In the heart of Asia lie vast arid lands. These deserts and dry grasslands are so hostile that they push life to the limit. Here, one of the rarest animals on earth, the Gobi bear, searches desperately for water and bizarre looking long-eared jerboas use their striking features to catch prey. Asiatic lions must do whatever it takes to find food, and juvenile cormorants resort to cannibalism to survive. On the arid grasslands, Pallas cats need ingenious ways to get close to their prey, Mongolian gazelles must battle harsh winters and human barriers, and takhi are terrorised each night by Mongolian wolves. Life in the arid heart of Asia demands extraordinary resilience – those that live here are the continent's great survivors.

Remarkable people are dedicating their lives to saving Asia's extraordinary wildlife, using ingenious solutions. In Borneo, we follow a sun bear being released back into the wild, and in Java, we see how a breeding programme is saving the Javan green magpie. In Japan, orphaned shark embryos are being raised in an artificial uterus. And off Bali, fishermen are trialling new technology that could stop rare species being caught in their nets. We witness a Nepali police raid disrupting the illegal wildlife trade and also join a 24-hour wildlife rescue team saving Sunda pangolins in urban Singapore.