- 14 minutes ago
Borneo is the richest rainforest island of all, home to 60,000 species of plants and animals. Six thousand of them are unique, and more are discovered almost daily. But this 'paradise' is an illusion, the lush forest is effectively growing on a desert, with the soil shallow and poor in nutrients, having been leeched by eons of incessant rain.
婆罗洲的特有物种，分布于马来西亚、印度尼西亚和文莱. 生于婆罗洲的泥炭沼泽森林、低地雨林和山地雨林生态区, 婆罗洲黄檀可用作观赏植物, 遮荫, 土壤稳定和牲畜的食物来源....
婆罗洲的特有物种，分布于马来西亚、印度尼西亚和文莱. 生于婆罗洲的泥炭沼泽森林、低地雨林和山地雨林生态区, 婆罗洲黄檀可用作观赏植物, 遮荫, 土壤稳定和牲畜的食物来源....
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00:11Planet Earth, now home to nearly 8 billion people.
00:22And yet, there are still places that remain pristine.
00:30Where a spellbinding variety of life continues to thrive.
00:39These are the last regions that could be called Eden.
01:02In the heart of Southeast Asia lies the tropical island of Borneo.
01:11Around the size of Texas, its ancient forest has remained unchanged for 140 million years.
01:26Bathed in sunshine and quenched by abundant rainfall.
01:35Over time, these hothouse conditions have spawned some 60,000 species of plants and animals.
01:50Making Borneo possibly more biodiverse than any other island.
02:00Evolving in isolation, over 6,000 of its inhabitants are found nowhere else on Earth.
02:15Remarkably, this wealth is built on a foundation of shallow, nutrient-poor soil.
02:23And yet, somehow, life has triumphed.
02:32Turning this into a paradise unlike any other.
02:53Dawn breaks over Borneo's flooded lowland forest.
03:05A mosaic of tree-lined waterways and swampy thickets.
03:13A unique habitat that has given rise to a one-of-a-kind primate.
03:26Proboscis monkeys.
03:29Named after their outstanding noses.
03:38For an alpha male, the bigger the nose, the bigger the harem.
03:52They live in groups of 20 or more.
03:57This two-year-old female is no longer dependent on her mother.
04:03But still needs the protection of her tight-knit family.
04:11They survive mainly on a diet of leaves that are low in calories.
04:16And difficult to digest.
04:24Unless you have a barrel belly.
04:29And 48 hours to ferment them.
04:35Young leaves aren't as tough.
04:37But there are fewer to go around.
04:45And breakfast finishes off their supply.
04:51Now, the tenderest shoots are on the other side of the river.
05:01Patrolled by the largest reptiles in the world.
05:10Saltwater crocodiles.
05:16Up to 20 feet long.
05:21They'll devour any animal they can sink their four-inch teeth into.
05:31But if the monkeys are going to eat, they'll have to cross.
05:41The alpha male leads the way.
06:00The rest rapidly follow.
06:07The babies must cling on to their mothers.
06:23Each impact carries sound waves up and down the river.
06:40Now, too big to be carried.
06:43For this youngster, a solo plunge is a daunting prospect.
06:52This is a 40-foot leap of faith.
06:57This is a 40-foot leap of faith.
07:23At the surface, she's desperately vulnerable.
07:31But these unique monkeys are semi-aquatic.
07:39With partially webbed hands and feet,
07:42they can propel themselves quickly, but quietly.
07:53Covering a distance of up to 60 feet.
08:10Made it.
08:18Made it.
08:20She joins in the buffet of fresh young leaves.
08:43As females mature, they seek out mates in other groups.
08:47But for now, this family is all she needs.
08:56Close bonds and specialist adaptations
09:00allow proboscis monkeys to prosper in this water world.
09:13Moving inland, Borneo's forest rises to form a towering canopy.
09:28By noon, the first of the daily downpours
09:32tops up the humidity to 100%.
09:54With twice as much rain as Florida,
10:01this Eden is a sultry, 90-degree paradise.
10:16Nurturing the tallest tropical trees in the world
10:22that play a crucial part in the combat of climate change.
10:29Each of them absorbing more carbon than any others.
10:40120 feet up,
10:42the world's largest tree-living ape,
10:47the orangutan.
10:52A 30-year-old mother
10:56and her three-year-old son
10:59are having a mid-morning snack.
11:09She'll dedicate eight years to rearing him.
11:15Aside from humans,
11:17it's the longest infancy of any ape.
11:27Until he's fully weaned,
11:29it's vital she gets enough to eat.
11:32Or her milk will run dry.
11:38But she needs more than low-calorie leaves.
11:42Her challenge is to find some energy-rich fruit.
11:46And fast.
12:05Arms that span more than six feet and 80 pounds of body weight
12:10help to bend branches and sway through the canopy.
12:24Still fueled up from his morning feed,
12:27her son does a good job keeping up.
12:35But he mustn't put a foot wrong.
12:40A fall from up here would be fatal.
12:50By the time they've covered a mile,
12:53his mother needs a pick-me-up.
13:01Leaves and bark offer some sustenance.
13:04And it's an opportunity to teach her son
13:07the 500 or so species of edible plants
13:10that Borneo has to offer.
13:34While his mother takes a power nap,
13:41Nical lives up to his name.
13:45Malay for naughty.
13:51For him, life is an adventure.
13:56And this is the ultimate playground.
14:02All mothers know that kids like to push their luck.
14:05Sometimes a little too far.
14:15Around one in ten infants die.
14:20Mostly from falls.
14:31Nical has learned a valuable lesson.
14:38The other great threat he faces is starvation.
14:47In this rainforest, finding fruit is a treasure hunt.
15:02Scattered far and wide, it ripens at different times.
15:08But orangutans build up 3D mind maps that detail not only where to find it,
15:16but when it's good to eat.
15:23Finally, after a morning of travel, fruiting trees.
15:35But they've been overrun by a troop of macaques.
15:47Nical voices his annoyance.
15:50But he's just a pipsqueak.
15:57They're more nuisance than a threat.
16:00So his mother makes it clear.
16:04Mess with him.
16:07You mess with me.
16:18Fruit provides the orangutans
16:21for the calories they crave.
16:26Over Nical's long childhood,
16:29his mother will pass on the knowledge he needs.
16:33The wisdom of many generations
16:38allows Borneo's orangutans
16:40to enjoy the riches available here.
16:59By early afternoon,
17:01as the tropical sun dries out the forest floor,
17:06legions of plant-eating insects
17:09home in on anything edible.
17:27Armies of termites emerge.
17:33Up to 7,000 per square yard.
17:38Many specialise in consuming trees from the inside out.
17:48The trees deploy defence systems,
17:52sealing their wounds with healing resin.
17:59But this meranti tree has its very own protection.
18:08Assassin bugs.
18:15This inch-and-a-half-long female repurposes resin
18:21to weaponise her forelimbs.
18:34Dressed to kill,
18:38she comes to the tree's defence.
18:56There's no escape from the viscous viciousness of this femme fatale.
19:08Once the termite is swaddled in sap,
19:12she skewers it with her stiletto mouthparts
19:18and slowly syringes out its insides.
19:27With so much prey to tap into,
19:30this tree is the ideal place to raise a family.
19:39A passing male could be the perfect partner.
19:46What follows is completely new to science.
20:03A courtship dance thought to test his tenacity.
20:14If he can't withstand her gluey grip,
20:17they won't stick together.
20:33Hmm. Suitably impressed,
20:36she delicately dabs resin
20:39on the tip of her abdomen,
20:42ready to cement their relationship.
20:59The babies, with their menacing mittens,
21:03will spend their entire lives liquidating termites.
21:07will spend their entire lives liquidating termites.
21:21There are close to 200,000 species of insect in Borneo.
21:33It's the ideal foraging ground for one of the rarest bears on Earth.
21:51The Bornean sun bear.
21:54Only the panda is more endangered.
22:02His four-inch long claws rip open a termite mound with ease.
22:12Dense fur protects him from meals that might bite back.
22:21But it's no defence against a reticulated python.
22:32Growing to more than 30 feet long,
22:34they had been known to swallow a little bear whole.
22:45Nosing around his forest sanctuary,
22:49pickings are slim.
22:53That's why this bear is so small.
22:59No bigger than a large dog.
23:05But a sense of smell,
23:08a thousand times more refined than ours,
23:11can identify an aroma from 100 yards or more.
23:21And he's caught the nearest whiff of one of the jungle's most sought-after prizes.
23:34Honey.
23:38But to sniff it out,
23:40he'll have to go ape.
23:45Lightweight and agile,
23:47he's known as a monkey bear.
23:58He pinpoints the hive by trial and error.
24:23He spotted the hive.
24:27Buzzing bees.
24:29Me golden humming.
24:45Just one last tree to climb to reach the jackpot.
24:49Just one last tree to climb to reach the jackpot.
25:00Just one last tree to climb to reach the jackpot.
25:04Let me definitely live through.
25:05Let me film it.
25:07I'm a eaten by my first cat.
25:14At almost ten inches,
25:17that tongue is longer than any other bears.
25:22Perfect for honey slurping.
25:32Now, that dreamy dessert, plus drowsy afternoon heat, can only mean one thing, it's siesta
25:47at a time, he busies himself making a lofty bed, ah, relax, hmm, that breeze,
26:16feels good.
26:32By late afternoon, gloom gathers at the forest floor.
26:44But even as the light dwindles, and photosynthesis fizzles out, feeding doesn't have to stop.
26:56Borneo's vegetation is ingenious.
27:02Of its 15,000 different plant species, the highest diversity of anywhere on Earth, one family
27:12has turned from strictly vegan to meat-eating.
27:24Pitcher plants.
27:27Some lure in unsuspecting insects with a perfumed promise of nectar.
27:36Only to dissolve their victims in a bath of enzymes.
27:46This giant pitcher offers a sugary reward to a sweet-toothed tree shrew.
28:04In return, for a welcome deposit of nitrogen, found in Shrewpo.
28:14a little bit more.
28:23But one pitcher has gone a step further away from its carnivorous diet, and become vegetarian.
28:47In this Eden, plants can be every bit as enterprising as animals.
29:09As the last rays of evening sun light up the treetops.
29:17For another of Borneo's most resourceful residents, the chore of finding food is far from over.
29:30Oriental pied hornbills are one of Borneo's largest fruit-eating birds.
29:40Weighing in at over two pounds, this male and his faithful partner need to eat a third of their body
29:54weight every day.
30:03Their seven-inch bills are precision instruments, designed to pick off even the tiniest fruits.
30:23With sunset fast approaching, they're still hungry.
30:29But these highly intelligent birds have worked out where to go to for an evening meal.
30:49Heading to where Borneo's uplands rise from the forest, they perch at the yawning mouth of a vast cavern.
31:09Over thousands of years, rainwater has eaten away at these limestone crags, dissolving the rock to form cave networks that
31:21stretch for hundreds of miles.
31:26A highly desirable home for something.
31:35Predators gather.
31:38A Wallace's hawk eagle arrives in anticipation.
31:52A sigh rises to a scream, as 300,000 wrinkle-lipped bats are disgorged from their roost.
32:31A fast-moving feast.
32:33For a perfectly poised cave racer snake.
32:57Armed with three-inch long rapier talons, the hawk eagle is designed for aerial interception.
33:14Snatching ten or more bats every evening.
33:33Spared on, the hornbills launch their aerial assault.
33:39The hornbills launch their aerial assault.
34:00But without the hawk's grasping talons...
34:12It ends in frustration.
34:22Time to consider a tactic better suited to his hardware.
34:35He repositions as close as possible to the streaming column of bats.
34:46With binocular vision to judge distance.
34:54And that precision beak.
35:02He needs to time it just right.
35:18He gives the first catch to his partner.
35:25He'll grab a half-dozen more bats.
35:29And they'll be content.
35:32Only now has the full behaviour been caught on camera.
35:42Of all 54 species of hornbill, the oriental pied has the most diverse diet.
35:53This intelligent bird has learned to cash in on every chance that Borneo's varied habitats have to offer.
36:03With their bellies full, the hornbills retire to their nighttime roost.
36:29But there are places in this jungle that never sleep.
36:37Every night, the bats from this one cave are thought to harvest over two tons of insects.
36:54On their return, their excrement falls like rain.
37:02Building over centuries to form a mountain of guano.
37:15More than 50 feet high.
37:19And a hundred feet long.
37:24It sustains an incomparable ecosystem of tens of thousands of cockroaches.
37:35And a swarm of other scavengers.
37:40Foot-long centipedes.
37:43Foot-long centipedes.
37:44Giant spiders.
37:49Even cave crabs.
37:56And fresh meat is highly prized.
38:11But it's the cockroaches that get to the victim first.
38:19Stripping it to the bone within hours.
38:36Borneo's caves have created a unique habitat.
38:41Based on growing stockpiles of forest minerals.
39:03Over thousands of years, the unparalleled diversity of this Eden has been driven by a lack of nutrients.
39:14Thriving on ingenuity and the daily rhythms of this singular island paradise.
39:24But recent decades have seen rapid changes that affect all of the forest inhabitants.
39:35Long ago, stories were told of sacred spirits that inhabit the jungle.
39:45Part man, part animal.
39:52Almost five feet tall, this is a male orangutan.
40:06At 20 years of age, his wide facial flanges are a sign of virility.
40:17But he needs to get clear of the thick undergrowth to catch the attention of a passing female.
40:29At around 200 pounds, he's clearly at the upper limit for a life in the treetops.
40:58Up here, his stage is set.
41:01In the background pyrageme, he's running a set of wild titties.
41:10May orangs, serenade, to draw in prospective partners.
41:21May orangs, serenade, to draw in prospective partners.
41:29It beams almost a mile.
41:35It's known as a long call.
41:45Scientific research suggests he's singing his own praises,
41:51extolling health and status.
42:03Who could resist such a performance?
42:13Bad luck. It's a juvenile male.
42:23And that grin is no greeting.
42:26It's a threat.
42:29OK. That's the way you want to play it.
42:54The afternoon rains now threaten the performance.
43:12Undeterred, with his makeshift umbrella, he continues, singing in the rain.
43:26Yeah, well, he is a good boy.
43:32Yeah, well, shall we fall to the rain?
43:35Which is good when you come from?
43:39Yeah, well...
43:40Yeah, well...
43:41Yeah.
43:44Okay.
43:46Okay.
43:48Okay.
43:48Okay.
43:50Okay.
43:53There's a reason these mournful long calls go unanswered.
44:04Wilderness abruptly gives way to oil palm.
44:10In the last two decades, 80% of orangutan habitat has been felled.
44:19Paradise has been lost to plantation.
44:27Thousands of these gentle apes are left marooned in small pockets of rainforest.
44:43Many males may never breed again.
44:57Elsewhere, virgin forest still exists.
45:04And orangutans are protected by parks and sanctuaries.
45:15Borneo's ancient habitats
45:20have been woven together by millions of intricate relationships.
45:27Plant and animal.
45:35As long as we can keep this unique trove of treasured species safe,
45:41this island's sacred forests will be forever Eden.
46:06The Eden team ventured deep into the jungles of Borneo
46:10to film previously unseen animal behavior.
46:15The Eden team ventured deep into the jungles of Borneo
46:18to discover.
46:24Using state-of-the-art camera technology,
46:28they captured dramatic imagery from above
46:33and below.
46:35Cutting-edge macro lenses reveal new science
46:38about the secret lives of Borneo's insects.
46:46But the team's greatest challenge was filming a family of rare Bornean orangutans,
46:54high up in the world's tallest tropical trees.
47:01Camerawoman Justine Evans is no stranger to Borneo.
47:07She's been coming to the ancient rainforest of Danham Valley for 25 years.
47:13I have to say that this is the most beautiful forest I've ever seen.
47:20But outside of protected areas like this,
47:23deforestation and palm oil production
47:26have led to an 80% loss in orangutan habitat
47:30over the last two decades.
47:33I think nothing quite prepares you for the sight of the unrelenting landscape of palm oil.
47:42Just the monoculture on such a grand scale.
47:45It's shocking.
47:49Every time I go back to Borneo, I wonder what I'm going to find
47:53and whether I'm going to see the orangutans.
47:57Justine will have to climb high up into the canopy
48:00to stand a chance of filming orangutans in their world.
48:07The team get to work erecting a platform
48:11positioned across from a fruiting tree
48:13that a mother and her infant have been known to visit.
48:20After six hours, everything is in place.
48:26Justine will be at eye level with the orangutans.
48:31But the platform is only three feet long by three feet wide.
48:36It's going to be a tight squeeze.
48:38There's about enough space for the camera and the tripod and me.
48:44And that's the edge.
48:46All the way down about 100 foot to the ground.
48:50All we need now is some orangutans to come along.
48:58For the next seven days, Justine waits patiently from dawn to dusk for the mum and baby to show.
49:08I've been here since half five in the morning and it's now 3pm.
49:15It's a long time to be sitting on an aluminium tea tray.
49:21Without any notice, the rainforest dumps an inch of rain onto Justine and her camera.
49:29It's extremely wet out there.
49:31So Tim's come up and we're trying to evacuate all the kit.
49:35It went from sunny to pouring with rain within 10 minutes.
49:39Tim's heading down and I'm going to follow.
49:45A week into the shoot, without so much as a glimpse of an orangutan, Justine swaps the sit and wait
49:52approach to tracking them on foot.
49:54I'm slightly dreading the prospect of dragging all our kit through this forest.
49:58Running around on the ground trying to follow an orangutans is really tricky.
50:01And this tropical jungle is infested with bugs and blood-sucking leeches.
50:07I thought I felt something on my finger earlier.
50:11Orangutans have an intimate knowledge of where fruiting trees lie.
50:15The crew are relying more on guesswork.
50:20Is there any way for us to follow, do you think?
50:22Finally, one of the trackers radios a sighting.
50:25You can come here.
50:29I think it's still up there.
50:32This is the first opportunity I'm going to get, hopefully, to see the orangutan.
50:37And it's great that we've got a female with a young.
50:40That's exactly what we're after.
50:42But the family is moving too quickly through the canopy for the crew to keep up.
50:48It's cat and mouse.
50:50I think this orangutan is trying to shake us off, personally.
50:55After hours of searching through dense rainforest, Justine is finally rewarded with an intimate view.
51:03There she is.
51:05Wow.
51:06That's the first time I've seen her.
51:08It's the female orangutan.
51:10She's just come into a little clear spot.
51:14They have led us, after a few hours of going through quite thick vegetation, to a very high fig tree.
51:22And it's absolutely shocker with fruits.
51:29Over the next 10 days, trudging more than 70 miles, Justine was able to revisit the young family and capture
51:36their tender moments together.
51:41When you film any of the great apes, you feel that connection.
51:47It's unmistakable.
51:49The emotions that you see running through them is so relatable.
51:55I've come away feeling, obviously, very rewarded by the experience.
52:00But I've tinged with the sadness because of the bigger picture in Borneo.
52:09As long as areas like Dannem Valley are protected, orangutans stand a chance.
52:16And all the species that call Borneo home will be kept safe for the future of us all.
52:55And the vision that they don't like possible to play back on all is very close to the sun.
52:55If V være her ce Bliss might desire through some kardeş to find us right now.
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