Review: 'Changing Planet Season 2' is a novel take on the perils of mankind to nature while offering solutions

Through the trials and tribulations of survival, mankind has managed to exploit mother nature to an extent that the alarms for a changing planet have been ringing consistently now. We keep snoozing it and seem to care little about it but Sony BBC's Changing Planet Season 2 gives us a reminder as to how there is still a bunch of people out there who care about it and are willing to put in their time, money and effort into preserving what we have ranging from nature itself to the natural habitat.

There is an abundance of documentaries out there that cater to this topic and its subsidiaries but what makes Changing Planet II standout is the unique take on proceedings that forces you to ponder upon it. Starting from documentation of the problem in hand to gradually and patiently working out the details for possible solutions, the documentary spans across seven years through six of Earth's most valuable ecosystems. And like many documentaries out there, this one too has a reliable narrator in the form of Dr. M. Sanjayan who follows these conservationists, scientists and other volunteers who are associated with the project throughout its entirety.  

Pirouetting through Maldives, Greenland, California, Brazil, Cambodia, and Kenya, it provides an incredible take on how conservation is a certainty if you understand the situation in hand. Be it studying the musk ox in Greenland or beavers in California, the Siamese crocodile in Cambodia or the jaguars in Brazil - the team goes through an extensive process that requires them to endure several odds as well. What makes Changing Planet II even more fresh is how the people, who are a part of it, understand the perils of mankind to wildlife more than the other way round. And hence, the solutions that they come up with usually involve a 'coming mid-way' of sorts where it still continues to be beneficial to humans while not leading this precious wildlife to extinction. In one of the episodes, one of the scientists amazingly mentions about the beavers, 'they don't know how they are helping vegetation and we want to help them too.' The idea of co-existence is exactly what drives this project and makes it a successful one.

As a watch, there is enough splendor and sheer beauty of those aerial shots of places in the world you might never be able to physically go. And then watching some of the scientists and volunteers battle extreme 'climate changes' as they study about climate change acts as a fantastic irony adding to the experience.

The series does falter in terms of conveying the utmost goal which is encouraging the viewer to be more wary about global warming. Don't get me wrong, the idea is there and that is the obvious path it leads to but considering how malicious humankind is, this might act as another reason for the ones who don't care to not care further. But then that isn't to entirely blame on the series for. 

In the end, Changing Planet Season 2 is a mesmerising watch with a fresh take on proceedings that lead to climate change and furthermore rectifying the blunders.