All language subtitles for Planet.Earth.III.S01E03.Deserts.and.Grasslands.2160p.UHD.Blu-ray.Remux.HDR.HEVC.TrueHD.7.1.Atmos-CiNEPHiLES_ENG_Subtitles02

This is Guelta d'Archei

in Central Africa...

...a hostile,
seemingly empty world.

There is life here...

...but it exists at
the very limits of survival...

...for this is a world
with almost no water.

Lands like these cover
over a third of our planet.

Here, life is forced
to do things differently.

This is
the most ancient desert of all.

The Namib in southwest Africa.

It is one of
the hottest places on Earth.

Yet this male ostrich and his mate...

...have come here
to start a family.

Few predators venture out
during the heat of the day.

But such safety comes at a price.

Out in the open,

the newly hatched chicks are exposed

to the crushing heat of the sun.

But not all of the brood have hatched.

Until they do,
the family will stay here.

The adults take it in turns
to protect the brood.

So whilst the female
takes a well-earned break,

the male takes over
for the most testing shift.

He gently rolls the unhatched eggs...

...calling to the young
within them.

He doesn't want to leave
anyone behind.

The temperature continues to rise

by five degrees Celsius every hour.

He protects the chicks
that have emerged...

...shading them
with his own body.

At the end of another
gruelling day in the sun...

...he's lost
almost all his energy.

But he must resist the urge to rest.

The cool of the night
brings some relief,

but now predators are out and about.

It's going to be a long night.

Dawn brings a surprise.

Three additions to the family...

...to greet
the returning female.

But there's a problem.

The chicks won't survive another day

in these temperatures.

Yet the male is reluctant to leave.

Some of the eggs
have still not hatched.

But time has run out.

They must depart.

Just a few minutes too late.

Alone, and without

the protection of its parents,

this hatchling's chances are slim.

Survival here,

as in all deserts,
is on a knife edge...

...so desert dwellers have had
to evolve in remarkable ways.

Some have even given rise

to legends of dragons and unicorns.

And even the dunes have
their own magical quality.

Indeed, some have their own voice.

Here in Arabia,
this extraordinary sound

is created by billions
of moving sand grains

vibrating against one another.

The eerie song they produce
can be heard for miles

across the world's
biggest sand desert.

Winds have also built sand
into surreal shapes.

Deserts around the world
can appear so alien

that they seem to belong
to another planet altogether...

...few more so
than here in Australia.

Yet one little creature

chooses this desert to prepare

for a most important event
in its life.

A male spotted bowerbird.

For the last two months,

he's been busy
in anticipation of brief rains.

That is when females
will look for a mate.

So he's built a bower,
a sort of theatre,

a stage on which he will dance
with the female

if she's willing.

He decorates the entrance

with piles of
empty snail shells and bones.

How could any female resist?

The rains are due any day,

so it's his last chance
for improvements.

You can never have too many shells.

But in his absence...

...a rival male drops by
to size up the competition...

...and cause trouble.

Wreck your neighbour's bower,
and your own might look better.

And perhaps one of the best bits

would look good in his bower.

The owner is back...

...and something isn't right.

Repairs are needed.

Still no sign of rain, or females.

Undeterred, he continues
his preparations.

Time to rehearse
his courtship display.

But, sadly, he may
only ever dance alone.

For the last three years,
the rains have failed.

Without them, the females won't mate.

They need the rains

to provide food for their family.

Changes in the climate
are affecting these birds,

just as they are affecting us.

A quarter of the world's people
live in arid lands.

So we, too, have to deal
with climate change.

Less rainfall and extended droughts

allow deserts to grow.

And as they do, so does the likelihood

of one of nature's
most intimidating events.

A dust storm.

A wall of dust, up to a mile high,

travelling at almost 70mph.

Today, these destructive storms

are some of the most powerful
ever seen.

Unstoppable, they can travel
thousands of miles,

overwhelming towns and cities
across the world...

...in an instant.

It takes millennia for life to adapt

to the extremes of deserts.

These baboons manage

to survive in one of
the driest environments

on Earth...

...the Erongo Region
in Namibia.

Not a single drop of rain
has fallen here

for eight months.

Life here for these baboons
is as hard as it gets.

And it's especially difficult

for this young female.

She has just given birth
to her first baby.

She's desperate for water.

Without it, she can't produce milk.

The tiny amount of moisture
in her food

is simply not enough for both of them.

The troop must constantly
search for water.

And they won't wait for her.

At last,

one of the troop's scouts finds
a tiny trickle on a rock face.

Relief.

But not for everyone.

The young mother will have to wait.

Access to the precious water
is determined by rank.

She is so low in the pecking order...

...she might fail to get
any drink at all...

...because jumping the queue
is severely punished.

It's risky...

...but she can't wait
any longer.

A dangerous move.

But there's no match
for a mother's determination.

This will be enough
to keep her and her baby alive

until rain falls.

Rain brings salvation
not just to her and the troop,

but to the thirsty land.

When it does fall,
it can transform a desert...

...and turn it into

one of Earth's
most productive landscapes.

Grasslands.

They support

the greatest concentrations
of large animals

to be found anywhere on the planet.

Here, nature is
at its most spectacular.

This leopardess, believe it or not,

is ready to hunt at a moment's notice.

She is one of the few special leopards

that have learnt
to hide in the treetops

and wait for their prey
to come to them.

Without making a sound...

...she gets into position.

Not this time.

And now her presence is known to all.

But leopards will go to
astonishing lengths to succeed.

And some are more daring than others.

This leopard climbs up to a branch

nine metres above the ground.

She's higher than the roof
of a two-storey house.

Leopards have killed themselves
jumping from these heights.

To succeed
on these equatorial grasslands,

you must be adaptable

and sometimes brave.

The Eurasian Steppe,
the largest grassland on Earth.

It tests animals in a different way.

Here, the wind can blow

at speeds of nearly 80mph...

...and temperatures drop to
below -30 degrees Celsius.

Yet one bizarre creature
has evolved ways to survive

in these extremes.

Saiga antelope -

small but tough animals

that lived alongside woolly mammoths.

The male's enormous nose
both filters out the dust

and warms up the cold air
before it reaches his lungs.

But at this time of year,

it also serves
a very different purpose.

It impresses the females.

And the bigger it is, the better.

This old male knows what it takes

to hold their attention.

But they make him work for it.

And if that isn't effective,

he has other ways of impressing them.

A bush.

Very majestic.

But when you are king of the steppe,

there's always someone
waiting to claim your crown.

This young buck fancies his chances.

He aims to steal the king's harem.

The challenger charges,
ready to do battle.

This could be a fight to the death.

70% of rutting males will die.

The older male eventually
begins to gain the upper hand.

And with one final effort,
he drives the young rival away.

The king has kept his crown

and his harem.

Only the strongest saigas
can endure and succeed

in one of the harshest places
on Earth.

But close to the equator,

where there is constant warmth
and water,

there are grasslands
close to paradise.

This is the most biodiverse grassland

in the world -

the Cerrado in Brazil.

Here, there are thousands of species

of both animals and plants
found nowhere else.

A rich and complex community

that is kept in balance
by this ghostly creature.

The maned wolf.

Quiet and shy,

it's little known and seldom seen.

Unlike any other wolf in the world,

their diet is mostly vegetarian,

and they particularly like
lobeira fruit.

This plant increases
the fertility of the land

and helps to sustain
the entire Cerrado.

The maned wolves,
odd though it may seem,

are, in effect, the gardeners
of these unique plains.

The dense grass, in turn,
provides this female

with a comfortable home...

...and somewhere to hide
her three puppies,

just one month old.

She is so rare that she's been
fitted with a radio collar

so that scientists
can study her continuously.

And our remotely controlled den camera

reveals a mother only comes here

for a few hours a day
to suckle her pups.

She spends much of her time foraging

to provide for her growing family.

Now alone in the den,

her puppies are suddenly in danger...

...not from other predators...

...but from fire.

Their home is being burnt
all around them.

These fires can race through
a mile of grassland

in a matter of minutes.

The Cerrado devastated.

Why?

In order to clear land to grow crops.

This particular fire
didn't reach their den...

...but it's empty.

This time the family were lucky...

...but her species faces
an alarmingly uncertain future.

At the current rate
of habitat destruction,

these may be some
of the last maned wolves

to survive in the wild.

In grasslands,

the land and the animals
are so closely interconnected

that the loss of one key species

could well trigger the collapse
of the entire ecosystem.

That's what happened here
in Central Africa,

when 95% of the elephant population

were killed for their ivory.

Without these essential gardeners,

life couldn't flourish.

This male is one of the few survivors.

He still bears the scars
from his persecuted past.

But the slaughter
was stopped just in time.

With an end to poaching,

this male is part of a growing herd

that now lives in safety.

Today, it's thought

that this is one of the largest
groups of African elephants

surviving in the wild.

As they recovered their numbers,

their grazing encouraged
a healthy growth

of new grasses...

...and they created space
for other animals...

...bringing life back
to Zakouma.

This miraculous transformation
shows what can happen

if nature is allowed
to restore its own balance.

Abakar is part of the team
of local rangers

who risked their lives
to protect these elephants.

And the elephants
didn't just heal the land.

They did something
no-one had anticipated.

As we understand more about
the wonders, the connections

and the fragility
of these landscapes...

...the consequences
of our actions

are thrown into sharp focus.

They show that we urgently
need to do everything we can

to help nature heal itself.