BBC Earth marks Earth Day

BBC Earth is marking Earth Day (April 22) with a week of documentaries celebrating the natural world, including the premiere of Spectacular Earth.

Special programming begins from Monday.

Admire the masterpiece that is our beautiful home, the science behind some of nature’s fascinating behaviours and the people dedicated to preserving it. Earth Week features a fast range of programming including Sir David Attenborough’s The Green Planet, Spectacular Earth, Exploration Volcano, The Age of Nature, A Perfect Planet plus much more.

Screening each evening at 7.30pm from Monday, April 17, the week kicks off with The Green Planet, as we step into a magical hidden world full of remarkable new behaviour, emotional stories and surprising heroes. Presented by Sir David Attenborough, this spectacular series allows us to travel beyond the power of the human eye, to look closer at their interconnected world, showcasing over two decades of new discoveries. Specialist cameras capture the amazing secret lives of plants.

On Tuesday and Wednesday we get closer than ever before to some of the world’s most stunning natural phenomena with double episode of Spectacular Earth, premiering in Australia for the first time. Breakthrough scientific knowledge and cutting-edge filming techniques mean it is now possible to get thrillingly close to some of the world’s most beautiful spectacles. Specialist jet-ski cameras ride giant waves in Portugal, drones fly into one of Guatemala’s most explosive volcanoes and ultra-slow-motion footage captures thousand-foot-long lightning bolts in Arizona. Experts and scientists reveal the science beneath the spectacle. The explanations are fascinating – but our planet is home to such incredible phenomena that sometimes you have to see it to believe it.

Thursday is all about volcanoes with the Australian premiere of Exploration Volcano. In this series Chris Horsley, a volcano specialist, explorer and all round daredevil drags a group of reluctant documentary filmmakers all over the globe, responding to volcanic eruptions as they wreak havoc and threaten communities. His expeditions span the rebel-held jungles of Congo to the lava-scorched towns of the Canary Islands; from Iceland’s unmistakable glacial plains to Italy’s smoking archipelagos. In each episode, the team must tackle unique but volatile terrain. Chris and the gang stop at nothing to complete each mission; whether it’s collecting molten lava straight from the source or installing cutting-edge monitoring systems. Each experience is essential to gaining a deeper understanding of the behaviours of these merciless natural giants.

Saturday we take a fresh look at our relationship with nature, our impact on it, how it works, and how we can begin to restore the balance for life on Earth with The Age of Nature.

Finish the week marveling at nature’s epic and powerful forces as A Perfect Planet reveals how perfectly our planet is set up to nurture life. Presented by Sir David Attenborough, this series shows how animals of all shapes and sizes are perfectly adapted to whatever the environment throws at them.

The rest of the week is filled with your favourite BBC Earth series including Blue Planet I, The Secret Life of the Sun, Earth’s Natural Wonders, Reef Rescue and Climate Change: The Facts.

Earth Week premieres all week from 7.30pm weekdays and 6pm over the weekend. The week kicks off on Monday, April 17. Episodes are also available to stream On Demand after premiere.

Earth Week will feature on our BBC Earth channel which is available through Foxtel and Fetch.