“THE STATE OF THE PLANET’S WILDLIFE,” NEW EPISODE OF THE ACCLAIMED PBS SERIES, JOURNEY TO PLANET EARTH, PREMIERES TUESDAY, APRIL 18th, 2006 AT 9 P.M. ON PBS, HOSTED BY MATT DAMON, SPECIAL EXPLORES THE PERILOUS STATE OF EARTH’S ANIMALS


“Right now we know that at least 25% of the world’s 4000 or so mammal species are threatened or endangered.  Two out of three bird species are in decline worldwide. “ -- Steve Osofsky, Wildlife Conservation Society


Hosted and narrated by Academy Award® winner Matt Damon, THE STATE OF THE PLANET’S WILDLIFE (Tuesday, April 18th at 9 p.m.; check local listings) poses one of the most critical questions of the 21st century: why are nearly half of the world’s wildlife species facing extinction within the next few decades?  The program is a global investigation of what scientists call “the sixth great extinction of the world’s animals and plants.”  The documentary also includes spectacular wildlife photography in a visually stunning celebration of the beauty and diversity of the natural world.  Produced by Emmy® Award-winning filmmakers Marilyn and Hal Weiner, this is the ninth episode of their critically acclaimed environmental series, Journey To Planet Earth.

Specific case studies explore the loss of wildlife as a result of climate change, population and poverty pressures, poaching, the international bush-meat trade, and the loss of wildlife corridors. Shot on location around the world, THE STATE OF THE PLANET’S WILDLIFE visits the high country of Montana, Florida’s Everglades, South Africa, Singapore, Bangladesh, Kenya, Zambia, the Amazon, the Arctic, and China to present the variety of threats to animals today.

From severe drought to melting ice, from trophy hunting to loss of habitat through over development, THE STATE OF THE PLANET’S WILDLIFE examines the effects of these and other factors on wildlife.  There are also stories of hope and success, from ranchers learning to restore marshes and bird sanctuaries on their rangeland, to communities who have given up poaching to become stewards of the land, to diverse groups of citizens in Montana who came together to create wildlife corridors to protect endangered species such as the grizzly bear.

Host Matt Damon also directs viewers to the Journey To Planet Earth website www.pbs.org/journeytoplanetearth, where he introduces visitors to a variety of interactive features.  In conjunction with the PBS broadcast, museums and science centers around the country will be working under the guidance of the American Association for the Advancement of Science to offer exhibits and activities that complement the case studies profiled in the one-hour special.


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The Sixth Extinction

And while there have been other extinction crises this will be a dramatic alteration that will fundamentally threaten the future of humanity because we are all linked.  We are all part of this web of life. -- Bob Cook, Wildlife Conversation Society


Wildlife extinctions are not a new phenomena. During our planet’s long geological history – on at least five occasions – catastrophic events wiped out vast numbers of species.  The last great extinction happened sixty-five million years ago. That’s when a giant asteroid crashed into the Earth.  The ash sealed the fate of the dinosaurs along with over seventy-five percent of the world’s plants and animals.  But today, the threat of what scientists call – the sixth extinction – won’t come from outer space or a volcanic eruption.  The next extinction will be the result of human activities.  

Global Turf Wars

The Amazon year after year is being eaten away by major deforestation. And what we’re getting closer and closer to is a tipping point which will affect the whole system.  If you do lose the entire Amazon, you are losing probably one fifth of all the wild life species on earth. -- Tom Lovejoy, The Heinz Center

The sudden economic boom in China has brought problems with prosperity: the demand for meat and poultry—luxury items the Chinese used to be unable to afford—is consuming millions of acres to raise these animals.  When farmers in China need more soybeans to feed their pigs and poultry because their own grasslands have been overgrazed, they turn to the Amazon as their new grassland.  So in the Amazon, millions of acres of wildlife habitat are burned for farmland and cattle pastures to supply the needs of people half a world away.  

Wild species are facing the prospect of a kind of demographic winter, a period of time in which there are so many human beings on the planet and their economic needs are so great they have so dominated the planet that it’s very difficult for wildlife to survive. -- Bob Engelman, Population Action International

Florida’s Everglades have been under assault for decades; today, over 90% of the bird population is gone, and only 30 Florida panthers remain in the wild.  But here, a story of hope comes from an unlikely source:  cattle ranchers. Today’s ranchers are learning that by turning unused portions of their lands into wetland sanctuaries and filtering their agricultural run-off through these marshes, they can spare Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades from further pollution and even improve the health of this valuable ecosystem.

Poaching And The Wildlife Trade

What we’re essentially doing is creating what’s known as the empty forest syndrome.  And this means that we’re getting forests which look fantastic.  They’re full of wonderful trees but they’re losing their wildlife from inside them because it’s being hunted out.  And that means that we’re losing pollinators, dispersers, browsers and that’s likely to have a domino effect within the forest and will cause other species to go too, including species which are very important for medicines, for timber. --Elizabeth Bennett, Wildlife Conservation Society

Each year millions of animals are killed so the poor can earn enough for the bare necessities of life -- while the world's tigers are going extinct.  Each year millions of animals are killed to feed the hungry – while the world’s primates are going extinct.  Each year millions of animals become trophies for the wealthy -- or their body parts are turned into medicines and potions. And each year millions of animals are caged and illegally sold as exotic pets.  The loss of bird species is nearly unimaginable.  

Positive steps have been taken in some areas to prevent over hunting.  In Zambia, economic incentives have been offered to help farmers put aside snares and guns in return for help in making agriculture economically feasible.  

Global Climate Change

From polar bears in the Arctic, whose hunting grounds of sea ice are melting away, to grizzly bears in Montana, THE STATE OF THE PLANET’S WILDLIFE examines the very real — not theoretical — effects of global warming.  Animals driven from their habitats frequently have nowhere else to go, as their pathways are blocked by human development.

Yet in Montana’s Blackfoot River Valley, a coalition of ranchers, activists, and citizens have come together to restore thethe land and Valley and its famous river and live co-exist with its grizzliesgrizzly population, rather than isolate them into extinction.  Using new logging techniques, forests are thinned rather than clear-cut. And a species that vanished nearly 100 years ago — the trumpeter swan — has been reintroduced to the area.

Where We Are

You have to be realistic about the size and scope of the problems. They are unprecedented.  My optimism is that we will eventually see the nature and the global scale of these problems and at that point people will insist on developing and really working on solving the problem. -- Charles Kennel, Scripps Institution of Oceanography

In the end, the urgency to avoid a sixth extinction presents us with enormous challenges.  What we need now are the efforts of people everywhere, all those who are willing to find ways to strike the right balance between what we want and what our planet's wildlife can endure.

   
ABOUT THE SERIES - JOURNEY TO PLANET EARTH

Produced by Emmy Award winning filmmakers Marilyn and Hal Weiner and in association with South Carolina ETV, Journey To Planet Earth is the only continuing primetime television series that deals exclusively with the most critical environmental and sustainable development issues of the 21st century.

Each episode of the series is supported by an educational outreach initiative featuring leaders guides and teaching materials for informal and formal education, a comprehensive web site hosted by PBS (www.pbs.org/journeytoplanetearth/), a companion web site for children hosted by the New York Hall of Science (www.tryscience.com) strategic partnerships with science museums and environmental organizations, and a publicity campaign to raise public awareness of the series and its complementary outreach activities.

Journey To Planet Earth episodes are also broadcast in major overseas television markets, including those in Western and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, China, Japan, Australia, Singapore, Brazil and Canada.  The series currently yields a worldwide audience of over 40 million people per episode.  

Thanks to strong reviews and recommendations by the School Library Journal, Booklist, The Journal Of Academic Librarianship, and the California Instructional Technology Clearinghouse, over 7,000 videos or DVDs of the series have been acquired by college and school media libraries throughout North America, with an annual audience of approximately 650,000 students.  

The two most recent episodes of JOURNEY TO THE PLANET EARTH – The State of the Planet and Future Conditional — were broadcast in April 2005.  They were selected from over 1,300 submissions from 30 countries as the best environmental films at the U.S. International Film and Video Festival.


ABOUT THE HOST AND NARRATOR -- MATT DAMON

MATT DAMON is one of Hollywood’s most sought-after talents. He is currently filming The Good Shepherd for director Robert DeNiro, in which he stars with Angelina Jolie.  Most recently he completed shooting The Departed for director Martin Scorsese, starring alongside Leonardo DiCaprio and Jack Nicholson.

Earlier this year audiences saw Damon in Syriana, directed by Stephen Gaghan and in The Brothers Grimm, co-starring with Heath Ledger for director Terry Gilliam.  He also recently reprised his roles as Linus Caldwell in Ocean’s Twelve for director Steven Soderbergh, and as Jason Bourne in the boxoffice hit The Bourne Supremacy, the second installment in the series following The Bourne Identity.

In 2004, Damon starred with Greg Kinnear in the Farrelly Brothers comedy Stuck On You, and in 2002, in Gerry with Casey Affleck for director Gus Van Sant.  

In 2000, audiences saw Damon star in The Legend of Bagger Vance, for director Robert Redford and in the film version of the Cormick McCarthy book All the Pretty Horses for director Billy Bob Thornton.

In 1999, Damon starred in Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley, for which he received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor.  That same year he rejoined Chasing Amy director Kevin Smith and pal Ben Affleck in Dogma, a film about a pair of outcast angels.

In 1998, he won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay with longtime friend Ben Affleck for the critically-acclaimed drama Good Will Hunting, a coming-of-age story about a young mathematical genius who, due to his upbringing in inner-city Boston, can’t live up to his potential.  Damon also earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his work in the title role.  In addition, both he and Affleck received a Golden Globe Award for their screenplay, and Damon also garnered a Golden Globe nomination for his performance.  The film, directed by Gus Van Sant, received seven additional Oscar nominations, including one for Best Picture and a win for Robin Williams for Best Supporting Actor.  

In the same year, Damon starred in the title role of the World War II drama Saving Private Ryan for Academy Award-winning director Steven Spielberg, and in John Dahl’s Rounders, about a reformed gambler who is drawn back into New York’s underground poker world to help a recently paroled friend pay off loan sharks.

In 1997, Damon made a cameo appearance in Kevin Smith’s Chasing Amy. In the same year, he starred as an idealistic young attorney in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Rainmaker, based on the best-selling novel by John Grisham.

Damon first gained the public’s eye in 1996, when he gave a vivid performance in Courage Under Fire, in which he portrayed a guilt-ridden Persian Gulf War soldier tormented by an incident that happened in the heat of battle.

The versatile young actor made his feature film debut in 1988 in a small role in the critically well-received Mystic Pizza.  He went on to play Brian Dennehy’s medical school dropout in the TV movie Rising Son (TNT, 1990) and gained further attention when he returned to the big screen as a fascist preppy in School Ties (1992).

For director Walter Hill, Damon enjoyed a sizeable supporting role as the green second lieutenant new to the West who narrates Geronimo: An American Legend (1993) and in 1995, he appeared in The Good Old Boys, directed by Tommy Lee Jones for TNT.  

In 1998, Damon and Affleck partnered with Good Will Hunting associate producer and longtime friend Chris Moore to form Pearl Street Productions, now known as LivePlanet. This unique company produces feature films, television series and new media projects. LivePlanet has produced three Emmy-nominated seasons of Project Greenlight, the documentary series chronicling the making of an independent feature films by a first time writer and director. The three Project Greenlight films produced for Miramax/Dimension have been Stolen Summer, The Battle of Shaker Heights, and Feast. Damon’s latest LivePlanet project is Running the Sahara, a documentary about three men running across the Sahara Desert, directed by Academy Award winner James Moll.

Damon, who attended Harvard University, first gained acting experience at the American Repertory Theatre as well as other Boston-based theatre venues.


ABOUT THE PRODUCERS - MARILYN & HAL WEINER

Through their Washington, DC production company (Screenscope), Marilyn and Hal Weiner have produced, written and directed over 225 documentaries and four public television series (Journey To Planet Earth, Women At Work, Faces Of Man and The World Of Cooking). They have also produced three feature films (Family Business, The Imagemaker, and K2).

The Weiners have won Emmy Awards for The Earth Summit Pledge, commissioned by the United Nations to open the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, and Streets of Sorrow, an NBC documentary about a support group that helps people cope with the violent death of a family member.

They are recipients of the National Academy of Television Arts and Science's Silver Circle Award for "outstanding contributions to the television industry." Marilyn Weiner is the winner of Women-In-Film's "Women of Vision Award" for creative excellence.  In a contest sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the PEN/Faulkner Foundation, Hal Weiner won first prize at the 18th annual Larry Neal Writers' Competition for his dramatic screenplay, The Jerusalem Syndrome. He also won first prize in the Washington, DC screenwriting contest for his screenplay, Shadows.  The Weiners have won over 130 top international awards, including 39 CINE Golden Eagles.  Their films have been shot on location in more than 30 countries on five continents, translated into numerous languages and broadcast throughout the world.

Marilyn Weiner was appointed by Mayors Anthony Williams and Marion Barry to serve as a DC Commissioner for the Arts and Humanities. She is on the Board of Directors of Washington's Filmfest DC.  Ms. Weiner served on the Board of Directors of the Committee To Promote Washington, DC, the Washington Urban League, Women-In-Film and the Woolly Mammoth Theater Company.  She has been President of the Washington Film Council, Vice-President of Women-In-Film, consultant to the National Commission on Working Women, Chairperson of the Advisory Committee to the Washington Office of Motion Picture Development, and Panelist for both the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Humanities.  

Hal Weiner is on the Board of Advisors of the Institute for Mental Health Initiatives and founder of the Independent Media Producer's Association.  He served on the Board of Directors of the Council on Non-Theatrical Events and the Washington Urban League and was an Honorary Advisor to American University's School of Communications.  Two years ago he was invited to testify before the House of Representative's Commerce Committee about national security issues and the availability of the world's drinking water.

 
ABOUT SCETV

South Carolina Educational Television brings non-commercial, inspiring public television not only to the citizens of South Carolina, but through its national productions, to the rest of the United States and the world.  Recent and upcoming presentations include Making Schools Work with Hedrick Smith, JOURNEY TO PLANET EARTH, hosted by Matt Damon (the only continuing environmental series on PBS), and Dooley and Pals, an educational children’s show.  Past productions include World@ Large with David Gergen and Children in America’s Schools with Bill Moyers.  South Carolina Educational Radio produces Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz, NPR’s longest running performance program.

For over 40 years, education has been SCETV’s primary mission, harnessing television’s enormous power to inform and stimulate young minds.  The Network’s educational commitment now extends from early childhood to adult education.  Distance learning and telecourses let students earn college credit or a GED without leaving home. Teachers and other professionals, including childcare providers, regularly update job skills through SCETV. Adults also learn to read through the easily accessible services of SCETV’s literacy campaign. SCETV’s knowitall.org educational web portal provides on-line classroom materials that meet state curriculum standards.

South Carolina ETV is South Carolina's statewide network with 11 television stations, eight radio stations and a closed-circuit educational telecommunications system in more than 2,000 schools, colleges, businesses and government agencies. SCETV uses the power of TV, radio, satellite and the Internet to advance education, culture and citizenship.