretty... that's brutal.
18:47Oh, man.
18:48This is just another night in the ongoing battle with our eternal enemies.
18:54Sometimes we'll walk out with bags of dead things,
18:57and I'll take a take-out bag from the restaurant.
19:01So people think I'm leaving with a take-out food.
19:20And it gets worse.
19:24There are other tiny creatures which take advantage of dense urban populations.
19:31They exploit us in much more intimate ways.
19:37They're reaching epidemic proportions.
19:41Not just feeding off us like rats, but literally feeding on us.
19:48Londoner Carol Anderson has these unwanted house guests.
19:52Have you got any bites on you at the moment?
19:54You mean these?
19:57Yeah, the bites that you had all round here.
20:00There's still little red marks from them, aren't there?
20:03Where do you think they are in your room?
20:06Down the side of the bed.
20:08That's what I meant.
20:09Them crawling up the walls.
20:14Irritating parasites which only come out at night.
20:18Right.
20:19Right, come then.
20:21Indigo.
20:22Hop up.
20:24That's it then.
20:25Goodnight.
20:25Sit tight.
20:27Don't let the...
20:28Bed bugs die.
20:30Let's hope not.
20:39Bed bugs are insect vampires, attracted to carbon dioxide, heat and body odours.
20:49They like clean, warm houses.
21:02Their only food is human blood.
21:07The sheer numbers is quite daunting, really.
21:12They literally were streaming up the wall, up to the ceiling, just full of blood, so they'd obviously all just
21:18been feeding.
21:18First thing in the morning, I woke up and looked up.
21:21It was horrible. It really was horrible.
21:28Carol calls in the best bed bug detector in the business.
21:34Charlie the chocolate Labrador, ably assisted by his handler, Adam.
21:46Right, well, the sofa seems to be the worst affected. I've got lots of bugs in here, I don't know.
21:52Charlie's nose is 44 times more sensitive than ours.
21:56He can literally sniff out the bed bugs.
22:00Seek.
22:07If they are present, he's trained to sit down.
22:13Good boy, Charlie.
22:15It's all Adam needs to know.
22:23Bed bugs are on the increase, hitchhiking as we travel from city to city, often infesting furniture like Carol's sofa.
22:34I do resent them, but I quite admire them as well.
22:38They are actually quite amazing, which makes it even creepier, you know, because that's what I'm up against.
22:48But with Adam's spray and Charlie's nose, the bugs here have met their match.
22:55This is one urban intruder nobody wants to live with.
23:08In some parts of the world, people have learned to put their urban invaders to good use.
23:16The Moroccan city of Fez, a bit like Dubai, has a problem with pigeons.
23:24But rather than chasing them away, the people of Fez invite them in.
23:35Noordine has built a home for pigeons on his roof.
23:46Noordine has built a home for pigeons on his roof.
23:57He doesn't do this just for the love of animals.
24:01Pigeon droppings are vital to a local industry.
24:06And Noordine's friend, Tami, has come to buy some.
24:27Tami works at the local tannery. Fez is the center of the Moroccan leather industry.
24:40The leather here is famed for its softness, and the pigeon droppings are a secret ingredient.
24:48It's been rare for the
24:54wild pigeon droppings.
24:55The wild pigeon droppings contain an enzyme which eats the protein in the animals' skin,
25:01softening it up.
25:04The hides are soaked in the vats for three days, and Tami works them with his feet.
25:12This could be the stinkiest job in the world.
25:27For Tami, it's a price worth paying.
25:30The pigeon droppings give the skins a softness no man-made chemical can produce.
26:06Thanks to Fez's wild pigeons, the skins will reach the highest possible price.
26:19Another very different city is also working with an urban intruder.
26:35Sometimes, even the most unlikely species can turn out to be good news.
26:45Austin, Texas is now home to one and a half million free-tailed bats, and today they are
26:53very welcome here.
26:58Twenty years ago, they set up home on this bridge in downtown Austin, and the residents
27:05wanted to get rid of them.
27:10River boatman Captain Mike remembers it well.
27:15Oh, they're already taken off.
27:16Took over the treetops along the right-hand side.
27:19They are off and running.
27:21There was a fair amount of people that were actually afraid of the bats because they were
27:26afraid we were going to have a rabies problem or a disease outbreak.
27:29So there were actually groups of people lobbying the city council and business leaders to figure
27:35out a way to exterminate the colony.
27:40But bats turned out to be helpful for the city.
27:44The 24-hour urban lifestyle means that Austin is a city of light, and that attracts millions
27:51of insects, which are, in turn, fast food for bats.
28:00Every night, the bats eat six tons of insects.
28:04That's an incredible 2,000 tons a year.
28:11However, they are more than just bug killers.
28:14Captain Mike saw bats as a commercial opportunity.
28:19I started doing bat-watching cruises shortly after they moved in here, and word spread,
28:25and they started getting more and more popular.
28:27So we do those seven nights a week during the season, from March through October.
28:32Bats have really helped me in my business, so I love them.
28:34If you look up underneath the bridge, you can watch them drop out of these cracks here.
28:39Visitors who come to see the bats generate $10 million in tourist revenue every year.
28:45So the free-tailed bats of the state capital are now protected.
29:01It turns out we still want to be connected to nature.
29:05And perhaps we always have.
29:13In India, one group of people take caring for animals to the ultimate extreme.
29:19And they've been doing it for centuries.
29:27Shyam Sundar has rescued a chinkara gazelle on the outskirts of his town in Rajasthan.
29:36Her mother has been killed.
29:38Without milk, the fawn will not survive.
29:41So Shyam is taking her home.
30:00They're calling her Aarti.
30:03They're calling her Aarti.
30:04They're calling her Aarti.
30:13And a spot of sandalwood honours her arrival.
30:21Kairan, Shyam's wife, has cared for many gazelles.
30:37The Sundars belong to a Hindu sect of nature worshippers called the Vishnoy.
30:44Shyam supplies milk to the Vishnoy temple, which has its own orphans to care for.
30:52The Vishnoy were India's first environmentalists and have brought their traditions from the country into the towns and cities.
31:03It is their belief that gazelles are their children, and so the Vishnoy women show an incredible act of kindness.
31:12They breastfeed the fawns that don't take to the bottle.
31:28Even for gazelles, breast is best.
31:44After six weeks with her new family, Aarti is weaned.
31:56After six weeks with her new family, Aarti is weaned.
32:24She's now fit and healthy.
32:26Shyam can take her back to the wild.
32:33Watching a child leave home is always tough for a mum, even a surrogate one.
32:42Aarti is returned to the desert, where she'll join up with the wild herds.
32:51This may appear to be a tiny gesture of kindness, but all of us who live in cities need the
32:59nature that exists beyond the city walls.
33:08Because the natural world feeds our hungry cities.
33:18And what the urban jungle needs, the urban jungle gets.
33:27More than three billion of us now live in cities.
33:34To feed this huge population, we ship in billions of tons of fresh food and produce all year round.
33:45We have the technology to bring in what we want from thousands of kilometers away.
33:56Peaches may grow here in Spain, but these are imported from South America.
34:09We consume what we want, when we want it.
34:19We no longer need to eat locally or seasonally.
34:28And we have an insatiable appetite.
34:36We've never been so good at exploiting nature.
34:40But we're not quite so good at dealing with the consequences.
34:49Massive consumption creates mountains of waste.
34:59In the UK alone, we produce over 100 million tons of rubbish each year.
35:06And we dump it safely out of sight.
35:13But in some places, this world is home to an unfortunate few.
35:29Here in Mombasa, Kenya, people must scratch a living from the things others throw away.
35:42For Asha and her family, this dump is both home and hunting ground.
35:48They are modern-day hunter-gatherers adapted to survival on the dark side of the urban jungle.
36:03Demonstrant riding on the old rides pole.
36:09Women switch in nature then used to invent her culture.
36:13She was the gr較 warmestime place under the incense of any��.
36:18She said that she Jenkins could have too high.
36:22In this place, the day, she'd be kind of neglecting something from her growingślouders.
36:25She later she has invested in mining and water.
36:40When a rubbish truck arrives, the race is on to grab the best scrunch.
37:11Asha's husband, Ali, gets stuck in.
37:20This really is life on the edge.
37:26Finding food for your children in a city's rubbish.
37:41More than half of us now live in cities, and we are using up nature's resources as never
37:49before.
37:54We are, without doubt, the most inventive and powerful creature on the planet.
38:04We are so successful, we've hijacked the whole world for our own ends.
38:15But the consequences of our voracious lives are spiraling out of control.
38:24Are we pushing the natural world towards a crisis?
38:32Where do we go from here?
38:43There are a few people who seem to be heading in a new direction.
38:52One challenge is to design a city that's in balance with nature.
38:59This is Mazda, a green city, being built in the desert of Abu Dhabi.
39:05It's designed by architect Norman Foster.
39:12Mazda excites me because it's really the only true experiment on the planet at the moment,
39:20in terms of seeking to achieve an environment, a community, a mini city, which is carbon free and waste free.
39:31Now, that would be a tough challenge anywhere in the world.
39:36To do it in a desert environment, you could say, you know, you must be crazy to even attempt it.
39:52Mazda will be powered by the sun.
39:57It will not waste a single drop of water.
40:02There will be no need for gas guzzling cars.
40:07The starting point for Mazda was really working with nature in terms of the solar cycle,
40:15making the greenery not just a cosmetic greenery, but creating shade, burning the waste that we produce,
40:22and out of that process creating energy.
40:25So it's starting with nature and then it's using the technology working with nature in harness with nature.
40:39It is a noble ambition and it can be achieved.
40:45However, the immediate challenge is to try and change the way we live with nature in our existing cities.
41:13This is the Union Square Market in New York.
41:16It sells produce that's grown locally, often on the rooftops of New York's tower blocks.
41:23Hello, would you like to try some of our honey?
41:25Buckwheat.
41:26Local.
41:26Heavy dog from Alaska.
41:28Whipped honey, miss?
41:30Too sweet.
41:30No?
41:30You're sweet enough?
41:33Good morning.
41:33Honey for you, miss.
41:35Oh, you're doing the right thing.
41:38Very traditionalist.
41:38Andrew Cote is the guru of high-rise beekeeping and a third-generation beekeeper.
41:46Until recently, urban beekeeping was illegal in New York, but that didn't stop Andrew.
41:55Personally, in my case, I was never caught, even though I was very public about having bees.
42:01I didn't tell people exactly where they were.
42:04Yes, sir.
42:05It's $10.
42:06Would you like a bag?
42:09Happily, New York changed its mind, and Andrew's mission is to bring bees into everyone's lives.
42:17Today, he's on the balcony of a swanky Manhattan apartment with novice Vivian Wang.
42:23Now, you're gonna have a problem with the outer cover because there are a lot of bees on the inside
42:26of it.
42:28Smoke them.
42:30Smoke them if you got them.
42:32Andrew is sort of the king bee, I think, of urban beekeeping, and those of us who are his students,
42:37I think of myself as the honey sorcerer's apprentice in a way.
42:42What do you see?
42:43I see a lot of capped honey under here, and I see what looks like raw nectar.
42:49It's an unusual pastime for a New York lawyer.
42:52I think my friends, when I told them that I was going to start being a beekeeper, were amused.
42:58They thought it was quirky, but kind of wonderful, because it's a different way for us to all connect with
43:03nature.
43:04I think all of us need a little more sweetness in our lives, and it's nice to be able to
43:08cast our eyes skyward in this city,
43:11you know, away and above the traffic, and to think about all these bees buzzing above our heads.
43:17But being a novice beekeeper has its ups and downs.
43:21Ow!
43:22Ow!
43:23What, what, what?
43:24Nothing.
43:25Sorry, I didn't know they could sting through pants quite like that.
43:28They're stinging me like crazy. I really want you to let go.
43:31There are now nearly 10 million bees living on the rooftops of New York.
43:43Over the river in Queens, it's a special day for beekeeper Stephanos.
43:48He's harvesting his first honey with Andrew's help.
43:54This one's perfect, but couldn't be better.
43:57Oh, yeah.
43:57Look, I think we should give the honey a taste just to make sure.
44:01Just to make sure.
44:04Oh, man, this is going to be so good.
44:14Oh, my God.
44:20It's like caramelized sunlight.
44:24It's just quality control.
44:26Yeah.
44:33Bees make honey, and they pollinate the city's parks and gardens.
44:38But most importantly, they bring New Yorkers back in touch with nature.
44:48I think a lot of people are beekeeping in the city because they want to feel a connection to nature.
44:53They live in tall buildings.
44:55They walk on asphalt.
44:57They ride around in trains under the ground.
44:59When they have a beehive on their roof, they can spend one or two hours a week and really be
45:04connected to nature.
45:05And be creating their own food with almost no footprint.
45:08And I think that's great.
45:12Bees keeping in New York isn't going to save the planet.
45:16But it's a step in the right direction.
45:27There is just no doubt.
45:29If we are to continue living in cities, we'll have to stop stripping nature bare with no thought for tomorrow.
45:38What we do in our homes and in our streets affects the entire planet.
45:47The future of our civilization depends on us restoring the balance between the natural world and the urban jungle.
45:59Can we do it?
46:04There are clear signs of hope from around the world.
46:08We do have the intelligence and ingenuity to adapt to a changing world.
46:14The ancient art of falconry now helps protect the modern city of Dubai.
46:23We can work hand in hand with nature to solve the problems we face.
46:29In India, we train fig trees to make living bridges.
46:36And we team up with elephants to extract valuable timber without trashing the whole forest.
46:43We can think as a community and plan ahead.
46:47In Mali, the fish in this lake are shared out only once a year.
46:59When we work together, it's incredible what we can achieve.
47:04Everyone in the mud city of Djenni collaborates to protect their sacred mosque.
47:14We have such spirit and such bravery in the face of adversity.
47:22If we combine these natural abilities with the best of our imagination and our biggest ideas, then surely our cities
47:33can adapt and change.
47:40The destiny of our planet is now in human hands.
48:00Over three years, the human planet team has filmed people around the world.
48:06All had amazing endurance, local know-how and ingenuity.
48:19Just keeping up with them proved to be a huge challenge.
48:22The demands on our teams and Kit pushed them to the limit.
48:34Filming on an active volcano in Java tested the cameras to breaking point.
48:41The crew were here to film sulphur miners.
48:45The air they breathed was a danger to both people and Kit.
48:51I'm just going to go in there a bit closer in with the gas meter and see what it does.
48:58It's reading 93 per million.
49:03It's going up to 194 now.
49:06So right in the middle of the cloud.
49:08Better get out.
49:09This is 40 times the safe working limit.
49:13The gas is a hydrogen sulphide mix that corrodes every surface it lands on.
49:23The gas masks protected the crew, but not the cameras.
49:30They've got an RF warning on the camera.
49:33Which means that the signal's not actually getting onto the tape.
49:36It's usually a head clog.
49:39The crew found that sulphide particles had stuck to the tape head.
49:44And open heart surgery was needed.
49:47That was absolutely filthy.
49:49After cleaning, the camera lived to work another day.
49:52Hey!
49:52Hey!
49:56But the crew's problems were nothing compared to those faced daily by the sulphur miners.
50:08In the Sulu Sea off Borneo, cameraman Simon Enderley filmed a remarkable freediving fisherman called Sulby.
50:23Here I was with the latest in scuba gear, and he was Sublin in a pair of underpants and wooden
50:28goggles.
50:29We really made for a bizarre dive duo.
50:32To capture the perfect hunt, I had to match my scuba dive skills with those of Sublin's freediving.
50:38Our buoyancy, our swimming, our search for food, and finally his successful capture of a fish, all had to evolve
50:45together.
50:46Luckily, on the third dive, it all came together and we both came up happy.
50:51Oh, wow, mate, that's the one. That's definitely the one.
51:02In the Philippines, we filmed fishermen herding all the fish on a reef into a huge net.
51:09Here, we found that fish can be adaptable, too.
51:13Cameraman Roger Munns inadvertently saved one fish from becoming supper.
51:21He nicknamed him Nemo.
51:24Nemo sheltered in Roger's dive kit and hid there until the coast was clear.
51:32Eventually, swimming off back home.
51:44We filmed in many locations where people had never seen film cameras before.
51:50In northern India, the children constantly looked into the lens.
51:56So, to get the shots he wanted, director Mark Flowers tried to distract the children by singing a song.
52:03I'd like to sing it now.
52:07Much to his surprise, the children knew the nursery rhymes better than he did.
52:12When the birds were out.
52:15How I wonder what to laugh.
52:19How I wonder what to laugh.
52:21Like a diamond in the sky.
52:32Filming at height always involves complex safety measures.
52:37But in Central Africa, the crew had an added complication.
52:44Tim Fogg rigged ropes to film Tete collecting honey from a wild bee's nest.
52:52Unfortunately, the angry bees went straight for Tim.
52:57Smoke! Smoke! Smoke for Tim! Quickly!
53:11The first thing I remember seeing was a bee right in front of my face...
53:15...with its abdomen twisted as if it was ready to sting me.
53:19They got inside? No, they were stinging through the face mask.
53:22And he baited them.
53:24After 30 stings, Tim fully appreciated Tete's bravery in gathering honey for his family.
53:35When filming people with animals, nothing's entirely predictable.
53:43In Greenland, director Nick Brown wanted to film the Inuit catching the elusive Greenland shark that lives in these deep
53:50waters.
54:01After an anxious ten days, everyone was thrilled when, in the middle of the night, they finally felt something on
54:09the line.
54:09We're very excited because we've all been playing with the line that's 800 meters down into the water.
54:16And you can actually feel the shark on the end of it.
54:21Somewhere down there, we think we've got a Greenland shark on a hook. We're hoping.
54:27This is the hole for our underwater camera, and this is the hole for the shark.
54:34They discovered they'd underestimated the hole size because the Jensen's had caught a huge four meter long shark.
54:44It's a huge one.
54:47It's a huge one.
54:49It's a huge one.
54:50It's a huge one.
54:51It's a huge one.
54:52It's a huge one.
54:53It's a huge one.
54:55It's a huge one.
54:56Coordinating helicopters with action on the ground is both expensive and difficult.
55:01But in Australia, director Susan McMillan had to coordinate three helicopters at once.
55:07Two of them were flown by heli-cowboys Ben Tapp and his mate Ranko.
55:13Dicing with death to corral their cattle.
55:17The challenges of filming three helicopters in the air have been quite considerable on this trip.
55:22Because I'm filming it for real.
55:23It's not a drama.
55:24There's no take two.
55:26I have to actually capture the event as it happens.
55:29And it's quite a dangerous situation.
55:31I've got three helicopters in the air.
55:33I've got quad bikes and horses on the ground.
55:35I've got stampeding cattle.
55:37So actually, the biggest pressure, I think, has been safety.
55:46Working on the ground can be just as dangerous, especially when it comes to big cats.
55:52The crew wanted to film Dorobo tribesmen in Kenya chasing lions off a kill.
55:59So cameraman Toby Strong offered to film with them on foot to be in the thick of the action.
56:07The thought of getting out of a vehicle and walking towards lions on foot goes against every common sense bone
56:15in my body.
56:16I mean, and these guys are amazing.
56:20They've got their bows and arrows.
56:23But I haven't got anything.
56:25I've got a camera and a lens cloth to protect myself with.
56:30I'm getting a bit real though.
56:32It's a bit butterflies in the stomach.
56:33I'm getting a bit of a knife.
56:34I'm getting a bit of a knife.
56:39Having located the lions, Toby followed the Dorobo as they moved in to have a look.
56:48Walking down there towards thick bushes where you know there are lions.
56:51And, um, God, it's something very primal in the back of your neck.
56:55And everything airs the back of your neck.
56:57And you just feel these eyes on you.
56:59But you feel very, very alive.
57:01It's a magical feeling.
57:03I sort of recommend it to everyone before going to work.
57:06Have a walk through lion country.
57:07It gets things in perspective.
57:10Yeah, amazing.
57:13Without the cooperation and support of all the people we filmed around the world,
57:19this series could not have been made.
57:23Their unique knowledge and survival skills have relevance for us all
57:28in an increasingly human planet.
57:41We've been able to share with you.
57:42And, uh, our lives is the only one.
57:54The very least is our lives.
57:54Our lives.
57:54And, uh, our lives.
58:03And the sea.
58:05We've already been able to survive.
58:05The sea.
58:06The sea.
58:08The sea.
58:09You
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