The Living Planet: A Portrait of the Earth is a BBC nature documentary series written and presented by David Attenborough, first transmitted in the UK from 19 January 1984.

However, before the latter, Attenborough wrote and presented two shorter series: The First Eden (1987), about man's relationship with the natural habitats of the Mediterranean, and Lost Worlds, Vanished Lives (1989), concerning the discovery of fossils.

Some subjects proved even more challenging: the production team had to wait two years for news to arrive of an erupting volcano, and had to suspend all other filming in the hope that it would still be alight when they reached it.

For the episode "The Sky Above", the series' makers managed to secure the services of NASA, and the use of its gravity research aircraft, affectionately known as the Vomit Comet.

One new piece of equipment used was a scuba diving suit with a large, fully enclosed faceplate, allowing Attenborough to speak (and be seen) underwater.

To show the force of nature responsible for this, Attenborough stands in front of an erupting volcano in Iceland and handles a piece of basalt; the Giant's Causeway is an example of what happens to it over a great length of time.

The Icelandic volcanoes represent the northern end of a fissure that is mostly underwater and runs down one side of the globe, forming volcanic islands en route where it is above sea level.

Africa's mountains are permanently snow-covered, and beneath peaks such as Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya, there are unique communities of plants and animals.

Giant Senecioss and Lobelias combat this by (among other adaptations) insulating their growing points or stems with a dense layers of leaves or producing pectin-filled water reservoirs.

They include Arctic foxes, polar bears, lemmings, snowy owls, and the region's most powerful hunter, the Inuit.

Pine cone seeds provide one of the few foods available at this time of year, and large herbivores such as the moose must also rely on their fat reserves.

Further south, the warmer climate sees the pine trees give way to broad-leaved species, such as the oak and beech.

At the onset of winter, many animals in these forests hibernate, and in America, Attenborough uncovers the den of a black bear, which can be asleep for six months at a time.

Finally, further south still, Attenborough discovers the effects of forest fires, which are not so destructive as they appear – the areas affected rejuvenate themselves within a couple of months, with more flowers than before.

Attenborough ascends a Ceiba pentandra (kapok) in the South American tropical rainforest to observe "the greatest proliferation of life that you can find anywhere on the surface of the Earth."

Tree roots therefore rely on a kind of compost formed from decaying leaves — a process that is greatly accelerated in the natural humidity.

At such low levels, lizards prey on insects, praying mantises eat grasshoppers, spiders hunt anything they can and dung beetles clear up the mess.

3,000 kilometres to the north, in Venezuela, the clay soil enables the Llanos to hold flood water, and some creatures, such as the capybara, relish it.

Only 3% of the world's water is fresh, and Attenborough describes the course of the Amazon, starting high up in the Andes of Peru, whose streams flow into the great river.

Broadcast 15 March 1984, this instalment details coastal environments and the effect of tides, of which the highest can be found in the Bay of Fundy in North America.

Other estuary wading birds, which have developed a multitude of techniques for gathering food from mud flats, include godwits, curlews, dunlins, ringed plovers and avocets.

Where waves meet rocks and cliffs, the bands between low and high tides are narrow, and creatures have developed according to their dietary and safety needs.

On a Costa Rican beach, Attenborough observes female ridley turtles arriving at the rate of some 5,000 an hour to deposit their eggs.

Living in such isolation seems to allow some species to outgrow their mainland cousins, and Attenborough observes a group of feeding Komodo dragons at close quarters.

The volcanic islands of Hawaii have become rich in vegetation and therefore a multitude of colonists: for example, there are at least 800 species of drosophila that are unique to the area.

Attenborough remarks that it is man who has been most responsible for changing ocean environments by fishing relentlessly, but in doing so has also created new ones for himself – and this leads to the final episode.

Much of the UK's landscape is man-made: for example, the South Downs were once a forest and the Norfolk Broads are the flooded remains of pits dug 600 years ago.

While humans are good at managing unwanted species (such as rats and other vermin), Attenborough argues that man has failed to look after natural resources and highlights the ignorance in assuming that the Earth has an infinite capacity to absorb waste.

Somewhat shy and not always easy to film in his natural habitat, we're lucky here to see the David Attenborough at work on his latest and greatest project, The Living Planet.

He enjoys this rather strange, symbiotic relationship with the BBC, an odd and apparently friendly organism, whose workings we do not yet fully understand..."