Open Planet releases new collection of footage from How to Live on Earth
Following the release of Open Planet Studios’ new feature documentary, How to Live on Earth, hundreds of clips of world-class footage captured for the film have been published in the Open Planet library.
The film, which premiered globally on YouTube on 20 September 2026, reached more than 4 million views in its first 10 days. Now, footage captured by Open Planet Studios during the making of the film has been made freely available through Open Planet’s impact library, giving storytellers around the world the tools to respond to the film with their own stories — and to connect its ideas to the places, communities and solutions that matter most to them.
By making the film’s extraordinary footage available to others, people can not only watch a vision for how to live on Earth, but use the footage to tell their own stories, to their audiences, about what it looks like in practice: from communities restoring nature and rethinking food systems, to innovators changing the way we value nature in all aspects of our lives.
“By opening up footage from How to Live on Earth through the Open Planet library, we’re putting the imagery that storytellers need into the hands of people everywhere — so they can make their own how-to videos in their own way, for their own audiences, in their own languages! Our hope is that this footage collection sparks a wave of positive, inspiring stories from all over the world.”
— Jonnie Hughes, Co-Founder of Open Planet Studios and Executive Producer of How to Live on Earth
This builds on Open Planet’s approach to creating impact — moving from a single film to a much broader ecosystem of storytelling. In 2025, Open Planet released thousands of cinematic clips from Ocean with David Attenborough, bringing some of the highest-quality footage ever captured above and beneath the waves into the hands of storytellers worldwide. The collection has since powered thousands of new stories, with more than 8,300 downloads in its first six months across 50+ countries.
For How to Live on Earth, this new collection brings together footage highlighting environmental challenges, solutions and examples of people connecting with nature around the world — from the depths of forests in Brazil, Ecuador and Mexico, to cityscapes in South Korea and the USA, to coastal regions in the Maldives and the Bahamas.
By making this footage freely available, Open Planet aims to power new storytelling while also cutting costs and carbon for thousands of other storytellers, who can reuse and build on hundreds of hours of high-quality nature footage for educational and impact purposes.
Whispers from an ancient oak tree
Peppered with Open Planet visuals throughout, this film accompanied a powerful and poetic speech by Mary Robinson – a leading voice for the Planetary Guardians. Produced by Duna Films as the opener to the Nature Stage at London Climate Action Week, it takes us on a journey through the point of view of an ageing oak.
Our Reefs, Our Future
In an Ocean Drives Films and Duna Films co-production, this film uses Open Planet footage to highlight the vibrancy that lives within our precious coral reefs. Aiming to transform our perception that ‘all hope is lost’, the hope is that more positive outlook then this crucial living infrastructure can be protected. The film celebrates new findings for climate-resilient corals, made for Our Reefs, Our Future – a global campaign led by WWF, The Nature Conservancy, and the Wildlife Conservation Society – supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies.
World Wildlife Day celebrate cultural knowledge to secure a thriving future
In collaboration with CITES and Jackson Wild, the World Wildlife Day organisation used Open Planet footage to bring to life their 2026 World Wildlife Day celebration — a film shining a spotlight on the world’s medicinal and aromatic plants. The video has the highest reach on their Instagram platform to date totalling almost 18,000 views.