BBC Earth

The world renowned BBC Natural History Unit has been running for more than 50 years.

The NHU has more than 30,000 hours of audio and visual archive in its library, as well as a huge number of natural history photographs.

Each year the NHU outputs between 60-90 hours of finished television programming and 50 hours of radio, making it the largest wildlife documentary production house in the world.

Production of natural history radio programmes started in Bristol in 1946 and NHU Radio still broadcasts almost every week.

The BBC Natural History Unit was officially founded in 1957 and has since grown into the world's leading producer of wildlife programmes.

The NHU currntly employs about 200 staff.

One of the earliest NHU productions, David Attenborough's Life On Earth series (1979) was seen by over 500 million viewers worldwide. More recently, Planet Earth was seen by international audiences of 600 million.

The BBC film Earth (2007) became the most successful documentary feature film ever produced in Britain.

The first BBC Springwatch survey, undertaken by our audiences in 2005, was the largest scientific study of seasonal change ever, anywhere in the world.

Working with over 70 partners in the voluntary and public sectors, series such as Nature of Britain, Springwatch and Autumnwatch provide opportunities and advice for audiences to participate in improving their local wildlife habitat and green spaces.

The BBC Natural History Unit employs the largest group of specialist wildlife producers in the world.

In 2007, the Unit celebrated its 50th anniversary and was rewarded with a special award at the International Broadcasting Convention in recognition of its unique contribution to wildlife film and documentary making.

On television, the NHU's 50th anniversary was marked with the broadcast of Saving Planet Earth, a conservation-themed series which helped to raise over £1.5 million for the BBC Wildlife Fund.

The Natural History Unit as a whole was awarded the Gold  Medal at the 2001 Royal Television Society awards for its "outstanding contribution over the past 44 years to broadcasting about the natural world".

This year, celebrate Earth Day with some of the most spectacular and informative programs about our planet from the world's most renowned producer of natural history documentaries - the BBC Natural History Unit. Taking viewers on amazing explorations of every aspect of our world and its most fascinating plants and wildlife.

Play with, share, and celebrate your amazing earth at BBCEarth.com.

- The United Nations celebrates Earth Day, which was founded by Gaylord Nelson, each year on the March equinox, while a global observance in many countries is held each year on April 22.

- Earth Day was founded in September 1969, at a conference in Seattle, Washington, when U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson announced that in the spring of 1970 there would be a nationwide grassroots demonstration on the environment.

- The first Earth Day was observed on April 22, 1970.

- The US government's official position on Earth Day is: "Earth Day is a time to celebrate gains we have made and create new visions to accelerate environmental progress. Earth Day is a time to unite around new actions. Earth Day and every day is a time to act to protect our planet."

"It is only by loving something that one then acts differently. Because people are inspired by ideas, empowered by knowledge, and moved to change by greater understanding." - Sir David Attenborough

"We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children." - Native American Proverb

"I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority." - Elwyn Brooks White, Essays of E.B. White, 1977

"There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more." - George Gordon, Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

"And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything." - William Shakespeare