Planet SOS

Planet SOS: Ecological crises affecting our planet

Most extensive study into life on Earth says natural world is in decline. We talk to those trying to save it.

Momentum is growing around the world to keep our warming planet cool. But we face an ecological crisis too.

In May, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) published the most comprehensive study of life on Earth. It found that one million species face extinction – that is more than 12 percent of known life on earth.

Ecosystems are collapsing and we are on track to destroy the natural infrastructure on which our world depends. 

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Planet SOS explores the tension between prosperity and protection as the government in Niger opens up access to its oil reserves within a protected national park.

Al Jazeera’s Latin America editor reports from one of the most biologically-diverse places on Earth, Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, and speaks with those risking their lives to protect it including indigenous leader Kurikindi from the Nina Amarun community in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

Planet SOS is also focused on proposed solutions to the ecological crisis.

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We travel to Rwanda where innovative ideas and carefully-controlled tourism are helping to revive the numbers of critically-endangered mountain gorillas.

And with just two ageing northern white rhinos left on the planet, we go to the United States where advances in science and technology offer the possibility for these creatures to once again roam free in the wild.

And finally, we talk to our Science and Technology editor Mereana Hond about what we can all do to protect the natural world.