Original subtitles

Right across our planet, there is an incredible variety of astonishing

landscapes.

One of the most beautiful in the world is Queensland.

Queensland in eastern Australia is a dramatic mix of forest and sea, creating

explosion of life.

For most people, when they come to the rainforest, all they see is a complex

wall of green.

But it's a medicine shed, a tool shed, a hardware store, a supermarket and

church all in one.

It has the greatest marine ecosystem in the world.

When I dive on the Great Barrier Reef, I feel...

at home.

There's an amazing array of creatures and just this kaleidoscope of life.

There's a lot going on but at the same time it's extremely peaceful.

And forest landscapes reaching back into the depths of time.

It's almost like walking through the forest of what it would have looked like

million years ago. You feel like you're going back in time.

Beautiful, beautiful trees.

We're going to take you on a journey through Queensland to admire its wonders

and discover its secrets.

Our journey begins in the Queensland outback in a region called Channel

an arid landscape which is sometimes brought to life with channels of water.

After the rains have come, cattle can graze here.

But most of the time, it's flat, muddy plains streaked with dry riverbed.

Observed from space, this landscape has been compared to the surface of Mars.

The outback is 70 % of Queensland, an area about the size of South Africa.

Much of it is dry and lifeless, but everything changes at Queensland's coast

in one of Australia's stunning rainforests, Daintree.

Daintree National Park is one of the richest and oldest tropical rainforests

the world.

The landscape began forming about 400 million years ago as the ancient seabed

was pushed up from the sea.

Weathering had left hard granite mountains and coastal lowlands.

And this precious forest covers 1 ,200 square kilometers.

The wet and warm tropical climate makes Daintree one of Australia's most diverse

places.

It's home to two -thirds of the bat and butterfly species in Australia, a fifth

of all the bird species, and an amazing array of

reptiles.

But it's also the ancestral home of the Eastern Kuku Yelanji people.

They've been living here in the forests for tens of thousands of years.

And someone with an intimate and detailed knowledge of the forest is

guide Juan Walker.

This area is really special to me, as it's where I grew up. This is where I

home.

Wang was born and raised near here, learning about the traditional way of

from his elders, and was free to explore the forest.

From hunting, running around playing, swimming in the beautiful freshwater

rivers, or spearing fish and crabs, and fishing down on the beaches.

It was a great childhood, and it connected me to this place.

Also, learning the stories from the old people also gave us a deeper and more

meaningful connection on how to look after country, how to manage it.

To me, country is everything.

You know, other than family, it's the most important thing to us.

Googie Islander country, our land, is filled with connections.

Spirit, wildlife, plants, rocks, all connect to us.

When we say country, we're not talking about the country itself, our nation.

We're talking about nature, the land, the sea, everything around us in natural

formation and the fact that our people utilized it and we needed it. We don't

own it. This place owns us.

Much of Australia was once like Daintree.

But being close to the equator, Year -long rainfall in its mountains and

all created ideal conditions for the forest's survival over the last 200

years of climatic change.

And the tropical heat and humidity of the rainforest means the trees, plants

leaves help to create their own rainfall.

For most people, when they come to the rainforest, all they see is a complex

wall of green.

But for Googie Energy people and rainforest peoples of Queensland, it's a

medicine chest, a tool shed, a hardware store, a supermarket and church all in

one.

Much of the food we eat came originally from rainforests.

These little nuts here, or fruit, is called Queensland nut.

This nut is from a rainforest tree called the Karanda Kwondong.

So to crack open a barka, you follow the seam. They have little seams along the

edge of the shelf.

So sit the shelf on a rock.

Using another stone, hit it.

Right along that seam, and you get the kernel inside.

Take that out.

It looks like an almond, but it tastes like coconut.

There are thousands of tree and plant species in Australian rainforests.

And the strangler fig is one of them.

Sticky fig seeds land in tree branches in the forest canopy, and the seeds grow

roots to the ground.

Over time, these roots can take over and even kill the host tree.

But in rainforests, their fruit is vital for wildlife.

Their interiors are habitats for bats and birds.

And to the Eastern Kuku Yelanji people, they are very important.

In our language, Kuku Yelanji, we call these trees jarangal.

And these are very special trees.

They're homes for spirits.

During the day, the spirits, they rest and sleep.

During the night, these spirits come out and they roam, search and travel

country.

We're always taught, if we're ever lost in the rainforest, to find a big

strangler fig, sit by it, talk to the old people.

Tell them your problems. Tell them your worries.

And if you quiet your mind enough and listen, the old people will show you the

way to get out.

The mountains at Daintree rise to 1 ,400 metres, and every year there's about

two metres of rain.

This is Mossman Gorge, which channels the Mossman River from the mountains 24

kilometers down to the coast.

Although living off the land has been a way of life for thousands of years, the

lives of the Eastern Kuku Yelanchi people were turned upside down over 150

ago. by the arrival of non -indigenous settlers.

They introduced disease.

Our people struggle adapting and coping with these diseases.

So we adapted by using these green ants to help us cure common cold and flu.

So grab him by the head.

And eat the abdomen.

He tastes just like lemon.

The little abdomen is full of vitamin C.

So, if ever you're flu -y, take the whole nest off the tree, crush it up in

water, make a drink.

Drink a load of it, rub it on your chest, slip a few of the ants through

nose, and this will help clear any symptoms from the common cold and flu.

Please don't try eating wild insects or other creatures unless you have expert

guidance.

Eastern Kuku Yelanji people have shared the forests with some of the most

extraordinary creatures anywhere on the planet.

None more so than the Kathuari.

Named after two Papuan words, Kasu for horned and Weri for head.

Fully grown females stand as tall as adult humans.

But these flightless birds are under threat, and there are just 4 ,000 left

Australia's wet tropics.

Although they'll attack if threatened, these birds are the gardeners of the

forest.

Seeds from the fruit and berries they eat pass through them unaffected,

spreading new plants far and wide.

Eastern Kuku Yelanji Territory goes from forest to coast.

And there's another entire ecosystem in between.

Check out this beautiful mangrove environment.

These saltwater adapted plant systems are a buffer between the land and the

and they're full of life.

The algae on the exposed roots is a food source for snails and crustaceans.

The mud is too much for most predators, but not for knowledgeable human hunters.

They create a beautiful, hearty place for all the different creatures in here.

The mangroves are yet another section of the rainforest supermarket.

Yeah, most of these are a bit much.

Caution is advised unless you're an expert, but for one, there are plenty

delicacies on offer here.

So this is guilin, edible snail.

You find these fellas, you can cook them on hot fire.

They'll whistle when they're done. A bit like calamari in taste, a little

softer, but really nice, very good protein source.

Guilin.

Remarkably, despite the destruction of previous times, much of the original

precious rainforest has survived intact and is now preserved.

And as the traditional owners, the Eastern Kuku Yelanji people have native

rights and access to their ancestral lands.

Of course, for our people, it's all about science, really.

Watching, seeing how animals move, how insects move, how weather patterns

change, and by watching this, observing it, the people knew when was the right

time to go to a particular area.

So it's all about observation and doing the right thing by country.

Now, it's time to explore the Great Barrier Reef.

It reaches down from Queensland's northern tip, almost to the border with

South Wales.

This vast and extraordinary landscape is an underwater living city.

It's made up of 900 islands and nearly 3 ,000 reefs.

And at 2 ,300 kilometres, it's longer than the UK, the Netherlands and

Switzerland put together.

Corals have been making their home on the Great Barrier Reef for hundreds of

thousands of years.

And today's extraordinary reef is just the latest version.

Most of it was formed in the last 20 ,000 years, helped by rising sea levels.

There are an extraordinary 600 coral types on the reef.

And 4 ,000 types of mollusk.

You can find 1 ,500 species of fish here,

including the largest fish in the oceans,

the whale shark.

There are endangered sea creatures such as the green turtle.

But life is precarious for the Great Barrier Reef.

Climate change and human activity are making their mark.

One person for whom the Great Barrier Reef is an obsession is marine scientist

Nathan Cook.

And Nathan has been diving in the reef for 20 years when i dive on the

great barrier reef i feel at home

there's an

amazing array of creatures and just this kaleidoscope of life there's a lot

going on around me and i see the coral and it's full of color and then this

shark will come out of nowhere and surprise me and i think he's just

to see me

And then there'll be schools of bait fish, and they'll be hunted by

and all these silvery fish, and there's just a lot going on, but at the same

time, it's extremely peaceful.

For a scientist, perhaps the most amazing thing about the Barrier Reef is

coral.

I love coral because it's this tiny, sometimes microscopic creature that

creates... the foundation of an ecosystem that can be seen from outer

It grows from nothing, but can create structures as big as houses.

And they live individually, but also colonially, and they work together with

rest of the ecosystem to create this myriad of complex biodiversity.

This is a foundational species on the Great Barrier Reef, on all coral reefs.

And it's amazingly colourful, extremely fragile, but it creates these

diverse forms that are endlessly beautiful, wondrous.

Seen from space, this 15 -kilometre section of the reef reveals the

water depth shown by varying shades of blue.

The light blue is the shallower water, where enough light gets through, giving

life to coral.

When you see it underwater, it tends to look a brown or a green or a reddy

colour.

This is because coral is historically evolved from a jellyfish, and jellyfish

essentially see -through.

And over time, it learned how to deposit a hard limestone skeleton and build a

symbiotic relationship with an algae called zooxanthellae.

This algae is what gives the coral its colour.

But in recent decades, climate change is warming the seas and making them more

acid.

There are cyclones.

And there's human activity, all of which is damaging the barrier reef's coral.

And some of it is dying.

When I go scuba diving, I feel a sense of trepidation.

There's some places that I dive that are just still spectacular.

Amazing scenery, beautiful wildlife.

That whole sense of awe and wonder that I first experienced many years ago.

But there's other places that you can see that are really challenged by

change and other threats facing coral reefs worldwide.

The threat to the Great Barrier Reef has got Nathan and his team looking for

solutions.

And one place they've been to is the Whitsunday Islands.

The Whitsundays are 74 tropical islands in the Barrier Reef.

Mostly uninhabited, their beauty means that every year there's around 700 ,000

visitors.

Many come for the incredible sands at Whitehaven Beach.

Unlike any of the other beaches here, the sand is 99 % silica.

It's cool underfoot, even in the hottest weather.

Most geologists think the sands were trapped here after drifting from the

Queensland coast millions of years ago.

Six of the world's seven marine turtle species can be found here, including the

rare hawksbill and the loggerhead turtles.

Nathan's team have come... Some of the coral is in trouble, and they've come to

help restore it.

One of the techniques we use to assist the recovery of reefs is a technique

called coral gardening.

We'll take corals that are growing nearby.

So they'll pretty much adapt to that location pretty well. And we'll grow

in a nursery.

So we take these corals, attach them to the reef, and give them a stable base

from which they'll grow.

The hope or intention is that they'll survive and this will encourage all of

those other creatures, the invertebrate and the fish, they'll all come in and

accelerate the recovery of that reef community and help make it into what it

was.

Coral gardening is just one technique amongst many to help restore the

of the Great Barrier Reef.

Despite the threats, Nathan remains hopeful.

The media love the sensational story.

So during the bleaching, when they said that a third of the reef had died, this

news went around the world.

But there are places that are...

amazing with high coral cover 70 80 and extreme diversity of fish and marine

species and there's other places that have been truly degraded by things like

coral bleaching and so there is this perception that the great barrier reef

dead but it's far from dead it is very alive

Dropping down 700 kilometres from the Whitsundays and along the Queensland

is Fraser Island.

At 123 kilometres, Cagarry Island, its Aboriginal name, is the

world's largest sand island.

Remarkably, the sand forms almost 100 % of the soil, and everything here grows

on it.

For two million years, ocean currents and wave action have swept sand up from

Queensland and New South Wales.

And over that time, it's covered the bedrock to form dunes.

And it's also an island of lakes.

These dune lakes are freshwater, non -tidal, and formed in the sand.

And of the 40 lakes on Fraser Island, Lake Bumanjin is recognized as the

of its type in the world.

The rich brown color is tannin mixing with the pure waters of the lake.

Even though there's only sand, there is forest growing on Fraser Island.

Nutrients buried deep in the sands are reached by the long roots of the satinae

tree.

Fraser Island is also home to some of Australia's dingoes.

Most Australian dingoes have bred with domestic or feral dogs.

But these ones on Fraser Island are thought to be very close to a pure

And so are now protected.

There's maybe no more than 300 of them.

Having explored the Great Barrier Reef's extraordinary coral kingdom and walked

on Fraser Island's sands, The next stage of our journey takes us west and back

into the heart of Queensland.

We've arrived at one of Queensland's hidden gems and it's called Carnarvon

National Park.

Around a third of more than 50 mammal species in the park are bats.

It's home to wallabies and kangaroos.

But inside the park is the extraordinary Carnarvon Gorge.

It formed on a fault line in the rock 30 million years ago.

And it's taken the steady flow of a creek over millions of years to wear

the soft rock.

That action has created huge sandstone chasms rising up to 180 meters.

Inside this 32 kilometer long gorge, there's a hidden landscape.

Beautiful pools, caves, and amphitheaters.

As the climate outside the gorge dried over thousands of years, life has

flourished on the inside.

Along the winding creeks, you might just see the echidna, a spiny anteater, with

a 15 -centimetre tongue that likes to dig itself out of trouble.

But in the heart of the gorge, perhaps the most extraordinary of all, are the

signs of human habitation.

There are two sites here with some incredible ancient artwork.

There are 2 ,000 paintings, engravings and stencils.

The skillful stenciling involved mixing ochre pigment, water and animal fat.

and blowing it from the mouth over an object held against the sandstone walls.

It's thought to be symbolic imagery about teaching and customs, more like

history books and encyclopedias than art.

And it's all the work of the indigenous Bidjara and Karimbal people.

It all goes back at least 4 ,000 years.

Now we're heading 600 kilometres southeast to Queensland's border.

Lamington National Park is one of the greatest of Queensland's many

rainforests.

50 kilometers from the sea, Lamington's incredible story starts over 225

million years ago.

Then, Australia was part of Gondwanaland, one of two huge global

the move.

Australia split off from Antarctica.

Around 20 million years ago, a huge volcano began erupting underneath the

where Lamington and other forests now are.

From space, you can see traces of this volcano, 100 kilometers in diameter,

which form the basis for cliffs, gorges, and rivers from which the forests

emerged.

Much of it is growing on fertile basalt soils from the volcanic eruptions.

Parts of Lamington are a thousand meters above sea level.

Different forest levels means there are different climates in the same forest.

Cooler, temperate, and warm, wet subtropical rainforests or create

conditions for an extraordinary array of plants and living creatures.

Over a hundred years ago, Lamington became one of the very first national

in Queensland.

And park rangers were brought in to nurture and protect it.

By the 1930s, pioneering conservationists had set up two lodges

The aim was to conserve the forest and guide visitors.

There's O 'Reilly's.

And further north, Binnaburra Lodge.

Lisa Groom and her daughter Inari are descendants of one of Bina Bora's

founders.

I guess I've just been brought up in and around the rainforest here and having

watched my parents enjoy and also take people out into the forest as

my grandfather also used to do. So it's a long line of just being here and

being in this beautiful environment.

Born and brought up here, Inari is still captivated.

You walk into it and it feels like somewhere else that you've never been

I think it's like this preserved pocket of rainforest that is found almost

nowhere else in Australia.

As a guardian of Lamington National Park, Inari is on a mission to educate

people about the rainforest.

When I came into the job, I knew absolutely nothing.

So the only way that I've learned all the knowledge that I have has been

to other people, talking to guides, talking to rangers, everyone that's come

before me.

Inari is learning about some of the 200 -plus species of birds living in the

forest, many with distinct songs and calls.

We've got some whipbirds around us, and the whipbirds are these beautiful pair.

Their call sounds like one bird, but it's actually two male and female

back and forth to each other.

They've just gone silent.

Damn it.

That call that you just heard, there's this one long whistle at the nail.

and then there's a quick, like, answering, like, two whips at the end,

that's the female.

So these two birds, they mate, and they have their territory, and they'll be...

There it is again. That was just the male, so he didn't get a reply from his

girlfriend.

Eastern whipbirds are ground feeders, and although hard to spot, they're not

scarce.

Their call is a familiar Queensland forest soundtrack.

The cooler, temperate parts of Lamington are known for the Antarctic beech

trees.

These beaches, North of Phagus Mori, are little different to the trees that

flourished all across Australia up to 100 million years ago.

And they rely on the moisture from the low clouds above the rainforest to

thrive.

The forest feels completely different here.

You walk in, it's so much lighter. The canopy is completely different.

It's almost like walking to the forest of what it would have looked like 10

million years ago plus.

So yeah, you feel like you're going back in time when you come up to Talawalal,

which is this peak point that we're at now.

Beautiful, beautiful trees.

Some of the Antarctic beech trees in Lamington National Park are thought to

thousands of years old.

Quite a special place to me. It feels like a very earthed place. I always feel

really calm when I come up here.

In Australia, bushfires are part of the cycle of life and help to germinate

seeds and bring new growth.

But in 2019, with rainfall down and temperatures up, the annual fires were

huge and devastating.

More than 250 ,000 hectares burned in Queensland.

And very unusually, fires hit rainforest in Lamington National Park too, burning

down the original Binnaburra Lodge.

Seen from space, we can see the smoke from the 2019 fires creating a toxic

haze over coastal towns in eastern Australia.

Overall, more than 5 million hectares of New South Wales and Queensland went up

in flames.

It's an area bigger than Denmark.

The bush is fire -adapted and recovers fast.

Rainforests, less so.

These extraordinary carbon stores that filter and create water and prevent soil

erosion are usually fire resistant.

Luckily for us, this section here with the Antarctic beech trees was nowhere

near the fire and hopefully wouldn't have burned because it is literally

surrounded by huge, vast areas of other subtopical rainforest.

So, yeah, it was lucky that this didn't go.

Our journey through the incredible landscape of Queensland will now take us

peak near Brisbane, Mount Tamborin.

Mount Tamborin is part of the ancestral lands of the Yugambeh people.

They are believed to have lived here for 50 ,000 years.

And their lands include forests and national parks like Lamington, but also

Springbrook and Mount Barney.

Traditional Yugam Bay lands cover around 5 ,000 square kilometres of the

coastland and inland.

These landscapes all have distinct meanings for the Yugambe people.

Many of the names of landscapes we use today were given by settlers in recent

centuries.

But the older names tell different stories, and these stories help give the

landscapes a deeper meaning.

One person who's right behind this is Rory O 'Connor.

His lineage is the Yugambe people and he runs the museum reviving the language,

culture and their stories.

I'm very lucky to be a traditional owner or custodian who's living on his or her

country.

As an Aboriginal person, to have the luxury of living.

on your traditional lands, it's a rarity.

Rory's ancestral home is on Mount Tamborin.

The word Tamborin is adapted from the name Chambrin, and Chambrin is one of

characters that appear in Yugambe creation stories.

Chamberlain was a fine prince and the naughty daughters of Queen Winongra,

wanted to get his love. So they set out towards him.

But Chamberlain gave his love to the Coomera princesses and the Coomera River

carries all his love down to the ocean where it sparkles in the sunlight.

So different characters points to the fact that every part of the landscape

some story to it that's important to pass on.

Another part of the Yugambe ancestral landscape is 30 kilometres away at the

coast.

It began forming over 20 million years ago by outflows of molten lava.

from vast eruptions of the giant Tweed volcano that also created Mount

On the map, it's called Burley Head.

It's a very, very important place to Aboriginal people because it's the

embodiment of Jibreen, our creation god.

Jibreen came to the eastern coast of Australia and for us he brought

of the Bora and he taught our men how to use their weapons and he brought story.

And in this particular spot he had a swim and as he rose up the earth rose up

around him and formed Mount Burley or Jelligal as we call it.

And the first white people to this area looked at this big landform and went,

hmm, that looks like a big burly man.

And they called it Burley. And I find that entertaining because it is a big

burly man.

It's Jubreen, our creation god.

And the landscape itself has a story to tell about the Yugambe people.

So now we're literally at the foothills of Jalligal, and there's evidence that

our people have lived here for tens of thousands of years.

These reminders, ugri shells, oyster shells, strewn along the

forest floor that have been left there from generations and generations of

Aboriginal people coming here to eat these beautiful shellfish.

It's a permanent reminder of the generations that have gone before us and

beautiful place to have a feasting site at the foothills of Jellicle.

There are places where the original names survived.

One of them is Tullybodgera Creek.

Curling around the feet of Jaligal is Talabudgera Creek.

And Talabudgera is a wonderful word. Tali is tree, and budgera is to

soften.

Literally, in creeks like this, our people would put logs, and in the

water, a particular grub would grow in those logs, and they'd be harvested for

food. So Talabudra, a truly beautiful place, and fittingly adjoining Jibreen.

For me, culturally, I feel a responsibility to learn the stories of

but then to pass those stories on to the next generation.

Queensland's forest.

and reefs as some of the most dramatic and abundant anywhere in the world.

And indigenous people have lived with it for millennia. Despite the challenges,

these extraordinary landscapes have survived for millions of years, and with

luck and care, they will for many millions more.