THE NATURE OF SHOPPING
7 x 52'
What we buy connects, usually, with the natural world. Sometimes it's obvious - like a flower, a fish or a parrot. But what about a hamburger, a condom or an ice-cream? This group of seven one-hours links shopping with nature, the consumer with the consumed.

Mega Mall - Los Angeles has a shopping mall with 52 cinemas and a zoo! You can buy almost anything you could ever want and Californians are great consumers. We follow a typical L.A. family through a day "from early morning coffee to late night condom". They go shopping at the giant mall and use many natural products during that day. We connect wild plants and animals with everything from sugar, cotton, bananas, trainers, newspapers tobacco, beer... and don't forget the condom from a rubber plantation in Malaysia, once jungle home for orang-utans and many other species.

The Real Price of a Rose - Around Lake Naivaisha in Kenya, 12,000 Africans are employed growing flowers. It's a tiny part of an enormous global business. A single flower may be flown to Holland and on to Hong Kong or Rio to live for a few days as a token of happiness or sorrow. Flower growing is the latest impact on the lake. Introduced plants and animals of all sorts have damaged the lake's rich ecology. You may look at a rose a bit differently.

McJungle - The humble hamburger changed the face of the USA, then Canada, then Central America and now Brazil. The beef industry, on the prairies, in the jungle and on the savannahs has put an alien animal on vegetation that never grew there before. Cattle make hamburgers - a monoculture replaces diversity. That's the deal. That's what hamburgers cost in ecological terms.

The Painted Ladies are Coming! - The painted lady butterfly is a great traveller. This beautiful insect sometimes crosses Europe in large numbers and recently such an invasion reached England. We follow the migrants from North Africa to the English Channel from a butterfly's eye-view of farming and the changing landscape of modern Europe.

The World's Rarest Bird: A Parrot - Less than one is extinction. Spix's macaw was down to one bird in the wild. For years a very lonely male lived in a valley in a remote corner of Brazil. This is the story of attempts to save the species from the ultimate end. The Lear's macaw may go the same way. The macaw trade connects millionaires, the growing of cannabis and the police and customs officers around the world. Fanatics, smugglers, vets, geneticists, may all be part of that parrot you might want to buy. Or not.

Moorhens: Sex and Violence on the River - The extraordinary life of this familiar bird is revealed in a "video-diary" made over three years. The River Chew in Somerset may seem gentle and idyllic but it hides some very strange goings-on! And the treats to the moorhen's home are typical of what is happening to many beautiful looking English waterways. These changes may be a result of our demand for water and the price we pay for it.

Jumbos, Wood and People - Elephants and Africans need trees. Tourists buy wooden carvings as souvenirs. In this portrait of a Tanzanian village we reveal the importance of wood, this natural product many of us take for granted. To the local people wood is crucial. The forest that provides it connects with soil, streams and a lake, plus baboons, lions and elephants
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