When I read that The Lost Land Of The Jaguar, a three-part nature series on BBC One, would be hosted by four people - Dr George McGavin, Gordon Buchanan, Steve Backshall, and Justine Evans - I was concerned that it might become dominated by their personalities, and so the setting itself would be overwhelmed, maybe even sidelined, just as it was in Britain's Lost World a couple of months ago. However, after watching the first hour, I am happy to say that while the presenters are a huge part of this show, this only serves to really bring to our attention the extremes of the environment in which they lived and worked.

Each of the presenters has their own specialism, and so all types of wildlife in the Guyanan rainforest are covered - by real experts. Gordon Buchanan was hoping to see the large mammals including giant otters and jaguars (which, while clearly the biggest animals in the jungle, can be the most elusive), Justine Evans spends her days high up in the canopy waiting for glimpses of birds and monkeys, Steve Backshaw is an expert climber and abseiler, and Dr George McGavin is obsessed with those creepy-crawlies that everybody else in camp is complaining about.

Guyana, South America, is described as being at a "dangerous corssroads", as the rainforest is mainly untouched, but the government must now decide how to use it: to sell it off to loggers, or open it up to tourists and conservationists. As such, the presenters have all come to the country - along with a huge back-up team, of course - to "prove that the rainforest is worth more alive than razed to the ground".

They make a good start, as within minutes of arriving at camp, there are reports of a rare monkey having been sighted, but this documentary is keen to point out that while this is a beautiful and pristine environment, it is not the easiest place in which to live and work. As such, each presenter has their moment of despondency, fear or pain as well of elation.

Starting with Gordon, he went off to find giant otters, and while he discovered fresh signs of the animals very quickly, and displayed amazing tracking skills, we also saw him get low and annoyed as he floated downstream, seeing absolutely nothing. First weeds got tangled in the boat's propeller, then his knife broke as he tried to free them, and then he showed off the blistering that some of George's beloved insects had caused on his chest. But he got his money moments too. First he saw those secretive giant otters up close, ("man alive!" "jeepers!") and then he went to check on a camera trap, where he found that it had been set off by the ultimate Guyanan mammal - the jaguar.

Justine had a slightly easier time of it, but only in the sense that the boredom that comes with her particular job was fully known to her from the beginning. She was positioned high up in the rainforest canopy, on a metal shelf around a metre square, and there she sat, alone, for twelve hours a day. Her best moments included capturing high definition shots of a baby howler monkey on its mother's back, but she wasn't feeling too fantastic as the tree swayed in high winds. "I've now got motion sickness to go with the vertigo I was feeling earlier", she said.

Insect expert George, who I've not seen on any nature programme before, was an absolute revelation. Ever enthusiastic, he climbed right inside a felled tree that had been hollowed out by termites - "this is gonna be epic!" he squealed. The tree had been down so long that it had become inhabited by bats, but this didn't deter our hero as he battled on, 20 metres along it, to take a closer look at huge spiders that looked like something out of a sci-fi movie. Even in his lower moments, when he was beset by angry army ants, he managed a quip: "Entomologist nil, army ants one!"

Yes, George may have been the star of the show, but the prize for the lowest of low points goes to Steve Backshall at the bottom of Kaieteur Falls. This waterfall, five times the height of Niagra, is undeniably spectacular, and Steve did get the opportunity to experience it from an utterly unique vantage point: half way down, on the end of a rope, surrounded by a flock of swifts. (If you're interested in the collective nouns allowed for swifts, by the way, and I was, you can also have a box, a swoop, and even a "screaming frenzy" of them. Apparently.)

But when he got to the bottom, absolutely sodden, and trying to avoid broken limbs as he negotiated the slippery rocks, he was not in the mood to appreciate the majesty of his surroundings. "This is absolutely miserable to be honest" he said. And things didn't get much better. He and two other team members spent the first night in a cave, only to be attacked by huge cockroaches, so Steve decided to spend the second night under a tarpaulin in the open.

It was quite brave, I felt, to end a documentary filled with such a stunning landscape, and such impressive wildlife, with a shot of Steve, shivering with cold (and no doubt not a little fear) in the middle of an electric storm, probably cursing the day he'd agreed to come on this trip.