A new earth programme– Changing Planet documentary– by the BBC is set to track the impacts of climate change over a seven-year period. It will, however, not pass judgment.
The show, set in six locations – which will start screening here on July 31 – is expected to, among other things, shed light on how climate change can affect human communities.
The executive producer of the, Ms Rosemary Edwards, said: “We get into a dangerous situation where we try and divide ourselves from the rest of the natural world,” he said. “If a major river like the Mekong, in Indochina, dries up, both the wild animals and human communities that subsist off the river will suffer”.
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Changing Planet will document the different habitats over the next seven years in the Maldives, Iceland, Cambodia, Kenya, Brazil and California. This is even as the presenters will return to their respective habitats to chart the progress of ecological issues and the work of local scientists and conservationists.
Presenter of stories for Cambodia, Ms Ella Al-Shamahi said “usually with television shows, we visit a place for sometimes days, sometimes even – based on posts – just a few hours.”
She said that the present effects of climate change are expected to get more severe. She said that in the Tonle Sap Lake region in Cambodia where multiple upstream dams were built to harvest cheap renewable energy, for instance, villagers have turned to eating snake meat due to the disappearance of 50 per cent to 80 per cent of fish in the lake.
“There are things which we expect will probably happen in the next seven years and the lifetime of this show,” she added.
Apart from the environmental impacts of climate change, the show is further expected to focus on the conservationists currently fighting to save certain species of animals.
Story was adapted from the StraitsTimes.
