Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild - Season 12

Ben Fogle meets a former carpenter who now lives alone on a private island in the Icelandic wilderness. He discusses how a struggle with alcoholism drove him to turn his back on life in the big city, and enlists Ben's aid in fishing and harvesting, as well as maintaining his yurt business. They also go swimming in the freezing waters and take a trek up the country's most famous volcano - and discover how the island could be under threat from Iceland's volatile environment.

Ben meets a scientist in Siberia, who gave up his urban life to work in the Russian Arctic on finding ways to reduce the impact of climate change on the permafrost. His project makes use of steam machines and monster trucks, but away from his environmental work, he is working on the idea of bringing the woolly mammoth back from extinction.

Ben meets Lucy, who left Britain to start a new life with her husband Tim on New Zealand's north island. They now live with their two daughters in a yurt beside a river in the middle of 25 acres of woodland they have transformed into a farm. Ben discovers how the forest provides the family with everything they need, getting a taste of their daily routine of chopping wood and foraging for wild foods. He also discovers how the couple are providing their children with an alternative education and the campaign of activism Lucy has embarked on from their wilderness home.

As one of the world's most in-demand sporting coaches, 43-year-old Nikola Boric once travelled the world, welcomed everywhere he went. Now, he lives in a wooden cabin without electricity, water or heating, with just some pigs and goats for company. Experiencing Nikola's new life in the woods above the village of Kokocak on the edge of Papuk Nature Park, Ben tries to understand what drove Nikola to make a sudden decision to quit everything and retire to such a forgotten corner of the world, finding a new life of purity and self-sufficiency away from mainstream society.

In the final episode of the current series, Ben meets Dan, a photographer living off the land in the wilds of Oregon, who relies on catching fish and harvesting wild weeds to provide himself with food, and has built his own Native American-inspired sweat lodge. Dan reveals how his childhood inspired his unusual lifestyle, and takes Ben on a journey deep into the surrounding mountain ranges. However, he also shares his fears of an uncertain future, and how he may be forced to leave the meadow he calls home.