Documentaries
HD, 16:9, 28 min - ZDF Planet e
The illegal trade in endangered species is a billion dollar business. The biggest driving force: the increasing demand in China and the Far East. Even apes sell like hotcakes there. The environmental activist Karl Ammann pursues the trail of the “stolen apes”.
"Ida completed" - The story of a Primate Fossil from Messel
HD, 16:9, 26 min. - Senckenberg - Woirld of Biodiversity
In May 2009 worldwide attention was attracted by a primate fossil named "Ida" - scientifically known as Darwinius masillae. In spring 2010 the two original plates A + B of Ida were united for the first time and could be marvelled at in the Senckenberg Museum in Frankfurt. The film illustrates how the research based on detailed X-ray and tomography images is being continued and the new conclusions being drawn from the results.
"Primeval times at Ghost Lake" - In Search of the Messel of Today
SD (HD), 16:9, 43 min. - ARTE
The Messel Pit, the remnant of a 47 million year old lake, is located in a wooded area between Darmstadt and Langen Dieburg. A paradise for fossilized animals and plants. A former lake of the Eocene, the age of the goddess of Dawn. Once surrounded by tropical jungle. and until recently, the only world heritage site in Germany.
Scientists from the Senckenberg Research Institute are looking for a habitat corresponding to the one of Messel, a primeval scenario in the present, a 1:1 copy of the Messel lake.
Their search for traces lead the researchers to East Asia, to the last remaining ancient forests of Sumatra. Here an ominous ghost lake awaits them, which the locals fear. Undecayed bodies would float in it , and anyone who sees it would die on the same day. Never before has a film crew been up there – let alone scientists in search of prehistory.
"The Evolution of Horses“ – On the Search of the Ancient Horses of Today
SD, 4:3, 15 min. - ZDF Infokanal
A film about the evolution of horses, their encounter with early humans and their long journey from Asia into Europe - and an inconspicuous pony in the southwest of England, which is perhaps the last tahki Europe.
"World Heritage Nature" - Artenschutz im Grenzbereich
SD (HD), 16:9, 15 min. - ZDF Infokanal
In the northeastern part of Poland, the togetherness of man and nature is still different. Here, encounters with wolves and shaggy bison almost belong to the order of the day. Correspondingly pragmatic is, or better was, the attitude towards the protection of unique natural treasures: Wood is just a commodity, bison ravage fields, and wolves are a potential hazard. Gradually, a change is beginning to emerge - for a weak region of development and nature conservation a chance alike. Large parts of the forest of Bialowieza may not be entered or only with special permits - for reasons of conservation. It is a mixed forest with centuries-old oaks, mighty elms, towering Linden and slim spruce, pine and alder in between. One last refuge for an incredible biodiversity and on top of that the only transboundary World Heritage Site and Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in Poland and neighboring Belarus. In total, over 170,000 hectares of European primeval forest are under protection - divided by the demarcation line of the Polish-Belarusian border. And it is hoped that the protection zone will be extended in the near future.
"World Heritage Nature: The Primeval Forest of the Bison"
SD (HD), 16:9, 15 min. - ZDF Infokanal
The Bialowieza Forest is a huge forest complex on both sides of the border between Poland and Belarus, and the last refuge for the plains bison. The bison threatens danger of destruction of forests and by genetic degeneration. The fifth episode of the series "World Heritage Nature" reports on a current project of the Frankfurt Zoological Society, which will help to ensure the survival of bison in the Bialowieza Forest.
"World Heritage Nature: Species Decline in Paradise" - Man and Nature on Lord Howe Island
SD, 4: 3, 15 min. - ZDF Infochannel
Lord Howe Island belongs to the World Heritages of mankind - and yet it is a delicate balance between man and nature, which prevails here. Ian Hutton is a biologist and dedicated naturalist. He shares his island home with hundreds of thousands of breeding seabirds. But the size of the breeding colonies has been declining for years. Ian Hutton wants to bring light into the darkness of breeding success, growth rates, migration patterns and population sizes - and to preserve Lord Howe for posterity. Despite a few dozens of introduced animals and 300 plant species, hordes of rats, some goats and about ten thousand tourists per year.
"World Heritage Nature: Treasury of Life" - The Lord Howe Islands in the South Pacific
SD, 4: 3, 15 min. - ZDF Infochannel
A mere 2,000 football fields or the area of the Munich borough Allach-Untermenzing measures the archipelago in the far reaches of the southern Pacific Ocean and yet it is full of superlatives: Lord Howe - a paradise for breeding seabirds and brimming with oddities from the cabinet of curiosities of creation, which are only to be found here. Early sailors and hosts of introduced plant and animal species have finished off many native birds. Over the past 200 years, nine of the fifteen, mostly flightless land bird species from Lord Howe disappeared from the scene of life.
"World Heritage Nature: Messel - An ancient horse goes 3D" - From Fossils to (re) animation
SD, 4: 3, 15 min. - ZDF Infochannel
The Senckenberg Museum in Frankfurt is not only the largest natural history museum in Germany, but also a science center of international reputation. Not only the permanent collection shines in multimedia design, also the current research on primeaval times is dominated by high-tech devices, including special x-ray equipment and micro-tomography. Here the fossils of the World Heritage Site Messel Pit are screened in the truest sense. A 47-million-year Propalaeotherium becomes the model for paleontological research excellence. Huge 3D scanner and high performance computing bring a long-extinct organism back to life - and provide surprising insights. The first step on the way to exact reconstruction of a bygone world of life.
"World Heritage Nature: Messel - The Creation of a Natural Wonder"
SD, 4: 3, 15 min. - ZDF Infochannel
Scenically the Messel Pit is not exactly a piece of jewelry. Experts describe it as an exploitation landscape. The layman cannot recognize much more in it but a giant hole. Also its story is changeable: formerly an open-cast mining pit, almost a landfill - and now a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. About natural treasures is not very much to be seen at a first glance. They are stored, hidden under bushes and debris, undiscovered in the rock. Messel is a "window to the prehistoric times" - unique in the world. It became famous by a black mudstone with its delicate fossils.
"In the outback of Europe" - An Eco-Experiment in Southern Portugal
SD, 16: 9, 15 min. ZDF Infochannel
In the Alentejo in southern Portugal, one of the poorest rural exodus regions of Europe, a family and continuing education center develops as a model. Even the title says it all: "Children of the Future". Report on a somewhat unusual project.
"Dragons in the oil field" - The Monitor Lizards of Barrow Island
SD, 4: 3, 15 min. ZDF Infochannel
Perenties are not the biggest, but without a doubt the most beautiful among the last real existing dragons. Its appearance is graceful, the coloration elegant, but they are huge eaters. On a tiny island off the coast of Western Australia the stately lizards control the surplus of rare Marsupial species that are extinct elsewhere. For twenty-five years, they have been sharing their territory with men in blue overalls and steel pipelines. Set against the backdrop of drilling rigs and burning gas torches extends a unique laboratory of evolution.
"Maintaining Pasture Woodlands with Large Grazing Animals in the Solling" - A Film about a Model Project for European Low Mountain Ranges
SD, 4: 3, 52 min. - DVD
To maintain open wastelands large grazing animals are increasingly used nowadays. The spectrum ranges from wild horses to water buffalo. Also pasture woodlands with its old oak forests can be preserved easily this way. Our film illuminates such a nature conservation project of the first hour in the highlands of the Solling.
"Return of the Aurochs" - The Wood-Pasture Project in the Solling
Part 1: "Ancient Races, New Ways" - Landscape and Wildlife Conservation in a Different Way
Part 2: "Wood-Pastures - Hotspots of Biodiversity in Europe"
SD, 4: 3, 15 min each. ZDF Infochannel
Landscape conservation and species protection could also look very different than usual. Instead of chain saws and forestry equipment in the protected forests, instead of barring orders for people in forest nature reserves, long since better methods are available, which lead the way to a revival of the declining European biodiversity. Since the year 2000, in the Solling-Vogler nature reserve, near to the small village Amelith (County Northeim / Lower Saxony), only about an hour away from the metropolitan areas of Hanover, Göttingen, Kassel, Paderborn and Bielefeld-Gütersloh, Heck cattle and Exmoor ponies have been undertaken a task essentially related to them: they help to obtain an ancient cultural landscape with magnificent old oaks - and thus secure a refuge for many endangered animal and plant species. Furthermore, the area with its extensive pasture woodlands is a major tourist attraction. Meanwhile the project has gained important successes and - after a nearly five-year term - goes into prolongation with the support of the federal government, lottery Foundation and EU. It has become a crowd puller and the conservation showcase of the region. Reason enough for a richly documented review and the illumination of the prospects of an internationally noticed model project in the triangle between Lower Saxony, Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia.