We live on the most diverse planet in the solar system.
Its vast richness is revealed when we explore the variety
of our world's landscapes.
This is an adventure of discovery
to seven of the planet's most dramatic landscapes
and natural wonders.
Perhaps these are the greatest places.
Some five billion years ago, our solar system took form.
More than 200 million years ago
Earth's supercontinent, Pangaea, began to separate.
New coastlines, continents, islands and mountain ranges
were formed in massive upheaval.
The greatest places began to take shape.
Greenland became the largest island in the world.
Africa became a separate continent.
The Okavango Delta and the Namib Desert Regions were formed.
Severed from Africa, South America was carved in part
by the rivers Amazon and Iguazu.
India collided with Asia
uplifting the great plateau of Tibet.
Madagascar separated from Africa
and became an island...
one of the greatest places.
Set adrift by the forces of geology
Madagascar became a time capsule
where, for 40 million years, life evolved in isolation.
This island ark carries life found nowhere else...
Living treasures of place
and time.
This is the kingdom of the lemur.
Madagascar is the only place on earth where lemurs are found.
On the mainland, the lemur's ancestors were out-competed
by later-evolving monkeys.
But left alone on Madagascar, these ancient primates thrived.
Here grow the most species of the upside-down tree...
Looking like its roots are in the air...
the baobab.
This giant lives for a thousand years
on the island where nearly two-thirds
of the world's species of chameleons stalk their prey.
Of all the world's islands
Madagascar has the most native species.
Here, where a cactus may grow as tall as a tree
the ring-tailed lemur has adapted from forest leaf eater
to connoisseur of cactus.
Millions of years of rain and wind
have exposed limestone pinnacles...
silent reminders of the forces that shaped Madagascar
from the time it was torn from the bedrock of Africa.
Madagascar's isolation
allowed the lemurs to flourish and to diversify.
Numerous species exist, including the black lemur
whose males are jet black.
But the females of the species are rusty brown.
And the ring-tailed lemur, the most social.
And the shifak, called the ghost of the forest.
It's one of the few lemurs
that sometimes comes down from the trees.
With a tongue as long as its body, the chameleon dines.
The island ark of Madagascar...
one of the greatest places.
Where India and Asia collided
the world's tallest mountains, the Himalayas
were uplifted with the highest plateau in the world, Tibet.
As large as Western Europe
the plateau is higher than the tallest peaks
of the Rocky Mountains.
Yet people have lived for thousands of years here
in the place they call the Chong-Tong
the Lonely Place.
The Buddhists of Tibet believe in the sacred connection
between people and the world of nature.
Prayers are written on flags
to be carried by the mountain wind.
Living as nomads, people conserve the land
by constantly moving to feed their yaks, sheep and goats.
Their very survival is closely bound to their animals.
People trade for barley
but their lives are sustained by the yak.
The yak carries all their belongings
and gives milk, butter and meat...
almost everything they need
to survive.
In the land where temperatures can drop
80 degrees Fahrenheit in one day
yak hides even provide wool and shelter.
For an endangered people
who are among the last of the nomads
their shelter means survival and home.
Their prayers are written inside prayer wheels
to spin to the heavens.
As part of their connection to the land and their religion
pilgrims travel hundreds of miles
in walking meditation to monasteries and holy sites.
Some lakes in Tibet are considered holy
and are headwaters to Asian rivers that irrigate land
to feed a quarter of humanity.
Many pilgrimages end at great monasteries...
monasteries that serve as centers of learning.
As an act of devotion
Tibetans walk around holy sites as faithfully
as the earth moves around the sun.
All people are linked to the place they live
through their culture
but for all of us everywhere, the natural landscape
is what sustains the dance of life.
Tibet, the world's highest plaeau.
Across the world
flows one of the Earth's most powerful features...
the river...
and the greatest river of all is the Amazon.
It crosses more than two-thirds of the South American continent
and is joined by a thousand other rivers
as it brings a way of life to the people of the river.
Rivers everywhere are arteries of life
for great cities as well as small villages
bringing food, water to drink and to grow crops
and for transportation.
The Amazon River Basin is a vast landscape
of river and forest
almost as large as the continental United States
encompassing nine nations.
People here follow the ebb and flow of the river
learned in the journey of a lifetime.
In the Amazon, people are only one of millions of species
linked to the greatest watershed on Earth.
Beetles the size of a person's fist
miniature geckos
venomous caterpillars
and spiders that walk on water.
Located within a few degrees latitude of the equator
the Amazon basin receives nearly direct sun all year.
Heat from the morning sun evaporates moisture
and causes humid air to rise.
By late morning, it condenses into clouds.
Cloud droplets gather mass and then fall as rain.
The daily rhythm of the rain replenishes the river.
Moving with the currents are floating meadows...
a seasonal mass of plants and debris...
islands of life.
Some meadows become part of the landscape
and support even trees
and the most colouful life in this lush environment.
Where the powerful river exposes clay banks
macaws and parrots fly in for a meal.
They eat the clay as an antidote to toxic seeds in their diet
and for its life-sustaining minerals.
Great rivers flow across the planet
and the Amazon is the greatest.
Rivers everywhere meet disruptions to their flow.
When they flow across a boundary of hard and softer rock
there can be great disruptions.
The world's greatest waterfall is Iguazu...
four times wider than Niagara.
South of the Amazon basin
at the border of Brazil and Argentina
Lava once flowed from ancient volcanoes.
When the hard lava ends, less-resistant rock has eroded.
Here, the Iguazu River plunges into more than 200 waterfalls
Along the southwest coast of Africa
the Namib is a desert in motion.
Across this 80 million-year-old desert
prevailing winds build
the earth's tallest sand dunes
dunes over a thousand feet tall
that migrate a grain of sand at a time.
Of all the deserts
the Namib contains the greatest variety of life:
Beetles that collect moisture on their backs
at the top of the dunes.
Adders that store water between their scales.
And venomous scorpions.
The Namib is even graced with large mammals
like the gemsbok.
Everywhere on earth
the interaction of the same basic elements...
Land, air, water and life...
has created landscapes of dramatic diversity.
The Namib is one of the world's five west coast deserts
that stretch to a cold sea.
As warm wind passes over cold water, fog forms
bringing life-giving moisture that never falls as rain.
But the fog of Namib also brings death
scattering bones along the treacherous Skeleton Coast.
A cold southern current from Antarctica
and the warmer Atlantic Ocean mix to create a fertile sea
and bring abundant life.
At this ocean oasis, fur seals feed all year
and warm themselves from the frigid water
at the edge of the hot desert.
The Namib
desert of the great dunes.
At the Arctic Circle, the largest island in the world
lies covered by a permanent landscape of ice.
Beneath the enormous weight of the Greenland ice cap
the world's oldest landscape has sunk below sea level.
At the sea, glaciers calve into icebergs...
floating mountains of ice
that are five times more massive under water than above water.
Only the narrow ice-free coast supports life.
Here, the musk ox is cloaked in one of nature's warmest coats
even in summer's bloom.
Greenland's storyteller, the drum dancer
celdbrates the thousands of years
people have survived at this icy edge.
This is life near the coldest limit of human existence.
Survival here is dependent on people inventing what they need
like the harpoon, the dogsled and the kayak.
Even at 40 degrees below zero
people have successfully adapted.
Greenland a cold extreme of earth's diversity.
In Botswana, southern Africa
the Okavango River Delta is Africa's greatest oasis.
Flowing from the north, the Okavango River
has carried millions of tons of sand and debris
to create one of the largest inland river deltas
in the world.
It forms a maze of land and water.
This river never flows to the sea.
Instead, it spreads across the Kalahari Desert
and the desert blooms with life.
This massive, landlocked river delta
depends on water hundreds of miles away
that travels half the year to reach the dry, lower delta.
Everywhere, water restores life.
In this Eden of Okavango
as in all places
diversity of life is linked to the land, air and water
and the patterns of landscape they form.
Every thing is interrelated.
Even the wild dogs of Okavango are linked together from birth.
Only one male and female mate to produce a litter of pups
the entire pack will raise.
In dynamic equilibrium, one generation follows another.
In the Okavango, and everywhere
the procession of life is a reflection of the landscape.
Only on this planet have elemental processes combined
to create so many great places, inanimate features of land
which make possible the drama of life.
In the unending partnership of predator and prey
one life gives way to many others.
Here, in the cradle of Africa, and everywhere
we are both witness and participant
in the Earth's most intricate patterns
of the land and life.
This rich variety of landscapes is found only on one planet.
To explore these greatest places
is to recognize our common bond
that we share a miraculous home
the most diverse planet in the solar system
perhaps the most diverse in the universe.
Earth
the greatest place of all.