Original subtitles

The monsoon.

THUNDERCLAP

The greatest weather system on Earth.

The giver of life...

..and the destroyer.

Shaping magical lands

from the Himalayas

to Australia.

Its impact felt by giants,

the exquisite

and the bizarre,

where spectacular nature

meets the planet's most vibrant cultures.

It all happens in one of the most crowded parts of the planet.

This is the story of people and nature

living side by side.

A story of the struggles they face

and of powerful beliefs

which link the ancient to the present day.

THUNDERCLAPS

A Hindu temple, Mangalore, southern India.

It's the height of the monsoon,

and today is Nag Panchami -

the day Hindus worship snakes.

Venomous snakes.

During the Indian monsoon,

rains flush them into the paths of people.

Until recently, live cobras were widely worshipped in temples.

It's just one example of the close and complex relationship

between nature

and the people of the monsoon.

Our story traces back to when humans first spread

across the lands of the monsoon.

The Philippine island of Palawan, near Borneo.

Here lives a community whose lives and beliefs

are an insight into how people have lived with nature

for thousands of years.

Rolito and his sister Maria.

FLUTTER OF INSECTS' WINGS

To them, the natural world is full of spirits,

and nature provides almost everything they need.

Monsoon storms are approaching

and Tata is getting prepared.

To him, even the clouds have spirits

and they can be vengeful.

THUNDERCLAPS

He must keep his family safe from harm.

ROLLING THUNDER

Their wooden shack isn't designed to survive the malevolent storms.

For the months of the monsoon,

they will live as their ancestors did -

as hunter-gatherers in a cave,

relying on what the forest provides.

PELTING RAIN, ROLLING THUNDER

BIRDSONG

When hunting, Tata wears a loincloth,

as clothes get wet and rub

and can snare on thorns.

Joined by his father-in-law and brother,

they use rattan vine to make a hunting weapon.

The rattan has hooked spines that pierce flesh

and are hard to dislodge.

The Palawan hunters believe their very survival

is in the hands of the spirits all around them -

in the rocks,

the water,

the trees.

The spirits are their guardians,

but can also inflict great hardship.

If the hunt is to be successful,

they need the spirits' blessing.

First, they must flush out their prey...

Bats.

As they try to escape,

Tata is waiting.

BATS SCREECH

Bat kebab.

Together with a few tubers,

it's a nourishing meal for the whole family.

FAMILY CHATS TOGETHER

And there's nothing like a family meal

for elders to hand down their wisdom.

Worship of natural spirits is considered to be

the world's oldest belief system.

Perhaps this is how everyone once lived

across the lands of the monsoon.

But around 10,000 years ago, everything changed.

People discovered a new way to survive the extremes of the monsoon,

all thanks to a wild marshland grass...

Rice.

The perfect monsoon crop.

It's planted at the time of the flood.

The grains can then be stored and eaten throughout the dry season.

Agriculture spread rapidly from southern China,

across the whole region.

On its riches were built the region's first towns and cities.

But this progress came at a cost.

For the first time, wildlife was expelled from the land...

..profoundly changing the relationship

between humans and nature.

In northeast India, the monsoon rains have been and gone.

ELEPHANTS RUMBLING

These elephants are hungry -

each needs over 100 kilos of food a day.

Asian elephants are forest creatures,

but the best food now lies beyond the forest's edge.

The crop must be guarded right through the night.

But the fields are extensive

and the elephants could be anywhere.

THROATY RUMBLING

DEEP RUMBLE

A group of farmers on an all-night vigil.

SLOW, DEEP RUMBLING

ELEPHANTS RUMBLE

MEN SHOUT

SHOUTING ESCALATES

MEN SHOUT ALL REPEATEDLY

MEN BEAT ON METAL

The elephants have seen it all before.

And besides, they haven't finished their dinner.

ELEPHANT TRUMPETS LOUDLY

This night alone, the herd could devour enough rice

to feed over 1,000 people.

So the villagers can't afford to stand by

and just watch their livelihood being destroyed.

But these are unpredictable beasts.

Every year across India,

elephants kill up to 400 people

in conflicts like this.

MEN SHOUT AND BEAT METAL

ELEPHANT TRUMPETS

ELEPHANT RUMBLES LOUDLY

WILD SHOUTING

SHOUTS AND BANGING CONTINUE

The same scene will play out every night,

until the harvest is in.

It's a battle as old as agriculture itself.

You might think that, with the rise of agriculture,

respect for nature would have been lost entirely.

But it didn't quite turn out that way.

Along with rice and civilisation came something new -

organised religion.

By the River Tak in Thailand,

Kewalin her friends

are preparing for an annual Buddhist festival -

Loi Krathong.

But they are making offerings to a goddess of nature -

the goddess of the river.

Their prayers are to give thanks

for all that the monsoon waters have provided.

In the northern city of Chiang Mai,

the festival is celebrated with tens of thousands of sky lanterns.

Loi Krathong has its origins in the Hindu Festival of Lights.

Hinduism and Buddhism -

two religions that flourished in the monsoon lands.

Both with great reverence for water

and, indeed, for all of nature.

And in some places,

religion would have a profound effect

on the conflict between people and wildlife.

The Thar desert of Rajasthan in northwest India

is a tough place to survive.

It is only made habitable by a brief monsoon season.

Now, with the rains long gone,

heat and drought are intensifying.

A small group of Indian gazelles -

chinkara.

They can stay alive without water for up to three weeks -

they get by on the sap inside the plants they browse.

Over 68 million people also live in Rajasthan.

Food is scarce and the water sources are shrinking.

But even a chinkara has to drink eventually.

Stealing is a dangerous act.

Luckily for this gazelle,

she lives among the Bishnoi people.

Bishnoi is a religion founded around 300 years ago.

To Bishnoi followers, all living things are sacred.

They willingly share their water

and their harvest with wildlife.

Here, where the monsoon climate is harshest,

compassion and generosity to all living things is most pronounced.

Bishnoi texts forbid the harming of any living thing.

Only fallen branches may be used for firewood,

for even the trees are sacred.

The strength of Bishnoi devotion is revealed by an event

that occurred a long time ago, in this very grove.

Sukramji understands the importance

of this defining moment in Bishnoi history,

when their extraordinary devotion to nature

was put to the ultimate test.

HE SPEAKS IN LOCAL LANGUAGE

When news of the slaughter reached the ruler of Jodhpur,

he felt ashamed.

So he decreed that all trees growing on Bishnoi land

be protected.

A law which stands to this day.

And so, Bishnoi land remains bountiful,

supporting more humans and animals

than any other desert region in the world.

But Bishnoi is a religion

still centred in the Thar desert of northwest India.

THUNDERCLAPS So what about the rest of the country?

The dominant religion in India has long been Hinduism.

And Hinduism has had a profound effect on the relationship

between people and nature,

right across the country.

Sometimes in nature, the smallest of creatures

have the biggest stories to tell.

In southern India, the monsoon rains have brought relief

and streams are flowing again.

On the rocks in the middle,

you can find tiny frogs -

no bigger than a paper clip.

HIGH-PITCHED CROAKS

His calls have to compete with the noise of the stream...

..so to claim a rock as his own,

he uses semaphore.

He's a foot-flagging frog.

It's a signal to rivals to keep away.

But what's so extraordinary

is that while this little frog may never see a human,

it almost certainly owes its survival

to their religious beliefs.

And this is how.

It's Nag Panchami,

the holy day when Hindus worship snakes.

In the countryside,

Savita is helping her uncles make their offering.

Because of this shrine,

the entire woodland is sacred.

The snakes, and everything within it,

are protected.

In India, foot-flagging frogs mostly live and breed in sacred groves,

which is why they owe their continued existence

to Hindu devotion.

Traditionally, every Indian village had its own sacred grove.

And there's scientific evidence

that this vast network has been crucial

for protecting much of India's biodiversity.

So religion seems to have been central to the relationship

between people and nature for thousands of years.

But a few hundred years ago,

that relationship was threatened like never before.

THUNDERCLAPS

European traders were drawn to the bounty of the monsoon lands,

from India to Australia...

..culminating in the biggest empire the world has ever seen.

ARCHIVE REPORTAGE: A mighty, powerful, impressive structure -

such was Victoria's empire.

Millions upon millions,

all together under the flag upon which "the sun never sets".

The newcomers didn't regard the wildlife as sacred.

They were more likely to treat it as vermin.

In just a few decades,

80,000 Indian tigers were killed.

But what the newcomers were really after

was the land.

Forests were cleared,

the timber harvested to build ships and railways

and the land planted with cash crops -

tea and cotton.

Now, for the first time,

the lands of the monsoon were supplying produce worldwide

on an industrial scale.

Millions of people were sucked into this massive new enterprise.

It was part of the transition

that led to the world we know today.

Less than 2,000 Indian tigers now survive in isolated reserves.

And a fraction of India's native forests remain.

Across the whole monsoon region,

global trade and travel have transformed the landscape...

..and the relationship between humans and nature.

Perhaps the changes that have swept through the region

can be symbolised by the fate of one animal,

that once ranged from Burma to Indonesia.

Siamese crocodiles inspired legends of dragons.

But their habitat was destroyed

and they were hunted for their hides

to near extinction.

A few survived in captivity.

But these youngsters are special.

They are of wild blood.

Recently, a new population was discovered,

breeding in a remote forest in Cambodia.

This conservation team brought some eggs to the safety of a sanctuary.

In the wild, few crocs survive to adulthood,

but these are now big enough to make a go of it.

So they are being returned to the rivers of their native forest.

They have an arduous journey ahead.

Bikes are the only vehicles capable of the bone-shaking journey.

Once, this was all Siamese crocodile habitat -

they lived in rain-fed rivers and lakes

and migrated out through flooded forests during the monsoon.

The team that has nurtured these crocodiles

hope that the species will once again rule the wetlands.

They are taking the youngsters into the heart

of the largest remaining forest in mainland southeast Asia -

the Cardamom Mountains of southern Cambodia.

Siamese crocodiles survived in these remote valleys

because the local people regard them as sacred.

They believe that if one dies,

misfortune will befall the village -

so they will guard the crocodiles closely.

PRIEST SPEAKS IN OWN LANGUAGE

Crocodiles can live for more than 70 years,

and each year, a female can lay up to 50 eggs,

so these crocs could found a new dynasty.

But being sacred may no longer be enough,

for the needs of crocodiles don't easily align

with the needs of modern Cambodia.

Cambodians need electricity.

Developments like these introduce a risk -

they open up access for illegal logging.

To some, it's the price of progress.

But lose the trees

and the monsoon itself may take revenge.

REPORTER: Towns and temples were destroyed by landslides.

Northern India, during the monsoon of 2013.

Similar scenes have become increasingly common

across the monsoon region.

REPORTER: Illegal loggers have scarred the Philippines

in recent years,

their removal of trees making the soil unstable,

worsening the floods by adding tonnes of logs and rocks

to the torrent.

Healthy forests bind the soil together and prevent floods.

They also remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Based on scientific calculations, the forests of southeast Asia

provide services worth over $1 trillion every year.

And all for free.

But the global demand for hardwood timber just keeps growing.

And the forests of southeast Asia

contain some of the best-quality timber on Earth.

Teak, ebony and rosewood

are wanted for furniture and building materials,

from doorframes to plywood.

Wood from these forests ends up in homes all over the world.

So is this the end of the special relationship

between nature and the people of the monsoon?

Here in Deramakot Forest Reserve in Malaysian Borneo,

all is not as it seems.

Foresters are trialling a technique

called Reduced Impact Logging.

They are very selective -

they don't cut trees that are too young or old.

And fruiting trees - valuable for wildlife -

are marked for protection.

They don't flatten the whole forest,

but extract individual logs

so the forest can quickly recover.

Even access trails will be engulfed by new growth.

Once harvested, each forest sector

will be left alone for 40 years.

Ditches are cut across the bare trails

to prevent the soils being washed away

by the monsoon rains.

Deramakot turns a profit,

while also protecting the forest for the future.

But can wildlife really thrive alongside the bulldozers?

Scientists are keen to find out.

It's at night that many forest animals should be active.

A porcupine.

So there is life in these forests.

But what about the top predators?

Cats would be a good sign of a healthy forest,

because they sit at the top of the food chain -

if there isn't enough prey for them,

cats won't be here.

Borneo's cats are notoriously elusive,

but there's no denying the evidence of a camera trap.

Snapshots reveal a rich population,

and among them, leopard cats,

and even Borneo's largest cat -

the clouded leopard.

In fact, the scientists recorded all 21

of Borneo's lowland carnivore species.

So a commercial forest can also be prime wildlife habitat.

It's all down to HOW it's harvested.

But now, there is a new conflict in the tropics

that may be a greater challenge than anything that's gone before.

Where they're still intact,

the forests of tropical southeast Asia are luxuriant jungles,

among the oldest in the world,

and home to one of our closest relatives.

A Sumatran orang-utan, with her two-week-old baby.

It will take up to ten years for her to teach him all he needs to know

to survive in this jungle.

They will spend their lives up in the canopy -

their kind has evolved never to travel on the ground,

for tigers also inhabit these forests.

But around them, the forest is being cleared.

BUZZING OF CHAIN SAWS

The land is wanted for a new monsoon wonder-crop...

Oil palms.

Global demand for vegetable oil

has more than doubled in the past 20 years.

And oil palms produce at least five times more oil per hectare

than other major oil crops.

Their oil is so versatile,

it's found in a high proportion of the products in any supermarket -

everything from biscuits to washing powder.

It's perhaps the biggest agricultural revolution since rice,

this time supplying the whole world.

But it's been responsible for the destruction of rainforests

throughout tropical southeast Asia.

This mother orang-utan and her five-year-old infant

are living in a remaining fragment of jungle.

The oil palms that now surround them

have no branches to support their weight,

so they're stranded, with no means of reaching fruiting trees

or other orang-utans.

If they stay here, they will probably die.

So a rescue mission is launched.

The team carry guns loaded with tranquiliser.

She's been hit.

MEN SHOUT IN OWN LANGUAGE

The drug will take effect within 10 minutes.

The aim is not to hurt her,

but she's going to fall from the tree.

Rico is a vet.

He checks the orang-utan hasn't been injured by the fall.

She's in good health.

While the mother sleeps,

her infant is also darted and caught.

She may not feel it when she wakes,

but she's a lucky orang-utan.

The plan is to release her and her infant

in a national park where they will be safe.

THUNDERCLAPS

It's a long drive through a landscape

dominated by the palm industry.

But there could just be a glimmer of hope

for orang-utans and their forests.

Global concern from consumers has prompted some producers

to commit to sustainable palm oil production,

planting on land already claimed for agriculture,

without clearing any more forests.

So perhaps the people of the monsoon can find ways

to meet the world's demand for palm oil and timber

that minimise conflict with wildlife.

The special relationship

between nature and the people of the monsoon

lives on.

Thanks to the monsoon's bounty,

a richness of cultures and wildlife still flourishes here.

There have been huge challenges,

especially in modern times.

But the future of the region, and all that live here,

no longer depends only on the humanity and compassion

of local people.

Now, through global trade, we are all connected

to this wonderful, exotic world,

and have a part to play in its future.

For producer and cameraman Jon Clay,

filming an orang-utan rescue

was to be his most challenging shoot.

He's joining an experienced team

who have rescued more than 50 of these great apes.

It was a real baptism of fire.

The moment I was there, they were ready.

They were out there, catching orang-utan.

This forest will soon be chopped down to make way for palm oil.

The rescue team need to move the orang-utan before it's too late.

These guys are amazing.

They are so good at what they do.

Number one priority - the orang-utan.

I'm just there to film what I can.

To get the orang-utan into a safe position,

they bang the trees.

On the ground,

it's tough for Jon and the crew to keep up.

And it's fast! The rescue team are following the orang-utan -

and they're better at it than I was.

And we were trying to follow them.

It takes two hours to get the orang-utan into a safe position -

ready for the tranquiliser.

TRANQUILISER GUN FIRES

The team get ready to catch.

Suddenly, the orang-utan fell out of the tree.

At that point, my heart went out to that orang-utan -

I guess because there is something about an orang-utan that is so human.

It brought it home to me,

what an important job the team are doing.

Because if these guys weren't doing this,

this orang-utan would have no future.

But the most difficult rescue the team had ever faced

was still to come.

They receive an urgent call.

We filmed in a scene of devastation.

Just one after another,

trees were coming down in front of our very eyes.

And then, on the other side,

was all the freshly planted palm oil.

BUZZ OF CHAIN SAWS

A short distance away, in a tiny patch of remaining forest,

the team find a mother and her baby.

With the chain saws approaching,

time is running out.

WALKIE-TALKIE COMMS

Throwing branches is a sign that she's scared.

The team need to act fast.

The guys are trying to get a clear line of sight, to get a shot,

but they are also worried if it falls...

That's a pretty deep river right beneath there.

SHOUTS AND HAND-CLAPPING

Vet Rico's loaded the dart with the smallest adult dose.

This could be his best chance.

It's a hit

Jon tries to keep up.

They must get a net precisely into position,

before they fall.

Suddenly,

there's an almighty splash,

and commotion.

GUIDE SHOUTS IN OWN LANGUAGE

A guide rushes down the bank beside me

and splashes into the river.

It's chaos.

SHOUTING

And what had happened

is the dart had not hit the mother orang-utan -

it had hit the baby.

It was a real medical emergency situation.

Yeah, I guess it is touch and go.

The guys are doing everything they can.

I didn't think that orang-utan was going to live.

I didn't think it had a chance.

And at that point, I really didn't know if I should keep filming.

Because it felt...

..it was...

It was too tragic.

And yet, amazingly, they brought it round.

WALKIE-TALKIE COMMS

If the best opportunity that orang-utan had

was to go through that,

then...something's got to be wrong.

That was the toughest thing for me to see.

Such a close call.

Erm...

But at the same time, it really brought it home

just how critical the situation is for orang-utans.

With her baby out of danger,

the team turned their attention back to the mother.

They work into the night to reunite mum and baby.

You know, I was there to film,

but, actually, when it comes to it,

and you meet the guys on the ground

who are dedicating their lives to saving an animal,

it was inspiring and humbling to see that.

Good luck.

ANIMAL AND BIRD NOISES