What a viewJaguars in Brazil, elephants in Kenya – BBC Earth’s Changing Planet checks on these and other animals’ endangered habitats
- Changing Planet on BBC Earth examines the at-risk habitats of animals from the pangolin in Cambodia and manta ray in the Maldives to Brazil and Kenya
- Over seven years, presenters will check on the health of these habitats and animal populations, and highlight local efforts to conserve them
Jaguars in Brazil, Maldivian manta rays, elephants in Kenya, humpback whales in the Arctic, pangolins in Cambodia – it’s hardly worth even asking what they have in common.
The latest natural history series from the BBC’s famous saving-the-world department is, well, gloomy. In the ambitious Changing Planet (BBC Earth, now showing), six presenters have each chosen a habitat, to which they will return over the course of seven years to check on the ecological health of their turf.
Or, as seems more likely, its terminal decline. As human population growth strains resources, commandeers more land, poisons the air, turns the oceans to plastic and takes a blowtorch to glaciers and polar ice, the prognosis for animal species, landscapes and seas is dire.
Not that that will prevent Chris Packham (Iceland), Ade Adepitan (Kenya), Liz Bonnin (California), Gordon Buchanan (Brazil, scene of the recent murders of two conservationists), Steve Backshall (the Maldives) and Ella Al-Shamahi (Cambodia) illuminating any positive developments by reporting on the preservation efforts of scientists, activists and wildlife guardians.
These include moves by communities in Tonlé Sap, in Cambodia, to protect Southeast Asia’s largest freshwater lake; a programme to help ranchers coexist with South America’s biggest cat, instead of shooting it; avoidance of cataclysmic Californian wildfires; and attempts to eradicate the illegal wildlife trade, fuelled primarily by demand from China and Vietnam.