What a view | World’s last unspoilt places feature in BBC’s Eden: Untamed Planet – travel to the far corners of the Earth and discover their secrets
- Narrated by Helena Bonham Carter, the six-part series produced by the BBC’s Natural History Unit extols the idyllic virtues of Alaska, Patagonia and more
- The show begins in Borneo, which may be the planet’s most biodiverse island, with 6,000 of its species found nowhere else in the world
So while the Amazon burns and the globe chokes, here’s a chance for the Asean great and good to take the lead as eco-saviours in preserving the lungs of our big blue marble – by first watching Eden: Untamed Planet (from Friday, September 17, on BBC Earth, via Cable TV channel 721, myTV Super channel 401 and Now TV channel 220).
This six-part series, produced by the BBC’s Natural History Unit, kicks off in Borneo, Southeast Asia’s wild backyard: its rainforest, we’re told – in the soothing tones of Helena Bonham Carter, no less – is a mere 140 million years old, with 60,000 species of flora and fauna. It may be the planet’s most biodiverse island, with 6,000 of its species unique to this South China Sea-fringed rock.
It’s still partly pristine, but for how much longer? Palm oil plantations, we’re reminded, are leading the deforestation charge as habitat is squandered; orangutan populations are shrinking; the Bornean sun bear – abused and exploited across Asia for its bile – is in extreme danger.
But such disturbing intelligence is conveyed not by bashing the viewer over the head with statistics and anecdotal evidence that reiterate what a stinking dung heap we are making of the planet, but with seductive images and commentary that illustrate the beauty of another place we are in the process of losing to greed.