The World About Us

To Brazilians they're beija flores - flower kissers; to Cubans zumzum - their wings hum at 80 beats a second. They can fly backwards, must feed about every ten minutes, and have brilliant iridescent colours. No wonder they fascinate People: some enthusiasts even give them shower baths, cut their toe-nails, and analyse their amazing flight by filming in ultra-slow motion.

Bombay and Calcutta, two of India's most famous cities, are 1,000 miles apart. Viewers are invited to make a journey from one to the other by rail, stopping on the way to experience a Rajah's tiger hunt, Indian village life, the burning ghats of Benares, the erotic temple sculpture of Khajavao and the cut-off Anglo-Indian community of railway workers at Asansol, an important junction near Calcutta.

A resort for migrant humans - a staging post for migrating birds. The biggest of the Balearic Islands can attract two kinds of people: those who fly in for sun and fun, and others who look for the quiet life that is still the traditional Majorca - fruitful land in a southern sea. Today there are falcons round the cliffs, vultures wheeling in the mountains, and ospreys fishing in the lakes. But with the rapid growth of urban development cramping Majorca's rich wildlife - what of tomorrow?

Vikings settled Iceland over 1,000 years ago. When they first landed they were still pagans and saw fire giants, frost giants, dragons, and gods in the spectacular natural features such as hot springs, geysers, volcanoes, lava deserts, glaciers, and tremendous waterfalls. This colour film looks at the exciting landscape through the eyes of the Vikings - a landscape little changed to this day.

Upon the unpredictable, reef-strewn Caribbean once sailed the legendary galleons of the Spanish treasure fleets. Of the riches Plundered from the New World, more than £200 million in bullion and precious stones plunged to the bottom of the sea. Now, for the first time in the long voyage of his research vessel Calypso, Jacques Cousteau and his men assemble a sophisticated arsenal of deep-sea salvage equipment. This includes a temperamental excavator, which they call the 'monster' and which they use to sift 300 tons of coral debris in their hunt for... Sunken Treasure

To sail in search of Paradise - the dream of many, the achievement of few. But recently a series of French expeditions set out, each heading for its particular idea of paradise on earth. This film is a record of what they found at the end of their travels: for one, the ice-fringed Kerguelen Islands, lost in a freezing ocean, peopled by penguins; for another, a land of fire, the Tibesti in the Sahara where hot springs of mud boil; a third discovered a more serene paradise - a high plateau in the Northern Cameroons; a fourth went to the Mysore jungle of southern India in search of the elephant. Other expeditions saw the savagery of the Papuans and the flower-boats of Tahiti.

Captain Cousteau and the men of the research vessel Calypso explore the depths of the world's highest lake, situated in the Andes. They search for ancient ruins and treasure which, according to legend, the Incas dumped there when the Spanish Conquistadors killed their Emperor.

The gods brought me near to this island where was Calypso... the awesome goddess took me in and loved me passionately, vowing that she would make me immortal and ageless... For centuries the legend of Ulysses' sojourn on the island of Gozo has remained vivid in the minds of the islanders. So, too, has that of St Paul , who preached to the islanders after his shipwreck in AD 60 and gave them the faith which, with their neighbour Malta, they defended so ardently during the Great Siege. Today Gozo seems peaceful and undisturbed, and- it is difficult to imagine the upheavals of her past. And yet the present pattern of the islanders' life is very much a survival from that past. Their continual struggle against the elements to secure a livelihood, the warmth and loyalty of their family life, their intense piety, their pride and interdependence - all reflect beliefs and attitudes which elsewhere in Europe are disappearing.

A group of windswept islands in the South Atlantic, 400 miles from Cape Horn, the Falklands are one of the remotest of all British outposts. Stumbled across by early navigators, who were grateful for the shelter they provided, the islands are now the home of a few thousand determined people whose economy rests mainly on wool. Their sheep share the uninviting terrain with seals and many kinds of seabirds, including thousands of penguins.

The 35-ton Californian Greys were nicknamed 'Desert Whales' when a 19th-century whaling captain stumbled on their breeding grounds in the desert lagoons of Baja California. After years of slaughter the whales were eventually protected, and now Captain Jacques Cousteau follows some of the remaining 8,000 as they cover the last part of their 5,000-mile migration from their Arctic feeding grounds. In the desert lagoons Cousteau and his team watch the underwater mating of these giants, the care of the mothers for their young, and make a desperate attempt to save the life of a stranded baby whale.

Grand Canyon by Kayak and Raft 'We are now ready to start on our way down the Great Unknown. We are three-quarters of a mile in the depths of the earth. What rocks beset the channel, what falls there are, we know not.' The words are those of John Wesley Powell who, in 1869, became the first man to navigate the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River. A hundred years later a dozen of the world's top canoeists, backed by three rescue rafts, retraced Powell's voyage into uncertainty. And though for them the dangers were no longer completely unknown, they were still real enough: 250 miles of river studded with over 200 rapids, some with great breaking waves up to 20 feet high, others with vast whirlpools that could suck down both man and kayak: this at the bottom of a canyon up to eight miles wide, over a mile deep - and from which escape was virtually impossible.

When the Calypso anchors over the spawning grounds of the Pacific Coast squid, Jacques Cousteau and his divers have a unique opportunity to make a study of the strange breeding behaviour. For three days thousands of squid concentrate in a frenzy of mating which provides some of the most remarkable film of the voyage.

A portrait of the Test by Ronald and Rosemary Eastman Each year, from April to September, dry-fly fishermen practise their art of deceiving trout on this famous Hampshire chalk stream. The moods of the river and its wildlife throughout a year are also shown, even going underwater for some remarkable glimpses of the lives of the trout themselves.

Ever since the time of Alexander the Great men have made attempts to probe the depths of the sea, but only in the last 30 years have engineers been able to build machines than can dive into our 'inner space.' This film examines the history of undersea exploration, in which Cousteau plays an important part.

This huge creature was once hunted to the point of extinction. Now colonies survive under protection, including one at Guadalupe Island, 100 miles from Baja, California.

Ten tons of hovercraft arrive in the West African republic of Senegal, and the first stage of the expedition, the journey from St Louis to Bamako, begins. Africa, between the towns and villages, is like outer space... and we, in our heaving, hissing, belching machine, are like comic astronauts exploring the great void, unaware of the fact that no man has ever touched upon the land and water which we merrily detonate in dust and spray, as if our purpose is to wake up a sleeping age and then disappear. Written by John Pilger

The hovercraft expedition has so far travelled 800 miles from the west coast of Africa to Bamako, capital of Mali. Tonight's programme, the second of three covering the progress of the hovercraft, follows the course of the expedition along the immense reaches of the Niger -the great river that divides the southern-most fringe of the Sahara Desert from the dark jungles of Africa. Written by John Pilger

The Hovercraft arrives at Fort Lamy, capital of remote Tchad, to be met by the President. In the meantime a side expedition through the old African kingdom of Dahomey discovers a King and his female warriors - 'the Amazons of Abomey.' From Fort Lamy the Hovercraft heads north along the Chari river to Lake Tchad, an inland sea as large as Wales and one of the least penetrated regions on earth. Written and narrated by John Stockbridge

Marcel Ichac's award-winning film about the conquest of Annapurna by a French team in 1950. At the time, Annapurna was the highest peak ever scaled. The film is introduced by Captain Henry Day, one of the two army officers sponsored by the Army Mountaineering Association, who, 20 years later, took the same route and reached the summit on 20 May this year. Captain Day is the first to acknowledge the debt mountaineers owe to the Frenchmen Maurice Herzog and the late Louis Lachenal who suffered such severe hardships in their battle with the world's tenth highest mountain.

Once a year in the highlands of New Guinea 20,000 warriors gather together in one place for the Sing-Sing, a huge government-organised display of tribal dancing, singing, and general high-jinks - kind of glorified agricultural show with natives in the ring instead of fat stock. The warriors, probably the most primitive and certainly the most colourful on earth, spend two riotous days showing off their splendid feathers, wigs, and nose-bones to planeloads of tourists. The whole fantastic jamboree provides an instant microcosm of the colonial process - the breaking down of a traditional culture and the substitution

Samoa, a tropical paradise in the South Pacific, is now faced with an agonising challenge. The challenge is what some people call Progress, in this case American-style, complete with camera-toting tourists, educational television in every classroom, and an expanding economy that may be in conflict with Samoan traditional values.

A Park in Peru where jaguars roam, free from the threat of skin collectors, and Indians are protected from civilisation if not from their neighbouring head-hunters. Faced with a massive population explosion, Peru has plans for development and colonisation that will alter the face of the country, but conservationists have persuaded the government to set aside at least one patch of the wilderness.

A re-enactment of the epic journey undertaken in 1804 by two men, Lewis and Clark, whose names were ever after to be bracketed together. Leading a 45-man expedition from St Louis, Missouri, they set out to explore and open up the North-West Territories of America - at that time the home of buffalo and Indians. After a year and a half, 29 of the original team together with their Newfoundland dog reached the mouth of the Columbia River and the shores of the Pacific Ocean. It took them another year to get back to 'civilisation' - and the American North West was never the same again, for the long process of settlement was soon to begin.

High up in the Pennines of north-west Yorkshire a river leaps down a notable hole called Gaping Gill and disappears into the limestone hill. A couple of miles away at Ingleborough Cave a river appears out of the earth: today, it is known that these two rivers are one and the same. For over a year, teams of fanatical potholers have attempted to make what is perhaps the last great geographical discovery in Britain: by what secret passages and chambers does the Fell Beck find its tortuous way from Gaping Gill to Ingleborough Cave? Perhaps even more extraordinary, an ex-BBC man Syd Perou, with a hand camera and a few lights packed in ammunition boxes, has for 15 months filmed the search in appalling conditions. To have been a caver down some passages with only an inch of air space between water and rock is a considerable achievement. To have filmed it is an astonishing feat.

In the remote highlands of Nepal live the Sherpas, famous for their work on mountaineering expeditions. Their homes are in tiny villages perched on the slopes of the world's highest mountains, and the Sherpa's life is hard, often short but rarely dull. Tourists can now walk to the foot of Mount Everest, but few will see, as in this film, a Sherpa community working and celebrating, or be able to attend a great Buddhist festival which originated centuries ago in the monasteries of Tibet.

Turkey is a natural land bridge linking the East with the West. Each year, across Western Turkey, come millions of birds on migration between Asia, Africa, and Europe. They cross high mountains and arid plains to reach Turkey's great lakes and reed-beds, vital to the migrants' survival. Other animals have adopted man-made habitats, living amongst the crumbling palaces and temples of southern Turkey that stand as reminders of the great empires that once dominated this part of the world.

A film portrait of an African 'upside-down tree' and its wildlife. The ancient baobab, growing in dry bush country, provides shade, food, and shelter for everything from elephants to bushbabies, honey-guides to fruit bats. It is the hornbills, however, that use the tree in the most remarkable way: the female cements herself inside the nest-hole to rear her young. This unique film reveals some of the innermost secrets of one of the most fascinating life-cycles in the bird world.

As a creator of pearls and with the reputation of being an aphrodisiac, the oyster is no ordinary shellfish. It is not surprising that there are widespread and intensive efforts in many parts of the world to farm oysters on a large scale. Appropriately enough, this has been most successfully and picturesquely achieved in France, particularly in the Morbihan district of Brittany.

Bhutan is the world's last Shangri La, an Arcadian society squeezed in between Tibet and India. For centuries she has remained isolated, in a world of prayer-wheels and prayer-flags; mountains, valleys, and faith. Today Bhutan is still a society as static and fantastic as 1,000 years ago; but the rumblings of the 20th century are now audible from beyond her Himalayan walls.

In the warm waters of the Coral Sea, a long and bitter battle is waged -the endless struggle for survival. Sometimes it's beautiful, like the shoals of silver pilchards: sometimes pathetic, like the defenceless baby turtles. Into this pattern of inter-dependence has come man, equipped with aqua-lung and explosive harpoon, and an endless thirst for knowledge. So he snares the poisonous sea-snake to discover the secret of its venom: dynamites the shark that could kill him. This film is the work of the outstanding Australian underwater photographer and director, Ben Cropp: it captures beauty in the frond of coral, action in the excitement of a shark hunt: and deals with a subject of ever-increasing importance - man's place in, and destruction of his environment.

A hazardous journey along the upper reaches of the Orinoco to one of the most inaccessible tribes on earth. The Maquiritare are a people renowned throughout the jungle for their extraordinary skills, many of which, like the making of blow-pipes and poisoned arrows, are recorded in this film for the very first time. It also tells of the delicately balanced relationship between these proud, reserved and suspicious people and Herman Schlenker who filmed this unique record of their lives. It shows too how dangerous it becomes when so precarious a relationship turns sour.

In the dragon-shaped group of islands which is Japan, it is said that one is never out-of-sight of a mountain. These are the Japanese Alps, which run down through the main island of Honshu like a backbone. In this volcanic landscape hot springs, bubbling and boiling mud, and roaring vent-holes are all part of a sinister seismography. Snow blankets the peaks in winter, but in spring all kinds of wildlife come out of hibernation or up from the lowlands as the snows melt: Asiatic black bears, foxes, hares, flying squirrels, and a variety of birds.

Constable landscapes and the Suffolk Punch - but there is more to Suffolk than that. Stretches of unspoilt coastline, fen, breck and pasture provide homes for rare wildlife. Groups of people are working to preserve these areas because they believe that such places, together with the old country crafts, make up the very essence of Suffolk

When buffaloes fight it's the grass that suffers: a proverb from Laos where right-wing and Communist forces have been fighting on and off for nearly 20 years - a conflict as old as that in Vietnam. But a long-drawn-out civil war has not dampened the Lao spirit.

An ocean of sand 3,000 miles long and 1,000 miles wide where man and beast struggle to survive - that is Sahara. Across this empty land the salt caravans of the Tuaregs follow their age-old routes. From the salt mines of Bilma to the markets of Agades, more than 300 camels pace out 500 unmarked miles and then return - an incredible journey without end. An NBC-News Special

Three intrepid aeronauts take off in a balloon from the grounds of Blenheim Palace. As they float over the English countryside in their antique craft they tell the dramatic, odd. and sometimes hilarious story of ballooning - and of the men who have drifted In these gay silken bubbles at the mercy of the winds in the magic of free flight.

The New Forest today stands at a crossroads. For 900 years it has remained relatively unspoilt, providing a refuge for shyer animals such as badgers, deer, and foxes. But the combined pressures of thousands of visitors keen to 'get back to nature' and the harvesting of the trees are threatening the Forest's very existence.

Surmounting what appear to be insuperable obstacles, Red Salmon compulsively travel from the open sea up to the streams in the wilderness area of Kodiak Island, Alaska. Only the fittest survive to spawn, then rapidly degenerate and die.