The thrall of the wild
By Grace Hammond
This weekend, Alan Titchmarsh hosts the start of a series of celebrity-led wildlife films to raise cash for the world’s endangered wildlife.
As wildlife faces a crisis, there are projects working to save key species and habitats, to provide a secure future for people and wildlife. In a new BBC1 series, nine celebrities travel to investigate the issues on the ground.
Saving Planet Earth begins with Sir David Attenborough looking at the impact of humans on the planet and ends with a live, fund-raising finale. The money will fund wildlife conservation projects in the UK and around the world.
Sir David says: “We all need space to live, but our species is taking more than its fair share. According to recent figures, the average person in the UK uses six hectares of the planet every year to live. That may not sound like much, but if every human being were to use this amount, we would need three Earths to survive. What does our over-consumption mean for the rest of life that shares planet Earth? Can a growing human population still leave space for wildlife?”
Through archive and footage from BBC1’s Planet Earth, he outlines the threat to the remaining planet and urges viewers to protect as much wilderness as possible.
“During the course of my career, I have had the good fortune to visit some of the most remote places on our planet – places rich in a variety of life. Now, increasing human pressure threatens many of the places and animals I have seen. Some experts believe we are in the middle of a mass extinction, and our species is to blame.”
He highlights the conflict that occurs as animals are adapting when their wilderness disappears and they are forced to live closer to people. In India, leopards walk into the bustling city of Mumbai, while in Africa, elephants trample villagers and wreck crops. These conflicts are often a matter of life and death for both animals and humans.
As he strolls through Caledonian woodland, he draws parallels between the co-existence of wildlife and humans in Britain and the rest of the world. He describes how previous generations in the UK were so frightened of wolves that they deliberately destroyed habitats in order to eradicate them – and succeeded.
Changes in agriculture have also taken their toll on the world’s delicate infrastructure, as farming practices have had to adapt to increased food demand. The move to plant GM crops in North America’s Corn Belt is destroying the habitat of the monarch butterfly, whose caterpillars feed on milkweed. And, after the longest migration of any insect to over-winter in Mexico, their forest refuge is also being threatened by illegal logging.
In Borneo, it’s the legal destruction of the rainforest for a world market in palm oil which is threatening the orang-utan. Forests are burned down, leaving hundreds of baby orang-utan orphaned. Although some are rescued, their return to the wild is hampered by the fact that these social animals need their parents to teach them how to survive.
Sir David concludes: “We know we are using more than our fair share of the planet and its resources, and we must now redress this imbalance. Any effort to do so – no matter how big or small – is valuable if we
wish to ensure a future that is healthy for all life on planet Earth.”
Will Young is one of the nine celebs involved and he makes an emotional journey into the heart of Africa where logging and bush-meat poachers are taking their toll on the elusive lowland gorillas of West Africa.
As loggers raze the once-impenetrable jungles, poachers follow in their wake. Some scientists estimate that there are only 100,000 western lowland gorillas left in the wild.
Will Young investigates two very different sides of gorilla conservation. In Cameroon, he visits a refuge caring for the often traumatised orphaned gorilla victims of the bush-meat trade, while in Gabon, he sees for himself the success of preserving the gorillas’ jungle habitat.
At the Cameroon Wildlife Aid Foundation (CWAF), surrogate mum Rachel Hogan introduces Will to the traumatised babies rescued after their parents were slaughtered. Just like human children, young gorillas separated from their parents need individual care. Without emotional support, they rarely survive
the trauma.
Rachel explains: “They’re all orphans of the bush-meat trade, which means that the hunters have slaughtered the family group. Normally, the infants are too small to be killed for meat, so the hunter will take them, try to keep them alive and maybe sell them as pets. But with gorillas, they’re so sensitive and emotionally fragile that it’s really difficult. Within 24 to 48 hours, they often just give up and die.”
Gorillas share more than 96 per cent of their DNA with humans, and for Will, a close encounter with a wild gorilla is a remarkable experience.
“The most bizarre thing is they look so human,” explains Will. “I feel like I want to talk to them. It’s quite amazing to see something so similar to us. And to think that they could be gone in my life.”
But, although sanctuaries such as CWAF are vital for the care of gorillas affected by poachers, they are not the answer to gorilla survival. Will travels to the Mikongo Conservation Centre, in Gabon, where scientists, helped by the local Baka pygmies, study the gorillas in the wild. Ten per cent of the country has been declared a national park, and the forest around Mikongo is believed to have the greatest concentration of lowland gorillas in the world.
Despite the abundance of gorillas, they are extremely elusive. The scientists track the gorillas every day and painstakingly piece together the reality of their lives. Tracking gorillas deep into the forests gives Will an insight into the gorillas’ habitat.
“It’s really amazing if you stop and listen to the sounds of the forest as they sound very similar to a piece of music, because there are so many different elements,” says Will.
After a three-day expedition with scientist Gabrielle Sciatelle, Will has a rare encounter with a wild gorilla family. It’s a moment, he says, he will always
remember.
Sharing Planet Earth, the opening programme in BBC1’s series Saving Planet Earth, tomorrow, 7pm.
Source: http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/features?articleid=2977204
