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Life.

The closer you look,
the more mysterious it seems.

We can't see
the invisible forces at work.

But what if we could?

It's time
to look at our home...

...in a whole new way.

Imagine carbon
cycling through nature.

It's one of the building blocks
of life.

And it's stored
in our forests...

...oceans...

...and grasslands

on an incredible scale.

But we've released too much
of it into the atmosphere,

risking our future.

We CAN halt emissions

and draw the carbon back down.

And our best ally for that
is nature.

Restoring it to abundance

is the biggest challenge
of our time.

But we CAN do it.

If the future of nature
looked brighter,

so could the future for us all.

Grasslands are the largest
land ecosystems on Earth.

Monitoring and protecting them
is essential, as they affect

the health of our whole planet.

The steppes of Kazakhstan

are part of the most extensive
grasslands we have left...

...home to the elusive
saiga antelope.

Scientist Albert Salemgareyev

is studying these
unusual-looking herbivores.

Albert's study site
covers 13 million acres...

...and the only way of tracking
these nomadic antelope

is with GPS technology.

Most people use darts
to tranquilize wild animals

before collaring them.

But that's not an option
for Albert.

So he and his team

have developed
a different technique.

For it to succeed,

they need to be as fast
and agile as the saiga.

To avoid dangerous levels
of stress,

each chase is limited
to four minutes per animal.

Time's up.

They'll have to try again.

Collars are only secured
to healthy young adults.

They should provide
the most reliable data

over the coming years.

Over the next five days,
they must fit 20 collars.

It's worth the effort,

as saiga are important animals

for the health
of the ecosystem.

They graze for 20 hours a day,

and that stimulates the growth
of fresh grass.

If the saiga were to vanish,

the consequences
would be catastrophic

for the grasslands.

By 2003,
unsustainable hunting

and outbreaks of disease
caused the saiga population

to crash to barely
21,000 animals...

...one of the fastest declines

of a mammal species
ever recorded.

Much of Albert's work now
is focused on saiga protection

across their range.

And GPS collars
are the only way

to be certain where that is.

Saiga traveled great distances
to avoid the cold of winter

in the north and the heat
of summer in the south.

But human development
can block saiga migrations.

Albert's data helps protect
these critical routes.

With safe passage,

saiga are making
an incredible recovery.

Numbers have just been declared

at an astonishing
2.8 million...

...the highest ever recorded.

There are many different kinds
of grassland in the world,

but they usually have
one thing in common.

Grazers...

...which come in all shapes
and sizes.

Their relentless nibbling
and trampling

stimulates fast growth.

And as the grasses grow,

they're doing
something amazing.

They absorb carbon
from the air...

...which is then transported
down into the roots,

where some of it is transferred
into the soil.

If undisturbed, it can stay
there for hundreds of years,

locked safely away from
the atmosphere...

...where right now,
there's too much of it.

And because grasslands cover
around 40% of all land,

their potential
for storing carbon is huge.

But that can only be realized
if the ecosystem is healthy.

Countless species
bound together

in a powerful web of life...

...like here
in south-west Uganda,

in the rain shadow
of the Rwenzori Mountains.

Dr Perpetra Akite
is a grassland ecologist.

She's dedicated her life

to understanding
tropical ecosystems...

...knowledge she passes on
to her students.

The life of a teacher
is one interesting life.

When I want to inspire
the younger people,

I take ecology
out of the textbook

and take them out into
the field like we are here.

And then you will
understand ecology.

- Here.
- Oh!

That's an entire grasshopper
there.

Amazing. Yellow legs.

Grasslands
are very rich ecosystems.

The biodiversity
within grasslands

have always been
underestimated.

We have a lot of Uganda kob,
which happen to be our...

The Uganda national animals.

Waterbuck, buffaloes.

We have a lot of warthogs.

So there's heavy grazing
in grassland ecosystems.

Grasses cope
by regrowing quickly,

but in doing so
they draw nutrients

and minerals from the ground.

These need replenishing,

and the best source
of fertilizer

are the animals themselves.

But getting this dung
into the soil

requires a helping hand

from a creature that likes
to emerge at night.

OK, it's now night.

Let's see if there's anyone
coming out

to do some more building
of the mound.

Ah, there are some
worker termites coming out.

It's actually lovely.

There are more termites
living beneath this savannah

than there are animals
above it.

Between them, they consume
a third of all herbivore dung.

The mound is a nest

where there's a lot of
reproduction.

The more termites we have,

the more services we get
from them.

As termites recycle the
nutrients back into the soil,

they complete the relationship
between grass and grazers.

In any ecosystem, there is
always this interconnection.

Nothing is living in isolation.

So from the smallest thing
to the biggest,

they're actually interlinked

and their survival
is so connected.

As night falls
in the savannah,

many animals take advantage
of the cooler air.

Especially hippos,

which can eat
more than 110 pounds of grass

in a single session.

Their constant mowing
suppresses trees and bushes,

keeping the grasslands open.

But hippo numbers in
Queen Elizabeth National Park

are down by 90%.

Recent increases
in poaching and disease

have decimated the population.

When grazer numbers drop,
the landscape responds.

Jimmy Kisembo has lived
and worked in this park

for over 15 years,

and is witnessing this decline
first-hand.

With fewer grazers,
bushes are taking over...

...and this means
there's less grass to eat,

unbalancing the savannah
even more.

It threatens to destroy
this once-pristine habitat.

Jimmy is here to meet

fellow conservationist
Joseph Arinaitwe

from the Uganda
Wildlife Authority.

He leads a team
of local community members

pushing back against
the takeover.

There are several
invasive plant species

that are causing
a real problem.

Kalema Njojo means
"defeater of elephants".

These animals
are on the rise here

due to improved anti-poaching

and the recent ban
on the elephant ivory trade.

But even the elephants
can't touch Kalema Njojo.

It's far too tough and spiky
to eat.

Problem plants
have taken over

an estimated 580 square miles
of the park so far,

and less than 2% of this
has been cut back.

The work can only be done
by hand.

Previous efforts with machinery
have spread the seeds

and made the problem worse.

These bushes
threaten to destroy

one of Uganda's greatest
wildlife strongholds.

For Joseph and his team,
it's a war of attrition.

Some of our greatest
wildernesses

are beyond the reach
of most people.

"Tundra" means treeless plain.

At this high latitude, it's too
cold for forests to survive.

A unique biome of grasses,

sedges, mosses and lichens
thrives here.

We're out here
in north-east Greenland.

We are in one of
the most remote locations

that you can get to.

It's a fascinating place.

We have heath,
we have grasslands,

we have tundra.

Professor
Torben Christensen

leads a team of scientists
monitoring this ecosystem.

The valley
is only free from snow

for three months of the year.

Not long for the team
to collect the data

that they're after.

It's also the time for tough
plants like Arctic willow

and polar grasses
to do all their growing.

During this summer,

there's a lot of
biological activity here,

and the plants are very fast
in utilizing this time

where they can do
their photosynthesis,

their exchange of carbon
with the atmosphere.

An invisible process

that Torben and his team
are here to assess.

This experiment
we're looking at here

is a fantastic,
very simple technique

to measure the exchanges
of greenhouse gases

between the ecosystem
and the atmosphere.

Did you also check
the other one over there?

- Yeah.
- Nice. Perfect.

It's 51.7.

These instruments
can calculate the amount

and direction of carbon moving
in and out of the ground.

Growing plants absorb it,

but it can also be released
from the soil

by microbes and bacteria.

If there is
more drawdown than release,

then we start to get
accumulation of carbon.

And that's
what the data shows.

That across
this vast landscape,

the carbon drawdown is huge.

These types
of ecosystems,

they have been consuming
carbon dioxide

since the last glacial times.

They are even doing it today.

The carbon that's taken in
by the vegetation

is building up
in the Arctic soils.

The tundra is so important
to the planet's climate,

Torben's team wants to know
how it could be affected

as the world heats up.

Temperatures in the Arctic
are rising

up to three times faster than
anywhere else on the planet.

It's a major problem for
the carbon stored in the earth.

Permafrost is where
the soil has been frozen

more than two years in a row.

Here, it's been frozen
for thousands of years.

It covers 14 million
square kilometers

in the northern hemisphere.

When the earth is frozen,

the breakdown of organic matter
like dead grasses

slows right down,

so the carbon release
is minimal.

But rising temperatures

are threatening
this ice-bound store.

We have known this area
for 28 years,

and this collapse that happens
right under our feet

was quite unexpected.

What's happening here
is fascinating,

but also a bit frightening.

The foundation
was made out of ice.

That ice has now melted...

...and this has caused
a complete collapse.

With the soil defrosted
and exposed to the air,

carbon is escaping
back into the atmosphere.

A piece like this
is a little piece

of 1,700 billion metric tons
of carbon

that is stored in the Arctic
at large.

This type of
permafrost collapse

is happening all around
the top of the planet.

The concern is that
with the warming

that we are causing,
we are starting

a feedback mechanism

where the warming leads to
increased releases of carbon

to the atmosphere...

...and that in turn
leads to further warming.

That's a bad trajectory
for mankind.

To win this fight,

we need to drastically reduce
fossil-fuel emissions

and support nature

in drawing the excess carbon
back down to Earth.

One group of scientists
believe there is an ally

that's critical to changing
the fortunes of the planet...

...right below our feet.

The Netherlands
famously allows you

to do high-risk research.

We are allowed to try all kinds
of new techniques to unlock

the secrets of the underground.

Dr Toby Kiers works as
part of a team of scientists

in an organization
called SPUN -

the Society for the Protection
of Underground Networks.

This is beautiful. You have
to see this. This is good.

This is what we have here,

is a plant root
growing in the lab

that is colonized
by a symbiotic fungal network

that encases the root system.

Mycorrhizal fungi
are a class of soil fungi

that trade resources
with plant roots.

It's a partnership where
the plant is feeding carbon

into the fungal network
in exchange for

phosphorus and nitrogen

and all the nutrients
that the fungi collect.

The fungal network penetrates
into the root system itself

and forms
these beautiful structures.

The partnership between fungi
and plants

is one of the oldest on Earth,

and it underlies basically
all terrestrial ecosystems.

To be able to see inside
the fungi themselves

and to see the nutrient flows,

we have to use a much more
powerful microscope.

Toby takes living
fungal networks to be imaged

at a physics laboratory
on the other side of town.

Tom works with
really powerful microscopes

that can see things that we
simply could not see in my lab.

We can see
the traffic patterns inside.

A lot of the things
that are moving are carbon.

It starts to bring us towards
an understanding of how carbon

can be drawn down into the soil
and kept there.

So now I'm just going to
switch to the fluorescence.

- Whoa!
- Whoa!

That was so cool.

It's so full of carbon.

-And it's all flowing.
- It's all flowing.

Right now
what we're looking at

is carbon moving through
the living fungal network.

It wasn't until we could start
labeling the carbon

with fluorescence that the game
really started to change,

because now we were able
to pinpoint exactly

the carbon inside the network.

This year, for the first time,

we harmonized all the datasets
that had ever been published

where people actually measured
how much carbon

was going from root systems
into mycorrhizal fungi.

It's a big number.

Our estimates are about
13 billion tons of CO2 per year

are processed by plants

and then fed to mycorrhizal
networks below ground.

That's equivalent
to about a third

of all emissions
from fossil fuels.

These mycorrhizal fungi,
they are an ally in our fight

against climate change.

But the clock is ticking

to find and safeguard
these amazing networks.

We're not protecting
these fungal systems.

And I think
one of the big problems

is that there are no maps
of the fungi themselves.

We don't know where the Amazon
of the underground is.

Part of SPUN's goal

is to identify
where these places are.

- Let's see what we got.
- Have a core.

We go to those spots,
and we actually work with

local scientists
and collect soils

to understand what fungal
communities are there.

Just to give you a bit of
perspective, we have sampled

about 0.01%
of terrestrial earth.

So that means 99.9%
of terrestrial earth

has not been sampled
for these fungi.

So we have a big job
ahead of us.

Grasslands are huge.

As well as capturing carbon,
they help produce our food.

Our staples of wheat, barley,
oats, and rice

are all cultivated
grass species.

But the way we farm them
is harming soil biodiversity.

Digging and tilling
can break up fungal networks

and release the carbon
they hold.

Globally, a third of all soils
are degraded,

and getting worse...

...not only contributing
to climate change,

but threatening
global food security.

Many farmers recognize this

and want to boost
underground biodiversity...

...returning soil to health.

This unproductive field
has been set aside

to let nature help it heal.

And student Robbie Sidhu
is monitoring its recovery

in an unusual way.

I think it's really important
to develop new ways

of looking at how we can
help save our planet

as the climate crisis
moves forwards,

try new approaches that
we haven't looked at before.

The first time I listened
to soil was in my own garden,

and I plugged
the microphones in

and wasn't prepared
for the amount of noise

that I heard and the variation
of the noise that I heard.

Robbie is trying
to make sense

of this subterranean chorus.

There's a lot of cracks
and pops and rustling going on.

It's soothing to listen to,
in a weird way.

Bioacoustics
is a promising way

to observe soil biodiversity
without disturbing it.

We're thinking of
this fieldwork as kind of

an orchestra
that we're listening to,

and now we're going back into
the laboratory

and trying to identify
what all the instruments are.

It's quite surprising to hear

the rustling
from the root systems...

...and the percussiveness
of the insects.

These methods
are in their early stages,

but the difference between
healthy and unhealthy soil

is obvious.

As things
become more restored,

you get a lot more noise
from an improved ecosystem.

It's really exciting to be
at the edge of something that

could garner quite important
results going forwards.

A lot of the methods of
monitoring soil at the moment

are quite invasive,
quite expensive,

quite time-consuming,
whereas monitoring

the acoustic aspects of soil
is quite easy.

This tool is a simple way
to understand if our efforts

to restore nature are working.

All of the animals and the
biology that lives in the soil

is what captures that carbon
the most.

And if we can encourage
that biology to flourish,

then we're doing our job
in terms of capturing carbon,

and listening to the soil

is an important way
that we can do that.

It's only been a few years,

but already when we compare
this field

that's being regenerated

to those around it that are
still in constant use,

we can hear a difference.

And it's getting louder.

If protected,
all of the world's grasslands

can help us fight
climate change.

Like those found in
the prairies of North America.

But less than a fifth of
these ecosystems remain...

...and over a million acres
are lost to crops every year.

But there are those who believe

that wild prairies can coexist
with our human needs.

We're going to go see
if we can find

bull bison, these kind of...
I'd say solitary,

but I think there's a group of,
like, three of them up here.

It's pretty typical this time
of year, outside of the rut,

that they're on their own
for the most part.

Here in Montana,

there's a large area of prairie
that looks wild...

...but it's really just a shadow
of its former self.

The biggest difference
between the prairies today

and the prairies
let's say 150 or 200 years ago

is the absence of big herds
of large mammals,

predators and migratory birds.

Large indigenous grazers,
things like bison,

have been replaced
by domestic species,

cattle for the most part.

For wild animals
to return,

they need substantial
areas of land.

The best available science

says that a fully functioning
prairie ecosystem

needs to be about
3.2 million acres.

That's 5,000 square miles.

And that's
just how much land

a project called
American Prairie

intends to rewild.

That's Yellowstone
National Park,

Glacier National Park,
and then eventually,

we hope to create this kind of
comparable large protected area

for wildlife right in
the middle of the state here.

Much of the land has been
owned by ranching families

for generations,

and many have made their
feelings clear about rewilding.

There is a fear that native
animals, especially predators,

will have an impact
on their livelihoods.

We know our neighbors
are always going to be ranchers

no matter what this looks like.

So how do you extend the
effects of a wildlife refuge

by increasing
wildlife tolerance

on the other side of the fence?

Success is only guaranteed
if everyone works together.

Brother and sister
Grant and Glenna Finkbeiner

help run the family's
livestock operation

in central Montana.

Well, we ranch.

We got a lot of different
enterprises, though.

We're fifth-generation
ranchers now,

pretty much in this area
since the late 1800s.

We still have
large herds of elk.

You know, it's not crazy to see

a thousand head elk
coming out of the trees.

Predators as well.

Had a lion come through
and it killed 20 ewes.

Considering that year

the ewes were averaging
in the market

$230 apiece...

...it adds up pretty quick,
the economic loss.

Many ranchers
around here

still kill a lot of predators.

If they saw a wolf,
they'd shoot it immediately.

I feel as though getting rid
of all the predators

kind of upsets
the ecological balance.

To improve
carnivore numbers,

American Prairie has a plan
to incentivise ranchers

to see them in a different way.

These cameras are owned
by the American Prairie,

and they use them to see
and manage

how much wildlife
is in an area.

Camera traps are set...

...and every picture taken
of a contentious species

earns the landowner money.

It helps compensate
for any financial impact

the wildlife might cause.

Over 60 sites have been
photographed so far...

...capturing
over 30,000 images...

...including the rarest
predators.

Ventures like this improve
relations with nature...

...which is doing better
as the project grows.

But persecution
has driven some species

to extinction in Montana.

With a little help, even
those lost can be returned.

The reason
we're working where we are

is because the habitat
is intact enough

that what you can do is
just add animals back into it.

The Fort Belknap
Indian Reservation

is home to the Aaniiih
and Nakoda people.

Over 650,000 acres
of intact prairie

and the site of an incredible
reintroduction program.

Why Fort Belknap?

Because it's an Indian
reservation,

it is a sovereign nation,
so they are able to make

essentially unilateral
decisions about how much

or how little wildlife
will be in their lands

without the need
to get approval from

the state wildlife agency
or the federal wildlife agency.

Scientists
are joining students

from the reservation's college

to reintroduce
a small but vital predator

back into the ecosystem.

Thank you guys for being here.

Tonight we are going to release

two foxes that have been
brought up from Colorado.

Student Ethan Werk is part

of the swift fox
reintroduction team.

The work is tough,
it's hard,

but being able to see
the foxes on the landscape

is rewarding in itself.

They eat small rodents
and prairie dogs and insects,

so they're kind of like
a pest control.

Swift foxes
are so fascinating.

They're very, very small,
about the size of a house cat.

And what's so special
about them

is that you can only find them
in these large tracts

of intact shortgrass
prairie ecosystems.

So the foxes that we have
in the pen here with us today,

they've been fitted with
a GPS collar and were placed

into an acclimation pen
for five days.

And now we will release them

to find a new home
on Fort Belknap.

There it is.

There he goes.

Oh! Godspeed, little buddy.

Look the other way.
You're free now.

I'm gonna call this fox North

cos he has
no sense of direction.

His first steps
into his new home.

He's hunting.

We're gonna watch him
catch one.

He got it!

He missed.

That was BLEEP cool.

I hope that guy caught that
on camera.

These animals, they have
a place here, too,

just like anybody else.

Their land was taken,

most of their habitat
was taken,

so having a place to go
is crucial for them.

And being able
on the reservation here

to provide that
is pretty great.

And it's not only
the native animals

that benefit from this project.

Thriving prairies can help us

to draw down and store
staggering amounts of carbon.

I think we're so close.

It seems so very doable
to be able to rewild this place

and bring it back
so all of us can enjoy

that wild North America
that came so close

to being lost forever.

I think I will see this place
in a wild state

before I retire,
let alone before I die.

This is not something
that takes 100 years.

You could do this in 40 years

and have this place
be wild again.

We know how to protect
and rebuild

the ecosystems we rely on.

And the work has begun

in grasslands
right across the world...

...saving species,

keeping soil healthy

and locking carbon
beneath the ground.

This is all about
urgency.

It's even hard to sit here
and talk about it

and not be
in the field sampling

and restoring ecosystems
that have been degraded.

It won't be easy,
but the payoffs are huge.

There are wild possibilities
just ahead of us.

Building a future for nature
benefits us all.

There is a future,
and everyone will be involved.

Definitely.

With nature on our side,

we CAN overcome
even the greatest challenge.