First Eden - 4 - Strangers in the garden.avi

The final episode examines man's impact on the Mediterranean during the twentieth century. Attenborough dines on red soldierfish in Cyprus, one of a hundred or so species to have colonised the Mediterranean from the Red Sea, via the Suez Canal. Other invaders have been less welcome. The Phylloxera aphid from North America attacked French grapevines, and only by importing insect-resistant rootstock from the USA was a total catastrophe averted. The growth of tourism has led to uncontrolled development of hotels and marinas, squeezing out natural inhabitants of the coast such as Mediterranean monk seals and loggerhead turtles, who come ashore to lay their eggs. The sea is in danger of becoming barren due to overfishing and pollution. Attenborough dives beneath the surface to demonstrate the difference between a thriving seagrass ecosystem and one smothered in sedimentation from untreated sewage. Meanwhile, in Egypt, he looks at the damaging effects of damming the Nile, which include reduced productivity, a collapse of Egypt's sardine fishery and population displacement. The shooting of millions of migrating birds, draining of wetlands and deliberately started wildfires add to the pressures on the natural world. There are, however, still a few places where the Mediterranean has been left unspoilt. One is Plitvice in Croatia, whose mixed forests provide shelter for many creatures driven or hunted out elsewhere. In the uninhabited Sporades Islands east of mainland Greece, Mediterranean rarities such as Audouin's gull, Eleonora's falcon and the European black vulture can still breed freely.