Taming the Wild Europe: A Natural History

Europe.

For two million years, ice has swept the continent...

..not just once but many times.

Then, some 20,000 years ago,

the bitter climate begins to ease its grip.

The continent is formed into the greenest on Earth.

And now a new force of change is gathering momentum.

This force will have a relentless impact on Europe's wildlife...

..its margins and inland forests

and across the face of the land.

This is the story of the struggle between man and nature

and the taming of the wild.

Ten thousand years ago, Europe is a land of virgin forest.

Just a few millennia earlier,

this was a treeless tundra roamed by herds of mammoth and reindeer.

Now Europe's milder, more pleasant seasons attract waves of new immigrants.

With the wood so impenetrable, the easiest access is along the newly formed waterways.

These early hunter-gatherers follow the sweeping meanders of the Danube, Rhine and Rhone...

..drawn by the abundance of fish, plants and waterfowl.

This is a totally new world, entirely different from the recent past.

The thick understory is no place for migrating herds of large animals.

Big game is rare.

JUVENILES SQUEAL

But there are many other opportunities.

By creating forest clearings, early hunters find simple ways to lure their prey.

man is not the only hunter.

BOWSTRING CREAKS

GRUNTS AND SOFT GROWLS

LOW SNARL

Hey-ah! Ha!

people and predators have long been rivals -

enemies -

but they share an interest in finding food.

And as the lives of animals and people begin to merge,

a new approach is born...

..the taming of the wild.

As hunter-gatherers roam the lush, green heart of Europe,

a radically new way of life dawns on the south-eastern fringes,

one that will transform almost the entire continent.

Europe's first farmers.

Around 8,000 years ago, they set to work

exploiting the fertile landscape

of the eastern Mediterranean.

These newcomers have island-hopped from the Near east, lured by the gentle climate and rich soils.

They have brought with them some unique goods,

key plants, tools and animals used for generations back in Mesopotamia,

the cradle of civilisation.

Even in the Stone Age, Europe's farmers have enormous impact.

They soon replace hundreds of wild plants species with just a handful of their own -

emmer-wheat, barley, rye and olives.

If hunter-gatherers had never become farmers, the woodlands might have remained unscathed.

But now the seeds of change have been sown.

WOMAN SINGS

With enough food available all year round, and with plenty of surplus,

people can begin to settle.

The forest canopies that once covered Crete and Malta now give way

to fields and pastures.

Agriculture flourishes at the expense of the wild.

In the eastern grasslands,

the early settlers exploit another revolutionary resource,

wild animals that can be easily tamed.

IT SNORTS

From the Middle East came goats and sheep, brought in by the immigrant farmers.

THEY BLEAT

Soon, these animals would spread across the entire continent

and ultimately contribute to its deforestation.

From the shores of the Mediterranean agriculture is now on the move.

Mnajdra, one of the many sun temples on the island of Malta

erected by Europe's farmers more than 7,000 years ago.

These are the world's oldest standing buildings, calendars of stone

marking the times of sowing and harvesting,

shrines of a civilisation in perfect synchrony with nature.

Like the rising sun,

this new way of life creeps its way across the continent.

In just 2,00 years,

it reached the Atlantic.

At Carnac in France,

these standing stones are a testament to a once-thriving farming community.

Elaborate monuments like these

are symbols of the massive changes to the European landscape,

of settlement and ownership.

Of the thousands of Megalithic sites,

this is one of the youngest and the most imposing of them all,

Stonehenge, an enormous feat of engineering constructed with mathematical precision.

Over a hundred generations lived to its rhythms

4,000 years ago,

Europe's primeval forests are assaulted by another demand...

..more aggressive than even before...

and in remote areas so far untouched...

..metal making.

The smelting of copper and bronze soon spreads from the Balkans and Cyprus across much of Europe.

But as early as 2,000 BC,

the flourishing metal industry on Cyprus collapses.

It fails not because of the shortage of ore but the lack of timber.

Metal means wealth and power.

Metal deposits scattered across the continent become the key incentive for conquest.

And out of these struggles emerges Europe's mightiest superpower.

600 BC.

The Roman Empire is on the march.

Its aim is not just conquest

but the civilisation of wild Europe.

"Conquer with sword AND spade" is the mission-statement of the Roman army,

making it the biggest road building enterprise ever.

"All roads lead to Rome", the saying goes.

But the opposite is true.

All roads spread from Rome.

As if capturing a wild animal, the empire cast a network of roads across the continent

from Italy to Britain and from Turkey to Spain.

"Via est vita", says the Roman proverb,

"The road is life."

The constant flow of livestock, goods and ideas between the "Eternal City"

and the most distant corners of the empire would shape Europe's societies, landscapes and wildlife

for thousands of years to come.

COWBELLS CLANK

Cattle and grain pour in toward the capital.

Mediterranean animals and plants spread in the opposite direction

in what is one of the warmest periods in Europe's more recent history.

Roman culture travels on mule-back.

The mule is a hybrid of donkey and horse non-existent in wild nature.

It is mass-bred by the Romans as an all-terrain, all-purpose carrier.

Endless caravans transport olive oil, cheese, wine and weapons...

and raw metals.

Tin is perhaps the only reason Rome conquered some of the colder and less inviting corners of the continent.

THE tin mines of Cornwall,

prized throughout antiquity, would be worked until modern times.

500 years of systematic clearing

has pushed Rome's wildwood frontiers far north.

Only beyond the Rhine and the Danube...

GROANING BELLOW

..true wilderness still exists.

DISTANT CUCKOO CALLS

But even in these remote woodlands, wildlife is no longer safe.

There's a price on the head of big animals.

And catching them is big business.

IT ROARS

Roman trade reaches out to the remotest fringes of the continent

to regions as far north as Scotland and Siberia.

Tens of thousands of bears, wolves and lions are taken

to supply a gigantic entertainment industry.

By the first century AD, in Europe's forests the brown bear is almost extinct.

In the huge amphitheatres of major cities and in Rome's Coliseum, the populace screams for fresh blood

each afternoon.

Even small garrison towns had their circus games,

often in a makeshift arena.

CROWD YELL

BEAR GROWLS

Day after day across the empire, thousands of wild creatures are slaughtered.

Then, abruptly, the glory that is Rome comes to an end.

A brutal change of climate hastens its downfall.

Failing crops force northern tribes to flee their homelands.

Wildlife reclaims the fields and pastures.

It seems as if a new ice age is arriving.

For the first time in centuries, the frontier rivers freeze over

and invaders can cross the frozen Danube and the Rhine on foot.

WIND WHOOSHES

The greatest empire on the European continent has imposed order

for nearly a thousand years.

But its power crumbles within decades

and with it, its palaces, its cities and its roads.

Yet Rome's legacy remains inscribed on the landscape.

In some places, like Hadrian's Wall in northern England, it's plain to see.

Within the borders of the Roman Empire,

some corners have remained totally unexploited...

written off as sterile badlands.

this is not North Africa.

It's Spain, sun-parched and thirsty.

Towering over the desert are the snowy peaks of the country's highest mountain range,

the Sierra Nevada.

These mountains hold the key to the region's potential wealth.

Meltwater.

In the right hands, this treasure will pay dividends.

After the fall of Rome, waves of invaders have come and gone.

The ones to stay are an army of canal-builders,

Berber and Arab tribes from the northern rim of the Sahara.

For thousands of years, they have tapped the snows of Morocco's mountains,

bringing the desert to life.

The Moors, as they came to be called, are experts at harnessing the flow of water.

From the eighth century on, they bring their expertise to Spain.

They construct dams, reservoirs and aqueducts

and intricate networks of canals, tens of thousands of kilometres of conduits large and small.

To irrigate, they must first level the ground.

Centuries after their arrival, every hillside within reach of a canal is terraced.

In 700 years, the Moors turn Europe's driest land into orchards.

The new fruits they cultivate are reminders of the African heritage they've stamped on Spain's landscape.

Working miracles with water, the Moors create some of Europe's finest gardens.

The Alhambra,

the seat of Granada's Moslem kings, is a celebration of their favourite element...

a fantasy of fountains and fragrances,

of marble and alabaster.

Throughout the Middle Ages,

the societies that succeed the Romans have left their varied imprints on the land.

CHURCH BELLS RING

But the land in turn is reflected in the people's culture.

Nowhere is this more apparent than on the far side of the continent.

Scandinavia, Europe's Arctic fringe.

Cold fogs.

Dark winters.

No fertile soil for farmers.

But the seas are alive.

Here, the Gulf Stream meets cold, nutrient-rich waters

feeding a wealth of plankton and vast shoals of fish.

This far north...

life on land depends directly on life in the sea.

Ever since the Gulf Stream freed the fjords from Ice Age glaciers,

settlers have come to these coasts to harvest the ocean.

But as communities grew, many were forced to move on

and discover distant, greener shores.

These northern tribes have become fearless navigators and enterprising traders.

Their ships, known as knorrs, are built for heavy loads.

Drying cod as they go, the Vikings can undertake extended voyages

from the Baltic to the Black Sea

and from the North Sea to the Mediterranean.

They even reach America.

In Scandinavia, timber is still plentiful.

The Vikings ship it south, where even the woodlands that Rome has left standing are becoming patchy.

Europe's ancient trees had come crashing down

to clear land for farms, to build ships or houses

and for fuel.

Now, around the year 1,000, the wild woods suffer a fresh onslaught.

MALE VOICES: PLAINSONG

Once again, it is Rome that wields the axe.

The Roman Church takes up where the empire has left off. It founds scores of monasteries.

And their purpose is not purely spiritual.

many are given vast tracts of wooded land to clear.

The monks' mission is to also tame the wild.

Especially Cistercian monasteries like Tintern Abbey

use advanced farming techniques.

Their libraries are databases of botany and horticulture.

Religious rulings alter Europe's landscapes.

Most abbeys are soon surrounded by fish-farms,

although monks must fast for up to 150 days a year,

they merely abstain from meat

but not fish.

Across the continent, monastic fishponds create thousands of fresh havens for wildlife.

Yet some species suffer.

Beavers and pond turtles live in water, so the Church declares them to be "fish",

fir for consumption during fasts. They soon disappear.

An abbey's civilising mission bears fruit

when the wildwood-clearing of its first foundation becomes the site of a new town.

By the 14th C, one in eight people in Central Europe lives within town walls.

The streets of Europe's growing towns are paved with opportunity...

and not just for humans.

RAT SQUEAKS

Rats crowd into the new urban centres,

drawn by the wealth of food and refuse.

Their presence foreshadows a lethal threat to civilisation.

In the late 1340s, an epidemic flares across the continent like wildfire,

leaping from door to door and town to town.

In just three years, half the inhabitants of Europe are dead.

Rats arriving on ships from Asia carry fleas with a killer bacteria,

and the flea bites pass the Plague onto humans.

Old and young, rich and poor,

great and small succumb.

Many believe this to be the Apocalypse, the end of the world.

It will take Europe's human population 250 years to recover to its former levels.

For Europe's wildlife, this is a long breathing space.

After the tide of terror recedes, few people are left to plant or harvest the fields.

Herds of livestock run wild.

And Europe's big predators, shoved to the edge of extinction for centuries,

return for a heyday.

CATTLE LOW

WOLF WHIMPERS

HIGH-PITCHED WHINING

When humans flourish, wolves, bears and lynx are the first to suffer.

Over the centuries, only plagues or extended wars have given them a chance to recover.

Throughout the Middle Ages,

the higher Alpine forests have been cleared for grazing,

forcing the tree-line down.

But now, this constant attack is put on hold.

Europe's temperate climate means that, left alone,

most of the continent's regions would revert to their natural state, unbroken forest.

After the Black Death,

the wilds can now regenerate.

For the first time in thousands of years, animals enjoy increasing freedom.

As fields and pastures lie uncultivated year after year,

Europe's woodlands soon widen their territory,

filling up the farmland in an endless sea of trees.

But the truce does not last.

Late in the 16th C, the forests face the biggest assault ever.

It is the era of Europe's great navies,

of overseas exploration

and of momentous wars for sea-power.

Tall ships need tall trees,

mature wood in many shapes and species.

10,000 trunks are toppled to construct the biggest vessels yet built...

..huge galleons.

Europe's prime timber is sent afloat to do battle.

July 1588. The greatest invasion fleet to date.

The Spanish Armada...

..meets its opponent, the English navy.

Outnumbered,

the English set fire ships adrift among the enemy anchored off Calais.

CRIES AND SHOUTED COMMANDS

The Armada boasts 120 vessels,

including 30 galleons - powerful, but difficult to manoeuvre.

Panic and flames force the floating fortresses out into the north sea.

As they round Scotland and Ireland,

a violent Atlantic storm batters the Spanish fleet,

shattering many of the ships.

Near the coast of Ireland...

Spain's finest forests sink to the sea floor.

Although the Armada has not changed the course of history,

some of its wreckage will.

In Ireland, gathering seaweed to fertilise the thin, impoverished soils

had long been a way of to better crops in the few, wind-protected valleys where wheat grows well.

But what washes ashore in the surf that summer of 1588,

will revolutionise Ireland's - and ultimately Europe's - staple crops forever.

To the locals, a shipwreck near the coast is a stroke of good fortune.

This time, they scarcely know just how lucky they are.

Potatoes first made the journey from the New World to Spain decades earlier, with Columbus.

They prove ideal rations for the Spanish navy.

To the rest of Europe, they're virtually unknown.

Irish farmers soon discover that this foreign plant from the slopes of the Andes

is well suited to the short days, cold nights and poor soils of their island -

better than anything they've planted before.

Soon, potatoes prosper where cereal crops failed.

The fate of the Irish rapidly becomes linked to a single plant.

Inside two centuries, fields and crops multiply tenfold.

So does the population to more than eight million.

But then, in the winter of 1845,

disaster strikes.

THUNDER RUMBLES

a stowaway from America, a fungus, rots the food stores in farm cellars.

The following year, it ravages fields and farms.

Within a few months, millions lose their livelihood.

Advancing 100 times faster than any other potato disease,

it infests the whole country

and sweeps on into mainland Europe.

This is the worst famine in Europe's history.

In Ireland, the body-count rises,

eventually reaching a million.

One and a half million impoverished survivors desert their stricken farms.

Their mass exodus signals a shift to a new era that has already begun in England...

..one that will alter the face of Europe more radically and rapidly than ever before.

This new economy is no longer based on crops

but on minerals and technology.

This is the mechanical age,

a steam-driven revolution accelerating at an unprecedented speed.

Machines now dictate the rhythm of life,

the movements of the body,

the rate of productivity.

Factories claw in crowds of labourers from rural districts to new industrial centres

around the coal fields.

New means of transportation link far-flung places.

canals run from coast to coast.

Coal fuels the revolution.

By the mid-1800s,

50 million tons go up in smoke each year,

choking and blackening England's towns.

In the most striking change to the landscape, sprawling cities swallow up green farmland.

The industrial revolution begins in England but soon, in the second half of the 19th C,

palls of smoke hang over continental Europe.

Here, at first, the industrial revolution is fuelled by wood,

especially around the Alps, where the remaining forests are plundered wholesale.

Rivers become conveyor belts.

Hundreds of thousands of foresters supply the iron industry with raw material for charcoal.

But so all-consuming are the furnaces

that in the long run, only the vast deposits of coal can satisfy their hunger.

For industries to reach beyond Europe's borders, they need efficient transportation...

giant, steel ships and an expanding rail network.

Britain exports railways all over Europe, linking port and mine to factory,

city to city, nation to nation.

For the first time, people can cover long distances with ease.

Now, inhabitant of smog-ridden towns

can escape to the countryside.

Suddenly, some are made aware of what is missing in their lives...

..clean air, wide open spaces...

..blue skies...

..and perhaps their greatest discovery...

..the silence of true wilderness.

Ever since humans set foot on this continent,

the Alpine peaks have been feared and avoided.

Up here, there was little to be gained.

But now, mountain-climbers, painters and poets, botanists and geologists...

..even ambitious photographers are crowding to these peaks

These sons and daughters of the Industrial Revolution discover

treasures that money cannot buy.

The most spectacular of these is the vast mountain wilderness

in the very centre of a tamed continent.

They descend with a powerful new message.

Wild Europe, in all its varied glory, is worth protecting for its own sake.

At the dawn of the 20th C,

this message comes just in time.

As modern cities sprawl, populations surge...

..man-made landscapes abound and ever-new inventions add to the human impact on land,

climate and wildlife...

Europe's journey through time begins to take a new direction

from consumption to coexistence...

with wild nature.

Europe's cities are turning into new wildlife havens,

and natural landscapes into protected sanctuaries.

Civilisation and nature are more and more entwined.

WHOOSHES AT EACH TURN

In Europe, wildlife is everywhere...

..on farmland, in planted forests and wildwoods

on city fringes and in the continent's remotest corners.

Now, in the new millennium...

it's in human hands to keep Europe wild.