Little Human Planet follows the lives of young children from around the world, giving a glimpse to our CBeebies viewers of how their counterparts live wherever they be. A celebration of what makes children different and what makes them the same around the world in a colourful and often surprising voyage of discovery.
In this programme we travel to a jungle in West Papua to where the Korowai tribe live. They live as close to a true hunter-gatherer existence as any people today. They are one of very few societies that have retained the knowledge of how to get everything they need from the natural world. They are best known, though, for having taken human adaptation to the rain forest to new heights.
The Korowai tribe and the neighbouring Kombai tribe are the only cultures known to inhabit treehouses. They are built around large trees as much as 35 metres (115 feet) off the ground and are constructed with skill and the involvement of the whole community. All the building materials and clothing come from the forest.
The treehouses are remarkable feats of natural engineering, rendered all the more impressive by being constructed as such dizzying heights. There are practical reasons for these high-rise dwellings: the lowland rainforest in swampy and can get waterlogged after heavy rain, height can give relief from mosquitoes and other biting insects, and living in trees gives them protection from attack by neighbouring tribes. Much like skyscrapers in cities, treehouses are symbolic of the tribe's dominance over their environment, and the larger the house and the higher the house is, the more accomplished its builders have to be..
A treehouse usually takes between two weeks and a month to complete. They build the frame, thatch the roof with palm leaves and make the walls out of rolls of bark stripped from large tree trunks. At one end of the house, they build a balcony where people can enjoy the view and survey the territory. When an extended family moves in, so do their animals such as dogs which are carried up and quickly become accustomed to life 30 meters above the ground. Even more extraordinary is the confidence with which children charge about their high-rise homes. Even toddlers are given minimal supervisions and often play precariously close to the edge of the balcony, but when life is reliant on being at home in the trees, the lessons have to start early.
It is here we meet the amazing life of a six year old Korowai girl called Dua. She shows us the treehouse where she lives and climbs the dizzying heights to her home with remarkable confidence and expertise with little supervision and no safety lines. After reaching her home, she shows us how she and her family cook sago in an open clay fire pit before showing us the amazing view she has from the precarious balcony above.
You can find out more about the series on the Grown-ups website http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/grownups/about/programmes/littlehumanplanet.shtml
Please check it out and let us know what you think of the show.