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At the southern tip of South America, the Andes Mountains rise almost vertically.

Their very height affects life throughout the continent.

The barren slopes look inhospitable.

But like all parts of South America, they're actually rich with wildlife.

A family of puma.

They live further south than any other kind of cat on Earth.

These cubs are only six months old,

entirely dependent on their mother for food.

She knows how to exploit this rugged landscape to her advantage.

And she has to do so if she is to catch the continent's most challenging prey.

Wanako, a relative of the camel.

Two meters tall and over three times the weight of a puma.

The mother's only hope is to go for the throat and try to suffocate her prey.

The mother's only hope is to go for the throat and try to suffocate her prey.

The mother's only hope is to go for the throat and try to suffocate her prey.

Her cubs try to help, but

they themselves don't yet have the skills

or the weight to bring down such large prey.

And the mother is now badly injured.

Her wounds are severe and will take weeks to heal properly.

But without food, her cubs won't survive for long.

The weather in the Andes is harsh and unpredictable.

Snow makes the camouflage on which she relies much less effective.

But she must have food.

The Wanako have left her normal hunting ground and

are now in the territory of a much larger male puma.

He's just made a kill, but he isn't about to share it with

her. To hunt here, she'll need to leave her cubs behind in

the safety of their home territory.

Almost invisible in the shadows, she's nearly within pouncing distance.

She's got her speed back.

Now she must hold on.

But she's in the male's territory, so her prize isn't safe.

And her hungry cubs are over a kilometer away.

In her weakened state, she will need all her reserves

of energy to drag it back onto her territory.

Only her determination to feed her young keeps her going. Now she'll

be able to

feed the young again.

This one meal will barely last the whole family for more

than a few days. Then their mother somehow will have to

summon the strength to hunt again.

Life for a hunter in this land is as hard as it gets.

The Andes themselves were built by forces deep in the Earth's crust.

In this part of the Pacific, the ocean floor

has been moving eastwards for millions of years.

Where the sediments meet the edge of the continent,

they're pushed together and forced upwards.

This pressure creates fractures of which molten rock rises,

and is then spewed out as ash and lava from great volcanoes.

Nearly 200 of them stretch in a line along the length of the continent.

Some erupt with the force of an atomic bomb every 10 seconds.

As the collision continues, the sea floor is dragged

downwards. Creating a deep trench just offshore.

Rich cold waters rise up from it. And this upwelling creates an abundance of life.

Here on the coast of Peru, there are so many seabirds

fishing in the offshore waters that the cliffs are covered

in droppings over a meter thick.

Humboldt penguins regard the soft guano as a

good material in which to dig their nest holes.

But it's a messy business.

It's the breeding season and more hopeful nesters arrive,

spotless from swimming in the sea. It's time for the

residents to get cleaned up and catch some fish for themselves and their chicks.

To get to the sea, they cross the remains of an old nesting ground.

Only 100 meters to go.

But the beach is already crowded with sea lions.

They too have come ashore to raise their young.

And they don't like being disturbed.

To get through such a minefield, needs a bold and courageous leader.

A brave start.

A dead end. Now he's in trouble.

This is going to need a bit of crowd surfing.

But now all the sea lions are aroused. Getting through them will be tricky.

A cleansing bathe in the ocean. Well worth the effort.

The animals living along the Pacific coast are cut

off from the rest of South America by the Andes.

They form a gigantic barrier stretching over 6,000

kilometers from Patagonia in the south to Venezuela in the

north.

This is the world's longest mountain range.

Some peaks are almost 7 kilometers high.

They are so tall they catch clouds and so create

an environment unlike any other on the continent.

The cloud forest.

Every high valley here has its own unique plants and animals.

One of them is the aptly named Pinocchio lizard. It was

first recorded here 50 years ago and then lost. It's only

recently been rediscovered.

Up here lives a creature so rare that it's seldom seen.

Even by those scientists who've come here to study it.

The Andean bear.

Only a few thousand remain.

They eat mostly leaves and fruit. Often clambering

up to the very top of the canopy to do so.

He's looking for a type of miniature avocado.

30 meters up.

The only fruit remaining here is out on the thinnest

branches. Too thin to support the weight of a bear.

A more experienced bear has turned up and wants a go.

Time for young ones to watch and learn how to do it.

The trick is to bite the branch just enough to make

it swing down and bring the fruit within reach.

Whoops.

Now there's a race to be first on the ground to claim it.

The moisture needed to create a cloud forest only occurs

above a certain altitude. So each peak may now have its own

species.

In Venezuela, there are similar small worlds created not by rain, but by rock.

A great layer of sandstone once covered

this entire area, but rivers cut through it.

As the valleys widened, the tablelands became first

huge plateaus. Then isolated flat-topped mountains.

And eventually towers and spires.

On the tops of the bigger ones, animals and plants have now

become so different that they can be counted as new species.

There is no higher waterfall in the world than this

one. Angel Falls, almost a kilometer from top to bottom.

The vertical cliffs surrounding many of these mountains

have kept them largely free from human exploitation.

No such barriers have protected the lowlands,

but a few patches of forest still remain.

One in Colombia is the home of one of the world's rarest monkeys,

cotton-topped tamarins. They're critically endangered.

Only a few hundred families remain.

They live largely on fruit and are particularly fond of

tree sap. This is packed with sugars, so it also attracts

insects.

But tamarins like them too, a little bit of protein to add to their diet.

There used to be over 50,000 species of insect to choose from.

But as the forests have shrunk around them, it's

becoming more difficult to find the right ones.

South America is changing.

Over 95% of Colombia's lowland forest has now been cleared.

Farming has taken the biggest share.

This patch of forest is now isolated.

The few tamarind families here are now cut off from the rest

of their species. And beyond their boundary lies an alien

world.

Today, more than 2,000 species of animal in South America are under threat.

All across the continent, forest is being steadily cut down and replaced by farms.

Images from space reveal the scale of the destruction.

Throughout South America as a whole, an area of forest the

size of a football pitch is being lost every five seconds.

Of all the forests at risk, perhaps the most precious lies

in the very heart of the continent. The Amazon rainforest,

the largest on earth.

Over 2 million species of plants and animals now live

here. More than is found on any other of the earth's seven

continents.

Food is so abundant that some male birds, instead of helping

with nest duties, try to mate with as many females as

possible.

This is a male mannequin showing off to a female. He does so by dancing.

And he has a team of subordinate males to help him.

By supporting him now, they may themselves

eventually become leaders and get a chance to mate.

The team is assembled and the performance begins.

She takes a closer look.

The top male signals the end with the final flourish.

What's the verdict?

Not good enough. Unbelievable.

So, it's back to practicing.

Each animal species in this crowded environment has

to have its own way of creating a niche for itself.

This is a poison dart frog. Males raise their young in a very special way.

A father will place each one of his tadpoles in its

own tiny pool of water. This is one. Nice and safe.

He might have up to five other tadpoles. But he

needs to remember where he put each one of them.

This one isn't doing so well. His tiny puddle has all but

dried out. The tadpole will die unless its father can find a

better place for it.

If dads are good for one thing, it's piggyback rides.

Fathers are no bigger than a human thumbnail, but this

enables them to get to places that others can't. This could

be perfect.

The only problem is that there's no food here.

Fathers need help.

Somewhere in this forest.

Is... Mum.

A female could do something a male cannot.

But first, dad must lead his partner to their hungry tadpole.

And mother deals with the problem.

She lays a single, unfertilised egg.

And her tadpole gets a much-needed meal.

For the next six weeks, parents continue their rounds.

An extraordinary test of teamwork and memory. The Amazon

rainforest.

Warmed by the tropical sun, the Amazon's trees release so

much moisture from the surface of their leaves that they

create their own clouds. And these, over the

course of a year, release up to six metres of rain.

The water flows through the saturated forest along a thousand streams.

They eventually unite to form the largest river of them all.

The Amazon carries more water than the world's next seven biggest rivers combined.

Some sections of its banks are particularly sought after.

Scarlet macaws travel over a hundred kilometres to visit them.

Macaw couples bond for life and may stick together for over forty years.

Pairs return to favourite trees, ones they've known for decades.

Parents provide their chicks with fruits and seeds. But

they're far from the ocean and their diet lacks salt.

Without it, the chicks' brains and bones will not

develop properly. So someone has to go and fetch it.

Many other creatures are looking for the same thing.

A clay lick. The earth here may be forty times richer in

valuable minerals than anywhere else in the world. In the

surrounding forest.

Over a dozen species of parrot jostle for space.

There's a strict order in who feeds first.

Everyone is in a rush to fill up and get airborne.

The parents have to carry over five kilograms of clay

to the nest before their chicks are ready to leave.

Once fledged, these young will follow their parents

for up to a year, learning where to find the salts.

Many of the great riches of South America lie far beyond the Amazon basin.

Over a thousand miles to the south of the Amazon,

there's one creek unlike any other on the continent.

Here at Bonito, freshwater springs bubble up from deep underground.

Filtered through limestone, they create crystal clear pools.

And in them live some remarkable fish.

Piraputanga. The water is so clear that they're

able to see what is going on above its surface.

Brown capuchins are up there looking for a meal.

The piraputanga watch them attentively.

Wherever the monkeys go along the banks, the fish follow.

The monkeys are on their daily search for ripe fruit, and

the fish cannot by themselves know where that might be.

But here it is.

And fortunately, the monkeys aren't the neatest of feeders.

Every scrap is fought over.

One monkey has the job of keeping an eye out for danger.

Anacondas are the largest of all snakes.

They grow to over 200 kilos.

And they usually stalk their prey from the water.

But it's not fish that they're after.

If the monkeys stray too close to the water, they will be in danger.

The scout gives a warning call.

That might have to be the end of the monkey's meal for today.

But now the piraputanga know where the fruit

is. And there's still plenty left on the tree.

In the monkey's absence, they go for it themselves.

Success or failure is just a matter of millimetres.

With a split-second adjustment, the fish bend

over. It ends in mid-air and collects the prize.

The piraputanga's extraordinary feeding

technique relies on these waters remaining clear.

But today, the future of South America's rivers has become uncertain.

As the human population has grown, people have become more

and more reliant on its rivers for one of the essentials of

modern life.

Power.

Two-thirds of South America's energy now comes from hydroelectricity.

No other region on Earth is so dependent upon it. But the

way these dams are managed can cause problems farther down

river.

These are the Iguazu Falls.

If the dams upriver suddenly release their excess, Iguazu can double in size.

And that can cause major problems. For animals that live here.

These are great dusky swifts. They fly alarmingly close to the thundering torrent.

And then vanish.

Miraculously, they're able to fly right through the curtain of water.

And they do so because they've built their nests behind the thundering curtain.

Their enemies, falcons like this karakara,

can't follow them. So the swift chicks are safe.

But now, humans have created new problems for the swifts.

Just as some of the chicks are starting to fly, the spill

over the dams is released in full force.

As the torrent grows, parents give up on the last purchase.

Now, the chicks are alone.

But they don't yet have their parents' waterproof feathers.

Every year, the sudden surges of water sweep some to their death.

The chicks have never seen the world beyond the falling waters.

Unless they can find a way through, they will not survive.

Amazingly, driven by blind instinct, chicks do manage to power their way through.

These remarkable birds have colonized a niche in which few can survive.

Yet their future, and that of all wildlife in South America,

will depend on us striking a new path for them. Making a

balance between the needs of humans and animals on

the richest and most diverse continent on Earth.

Next time, a continent marooned during the time of the

dinosaurs. Where the castaways are like nothing else on

Earth.

Australia.

I want to be here. Can you hear my call?

Has your love been to me?