With precious ecosystems in peril, the world is on the cusp of evolutionary change.
Recognizing this transformation, BBC Earth has embarked on a visionary project to document the evolution of our planet over the next seven years. This remarkable documentary series highlights a pivotal moment in Earth’s history with eyewitness accounts from around the world.
In changing planetBBC Earth shows how the the future of our precious ecosystems is changing. Explored through local eyewitness accounts in six vulnerable locations: Iceland, the Amazon, California, Kenya, the Maldives, and Cambodia, the documentary reveals hard truths that many are unaware of.
The series is the beginning of a visionary project to document how our planet evolves in the coming years. It also asks the important questions of how these changes will affect the world and its people.
How are California animal rescuers dealing with the surge in wildlife casualties? What impact will increasingly frequent droughts have on Kenya’s growing human population and wildlife? Are Icelanders and wildlife adapting to the disappearance of their glaciers? More than a record of change, the series also offers hope. Learn about the scientists, indigenous groups, and conservationists fighting to save these iconic places for the future.
Returning every year for seven years, BBC Earth’s changing planet reveals the battle for each location and asks if we’re doing enough to save our planet from irreversible change. Explorer, paleoanthropologist and evolutionary biologist, Ella Al-Shamahi is at the forefront of the new series.
His eyewitness account in Cambodia addresses the importance of protecting river basins. Ahead of the series premiere, Ella Al-Shamahi reveals what audiences can expect from changing planet.
What do you think is so captivating about this new series?
Six locations over seven years, that’s the part that captivates me the most, it feels like Seven Up! but for the planet. It is very important for us to see how various global locations change not just in a couple of years.
TV shows usually focus on one or two locations and it’s pretty unusual to shoot for more than a few months, so to keep coming back, we get to see what’s really going on. We also get to see how all the heroes and champions who fight to protect their environment do it, so often we film with someone, root for them, and then leave. In this way, we can follow his story, his struggle, and hopefully (we can all hope he’s right), his success.
Were there any standout or memorable sequences for you while filming?
Eat a snake. Honestly, I still can’t eat anything that has lemongrass in it! However, he really didn’t want to offend people. Not just because it’s a delicacy in Cambodia, but more importantly because I was a guest and these people were eating it because they were so poor.
They lived on a lake (literally) and yet, due to dams, they now had so few fish that they needed to supplement their diet. Thus, field rats and snakes, which were previously only eaten occasionally, are now part of the main diet and they keep a bucket of snakes in their house. So me, coming from a wealthy country, sticking my nose into eating snake too much seemed horrible, so horrible and I had to hold back… but my whole body was really uninterested in eating snake.
So it was difficult to balance. But honestly, there were so many sequences. To be honest, we found so many things that it was difficult to decide what to include. Talking to the communities at Tonle Sap Lake was extraordinary. Sometimes when you talk to the environmental champion family, you get more information, they tell you how this hero can’t sleep because he’s constantly worried about his community and his environmental damage.
Rescued animals are always humble and hearing their stories just tugs at every heartstring. Imagine being a pangolin, ready to be eaten, somehow escaping in a busy capital city, and then being wandered off by someone who sends you to a rescue center? To bless.
Did you have a favorite place? How long did you spend at the location?
I enjoyed the lake because of the bird watching. Tonle Sap Lake is extraordinary for waterfowl. I’m usually less enthusiastic about waterfowl, but I missed the thrill as it’s one of the best birding spots in SE Asia. It’s hard not to get excited when there are so many birds, and there are so many species and they look, well, extraordinary!
What positive changes do you hope will occur each year?
Hmm, this is hard, I guess I hope China, in particular, considers the impact of their dams, especially now that the data is piling up. At the end of the day, this will affect them too. I’m also hopeful in the world of Wildlife Alliance, if they really do reintroduce tigers… well, we’ll be there.
What do you hope viewers take away from watching changing planet?
Usually you hope that people will see how amazing our world is and feel the need to protect it, but then you let them. This series is different because it’s a long-term project, so it gives the audience an opportunity to invest, so I hope they invest in these stories, because if they do that, the places that we visit again and again will have more opportunities . .
That may be what happens when a show forces attention on one venue for many years. I also hope that beyond the dam situation, beyond the Wildlife Alliance’s noble attempts to protect animals in the cardamom rain forest, the stories in Cambodia highlight that no country is an island, not metaphorically. What our neighbors do impacts us and what we do impacts them. It is not enough that a few countries are thinking about the environment, we are all in this together.
BBC Earth’s Changing Planet premieres on Sunday 31 July at 9pm, on StarHub channel 407, Singtel channel 203 and BBC Player.
(Images: BBC Studios)