Episode 10 Deadly Mission Madagascar

This is Madagascar.

It's a vast island in the Indian Ocean off the east coast of Africa.

And it's home to some of the most unique

and rare creatures on the planet.

Incredibly, 80% of the wildlife here exists nowhere else on earth.

LEMUR HOWLS

But it's a paradise under threat.

So I've sent eight ordinary kids from the UK to have

the Deadly adventure of their lives.

Agh!

They'll face the toughest challenges...

and discover for themselves how to save this lost world...

..before it's too late.

With just three days left of their trip,

the team are facing their final and biggest challenge.

Their aim is to reforest an entire area that was previously

cut down to build a railway.

Come on, guys, we need to hurry up.

-For some, it's been hard, backbreaking work.

-It isn't working.

Ugh, I hate it.

For others, just another competition.

I don't know if you've noticed but everything we've done

on this trip has been a competition. And I liked it that way.

But either way they're still short of the 500 trees target.

As they discovered,

one of the major issues the wildlife is facing is habitat destruction.

It's really sad that it's in so much trouble right now.

So, to make a difference, they've split into teams to try and reforest

this area and to see which team gets their flag into the middle first.

With the first day over

and each completed tree stake wearing colourful tape,

confidence is high that they'll complete this task in time.

We won't need the whole three days.

But at the end of the day, Yusuf, the tree expert, has informed

Doug, the team leader, that many of the trees are bad and has started

removing the tape from those that have not been planted correctly.

I take this blue tape.

They planted it wrong.

So, in the morning, the guys are going to find out they've got ...

more work than they maybe realised.

It's early in the morning.

And the teams' competitive and buoyant mood is still bubbling away.

-Good morning!

-I'm full of energy, full of energy!

But almost immediately, suspicions starts to grow.

-I swear they've moved our flag back.

-They have.

-What happened to that gaffer tape?

-That had gaffer tape yesterday.

All of these had gaffer tape yesterday

because I did all of these.

And the crew have the unenviable task

of telling the teams the bad news.

So, as you notice, they've moved your flag back

and there's a reason for this

because Yusuf walked round yesterday and he looked at all the trees

and some of them haven't been planted properly.

He found some with blue sticky tape on and no trees in them at all.

And he found some which were not planted correctly.

I think about 40 haven't been planted properly.

Which means the trees might not grow to maturity

and all your hard work has been for nothing.

They were so focused on beating the others that the treeplanting

standard fell below what was acceptable.

Yusuf knows that if these trees aren't planted correctly,

the way he showed them, the seedlings will die

and all of their hard work will have been for nothing.

After all that work in the hot sun, it's a real setback.

-Motivation hits rock bottom.

-Hey, more fun.

-I'm sorry, guys.

But we need to do it right.

If we're going to do it, we have to do it right.

The crew decide that even though it'll lose both teams

valuable time planting on site, the teams need something to

remind them about the vital importance of this final challenge.

We're going to take you off to somewhere else to remind you

why we're planting these trees so you can see

and get some motivation back for carrying on today.

-Shall we head off?

-OK.

Hopefully, this excursion will give them

a much-needed boost to their flagging energy levels.

20 minutes later, the Orange team are waiting in a forest outpost

and for the very first time cracks are starting to show.

I think people were not trying enough to do it properly.

-Aimed at me.

-Some of those trees were yours.

I'm just saying.

We do think everyone...

some of the trees that weren't right were everyone's.

Everyone will have made mistakes.

We're just saying that some people haven't tried hard enough.

The reason we are doing it is to plant trees

so no point in doing them wrong.

Yeah, we're obviously not going to win now, so what's the point?

It's not a competition! What were you ever going to win? Nothing!

-The competition was just to make us do it faster.

-Absolutely nothing.

With mood is still no better, they're introduced to Josef,

a local guide, and they follow him into the forest.

Josef's pretty much a one-off.

He's developed a unique connection with a special animal

that lives here.

But so distracted with their own problems,

none of them have even thought of asking where they might be going.

Meanwhile, the others have gone off in the opposite

direction for a real tourist encounter.

Trouble is that to experience it, it's not a hike but a river trip.

And for some this brings back bad memories.

Ugh!

-Where?

-Under my seat.

I was ready about an hour ago to get out the little boat thing.

Only this time Jamie Rose won't even have to lift a finger.

We can relax, he's going to do it for us.

A much easier task than Raina, Charlie,

Yoran and Eilidh who are on another uphill humid jungle trek.

We've gone deeper into the forest now.

We've been walking for about ten minutes.

And...I still don't know where we're going.

The mood is at an all-time low.

I don't know where we're going, I don't know what we're doing.

The question is, is all this hard work going to be worth it?

But then something stops them in their tracks.

-Indri.

-Indri.

Our team have just spotted the reason why they're here

to plant trees in the first place. This is the Indri,

the largest of all the living lemurs.

These black and white beauties can grow

to about as big as a four-year-old child

and are of the most endangered primates on the planet.

They're also one of the loudest.

These eerie calls echo through the forest

and can be heard over a mile away.

They live in small family groups

and Charlie spots something on one of the adults.

(Oh my God. Oh, God.)

Indris only give birth once every two years

so to be here at this exact time

and see a baby that's only two months old is a wonderful moment.

Meanwhile, the others are in for a completely different

kind of close encounter.

MEN WHISTLE

WHISTLING CONTINUES

-Ah!

-Whoa!

A ring-tailed lemur!

Oh, my gosh...

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven!

Seven ring-tailed lemurs.

Oh, my God. It's on the boat, it's on the boat!

It's behind you. Oh, wow!

Oh, my God!

Oh, my word!

Oh, my gosh!

Oh, wow.

Lemur Island was set up some years ago, using rehabilitated animals

that are now living a semi-wild existence.

I've got two on my knee. Oh, my God!

I swear they love my hair.

This lot are now ambassadors for all lemur-kind.

So used to people, and always hungry.

It doesn't take them long to steal everyone's hearts.

It's on my head as well.

But then, some will do anything for a slice of banana.

Hello!

It's on top of the lens!

THEY ALL LAUGH

Ring-tailed lemurs live in the wild,

in the southern regions of Madagascar.

They can live in dry deserts,

up mountains, and in lush rainforests.

And this ability to survive in all kinds of tough places

means that they tend to do well in captivity,

and they are a common sight even in many zoos in the UK.

These captive breeding groups mean that

if anything terrible here to wipe out ring-tailed lemurs

in the wild, like a massive fire or disease,

then there are still captive animals that could one day be reintroduced.

Oh, they're beautiful.

Hello!

But right now, this lot are not worried about how important they

might be, but are more concerned about filling up their stomachs.

As close encounters go, it's pretty special.

But Josef is about to play his trump card.

Not that Raina's holding out much hope.

Either attract it or feed it... I'm not sure which one!

Lemurs don't really come near to humans anyway...

..and trying to wave leaves around is a bit ambitious.

What Raina doesn't know is that Josef has over the years

developed an almost supernatural bond with this band of Indri.

So much so that they now completely trust him,

and he treats them as if they are a part of his family.

Basically, I think Josef has managed to get

one of the lemur down from the tree with a leaf.

And now we're just all having a look.

For some reason,

these peaceful vegetarians just love the leaves Josef has on offer.

-RAINA LAUGHS

-Did you see...?

Very few people have ever hand-fed an Indri,

one of the most endangered animals on the planet.

Because, unlike those tourist- friendly captive ring-tailed lemurs,

these Indris are 100% wild animals.

It's a really special moment for us all.

And the effect they have is magical.

But there's a sad twist to the Indri story.

There are no captive populations of Indri anywhere in the world.

No safety net if something terrible happens to them in the wild.

These forests are the last home for these animals,

and if they get chopped down, the Indri will disappear for ever.

Thankfully, these wonderful creatures are now protected,

and the population is growing.

Just see its small hands... They're little scooping hands.

An Indri family group need an area of forest

the size of 40 football pitches. It's a lot of forest.

So without new forest habitat being replanted,

they could outgrow the forests that are left.

The area that our teams are planting is actually connected

to Indri territory, and that's what makes our team's final challenge

so vitally important.

Without their efforts, the baby Indri they've spotted

might never be able to grow up and have a family of its own.

Now I'll appreciate how...

-the reason why we're doing the trees.

-Yeah.

-I need to plant trees now.

-Yeah.

-I feel the urge to.

We should head back soon, to get planting.

The whole team have had an encounter they won't forget.

Any previous bad feeling is put behind them.

I feel really bad now.

Sorry. I apologise for anything that I might have said.

Merci. Merci beaucoup.

THEY TALK TO JOSEF IN DIALECT

This morning we went off to a bad start, but then it was just amazing,

it was just so cool.

'Oh, man, everyone was so...'

You know, everyone thought, it's hard work anyway,

we don't need something extra on top of it...

We got to go deep into the forest with Josef

and we got to see Indri.

Which is so cool.

We had a treat in store for us. And what a treat it was.

Oh, they're beautiful...

We went to see the lemurs, and that was just amazing

when they were crawling all over us.

We were the third people Josef has ever let feed them -

himself, David Attenborough and then us. Wow.

It's like, proper important

cos the trees that we're planting,

hopefully in 20-odd years when they're grown fully,

that will be a great habitat.

'Just think, in 20 years' time,

'those lemurs could be bouncing off the trees, and...'

it's just a warm sensation just thinking about it now,

it feels really like a bubbly kind of warm sensation,

that I just want to explode!

'It isn't just about us, so we shouldn't be moaning

'and like, whingeing,'

we should actually think, well, what's the point of

planting these trees? It's not for us, it's for the lemurs.

That was just like, amazing, and it was proper motivational.

Now we know how important it is, and we're doing it for the Indri.

It's their final morning.

With the whole site now needing completion,

the team are fired up to complete their challenge.

Now they realise - even Gwen - that this is not a competition.

Getting it right for the lemurs is what really matters.

But they still have an awful lot to do. And time is running out.

They first have to fix all the badly planted trees

before getting on with any new trees.

The day is the hottest so far

and Eilidh is giving it everything.

Eilidh's working really hard cos I think she's trying to make

up for yesterday when she was feeling a bit sick.

I am proud of her, she's getting stuck in and helping us all.

Eilidh is getting back involved which is good.

Everyone's working hard, getting along.

The first day, I let the team down.

I let the Indri down, let the forest down. So, today, I am going to work.

I'm going to try and work twice as hard.

As soon as we saw the lemurs and saw what we're working for,

it was quite good.

So I hope we will get along well and do these trees properly.

-There's loads of them.

-Yeah, I know.

It takes forever. There's loads we keep on finding.

We've gone from being like, really positive

at the start of the day and now we're trying to like,

get it done now and getting a little bit tired.

It has gone a bit more negative

cos we have been finding new ones that keep on having to be done.

Yeah, I definitely feel we could do with a bit help.

And that is exactly what's on its way.

-Do you reckon they came from church?

-Is it Sunday?

That's what the bells were, I reckon.

I can see loads of people just randomly walking past.

They're all walking in a straight line.

Who are they?

Elsie and Yusuf have arranged

for similar local kids to come and lend an hand.

Raina, Eilidh, Charlie and Yoran.

We were saying earlier we could do with help

and then out come 47 Madagascar kids.

And their timing is perfect.

Me and Yoran would've been here forever trying to do all of these.

We've got about five kids here, practically done it.

That's good.

Nice one. High five!

LAUGHTER Oh, we've made friends!

The question is, though, even with all this help is it too late?

Will their combined efforts manage to finish this

forest for the future generations of Indri to live in?

With an hour to spare, the two flags finally come to together

and the Deadly Mission Madagascar Forest is complete.

CHEERING

High five, Yoran. Put it there!

Nice one.

As a team we've all planted 500 trees and helped each other.

We came together as one big family.

Even though it started as a competition, we all ended together.

LAUGHTER

In the not too distant future, this patch of damaged and destroyed

forest could be filled with the sound of a family of Indri.

There's only one thing left for our happy band of tired yet

satisfied adventurers - and that's to eat

and party with all the local kids that came to give them a hand.

And to reflect on the past few days' exertions.

It's really amazing and I loved every minute of it.

It has to be one of our best days, yeah.

I've learned so much and gained so much from this experience,

it's just unreal. It's a perfect ending to the whole adventure.

We thought it's going to be brilliant once it's done but looking

at it, it's like you know, this is a huge thing we've got to do.

Really rich.

MUSIC: "One Thing" by One Direction

I'm really happy that I got chosen to be on this trip cos it's the best

thing that's ever happened to me.

All of us British kids and the Madagascar kids united as one to

help the forest, and that's what we're here for,

so it made me really happy.

We've finished. We've planted those trees,

we've left a little bit of Britain in Madagascar.

We're finishing with a bang.

MUSIC: "One Thing" by One Direction

Finally, their adventure is at an end.

But what an adventure.

It's been 30 days since they last saw their homes and families.

In that time they've travelled hundreds of miles across this

vast country, from north to south, from east to west.

I never imagined myself being here,

getting to do the things that I have. I feel so lucky right now.

I've honestly had the time of my life. It's been amazing.

Once in a lifetime definitely.

They've seen the devastation and they've witnessed the hope.

I've never stopped laughing.

LAUGHTER

SHE SQUEALS

I was like, "Wow!" She was like, "Aaaaaah!"

Fun, adventurous... It's been so amazing everywhere.

GROWLING

Did that really just happen?

That did not just happen!

They've seen the issues facing the rare

and wonderful wildlife of Madagascar...

I think conservation is a lot more complicated

than when I first come here.

There's a lot more effort, time,

you know, awareness that needs to be raised to conserve the wildlife.

..Met the people that are making a difference

and done what they can to help...

When you look back and get to see the different things you done

and all the people you've met, it's just been so special. Oh wow!

-That's cool.

-I feel so stupid!

And they've bonded with the people that call this magical island home.

Everyone that I've met on this amazing, breath-taking journey,

everyone has inspired me.

Without the people we wouldn't've been able to do

any of the activities that we got to. I'm really grateful to them.

They're such amazing kind people too.

It's like home to me. The people there felt like family.

As well as leaving behind their very own legacy.

We've left our mark and I think it's something we should all be proud of.

If you want to help the animals of Madagascar,

explore for yourself what you can do to make a difference.

It's not just about Madagascar, it's about the entire world.

I want everyone to know just how special this country is.

ALL: Oh, Madagascar!

-Is everything all right?

-Yeah.

No competition!

-Moving shot, moving shot!

-Sorry, guys!

-Tell me how you feel about using the camera?

-Yeah. Really chuffed, yeah.

-How are you feeling about getting to use that?

-I'm feeling good.