Air date: June 19, 2001, 8:00 p.m. EST.
About
the program
Bill Moyers, acclaimed producer of television documentaries,
is filming a special environmental program that examines the changing status of the world's
ecosystems. Bill Moyers Reports: Earth on Edge features stories about farmlands in the
U.S. Midwest, forests in Canada's British Columbia, reefs along Brazil's Atlantic coastline,
watersheds in South Africa, and the grassland steppe of Mongolia. In each of these locations,
the focus is on the people whose lives depend on these ecosystems and how that dependence
affects the ecosystem. World
Resources 2000-2001: People and Ecosystems: The Fraying Web of Life, like the program,
is also structured around five ecosystems--agroecosystems, coastal ecosystems, forests,
freshwater systems, and grassland ecosystems. The research of the
Pilot Analysis of Global Ecosystems (PAGE), the first attempt to analyze the extent and
condition of ecosystems on global basis, is the scientific basis for the report. Like the book, Earth on Edge also features five case studies.
Each examines management strategies people use to extract food, water, and raw
materials from ecosystems and strategies undertaken to remedy problems of degradation
resulting from that extraction or from misuse. Two of the five case studies in the program were also featured in
World Resources 2000-2001:
"Working for Water, Working for Human Welfare in South Africa"
chronicles the increased pervasiveness of invasive plants in South Africa and the devastating
effects they have had on freshwater resources;
"Sustaining the Steppe: The Future of Mongolia's Grasslands" examines the effects
politics can have on an ecosystem and people compelled to follow mandates inconsistent
with good management techniques. |