Fothergill Alastair - Our Planet

TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS

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www.penguin.co.uk

Transworld is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com

First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Bantam Press

an imprint of Transworld Publishers
This book is published to accompany the television series entitled Our Planet first broadcast on Netflix in 2019

Copyright Keith Scholey and Alastair Fothergill 2019

Keith Scholey and Alastair Fothergill have asserted their rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the authors of this work.

Every effort has been made to obtain the necessary permissions with reference to copyright material, both illustrative and quoted. We apologize for any omissions in this respect and will be pleased to make the appropriate acknowledgements in any future edition.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Commissioning editor: Susanna Wadeson
Project editor: Rosamund Kidman Cox
Design: Smith & Gilmour
Picture researcher: Laura Barwick
Image grading: Stephen Johnson, www.copyrightimage.co.uk
Production: Catriona Hillerton

ISBN 9781473569225

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We are the most inquisitive and inventive of all animals. Fifty years ago, our curiosity about the worlds beyond our planet led to one of the most stupendous achievements in human history. We travelled to the moon. Paradoxically, the pictures of Earth taken on that Apollo mission made us see our own world anew. Until then, it had seemed vast and its resources infinite. Those pictures helped us realise more vividly than ever before that the Earth is unique and wonderful but also that its space and resources are limited.

Now, 50 years on, we have no doubt that profound changes are happening on our planet. We are entering a new geological era, not as in the past when changes happened over millions of years, not even over thousands of years or centuries, but within decades within my lifetime.

These changes are as rapid and as great as when the planet was struck by an asteroid. But this time they result from the global impact of our own species. In just four decades, the number of wild animals has halved, and biodiversity is declining in every region of the world, all as a consequence of the way we have chosen to live. It is a global catastrophe.

But as the problems are of our making, so the solutions can be ours too. As this book tells us, from every region of the world there are stories that reveal natures resilience and show how restoration is possible. In this digital age, we can communicate that message to all parts of the globe, at the same time showing the glories, the splendours, the marvels of the natural world that still exist on our planet.

If large enough areas are connected and protected, wildlife thrives and we benefit. Where we protect marine hotspots, we benefit from the increase in fish and other marine resources. Where we restore the natural water cycle, we benefit from the resulting fecundity of life in the rivers, wetlands and floodplains. Forests are dynamic and resilient and can rise from the ashes, if we let them, and will continue to provide resources and global functions from which, again, we benefit.

That the natural world is resilient gives me great hope. Technology also offers hope, that revolutionary ways will be found to store and transmit energy from renewable sources, doing away with any need to burn fossil fuels. Neither is it too late to choose the future we want if we act now and act together. There is a shift worldwide. More people than ever are aware of the problems and the solutions. So we must back the leaders who are prepared to do something and pressure those who are not.

The action also has to be global. The chance for that to happen is when the worlds nations meet to review the steps being taken to halt both climate change and the loss of biodiversity. From those meetings we must hope that there will come a change in our politics and economics. The future of all life on this planet depends on our willingness to take action now.

The page references in this index correspond to the print edition from which this ebook was created, and clicking on them will take you to the the location in the ebook where the equivalent print page would begin. To find a specific word or phrase from the index, please use the search feature of your ebook reader.

Aborigines: clearing land

Abruzzi Apennines

Aceh

acidification, oceans

Adams River

Afghanistan

Africa: dams

disappearing lakes

grasslands

rainforests

woodlands

African wild dogs

agouti

agriculture: agroforestry

and deserts

fertilizers

on former grasslands

green revolution

irrigation

livestock farming

Akamba people

Alaska

Albania

albatrosses

algae

Algoa Bay

Alps

Amazon rainforest

Amazon River

Amboseli National Park

American Prairie Reserve

amphibians

amphipods

anchovies

ancient civilizations

Andes

Angkor Wat

Angola

Antarctica

anteaters, giant

antelopes

Anthropocene

ants: and fungi

aquifers

Arabian desert

Aral Sea

archerfish

Arctic

Arctic Council

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Arctic Ocean

Arizona

armadillos

aspen trees

asses, wild

Atacama Desert

Atlantic dry forest

Atlantic Ocean

atolls

auks, little

Australia: coastal seas

Great Barrier Reef

Lake Eyre

outback

rivers

Austria

Ayoreo people

Azraq oasis

Aztec Land and Cattle Company

Babatag mountains

bacteria, hydrothermal vents

Baffin Bay

Baffin Island

Balkhash, Lake

Baltic herring fishery

Baltic Sea

Bangladesh

Barents Sea

basket stars

Basque people

Batang Toru

bears

black

brown

grizzly

polar

spectacled

beavers

bees, orchid

beetles

Beidaihe

Beijing

Belarus

Belize

Belize Barrier Reef

Bellingshausen Sea

Belnap, Jayne

Benin

Bering Sea

Bering Strait

Berlin

Bhutan

Bialowieza Forest

billabongs

billfish

biodiversity: coastal seas

coral reefs

in forests

grasslands

hydrothermal vents

international conventions

kelp forests

loss of

Madagascar

Pantanal

rainforests

rivers

birch trees