The Great Rift: Africa's Wild Heart (2010) COMPLETE
720p BRRips x264 AAC-DiVERSiTY
English | 176 Minutes | H264 | 1280x720 | 25.00fps 3404 Kbps | AAC 320 Kbps 48.0khz | 4.19 GiB
Genre: Documentary
"The producers of Life, Galapagos and Yellowstone bring us The Great Rift. Visible from space, Africa's Great Rift Valley runs four thousand miles from the Red Sea to the mouth of the Zambezi a diverse landscape of erupting volcanoes, forest-clad mountains, spectacular valleys, rich grasslands, vast lakes and mighty rivers. Home to the greatest concentration of animals on earth lions, crocodiles, elephants, hippos and flocks of flamingos and pastoralists such as the Maasi this is a land of constant geographical turmoil. It will take you to another world a world of exotic extremes, where the forces of nature have shaped the landscape and so created a hotbed of evolution. It is the very cradle of mankind."
By any standard, there is no region of Earth as spectacularly diverse as the 6,000 mile-long stretch of land known as the Great Rift. Stretching from Syria in the southwestern corner of Asia, to Mozambique in Eastern Africa, it incorporates almost every type of land imaginable, from sulfurous volcanoes to thick grasslands to raging rivers and snow-capped mountains. It also functions as the home to an incredible panoply of exotic wildlife, and served as the geographic origin of homo sapiens. Hugh Quarshie narrates this BBC documentary miniseries that leads viewers on a kaleidoscopic tour of the Rift, touching on the many and varied aspects of its animal populations and geographic features. This set contains the entire three-hour series, plus a bonus documentary called INSIDE THE GREAT RIFT.
Episode 1: "Fire"The opening programme shows how life has adapted to the volcanic highlands bordering the Rift Valley. Volcanic activity created the Ethiopian Highlands 30 million years ago, and is still evident at Erta Ale’s molten lava lake. Further south, it thrust up huge peaks such as Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya. The mountain hyrax, augur buzzard, giant lobelia and side-striped chameleon are some of the species filmed on the latter's storm-blasted mountain slopes. In the Aberdares, an older, more eroded range, elephants and mountain bongos are marooned by surrounding human development. In the central Rift Valley, giant mastiff bats roost in a cave beneath the collapsed lava plateau of Mount Suswa. Infrared cameras reveal the activities of the bats and their unusual cohabitants, a troop of baboons. Ol Doinyo Lengai is Africa's most active volcano. The 2007 eruption showered the Serengeti plains with ash, ideal fertiliser for the grass that supports the vast game herds. To the south, the remote Kitulo Plateau in Tanzania is attracting considerable scientific attention due to its unique flora and fauna. The programme includes the first professional footage of the kipunji, a rare primate discovered in 2005. Other species shown include the montane widowbird, the Temple's chameleon and various monkey beetles. The final scenes show mountain gorillas in the Virunga Mountains. Inside the Great Rift shows how the crew enlisted the help of a local Maasai tribe to film inside Mount Suswa's cave,
Episode 2: "Water"The second episode explores East Africa's rich variety of freshwater and marine habitats. The Rift Valley's seasonal rains replenish a network of rivers which sustain life through the prolonged dry periods. The dry season affects animals differently. Elephants congregate on riverbanks and reinforce social bonds, while bee-eaters arrive to build nest holes in the exposed mud cliffs. For river hippos, it's a time of tension as hundreds of animals jostle for position in the remaining deep water channels. The hippos of Mzima, by contrast, have a guaranteed year-round water supply thanks to the natural volcanic spring. For the first time, cameras film bottom-dwelling crabs and Bathyclarias catfish in the depths of Lake Malawi. In calm conditions, clouds of midges emerge to mate and lay their eggs on the lake's surface. At night, local fishermen trawl for shoals of ucepa, which are drawn to the surface to feed on the midge larvae. Few creatures can survive in the caustic lakes of the Eastern Rift Valley. In Lake Natron, a tilapia swims too close to a thermal vent with fatal results. Aerial shots show the million-strong colony of lesser flamingos on Lake Bogoria. At its northern extreme, the Rift Valley plunges into the Red Sea. The final sequences show the diversity of marine life off the coast of Djibouti, including a group of whale sharks filter-feeding at Ghoubet. Inside the Great Rift shows how a submersible ROV was lowered into a reef crack to capture shots of deep sea life.
Episode 3: "Grass"The final programme documents the Rift Valley's savannah ecosystem. In the rain shadow of the Ruwenzori Mountains, rainfall is sporadic. Acacias are the only trees that can survive the prolonged droughts, but their proliferation is curbed by browsing animals. Giraffes, gerenuks and dik-diks are all specialist acacia eaters, but elephants are the true architects of the landscape. On the plains, grass is the dominant vegetation, sustaining the largest grazing herds on earth. Antelopes use the long grass to conceal their young from lions, cheetahs and other predators. A unique starlight camera enables filming to continue after dark using available light, revealing hitherto unseen behaviour. In the pitch blackness, three lion cubs practise their hunting skills as their mother digs warthog piglets from their burrow. Hippos roam the grasslands by night, but must return to water before sunrise. At the isolated pools of Mzima, stranded hippos starve to death during the prolonged drought of 2009. Those animals that can follow the rains of the Rift Valley on seasonal migrations. Olive baboons are one of the few primates adapted to the savannah, but even they must return to the safety of the trees at night. Despite their well-developed brains, chimpanzees are confined to forested areas such as Kibale in Uganda. The final scenes suggest that the Rift Valley, where our human ancestors stepped out of the forest, is the "cradle of humanity". Inside the Great Rift reveals the challenges of capturing the first starlight footage of sleeping chimps.
Filmes