The Green Planet TV series
The BBC Green Planet television series focuses attention on the central role that plants play in all life on earth. Made by BBC Studios’ world-renowned Natural History Unit and presented and narrated by David Attenborough, the series has 5 programmes, each focusing on a different habitat.
Tropical Worlds
Water Worlds
Seasonal Worlds
Desert Worlds
Human Worlds
We’ve created a gallery of images related to the subjects covered in each of the five programmes. You will also find a new Green Planet gallery section on our website. Read on to find out more and to browse the gallery images…
Tropical Worlds
NPL photographer Paul Williams was producer on Tropical Worlds and Desert Worlds. He talks about the Tropical Worlds episode and storytelling:
“The Tropical Worlds episode is very much about how plants are at the foundation of everything. They’re interconnected. Every animal completely depends on plants. But we also talk about the fragility of these natural environments, the fragility of the rainforests, and how plants are very much part of that. Most natural history programmes, when they delve into the problems of the tropical world, will touch on deforestation, which of course is a significant. What I wanted to do is to go a bit deeper, by focusing on the problem of forest fragmentation. Over the past 100 years, half of the tropical rainforest in the world has disappeared, and half of the remaining tropical rainforest still exists, but only as disconnected fragments. Scientists have discovered that these forest fragments essentially have a half-life, and over several decades the number of species within a forest fragment, decreases by half. So if we want to preserve these fragments, all we have to do is stick the fragments back together.
To demonstrate how to do this, we took Sir David out to a place in Costa Rica that he visited 30 years ago, which was then a scientific research station on the edge of some grassland. We took him to the exact spot where he stood, which is now a rainforest because the scientists have connected the fragments back together, allowing the forest to regrow.”
Take a look at our Tropical Worlds gallery focusing on the subjects covered in this episode, and here is a taster of the gallery images…
Water Worlds
Water plants create some of the most beautiful, bizarre and important habitats on earth. To hold on in torrents, plants use a kind of superglue. Some are armed with vicious weapons to fight titanic battles for space. Others form perfect spheres and escape from animal enemies by rolling. Where nutrients are washed away, plants turn into hunters of animals, laying traps and even counting to ensure their success. Brilliantly coloured flowers smother lakes, and in one magical river in Brazil, the water bubbles like champagne as plants create the atmosphere itself. Browse our Water Worlds gallery here.
Seasonal Worlds
Desert Worlds
Deserts are hostile – temperatures soar and water is rare. Yet plants find extraordinary ways to survive. They may grow imperceptibly slowly or travel the landscape looking for water. Others wait decades in suspended animation for rain to power an explosion of colour across the dunes. Desert plants protect their water stores from animals and from each other, using vicious spines, camouflage or by forging alliances with animals. Plants have invaded the most dangerous deserts on Earth, overcoming salt, fire and toxic bird droppings to bring life and colour to these harsh landscapes. The images below are a small selection from our Desert Worlds gallery.
Human Worlds
We rely on plants for almost everything, including the air we breathe and the food we eat. Two in five wild plants are threatened with extinction, but people are finding new ways to help them, from projects in Africa to reseed the landscape to the rebuilding of a tropical forest in Brazil, tree by tree. Two out of five wild plants are threatened with extinction. Today people are finding remarkable ways to help them, and so make our world a little greener and a little wilder. Explore more image of Human Worlds in our new gallery.
The Green Planet book
There is an accompanying lavishly illustrated book, published by BBC Books/Penguin Random House with text by Simon Barnes. NPL was delighted to supply more than 60 images for the book and we’ve created a Green Planet book gallery where you can explore the book images. Below is a taster of some of the photos used in the book.
What is the environmental message of The Green Planet to audiences?
Rupert Barrington, Series Producer for BBC, explains the messaging behind the series:
“If there is one critical thing that we want audiences to take away, it is that intact, fully-functioning communities of plants are vital for the health of the planet and therefore vital to our own future. A lot of the series shows how plants are connected to each other and to animals in a complex web. These webs of life are resilient to change, they create oxygen, they store water and so on. But when these webs are weakened because species are lost, they become increasingly fragile. So we’d like to people to understand that we rely on plants for everything and if we allow plants to thrive, it is a benefit to all life on earth, including ourselves.”
Watch the Green Planet series
The five episodes of The Green Planet series are still available to watch on BBC iPlayer. The BBC Where to Watch page also provides helpful information on when the series will air on other TV channels across the globe. The series was a co-production with PBS, bilibili, ZDF, CMG and France Televisions.
