The monsoon.
The greatest weather system on Earth.
The giver of life
and the destroyer.
Shaping magical lands
from the Himalayas
to Australia.
Its impact felt by giants
the exquisite
and the bizarre.
Where spectacular nature
meets the planet's most vibrant cultures.
It all happens in one of the most crowded parts of the planet.
This is the story of people and nature, living side by side.
The story of the struggles they face
and of powerful beliefs which link the ancient to the present day.
A Hindu temple, Mangalore, southern India.
It's the height of the monsoon, and today is Nag Panchami
the day when Hindus worship snakes
venomous snakes.
During the Indian monsoon, rains flush them into the paths of people.
Until recently, live cobras were widely worshiped in temples.
It's just one example of the close and complex relationship between nature
and the people of the monsoon.
Our story traces back to when humans first spread across the lands of the monsoon.
The Philippine island of Palawan, near Borneo.
Here lives a community whose lives and beliefs are an insight into how people
have lived with nature for thousands of years.
Rolito, and his sister Maria.
To them the natural world is full of spirits.
And nature provides almost everything they need.
Monsoon storms are approaching and Tata is getting prepared.
To him, even the clouds have spirits and they can be vengeful.
He must keep his family safe from harm.
Their wooden shack isn't designed to survive the malevolent storms.
For the months of the monsoon, they will live as their ancestors did,
as hunter-gatherers in a cave, relying on what the forest provides.
When hunting, Tata wears a loincloth
as clothes get wet and rub and can snare on thorns.
Joined by his father-in-law and brother
they use rattan vine to make a hunting weapon.
The rattan has hooked spines that pierce flesh and are hard to dislodge.
The Palawan hunters believe their very survival is in the hands of the spirits all around them
in the rocks, the water, the trees.
The spirits are their guardians, but can also inflict great hardship.
If the hunt is to be successful, they need the spirits' blessing.
First they must flush out their prey.
Bats!
As they try to escape, Tata is waiting.
Bat kebab.
Together with a few tubers it's a nourishing meal for the whole family.
And there's nothing like a family meal, for elders to hand down their wisdom.
Worship of natural spirits is considered to be the world's oldest belief system.
Perhaps, this is how everyone once lived, across the lands of the monsoon.
But around 10,000 years ago everything changed.
People discovered a new way to survive the extremes of the monsoon
all thanks to a wild marshland grass.
Rice.
The perfect monsoon crop.
It is planted at the time of the flood.
The grains can then be stored, and eaten throughout the dry season.
Agriculture spread rapidly from southern China, across the whole region.
On its riches, were built the region's first towns and cities.
But this progress came at a cost.
For the first time, wildlife was expelled from the land
profoundly changing the relationship between humans and nature.
In north east India, the monsoon rains have been and gone.
These elephants are hungry
each needs over a hundred kilos of food a day.
Asian elephants are forest creatures, but the best food now lies beyond the forest's edge.
The crop must be guarded right through the night.
But the fields are extensive, and the elephants could be anywhere.
A group of farmers on an all-night vigil.
The elephants have seen it all before.
And besides, they haven't finished their dinner.
This night alone the herd could devour enough rice to feed over a thousand people.
So the villagers can't afford to stand by and just watch their livelihood being destroyed.
But these are unpredictable beasts.
Every year across India, elephants kill up to four hundred people in conflicts like this.
The same scene will play out every night until the harvest is in.
It's a battle as old as agriculture itself.
You might think that with the rise of agriculture respect for nature would have been lost entirely
but it didn't quite turn out that way.
Along with rice and civilization came something new, organised religion.
By the River Tak in Thailand, Kewalin and her friends are preparing for an annual Buddhist festival
Loi Krathong.
But they are making offerings to a goddess of nature, the goddess of the river.
Their prayers are to give thanks for all that the monsoon waters have provided.
In the northern city of Chiang Mai, the festival is celebrated with tens of thousands of sky lanterns.
Loi Krathong has its origins in the Hindu Festival of Lights.
Hinduism and Buddhism, two religions that flourished in the monsoon lands.
Both with great reverence for water and indeed for all of nature.
And in some places,
religion would have a profound effect on the conflict between people and wildlife.
The Thar desert of Rajasthan in north west India is a tough place to survive.
It is only made habitable by a brief monsoon season.
But now with the rains long gone, heat and drought are intensifying.
A small group of Indian gazelles, chinkara.
They can stay alive without water for up to 3 weeks
they get by on the sap inside the plants they browse.
Over 68 million people also live in Rajasthan
food is scarce and the water sources are shrinking.
But even a chinkara has to drink eventually.
Stealing is a dangerous act.
Luckily for this gazelle, she lives amongst the Bishnoi people.
Bishnoi is a religion founded around three hundred years ago.
To Bishnoi followers, all living things are sacred.
They willingly share their water and their harvest with wildlife.
Here, where the monsoon climate is harshest
compassion and generosity to all living things is most pronounced.
Bishnoi texts forbid the harming of any living thing.
Only fallen branches may be used for firewood, for even the trees are sacred.
The strength of Bishnoi devotion is revealed by an event that occurred a long time ago
in this very grove.
Sukramji understands the importance of this defining moment in Bishnoi history
when their extraordinary devotion to nature was put to the ultimate test.
When news of the slaughter reached the ruler of Jodhpur he felt ashamed
so he decreed that all trees growing on Bishnoi land be protected.
A law which stands to this day.
And so, Bishnoi land remains bountiful
supporting more humans and animals than any other desert region in the world.
But Bishnoi is a religion still centred in the Thar desert of north west India.
So what about the rest of the country?
The dominant religion in India has long been Hinduism.
And Hinduism has had a profound effect on the relationship between people and nature
right across the country.
Sometimes in nature, the smallest of creatures have the biggest stories to tell.
In southern India, the monsoon rains have brought relief
and streams are flowing again.
On the rocks in the middle you can find tiny frogs no bigger than a paper clip.
His calls have to compete with the noise of the stream.
So to claim a rock as his own he uses semaphore.
He is a foot-flagging frog.
It's a signal to rivals, to keep away.
But what's so extraordinary is that while this little frog may never see a human
it almost certainly owes its survival to their religious beliefs.
And this is how.
It's Nag Panchami, the holy day when Hindus worship snakes.
In the countryside, Savita is helping her uncles make their offering.
Because of this shrine, the entire woodland is sacred.
The snakes and everything within it are protected.
In India, foot-flagging frogs mostly live and breed in sacred groves.
Which is why they owe their continued existence to Hindu devotion.
Traditionally, every Indian village had its own sacred grove.
And there's scientific evidence that this vast network
has been crucial for protecting much of India’s biodiversity.
So religion seems to have been central to the relationship between people and nature
for thousands of years.
But a few hundred years ago, that relationship was threatened like never before.
European traders were drawn to the bounty of the monsoon lands
from India to Australia.
Culminating in the biggest empire the world has ever seen.
A mighty powerful impressive structure, such was Victoria 's Empire.
Millions upon millions, altogether under the flag upon which the sun never sets.
The newcomers didn't regard the wildlife as sacred.
They were more likely to treat it as vermin.
In just a few decades, eighty thousand Indian tigers were killed.
But what the newcomers were really after was the land.
Forests were cleared, the timber harvested to build ships and railways
and the land planted with cash crops, tea and cotton.
Now, for the first time, the lands of the monsoon were supplying produce worldwide
on an industrial scale.
Millions of people were sucked into this massive new enterprise.
It was part of the transition that led to the world we know today.
Less than two thousand Indian tigers now survive, in isolated reserves.
And a fraction of India’s native forests remain.
Across the whole monsoon region, global trade and travel have transformed the landscape
and the relationship between humans and nature.
Perhaps the changes that have swept through the region
can be symbolised by the fate of one animal that once ranged from Burma to Indonesia.
Siamese crocodiles inspired legends of dragons.
But their habitat was destroyed and they were hunted for their hides
to near extinction.
A few survived in captivity.
But these youngsters are special.
They are of wild blood
because recently a new population was discovered
breeding in a remote forest in Cambodia.
This conservation team brought some eggs to the safety of a sanctuary.
In the wild, few crocs survive to adulthood, but these are now big enough to make a go of it.
So they are being returned to the rivers of their native forest.
They have an arduous journey ahead.
Bikes are the only vehicles capable of the bone-shaking journey.
Once this was all Siamese crocodile habitat.
They lived in rain-fed rivers and lakes and migrated out through flooded forests
during the monsoon.
The team that has nurtured these crocodiles hope that the species will once again rule the wetlands.
They are taking the youngsters into the heart of the largest remaining forest in mainland southeast Asia
the Cardamom mountains of southern Cambodia.
Siamese crocodiles survived in these remote valleys because the local people regard them as sacred.
They believe that if one dies, misfortune will befall the village
so they will guard the crocodiles closely.
Crocodiles can live for more than 70 years
and each year a female can lay up to 50 eggs, so these crocs could found a new dynasty.
But being sacred may no longer be enough
for the needs of crocodiles don't easily align with the needs of modern Cambodia.
Cambodians need electricity.
Developments like these introduce a risk
they open up access for illegal logging.
To some, it's the price of progress.
But lose the trees and the monsoon itself may take revenge.
Towns and temples were destroyed by landslides.
Northern India, during the monsoon of 2013.
Similar scenes have become increasingly common across the monsoon region.
Illegal loggers have scarred the Philippines in recent years,
their removal of trees making the soil unstable
worsening the floods by adding tonnes of logs and rocks to the torrent.
Healthy forests bind the soil together and prevent floods.
They also remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Based on scientific calculations, the forests of southeast Asia
provide services worth over one trillion dollars, every year.
And all for free.
But, the global demand for hardwood timber just keeps growing.
And the forests of South east Asia contain some of the best quality timber on Earth.
Teak, ebony and rosewood are wanted for furniture and building materials from doorframes to plywood.
Wood from these forests ends up in homes all over the world.
So is this the end of the special relationship between nature and the people of the monsoon?
Here in Deramakot Forest Reserve in Malaysian Borneo, all is not as it seems.
Foresters are trialling a technique called 'Reduced Impact Logging'.
They are very selective,
they don't cut trees that are too young, or old.
And fruiting trees, valuable for wildlife, are marked for protection.
They don't flatten the whole forest, but extract individual logs
so the forest can quickly recover.
Even access trails will be engulfed by new growth.
Once harvested, each forest sector will be left alone for 40 years.
Ditches are out across the bare trails to prevent the soils being washed away by the monsoon rains.
Deramakot turns a profit, while also protecting the forest for the future.
But can wildlife really thrive alongside the bulldozers?
Scientists are keen to find out.
It's at night that many forest animals should be active.
I see it, no no no, there.
A porcupine.
So there is life in these forests.
But what about the top predators?
Cats would be a good sign of a healthy forest, because they sit at the top of the food chain.
If there isn't enough prey for them cats won't be here.
Borneo's cats are notoriously elusive
but there's no denying the evidence of a camera trap.
Snapshots reveal a rich population
and among them leopard cats
and even Borneo's largest cat, the clouded leopard.
In fact, the scientists recorded all 21 of Borneo's lowland carnivore species.
So a commercial forest, can also be prime wildlife habitat
it's all down to how it's harvested.
But now there is a new conflict in the tropics that may be a greater challenge
than anything that's gone before.
Where they're still intact, the forests of tropical south east Asia are luxuriant jungles
amongst the oldest in the world
and home to one of our closest relatives.
A Sumatran orangutan with her two-week-old baby.
It will take up to ten years for her to teach him all he needs to know to survive in this jungle.
They will spend their lives up in the canopy.
Their kind has evolved never to travel on the ground, for tigers also inhabit these forests.
But around them the forest is being cleared.
The land is wanted for a new monsoon wonder crop.
Oil palms.
Global demand for vegetable oil has more than doubled in the past 20 years.
And oil palms produce at least six times more oil per hectare than other major oil crops.
Their oil is so versatile
it's used in almost half of all the packaged products stocked in a typical western supermarket.
It's perhaps the biggest agricultural revolution since rice,
this time supplying the whole world.
But it's been responsible for the destruction of rainforests throughout tropical southeast Asia.
This mother orangutan and her five-year-old infant are living in a remaining fragment of jungle.
The oil palms that now surround them have no branches to support their weight
so they're stranded, with no means of reaching fruiting trees or other orangutans.
If they stay here, they will probably die.
So a rescue mission is launched.
The team carry guns loaded with tranquiliser.
She's been hit.
The drug will take effect within 10 minutes.
The aim is not to hurt her, but she is going to fall from the tree.
Rico is a vet, he checks the orangutan hasn't been injured by the fall.
She's in good health.
While the mother sleeps, her infant is also darted and caught.
She may not feel it when she wakes, but she's a lucky orangutan.
The plan is to release her and her infant, in a National Park where they will be safe.
It's a long drive through a landscape dominated by the palm industry.
But there could just be a glimmer of hope for orangutans and their forests.
Global concern from consumers has prompted some producers
to commit to sustainable palm oil production
planting on land already claimed for agriculture
without clearing any more forests.
So perhaps the people of the monsoon
can find ways to meet the world's demand for palm oil and timber
that minimise conflict with wildlife.
The special relationship between nature and the people of the monsoon lives on.
Thanks to the monsoon's bounty, a richness of cultures and wildlife still flourishes here.
There have been huge challenges, especially in modern times.
But the future of the region, and all that live here
no longer depends only on the humanity and compassion of local people...
...now, through global trade, we are all connected to this wonderful, exotic world.
And have a part to play in its future.
For producer and cameraman Jon Clay, filming an orangutan rescue
was to be his most challenging shoot.
He's joining an experienced team who have rescued more than 50 of these great apes.
It's a real baptism of fire.
The moment I was there they were ready, they were out there catching orangutans.
This forest will soon be chopped down to make way for palm oil.
The rescue team need to move the orangutan before it's too late.
These guys are amazing. They are so good at what they do.
Number one priority, the orangutan.
I 'm just there to film what I can.
To get the orangutan into a safe position, they bang the trees.
On the ground it's tough for Jon and the crew to keep up.
Okay.
And it's fast.
The rescue team are following the orangutan, and they're better at it than I was
and we were trying to follow them.
It takes two hours to get the orangutan into a safe position ready for the tranquiliser.
The team get ready to catch.
Suddenly, the orangutan fell out of the tree.
At that point my heart went out to that orangutan
I guess because there's something about an orangutan that is so human.
It brought it home to me what an important job the team are doing
because if these guys weren't doing this this orangutan would have no future.
But the most difficult rescue the team have ever faced was still to come.
They receive an urgent call.
We filmed in a scene of devastation.
Just one after another, trees were coming down in front of our very eyes.
And then on the other side was all the freshly planted palm oil.
A short distance away in a tiny patch of remaining forest
the team find a mother and her baby.
With the chainsaws approaching time is running out.
Throwing branches is a sign that she's scared.
The team need to act fast.
The guys are trying to get a clear line of sight to get a shot but also worried if it falls
I mean that's a pretty deep river right beneath it.
Vet Rico has loaded the dart with the smallest adult dose.
This could be his best chance.
It's a hit.
Jon tries to keep up.
They must get a net precisely into position before they fall.
Suddenly there's an almighty splash
and commotion.
So the guide rushes down the bank beside me and splashes into the river
it's chaos.
And what had happened
is the dart had not hit the mother orangutan, it had hit the baby.
It was a real medical emergency situation.
Yeah I guess it was touch and go.
The guys are doing everything they can.
I didn't think that orangutan was gonna live
I didn't think it had a chance.
And at that point I really didn't know if I should keep filming because it felt, it was, it was too tragic.
And yet amazingly they brought it round.
If the best opportunity that orangutan had was to go through that
then somethings gotta be wrong.
That was the toughest thing for me to see, such a close call
but at the same time it really brought it home just how critical the situation is for orangutans.
With her baby out of danger the team turn their attention back to the mother.
They work into the night to reunite mum and baby.
You know I was there to, to film but actually when it comes to it and you meet the guys on the ground
who are dedicating their lives to saving an animal it was inspiring and it was humbling to see that.
Good luck.
Ripped & Corrected By mstoll January 2017
Ripped & Corrected By mstoll Released on www.Addic7ed.com