Wild China

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(SQUAWKING)

NARRATOR:
The last hidden world,

China.

For centuries, travellers to China have

told tales of magical landscapes

and surprising creatures.

Chinese civilisation

is the world's oldest

and today, its largest,

with well over a billion people.

It's home to more than

and a wide range

of traditional lifestyles,

often in close partnership with nature.

We know that China faces immense

social and environmental problems.

But there is great beauty here, too.

China is home to

the world's highest mountains,

vast deserts ranging from searing hot

to mind-numbing cold.

Steaming forests

harbouring rare creatures.

Grassy plains beneath vast horizons.

And rich tropical seas.

Now for the first time ever,

we can explore the whole

of this great country,

meet some of the surprising

and exotic creatures that live here

and consider the relationship

of the people and wildlife of China

to the remarkable landscape

in which they live.

This is Wild China.

Our exploration of China

begins in the warm, subtropical south.

On the Li River, fishermen and birds

perch on bamboo rafts,

a partnership that goes back

more than a thousand years.

This scenery is known

throughout the world,

a recurring motif in Chinese paintings.

And a major tourist attraction.

The south of China is a vast area,

eight times larger than the UK.

It's a landscape of hills

but also of water.

(THUNDER RUMBLING)

It rains here for up to 250 days a year,

and standing water is everywhere.

(THUNDER RUMBLING)

In the floodplain of the Yangtze River,

black-tailed godwits probe

the mud in search of worms.

But isn't just wildlife

that thrives in this environment.

The swampy ground

provides ideal conditions

for a remarkable member

of the grass family.

Rice.

The Chinese have been cultivating rice

for at least 8,000 years.

It has transformed the landscape.

Late winter in southern Yunnan

is a busy time for local farmers

as they prepare the age-old paddy fields

ready for the coming spring.

These hill slopes of the Yuanyang County

plunge nearly 2,000 metres

to the floor of the Red River valley.

Each contains literally

thousands of stacked terraces

carved out by hand

using basic digging tools.

Yunnan's rice terraces are among

the oldest human structures in China.

Still ploughed,

as they always have been,

by domesticated water buffaloes,

whose ancestors originated

in these very valleys.

This man-made landscape

is one of the most

amazing engineering feats

of pre-industrial China.

It seems as if every square inch of land

has been pressed into cultivation.

As evening approaches,

an age-old ritual unfolds.

It's the mating season

and male paddy frogs are competing for

the attention of the females.

But it doesn't always pay to draw

too much attention to yourself.

The Chinese pond heron

is a pitiless predator.

(SQUAWKS)

Even in the middle

of a ploughed paddy field,

nature is red in beak and claw.

This may look like a slaughter

but as each heron can swallow

only one frog at a time,

the vast majority will escape

to croak another day.

Terraced paddies like those

of the Yuanyang County

are found across much of southern China.

This whole vast landscape is

dominated by rice cultivation.

In hilly Guizhou Province,

the Miao minority have developed

a remarkable rice culture.

With every inch of fertile land

given over to rice cultivation,

the Miao build their wooden houses

on the steepest

and least productive hillsides.

In Chinese rural life,

everything has a use.

Dried in the sun,

manure from the cow sheds

will be used as cooking fuel.

(WOMEN CHATTERING IN CHINESE)

It's midday, and the Song family

are tucking into a lunch

of rice and vegetables.

(SPEAKING IN CHINESE)

Oblivious to the domestic chit-chat,

Granddad Gu Yong Xiu

has serious matters on his mind.

Spring is the start of

the rice growing season.

The success of the crop will determine

how well the family will eat next year,

so planting at the right time

is critical.

The ideal date depends on what

the weather will do this year,

never easy to predict.

But there is some surprising help

at hand.

On the ceiling of the Songs' living

room, a pair of red-rumped swallows,

newly arrived

from their winter migration,

is busy fixing up last year's nest.

In China, animals are valued

as much for their symbolic meaning

as for any good they may do.

Miao people believe that swallow pairs

remain faithful for life,

so their presence is a favour

and a blessing,

bringing happiness to a marriage

and good luck to a home.

Like most Miao dwellings,

the Songs' living room windows

look out over the paddy fields.

From early spring,

one of these windows is always left open

to let the swallows come and go freely.

Each year, granddad Gu notes

the exact day the swallows return.

Miao people believe the birds' arrival

predicts the timing of the season ahead.

This year, they were late.

So Gu and the other

community elders have agreed

that rice planting

should be delayed accordingly.

As the Miao prepare

their fields for planting,

the swallows collect mud

to repair their nests

and chase after insects

across the newly ploughed paddies.

Finally, after weeks of preparation,

the ordained time for planting

has arrived.

But first the seedlings must be

uprooted from the nursery beds

and bundled up ready

to be transported to their new paddy

higher up the hillside.

All the Songs' neighbours have turned

out to help with the transplanting.

It's how the community

has always worked.

When the time comes,

the Songs will return the favour.

While the farmers

are busy in the fields,

the swallows fly back and forth

with material for their nest.

Many hands make light work.

Planting the new paddy

takes little more than an hour.

Job done, the villagers can relax,

at least until tomorrow.

But for the nesting swallows,

the work of raising a family

has only just begun.

In the newly planted fields,

little egrets hunt for food.

The rice paddies harbour tadpoles,

fish and insects

and the egrets have chicks to feed.

This colony in Chongqing Province

was established in 1996,

when a few dozen birds built nests

in the bamboo grove

behind Yang Guang village.

Believing they were a sign of luck,

local people initially protected

the egrets and the colony grew.

But their attitude changed

when the head of the village fell ill.

They blamed the birds

and were all set to destroy their nests,

when the local government

stepped in to protect them.

Bendy bamboo may not be

the safest nesting place,

but at least this youngster

won't end up as someone's dinner.

These chicks have just had an eel

delivered by their mum,

quite a challenge for little beaks.

(CHIRPING)

Providing their colonies are protected,

wading birds like egrets

are among the few wild creatures

which benefit directly from

intensive rice cultivation.

Growing rice needs lots of water.

But even in the rainy south,

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