Original subtitles

Narrator: The monsoon.

(thunder)

The greatest weather system on earth.

The giver of life, and the destroyer.

Shaping magical lands

From the himalaya to australia.

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 faced and of the powerful beliefs

That link the ancient to the present day.

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(thunder)

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A hindu temple. Mangalore, southern india.

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It's the height of the monsoon and today is nag panchami,

The day when hindus worship snakes;

Venomous snakes.

During the indian monsoon,

Rains flush them into the paths of people.

Until recently, live cobras

Were widely worshiped in temples.

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

Between nature and the people of the monsoon.

(hiss)

Palawan island, the philippines.

Here lives a community whose beliefs and lifestyle

Shed light on how humans and nature have coexisted

For thousands of years.

Rolito and his sister maria.

To them the natural world is full of spirits.

And nature provides them with almost everything they need.

(distant thunder)

Monsoon storms are approaching, and tata is getting prepared.

To him, even the clouds have spirits and can be vengeful.

(rumbling)

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Tata must protect his family from harm.

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(thunder)

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Their wooden shack isn't designed

To survive the angry storms.

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(speaking native language)

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(laughter)

For the months of the monsoon

The family will live as their ancestors did,

As hunter-gatherers in a cave,

Relying on what the forest provides.

(thunder)

When hunting, tata wears a loincloth

Because wet clothes can rub and can snare on thorns.

Joined by his father-in-law and brother,

The group uses rattan vine to construct a hunting weapon.

The rattan has hooked spines that pierce flesh

And are hard to dislodge.

Narrator: Palawan hunters believe their very survival

Is in the hands of the spirits all around them--

In rocks, water and trees.

The spirits are their guardians

But can also inflict great hardship.

If the hunt is to be successful,

They must have the blessing of the spirits.

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Narrator: First, the hunters need to flush out their prey.

Bats!

As they try to escape, tata is waiting.

(screeching)

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(screeching)

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Bat kebab.

Together with a few tubers

It's a nourishing meal for the whole family.

Narrator: And there's nothing better than a family meal

For elders to hand down their wisdom.

Narrator: Worship of natural spirits is considered to be

The world's oldest belief system.

It could be how everyone once lived

Across the lands of the monsoon.

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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.

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On its riches were built

The region's first towns and cities.

(thunder)

But this progress came at a cost.

(thunder)

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

Profoundly changing the relationship

Between humans and nature.

(elephant grumbling)

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

These elephants are hungry.

Each one needs to eat more than 200 pounds of food daily.

Asian elephants are forest creatures,

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

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The crop is guarded through the night.

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The fields are huge

And the elephants could be anywhere.

(grumbling)

(grumbling)

Narrator: In india, a group of farmers

Are on an all-night vigil.

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(grumbling)

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(grumble)

(man shouting)

(men shouting)

(men shouting)

(whistling)

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(shouting, banging pots and pans)

(shouting, banging pots and pans)

The elephants have seen it all before.

Not interested, and they haven't finished their dinner.

(elephant roars)

In just one night the herd could devour enough rice

To feed 1,000 people.

The villagers can't afford to stand by

And watch their livelihood being destroyed.

(shouting, banging pots and pans)

(shouting, banging pots and pans)

But these are unpredictable beasts.

(shouting, banging pots and pans)

(roar)

Every year across india,

Elephants kill up to 400 people in conflicts like this.

(shouting, banging pots and pans)

(roar)

(grumbling)

(shouting)

(shouting, banging pots and pans)

(shouting, banging pots and pans)

The same scene will play out every night

Until the harvest is in.

(grumbling)

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.

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Along with rice and civilization,

Came something new:

Organized religion.

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By the river tak in thailand,

Kewalin and her friends are preparing

For an annual buddhist festival, loi krathong.

But they're making offerings to a goddess of nature:

The goddess of the river.

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Their prayers are to give thanks

For all that the monsoon waters have provided.

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In the northern city of chiang mai,

The festival is celebrated

With tens of thousands of sky lanterns.

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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.

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More than 68 million people live in rajasthan, india.

Food is scarce and water sources are shrinking.

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But even a chinkara must drink eventually.

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Stealing is a dangerous act.

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But this gazelle lives among the bishnoi people.

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Bishnoi is a religion founded around 300 years ago.

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To bishnoi followers, all living things are sacred.

They willingly share their water

And their harvest with wildlife.

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Even here, where the monsoon climate is harshest,

The level of compassion and generosity

To all living things is astounding.

Narrator: Sometimes in nature the smallest of creatures

Have the biggest stories to tell.

In southern india, the monsoon rains brought relief,

And streams are flowing again.

On the rocks in the middle

You can find tiny frogs no bigger than a paper clip.

(chirping)

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

(chirping)

So to claim a rock as his own, he uses semaphore.

(chirping)

He's a foot-flagging frog.

It's a signal to his rivals to keep away.

(chirping)

(chirping)

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.

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It's nag panchami, the holy day when hindus worship snakes.

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In the countryside,

Savita helps her uncles make their offering.

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Because of this shrine the entire woodland is sacred.

(bell ringing)

The snakes and everything within it are protected.

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(bell ringing)

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(chirping)

In india foot-flagging frogs 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.

So religion seems to have been central

To the relationship between people and nature

For thousands of years.

(rumbling)

But a few hundred years ago

That relationship was threatened like never before.

(drumming)

(gunfire)

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.

(horses whinny)

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(crowd shouting)

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The newcomers didn't regard wildlife as sacred.

(growling)

(gunshot)

(roar)

(gunshot)

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Furthermore, 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 as we know it today.

Now, only 3,000 indian tigers survive in isolated reserves.

And only a fraction of india's native forest remains.

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(moo)

Across the whole monsoon region,

Global trade and travel have transformed the landscape

And the relationship between humans and nature.

Perhaps the changes that swept through the region

Are symbolized by the fate of one animal

That once ranged from burma to indonesia:

Siamese crocodiles.

Narrator: Siamese crocodiles were once hunted

For their hides and brought to near extinction.

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A few survived in captivity.

But these youngsters are special.

They were born in the wild.

Scientists recently discovered a new population 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.

They're going back to the rivers of their native forest.

(motorbike starts)

It will be a tough journey ahead.

Motorbikes are the only vehicles

Capable of the bone-shaking journey.

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The team is bringing these youngsters

Into the heart of the largest remaining forest

In mainland southeast asia:

The cardamom mountains of southern cambodia.

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Siamese crocodiles survived in these remote valleys

Because locals regarded them as sacred.

(man speaking native language)

It's believed that if one dies,

Misfortune will befall the village,

So the crocodiles are closely guarded.

(speaking native language)

(speaking native language)

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(hiss)

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Crocodiles can live for more than 70 years,

And a female can lay up to 50 eggs every year,

So these crocs could start a new dynasty.

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But being sacred may not be enough for them to thrive.

Crocodiles don't easily align

With the needs of modern cambodia.

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Cambodians need electricity.

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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.

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Northern india.

The monsoon of 2013.

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Similar scenes have become increasingly common

Across the monsoon region.

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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 one trillion dollars annually.

And all for free.

But the global demand for hardwood timber

Just keeps growing.

(creaking)

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And the forests of southeast asia

Contain some of the best quality timber on earth.

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Teak, ebony, and rosewood are wanted for furniture

And building materials,

From doorframes to plywood.

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

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Is this the end of the special relationship

Between nature and the people of the monsoon?

Narrator: Here in deramakot forest reserve

In malaysian borneo, all is not as it seems.

Foresters are trying out a technique

Called reduced impact logging.

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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.

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They don't flatten the whole forest,

But extract individual logs

So the forest can quickly recover.

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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 soil 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?

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Scientists want to find out.

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

Ranger: I see it, no, no, no, there.

Narrator: A porcupine.

(elephant roars)

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 wouldn't be here.

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Borneo's cats are notoriously elusive.

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

(clicking)

Snapshots reveal a rich population,

And among them, leopards.

And even borneo's largest cat, the clouded leopard.

In fact, scientists recorded

21 of borneo's lowland carnivore species.

A commercial forest can also be prime wildlife habitat.

(cracking)

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

(birds chirping)

But now there's a new conflict in the tropics

That may be a greater challenge

Than anything that's come before.

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Where they're still intact,

The forests of tropical southeast asia

Are lush jungles, among the oldest in the world,

And home to one of our closest relatives.

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A sumatran orangutan 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;

That's tiger territory.

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(chainsaw)

But around them, the forest is being cleared.

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 two and a half acres than other major oil crops.

Palm oil is so versatile, it's found in a high proportion

Of the products in any supermarket.

Everything from cookies to laundry soap.

It's perhaps the biggest agricultural revolution

Since rice.

(horn honks)

This time supplying the whole world.

(squeaking)

Narrator: This mother orangutan and her five-year-old infant

Live in a remaining fragment of malaysian jungle.

The oil palms that surround them no longer have branches

To support their weight, so they're stranded

With no means of reaching fruiting trees

Or other orangutans.

If they stay here, they'll probably die,

So a rescue mission is launched.

The team carry guns loaded with tranquilizer.

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(pop)

She's hit.

(men speaking native language)

The drug will take effect within 10 minutes.

(speaking native language)

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(speaking native language)

(speaking over radio)

The aim is not to hurt her,

But she will fall from the tree.

(speaking native language)

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Rico is a vet.

He checks that the orangutan wasn't injured by the fall.

(heart beating)

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She's in good health.

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While mom sleeps, her infant is also darted and caught.

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She may not feel it when she wakes up,

But she's a lucky orangutan.

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The plan is to release her and her baby in a national park

Where they will be safe.

It's a long drive through a landscape

Dominated by the palm industry.

But there just might be a glimmer of hope

For orangutans 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.

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Maybe the people of the monsoon can find ways

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

That minimize conflict with wildlife.

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The special relationship between nature

And the people of the monsoon lives on.

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Thanks to the monsoon's bounty, a richness of cultures

And wildlife still flourishes here.

There have been huge challenges,

Especially in modern times.

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But the future of the region and all who live here

No longer depend 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.

♪ ♪

Captioned by side door media services

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