'Human Planet' on BBC Entertainment

Media News

Mumbai, March 29, 2011

BBC Entertainment presents the epic story of life on Earth. Four years in production, over 2000 days in the field, using 71 cameramen filming across 204 locations in 62 countries, this is the ultimate portrait of our planet. Accompanied by a globally influenced soundtrack by award-winning composer Nitin Sawhney, this stunning television experience combines rare action, unimaginable scale, impossible locations and intimate moments with our planet's best-loved, wildest and most elusive creatures.

Humans are the ultimate animals - the most successful species on the planet. 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 in the harshest environments imaginable. Each episode focuses on a particular habitat and reveals how its people have created astonishing solutions in the face of extreme adversity. This journey finally takes us to 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.

This epic eight-part blockbuster is a breathtaking celebration of the amazing, complex, profound and sometimes challenging relationship between humankind and nature.

EPISODE SYNOPSES

Episode One: Oceans- Into the Blue

Some people understand the seas in a way modern science cannot comprehend. Yet this understanding has stemmed from extreme isolation and ability of communities to exist on even the smallest land masses and harvest bounty that can be seen below the waves or beyond the horizon.

On the island of Lembata in Indonesia the fishermen of Lamalera continue to hunt 75ft sperm whales by leaping from their boats onto the whale's back armed only with a harpoon. It's fraught with danger, a real Moby Dick scenario, but a single whale provides for the whole village.

A speck in the Pacific Ocean, Anuta is less than one and a half mile wide and over 70 miles from its nearest neighbor. Fish and yams make up most of the people's diet, but once or twice a year when the trade winds change direction they sail across treacherous seas to reach the rocky island of Fatutaka, where hundreds of sea birds are harvested. Special, sacred outriggers are used for this journey, and the birds are captured using a traditional long pole and noose. Isolated in this ocean the risk to life and limb is very real to the islanders.

Episode Two: Deserts: Life in the Furnace

It's obvious, but true that the availability of water dominates life in the desert. Vital to the Kababish are the huge areas of north Sudanese desert that provide bountiful grazing paradise after good rains. This is the fabled gizzu. It may be a 1500km round trip away and involve the crossing of a vast expanse of sandy desert, but a good three months spent there with your camels ensures wealth, status and marriage.

The Danakil Depression is a brutal, stony desert of bare rocky hills, salt pans and volcanoes in the north of Ethiopia. It is the hottest place on earth and home to the Afar who have adapted one of the harshest of natural phenomena to provide their water. Above volcanic steam vents the Afar build rocky igloos. Steam condenses on the interior and collects in pools that Afar women walk up to 40km a day to harvest.

Episode Three: Arctic- Life in the Deep Freeze

The world may be warming, but in the freezing Arctic Circle people have used nature to their own advantage to keep themselves alive. The Inuit of Greenland have a unique way of hunting seals. An individual will dress up in sealskin and perform what can only be called a dance as they imitate the sounds and movements of seals to creep up on their prey. The kill provides food and clothing but the ice on which they must hunt is treacherous.

The Nenet move their giant herds of reindeer in an almost perpetual circular migration across the Siberian Tundra. It's a grueling routine, but one day in May it takes on a more dangerous and tense dimension. This is when the Nenet meet the southern shore of the Yuribei River Delta and use the rapidly thawing sea ice to circumvent the already running river. With rising temperatures the Nenet have no idea how long this practice will last.

Episode Four: Jungles- People of the Trees

The world's rainforests are brimming with life. They are environments of plenty, where a successful community needs more than the hunt for resources to keep it together. The Matis of Brazil have long adapted their hunting techniques to cater for animals at ground level and those high in the canopy. Their ornate blowpipes, some 3.5m long and decorated with turtle shells and capybara teeth, can only be used pointing straight up at monkeys and birds high in the canopy. Numerous rituals and ceremony focus on successful hunting and developing an affinity with the prey.

Once every three years in a sacred grove on the border of Ghana and Togo thousands of followers gather for the spectacular seven day celebration that is Kokuzahn. In a trance, a voodoo dancer is able to touch his tongue to a white hot machete, thrust a flaming branch down his throat or walk upside down along the branch of a tree. Considered miracles, these superhuman feats defy credibility and demonstrate the extraordinary power of their deity.

Episode Five: Mountains- Life in Thin Air

Many people have a deeply spiritual connection with high places, be they European mountain climbers, yak herders or descendents of the Inca tribes. But these are also tough places where you have to fight for survival.

Twice a year in Peru, the people of the high Puna take part in the Ch'iaraje, a ritual battle with its roots in Inca tradition. It is deemed to spill blood to appease the mountain for a good harvest. Traditionally, the conflict also ensured each village was equipped to defend their land - the one thing most at a premium in the high mountains.

The Q'eros people of the Andes seldom leave their secluded valleys, but once a year 30,000 pilgrims make the trek up to a sacred glacier at 4,500m to take part in the Q'oyullr Riti, the snow star festival. Part mountain worship, part Christian folk festival, the event is controlled by Ukukus (men dressed up as bears), who carve huge blocks of ice from the glacier that pilgrims use to bless their lands at home in order to ensure good future harvests.

Episode Six: Grasslands- The Roots of Power

Life on the plains and grasslands of the world is always about movement, freedom and livestock.

The Nyangatom of southern Ethiopia have fought and won a rangeland for themselves, but they and their herds of cattle and goats are totally reliant on gigantic wells for their water supply. At the height of the dry season there is a huge collective well dig down on the dry bed of the Kibish River. These hand-dug wells can be 30m wide and 30m deep, designed as pits as the sand walls are usually prone to collapse - dozens of people are killed by collapsing wells each year.

The seasonal cattle migrations of the Fulani in West Africa often separate young men from their families for months at a time. Not only are these migrations economically vital, they occupy right to passage in the harsh Sahel of Mali and Mauritania that culminates in one last challenge.

Episode Seven: Rivers- Friend and Foe

The majority of the world's population lives alongside rivers. For these peoples, the waters bring times of plenty and times of great danger and so these communities have to adapt to the ebb and flow of their environment.

In Yunnan, China, people depend on their river so much that they have become known as the 'mountain sculptors.' When more land is needed for farming, the local shaman will check the condition of the moon and then the whole village will combine to dig into the hillside and alter the course of the local river. In a place without mechanized aid it's an awe inspiring vision of human power. For many, the waters have a sacred significance.

Every year, in the depths of the dry season, the banks of Lake Antogo are lined with thousands of Dogon men. They stand ready to reap a seasonal bounty in one of the last remaining lakes in the region, a bounty preserved for this one occasion by ancient decree. Equipped only with traditional baskets and bare hands, people rush into the sacred lake and empty it of fish, it's a one-off a kind feast for those, whose diet is millet for the rest of the year.

Episode Eight: Cities- Surviving the Urban Jungle

People of the forest are united when it comes to respect and fear of their environment. In our rapidly changing world, the respect these communities have for the forest is inspiring. The Dong people of southern China could teach the western world a thing or two about self sufficiency. Whenever a child is born the parents plant a fir sapling. When the child reaches the age of 18 and marries, the fir trees, that have matured too, are chopped and used to build houses for the bride and groom.

The Bekin Leaf men are amongst the oldest masked characters in Africa. They appear from the sacred forest in Senegal just before the new farming season covered head to toe with the bark and leaves of special trees. The Kankouran is the mask of mischief forcing himself into the homes of every boy who has been circumcised in the past year. The Dokota brings words of wisdom and dances with the married women who will do the planting. The last masked figure is the Niathoma - he chases away evil. When they leave, the villagers are free to plant their new crops.

For further information, please contact:

BBC Worldwide Channels, South Asia

Suchita Salwan

Mobile: +919810444122

Email: suchita.salwan@bbc.com