National Geographic: Heroes of the High Frontier

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The rainforest canopy

floating a hundred feet above us

has been an unknown world

- until now

"Yes!"

A new breed of explorer

is now venturing

onto the green roof of the world

going where no one has gone before.

We join the adventures

of these Heroes of the High Frontier

In the darkest depths of the darkest

forest, the crew assembles.

The pioneering spirit

harnesses modern technology

as a courageous band sets off

on a voyage of discovery.

A flame ignites a quest

to a place of our world,

but, until now, always just above our

reach... the rainforest canopy.

Almost a century ago

explorer William Bebe wrote:

Yet another continent of life remains

to be discovered,

not upon the earth, but one or two

hundred feet above it.

There awaits a rich harvest

for the naturalist who overcomes the

obstacles and mounts

to the summits of the jungle trees.

The rainforest canopy is home

to more living creatures

than anywhere else on the face

of the earth.

Many are born here

and will die here, too,

rarely, if ever, touching the earth.

Their lives, their whole world

has been a mystery.

The canopy is the last

biological frontier on earth.

Biologist Terry Erwin began exploring

this world just 16 years ago.

Since he had no way to reach

the canopy,

he brought it down to earth.

Clouds of insecticide welled up -

and a rain of entirely new and

unknown creatures came down.

So many creatures of so many kinds,

it seemed there were 20 times

as many species

on this planet as we had thought.

The canopy was a hot-bed of

evolution.

Just what was going on up there?

There was only one way to find out.

A combination sling-shot, fishing pole

is Nalini Nadkarni's own invention

for shooting a line a hundred feet up.

"Yes!"

"Oh, my God."

Accuracy is essential.

To get that all important

first line up over a limb,

a climbing rope is hauled up to which

she attaches her Jumar ascenders.

Ever since her first climb,

for 19 years,

"I realized, at that moment,

that first rope climb,

I knew where I was going

for the rest of my life,

I was going up in the canopy."

It takes hard work and courage

to conquer this new world

- but when they climb, Nalini and

the other canopy researchers

are also returning to a very old world.

Our ancestors lived in trees.

Perhaps, we are returning to a place

buried deep in our primal memory.

A place of primal fears.

Braving these dizzying heights

the first canopy researchers

discovered a complex web of life.

"We really felt like pioneers,

we felt like we were frontiersmen,

going to where

no human had ever gone before and,

and everything we picked up

was something new and

something different

- new species, new interactions."

Nalini learned that giant forest trees

actually sprouted roots from their

uppermost branches.

Jay Malcolm found that animals

believed to be extremely rare,

were actually common creatures

if you knew where to look for them.

Meg Lowman investigated

the chemical warfare

between animals and plants,

a source of the canopy's

bewildering diversity.

And Neil Rettig spent months

up a tree,

unveiling the life of one of the

world's most magnificent eagles.

Working in the canopy

has taught them

that this is where the rainforest

lives...

...where light is turned into life.

The canopy is a powerhouse

of the forest.

It's where sunlight changes into

stored energy.

It's where trees reproduce, where the

flowers and the fruits are,

where pollination takes place,

where fruit dispersal takes place

so I think it's really where

everything's happening in the forest.

This is where the birds feed.

You can see where, where all the,

the bark and the, um, eh,

the epiphytes have been sort of

knocked off

because this is where the birds

themselves

and the monkeys come and feed

on these big fruits.

I can't believe I'm in top of this tree...

"Today I got up much higher than I

ever had before,

I was able to shift the ropes around

and I was actually able to get to

the very top of this tree.

"God! Wow!"

"I can see forever!"

Just 25 years ago,

up the rivers of Surinam and Guyana,

came an expedition

in search of one of the canopies

greatest predators.

It was the personal quest of

a 23-year-old Neil Rettig.

He and two friends sought to witness

and film the life of the Harpy eagle.

The Harpy's life in the wild

was practically unknown

until Neil strapped on spikes

like telephone repairmen use

and jury-rigged a reinforced cable

big enough to wrap around the huge

girth of a rainforest giant.

Somehow, they scaled one hundred

and fifty feet to reach the nest.

"When I think of the crazy things

that all three of us did (Wolfgang,

myself, and Allen), it's unbelievable.

I mean, we're lucky we're still here."

They built a blind from which

they could watch the nest.

They used a ladder to climb

from the crown of one tree

up into the nest tree itself.

While exposed outside the blind,

they were under constant scrutiny

and frequent attack by the most

powerful eagle in the world.

When the blind was complete,

Neil looked through his lens

to meet the fierce gaze of the Harpy

for the first time.

"The harpy eagle will, will always

be my favorite bird of prey.

I feel like I'm part of it

or it's part of me."

After a month of observation,

a tiny ball of fluff appeared between

the mother's powerful talons.

Neil was the first to ever glimpse,

not to mention film,

a newly hatched Harpy

chick in the wild.

But his exhilaration

almost proved fatal.

"I had just finished spending three

days in the blind

watching the chick hatch

and I was completely overwhelmed

with, with excitement;

and I started climbing down, using

the belts and the climbing spikes,

and I was just thinking about

other things,

I was daydreaming,

I was so excited that the chick had

actually hatched and I filmed,

in the early morning when the chick

was a tiny little baby,

and I just, I remember leaning

backward

and just falling into space

- and it was like slow motion.

I remember falling down and trying

to grab a hold of the, a palm tree,

crashing through the vegetation and

landing on my back

and then, then I couldn't breathe.

And I looked up and, uh, Wolfgang,

my, uh, associate was coming out of

the blind

and the eagle came and ripped off

a piece of his pants

and flew away with it

- he shot back up in the blind and

he said he'd come down in the dark.

Well, finally, they, they,

he climbed down

and they carried me out in the

stretcher and,

one week later, I was, I was climbing

again, that's how crazy I was."

Protected by luck and a motorcycle

helmet,

Neil suffered only a few broken ribs

from his 55 foot fall.

He continued to film, capturing the

parents hunting

like sharks among the green billows

of the canopy.

Sloths are a favorite prey

of the Harpy.

Usually, they eat part of the carcass

before bringing it to the nest

- but, this time, dinner is delivered

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