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Our Planet – The Series

First aired :  5 April 2019

Broadcast worldwide by Netflix.

The series is consists of eight programmes. The first one was an overview followed by a separate programme dealing with each of several environments.

1 – One Planet – the overview of the series

An outline of the overview programme

The programme implies that the nutrients from the ‘far away’ deserts ‘only’ provide nutrients for the seas. The accompanying book, on the other hand, states that the sandstorms in question do even reach the South American continent and the Amazon. Images from space confirm this (due to copyright laws they cannot be included here). What’s more, it’s been recently discovered that those storms are not the only means of nutrients from remote places: Phosphorus and possibly other vital elements have turned out to be transported westwards from various parts of Africa.*

2 – Frozen worlds

3 – Jungles

4 – Coasts

5 – Deserts to Grasslands

6 – The High Seas

7 – Fresh Water

Final programme:

8 – Forests

References:

Our Planet. Alastair Fothergill & Keith Scholey. (Penguin Random House, UK. 2019) (pp. 136-7) .

*Anne E. Barkley et al (2019). African biomass burning is a substantial source of phosphorus deposition to the Amazon, Tropical Atlantic Ocean, and Southern Ocean . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. PNAS first published July 29, 2019. Retrieved. 30. July 2019.

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Introduction to Our Planet

Original air date: 5 April 2019

The series Our Planet is a tribute to our great natural world as have so many other series. This one stands alone in showing how badly it has been treated by us.

The series is from the producers of series like Frozen Planet which was a fight to document the poles without there being too much of a downbeat message.

Attenborough decided to go to Netflix because of their world wide audiences, BBC is mainly limited to the UK in addition to those other broadcasters that buy broadcasting rights and possible DVD releases. Netflix has no such limitations. The producers also have a larger budget and have been able to film sequences that had been unthinkable until now. The obvious drawback is that Attenborough’s material consequently is no longer freely available to his countrymen in the UK. It is debatable how logical it is to get the best way to get such an important message across if the only people to get it are those who pay for it ?? There is probably no need to preach to the already converted. Attenborough fans that are, non Netflix subscribers will undoubtedly feel themselves hard done by. The best way to get such an important message across should surely be to make is as freely available as possible although that obviously raises the question of financing.

Reviews:

https://variety.com/2019/tv/reviews/our-planet-Netflix-David-attenborough-review-1203181075/

Guardian