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Nature’s marvels may not be here forever. Join us as we explore incredible natural landmarks facing threats from climate change and human activity. From vast glaciers to unique rainforests and majestic coral reefs, these spectacular sites may be lost to future generations. Have you visited any of these breathtaking places? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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00:00It's unfortunate that I can't look at this thing and still see the beauty. I see the problems.
00:06Welcome to Ms. Mojo. And today, we'll be looking at some of nature's most magnificent wonders,
00:11which we may all tragically outlive.
00:14The wind is stronger and it's hotter. The reefs have bleached and they have died.
00:22Number 10. California's Sequoia Trees
00:25Sequoia dendrum giganteum, also known as giant sequoia trees, are Earth's biggest trees.
00:32They are native to the Sierra Nevada in eastern California, but are unfortunately seriously
00:37endangered. We kept running into these stumps over and over and over again. These trees are dead and
00:42gone. There's nothing you can do. It's a tragedy, but gosh, we just have to learn to live with it.
00:48Currently, fewer than 80,000 exist in the States. On the other hand, there are over half a million
00:54in the UK after being introduced in the 19th century. Not only are they physically huge,
01:00but their lives are incredibly long. The redwood trees of California are probably the oldest of
01:05living things. The redwoods that grow along the coast live to be 2,000 years old. They can live
01:11for 3,000 years, making some older than the Roman Republic. They're also unique for being fire
01:17resistant, but also rely on natural fires to bloom. It punches a hole in the forest.
01:23That allows there to be more light and more water for the sequoia seedlings.
01:30Fire suppression in the last century has disrupted the cycle, making them seriously endangered.
01:37Number 9. The Congo Basin
01:39Only the Amazon rainforest is larger than the one in the Congo Basin.
01:44From the Atlantic Ocean to the heart of the continent,
01:47the Congo has always been a place of fear and mystery.
01:50This sheer size means it's teeming with unique life, not found anywhere else. This includes
01:57creatures like bonobos, chimpanzees, and African forest elephants, among thousands of other forms
02:03of life. Between the poaching and the destruction of elephant habitat, these animals are doomed unless
02:10we move fast. A combination of climate change and deforestation is destroying the forest alongside
02:16all that inhabit it. This is especially worrying, since it's one of the planet's largest carbon sinks.
02:23Efforts are being made to prevent further destruction, but if that's not achieved,
02:27we'll forever lose one of Africa's greatest wonders.
02:31There are probably fewer than 5,000 eastern lowland gorillas left in a fraction of the land they used to inhabit.
02:37It's one of the many extremely alarming aspects of the current Holocene extinction event.
02:43Number 8. Mount Kilimanjaro's Snow Cap
02:45Tanzania is home to another of Africa's many remarkable wonders.
02:50We're talking about Mount Kilimanjaro, one of Earth's highest volcanoes.
02:55Its peak is defined by a remarkable snowy cap, which is sadly melting at an alarming rate.
03:00Melting snow off Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania is causing what experts say could be drastic consequences
03:07for the wildlife in Ambocelli National Park.
03:11In 2000, a study revealed that 82% of its ice had been lost since 1912.
03:17Estimates say it'll be gone entirely by 2050.
03:21Climate change actually does affect and has a devastating effect in areas such as these.
03:27This is happening to ice caps globally, which are almost always essential to local ecosystems.
03:34It's not just a pretty peak we'll lose, but there will be losses of water,
03:38which will cause a greater decline in biodiversity.
03:41But even here there are splashes of color, like the red hot poker.
03:48They may appear fragile, but they're exposed to rugged extremes.
03:53Number 7. The Belize Barrier Reef
03:55The Barrier Reef in Belize is the second largest in the world,
03:59after the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.
04:01It's the most popular sight to see in Belize, featuring the famous Great Blue Hole.
04:06A blue hole is basically just a massive sinkhole in the ocean,
04:09and they can take over 100,000 years to form.
04:12Scientists believe they've only discovered 10% of all species that live there.
04:16The other 90% we may never fully understand.
04:20That's because since 1998, over 40% of the reef has been damaged.
04:25Caribbean waters are warming alarmingly, posing a grave threat to the corals.
04:31It's unlikely this decline will reverse anytime soon,
04:34with pollution and mass tourism being huge contributors.
04:38On the bright side, Belize banned both bottom trawling and offshore oil drilling to preserve the reef.
04:44Unfortunately, this may not be enough to save it.
04:48We've noticed that every time you go out, you'll find less fish.
04:52Number 6. Glacier National Park
04:55Along the border between Canada and the United States lies Glacier National Park.
05:01The true nature of this wilderness hides beneath a blanket of white, up to 20 feet deep.
05:07It's over a million acres, spreading across the corner of Montana.
05:11In the 19th century, it was home to approximately 150 glaciers.
05:17As of 2015, only 26 remained, with many likely having melted by now.
05:23A lot of these systems that depend on this water are going to dry up and you'll have big changes in vegetation.
05:28Recent studies believe they'll all be gone by 2030, which is worryingly close.
05:34Hopefully, if humanity starts to double down on solving climate change, this will never happen.
05:39America's president, Donald Trump, believes it to be a hoax, meaning it's up to the individual states to take action.
05:46So Obama's talking about all of this with the global warming and that, a lot of it's a hoax.
05:51It's a hoax. I mean, it's a money-making industry, okay?
05:54Number 5. The Dead Sea
05:56Despite its name, the Dead Sea is currently alive.
05:59But that might not be the case for long.
06:01This is the symbol of what a man can do to the nature, and without even knowing that he's doing it.
06:11It lies on the border between Jordan and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
06:15It's exceptionally salty, almost 10 times more than the ocean.
06:20This has made it a tourist attraction for thousands of years.
06:23One reason the Dead Sea is shrinking is because humans are taking the water out.
06:29It's pumped via canals to shallow evaporation ponds.
06:34It's sourced by the Jordan River, which humans are using more and more every year.
06:38This means less water makes it to the Dead Sea, which causes its sea levels to drop massively.
06:44It's like no man's land, no one's here.
06:46It's so dangerous that, like, nobody really can be here.
06:49People have proposed fixing the issue, but action is yet to be taken,
06:54meaning it may soon be as dead as the name implies.
06:58Number 4. The Maldives
07:00South of India lies the Maldives, a huge chain of islands spread over 35,000 square miles of ocean.
07:07Due to rising sea levels, the entire country is at risk of sinking.
07:11So five years of Sarah's life, and all she knows is floods every...
07:15It's floods every twice a month.
07:17Wow.
07:18On average, they're only five feet above sea level.
07:21This means approximately 80% of it could be swallowed by the ocean by 2050.
07:26It's home to over half a million people, so it's causing major disruption to thousands.
07:31It's a richly diverse, welcoming nation with more than a half million people.
07:36But those people are under siege.
07:39The enemy? Rapid sea level rise.
07:42By the 22nd century, there's a chance the country won't exist at all.
07:48Their sources of fresh water have also been vanishing, plunging the nation into frequent droughts.
07:53Four years ago, their well became unusable.
07:56Salt water polluted it.
07:58Like 97% of the country, they no longer have fresh groundwater.
08:02Now it's only whatever falls from the sky.
08:04From the sky.
08:05Number 3. The Polar Ice Caps
08:07One of the major results of climate change is the melting ice caps.
08:11At the other end of the planet, in the north, the effects of climate change are being felt even more intensely.
08:19On the bright side, it will open up new trade routes in the Arctic.
08:23Unfortunately, the negative consequences massively outweigh this.
08:28Not only will most polar wildlife perish, but also anywhere on the coast is at risk.
08:33As all that ice ends up in the oceans, it's driving sea level rise to an even greater extent.
08:39Places like the Maldives may cease to exist once the ice caps melt.
08:43It's been happening for over a century at an alarming rate.
08:46It's entirely driven by industrialization, but can be halted if we switch to renewable energies.
08:52Thankfully, renewable energy is slowly becoming cheaper than fossil fuels.
08:56But many believe it's too little too late.
08:59This is so beautiful, but it's also just so sad.
09:05We don't have decades.
09:07We hardly have years.
09:11Number 2. Amazon Rainforest
09:13The Amazon is often considered the Earth's lungs.
09:17This is because of the huge amount of carbon it captures, whilst converting carbon dioxide into oxygen.
09:23The rainforests cover over 2.3 million square miles of land.
09:27Except for the snaking waters of the Las Piedras River,
09:31these rainforest treetops stretch unbroken for hundreds of miles.
09:36By 2022, almost a quarter of the Amazon had been deforested.
09:40This is primarily driven by cattle ranching, alongside other factors.
09:45There are still plenty of undocumented plants and animals in the rainforest.
09:49What natural processes takes centuries to build.
09:53People can undo in a matter of minutes.
09:56Many of these plants may have vital uses, such as medicine.
10:00If we continue to destroy it, then we'll never get to fully understand it.
10:04Additionally, thousands of indigenous people call it home, which may be entirely gone in a few decades.
10:18Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.
10:23The Tahuamanu Rainforest
10:25The mahogany industry is destroying Peru's natives' lives.
10:29The rain forest is my life.
10:33It's our mother.
10:35This is where we get our medicine, our food.
10:39We use the wood for various things, for furniture and our homes.
10:44Rajasthan, Ramtham boars tigers.
10:47Tigers are rapidly losing their homes.
10:49Where there are tigers, there are tourists.
10:52The bad part is the intense pressure which tigers in some of the reserves have come under because of their easy sightings.
11:00And so, too many vehicles, too many people and unregulated kind of tourism.
11:05The Everglades.
11:06Florida's grasslands are quickly vanishing.
11:09Wind causes erosion.
11:11Also creates an opportunity for invasive plants to get in there.
11:15They also expose the roots of native trees, which makes the trees extremely vulnerable in the next big storm.
11:22The Yangtze River Basin
11:24China's Three Gorges Dam may destroy local wildlife, including pandas.
11:30The basin has both rural areas and around 175 significant cities dotted along the river's path.
11:37It is linked to 40% of China's freshwater resources, more than 70% of the country's rice production,
11:4450% of its grain, and more than 70% of fishery production.
11:49Madagascar.
11:50This island's unique life is at risk of being lost to climate change.
11:54Nature is changing, the environment is changing, and the climate change is affecting this area more than the rest of Madagascar.
12:02It's building up, it's year after year, that the rains are less, and that people have less and less food to eat.
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12:25Number 1. The Great Barrier Reef
12:27On Australia's northeastern coast lies Earth's greatest reef, covering approximately 133,000 square miles.
12:36It's so big, it can be seen from space.
12:39These reefs extend along the tropical coastline of Australia, a distance of over 2,000 kilometers,
12:45the length of the entire east coast of the United States of America.
12:49It's been built by underwater organisms for centuries.
12:52The reef is also home to thousands of species, but unfortunately, it's being lost to climate change.
12:59More than half of its coral was destroyed between 1995 and 2017, a terrifying statistic.
13:06This wonderful thing, this thing that's been around for a very long time, is threatened in our lifetime and on our watch.
13:13In 2022, we discovered it had a huge recovery, meaning hope isn't entirely lost.
13:19The Australian government has spent millions on preserving it.
13:23If successful, it may exist for centuries more.
13:26The sea sim is able to precisely replicate the conditions of the Great Barrier Reef, as it's found in nature.
13:32But it's also able to look into the future.
13:35What will the reef look like in, say, 50 or 100 years from now?
13:39What natural wonder will you miss the most?
13:41And have you gone to see it?
13:43Let us know in the comments.
13:44A new chorus is sounding through the depths.
13:52A new chorus is sounding through the depths.
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