Wed, Feb 14, 2018
For wildlife and humans, often largely dependent on it, surviving in extreme conditions requires extreme measures, evolutionary adaptation and crafty tricks. Thus in Arctic Canada, native women harvest clams a few days a year, when the shifting icebergs-to-break-off can be drilled into at low tide to harvest from temporary caves on the then dry sea floor. In Japan, the northernmost non-human forest primates eat the soft tissue just beneath tree bark and make best use of thermal springs. All of them are threatened by the environmental challenges to each biotope, such as the Amazonian forest fires, partially arson to clear land which rapidly deteriorates, partially by greenhouse heating, so Brazilian firefighters with modern means must also train tribal people to help defend their unique homeland.
Wed, Nov 18, 2015
Witness wonders created by the force that makes our planet unique - life itself. In the Amazon Rain forest, two 9-year old boys must prepare themselves for a terrifying rite of passage involving the insect with the most painful sting on Earth: the bullet ant. In Borneo, a father must provide for his family by climbing to the roof of a vast cave to collect birds' nests. And, in Bangladesh's Sundarbans, the largest mangrove forest in the world, a father and son must brave killer bees and man-eating tigers to find honey.
Wed, Mar 7, 2018
On one of the Danish Far Oer islands, the about thirty men gather annually for a single harvest, during a six days window, of a rare seasonal delicacy: eggs on steep cliffs of the storm petrel, a risky job which exacted several deaths. In Brazil's Mato Grosso Amazonian rain forest waters, a small tribe's shaman and his retired father preside from the use a poisonous wood to sedate fishes to be caught in huge nets, while evading predators, to nourish the warriors for a religious day-long dance to earn the spirits' favor. In northern Ethiopia's Tigray, isolated orthodox villagers celebrate a birth by joining the parents on a dangerous climb without proper path to a mountain peek-carved chapel. In the Swiss Alps, Europe's highest mountain range, man's exploratory drive creates a whole industry, but also requires frequent helicopter rescues, as in Zermatt near the famous Matterhorn peek.
Wed, Nov 11, 2015
Explore wonders created by the awesome and unpredictable power of water. Above Victoria Falls in Zambia, a fisherman and his brothers brave crocodiles, elephants and the risk of being swept to their deaths, in order to reach fishing pools at the edge of the Falls. In Europe's secret water world of the Camargue, a young man duels with a savage bull in a centuries-old contest of man-versus-nature. And, among the world's richest ocean reefs, a guardian must hunt down an elusive manta ray among ferocious currents to help save the species.
Wed, Feb 21, 2018
Life in regions with extreme natural conditions often depends on well-adapted animals, which may be key to the cultural heritage of native peoples. For nomads in Siberia, it depends on herding reindeer which is most risky in the annual migrations between summer and winter pastures. In Australia, training as risky helicopter pilot is a desirable career for white farm-boys to drive the herds on dry plains, but also combined whit the traditional knowledge for Aboriginal hunter tribes in northern wetlands used also for conservation of their fearsome predator-prey, collecting eggs from the sunken nests of the salty, the world's largest crocodile,. In Vanuatu, islanders unable to breed much meat depend essentially on fishing, but when a son is trained by his father in ancient techniques, even deep diving for lobster, the devastating effect of over-fishing -also by licensed foreign industrial ships- and climate change become painfully obvious.