Planet Earth: The Future

Planet Earth: The Future is a 2006 BBC documentary series on the environment and conservation, produced by the BBC Natural History Unit as a companion to the multi-award-winning nature documentary Planet Earth. The programmes were originally broadcast on BBC Four immediately after the final three episodes of Planet Earth on BBC One. Each episode highlights the conservation issues surrounding some of the species and environments featured in Planet Earth, using interviews with the film-makers and eminent figures from the fields of science, conservation, politics, and theology. The programmes are narrated by Simon Poland and the series producer was Fergus Beeley.

Background
When the first episodes of Planet Earth were broadcast in the UK, the producers were criticised by some green campaigners for glossing over the environmental problems faced by the planet. Executive producer Alastair Fothergill defended the approach, explaining that a heavy-handed environmental message would not work on primetime BBC One. However, the Planet Earth film crews witnessed first-hand scenes of environmental degradation and the increasing scarcity of wildlife in some of the shooting locations. This experience formed the basis of Planet Earth - The Future, which was designed to engage viewers in a mature debate about environmental issues.

The following year, the BBC commissioned Saving Planet Earth, the second overtly conservation-themed series to be shown on BBC One. The first BBC series to deal comprehensively with conservation was State of the Planet in 2000.

Participants
The following is an alphabetical list of the interviewees featured in the series, with their titles and professions as credited on screen:


 * Neville Ash, World Conservation Monitoring Centre, UN Environment Programme
 * David Attenborough, broadcaster
 * Ulises Blanco, farmer
 * Mark Brownlow, producer, Planet Earth
 * Martyn Colbeck, cameraman, Planet Earth
 * James Connaughton, senior White House environmental advisor
 * Huw Cordey, producer, Planet Earth
 * Robert Costanza, professor of ecological economics, University of Vermont
 * Ahmed Djoghlaf, executive secretary, Convention on Biological Diversity, UN Environment Programme
 * Betsy Dresser, senior vice president, Audubon Nature Institute
 * Johan Eliasch, entrepreneur
 * Simon Evans, big game hunter
 * Alastair Fothergill, series producer, Planet Earth
 * David Greer, park advisor, World Wide Fund for Nature
 * Chadden Hunter, wildlife biologist
 * Tony Juniper, executive director, Friends of the Earth
 * Peyton Knight, National Center for Public Policy Research
 * Marek Kryda, consultant, Animal Welfare Institute, Poland
 * James Leape, Director General, Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF International)
 * Moisés Léon, Tropical Science Center
 * Mark Linfield, producer, Planet Earth
 * James Lovelock, independent scientist and proponent of the Gaia hypothesis
 * Barbara Maas, chief executive, Care for the Wild International
 * Professor Wangari Maathai, founder, Green Belt Movement
 * Richard Mabey, writer
 * Jeffrey A. McNeely, chief scientist, World Conservation Union
 * Nisar Malik, conservationist
 * Tony Martin, Natural Environment Research Council
 * Professor Robert M. May, University of Oxford
 * E.J. Milner-Gulland, Imperial College London
 * Russell Mittermeier, president, Conservation International
 * Henry Ndede, chairman, Friends of Nairobi National Park, Kenya
 * Craig Packer, ecologist
 * Martin Palmer, chief executive, Alliance of Religions and Conservation
 * Roger Payne, president, Ocean Alliance
 * Jonathon Porritt, chair, Sustainable Development Commission, UK
 * Sandra Postel, author and global water analyst
 * Mark Stanley Price, chief executive, Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust
 * Carlos Quesada, University of Costa Rica
 * Adam Ravetch, cameraman & Arctic wildlife specialist
 * M. Sanjayan, Lead Scientist, The Nature Conservancy
 * Clare Short, former Secretary of State for International Development
 * Sakana Ole Turede, chair, Kitengela Pastoral Land Owners Association, Kenya
 * Jan Kees Vis, director of sustainable agriculture, Unilever
 * Robert Watson, chief scientist, World Bank
 * Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury
 * E. O. Wilson, professor Emeritus, Harvard University

DVD and book

 * All three episodes of Planet Earth - The Future are included as a bonus feature on the fifth disc of the British and North American versions of the Planet Earth DVD box set (BBCDVD1883 in the UK). It was omitted from the HD DVD and Blu-ray sets because of the mixture of standard and high-definition footage.
 * An accompanying book, Planet Earth - The Future: What the Experts Say (ISBN 978-0-563-53905-6), was published by BBC Books on 5 October 2006. The editors are Rosamund Kidman-Cox and Fergus Beeley, and Jonathon Porritt wrote the foreword.