Our Changing Planet

Original version

BBC One Yorks & Lincs HD

Documentaries

Factual: Science & Nature: Nature & Environment

An ambitious seven-year series documenting six of the planet's most threatened ecosystems.

Seven years. Six habitats. One planet. Charting our world's most threatened ecosystems - a unique global portrait of extraordinary change and the hope of groundbreaking solutions.

Series 2

BBC Two

Simulcast of network BBC One in high definition. From 03/11/2010

BBC One HD

BBC One London

London

BBC One Oxfordshire HD

BBC One Yorkshire HD

The BBC West region started on 1st September 1957 as part of the BBC Television Service, before becoming BBC One West.

BBC One West

BBC One Cambridgeshire

BBC One Cambridgeshire HD

BBC One Yorkshire

The BBC North East & Cumbria region started in 1959 (tbc) as part of the BBC Television Service, before becoming BBC One North East & Cumbria.

BBC One North East & Cumbria

BBC One Nightlight

BBC One North East & Cumbria HD

Formerly part of a wider BBC One South East region that included London and part of the South region. Separated from BBC One London 2001-09-03 following reorganisation of the South East region.

BBC One South East

The BBC South West region started on 20th April 1961 as part of the BBC Television Service, before becoming BBC One South West.

BBC One South West HD

BBC One South West

The BBC South region started on 5th January 1961 as part of the BBC Television Service, before becoming BBC One South.

BBC One South HD

BBC One South

BBC One Yorks & Lincs

BBC One West HD

BBC One Channel Islands

BBC One North West HD

BBC One region covering Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire.

BBC One East Midlands

BBC One West Midlands

The BBC East region started on 1st May 1959 as part of the BBC Television Service, before becoming BBC One East.

BBC One East HD

Formerly part of a wider BBC One South East region. Separated as BBC One London 2001-09-03 following reorganisation of the South East region.

BBC One London HD

BBC One West Midlands HD

BBC One East Midlands HD

BBC One North West

BBC One East

BBC One Oxfordshire

BBC One Channel Islands HD

BBC One South East HD

BBC One Wales

Wales

Simulcast of BBC One Northern Ireland in high definition. From 24/10/2012

BBC One Northern Ireland HD

Simulcast of BBC One Scotland in high definition. From 14/01/2013

BBC One Scotland HD

Simulcast of BBC One Wales in high definition. From 29/01/2013

BBC One Wales HD

BBC Northern Ireland region started on 19th April 1955 as part of the BBC Television Service, before becoming BBC One Northern Ireland.

BBC One Northern Ireland

BBC One Scotland

Scotland

BBC Two England

England

Simulcast of network BBC Two in high definition.

BBC Two HD

BBC Two Northern Ireland

Until 03/01/2009 BBC Two Wales (analogue) was known simply as BBC Two Wales. BBC Two Wales (digital) was BBC 2W. From 03/01/2009 BBC Two Wales schedules on both analogue and digital became identical

BBC Two Wales

Simulcast of BBC Two Wales in high definition

BBC Two Wales HD

Simulcast of BBC Two Northern Ireland in high definition

BBC Two Northern Ireland HD

Steve Backshall

Liz Bonnin

Chris Packham

Charlotte Jones

Rosemary Edwards

Helen Wallbank

Caroline El-Marazki

Laura Flegg

Richard Max

Verity White

Our Changing Planet: Series 2: Episode 1

Episode 1

BBC One - Our Changing Planet, Series 2, Episode 1

Six presenters meet the people fighting to rebalance earth’s failing ecosystems.

In the second year of a seven-year project, six presenters chart the fight to save the planet’s endangered ecosystems. In this episode, we visit the Maldives, USA and Greenland.

The second year of the BBC’s ambitious, seven-year, natural history project sees six presenters visit six of the planet’s most threatened ecosystems to meet the people fighting to restore the earth’s delicate balance and adapt to the changes that have already taken place.

In this first episode, we travel to three locations with presenters Steve Backshall, Liz Bonnin and Chris Packham. 

Steve Backshall visits the Maldives, a country facing significant challenges because of climate change. Warming seas and the acidification of the oceans have led to coral bleaching on a massive scale. And increasingly unpredictable weather patterns could deal the final blow. 2022 saw the first mass coral bleaching during La Niña, a climate pattern that historically keeps oceans cool enough to avoid bleaching. The earth’s reefs are now at a tipping point. But these extreme challenges are galvanising the science community to get out of their labs and into the field, experimenting with more novel and innovative techniques and trialling ideas that could just make a difference.

Steve returns to Laamu Atoll to find out about one such cutting-edge project. Professor Steve Simpson and his team from Bristol University have identified that coral larvae, baby corals no bigger than a pinhead, move towards the sound of a healthy reef, a response that guides them to settle amongst a more biodiverse and healthier habitat, and in so doing, add to the coral population. Steve dives with Professor Simpson and records the sound of a healthy reef. With the help of a 360-degree camera, they are able to identify key marine life that make up these coral playlists.

Liz Bonnin returns to California to investigate some surprising solutions for the relentless onslaught of the state’s wildfire season. California’s wildfires are becoming a yearly catastrophe, with the state government spending billions of dollars in the last five years to fight these out-of-control blazes. Liz discovers that ancient forest management techniques and the beaver, a misunderstood mammal, could help prevent them in the first place, providing powerful tools to sustainably protect our planet against the ravages of climate change.

Liz visits the traditional reservation of the indigenous Tule River tribe, who have been practising a technique called 'controlled burning’ for thousands of years. By regularly burning the twigs and leaf litter that collect on the forest floor, they reduce the amount of material that typically collects in forests and fuels megablazes. Liz joins the tribe on one of their cultural burns and finds out how they have protected their land and, importantly, their sacred sequoia trees.

To prevent the fires from moving at speed across the landscape, scientists and indigenous communities are hoping that beavers can help solve the problem. Once found across North America, by 1900 beavers had been hunted virtually to extinction. Liz joins scientist Dr Emily Fairfax, who has been studying the benefits of introducing beavers into a landscape. Surrounded by burnt-out forest, a green oasis sits at it centre, the territory of a beaver family that has created what Emily describes as a ‘speed bump’ for wildfires.

Chris Packham is in Greenland to learn more about the effects of global warming and the rate at which snow and ice are melting and retreating in the Arctic. He travels to a science research station on the island’s remote north east coast, one of the most important locations in the world for the understanding of warming in the Arctic and its global impact. Chris joins an Arctic expedition as scientists from Aarhus University and Copenhagen Zoo track across the snow-covered tundra in search of musk oxen, an ice age survivor that can tolerate temperatures ranging from - 40 to +10 degrees Celsius.

With the gradual warming of the Arctic, future conditions may not resemble anything the species has ever encountered. Now moving slowly northwards as temperatures rise, there are many questions to be answered: will populations become vulnerable to warm weather disease? How long will they have a territory that’s cold enough for them to survive in? And what will they leave behind them? The conditions are gruelling. Chris and the team have to move fast across the vast landscape, hoping to dart and collar 21 of these huge, powerful creatures, taking hair, blood and stomach samples. We learn how the sophisticated collars and an array of science techniques will be able to tell us if they breed, feed, survive or perish in the years to come.

Our Changing Planet: Series 2

BBC One

The second year of a definitive seven-year diary, documenting the fight to save our planet’s most threatened ecosystems. Six presenters meet the people fighting to restore the balance.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Our Changing Planet

Series 2

Episode 1

Contributors

Genres

Formats

Brand

Series

BBC One Yorks & Lincs HD

About BBC One