Human Planet Rivers Friend and Foe

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<h1 style='text-align:justify'>Human Planet - Rivers -
Friend and foe<o:p></o:p></h1>
JOHN HURT: Only one creature has carved a
life for itself in every habitat on Earth. That creature is us. All over the
world, we still use our ingenuity to survive in the wild places, far from the city
lights, face-to-face with raw nature. This is the Human Planet. Humans have
always been drawn to rivers. Rivers flow through every environment, bringing us
the essentials of life, fresh water, food and ready-made highways. But what
rivers give, they can also take away. They can flood, freeze and sometimes
disappear altogether. Rivers force us to take great risks. These are remarkable
stories of survival from the most unpredictable habitat of them all.
(EXPLOSIONS). It's the monsoon season, and the mighty Mekong, Southeast Asia's
greatest river, is in full flood. Between Cambodia and Laos, the Mekong current
creates the widest rapids in the world. The Khone
Falls are great for fishing, but also very dangerous, as Sam Niang, a local fisherman, knows all too well. (SPEAKING
LOCAL LANGUAGE). Migrating fish get trapped here, waiting to get up the rapids.
Sam Niang has to risk his life to catch them. He has
a family of seven to feed. He starts by fishing from the riverside near his
home. During the monsoon, the Mekong swells to 20 times its normal volume,
which brings more fish, but makes them much harder to catch. After a morning,
his net is still empty. There is another option, an island out in the main
rapids. But to get there, Sam Niang must take his
life into his hands. In the dry season, he built a high wire across the rapids
out of old cable and bits of rope. At this time of the year, these rapids have
nearly twice the flow of Niagara Falls, more than 11 million litres a second. He makes it to his favourite
fishing perch. Turbulent currents corral the fish, and Sam Niang
soon lands his family's supper.<o:p></o:p>

color:black;mso-themecolor:text1'>Though the fish are plentiful here, the most
he can carry back is a few kilos at a time. Any more, and he might lose his
balance. Today, Sam Niang won his battle with the
Mekong. Tomorrow, to keep his family fed, he'll have to fight it again. It's
not just the power of water that makes rivers dangerous. It's their erratic
nature, too. Reading a river correctly can mean the difference between life and
death. The Zanskar valley is a hidden world on the
edge of Tibet, in the heart of the Himalayas. In winter, it's cut off by snow.
All roads in and out are impassable. Stanzin needs to
get his two children to school but the nearest school is 100 kilometres away and the only way to get there is to walk
down a frozen river. It's a six-day trek, so dangerous it's got its own name,
the Chadar, the blanket of ice. They'll have to brave
sub-zero temperatures, avalanches and freezing water. Term starts in a week.
It's time for the school run, a formidable trip for 11-year-old Dolkar. (SPEAKING IN LOCAL LANGUAGE) Dolkar's
14-year-old brother, Chosing, is coming, too. The
family prepare for the journey ahead. Their mother has knitted them thick woollen socks to protect them. (SPEAKING IN LOCAL LANGUAGE)
The brother and sister depend on their father's courage and skill. This has to
be the most perilous school run in the world. The spring melt seems to have
started early, which worries Stanzin. Stanzin has to make sure the ice can take their weight. And
his expertise is tested immediately. The danger is not only underfoot. There's
another threat...Avalanches. Seven days ago, an avalanche killed a man on the Zanskar River. The unusual spring sunshine has brought
another problem. The river's current has already melted the ice. Stanzin has to find a way past the barrier. The only way
around is a narrow ledge. The ledge is barely 20 centimetres
wide and covered with snow. There's a 10-metre drop to the freezing river
below. The ledge ends with some metal pegs to climb down. Chosing
makes it. Now it's Dolkar's turn. They mustn't delay.
Night is falling fast, and the temperature will plummet to minus 30 Celsius.
Luckily, Stanzin knows a cave nearby. The children
need their sleep. The most dangerous part of the Chadar
is still ahead. It's not all hard slog. But Dolkar's
fun can't last. As the smallest, she's the first to feel the cold. She starts
to lag behind. One little girl on a melting ice river, among the greatest
mountains on Earth. Now for the final leg. The melting ice has left just a tiny
shelf. It's thin. Stanzin is worried it won't take
their weight. As he advances, the ice starts to crack.<o:p></o:p>
color:black;mso-themecolor:text1'>With the ice weakened by Stanzin's
weight, the children have to brave it on their own. Dolkar's
made it, now for Chosing. Thanks to their dad's
expertise, the children have survived the Chadar. Six
days out on the ice river. The Himalayan town of Leh,
journey's end for the children. They rush straight to the school. There's just
enough time for a goodbye. (BELL CLANGING) Stanzin
now faces the return journey on his own. Melting river ice doesn't just make
travelling harder. When frozen rivers break up, tonnes
of ice start to flow, a potential disaster, even in the heart of a modern city.
In the Canadian capital, Ottawa, spring melt turns the Rideau River into public
enemy number one. The danger point is a footbridge on a frozen waterfall, a
bottleneck where the Rideau flows into the Ottawa River. It's late February,
and the ice is melting here, too. Ice blocks are in danger of forming a dam,
which might lead to devastating flooding. A natural threat that needs a daring
human solution. Meet the ice dam busters! Their job isn't just to predict
nature, they have to beat it. There are thousands of tonnes
of ice behind the bridge, up to a metre thick. The
team needs to break it up to keep the river flowing. Stage one, cut the ice
into long strips. They're still too large to flow under the bridge, so, for
stage two, the team uses a more persuasive force... Now! HURT: ...hundreds of
kilos of dynamite-Hup! -(EXPLOSIONS) Bite-size pieces
now flow easily under the bridge and over the falls. The centre
of Ottawa is safe for another year. The world's largest rivers bring the most
danger to our lives. Their floods can be devastating. They often happen without
warning and there's nothing we can do but try to escape. In Bangladesh, tens of
millions of people can be displaced when the Ganges and her tributaries burst
their banks. The river is so strong, it regularly changes course, brushing land
aside as it goes. A month ago, Mohamed Jaleel's
village was 100 metres from the bank. Today, his
house is about to be swept away. He and his neighbours
have only minutes to move his home. The rest of the villagers look on, helpless,
as the rising river obliterates their land. In South America, floods can be so
huge that the entire year has to be spent planning for them. In the Amazon
basin, one mother prepares for the rising waters. Jarnia
lives by the Rio Negro in Brazil. It's November, the dry season, the time of
plenty. Fish are so easy to catch, she even has enough to feed the local river
dolphins. (SPEAKING PORTUGUESE) But in six months' time, when the flood water
invades, all these dolphins and the fish with them will disappear into the
flooded forest to breed. (LAUGHING) When the fish are gone, feeding her large
family will become a nightmare. Surviving such hard times means thinking ahead,
and Jarnia has a four-stage plan. Stage one is
collecting turtle eggs six months before the floods arrive. River turtles lay
thousands of eggs in the dry season beaches, which they leave to hatch. Turtles
are a reliable source of protein when the waters rise, so these eggs are
precious.<o:p></o:p>

color:black;mso-themecolor:text1'>Back in the village, it's time for stage two.
Jarnia reburies the eggs in her turtle nursery. In
the wild, many eggs would be eaten by animals but here they'll be safe. By
March, four months later, 3,000 eggs have hatched. It's stage three, release
day. (SPEAKING PORTUGUESE). It's time to release the babies. But will enough of
them survive to feed the village in the floods to come? It's June, the height
of the rains. The river rises seven metres. Jarnia's village is transformed. The forest is flooded and
the nearest dry land is more than six hours' rowing away. Jarnia's
family is now marooned by the greatest annual flood on the planet. Time for the
final stage. Jarnia and her sister Dora prepare to go
turtle-hunting. Jarnia's husband, Francisco, makes
them a turtle-hunting spear. And then the two sisters set off in search of
food. Will their hard work bring dinner to the table? At first, it's not
looking promising. Then Jarnia spots one. Her
preparation's paid off. She'll be able to feed everyone. (SPEAKING PORTUGUESE)
Jarnia's foresight has pulled her family through another
difficult flood. (ALL SINGING IN PORTUGUESE) Some river creatures pose a direct
threat to humans. The Zambezi River in Africa is used by elephants, crocodiles
and hippos, some of the continent's most dangerous animals. Fisherman Josphat and his brothers have found a safe, if slightly
hair-raising, fishing spot, a place where they can catch lunch without becoming
dinner themselves. (SPEAKING LOCAL LANGUAGE). The place they're heading for may
be safe from crocodiles, but it does have a drawback. The reason Josphat's fishing pools are far from safe is their
precarious position, at the very top of Victoria Falls. Josphat's
bravery and skill enable him to fish where no animal dares to venture. People
can overcome floods and even learn to fish on giant waterfalls, but there's one
face of a river that's virtually impossible to survive. When a river dries up
and disappears, all life drains away. Lemagas is a Samburu camel herder in northern Kenya. No rain has fallen
here for eight months. It's a severe drought, and the Milgis
River has vanished. Lemagas has been forced to range
deep into the desert, searching for fresh food for his precious camels. Now
they are far away from home, and they've run out of drinking water. (SPEAKING
LOCAL LANGUAGE). Not even the camels can survive this long without a drink. Lemagas knows there is water here, hidden underneath the
river bed. But how can he find it? The Samburu have
learnt to rely on another nomadic creature, one that usually travels at night.
(TALKING IN LOCAL LANGUAGE). While Lemagas and his
camels rest, not far away, some giant water-diviners are sniffing out the river
bed. An elephant's trunk, its nose, is far more sensitive than a human's, which
means it can tell where the water table is closest to the surface. Elephants
must drink 100 litres a day and can suck up eight litres of water at a time. Having drunk, the elephants
leave before dawn. Early the next morning, Lemagas
and his camels are on the elephants' trail. (SPEAKING LOCAL LANGUAGE) Even a
dry river bed holds water if you know where to look. They sing their thanks to
the gods, and the elephants. (SINGING IN LOCAL LANGUAGE). A few days later, Lemagas finally returns to his village with its permanent
deep well. He doesn't forget the help he's been given in the wild. The first
thing he does is to bring up precious water, not just for his herd and his
family, but for his wild friends, too. (SPEAKING IN LOCAL LANGUAGE). He doesn't
forget his nocturnal water-diviners, for without them, Lemagas
and his camels could never survive when they're far away from home. Over 4,000
kilometres away, in Mali, another dry river, a tributary of
the Niger, is forcing one man into making a difficult decision. His name is Ouseman, and he's a master mason in Djenne,
an ancient city made entirely of river mud. His job is to maintain the city's
mosque, the biggest and oldest mud building in the world. It's the heart of Ouseman's culture. (SPEAKING IN LOCAL LANGUAGE). Ouseman's problem is this. Every year the mosque needs a fresh
coat of mud to protect it before the rains arrive. Down in the dry river bed,
the mud is blended with rice husks and then left to ferment. But this year, the
mix hasn't reached the right consistency,mand now the
rains are almost upon him. Dust storms are blowing in, the first signs that the
wet season is about to begin. The sacred building desperately needs a new storm-proof skin. (WIND HOWLING). Two days later, Ouseman and his friend Ibrahim return to the river.
(SPEAKING LOCAL LANGUAGE). It's a big decision. Word spreads fast, and everyone
comes down to help. (CHILDREN CLAMOURING). Everyone in Djenne
has been waiting all year for this special day. The built-in palm logs are
perches for the plasterers. The whole town mucks in to protect the mosque for
another
year. (SPEAKING IN LOCAL LANGUAGE). There's been a mud mosque in Djenne for 700 years, the sacred heart of a city fashioned
from river mud. (PLAYFUL CHATTER) (CHEERING). Our relationship with rivers is
never easy. Their waters can give us so much but can also take everything away.
We will always be at the mercy of their wild and unpredictable nature. But one
culture has found an inspiring way of mastering their savage rivers. In
northeast India, a giant cliff leads up into a hidden world, Meghalaya. Nearly
two kilometres high and buffeted by monsoon storm
clouds, this is possibly the wettest place on Earth. Once, 25 metres of rain fell here in a year, the world
record.<o:p></o:p>

color:black;mso-themecolor:text1'>Living here poses an unusual problem and it's
not just keeping dry. Nearly all the rain falls during the summer monsoon.
Rivers switch from gentle streams to raging torrents. They become wild and
unpredictable and almost impossible to cross. Harley and his niece Juliana are
busy cultivating a cunning solution. (SPEAKING LOCAL DIALECT) Thirty years ago,
Harley planted this strangler fig on the river's edge, and today, he's teaching
Juliana how to care for it. The fig's tangled roots help to prevent the bank
being washed away. He teaches Juliana to coax the roots across what is now just
a stream. When they reach the other side, they'll take hold there. This is the
basis of a structure that will survive any deluge. A living bridge. It's an
epic project that no man can complete in one lifetime, so Harley is passing on
his knowledge to Juliana. Each year, Juliana will need to tend the roots,
making them stronger. If she stays and completes her bridge, it will become
part of the commuter route here, a network of dozens of living bridges that
connect the valleys of Meghalaya. Some of them are many centuries old. There
are even double-deckers. With Juliana to look after it, the future of this
young bridge looks secure. Sustainable, living architecture that will live and
grow for generations. One of the very few examples in the world where humans have
come up with a successful and natural solution, a way of working with nature to
overcome the problems a wild river can cause. For the Human Planet Rivers team,
filming on the Mekong River at the height of the monsoon raised many
challenges. Mainly, how do you capture a remarkable event without losing your
camera, your crew or your star fisherman, Sam Niang,
to the river? The Khone Falls have more water flowing
over them than any other waterfall in the world. A narrowing of the mighty
Mekong River funnels the migrating fish and provides a dangerous, if lucrative,
opportunity. The crew's here to capture the extreme lengths that locals will go
to to catch fish. Sam Niang
is lucky. He has access to his own small island for fishing. But to get to his
prime spot, he must risk life and limb. (SPEAKING LOCAL LANGUAGE). To capture
the spectacle of Sam Niang's high-wire feat, the crew
have chosen a gadget that runs on wires and that controls the camera
electronically, known as a cable dolly. And the idea is, it's one of our most
exciting and sought-after shots, so we can follow someone walking across the
tightrope, so the camera moves across with them, and then pulls out to reveal
the angry water. HURT: But rigging such a high-tech system over a raging
torrent is no easy feat, and it requires a specialist rigger. We're just trying
to get the cable across for the dolly, so the local guy's just shimmied across
the wires, as he does every day. HURT: Whilst Tim works on the cables, the rest
of the team concentrate on filming the rapids from every other angle, even
shooting in the rapids themselves. I'll just go here. It won't be a long run. It'll
take two or three minutes. Mick O'Shea was the first man ever to navigate the
entire Mekong, from Tibet to southern China, just the man to capture a fish-eye
view. But even he succumbs to the full force of the Mekong in surge. His kayak
is sucked under by the powerful current and swept downstream. After a few
worrying minutes, Mick re-appears, back in control, safe but shaken. With
new-found respect for the Mekong's power, the crew stick to solid
ground.<o:p></o:p>

color:black;mso-themecolor:text1'>Using a four-metre
jib, they follow Sam Niang as he negotiates a
treacherous rocky outcrop to cast his net. Over and down, okay? And on... Good.
HURT: By now, Tim has the rigging ready for the dolly. Do you want this up
there? There's a massive cloud come over. (THUNDER RUMBLING) HURT: But no
sooner than it's in place, the heavens open. It's the last thing they need. Dolly
filming stops for technical and safety reasons. (SPEAKING LOCAL LANGUAGE). There's
just a little spot of rain. I think rain's stopping play! (THUNDER CRACKING)-Yeah,
'cause electronics survive the rain really well. -Yeah. (THUNDER CRASHING) The
next morning it's clear that, as feared, water has got into the electronics.
GODFREY:
So what's gone wrong with it now? So the new, modern technology is ousted by
the old-school way. I'm going to go up there now and, um, put the camera on! Oh,
my... Whoa! Okay. HURT: The crew finally get the cable dolly working so now
it's time to get creative. The light, the dolly, the safety team and, most
importantly, Sam Niang, all have to work in unison. Go!
We turned it the wrong way. Okay, Tim. No. Nearly, nearly. Bring it all back,
yes. Go. No. Still no! Sam Niang looks really happy,
though, doesn't he? My heart's in my mouth every time he has to go over that
rope. You look really happy, and I'm really worried! HURT: The sun breaks
through the clouds, and finally it all comes together. Yay, we've got a keeper!
That's great! Thanks very much, you. Yeah! What a relief. (LAUGHS) HURT:
Despite the odds, the Human Planet team have triumphed.<o:p></o:p>
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