How To Live On Earth is the new environmental documentary film we all need to watch

Benedict Cumberbatch is incredulous. He’s cycling and marching around the Natural History Museum in his role as presenter-narrator of new film How To Live On Earth, responding to some alarming footage.

“Is this how we want to live on earth?” he says.

In this instance, the footage shows workers in China with feather dusters. They are in the largest pear growing forest on earth. Blossom has been collected on an industrial scale, the stamens of flowers separated and dried to extract the pollen. Now these poorly-paid workers are spreading the pollen over the trees with the feather dusters to pollinate the remaining flowers.

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But guess what? Those workers might be out of work soon. Because pollinating drones are being trialled.

None of this should have been necessary. The best pollinators have been around since the cretaceous period. And they have happily worked, for free, for 100 million years. But the use of pesticides to increase harvests has resulted in the bees being all but wiped out. Meaning there will be no harvest at all without human or technological intervention. Preposterous!

“We call ourselves homo sapiens, meaning ‘wise human’. Bit presumptuous,” Cumberbatch’s narration continues. “We’re smart. But it doesn’t feel like we’re wise yet. How do we become wise?”

How To Live On Earth attempts to answer this question – positioning itself as the world’s greatest How To… video. It’s a film that demands our attention, and, with a little help from Cumberbatch’s starpower and charismatic presentation, will leave some big questions ringing in our ears.

How do we value nature, live alongside and with nature, how do we feel human again?

“In huge parts of China and other intensive agricultural areas of the world, insect pollinators are largely missing due to factors like the heavy use of pesticides. One simple solution is to make favourable conditions for the natural pollinators to return,” says Fredi Devas, producer and director of How To Live On Earth.

“So, the response to try and build drones to do the work of pollinators not only baffled me but also scared me. That is not an image of a healthy, thriving future that I want for the world.”

Devas continues: “For this film I travelled to many Indigenous communities. And all of them made clear that they depend on the natural world and so they look after it. They see themselves as part of nature as opposed to being apart from it. That key shift in perspective for many of us could lead to huge changes that mean we leave our planet in a healthier state for the next generation.

“A key question raised in the film is how we value nature. For example, at the moment, trees are often worth more money when cut down and sold as timber, rather than for all the services that a living tree provides — such as drawing down carbon, cleaning the air, and providing homes for pollinators. We hope this film will highlight the extraordinary value of living nature and inspire greater action to protect and restore it.”

The story of drones replacing the humans that replaced the bees is just one example of where we are going wrong. Watching this smart, witty, provocative collection of tales from across the planet is not a bad place to start correcting our course.

HOW TO LIVE ON EARTH is in select cinemas from June 26

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