Europe's Badlands
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© gettyimages NATURE EUROPE’S BADLANDS 1 × 50 min. Executive producers: Sabine Holzer, Walter Köhler 4K, 5.1 and Stereo obody who has witnessed the breath-taking beauty of the stars on a clear night in the desert will ever forget the experience. For resources the desert offers: the desert Nmany, deserts are the very embodiment of flower Moricandia foetida only grows in a vastness, silence and loneliness. However, few select places, and Bonelli’s eagles and deserts are anything but tranquil: constant scops owls are among the region’s notable drought, regular sandstorms, searing heat predators. Meanwhile, wild cats and foxes in the daytime and icy temperatures at roam the Bardenas Reales semi-desert in night combine to create a secretive world northern Spain. Little apart from saltwort NATURE that is both harsh and beautiful. grows on 400 square kilometres of sparse soil, and great bustards frequently fall prey The word ‘desert’ causes most people to eagles and vultures. to think of the Sahara or the Gobi: vast sand dunes that cover large areas of The desert environment of Fuerteventura, countries and continents. Alternatively, the second largest of the Canary Islands, is inhospitable stony deserts like Death Valley home to few animal species. Some types or Australia’s outback might come to of quail, coursers and houbara bustards mind — but the world’s deserts are not have adapted to life in the difficult island limited to Africa, Asia, America and environment, while rare Canarian Egyptian Australia. Europe’s deserts are remarkable, vultures circle above. not because of their dimensions, but because of their unusual history, charac- The Highlands of Iceland are an extensive teristics or geographic locations in Spain, stony volcanic plateau interrupted by Italy, in the Highlands of Iceland or on the shimmering green oases of grass. At first volcanic island of Fuerteventura. There are glance, the area seems completely unin- tiny deserts in Sweden and Norway, and habited, and heavy rainfalls, sandstorms large ones in Poland, Serbia and Ukraine. and blizzards can occur anytime during the They all continue to expand, and their year. However, the desertification here is growth is being exacerbated by climate a result of human animal farming, rather change. than drought. The Highlands of Iceland are now the hunting grounds of arctic foxes, Spain’s Tabernas Desert is often compared the island’s original inhabitants. to the Badlands of North America, and temperatures here can rise to above The history and the stories of Europe’s 45 degrees Celsius during the summer. It deserts are just as varied and fascinating is an inhospitable, sparse world created as those of their larger ‘relatives’ on other by centuries of low precipitation, extreme continents. Europe’s deserts have much to heat and strong wind erosion. The animals reveal about the development of our conti- and plants that live here are specialists that nent — and about its beauty, diversity, its have learned to survive despite the meagre constant evolution and its uncertain future. NATURE www.terramater.com Terra Mater Factual Studios GmbH, Wambachergasse 2, 1130 Vienna phone +43-1-87003-0, fax +43-1-87003-27609, [email protected]/ Austria,.