The Heirs to the Ark

In an era of great global changes, on the oldest and most endangered of the continents, a new generation of zoos and a new conservation foundation have joined forces with a common aim: To save Africa’s most endangered species.

Now a film crew will travel to most isolated sanctuaries in the African wild to witness the problems that must face.

Through the journey of this film crew and the various animal who star in these tragic, moving, crazy, and sometimes even hilarious stories, we will gradually get to know the most difficult and fascinating of the challenges that the world conservation movement faces: Saving Africa’s extraordinary wildlife.

A journey to the heart of Africa, to wild paradises whose hopes are born in the hearts of big cities.

There is still Hope. But there’s precious little Time

EP. I: The Century of the great changes

General approach to the series. Introduction to the great changes in conservation that have taken place since the men started to be interested in protecting the natural word surrounding him. History of the zoos from the very first collection of animals to zoo-immersion. Introduction to the main protagonists of the series, their problems, their challenges and their solutions.

EP. II: Templest in the sea of grass

Building an African ecosystem in the core of a big city will allow us to travel to the original habitats to know their problems and the solutions that the most important foundations and conservationist societies in the world are developing on location. The migration of the wildebeests, the harassment of the tourists, the reproduction difficulties of big herds in enclosed spaces, pouching, overexploitation of tourism and local communities that benefit from ecotourism will give us a global overview of the conservation of the Great African Plains in the 21st Century.

EP. III: Light in the heart of darkness

This episode will be focused on the problems and threats of the equatorial jungles. Taking the Centro African jungles as an example, we will see which are the new challenges for conservation of what is considered to be the richest in biodiversity ecosystem. At the same time we will see what is being done in ex situ conservation of their species and the problems this undertakes. Chimps and bonobos, jungle elephants and red buffalos, pygmies and big trees. Impenetrable forests and logging companies, the already known as bush-meat trade and the political corruption in the logging licenses… all those are problems with a difficult solution where the most prestigious conservationist societies and foundations of the world are placing all their efforts on. In this episode some of the newest and remotest parks and natural reserves of the planet will serve to make us understand the fragile equilibrium that is close to be broken. Illnesses such as Ebola, paramilitary rebel factions, illegal miner work and a great many of other terrible threats will be the enemies against who the heirs to the ark will have to fight in order to keep the extraordinary richness of the African Tropical Jungles.

EP. IV: Making room for The Giants

The fourth episode will be centred on the special difficulties that drag the conservation, in situ and ex situ, of the big terrestrial mammals. Elephants, gorillas, rhinoceros and giraffes will appear on this episode where the men will have to be able to treat and handle those extraordinary creatures. Special enclosures, the measure of the space, the control of the animal populations, the ivory war, the fight against the illegal traffic of species and the difficulties on the handling of the most powerful animals on the Earth will be some of the topics to be covered within the impenetrable jungles of the inner Central Africa.

EP. V: Blood Brothers

They are our closest relatives. Their intelligence, their social cohesion, and their similarity to our own species have made them special to us ever since they first made contact with Man. Up to six million years ago, just an instant on a geological scale, we were the same species. From that point on, we have each followed our own evolutionary path. Since then, we have admired, feared, harassed, and hunted them. Their encounters with human beings have devastated their populations. Today every species of great ape is in danger of extinction. We have spread our diseases to them, hunted them for food, and massacred their families to capture expensive pets… Nonetheless, all this seems insignificant compared to a new threat. Our unbridled growth is eliminating the last remaining habitats of the world’s great apes. Scientists estimate that, unless we do something to avert it, the majority of their species will disappear in the wild over the next 20 years. And only we, Mankind, have the ability to prevent that.

EP. VI: Global Planet

In this episode we will sum up the contents of the whole series with a brief forecast of what the immediate future might bring. The biggest problems analyzed will allow us to speculate with a tragic or a happy end, depending on each action taken by all of us today. The link between all of the protagonists, the ecosystems, the international societies and foundations, the people and the species, and the countries where we will travel during the series will let us see how fragile and complex is our world and how necessary it is to put local remedies to correct global problems; problems that after all could even end with our own species. Focusing on all those spectacular examples we have seen during the former five episodes we will see there is still some hope despite we are running out of time every single day.

Versions

Spanish, English, Mandarin

Genre

Wildlife

Length

6 x 52

Type

Series

Format

Production

Explora Films & Instituto del Trópico

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