Synopsis
Steve Backshall lifts the lid on an incredible world of intricate relationships and unexpected hardship in the Amazon rainforest, explores the way that the jungle's inhabitants interact, and reveals a hidden secret that might just be what keeps the whole place alive.
- Programme: Nature's Microworlds
- Episode: 03: Amazon
- Channel: BBC Four
- Broadcast year: 2012
- Geography
Licence: ERA Licence required
Free to watch for UK schools, colleges and universities with an ERA Licence
UK only
Staff and students of licensed education establishments only
Cannot be adapted
Add Notes
More clips from Nature's Microworlds
01: Galapagos | Nature's Microworlds
01: Galapagos | Nature's Microworlds
The Galapagos is home to a myriad of bizarre and unique creatures endemic to these islands, but how did they get here and what is the ke...
02: Serengeti | Nature's Microworlds
02: Serengeti | Nature's Microworlds
A look at one of the most famous habitats on the planet, the Serengeti in east Africa, a vast grassland that is home to some of the grea...
04: Monterey Bay | Nature's Microworlds
04: Monterey Bay | Nature's Microworlds
Steve Backshall looks at the unique geography of California's Monterey Bay, its kelp forest bursting with life from microscopic plank...
05: Okavango | Nature's Microworlds
05: Okavango | Nature's Microworlds
Steve Backshall reveals the secret to the existence of the Okavango, the world's largest inland delta and home to one of Africa's greates...
06: Svalbard | Nature's Microworlds
06: Svalbard | Nature's Microworlds
In the northerly region of Svalbard, Steve Backshall unravels the secrets that lie covered in ice for most of each year in the home of th...
07: Canada's Coastal Forests | Nature's Microworlds
07: Canada's Coastal Forests | Nature's Microworlds
Steve Backshall reveals why Canada's coastal forest is home to huge trees and some of the greatest aggregations of top pr...
08: Great Barrier Reef | Nature's Microworlds
08: Great Barrier Reef | Nature's Microworlds
Steve Backshall visits Australia's Great Barrier Reef to discover the conditions that let a tiny coral building block create Ea...
09: Namib Desert | Nature's Microworlds
09: Namib Desert | Nature's Microworlds
Steve Backshall visits the Namib in Africa, where animals use clever tactics to combat the heat. He reveals the unique secret that al...
10: Yellowstone | Nature's Microworlds
10: Yellowstone | Nature's Microworlds
In Yellowstone National Park, where wolves, bears, coyotes, bison and elk roam vast grasslands, wetlands and forests, Steve Backshall ...
11: The Deep Sea | Nature's Microworlds
11: The Deep Sea | Nature's Microworlds
Steve Backshall plumbs the ocean depths to find an array of beautiful and bizarre creatures, from 40m-long jellyfish to grotesque ang...
12: Australia's Red Centre | Nature's Microworlds
12: Australia's Red Centre | Nature's Microworlds
Steve Backshall reveals huge kangaroos, the world's most venomous snake and a burrowing toad living among the throng of ani...
13: Scottish Highlands | Nature's Microworlds
13: Scottish Highlands | Nature's Microworlds
Steve Backshall shows how the two contrasting landscapes of open moor and Caledonian forest are both crucially important to the...
Keeping cool | Nature's Microworlds
Keeping cool | Nature's Microworlds
The Namaqua chameleon has developed an ingenious tactic to avoid the heat of the Namib desert.
More resources about Tropical rainforests
Episode 5 | Amazon with Bruce Parry
Episode 5 | Amazon with Bruce Parry
Bruce Parry explores the Amazon rainforest. He meets the millionaires of Manaus, lives and works with illegal gold miners and sleeps in t...
Battle for the Amazon | Amazon Specials
Battle for the Amazon | Amazon Specials
What has happened to the Amazon rainforest since the 1980s? This report reveals that the battle for the Amazon is now fiercer than ever.
Episode 2 | Simon Reeve's South America
Episode 2 | Simon Reeve's South America
Simon travels through Brazil, from the heart of the Amazon rainforest to the coast and the glamorous-but-troubled city of Rio de Jane...
04: Jungles - People of the Trees | Human Planet
04: Jungles - People of the Trees | Human Planet
Series examining man's survival in extreme environments. A look at life in the rainforest, which requires great skill, ingen...
Episode 6 | Amazon with Bruce Parry
Episode 6 | Amazon with Bruce Parry
Bruce Parry reaches the end of his Amazon adventure in Brazil's Para state where huge areas of forest are being cut down for cattle farming.
01: Tropical Worlds | The Green Planet
01: Tropical Worlds | The Green Planet
Tropical rainforests are plant battlegrounds. New filming techniques allow us to enter the world of plants to see it from their perspe...
S01E02: Mashpi Lodge, Ecuador | Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond the Lobby
S01E02: Mashpi Lodge, Ecuador | Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond the Lobby
Giles Coren and Monica Galetti head to the Andean Cloud Forest of Ecuador to work at Mashpi Lodge, a $1...
Episode 1 | I Bought a Rainforest
Episode 1 | I Bought a Rainforest
Series following wildlife cameraman Charlie Hamilton James, who has bought 100 acres of Peruvian rainforest. Charlie establishes camp and m...
03: Congo | Africa
03: Congo | Africa
David Attenborough's breathtaking journey through Africa. In the Congo, animals must stand up and fight for their patch, and head off stiff competition.
S03E01E1: Matis | Tribe
S03E01E1: Matis | Tribe
Explorer Bruce Parry travels to the Amazon rainforest to live with the Matis, a tribe once devastated by western disease who are determined to preser...
06: Rainforests | Deep into the Wild
06: Rainforests | Deep into the Wild
With deadly snakes, billions of bugs, flamboyant birdlife and tree topping monkeys, Nick gets to grips with the explosion of wildlife in...
S04E07: Borneo | Deadly 60
S04E07: Borneo | Deadly 60
Although we can't just stop using palm oil - farmers need to grow it to provide an income for their families and as a product it's highly efficien...
Species of tree | Planet Earth
Species of tree | Planet Earth
In the New Guinea rainforest, different species of tree fight for sunlight.
Episode 4 | Amazon with Bruce Parry
Episode 4 | Amazon with Bruce Parry
Bruce Parry reaches the halfway point of his epic journey in the vast nature reserve of Mamiraua, home to the Amazon's most iconic specie...
01: Congo | Wilderness with Simon Reeve
01: Congo | Wilderness with Simon Reeve
Simon Reeve battles his way across the Congo, braving thick jungle and tropical swamps in search of the people and the wildlife who m...
Episode 2 | I Bought a Rainforest
Episode 2 | I Bought a Rainforest
Series following wildlife cameraman Charlie Hamilton James, who has bought 100 acres of Peruvian rainforest. Four months on, Charlie's gran...
Heights of diversity | The Living Planet
Heights of diversity | The Living Planet
David Attenborough discusses the rainforest climate and explains where earth's rainforests are located.
Episode 1 | Amazon with Bruce Parry
Episode 1 | Amazon with Bruce Parry
Bruce Parry begins an epic adventure in the Amazon. The first part of his journey takes him from the High Andes to the Ashaninka tribe.
Episode 2 | Amazon with Bruce Parry
Episode 2 | Amazon with Bruce Parry
Bruce Parry voyages along the entire length of the Amazon. Continuing his trip, the adventurer wears a black dress for an extremely unusu...
Fungi | Planet Earth
Fungi | Planet Earth
The high humidity of the rainforest creates the ideal environment for life built on decay.
More from Steve Backshall
Devil rays leaping | Nature's Greatest Dancers
Devil rays leaping | Nature's Greatest Dancers
Devil rays do acrobatic leaps out of the sea at the edge of the shoal to encourage shrimp into the mouths of the other rays.
S01E01 | Our Changing Planet
S01E01 | Our Changing Planet
Steve Backshall, Chris Packham and Ella Al-Shamahi visit the Maldives, Iceland and Cambodia, charting the fight to save the planet’s most endang...
02: Great Barrier Reef | Blue Planet Revisited
02: Great Barrier Reef | Blue Planet Revisited
To find out what the future holds for the Great Barrier Reef, scientists monitor green turtles, follow families of breeding bi...
Bat Doctor | Lost Land of the Volcano
Bat Doctor | Lost Land of the Volcano
An injured bat needs nursing back to full health and the team examine the rare adaptation of the striped possum.
S04E07: Borneo | Deadly 60
S04E07: Borneo | Deadly 60
Although we can't just stop using palm oil - farmers need to grow it to provide an income for their families and as a product it's highly efficien...
03: Mexico Part 1 | Undiscovered Worlds with Steve Backshall
03: Mexico Part 1 | Undiscovered Worlds with Steve Backshall
Steve Backshall leads an elite cave diving team into the largest unexplored cave network on earth. Below a Mexic...
Japanese macaques have a lifestyle unlike all other monkeys | Japan's Northern Wilderness
Japanese macaques have a lifestyle unlike all other monkeys | Japan's Northern Wilderness
Naturalist Steve Backshall and double Olympic gold medallist Helen Glover take a lo...
Episode 1 | Wild Alaska Live
Episode 1 | Wild Alaska Live
A new series on a spectacular wildlife event, live from Alaska with Steve Backshall, Matt Baker and Liz Bonnin. Bears, eagles and orca are gathe...
Live interview interrupted by a blue whale | Big Blue Live
Live interview interrupted by a blue whale | Big Blue Live
Steve Backshall's interview with whale expert Doris Welch is cut short when, against all odds, the team spot a Blu...
25: Antarctica | Deadly Pole to Pole
25: Antarctica | Deadly Pole to Pole
Steve's journey finally comes to an end at the land of extremes - the least inhabited, remotest, highest, driest, coldest and windiest c...
Keeping cool | Nature's Microworlds
Keeping cool | Nature's Microworlds
The Namaqua chameleon has developed an ingenious tactic to avoid the heat of the Namib desert.
Secret Wilderness - Japan | Wild
Secret Wilderness - Japan | Wild
Steve Backshall discovers Japan's wilderness, from majestic cranes dancing in subzero temperatures in the north to giant salamanders hanging...
Episode 2 | Expedition Borneo
Episode 2 | Expedition Borneo
Wildlife adventure series following a team of explorers in the heart of the tropical island of Borneo. The team begins searching for jungle ele...