A Perfect Planet

Accompanying a major five-part BBC One series presented by Sir David Attenborough and produced by the team behind Planet Earth and Blue Planet, A Perfect Planet is an exploration of the unique conditions that make life on Earth possible, and how our wildlife is perfectly adapted to its environment.

The conditions of Earth are not just good for life, they are perfect. Everything about our planet – its
size, its distance from the Sun, its spin and tilt, its moon – is perfectly suited to our existence, and our planet’s forces serve to nurture its spectacular biodiversity.

A Perfect Planet shows in stunning detail how Earth has always been more than the sum of its parts. Unlike any other astronomical body, it is a living world.

Perfectly adapted creatures

The book focuses on four key natural forces – global weather systems distributing fresh water to all corners; marine currents delivering nutrients to the deepest reaches of the ocean; solar energy warming and electrifying everything it touches and volcanic activity fertilising the earth’s surface. It reveals a planet populated with astonishing characters living remarkable lives.

From Arctic wolves prowling moonlit landscapes and wood frogs, frozen in winter and magically thawing back to life, to flamingos flying thousands of miles to a vast volcanic lake in Africa to breed, we see time and again how animals are perfectly adapted to whatever the environment throws at them.

Packed with over 250 full-colour images and including a foreword by Alastair Fothergill and stills from the BBC series’ spectacular footage, A Perfect Planet is a stunning exploration of life on Earth – life that is increasingly precious and rare.

The authors

Huw Cordey was the series producer of The Hunt and has been making wildlife documentaries for 20 years.

Between 1996 and 2009 Huw worked for the BBC Natural History Unit, producing landmark series such as Land of the Tiger, Andes to Amazon, Sir David Attenborough’s Life of Mammals, Planet Earth, Big Cat Diary and South Pacific.

Since 2009, Huw has worked in the independent sector, producing Discovery Channel’s six-part natural history landmark series North America. Huw has also written and presented a number of radio programmes for the BBC and was a contributing author to the best-selling book Planet Earth.

Alastair Fothergill was the executive producer of The Hunt. Prior to that, he was the executive producer of Frozen Planet for the BBC – a series he conceived following the success of Planet Earth, which he produced. Director of the associated feature film Earth, he has also co-directed four feature films for Disney.