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in what was one of the Earth's

greatest reservoirs of biodiversity.

This catastrophe was provoked

by the decision to produce palm oil,

one of the most productive and consumed

oils in the world, on Borneo.

Palm oil not only caters

to our growing demand for food,

but also cosmetics, detergents

and, increasingly, alternative fuels.

The forest's diversity was replaced

by a single species, the oil palm.

For local people,

it provides employment.

It's an agricultural industry.

Another example of massive deforestation

is the eucalyptus.

Eucalyptus is used to make paper pulp.

Plantations are growing

as demand for paper has increased

fivefold in 50 years.

One forest

does not replace another forest.

At the foot of these eucalyptus trees,

nothing grows because their leaves form

a toxic bed for most other plants.

They grow quickly,

but exhaust water reserves.

Soybeans, palm oil,

eucalyptus trees...

Deforestation destroys the essential

to produce the superfluous.

But elsewhere,

deforestation is a last resort

to survive.

Over 2 billion people,

almost one third

of the world's population,

still depend on charcoal.

In Haiti,

one of the world's poorest countries,

charcoal is one of the population's

main consumables.

Once the "pearl of the Caribbean",

Haiti can no longer feed

its population without foreign aid.

On the hills of Haiti,

only 2% of the forests are left.

Stripped bare,

nothing holds the soils back.

The rainwater washes them

down the hillsides as far as the sea.

What's left is increasingly

unsuitable for agriculture.

In some parts of Madagascar,

the erosion is spectacular.

Whole hillsides bear deep gashes

hundreds of meters wide.

Thin and fragile,

soil is made by living matter.

With erosion,

the fine layer of humus,

which took thousands of years to form,

disappears.

Here's one theory of the story

of the Rapanui,

the inhabitants of Easter Island,

that could perhaps

give us pause for thought.

Living on the most isolated island

in the world,

the Rapanui exploited their resources

until there was nothing left.

Their civilization did not survive.

On these lands stood

the highest palm trees in the world.

They have disappeared.

The Rapanui

chopped them all down for lumber.

They then faced

widespread soil erosion.

The Rapanui could no longer go fishing.

There were no trees to build canoes.

Yet the Rapanui formed one of the most

brilliant civilizations in the Pacific.

Innovative farmers, sculptors,

exceptional navigators,

they were caught in the vise of

overpopulation and dwindling resources.

They experienced social unrest,

revolts and famine.

Many did not survive the cataclysm.

The real mystery of Easter Island is not

how its strange statues got there,

we know now.

It is why the Rapanui

didn't react in time.

It's only one of a number of theories,

but it has particular relevance today.

Since 1950, the world's population

has almost tripled.

And since 1950,

we have more fundamentally

altered our island, the Earth,

than in all

of our 200,000-year history.

Nigeria is the biggest oil exporter

in Africa,

yet 70% of the population

lives under the poverty line.

The wealth is there, but the country's

inhabitants don't have access to it.

The same is true all over the globe.

Half the world's poor

live in resource-rich countries.

Our mode of development

has not fulfilled its promises.

In 50 years, the gap between rich

and poor has grown wider than ever.

Today,

half the world's wealth is in the hands

of the richest 2% of the population.

Can such disparities be maintained?

They are the cause

of population movements

whose scale we have yet

to fully realize.

The city of Lagos

had a population of 700,000 in 1960.

That will rise to 16 million by 2025.

Lagos is one of the fastest growing

megalopolises in the world.

The new arrivals are mostly farmers

forced off the land

for economic or demographic reasons,

or because of diminishing resources.

This is a radically new type

of urban growth,

driven by the urge to survive

rather than to prosper.

Every week, over a million people swell

the populations of the world's cities.

unhealthy, overpopulated environment

without access to daily necessities,

such as water, sanitation, electricity.

Hunger is spreading once more.

It affects nearly 1 billion people.

All over the planet, the poorest

scrabble to survive, while we continue

to dig for resources

that we can no longer live without.

We look farther and farther afield

in previously unspoilt territory

and in regions that are

increasingly difficult to exploit.

We're not changing our model.

Oil might run out?

We can still extract oil

from the tar sands of Canada.

The biggest trucks in the world

move thousands of tons of sand.

The process of heating

and separating bitumen from the sand

requires millions

of cubic meters of water.

Colossal amounts of energy are needed.

The pollution is catastrophic.

The most urgent priority, apparently,

is to pick every pocket of sunlight.

Our oil tankers

are getting bigger and bigger.

Our energy requirements

are constantly increasing.

We try to power growth

like a bottomless oven

that demands more and more fuel.

It's all about carbon.

In a few decades, the carbon

that made our atmosphere a furnace

and that nature captured over millions

of years, allowing life to develop,

will have largely been pumped back out.

The atmosphere is heating up.

It would have been inconceivable for

a boat to be here just a few years ago.

Transport, industry,

deforestation, agriculture...

Our activities release gigantic

quantities of carbon dioxide.

Without realizing it,

molecule by molecule,

we have upset

the Earth's climatic balance.

All eyes are on the poles,

where the effects of global warming

are most visible.

It's happening fast, very fast.

The north-west passage that connects

America, Europe and Asia via the pole,

is opening up.

The arctic ice cap is melting.

Under the effect of global warming,

the ice cap has lost

Its surface area in the summer

shrinks year by year.

It could disappear

in the summer months by 2030.

Some say 2015.

The sunbeams that the ice sheet

previously reflected back

now penetrate the dark water,

heating it up.

The warming process gathers pace.

This ice contains the records

of our planet.

The concentration of carbon dioxide

hasn't been so high

for several hundred thousand years.

Humanity has never lived

in an atmosphere like this.

Is excessive exploitation of resources

threatening the lives of every species?

Climate change

accentuates the threat.

By 2050,

a quarter of the Earth's species

could be threatened with extinction.

In these polar regions,

the balance of nature

has already been disrupted.

Around the North Pole,

the ice cap has lost 30%

of its surface area in 30 years.

But as Greenland

rapidly becomes warmer,

the freshwater of a whole continent

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