Documentary AreaSimply the best Documentaries

Weather controls the distribution of freshwater on Earth. David Attenborough narrates how this uneven distribution has given rise to an incredible diversity of species and habits, from the driest desert to the lushest tropical rainforest. Featuring a colony of ants banding together into a raft every time its home in the Amazon floods, a rain frog that manages to eke out an existence in one of the world's driest habitats on Earth, and the last wild camels that survive the Gobi Desert's bitter winters by eating snow that blows in from Siberia.

Oceans are the largest ecosystem on earth, covering two thirds of our world’s surface and providing half the oxygen in our atmosphere. They are home to as much as 80 per cent of all life on earth, and nearly three billion people rely on them for their primary source of food.
But our planet’s oceans would be little more than stagnant wastelands, and life on planet earth would cease to exist, were it not for one simple factor: a global network of powerful ocean currents. Every drop of seawater on earth rides these currents, taking 1,000 years to complete a single circuit. Without the constant mixing of currents, tides and waves, our oceans would stop supporting life - and a healthy ocean is vital to a healthy planet.

A new force threatens our perfect planet. In the past, five mass extinction events were caused by cataclysmic volcanic eruptions. It was not the lava or ash that wiped out life, but an invisible gas released by volcanoes: carbon dioxide. Almost every part of modern life depends on energy created by burning fossil fuels, and this produces CO2 in huge amounts. Humans are changing our planet so rapidly, it’s affecting earth’s life support systems: our weather, our oceans and the living world. The greatest change to be made is in how we create energy, and the planet is brimming with natural power that can help us do just that. It’s these forces of nature - the wind, the sun, waves and geothermal energy - that hold the key to our future.
Through compelling animal-led stories and expert interviews, we discover how CO2 is destabilising our planet. We meet rescued orphaned elephants in Kenya, victims of ever worsening droughts, and join ocean patrols off the coast of Gabon fighting to save endangered sharks. In the Amazon, we witness wildlife teams saving animals in the shrinking forests, and in San Diego we enter a cryogenic zoo preserving the DNA of endangered species before they become extinct.

Jeremy Clarkson decides to become a naturalist. 'In just 30 years, insect numbers have dropped by 25% and they're still falling. Without insects, all life on Earth ends. Everywhere where insects like to live is disappearing and I've decided to do something about that. My plan is to make my hedgerows, my valleys, my woods, and my streams more attractive to creepy crawlies. In essence, I am going to leave chunks of the farm completely alone. I'm going to put Mother Nature in the driving seat. It's a process called wilding.'

The Namib Desert is one of the oldest deserts and also one of the most diverse. With 50ºC (120ºF) temperatures and half a millimetre of rainfall annually, we see how this is possible. Half the size of Oklahoma, from its Skeleton Coast through the sea of sand to the haze of distant mountains this apparently forbidding desert hides secret water sources.

At the very end of East Africa's Great Rift Valley, there's a 'land that time forgot'--the rolling grasslands of the Luangwa Valley. Seemingly untouched plains teem with Africa's most iconic animals. Some are unique to this place, others are critically endangered elsewhere.
Here, prey exist in remarkable balance, each taking advantage of the secret at the heart of this Eden, the mighty Luangwa River and its dramatic annual transformation from dusty inferno to emerald paradise.