All language subtitles for The.Future.of.Nature.S01E04.Humans.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-RAWR_track3_[eng]

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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.

Imagine a world
where nature thrives...

...ecosystems are functioning...

...and the carbon cycle
is stable.

Paradise.

If we want to live here too,

we must find ways
to be a force for good

throughout the natural world.

Maple and Willow
were found five days after

their mom was found dead

on a highway here on
the peninsula in California.

Dr Alex Herman works at

the Oakland Zoo
Veterinary Hospital.

She's overseeing the arrival

of a pair of orphaned
mountain lions.

When they came in,
they were tiny,

about four to six weeks old.

They were very hungry,
very dehydrated.

Willow very soon after that
developed pneumonia

just from the trauma
of the whole situation.

She was really, really sick.

We were very concerned
that we could lose her.

Thanks to
the team's expertise,

Maple and Willow
have both survived.

It's really nice
to see them moving around,

climbing, playing.

These kittens may be safe,

but they're not the first
the team has rescued.

Here at the Oakland Zoo,
we've treated

26 orphaned mountain lions

since our program began
in 2018.

Mountain lions bring hit by
cars is a common, big problem.

Without their mother,

the future for these youngsters
is limited.

None of the orphaned mountain
lions that we've seen so far

here at the Oakland Zoo
have been able to be rewilded.

They need to stay in captivity

because they're just too young
when they lose their mother.

So normally they'll hunt with
their mom, be mentored, taught,

protected by their mom
until they're two years old.

Because their mom was killed,
they've lost that opportunity.

In the wild,

mountain lions are found
from Canada to southern Chile.

They're so widespread,
they have different names -

pumas, cougars,
even Florida panthers.

But the more their ranges
overlap with ours,

the more they hit a dead end.

So the freeways in our
study area are extremely busy,

some of the busiest
in the world.

The 101 Freeway sees
over 350,000 vehicles a day.

Roads in our area
are definitely a deathtrap

for our local mountain lions.

Jeff Sikich and the
National Park Service team

have been studying
mountain lions here in LA

for over 20 years.

It's been a tough ride.

Last year we had 15 get
struck and killed by vehicles.

Some of our animals
that we've been following,

we mark as kittens
at three weeks of age.

I have followed them
their whole life.

And to see these animals,
you know,

struck by a vehicle
is just awful.

LA may seem
an unusual place

to find North America's
biggest cats,

but they're smart, adaptable,
and stealthy.

We rarely get sightings
of these animals,

and it really speaks
to their elusive nature.

In this environment
we have here,

they can be 20 meters in front
of me and we won't see them.

So we do a lot of
looking for signs.

So looking for tracks,
um, scat.

And then also
our greatest tool,

we use our remote cameras
in areas

where we think we might get
a mountain lion to walk by.

And we have been studying them
by capturing them,

placing GPS radio collars
on individuals.

By charting the mountain
lions' movements,

Jeff can see the limits
of their territory.

So we're just north
of the 101 Freeway

right at Liberty Canyon.

This is a natural pinch point
for them,

this natural habitat
on either side

leading up to the freeway
right at Liberty Canyon.

This human barrier
is having a devastating impact

on the population.

These mountain lions
aren't crossing

the freeways often,
and this has led

to very low genetic diversity
in our population

and also close inbreeding.

And recently we've started
to see the physical effects

of that low genetic diversity
in our population.

We have documented
mountain lions

with these physical
abnormalities, um,

a distal tail kink.
And we've also seen

some reproductive abnormalities
as well.

The longer
they stay trapped,

the bleaker their future.

If inbreeding depression

sets in to our Santa Monica
mountain lion population,

there's pretty much
a 99% chance of extinction

within 50 years.

We get asked often, well,
what if we lose mountain lions

from this area?
What will happen?

And we like to say
that's an experiment

we don't want to conduct.

You know, the mountain lion
being an umbrella species,

that if mountain lions
are doing good in an area,

if that population is healthy,

that equals
healthy prey populations

and a healthy ecosystem
overall.

The more nature there is,

the more effective
the ecosystem is

at drawing down carbon.

But remove the apex predator,
and it can fail.

Mountain lions are facing
a disastrous future.

They need a hero.

Ten years ago,
conservationist Beth Pratt

was inspired by the tale of
a mountain lion living in LA.

I read about P-22,

a mountain lion shows up
in Griffith Park,

and I was like, is that true?!

You know, is there really
a mountain lion in LA?

He had to cross two of the
busiest freeways in the nation,

the 101 and the 405,
and then he ends up

on a dead-end area
of eight square miles,

the smallest known home range
ever recorded

for a male mountain lion
by science.

And he makes it.
Lives under the Hollywood sign.

In fact, he became a celebrity
in a land of celebrities.

We had the P-22 Day Festival,
a festival for a mountain lion.

15,000 people showed up
to honor this cat.

And so I think P-22 has really
evoked something magical in us

that even in the second-largest
city in the country,

nature had not
been fully banished.

If a mountain lion could live
under the Hollywood sign

in the middle of LA,
what else was possible?

Inspired by P-22,

Beth is part of a campaign

that's aiming to change
the fate of all mountain lions.

It's launched a movement.

The science
has always been there.

The public support
is now there.

It really got people
to reconsider,

like, "OK, we can coexist
with large predators,"

and indeed, it's not just
that we can. We have to.

We have to save these cats.

It involves people having the
will to do something visionary.

All my work is about
coexisting with wildlife,

and there's lots of angles
to that,

but the biggest
is infrastructure, right?

The biggest is, animals
need to get across roads.

Determined to help them,
Beth has spent a decade

raising nearly $90 million

for a seriously ambitious
project.

This is where we're
putting a wildlife crossing.

Stretching 210 feet long
and 165 feet wide,

the Wallis Annenberg
Wildlife Crossing

will be the world's biggest
bridge for animals.

This is science
come to life. This is hope.

I've stood here at 2am

and I wouldn't even
try to cross.

So you can imagine an animal
just isn't going to make it.

You know, the Wallis Annenberg
Wildlife Crossing is truly

one of the most significant
conservation projects

of our time, not just
because it's going to be

the world's largest crossing,

but because
what it represents -

that we are doing this.

We are making way for wildlife

in one of the most populated
areas in the country.

The wildlife crossing
right at Liberty Canyon

couldn't have come at a better
time for our population.

Once the wildlife crossing
is built, we really only need

one mountain lion every
two years or so to come down

and successfully breed

to make a difference
in our small population here.

These are beautiful,
iconic, important animals

that are a part of California.

The wildlife corridor

is being recognized as a key
to coexistence,

I think is the future that
we should all work towards.

Maintaining
our ecosystems,

and fully functioning
ecosystems, are key

to the climate crisis.

That is what's going
to save us.

How can we stop with one?

The more we build nature
into our lives,

the more carbon is drawn down.

If we become
ecosystem engineers,

we can help nature thrive
everywhere.

Mangrove forests
live along coastlines

and can draw down
ten times more carbon

than plants on land.

But they're fragile,
and vulnerable to pollution.

On Hainan Island, China,

Dongzhai mangrove forest
is an important nature reserve.

Life's been flourishing here
for millions of years,

undisturbed -

until recently.

It's on the doorstep
of Haikou city.

In just over four decades,

Haikou has grown from
less than half a million

to over two million people.

And whatever flows along
the city's river

ultimately impacts the health

of the mangrove forest
downstream.

Kongjian Yu
is an architect

with a radical vision.

Kongjian believes
modern engineering practices

make the problem worse.

Kongjian was inspired
by his childhood

on the rice terraces
of central China.

The rice paddy landscape
is like a giant sponge,

not just slowing the water,

but filtering it
and cleaning it too.

At his office,

Kongjian has the solution
to Haiko's problem.

Kongjian has taken this
vision for a healthy landscape

and supersized it.

He's turned Haiko
into a sponge city...

There are even benefits
for the city.

For Kongjian,
this is only the start.

Re-engineering our cities

is better for the future
of nature.

It could even be better for us.

Freetown in Sierra Leone,
West Africa,

is one of the most vulnerable
places in the world

to the impacts
of climate change.

In August 2017,

resident Idrissa Conteh
experienced

just what that means.

Everyone lost someone.

I was getting ready to
go off to the office in Mali

when I heard about the
landslide in August of 2017,

and the immediate effect

of 1,000 people
losing their lives,

and immediately
there was thinking about

how to support Sierra Leone.

On hearing
the tragic news,

senior climate adviser
Eric Hubbard

was compelled
to make a difference.

A few months later, I was here.

Listening, trying to understand

how people that live in the
community understand risks.

Working with
the city council,

Eric learned that climate
change caused crops to fail,

forcing thousands of people
to move here.

And this had severe
consequences.

Urbanization in itself
is not a problem,

but what we have is
unsustainable and unplanned.

And what that does is create
a level of deforestation

that is also unsustainable
for the city.

Over two square miles,

or 500,000 trees,

have been lost annually
since 2011.

When you remove trees
systematically,

you disturb the soil dynamics.

So what happens
to the loose soil?

First of all,
it becomes destabilized.

The landslide of 2017

was directly caused
by that level of removal

and the destabilization
of that slope.

The Freetown tragedy

highlights the dangers
of removing trees.

But the effects of
deforestation spiral further.

What we are probably
even more concerned about

are the rising temperatures.

All across the city,
people are feeling the heat.

Outdoor work
is a critical component

of how we live.
There will be a point at which

it will be biophysically
impossible

to do any of those things
if we don't figure out a way,

you know,
to cool the environment.

Eugenia Kargbo
is the chief heat officer

for Freetown.

You can experience
the heat,

you can feel the change
when you talk to communities

and you talk to people,

they can tell you that
something has changed.

But in terms of data,
that's a challenge.

And that's why we did
the first heat mapping,

was conducted in January,
which gave us a baseline

of what the current situation
is.

Eugenia's data shows
Freetown rarely cools down,

and the forecast is worrying.

Projection
from different studies

have predicted that if nothing
is done about the situation,

temperatures will rise
to about 30, 35 degrees

by the end of 2030.

This heat,
combined with intense humidity,

will be unbearable.

A solution is urgently needed.

In our approach,

we want to cool the air-scape
and stabilize slopes,

and what we have found

is that trees have
the propensity to do both.

As well as
preventing landslides,

trees can reduce
city temperatures

by as much as
15 degrees Fahrenheit.

The solution may be
to simply plant more,

but wherever they grow,
they need long-term care.

A survey of 176 new plantations
showed that after five years,

half the saplings had failed.

Growing trees in
a fast-developing city

like Freetown seems
an impossible challenge.

"Freetown The Treetown"
is a community-led,

community-owned,
community-driven

restoration process.

The Treetown project pays
residents like Sinneh Turay

to not just plant trees,

but also be their
long-term guardians.

Literally pay to grow.

Sinneh's planting
a mix of 52 different species

chosen for their environmental
and also economic benefits.

And technology is ensuring

as many of these saplings
survive as possible.

We've integrated digital
technology into the process

to ensure that we get a digital
footprint of every tree,

and that way we can use
the digital space

to track the life
and the health of the tree.

And so that creates the ability
for the city to do something

that most cities
have never been able to do,

and that is to guarantee
an 80% tree survival rate.

The tracking happens four times
a year, but the critical piece

is that we have created
a care economy.

Whenever a tree is tagged
and in the database,

its digital footprint
can be traded

on the worldwide carbon market.

And thanks to
the ongoing monitoring,

companies that need to offset
their carbon footprint

can guarantee
the tree's continued health

and lasting value.

So we have built
a natural

capital investment strategy
with corporate

and institutional partners

that are looking for
carbon offsets.

That are... That have made
net zero pledges, right?

That have supply chains
into Sierra Leone.

Carbon offsetting
is not a license to emit,

but it could be
a short-term solution

to some urgent challenges.

The ecosystem services
from those trees

will really manifest
around 2030.

But they have already begun
to sequester carbon.

Such big ideas
could make a real difference

to the people living here.

The legacy of the project

could extend
far beyond this city.

The thinking
was Freetown The Treetown

and what we like to call
Treetown Africa.

And so we've been doing a lot
of work to build out our model.

- We've got one over here.
- I see it.

This has created
a context for us

to share broadly, step by step,
with cities across Africa

and across the Global South

what we've been doing
and how we've been doing it.

If we can embrace nature,

carbon can reinvigorate
our livelihoods...

...from fast-growing new cities

to some of the oldest
rural communities.

Meg!

Come by. Come by.

Away, away, away.

No, Meg. Meg!

There, sit.

For farming families
like John's,

one particular gift
from the land

made the difference
between survival or failure.

Peat is waterlogged,
oxygen-depleted soil

filled with slowly decomposing
plant material.

Small-scale cutting
for families

has never been the problem.

But large-scale
commercial peat extraction

has had devastating
consequences.

Dr Guaduneth Chico
works with WaterLANDS,

an EU environmental initiative
aiming to restore the peatland.

On top of
the Black Mountain,

Guaduneth can see why degraded
peatland is such a problem.

Years of
accumulated carbon

make peat the largest store
on land.

But this ancient landscape
is extremely fragile.

Peatlands cover nearly 3%
of land on Earth,

but 15% of them are degraded,

turning them
from carbon sinks...

...to carbon sources.

In Ireland, just a fifth
of peatlands remain.

But Guaduneth's showing the
community how to restore them.

- About...
- Yeah, two meters.

Two meters. Yeah.

Despite the damage
to the environment,

commercial peat-cutting
was only banned in 2022.

But more recent uses
of peatland

still impact the carbon cycle,

as well as the communities
trying to live alongside.

But there's a plan to help
communities thrive here -

and support the peatlands, too.

- That one over there?
- Yeah.

Guaduneth is working with
local farmer Sean McGovern

on a particularly prickly
problem.

There's a couple up there,
Guaduneth, I think.

Yeah, yeah. I can see them.
Yeah.

No, no.

There's no chance on that one.

It's amazing how fast
they grow in a few short years.

- One less.
- One less.

There's a couple more up here.

By restoring peatland
for carbon drawdown,

Sean is eligible
for an environmental grant

from the government.

The better the condition
of his land,

the more money he'll be paid.

So what we can do is, you know,
invest on the farms

and improve the quality
of the land.

It's opportunity
to actually restore habitats.

We train you...

We pay for the training and
then we pay also for the labor.

So you can actually have some
people full-time job, I think.

If you measured the black area,
where that's bad,

it would probably cover
about...

It would cover about
three acres, four acres?

- Oh, more, more.
- More.

- Yeah, yeah.
- Oh, would it, yeah...

...to do this because obviously
this is a very big job.

Oh, yeah. Of course.

It IS possible
to see a future

and live a better life
with carbon.

And we can even do this

in the face of the most
immediate challenge of all.

For at least one month
every year,

nearly two-thirds
of the world's population

face a severe scarcity
of water,

and supplying enough of it
to our growing cities

is increasingly difficult...

...even in some of
the lushest places.

Rio may be Carnival City,

but beneath
the glittering surface

there are big challenges.

Most of its water is supplied
by the Guandu River,

but heavy industry
and intensive farming

along its banks
have left the river

polluted and silt-ridden.

With the city's water treatment
plant working overtime,

the cost and reliability
of the water supply

is a growing problem
for Rio's 14 million residents.

But there's a simple, free
solution right on the doorstep.

Otavio Barros
has lived here all his life.

The Enchanted Valley
community

has enough clean, free water

because it's alongside
a crucial natural resource.

The Tijuca forest.

Forests are like sponges,

collecting
and filtering rainfall,

which drains into streams.

As the streams flow from
the slopes of the valley,

they're channeled into rivers.

And the region
where the water accumulates

is called a watershed.

The Tijuca Forest
is a small remnant

of a once-giant
watershed ecosystem.

The Atlantic Forest.

Spanning the length of Brazil,
it was twice the size of Texas.

But today, farming and industry

has made it one of the most
depleted ecosystems on Earth.

Barely 15% remains,

and the region's water supply
is in trouble.

But 60 miles south of Rio,

conservationists
at REGUA Reserve

are piecing this giant
watershed back together again.

They can only do it
with the help

of Brazil's largest gardener.

Professor Maron Galliez
is returning tapirs

to their natural environment.

The tapirs
have come from zoos,

so to prepare them for life
in the wild,

they'll first spend time
in an outdoor enclosure.

Weighing over 650 pounds,

tapirs feast on large fruits
and seeds,

which become large trees,

and the larger the tree,

the more carbon it can store.

While the tapirs acclimatize,

REGUA manager Raquel Locke is
evaluating how to best restore

the health of the watershed.

We must think of the
forest as this live entity,

where every little form of life
is necessary

and has to be added
when possible.

All that diversity will have
communities of insects,

animals coming back
in due time.

Certainly some bigger animals

won't be able to come back
by themselves.

The more wildlife can be
returned, the better the chance

of restoring the watershed.

Having spent a month

acclimatizing
in their enclosure,

the tapirs are ready to go to
work in the forest.

The promise of a treat
is enough to lure one of them

into its transit box.

But the other one
is not so easily fooled.

The team will need
all their skill,

and a lot of patience,
to lure this one in.

We are using
his favorite foods,

but he's too clever.

And just when
the team think

they've got the better
of him...

We decided
to try it later

because it's too difficult.

So maybe he can get in then.

After some time,
and with a fresh bag of treats,

they're ready for
one more attempt.

I'm relieved now.

Relocating large animals
is ambitious, expensive work.

And making projects
like this happen means

we must all make
some tough choices.

Refauna's biggest
financial backer

is a fossil fuel company.

I'm happy.

It's nice to see all the stages

and everything for this.

The tapirs
will expand the watershed,

and Rio could save
nearly $80 million

in water treatment costs.

Abundant nature
benefits everyone.

All across our planet,

people are making changes
to build a future with nature.

Without
people's involvement,

care of a conservation project,
it just wouldn't work.

The more people involved,
the better for nature.

Just imagine
what could be achieved...

...if every one of us
was part of this.

A global movement for nature.

If we want to have
a flourishing future

and be thriving in 2050
and beyond,

we have to do this.
We have to make changes.

We have to make a trade-off.

The trade-off doesn't
necessarily mean we lose,

and this kind of dynamic
will actually win.

That's all I got.

The brighter
the future of nature...

...the brighter the future
for all of us.