Saving Planet Earth
Saving Planet Earth – CÂ鶹ԼÅÄ
Last year, CÂ鶹ԼÅÄ launched a nationwide competition to find a group of children who care passionately about wildlife, giving them the chance to become part of the Saving Planet Earth Challenge Team.
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The seven lucky winners travel to far-flung corners of the world, spending two weeks in the wild with their favourite animals and report on the plights of some of our most endangered species.
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Cheetahs
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Adesh Sundarasan, aged 11 from Buckinghamshire, travels to South Africa to look at the plight of the cheetah.
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He is worried about the future of the cheetah and wants to make people realise how important it is to protect all wild animals to stop them from becoming extinct.
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His adventure begins at the De Wildlt Cheetah and Wildlife Centre in South Africa, which has a successful breading programme for cheetahs.
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Adesh is shown around by warden Gabi, and discovers that one of the main threats to cheetahs comes from farmers who kill them for attacking their animals. He visits a goat farmer and meets his Anatolian guard dog, which looks after his goats and scares cheetahs away.
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The De Wildt sanctuary breeds the guard dogs and gives them away to farmers who might otherwise shoot the big cats.
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Adesh also travels to the Tswalu Kalahari reserve in search of a cheetah and her cubs that have been released back into the wild after being rescued by De Wildt. It is Adesh's dream to see cheetah cubs in the wild, and he desperately wants to find them.
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With the help of his guide, he learns how to track wild animals using footprints and other skills. Just as they are about to give up, and much to Adesh's delight, they come across the feline family.
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Galapagos
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Ten-year-old Alex Hewitt, from Cambridge, goes to Galapagos to look at the endangered birds and reptiles that live there.
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Galapagos is most famous for giant tortoises which are the biggest in the world, weighing up to 250 kilos, and living for up to 200 years. There used to be hundreds of thousands of them, but now they are under threat.
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As people have moved to the islands, they have introduced new animals and plants which are alien to the surroundings and are now damaging the natural habitat.
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The most famous of all the giant tortoises is Lonesome George. Alex visits Lonesome George at the Charles Darwin Research Centre. His keeper, Fausto, explains that Lonesome was discovered 35 years ago on an island called Pinta. Before his discovery, his species was thought to be extinct and he is the only one of his kind left in the world.
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The next part of Alex's journey takes him in search of the rare land iguana whose survival is threatened by the cats and dogs which have been introduced to the island. He visits the charity Animal Balance which has set up a project to encourage people to be more responsible for their pets.
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Alex says: "Galapagos is a very special place and it would be a tragedy to lose its wildlife."
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Oceans
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Josephine Tiplady, from Newcastle, visits Borneo to look at the plight of their coral reefs, turtles and sharks.
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In Sabah, on the Malaysian side of Borneo, fishing is a massive industry. The markets are packed with brightly coloured fish, and the larger predatory fish that prey on them such as sharks and tuna.
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Two million tonnes of fish are sold here every year but this global demand is threatening future supplies. Many species are heavily over-fished and on the brink of extinction.
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Some species have completely disappeared from many of the area's reefs. To combat the problem, the Marine Conservation Society and Sabah Parks are running an endangered fish release programme and Josephine is invited along to help.
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Next stop for Josephine is a shark fishing village. Shark fins are a delicacy in many countries, but as the demand has increased shark numbers have plummeted. Sharks are an essential part of the food chain and taking them out of the oceans affects the balance of other species.
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Josephine, shaken by what she has seen, decides to visit the Sea Gypsies, a group of nomadic fishermen and their families, who have been harvesting the seas in a sustainable way for centuries – only taking what they need from the sea.
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To get a closer look at the marine life, Josephine goes diving. She is amazed by the colourful reef fish and fantastic corals but also sees signs of destruction. Parts of the reef have been damaged by bombing or blast fishing where illegal fishermen throw home-made bombs into the sea and collect the dead or stunned fish.
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The fragile coral can take a century to re-grow. To help it along, Josephine and her diving instructor plant a few young corals on the reef.
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Gibbons
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Joint competition winners 12-year-olds Rosa Dodd and Fiona Pearl, both from London, travel to Borneo to discover what is being done to save the gibbon from extinction.
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Gibbons are threatened by the pet trade and also by habitat destruction. The girls see some of this destruction first hand as on the way to Kalaweit they fly over acres of devastated rainforest. Lots of animals are either killed or badly injured when the forests are cut down or burnt.
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The Kalaweit Centre in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo, is home to about 170 gibbons, many whom are victims of the pet trade and deforestation. The aim is to eventually release the gibbons back into the wild. Rosa and Fiona meet a family of gibbons who will be the first to be released from Kalaweit.
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The girls also get to write and record their own radio message which is broadcast all over Borneo on Kalaweit FM – a station set up to persuade people not to keep gibbons as pets.
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Macaws
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Jack Common, from Nottingham, and Lewi Jinks, from Blackburn, both aged 12, travel to Brazil to look at what is being done to save the largest parrot in the world – the hyacinth macaw – from extinction.
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They join up with world parrot expert Charlie Munn and a group of scientists who spend their time monitoring the birds' nests to see how they are growing.
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Chicks are often taken by predators, but the boys discover that one of their biggest threats is the wild bird trade, with poachers taking the chicks and selling them on to dealers around the world.
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They meet an ex-nest robber called Jaimundo who explains that his family used to make a living from taking chicks or eggs.
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The boys learn that Jaimundo regrets what he has done and now works in conservation, protecting the birds instead of taking them. His climbing and bird handling skills are invaluable in the conservation work.
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During their South American adventure, Lewi also comes face to face with a family of giant otters and goes on a night safari to see if he can find the elusive jaguar.
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