The BBC is a world leader in depicting nature. Now the British are taking on Swedish nature in a co-production with SVT, which has been titled "The Nature of the World: The Heart of Sweden".
The program is part of the program series that previously visited places such as Borneo, Alaska and Colombia.
Science journalist Henrik Ekman is the voice that guides viewers through the depiction of nature, and he tells SVT that the BBC has historically regarded Swedish nature as "difficult" to portray.
"Our animals are quite timid and move mostly at night. When a team comes here and films, it takes a lot of time, it's expensive and then they shy away from it, says Henrik Ekman in Morgonstudion in SVT.
Costly production
The purpose of the production is to show nature's intrinsic value, and the viewer gets to experience different types of nature – from dense forest to archipelago. In close-up, bears, seals and wolves, among others, can be seen moving in their natural environment. Catching these animals on the fly requires a lot of planning, and the secret is careful research.
"The BBC doesn't want to take chances, it very carefully finds out where the greatest prospects are," Ekman says in SVT.
A program with this technology costs just over SEK 13 million to create, which is mainly due to the time-consuming work process. This particular production has been going on for years, and was postponed due to the pandemic.
"Ambivalent relationship" with the forest
The forest makes up a large part of Sweden's area, almost 70 percent and Henrik Ekman describes the Swede's relationship with the forest as "ambivalent".
"A lot of our culture is tied to spruce forest, to forest in general. At the same time, the forest is a production landscape. We use the forest, we've always done that now we're doing it quite large-scale and brutally and we're having an infected forest debate. So it's both," he said.
Tonight Thursday, the world premiere of "The Nature of the World: "The Heart of Sweden" will be broadcast on SVT 1 at 21 p.m.