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Netflix — Our Planet, Jungles
difficult to watch — knowing the Amazon jungles are currently burning
“In the past 50 years wildlife populations have, on average, declined by 60%” — Our Planet, S1-E1
Narrated by the voice we all love, David Attenborough, the Netflix original docu-series Our Planet has enough stunning scenery to wow the senses and inspire you to double-down on your save-the-planet efforts.
Episode three of the series is entitled “Jungles.”
Sit back and enjoy a wondrous immersion into bountiful life — the immersion into biodiversity of this episode is breathtaking. This episode covered various jungle habitats in the world and featured some of the unique plants and animals found there.
Jungles play a vital role in the health of our planet and we are losing them at an alarming rate. The current man-set fires burning in the Amazon have been photographed from space.
“Jungles capture and store more carbon than any other habitat on Earth” — “we lose them at our peril.”—Our Planet, S1-E3
We begin this episode in the Congo with some of the most stunning footage of gorillas and elephants that I have ever seen. (Prepare for cuteness overload on some of it!) The Congo is second only to the Amazon in terms of size, but is a relatively young jungle. Poaching threats ravage these species. We’ve become numb to hearing it, but not after watching this footage — their plight will stay with you. The beauty of the Congo truly touched me.
New Guinea, I’ll be honest, I didn’t have a lot of knowledge on — but I was stunned and swept away by the species covered in this episode. Because it is such an isolated (island) environment, the biodiversity there has flourished into wildly interesting ecosystems. Birds of Paradise put on a colorful, mesmerizing show both for their mates and for the Netflix viewer. I could not take my eyes off of them.
Borneo — the oldest rainforest in the world and home to the velvet worm. Sci-fi fans will fall in love with this “gun-slinging” creature. You just have to see it to believe it. Some of the most intricate symbiotic plant-animal relationships are covered beautifully. Time-lapse filming is stunning…
