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01:00In its heart lies a vast tropical rainforest.
01:09Over a million square miles of wilderness.
01:13Much of it's still unexplored, even now.
01:17There are more species of animals and plants in these jungles than anywhere else on the continent.
01:29But even in this land of plenty, wildlife now faces major challenges.
01:41The forests of the Ivory Coast contain over 1,500 species of plant.
02:00But some are very difficult to get at, even for one of the most intelligent of animals.
02:10Chimpanzees.
02:20The elders in this group know where to find the most nutritious food...
02:37and how to extract it.
02:42But if they are to survive to adulthood, the youngsters must learn these skills from their parents.
02:48This young female is five years old.
03:05Old enough to be given an important lesson.
03:14And this is her teacher.
03:29Her mother.
03:31The lesson is how to crack a nut.
03:43Using tools like this is so complex that it has only been mastered by a handful of chimpanzee communities.
04:01This is a skill that has been practiced by chimps for several thousand years.
04:27Time to try for herself.
04:31She needs to find a better tool.
04:52She needs to find a better tool.
05:02Small rocks just don't have the clout.
05:16The clout.
05:20And large ones are too cumbersome.
05:23cumbersome.
05:31Wood is both light and strong,
05:37but not strong enough.
05:45Back to teacher.
05:47It may take a young chimp up to a decade
05:52to perfect the skills it needs for nutcracking.
06:00But she's already mastered one thing.
06:07When her fingers can't reach the nut inside,
06:12she strips down a branch to size.
06:18And makes herself a spoon.
06:34She'll learn to use many tools in her life.
06:39And eventually, she'll share this knowledge
06:42with youngsters of her own,
06:45enabling them to harvest the riches
06:48of their rainforest home.
06:55The sheer abundance of life in the rainforests
06:59is rivaled by that on the eastern side of the continent.
07:03The Great Rift Valley runs for 4,000 miles down the length of Africa.
07:15It developed some 30 million years ago
07:18when a giant plume of molten rock pushing up from the depths
07:22cracked the Earth's crust apart.
07:33fresh water began to accumulate on the floor of this rift.
07:39And a chain of lakes developed.
07:43These lakes are now one of the richest fresh water habitats
07:49to be found anywhere.
07:50One single family of fish here, the cichlids,
08:08has evolved into more than 1,500 different species.
08:11This might look like paradise,
08:21but competition between these cichlid species is intense.
08:31This crowded world is a dangerous one.
08:33Baby fish, after all, make a tasty meal.
08:43So many cichlid mothers have developed a very effective way
08:48of keeping their offspring safe.
08:52They use their mouths as a mobile nursery.
08:56It's a safe haven where the fry can stay until danger has passed.
09:20When the coast is clear, she releases them.
09:23This kind of behavior starts when the cichlid female
09:48picks up her newly laid eggs
09:50and holds them in her mouth to keep them safe.
10:03During spawning, her mate flashes his yellow tailspots
10:07to encourage her to keep laying.
10:09As each batch of eggs emerges, she scoops them up.
10:10She scoops them up.
10:14As each batch of eggs emerges, she scoops them up.
10:20But this couple are being watched.
10:22But this couple are being watched.
10:23by cuckoo catfish.
10:35by cuckoo catfish.
10:37by cuckoo catfish.
11:03They work as a gang
11:05and devour as many cichlid eggs as they can find.
11:17Then, in the middle of all this activity,
11:19one of the catfish also spawns.
11:27The cichlid mother collects every egg she can see.
11:35Now, by herself,
11:40she must wait while the eggs in her mouth develop.
11:49It will take three weeks.
11:54She doesn't eat throughout that entire time.
11:58But 18 days later, something is not right.
12:15It's not right.
12:28The female blows out her young
12:31before they are fully ready to emerge.
12:33And they are followed by young cuckoo catfish.
12:51Three times the size of her own babies.
12:54She may have as many as six of them in her mouth.
13:05And now they begin to eat the cichlid babies.
13:14The female cichlid treats the baby catfish
13:17as if they were hers.
13:23They are truly cuckoos among fish.
13:37The forces that created the Great Rift Valley
13:39continue to shape Africa's landscape, even today.
13:48At weak spots in the Earth's crust,
13:51molten rock continues to erupt.
14:00There are some 200 volcanoes on the continent.
14:03Many of them active.
14:09Many of them active.
14:20They may bring destruction,
14:23but also, eventually, fertility.
14:34This is Oldoinio Lingai.
14:41For the past 400,000 years,
14:44ash from this great volcano
14:47has fallen on the surrounding savannas of the Serengeti
14:51and greatly enriched them.
14:59This is the best grazing on the continent.
15:03On it live the world's largest herds of migrating animals.
15:18And they, in turn, support predators.
15:33Here, in Kenya, cheetahs have formed an unusual alliance.
15:38Here, in Kenya, cheetahs have formed an unusual alliance.
15:49These swiftest of cats usually hunt in groups of two or three.
15:53But this team of five is one of the largest ever recorded.
15:59Two sets of brothers and a lead male.
16:03Two sets of brothers and a lead male.
16:06They have now lived and hunted together for almost three years.
16:12They have now lived and hunted together for almost three years.
16:14They have now lived.
16:15They have now lived and hunted together for almost three years.
16:23By teaming up, they can hold the best territory in the area.
16:33But even so, with five mouths to feed, every hunt is very important.
16:43Shhh!
16:44Shhh!
16:45They haven't eaten for three days.
16:46Shhh!
16:47Shhh!
16:48Shhh!
16:49Shhh!
16:50Shhh!
16:51Shhh!
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17:00Shhh!
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17:15Shhh!
17:16Shhh!
17:17Shhh!
17:18Shhh! Shhh!
17:19Thick cover
17:29That will help them
17:49Topey, nearly three times their size
17:58And quite strong enough to fight off a lion, let alone a single cheetah
18:14Now, out in the open, every step the cheetahs take increases their chance of success
18:44The herd scatter and the team splits up
18:51But they didn't get close enough
18:54They switch targets to zebra
19:00What's the zebra?
19:31Everyone now knows that they're here.
19:43They must devise a different approach.
19:57All eyes are on the brothers.
20:01Out in the open, they seem to be no threat.
20:17But the lead male is missing.
20:19The brothers are decoys.
20:35The brothers are decoys.
20:40The trap is set.
20:43The trap is set.
20:53The trap is set.
20:55The trap is set.
20:57The trap form relates to the hind snap.
21:00I don't know.
21:30I don't know.
22:00The other four now join the lead male.
22:07Under the combined weight of five cheetah, death comes quickly.
22:13Today, Africa's savannahs support larger herds of big game than anywhere else in the world.
22:35And they, one way or another, provide food for all kinds of smaller creatures.
22:44An oxpecker.
22:49A resourceful little bird with an unusual diet.
22:57Fleas, ticks, and even dandruff are food, as far as they are concerned.
23:19Both parties benefit.
23:39The oxpecker gets a good meal, and the host is cleaned in those places it could never reach for itself.
23:50Each bird, every day, collects hundreds of ticks and thousands of insect larvae.
24:12But some oxpeckers go for rather riskier meals.
24:19Ippopotamus are highly territorial and very aggressive.
24:35So oxpeckers tackling them must always be on their guard.
24:42But there's much to be gained.
24:50Blood is the most nutritious meal of all.
25:04Pecking ensures that cuts remain open and blood keeps flowing.
25:11And an oxpecker, once it's found an open wound, will stay alongside it,
25:20no matter how much that irritates its host.
25:23The reward, an endless supply of food, whatever the conditions.
25:46Not all of Africa is rich and fertile.
26:03A third of the continent is desert.
26:09This is the Namib in the southwest.
26:29At its heart, a disused diamond mine that was abandoned nearly 70 years ago.
26:39But it still has one inhabitant, a desert specialist, and one of Africa's rarest predators.
27:08The brown hyena.
27:09The brown hyena.
27:10The brown hyena.
27:11The brown hyena.
27:12This ghost town is her home.
27:15Its ruins give her valuable protection from the elements.
27:20This ghost town is her home.
27:36Its ruins give her valuable protection from the elements.
27:41She has been here for 15 years.
28:06She's already reared nine generations of cubs.
28:11She has been here for 15 years.
28:32These two youngsters have reached a critical stage in their lives.
28:41They're four months old, and now they need regular solid food.
28:50But there is nothing edible in these ruins.
28:55So their mother has to look elsewhere
28:58and may leave them for several days on end.
29:11Brown hyenas may walk over 20 miles a day in search of food.
29:16This is some of the most hostile country on the planet.
29:30I'm the planet.
29:31I'm the planet.
29:32I'm the planet.
29:37And yet what it shows up to three years
29:39of them all, and they're not only finding a прост.
29:40But there are little reasons
29:43that people look like they're not gonna be
29:44as they're not gonna be.
29:45So what they're not gonna be talking about
29:46is happening in the world,
29:47not adding a bit of space,
29:48and when it's most likely during a day
29:49even now, it's really hard.
29:51And now, the waters are not the first time
29:52to take it away,
29:53because they are the biggest things
29:55or the new age of it.
29:58Temperatures reach a blistering 50 degrees Celsius.
30:17Strong winds blow incessantly.
30:28Hyenas from all over the Namib head for where the sand dunes meet the sea.
30:46Somewhere along this seemingly barren stretch of sand,
30:51there is food in great quantity.
30:58Cape Furseals.
31:13There are around 10,000 of them here.
31:28Adult seals are large and strong.
31:40But their pups are neither.
31:42The youngsters are closely guarded by their mothers.
31:54A hyena, however, knows to be patient.
31:57Sooner or later, seal mothers must return to the ocean to cool off.
32:07The single-sealed pup could feed a hyena and her family for days.
32:21But finding food is only half the battle.
32:33It now has to be carried back.
32:37A jackal is here too.
32:43And it's not alone.
32:49If a hyena loses her kill,
32:53she'll have nothing with which to feed her cubs.
33:01The jackals won't follow her very far from the coast.
33:07It's too hot for them in the desert interior.
33:23Only by making these long journeys can brown hyenas manage to survive in the middle of the Namib.
33:41But some desert animals seldom move far.
33:50The Kalahari Desert.
33:55Here, food is more plentiful.
33:59But it's hidden.
34:00A pangolin.
34:18She can collect food that others can't reach.
34:22A keen sense of smell enables her to detect the presence of ants and termites in their nests beneath the sand.
34:52Her sticky tongue, some 30 centimeters long, enables her to collect them from deep underground.
35:08And she's being carefully washed.
35:10The drier it gets, the deeper the termites live.
35:22Many are way beyond the reach of even a pangolin.
35:28But not of an aardvark.
35:36It's the world's largest burrowing animal.
35:40It's the world's largest burrowing animal.
35:46Its sense of smell is extremely acute.
36:06Shovel-like claws and powerful legs
36:08enable it to dig down to depths of five or six meters.
36:16A full-grown aardvark needs to eat about 50,000 termites every day.
36:26Termites are highly nutritious and full of moisture.
36:29And they can be collected here year-round.
36:45Aardvark are usually nocturnal.
36:47But the fact that this one is foraging in daylight is a sign that food is scarce.
37:01Recent droughts in the Kalahari have led to low termite numbers.
37:05And as a consequence, aardvarks here are close to salvation.
37:17Changes in the world's climate are affecting many of Africa's animals.
37:21It's predicted that in the next century, southern Africa will warm twice as much as the global average.
37:37The future will be bleak for those that cannot adapt fast enough.
37:49In Zimbabwe, it hasn't rained in six months.
38:08During a drought, food becomes harder and harder to find.
38:13Apple-ringed acacias produce pods that are full of protein.
38:39But mostly on their higher branches.
38:48Six meters up, they're out of reach.
38:51Even for the continent's largest animals.
39:09They're out of reach, interlude, like the mostly usable animal.
39:12It's not enough to have chips,rikash.
39:14This bull elephant needs to eat about 90 kilograms of vegetation every day.
39:44He's worked out a remarkable way of surviving in these lean times, but it requires great physical strength.
40:14Only a handful of bulls have mastered the skill.
40:29He weighs over five tons.
40:54This is a truly monumental effort.
41:24Those around him benefit too.
41:39Elephants have used their great intelligence to help them survive Africa's driest times for millennia.
42:01But today, they face an even greater threat.
42:16It's thought that as many as 20 million elephants once roamed the continent, but many have been killed for their tusks.
42:29Their ivory used for entirely ornamental purposes.
42:39Now, just 350,000 elephants remain.
42:44These stockpiles of confiscated tusks represent half of the elephants killed on the continent in just one year.
43:00But of all Africa's remaining wildlife, it is the rhinoceros that has been most affected by poaching.
43:19In the Far East, its horn is used as traditional medicine.
43:29All of Africa's rhinos are now under threat.
43:34But for one subspecies, it's likely to be already too late.
43:49The northern white rhinoceros is facing extinction.
43:53Scientists are working on a solution, but no male now survives, so natural breeding is impossible.
44:02These two females are the last of their kind.
44:09When they die, an entire subspecies that inhabited the Earth for millions of years will have disappeared forever.
44:24Right across Africa, human beings are having a devastating impact on all wildlife.
44:40Cheetah numbers are decreasing year on year.
44:46Today, there are fewer than 8,000 left on the continent.
44:54The global demand for pangolin scales for use in traditional medicine has now made them the most trafficked animal on the planet.
45:12And Western chimpanzees are so threatened by the loss of their habitat that they are now critically endangered.
45:27In this female's lifetime, three quarters of the forest in the Ivory Coast has been felled for plantations.
45:34Deforestation, and not only in Africa, continues on an enormous scale.
45:4664 million acres of forest are destroyed every year to make way for agriculture and industry.
46:01An area of forest the size of a football field is disappearing every second.
46:0764 million acres of forest.
46:13Climate change is affecting global weather patterns.
46:18Rainfall is increasingly unpredictable.
46:23Average temperatures are soaring all over the globe.
46:26Extreme weather is now affecting wildlife on all seven of the planet's continents.
46:39Today, scientists tell us that we are at the start of a mass extinction.
46:58And one that is being caused by human activity.
47:02Over a million species could be wiped out.
47:10Many within the next few decades.
47:20But with help, even the most vulnerable wildlife populations can still recover.
47:25In Africa, an intensive conservation program for the mountain gorilla has raised their numbers above a thousand for the first time since records began.
47:45And in Antarctica, the international ban on whaling has meant that the great whales have returned to the Southern Ocean in numbers not seen for a century.
48:13So we can improve things if we determine to do so.
48:28This is a crucial moment in time.
48:31The decisions we take now will influence the future of animals, humanity, and indeed all life on Earth.
48:43My 9th is about to be самоеatly, the prince's history of animals, humanity, and indeed all life on earth.
48:44That is the only one that is happening.
48:45That is a crucial moment in time.
48:46Theicias of Santo Euron
48:59What did you do today?
49:00Do you think that's a sense of a disaster?
49:05Do you think that's a big company that's a big company?
49:07What did you think about?
49:08Don't you think that's a big company that just wants to do.
49:09Do you think that's all the best?
49:10For the Afrika team, each shoot presented its own challenge.
49:22But one tested them in ways they never imagined.
49:28The team journeyed for six days to the heart of the Congo rainforest.
49:34Their aim, to film the intimate lives of lowland gorillas.
49:40They worked with local expert trackers
49:44who can pick up the trail of evidence left by the gorillas.
49:52From the plant, they can tell which way the group has gone.
50:01As they close in, the team wear masks to stop the spread of disease.
50:10Finally, a silverback and his family in the trees.
50:16Look at that big boy.
50:22Look at that big boy.
50:31He's huge.
50:32You don't want to look him in the eye, because that's not the game.
50:46The trackers have known this male for 20 years
50:49and use clicking noises to reassure him.
50:55It was a completely amazing experience.
50:58Just getting closer, closer, closer.
51:01My eyes got wider, wider, wider.
51:05And, yeah, it was incredible.
51:07I'm just sort of smiling.
51:08It's kind of hard to process.
51:09But soon, the gorillas head into the thickest jungle.
51:20Heavy, heavy.
51:23Which means that keeping up is difficult.
51:26There are a group of gorillas somewhere
51:29in this mass of vegetation.
51:33But it takes us about ten minutes
51:35just to cut a few metres far through it.
51:40Filming them is virtually impossible.
51:43Oh, there's always a piece of vegetation in the way.
51:47Oh, God, I can barely see it.
51:49As the days pass, the jungle begins to take its toll.
52:01This is awful.
52:03Your ears, your nose, my eyes, they're flying everywhere.
52:10And with little filmed,
52:11the reality of the situation is sinking in.
52:16It's going to be a real challenge for these to get a sequence here.
52:19And it's a long way to come, to get nothing.
52:25Yeah, I'd say I'm feeling the pressure at the moment.
52:35Half the chute is now over.
52:37So the crew decide to move to a more open area.
52:44Their destination, a clearing known as a bye.
52:49So our luxurious home for the next ten days or so
52:54is the topless Mirador.
53:00It's a little cramped, but from this platform,
53:03they hope to spot the gorillas emerging from the forest.
53:06On the first morning, the crew awaken to a visitor.
53:18It's our first elephant on this trip.
53:20There's a big bull in the middle of the body.
53:22There's a big bull in the middle of the body.
53:27And finally, the risk of moving pays off.
53:30It's been a really, really quiet morning, but a big group of gorillas, about 15,
53:38have suddenly appeared really, really close to us.
53:41And apparently, this very rarely happens.
53:44Maybe about once a month, they'll come this close.
53:51Over the next week, the gorillas continue to visit the bye.
53:55Until one afternoon...
54:12..gunshots.
54:23On the platform, the team are vulnerable.
54:26There's been poachers probably with an eye shot of us.
54:29They know we're here, we can't see them.
54:31And two big gunshots.
54:34They decide to evacuate.
54:37But there's also a risk of walking through the jungle at night.
54:42The one rule of the forest is not to walk in the forest when it gets dark.
54:47So we're going as fast as we can.
54:51Elephants are in the area, so this is extremely dangerous.
54:59So we're going to be able to walk in the forest.
55:03An hour later, the team reach a camp.
55:07Oh, God.
55:14That is not an experience I'd want to repeat again.
55:19We had to choose between the risk of getting charged by an elephant in the dark,
55:23or getting shot by poachers.
55:26So, yeah, it's pretty stressful.
55:33I'm going to have a sit down.
55:35With their ivory poachers, this is quite serious.
55:38And they've got nothing to lose.
55:40And the gunshot was aimed in our direction.
55:42That's where the sound was.
55:44It's a pretty scary situation to be in.
55:50Overnight, an armed anti-poaching unit is called in to scout the area.
55:57Because of the remoteness of this park, there's been no poaching recorded in the last 20 years.
56:01So this is a really significant moment.
56:05And it's a really sad moment because it means that as roads are being built here,
56:10it's becoming less and less remote.
56:12The animals here are in more and more danger.
56:15Within a few hours, the anti-poaching unit return with a stash of tusks and news of a slaughtered elephant.
56:28It was about as tragic as it gets, really, and we heard the two shots go off.
56:34So we were there when it happened and the elephant went down.
56:39With the armed poacher still on the run, the team decide to abandon the shoot.
56:44It's really tough leaving on such a sad note.
56:48We've been watching these elephants in the bay for the last week.
56:52And knowing that one of them was killed yesterday is, um,
56:56it's horrible and, yeah, it's sad to be leaving like this.
57:05The poachers were caught, but this incident is a reminder
57:09of how vulnerable wildlife has become on the continent.
57:17Even animals in the remotest parts of Africa,
57:21and indeed all our Seven Worlds, are now at risk.
57:33The Seven Worlds One Planet DVD is available now.
57:37Glenda Jackson back on our screens for a deeply moving
57:40and thought-provoking drama tonight.
57:42Elizabeth is missing at nine.
57:44And then on BBC Four, the past 12 months in the sky at night,
57:47including the first picture of a black hole.
57:50That's a ten.