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.
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.
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, Oxford University
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.
