Original subtitles

Indonesia is a land of creatures

lost in time

Castaways from two continents settle the island chain of Indonesia

the greatest archipelago on earth

Marooned on this scatter of islands

their descendants were cut off

from the outside world

Many became unique

Today, these thousands of islands

have a wider diversity of life

than anywhere else on the planet

Both above and below the water

creatures that live only here

rub shoulders with new colonists from east and west

Indonesia lies on a ring of fire

and the land still bears the scars of its violent birth

15 million years ago, seas stretched unbroken from Asia to Australia

but deep below the waves

huge pieces of the earth's crust were on the move

Where these giant fragments collided

molten lava spewed from the seabed

New land was born

Over millions of years

what was once open ocean became an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands

Today, these islands form a line of stepping stones

running 5000 km along the equator

from northern Australia to Asia

Some of the islands were built by volcanos

others are fragments of the continents

like Borneo

Borneo was once part of Asia

so Asian animals colonized its forests

They've been isolated so long

that some are now quite different to their relations on the mainland

They've become new species

like the proboscis monkey

Proboscis monkeys are found only here in Borneo,

along rivers and in coastal mangrove forest

They get their name from the male's enormous nose

He has a gut to match

Proboscis monkeys eat leaves

that huge stomach has full of bacteria to help digest them

Though the monkeys can deal with old leaves

they much prefer tender young ones

To find them, they often have to cross rivers

and that can be dangerous

The murky water hides a stealthy hunter

Crocodiles eat proboscis monkeys

Is that a crocodile or just a floating log?

Crocodiles home in on any splash in the water

The monkeys strain every sinew

to clear the danger in a single leap

They can't afford to put a foot wrong

For some, the river is just too wide

Every crash could be a dinner bell for the crocodiles

Even now an unseen killer could be homing in

The crocodile was just too late

but its time will come

crocs kill more proboscis monkeys

than any other predator

Close to the sea,

the mangroves are flooded by the tides

the creeks here are too wide to jump

so as the best of the food is on the other side

the monkeys have to swim for it

They paddle across as quietly as they can

the slightest splash could bring disaster

These unique animals even have partly webbed feet

ideal for life in Borneo's mangroves

Borneo is an old island, a fragment of mainland Asia

others in the archipelago are much younger

A new island appeared as recently as 1928

that eruption was just one chapter in a long story

Krakatau

In 1883, one of the greatest explosions

the earth has ever known ripped Krakatau apart

But just 45 years later,

a new island burst from the sea

the child of Krakatau

Today, the child is still growing

this is island building in action

This is just one of 155 active volcanos in Indonesia

Every day sees an eruption somewhere in the archipelago

this is the most violently volcanic region on earth

Within a year of its birth

Krakatau's child received its first colonists

Plants came

their seeds carried by wind and waves

volcanic ash is a fertile seedbed

Animals arrived too

spiders on the wind

birds and bats on wing

This is a story that's been repeated all over Indonesia

when the volcanos sleep, the colonists float in

Rich volcanic soils attracted another kind of immigrant

people

Fertile ash, ample rainfall and tropical sun

make volcanic slopes like these

the bread basket of Indonesia

People have been farming here for countless generations

Terraces in Java date back 2000 years

The mountain gives but it can also destroy

Living in the shadow of the volcano is dicing with death

remind us the fire beneath the surface never far away

These are soils so rich that yield 3 crops in a year

and they need to

for Java is the most densely populated island in the world

With almost 115 million people

it has half Indonesia's total

Java's terraces have been feeding people for 20 centuries

and feeding them well enough to support elaborate civilizations

The ruins of Borobudur date from the 8th century

only a society that knew where its next meal was coming from

could have afforded such flowering of art and craftsmanship

Borobudur is the largest Buddhist temple in the world

Indonesia's peoples are as diverse as the wildlife

and for much the same reasons

Over the centuries, waves of immigrants colonized these fertile islands

they came from many different lands

each with its own cultural heritage

Isolated on remote islands,

old cultures flowered in new ways

beauty blended with bizarre

Masks like these perhaps inspired

by the strange creatures that shared these island homes

And few could be stranger than this

the babyrussa

It lives on just one island

It's a pig, but a pig with a difference

Only the males have these extraordinary tusks

no one knows what they are for

An early explorer suggested they were hooks

so the animal could hang its head from the branch when it was resting

but then why doesn't female have them?

It's more likely they're used for some male chauvinistic pig activity

like fighting or attracting a mate

These extraordinary creatures

live only in the forests of one extraordinary island

lying at the very heart of the archipelago

Half of it was once part of Borneo

the other half fragments of Australia

Some 15 million years ago they collided

to form Sulawesi

Sulawesi's animals are the castaways of two continents

It's now isolated so they have been left alone

to evolve in their own way

Sulawesi's forests have masses of fruit trees

especially figs

So there's plenty of food for fruit eating animals and birds

like hornbills

The ancestors of these enormous birds

came from the forests of southern Asia

This is the red-knobbed hornbill

It's found only in Sulawesi

one of 88 bird species unique to the island

With so many fig trees in the forest

there's always one in fruits somewhere

figs make up most of their diet

Fig trees need hornbills as much as

hornbills need figs

They rely on the birds and animals to disperse their seeds

When a fig tree's in fruit

it's a focus of activity for all kinds of creature

Crested black macaques

are one of 7 kinds of monkey on Sulawesi

like red-knobbed hornbills

all 7 are found nowhere else

Their ancestors originally came from Borneo

more than 100km to the west

During the last Ice Age

sea levels were lower

and the straits that separated the island

much narrow

The movements of the earth's crust that assembled Sulawesi

triggered volcanos too

One of the island's most remarkable birds

uses volcanic heat to hatch its eggs

It's the maleo

its ancestors came from the east - from Australia

another legacy from Sulawesi's mongrel past

These chicken-sized birds nest in colonies

they bury their eggs in hot volcanic sand

The eggs are huge

5 times the size of a hen's egg

The chicks will need those reserves of energy

because their parents play no part in their upbringing

The eggs are buried and abandoned

In 3 months, they'll hatch

incubated only by the heat of the sand

The red-knobbed hornbill

takes parental devotion to the opposite extreme

These giant birds pair for life

This is the male

the female has a yellow knob on her beak

Hornbills nest in holes in tree trunks

but females are walled up inside for safety

most kinds narrow the entrance with mud

but volcanic soils don't bind well

so this one seals herself in with her own droppings

Fig seeds make good glue

For the next 3 months, she'll depend on her mate

to bring food for herself and the growing chick

He carries fruit in a pouch in his throat

He can hold as many as 250 figs

Even when his mate breaks a way out

the male's task isn't over

The chick won't fledge for another month

He'll feed it until it leaves the nest

Sulawesi's beaches of black volcanic sand

hold a special attraction for the monkeys

There're often the one place where they can find freshwater

Volcanic soils are very porous

during the dry season many streams disappear

but the water still flows beneath the surface

The monkeys have learned to reach it

by digging in sand

The first westerners to visit Sulawesi's shores

thought these creatures were apes

Misled by the apparently lack of a tail

they christened them the black ape

In fact, they are monkeys

with a typically monkey way of life

They live in troops of 30 to 100

Each with its own range

a tract of jungle big enough to support them throughout the year

Most of their diet is fruit from the forest

but beach combing can bring all kinds of delicacy

and the sea makes a great playground

As evening falls, the monkeys will retire to the trees

The night belongs to another world

One of Sulawesi's strangest creatures serenades the moon

with its unearthly cries

The tarsier

These tiny gremlins of the night

are the monkey's distant cousins

They live in pairs each with its own patch of forest

At dusk and dawn couples state their territorial claims

with a piercing duet

Though they weigh no more than an apple

tarsiers are perfectly formed hunters

They catch insects, small reptiles and amphibians

Huge eyes help them see in the dark

sensitive ears pinpoint their prey

and long hindlimbs make them prodigious leapers

They can jump nearly 20 times the length of their body

the human equivalent of 4 times the world long-jump record

Tarsiers may be tiny

but 40 million years of evolution

have honed their hunting skills to perfection

East of Sulawesi over the sea towards the sunrise

lies the least explored of all the islands in this mysterious archipelago

New Guinea is a giant fragment of continental crust

only 10,000 years ago it was part of Australia

Rising sea levels after the last Ice Age cut it off

Though it's separated only by shallow sea

it's a world apart

Well into the 20th century

few visitors ventured far into the interior

New Guinea has an incredible range of habitats

from coral reefs to coastal mangroves

dense tropical jungle to high mountains

The interior is so rugged

that even today, parts of it are almost unknown

This impenetrable landscape

has a far-reaching effect on the wildlife

Neighboring valleys are virtually cut off

Islands of forests separated not by sea,

but by mountains

Just as islands in the ocean develop a distinct form

so these islands within an island

have their own unique inhabitants

Some time in the distant past

a drab crow-like bird settled in New Guinea's forests

Over the years its descendants were isolated in separate valleys

Today, there are many different kinds

among them some of the most spectacular birds in the world

They're the birds of paradise

This tiny jewel is the king bird of paradise

the smallest of all

like the rest, he has a dozen courtship display

The king's range overlaps with another bird of paradise

the magnificent

He creates a special arena to show off his display

a patch of forest floor

he clears of every fallen leaf and twig

He'll use it for several years

In both species the females are drab and brown

only the males flaunt flamboyant plumage

It's the females who decide to which mate with

and the males will go to ridiculous length to impress them

Although they look different

these two species are actually very closely related

close enough to interbreed if a female picked the wrong mate

If you take away the colors these dancers are almost identical

Both species use similar movements

a sign of their common ancestry

The males dazzling in distinctive plumage

helps the female pick a mate of her own kind

The mountains of New Guinea's central spine

rise high above the tree line

to over 5000 meters

These barren highlands are a barrier to birds

form the forest below

There's no reason for them to cross

Cut off in their jungle valleys

the birds of paradise flowered in splendid isolation

There're just 42 kinds of bird of paradise in the world

New Guinea and its offshore islands

have 38 of them

all descended from that one crow-like ancestor

With their magnificent plumes

birds of paradise attract more than a mate

The feathers that are so vital to their courtship

can also be their undoing

People prize them for their own displays

and the locals are expert hunters

New Guinea is more sparsely populated

and better forested than other islands in the chain

It still has room for birds of paradise

Further to the west

in the heart of the archipelago

it's a very different story

People have been clearing the jungle to grow food for centuries

When the trees go

so do many of the unique creatures of these island forests

The Bali starling

the last census found only 14

still live in the wild

All across Indonesia,

people are replacing the island's natural inhabitants

So many of these creatures are unique

It's almost impossible to live here without destroying something

But the human cultures that displace them

have a beauty of their own

The Barong dance of Bali

tells a story of the age-old struggle between good and evil

an echo of another timeless conflict

between people and the natural world

The dance came to Bali from India

more than 1300 years ago

Over the centuries it developed in its own way

now like the Bali starling it's unique

Right across the archipelago

Indonesia's cultural diversity

is matched by the many ways that

people exploit wildlife

Here on the southern coast of Java

they reap a strange and hazardous harvest

What these men are after

is worth more than its weight in gold

To gather it, they will risk their lives

It's hidden deep in the cliffs below

in caves guarded by a turbulent sea

Suspended from flimsy ladders of rattan and bamboo

they brave cliffs that tower 100m from the waves

If the men fall here

their bodies are never recovered

People have been doing this for centuries

the techniques have changed little across the years

Skills handed down from father to son

over the generations

There're no safety ropes,

a fall would bring certain death

This is what they are after - bird's nests

The birds are cave swiftlets

They build their nests off saliva

The nests are used to make bird's nest soup

To us, warmed up swiftlet's spit may not seem very appetizing

but in Chinese cuisine it's a highly prized delicacy

There's been a trade in bird's nests for hundreds of years

they're so valuable that people even try to sell fake bird's nests

counterfeits, woven from noodles

Collecting rights in every cave

are owned and jealously guarded

Nests are gathered early in the season

when the birds have just finished building

Most pairs will make another nest

and breed successfully

so the harvest can be sustained year after year

Where people share the islands with wildlife

they seldom leave it untouched

but not all of Indonesia's 17000 islands

are densely peopled

Some are still primeval wilderness

lost worlds that time has passed by

On these distant islands even the animals look like something

from the age of the dinosaurs

The fabled island of Komodo

it's home to a creature that could have stepped

straight from pages of myth and legend

the Komodo dragon

In reality, it's not a dragon

nor even a dinosaur

but a gigantic lizard

These 3m monsters

live only on Komodo

and a few islands nearby

They are scavengers and hunters

big enough to kills pigs, deer even people

It's the breeding season

the formidable males must battle for the right to mate

Komodo dragons are the heaviest lizards in the world

A full-grown male can tip the scales of 250 kilos

He'll try to use that massive weight

to throw his opponent and pin him down

If the contestants are evenly matched

these contests can last an hour

Weight wins these wrestling matches

the smaller male is defeated

leaving his rival free to pursue the female

but she'll give him the run-around

before deciding whether to accept him

For most of the year males dominate the smaller females

driving them off as they compete for food

so he has to convince her that he's not just trying to attack her

Eventually his scaly caresses

will reap the reward

Next year, there'll be a new generation of dragons

10000 years ago an even larger lizard lived in Australia

a 7m monster

10 times the weight of these

Could it have been the dragon's ancestor?

Komodos now isolated by ferocious currents

that are hard to cross

The dragons are island castaways

like so much that came here from cross the sea

Right across the archipelago

the ocean carried colonists to this scattered isles

It's the ocean that created their rich variety

and the ocean has life of its own

It's there we'll go on our next program

The Underwater Wonderland of Indonesia

Transcription by Andrew and Hattie www.mvgroup.org