BBC Factual announces new Natural History slate

BBC Factual announces new Natural History slate

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Tuesday, 2nd November 2021
(credit: BBC)

BBC Factual has commissioned four new Natural History programmes across BBC One, BBC Two and iPlayer.

The announcement comes amid the landmark COP26 conference and, said the BBC, will reinforce the broadcaster’s commitment to highlighting the science of life on earth and the state of the natural world.

Asia

In Asia, BBC One visits the biggest continent on Earth to showcase the extraordinary variety of its landscapes and wildlife.

Over seven, one-hour episodes, the series tells dramatic natural stories from each corner of the continent: from the vast Arabian desert to the uncharted jungles of Sulawesi, and from the polar wilderness of Siberia to the tropical coral seas of the Indian Ocean.

Asia boasts the highest mountain range in the Himalayas, the deepest ocean in the Mariana Trench in the Pacific, the tallest jungles in Danum valley in Borneo, the biggest cave in Hang Son Doong in Vietnam and the highest number of active volcanoes.

And its wildlife is just as impressive and diverse, with six species of bear, three species of rhino, five species of big cat, as well as unique species such as flying lemurs, vampire moths and bearcats all living within its borders.

The series also reveals the animals thriving at the heart of Asia’s mega cities – Shanghai, Jakarta, Mumbai and Tokyo.

As well as celebrating Asia’s natural splendour, the documentary explores the continent’s conservation challenges and potential solutions and champions the heroes in the growing wildlife protection movement.

Attenborough And The Mammoth Graveyard


Sir David Attenborough (credit: BBC)

Sir David Attenborough joins the archaeological dig unearthing Britain’s biggest mammoth discovery in almost 20 years.

In 2017, in a gravel quarry near Swindon, two amateur fossil hunters found a cache of mammoth remains dating back to the Ice Age and a stone axe made by a Neanderthal.

Attenborough hears from Biologist Prof. Ben Garrod and a team of archaeologists and palaeontologists as they excavate the prehistoric crime scene to hopefully discover why the mammoths were there, how they died and whether the Neanderthals are guilty.

Operation Satanic: The Sinking Of The Rainbow Warrior


The Rainbow Warrior (credit: BBC)

Oxford Scientific Films’ feature length documentary, Operation Satanic, tells the story of the fatal bombing of Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior by a squad of French Secret Service agents in New Zealand in 1985.

The French state ordered the agents to prevent the environmental campaigners from protesting against its nuclear testing on South Pacific islands.

The film explores the legacy of nuclear testing by Western powers, France’s botched operation, and the consequent police investigation and global fallout at the height of the Cold War.

The spies, detectives, activists and politicians involved offer first-hand testimonies.

The Pride


The Marsh Pride (credit: BBC)

A ground-breaking new film charts the rise and fall of the Marsh Pride of lions.

Having been documented for the last 30 years by the BBC and other broadcasters from around the world, the Marsh Pride are now the most recorded pride on Earth.

The film follows the Pride’s fight to survive in Kenya’s Maasai Mara Reserve at a time when lions and humans are increasingly at odds.

Buffalo and male lions pose a deadly threat to the young cubs while humans are encroaching onto their territory, meaning the Pride depends on the precious space they have left to raise their young. But the growing cattle population and revenge attacks by Maasai pastoralists threaten the Pride’s existence.

With only 20,000 remaining in the African wild, the film also retraces the catastrophic decline of the lion population.

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BBC Factual has commissioned four new Natural History programmes across BBC One, BBC Two and iPlayer.