"For nearly 50 years I've been lucky enough to spend my time travelling around the Earth documenting the animals and plants. But it's now increasingly apparent that one species, our own, has developed the unique ability of so altering its surroundings that it can destroy whole species, indeed whole environments."

David Attenborough

Five times since life began, mass extinctions have rocked the planet, but is the world now heading for the greatest extinction yet? News stories of rainforest destruction, global warming, rising sea-levels and meteorite collisions paint a worrying, complex story but David Attenborough believes that the natural rules that govern both the past, present and future are simple, and by understanding them humans do have the power to save life on Earth, if they so choose.

"The time seemed right for this series to be made. Increasing coverage in the media has led to a growing awareness among the public of the speed and scale of the problem, and of the environmental legacy we are leaving to future generations. But no one had provided a global overview that was both definitive and showed that the causes behind both the problems and the solutions are essentially pretty simple. We have been able to draw on the collective expertise of the world's leading biologists to provide that view."

Series Producer Rupert Barrington

The most striking feature of planet Earth is the existence of life, and the most striking feature of life is its richness and variety. From the depths of the oceans to the tops of rainforest canopies, from the African savannahs to the soil under our feet, David Attenborough revealed to us the extent of this living bounty. The latest research show that this variety of life is threatened with destruction by human activities. Will we destroy, as is being predicted, up to 50% of all species on the planet in this present century, and will that tragedy really matter to us, or our children and grandchildren?

Extinction is a natural process, and five times in the history of life it has happened on a huge scale. The dinosaurs were wiped out by a massive meteor strike that also killed off much of life on Earth. Human activities are beginning to cause a present day mass-extinction that is happening at unprecedented speed. How can we prevent this from happening? David Attenborough investigated which human activities are the most damaging to the natural world, in an attempt to understand how we can prevent this crisis from unfolding.

How the human species treats the planet over the next one hundred years will determine the future of all life on Earth. We stand to lose up to 50% per cent of species on the planet if we continue using global resources at the current rate. At this crucial point in human history we can still choose whether future generations inhabit a healthy, diverse planet, or a seriously impoverished one. In the final film of this trilogy, David Attenborough looked for hope and solutions.