The Living Edens

Track a year in the life of Alaska's Mount McKinley. Called by Indians "Denali," or "high one," it is the highest mountain in North America. Filmmaker Bruce Reitherman captures all the seasons in this preserved wilderness - from winter darkness, with its temperatures of 60 degress below zero, to the coming of spring with its burgeoning life, to summer with its 20 hours of daylight, and to autumn as the chill returns to the air in mid-September. This land of extreme contrasts is populated by prowling wolves, foraging caribou, hearty Dall sheep, incredible wood frogs and powerful grizzlies, among many others.

Ferdinand Magellan stumbled upon this land off the shores of South America. Accounts of what he saw vary: giant, dancing natives or just very large footprints in the sand. It inspired the name Patagonia - the land of the big feet. From the towering mountains of Torres del Paine, across the alkaline basin of the arid steppes, to the sandy shores of the Atlantic coast, filmmaker Jeff Foott captures this alluring realm of wild extremes and bizarre creatures. It is on this magnificent Eden that elephant seals battle with terrific force to win a mate, where giant condors soar on swift currents, where killer whales command the Sea of Valdez and where penguins convene in the thousands.

The Namib is a two thousand kilometer strip of land on the southwestern coast of Africa where the cold Atlantic sea and searing Namibian desert join. The arid land is obscured and enriched by a mist created by the cold Benguela current. Jackals and hyenas struggle to survive on this sandy desert stage. With few watering holes, animals must roam the beach and seek nourishment from the bountiful marine life.

Along the eastern base of the Andes is a great red and winding river named Manu - the life blood and main highway for the Manu Biosphere Reserve. Cascading down from the dry, grassy plateaus at four thousand meters, and falling dramatically into a tangled cloud forest of dwarf trees, giant begonias, orchids and fern, Manu emerges into a spectacular land replete with howler monkeys, skimmers, egrets and macaws. The Reserve offers us a special look at the abundance of life in the rare Amazonian wilderness.

Southern Africa's Etosha is a vast and ancient land of seasonal paradox. During the blooming of the wet season, this an Eden of glorious abundance in which spring boks, elephants, lions, leopards, cheetahs, jackals, zebras, and giraffe thrive. It is also an Eden that slowly disappears when heat, drought and thirst put all life at risk, except for that of opportunistic vultures.

Bhutan, or the Land of the Thunder Dragon, is the only remaining Buddhist Himalayan kingdom. Shrouded in timeless mystery, Bhutan is one of the few surviving regions whose secrets have passed undisturbed through the millennia. Since 95 percent of the Bhutanese people remain subsistence farmers or pastoralists, they live in harmony with an extraordinary diversity of animals, including the wild buffalo, red panda, Himalayan black bear, takin and blue sheep.

THE LIVING EDENS journeys east of India and Indonesia to observe the abundance of marine life that thrives in the waters of "Palau, Paradise of the Pacific." James Coburn serves as the guide through this fascinating undersea world - an intricate city created by some of the richest coral reefs on earth. The special features the work of award-winning producer/cinematographer Al Giddings, a co-producer and director of underwater photography for the movie Titanic.

The fourth largest island in the world formed more than 125 million years ago when a piece of the African coast became unhinged and drifted into the Indian Ocean. Isolated from mainland evolution, this eden known as Madagascar became home to some of the most bizarre life forms on earth, including chameleons, mongooses, and lemurs.

On the shores of the Andaman Sea lies a lush tropical paradise called Thailand, a peninsular finger reaching down from the Southeast Asian mainland as if to touch the equator. Thailand's jungles are the domain of the tiger. Elephants amble through the dense forest while white-handed gibbons swing from branch to branch. This is a mysterious world of flying snakes and lizards where cobra is king. Beneath the warm surrounding waters, brilliant coral reef shelters bustling aquatic life while sharks, manta rays and octopus continue their timeless ballet in the shadow of this tropical Living Eden.

"South Georgia Island: Paradise of Ice" takes viewers to the most important penguin nesting and breeding area on Earth. Surrounded by glaciers and giant ice floes in the South Atlantic Ocean, this imposing, 106-mile expanse of ice-capped mountains is also home to bull elephant seals.

Borneo, the third largest island in the world, straddles the equator across Malaysia and Indonesia. Dominated by Mt. Kinabalu, the tallest peak in Southeast Asia at 13,000 feet, the island teems with exotic plant and animal life. Travel online to the rain forests, jungles and mountains of Borneo to explore its magnificent wildlife.

Kakadu is an 8,000-square mile national park located on Australia's northern coastline. This tropical antipodean wilderness is inhabited by fish that spit to disable their prey, birds that mate in threesomes and kangaroos that box. There are also lizards with frills, green ants and flocks of flying fox.

In the vast American West there is a tough, high, lonely land called the Colorado plateau. Lying mostly in Utah, it extends south into Arizona and east into Colorado. This stark and untamed wilderness is home to an incredible array of creatures, including the grasshopper mouse, burrowing owl, rattlesnake and the resourceful coyote.

"Kamchatka: Siberia's Frozen Wilderness" visits the wild and isolated realm of Siberia that has been closed to outsiders for much of the last hundred years. Some of the largest grizzly bears in the world roam Kamchatka's interior, while tens of millions of salmon invade its undammed streams and rivers each summer, just as they have for thousands of years.

Nearly three million years ago, a massive explosion tore apart an enormous statovolcano in Eastern Africa's Great Rift Valley to form the Ngorongoro Crater, one of the true wonders of the world. Today, the Ngorongoro Crater is a microcosm of African life enclosed in an unique place. This Living Eden is a glorious stage where lions, hyenas, cheetahs, jackals, vultures, servals and wildebeest act out a dramatic story of life and death that was set into motions so long ago.

Rising from the hot, dusty plains of Southern India is a mountain range called Anamalai, which means "The Elephant Mountain." This intimate portrait of life in Anamalai begins with the birth of a baby elephant, following it through its first year of life under the ever-watchful eye of its mother and its large extended family. The program also tells the story of the other animals that share this mountain sanctuary and the role of the elephant in creating and maintaining this unique Eden.

High in the wild heart of the American Rockies, Yellowstone is a place of extraordinary landscapes and geysers. Yellowstone expert Paul Schullery guides viewers through the dramatic events that unfold each season.

The misty rain forests, rivers and beautiful white sand beaches of Costa Rica are home to one of the most diverse assemblages of life on Earth. Along the coast, giant crocodiles fight for the right to mate, while in the trees, troops of capuchin, squirrel and howler monkeys, as well as resplendent quetzals and beautiful songbirds, forage for food above the forest floor that is home to Hercules beetles, deadly army ants and poison dart frogs. On the sandy beaches hatchling sea turtles emerge by the thousands to race to the safety of the sea and, though few survive and reach open ocean, enough return to lay their eggs and complete the cycle of life unique to this Eden called Costa Rica.

Off the southeast coast of Australia lies the island refuge of Tasmania. Safe from the forces that have changed much of the Australian continent, Tasmania is an Eden of majestic forests, snow-capped mountain ranges, giant waterfalls, wild rivers and pristine coastlines.

Nestled in the heart of southeast Alaska, Glacier Bay is a wild paradise of ocean and ice. This film chronicles the lives of brown bears, bald eagles, humpback whales and other charismatic species. Nearly all life here is ultimately tied to the salmon, and the heroic migration of these fish provides the thread that weaves together the remarkable fabric of life in this story. Glacier Bay, a stunning formation of fjords, is the center stage for this great drama.

Hinduism, the dominant religion of India, views all living creatures as moving on the same wheel of fate. Karma determines each one's destiny, and a trinity of gods representing the cycles of creation, preservation, and destruction oversees the universe. The filmmakers transport viewers to the Bandhavgarh plateau rising from the jungles of central India. Once the capital of a powerful dynasty of maharajas, it is now the protected domain of the royal Bengal tiger and other indigenous wildlife. The city's palace and temple ruins are also the solitary retreat of an old Hindu priest, who tends the shrines and awaits the annual pilgrimage made by thousands of the devout who come to pray at these ancient places of worship.

California is the land of Disney, Hollywood, and freeway traffic jams. But on a much grander scale, it's also the land of natural marvels, including a coastal paradise where wildlife and flora thrive in an unspoiled environment. This magnificent region is explored in intimate detail in LIVING EDENS: BIG SUR. On the 100-mile stretch of coastland south of the Monterey Peninsula, the filmmaker, Bruce Reitherman, reveals a variety of wildlife that has found refuge and hope here, including such rare and endangered birds as the California condor and the peregrine falcon. The return of the condor to Big Sur testifies to the success of one of the most ambitious captive breeding programs in history. Ocean mammals too have found a hospitable haven in Big Sur. Thousands of elephant seals come ashore each winter, the females to give birth and the males to battle for the right to father the next generation. Sea otters are filmed using rocks as anvils to pry a rich meal from even the most resistant of mussels. Inland, Big Sur encompasses forests of majestic ancient redwoods and oak woodlands, home to the acorn woodpecker, which is sustained through the winter by the oak tree's nut-like fruit.

"The eighth wonder of the world." "An exotic, other-worldly landscape." "It's unlike anywhere else on Earth." To explore it is to "walk on the moon." The ancient tepuis of Venezuela, with their gravity-defying rock formations, thundering falls, and singular flora and fauna, deserve every note of praise and wonder they receive. Hailed as the land that time forgot, this virtually unexplored corner of South America hides record-breaking and breathtaking landscapes and evolutionary marvels. NATURE's THE LOST WORLD will take you to the very heart of a world that precious few have visited. Still only marginally explored, it has inspired several books, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous THE LOST WORLD, and remains a source of awe and humility for all who visit it. This land of incredible beauty and abundance, of harrowing rides and deadly climbs, harbors a journey you will never forget -- and a story millions of years in the making.

There is an Eden in one of Earth's most brutally unforgiving realms. Along the shores of Southampton Island in northern Hudson Bay, a survival story has played out for centuries. Only a hardy group of animal and human souls have learned to live within this frigid and dark arctic world. Noah Kadlak, of Inuit ancestry knows how to live in the arctic environment and survive. Now he has decided the time is right to take his eldest son, 12-year-old Logan, on an extended hunting trip. The trip offers him a chance to introduce the boy to traditional Inuit skills of living off the land. In the early spring Noah and Logan make the long trip by skidoo and sled. Father and son journey across the frozen ocean. They sleep in igloos, eat fish they catch from under frozen lakes and traverse a landscape that is defined by a horizon of ice and sky. It is a trip that is no longer readily made by the Inuit, but it is still ingrained in their souls. The trip is an arduous one. With wind gusts up to 50 miles per hour, and air temperatures reaching 20 below zero, it takes a tremendous amount of effort to build their camp, take care of their sleds, and secure their equipment each night. They journey to a source of perpetual open water, an arctic oasis for man and animal alike in a land of frozen snow and ice.