BBC admits tribe footage was staged
Corporation says building Human Planet home was staged for cameras and was too high for family to live in
A BBC documentary scene in which a tribe in Papua New Guinea built a treehouse high in the rainforest canopy was staged for the cameras. In the latest row over television fakery, the corporation admitted that a sequence filmed for Human Planet in 2011 misled viewers by giving the impression the tallest treehouses built by the Korowai people were used as homes. In fact the families live in treehouses built closer to the ground, with the highest ones used for rituals.
VIEWERS of the BBC’S Human Planet marvelled at the ingenuity of Papua New Guinea’s Korowai people as they built a tree house high above the ground for a tribal family to use as their new home.
An episode of the acclaimed documentary series showed the family moving in 140ft up amid the canopy of the rainforest.
But it has now emerged that the entire sequence was staged for the cameras, plunging the BBC into a new row over fake programmes.
The corporation yesterday admitted that a sequence filmed for an episode of Human Planet in 2011 misled viewers by giving the impression the tallest tree houses built by the Korowai peo- ple were used as homes. In fact the families live in tree houses built much closer to the ground, leaving the higher ones for ritual purposes, or as meeting places for teenagers.
The programme also failed to make it clear to viewers that the particular tree house filmed had been erected for the benefit of the cameras.
The error was only discovered when Will Millard, the writer and adventurer, returned with a film crew for the forthcoming BBC Two series My Year With The Tribe.
During discussions with members of the tribe Mr Millard was made aware of misleading statements broadcast seven years ago, leading the BBC to review the original episode of Human Planet.
In the forthcoming series he is seen visiting the same Korowai tribe, when – during a trip to a treehouse – they tell him the raised houses “are not our home” and that they were “commissioned for filming”.
During the encounter Mr Millard says: “That’s why they’re worried (about) how many people come up here and we might fall through the floor. This is not where they live, this is total artifice”.
The corporation said: “The BBC has been alerted to a breach of editorial standards in an episode of Human Planet from 2011 which concerns the Korowai people of West Papua. During the making of ... My Year with the Tribe, a member of the tribe discusses how they have built very high tree houses for the benefit of overseas programme makers.”
It added: “The BBC has reviewed a sequence in Human Planet depicting this and found that the portrayal of the tribe moving into the treehouse as a real home is not accurate. Since this programme was broadcast in 2011, we have strengthened our mandatory training for all staff in editorial guidelines, standards and values.”
The incident recalled the row over fake documentary sequences which engulfed the BBC in 2011 when it was accused of deliberately fooling viewers of Frozen Planet. A sequence in which a polar bear appeared to give birth in the Arctic was in fact filmed in a Dutch zoo.
David Attenborough, the programme’s presenter, said last year that the sequence would not now be filmed in that way and that the BBC was taking care to avoid accusations of fakery.