The Secret of Life on Earth Page #4

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...particularly in the rainforests.

This is a stretch of forest in Brazil,

about 1 00 miles across.

Forest clearance and roads

are clearly visible.

Three years later, the view provides a

grim record of the rate of destruction.

Time is running out

for research scientists...

...at work in the canopy

of a threatened forest.

Locked away in the rare plants

and insects the scientists collect...

...are secrets, perhaps, of medical

cures still to be discovered.

Our heritage is a pool

of genetic material beyond price.

This periwinkle comes

from the forests of Madagascar...

...not very important, we might think.

But now it is cultivated

and harvested...

...to make a drug used

to treat leukemia in children.

Any species we exterminate

may be an opportunity lost.

Lost forever.

By discovering how plants

and animals relate...

...we can enrich our

own understanding of life.

The rainforest shows us that true life

sustains itself...

...within the available resources

that it can recycle perpetually.

Living in harmony with nature

instead of abusing and degrading it...

...may demand a change in our habits,

but it will bring new benefits.

Some of our world's most beautiful

sights are under the sea.

Even these are no longer denied to us.

lt seems to be a natural human desire

to make contact with wild animals.

This desire is gratified each day...

...for visitors to a remote beach

in Western Australia by wild dolphins.

Oh, yes. He's so beautiful.

You wanna step out, young man,

and feed this dolphin?

They're encouraged with food...

...but the dolphins do seem to enjoy

contact with humans...

...as much as the humans enjoy it.

She's saying hello again.

She wants some more dinner.

Know what her name is?

What?

Our world has developed

over many millions of years.

What gave it stability

and increasing variety...

...was an unwritten contract

between plants and animals...

...acknowledging

their interdependence...

...within a system nourished

entirely by the sun.

But we can no longer take for granted

the age-old rhythms of nature.

The growth of human knowledge has given

us a decisive influence everywhere.

From the depths of the oceans...

...to the sky's final, delicate skin

of our atmosphere.

lt is our actions which will change

the world for good...

...or for evil.

ln the sheer joy of our existence,

we must love and cherish...

...those delicately balanced forces of

nature enshrined in the green contract.

They formed the rules

of the created world...

...before we joined the long march

of evolution.

They hold the secret

of our life on Earth.

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