Original subtitles

We live on the most diverse planet in the solar system.

Its vast richness is revealed when we explore the variety

of our world's landscapes.

This is an adventure of discovery

to seven of the planet's most dramatic landscapes

and natural wonders.

Perhaps these are the greastest places

Some five billion years ago, our solar system took form.

More than 200 million years ago

Earth's supercontinent, Pangaea, began to separate.

New coastlines, continents, islands and mountain ranges

were formed in massive upheaval.

The greatest places began to take shape.

Greenland became the largest island in the world.

Africa became a separate continent.

The Okavango Delta and the Namib Desert Regions were formed.

Severed from Africa, South America was carved in part

by the rivers Amazon and Iguazu.

India collided with Asia

uplifting the great plateau of Tibet.

Madagascar separated from Africa

and became an island...

one of the greatest places.

Set adrift by the forces of geology

Madagascar became a time capsule

where, for 40 million years, life evolved in isolation.

This island ark carries life found nowhere else...

Living treasures of place

and time.

This is the kingdom of the lemur.

Madagascar is the only place on earth where lemurs are found.

On the mainland, the lemur's ancestors were out-competed

by later-evolving monkeys.

But left alone on Madagascar, these ancient primates thrived.

Here grow the most species of the upside-down tree...

Looking like its roots are in the air...

the baobab.

This giant lives for a thousand years

on the island where nearly two-thirds

of the world's species of chameleons stalk their prey.

Of all the world's islands

Madagascar has the most native species.

Here, where a cactus may grow as tall as a tree

the ring-tailed lemur has adapted from forest leaf eater

to connoisseur of cactus.

Millions of years of rain and wind

have exposed limestone pinnacles...

silent reminders of the forces that shaped Madagascar

from the time it was torn from the bedrock of Africa.

Madagascar's isolation

allowed the lemurs to flourish and to diversify.

Numerous species exist, including the black lemur

whose males are jet black.

But the females of the species are rusty brown.

And the ring-tailed lemur, the most social.

And the shifak, called the ghost of the forest.

It's one of the few lemurs

that sometimes comes down from the trees.

With a tongue as long as its body, the chameleon dines.

The island ark of Madagascar...

one of the greatest places.

Where India and Asia collided

the world's tallest mountains, the Himalayas

were uplifted with the highest plateau in the world, Tibet.

As large as Western Europe

the plateau is higher than the tallest peaks

of the Rocky Mountains.

Yet people have lived for thousands of years here

in the place they call the Chong-Tong

the Lonely Place.

The Buddhists of Tibet believe in the sacred connection

between people and the world of nature.

Prayers are written on flags

to be carried by the mountain wind.

Living as nomads, people conserve the land

by constantly moving to feed their yaks, sheep and goats.

Their very survival is closely bound to their animals.

People trade for barley

but their lives are sustained by the yak.

The yak carries all their belongings

and gives milk, butter and meat...

almost everything they need

to survive.

In the land where temperatures can drop

80 degrees Fahrenheit in one day

yak hides even provide wool and shelter.

For an endangered people

who are among the last of the nomads

their shelter means survival and home.

Their prayers are written inside prayer wheels

to spin to the heavens.

As part of their connection to the land and their religion

pilgrims travel hundreds of miles

in walking meditation to monasteries and holy sites.

Some lakes in Tibet are considered holy

and are headwaters to Asian rivers that irrigate land

to feed a quarter of humanity.

Many pilgrimages end at great monasteries...

monasteries that serve as centers of learning.

As an act of devotion

Tibetans walk around holy sites as faithfully

as the earth moves around the sun.

All people are linked to the place they live

through their culture

but for all of us everywhere, the natural landscape

is what sustains the dance of life.

Tibet, the world's highest plaeau.

Across the world

flows one of the Earth's most powerful features...

the river...

and the greatest river of all is the Amazon.

It crosses more than two-thirds of the South American continent

and is joined by a thousand other rivers

as it brings a way of life to the people of the river.

Rivers everywhere are arteries of life

for great cities as well as small villages

bringing food, water to drink and to grow crops

and for transportation.

The Amazon River Basin is a vast landscape

of river and forest

almost as large as the continental United States

encompassing nine nations.

People here follow the ebb and flow of the river

learned in the journey of a lifetime.

In the Amazon, people are only one of millions of species

linked to the greatest watershed on Earth.

Beetles the size of a person's fist

miniature geckos

venomous caterpillars

and spiders that walk on water.

Located within a few degrees latitude of the equator

the Amazon basin receives nearly direct sun all year.

Heat from the morning sun evaporates moisture

and causes humid air to rise.

By late morning, it condenses into clouds.

Cloud droplets gather mass and then fall as rain.

The daily rhythm of the rain replenishes the river.

Moving with the currents are floating meadows...

a seasonal mass of plants and debris...

islands of life.

Some meadows become part of the landscape

and support even trees

and the most colouful life in this lush environment.

Where the powerful river exposes clay banks

macaws and parrots fly in for a meal.

They eat the clay as an antidote to toxic seeds in their diet

and for its life-sustaining minerals.

Great rivers flow across the planet

and the Amazon is the greatest.

Rivers everywhere meet disruptions to their flow.

When they flow across a boundary of hard and softer rock

there can be great disruptions.

The world's greatest waterfall is Iguazu...

four times wider than Niagara.

South of the Amazon basin

at the border of Brazil and Argentina

Lava once flowed from ancient volcanoes.

When the hard lava ends, less-resistant rock has eroded.

Here, the Iguazu River plunges into more than 200 waterfalls

Along the southwest coast of Africa

the Namib is a desert in motion.

Across this 80 million-year-old desert

prevailing winds build

the earth's tallest sand dunes

dunes over a thousand feet tall

that migrate a grain of sand at a time.

Of all the deserts

the Namib contains the greatest variety of life:

Beetles that collect moisture on their backs

at the top of the dunes.

Adders that store water between their scales.

And venomous scorpions.

The Namib is even graced with large mammals

like the gemsbok.

Everywhere on earth

the interaction of the same basic elements...

Land, air, water and life...

has created landscapes of dramatic diversity.

The Namib is one of the world's five west coast deserts

that stretch to a cold sea.

As warm wind passes over cold water, fog forms

bringing life-giving moisture that never falls as rain.

But the fog of Namib also brings death

scattering bones along the treacherous Skeleton Coast.

A cold southern current from Antarctica

and the warmer Atlantic Ocean mix to create a fertile sea

and bring abundant life.

At this ocean oasis, fur seals feed all year

and warm themselves from the frigid water

at the edge of the hot desert.

The Namib

desert of the great dunes.

At the Arctic Circle, the largest island in the world

lies covered by a permanent landscape of ice.

Beneath the enormous weight of the Greenland ice cap

the world's oldest landscape has sunk below sea level.

At the sea, glaciers calve into icebergs...

floating mountains of ice

that are five times more massive under water than above water.

Only the narrow ice-free coast supports life.

Here, the musk ox is cloaked in one of nature's warmest coats

even in summer's bloom.

Greenland's storyteller, the drum dancer

celdbrates the thousands of years

people have survived at this icy edge.

This is life near the coldest limit of human existence.

Survival here is dependent on people inventing what they need

like the harpoon, the dogsled and the kayak.

Even at 40 degrees below zero

people have successfully adapted.

Greenland a cold extreme of earth's diversity.

In Botswana, southern Africa

the Okavango River Delta is Africa's greatest oasis.

Flowing from the north, the Okavango River

has carried millions of tons of sand and debris

to create one of the largest inland river deltas

in the world.

It forms a maze of land and water.

This river never flows to the sea.

Instead, it spreads across the Kalahari Desert

and the desert blooms with life.

This massive, landlocked river delta

depends on water hundreds of miles away

that travels half the year to reach the dry, lower delta.

Everywhere, water restores life.

In this Eden of Okavango

as in all places

diversity of life is linked to the land, air and water

and the patterns of landscape they form.

Every thing is interrelated.

Even the wild dogs of Okavango are linked together from birth.

Only one male and female mate to produce a litter of pups

the entire pack will raise.

In dynamic equilibrium, one generation follows another.

In the Okavango, and everywhere

the procession of life is a reflection of the landscape.

Only on this planet have elemental processes combined

to create so many great places, inanimate features of land

which make possible the drama of life.

In the unending partnership of predator and prey

one life gives way to many others.

Here, in the cradle of Africa, and everywhere

we are both witness and participant

in the Earth's most intricate patterns

of the land and life.

This rich variety of landscapes is found only on one planet.

To explore these greatest places

is to recognize our common bond

that we share a miraculous home

the most diverse planet in the solar system

perhaps the most diverse in the universe.

Earth

the greatest place of all.