Geldof and BBC to create the ‘A to Z of mankind’

THE BBC and Bob Geldof yesterday announced plans to record the 900 groups of people anthropologists believe exist at the beginning of the 21st century.

The Live 8 campaigner is sending out his TV crews to record the different groups of people living on the planet for an “A to Z of mankind” website.

The Human Planet, a landmark TV series on the same theme, will be produced by the BBC’s Natural History Unit, along with other BBC departments.

The website will launch and the series will be broadcast in 2010.

Geldof was “determined” to record the “sounds, voices and jokes so they never disappear again” after sitting on a tree stump in northern Niger 20 years ago.

A regional governor told him how 300 languages had disappeared in just two years during the famine.

Geldof wrote: “Even though I never heard those languages, I already miss them. In these ways the lights of human genius wink out.”

Announcing the plans yesterday, he said: “This will be an A to Z of mankind which will catalogue the world we live in now, the people who share this planet, the way we live and the way we adapt to face common and different challenges.

“Mankind is the world’s most extraordinary animal. In an age of globalisation and increasing connection, we face the growing homogenisation of cultures and the disappearance of extraordinary and diverse mechanisms that man has invented in order to survive in whichever environment he has found himself.

“Culture is a function of survival.”

The digital catalogue will allow individuals across the globe to track and trace their clan, tribe or family.

Geldof said: “Ultimately I suppose in some ways we’re also building the world’s family photo album.”

Experts suggest there could be up to 27,000 variations alongside the core 900 groups of people thought to exist.

The BBC hopes the eight-part series, filmed in high-definition, will have the same success as the likes of the Blue Planet and Planet Earth.