The BBC has admitted that a scene in the ‘Human Planet’ series was faked for the cameras.
The 2011 episode saw the remote Korowai tribe from Papua New Guinea moving into a home built 100ft up a tree in a forest.
But another BBC documentary crew who were filming a different programme were told by the tribe that the homes were “commissioned for filming”.
Will Millard, who visited the Korowai for the BBC2 documentary ‘My Year With The Tribe’, was told the tree houses “are not our home”.
The BBC said a member of the tribe told Will the treehouses were built for “the benefit of overseas programme makers”.
In the new programme, he tells viewers: “This is not where they live, this is total artifice”.
A BBC spokeswoman said: “The BBC has reviewed a sequence in Human Planet depicting this [the treehouses] and found that the portrayal of the tribe moving into the treehouse as a real home is not accurate.
“Since this programme was broadcast in 2011, we have strengthened our mandatory training for all staff in editorial guidelines, standards and values.”
The Korowai featured in an episode called ‘Jungle — People Of The Trees’ in which they “show off their engineering skills by building a high-rise home 35 metres up in the treetops”.
The tribe do live in homes on stilts but they are nowhere near as high.
‘The Human Planet’ ran for eight episodes and was narrated by John Hurt.