San Antonio College Library

Biodiversity describes the incredible variety of life found on our planet. This program explores Earth’s biodiversity, the fundamental processes and characteristics of the Earth’s biological history, the extinction of existing species, and the appearance of new ones, such as Homo sapiens. What are the long-term consequences of human population growth? Are we heading towards a great extinction? Is the Earth’s biological diversity diminishing...

Little Miss Dewie: A DUCKumentary is a documented story of compassion and humanity caught in action. What started out as a few hours of time to help an orphaned duck led to a journey to find the right home for a helpless animal. Sacrificing the comforts of her home, her work schedule, and even facing eviction from her apartment, Mira Tweti was able to make a difference in one animal's life. This funny, heartwarming, and true inter-species love story...

By their sheer size and original shapes, baobabs are among the most remarkable trees on the planet. Relatively unknown in Madagascar, the giants are currently threatened by deforestation. To study them in the heart of their forests, the French biologist Cyrille Cornu travels by pirogue with his colleague Wilfried Ramahafaly, exploring 250 miles of wild and isolated coastline in the southwest of Madagascar.

Bluebird Man tells the story of 93-year-old Alfred Larson, a self-taught conservationist who has committed the last 35 years of his life to saving Idaho's bluebirds. In the late 1970s, Al was inspired to join a growing movement of citizen scientists who over the past three decades have helped reverse bluebird declines by setting up networks of nestboxes specifically designed to provide nesting habitat for this emblematic bird.

The polar regions are being affected by global warming much more intensely than any other part of the world. The global mean temperature has risen around 1.1 degree Celsius since 1990, but in the Arctic it has risen more than twice that number. Global warming threatens to change that whole fragile ecosystem even faster than in the rest of the world. The situation is becoming more and more dramatic each year and we are approaching a point of no return....

Young Australian filmmaker Heidi Lee Douglas goes to Tasmania to make a documentary about the destruction of the island's ancient forests. As anti-logging protests escalate, logging giant Gunns Ltd. reacts to public pressure by suing Heidi and 19 others for $6.4 million for allegedly conspiring to destroy the company's business. When Heidi discovers Gunns wants to use her footage as evidence to support its claims, she faces a crisis of conscience....

Surviving Earth is an independent Australian documentary featuring insight from Professor Tim Flannery, Ian Dunlop, Professor Paul Ehrlich, permaculturalist David Holmgren, Aboriginal elder Uncle Bob Randall, Professor Ian Lowe, Major-General Michael Jeffery (retired), and Bindi Irwin. Topics include resource depletion, climate change adaptation/mitigation and overpopulation.

With a million species at risk of extinction, Sir David Attenborough explores how this crisis of biodiversity has consequences for us all, threatening food and water security, undermining our ability to control our climate and even putting us at greater risk of pandemic diseases.

The poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti is still struggling to get on its feet from the disastrous 2010 earthquake. But the real problem Haiti faces in the near future is the complete degradation of its natural resources. Today, forests cover less than two percent of its territory and scientists predict a mass extinction of Haiti's biodiversity. Over a three-year period, a team of scientists and naturalists travel to the most remote locations...

Journey to the North American fields and meadows that are home to grassland birds. Host Willem Lange talks to those in the United States, Canada, and Mexico who are concerned about the birds' decline, and are trying to reverse this trend.