This is a podcast from BBC Studios.

BBC Studios. A commercial is one of the most remote islands in the world.

The island itself is uninhabited, save for a very small research base on one corner of the island.

And the sea around it is very well protected.

I don't think you can go within 50 miles of the island.

And when you go there, you really do feel like you're seeing things that very, very few people have seen.

Welcome to the BBC Earths podcast, the podcast that's trying to get as far away from other people as possible.

Our entire planet has been shaped now by humans.

And there are just very few places you can go to where you can see nature without our influence.

And that kind of remoteness, that kind of sort of isolation from other humans is, I find it quite thrilling.

In this episode, we're taking a look at how far the influence of human beings has spread across the face of our planet, for better or worse, and wondering if it's even possible to get away from it entirely.

And a coral atoll in the middle of the Indian Ocean is a good place to start.

Not many people know this, but coral atolls are actually extinct volcanoes.

So when a volcano comes out of the sea, it creates a cone, you know, an island,

and over time that island slowly starts to sink into the sea floor.

And as it does so, coral reef grows up around the edges. And eventually, the island

itself disappears completely beneath the waves, leaving a lagoon in the middle, surrounded by a coral

reef. And that's what Aldabra is. It's an extinct volcano. For many of us, the quintessential idea

of a place free of humans is one from storybooks,

the desert island.

A spit of land miles from anywhere, where there's nothing but the sound of the breaking waves

and the calling of birds.

...