When the days get longer and the sun develops its full warming force, summer has truly arrived. Life is bounteous, the flowers are in full bloom, the first fruit is ready to be harvested and there is enough sustenance for animals everywhere. But nature can’t afford to take a holiday. On the contrary, the long hours of sunshine demand peak performance all round. Animals and plants must use these warm and heady days to grow and reproduce. Most of them have already had their young and are busy teaching their offspring the essentials for survival.

Dogs have followed us humans all over the world – as hunting, sledge, guard or sheep dog. This heart-warming documentary shows true stories about the unconditional loyalty between humans and dogs and investigates our best friends’ remarkable intelligence, their outstanding sensory abilities and emotional bond to us humans.

In an entertaining journey to the quirkiest hoarders in the animal kingdom, the film shows squirrels’ amazing abilities to survive in extraordinarily diverse habitats: from cities to mountains, from deserts to rainforest, even in the Arctic. Some can fly, some can swim, some live in trees or underground, others love icy wastelands or burning sands.

Between the Black Forest and the Vosges it’s not only the Rhine that flows slowly northwards but also another waterway, hidden from view. The largest groundwater reservoir in Europe forms an underground river in the Upper Rhine Valley, which gives rise to wetlands of unique beauty – home to rare animals and plants. Underwater cameraman and biology professor Serge Dumont has captured this unknown world in breath-taking sequences and has managed to record behaviour patterns of fish and birds never seen before. The film transports us into an alien world filled with bizarre creatures we would never suspect lived nearby.

This series of documentaries tells the stories of five exceptional and fantastically beautiful landscapes. They represent role models for new approaches to nature conservation: working with people, not against them – that’s the maxim. Instead of banning inhabitants, businesses and tourists from these species-rich territories, some of the areas' natural resources are exploited – responsibly.