Take a once in a lifetime journey through this amazing geographical feature – seeing how the forces of nature have shaped the landscape, creating a hotbed of evolution and the cradle of mankind.

Visible from space, Africa’s Great Rift Valley runs for 4,000 miles from the Red Sea to the mouth of the Zambezi. It creates, connects and defines the wildest, most charismatic landscape in the world. It is a diverse landscape of erupting volcanoes, forest-clad mountains,
spectacular valleys, rich grasslands, vast lakes and mighty rivers.

Home to the greatest concentration of animals on Earth, including lions, crocodiles, elephants, hippos and flocks of flamingos, and semi-nomadic farmers such as the Maasai, it’s a land in constant geological turmoil.

Using state-of-the-art HD filming techniques, this three-part series investigates the forces that have shaped this turbulent landscape and its remarkable wildlife.

We discover the volcanic home of the Gelada Baboon and rare Ethiopian wolf; the misty Virunga Mountains, last refuge of the mountain gorilla; deep freshwater lakes each with its own unique species; shallow caustic soda lakes supporting hundreds of thousands of flamingos; and a sea world rich with giant corals and shoals of colourful fish. In the great savannahs of the Serengeti and eastern Uganda, the richness of the landscape draws vast herds of zebra, wildebeest, elephant, cheetah and lion. And where grassland meets forest, we find chimpanzees whose lives mirror those of the first humans on earth. Great Rift features new discoveries, dramatic encounters and exciting animal behaviour and reveals a landscape that continues to surprise us.