Charlotte Smith and Matt Baker travel to Upper Teesdale in the Durham Dales to celebrate one remarkable lady who has made it her life's work to look after one of the most important botanical sites in the UK, and to meet the people helping to protect the important species that call this area home.

Charlotte meets 97-year-old botanist Dr Margaret Bradshaw on Widdy Bank Fell, who for the last 70 years has been at the forefront of classifying, surveying and protecting the rare Arctic and alpine flora that make up the exceptional Teesdale assemblage. Charlotte hears how in the 1960s Margaret campaigned to stop the building of a reservoir on the site of these special wildflowers. Although unsuccessful, Margaret was inspired to set up the Teesdale Special Flora Trust, which is still responsible for looking after this precious habitat. Charlotte joins the trust as they survey such botanical gems as the spring gentian and lady's mantle.

Matt joins the Durham Wildlife Trust as they survey endangered ground-nesting wading birds by using sound monitoring posts that can remarkably distinguish calls from individual species and calculate how many birds are in the area. On another site, Matt joins the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust as they monitor threatened birds, using remote camera traps to capture predator activity.

Adam is embracing a new venture as he diversifies into farming wildflower meadows, and Tom investigates the possible impacts of calls to ban one billion fast-bred chickens from being produced in the UK each year.

There are 151 hope spots around the world, including the Galapagos Islands and the Great Barrier Reef. They are areas identified as critical to the health of the oceans, championed by their local communities.

Hamza Yassin visits the only one in the UK – the Argyll Coast and Islands. Hamza meets marine biologist Chris Rickard and discovers that the area was designated hope spot status in 2019 because it's home to the only known nursery in the world of the critically endangered flapper skate. Hamza joins Chris as he conducts research, searching for more nursery sites in the hope of a better understanding of these mysterious creatures of the deep.

Hamza also meets RSPB Officer Dave Sexton in Oban to witness the highly unusual sight of black guillemots, which usually live far out at sea, residing in the harbourside alongside the townspeople. We also meet the team behind sea wilding, a community-driven native oyster and seagrass restoration project using a groundbreaking technique never seen before in the UK.

Adam Henson looks at the robots and artificial intelligence being developed that promise to revolutionise UK agriculture. And John Craven is at the Wilder Blean project in Kent, where he is on the lookout for ancient animal species such as long-horned cattle and bison, introduced to rewild a former commercial pine plantation. Cameras at the ready as John launches this year's photo competition in aid of Children in Need.