Episode 3 I Bought a Rainforest

When he was seven, Charlie was obsessed with kingfishers.

When he was 13, just looking at animals wasn't enough

and he was compelled to take pictures of them.

He got his first job as a wildlife cameraman when he was 16.

But now he's 40, Charlie's done something extraordinary.

He's bought a rainforest in Peru.

I didn't want to sit around and spend my life

being depressed about the environment and not doing anything about it.

So I thought, "Right, if I can do my bit,

"then at least I know in my life, I've done my bit."

Charlie wants to understand the issues

and the people threatening the whole of the Amazon.

But after nearly a year in the rainforest,

he's seen first-hand the poverty

that drives people to cut down the trees.

How you doing?

And now he's responsible for much more than a battered piece of land.

There are those that say it's already too late.

That nobody cares if we wreck the planet.

But if we're going down, Charlie's going down fighting.

Welcome to camp.

These are...tents for kit.

And there's my tent,

which is, look, I mean...

That's just embarrassing, isn't it?

But why keep it tidy?

My mum's not checking, is she?

And then just down here...

..that's the path to the bathroom.

I say bathroom, I mean gorgeous,

crystal-clear, mountainous stream.

This is Charlie's third trip to his rainforest

and for an animal-obsessed cameraman,

there are few better places to spend your time than the Amazon.

Look, come over here. Look, look at this!

This is a full-on swarm of army ants.

Every single creature that's stuck in this is going to die.

And it's going to be chopped up

and taken back to the den, called a bivouac.

Look, something's been killed here.

These are actually my favourite kind of army ant, these ones.

They're called Eciton burchellii.

They might look little, but they are

one of the most important creatures in the rainforest.

They're what's called a keystone species.

They're coming onto me now.

Really hurt when they bite.

Argh!

Yargh!

But what's cool about them is that they're actually considered an environment.

You've got the high Andes, the rainforest,

the cloud forest, the lowland rainforest and army ants.

Because they are basically, a moving ecosystem.

And all around us are ant birds.

And they feed on the insects that are trying to escape from the ants.

Two or three stings will kill one.

So they spend their whole lives right on the edge of that risk.

If they make a mistake, they're going to die.

Very cool.

Charlie paid £6,000 for 100 acres of rainforest,

without seeing it first.

He wanted to use the land as a barrier

to stop people getting into Manu National Park.

I suppose the thing that excites me about it is that,

of all the rainforests in the world, it is the best one.

And it's the most bio-diverse place on Earth.

Although Manu is supposed to be a protected area,

it is being illegally logged.

And Charlie's land is strategically placed

at the end of the only road for miles.

But when he first arrived,

he discovered that his own piece of paradise

was 100 acres of knackered secondary forest

and a large field of coca.

The few guards patrolling Manu discovered a sign

warning Charlie not to interfere.

But his biggest worry is that an illegal logger called Elias

is still using the land to support his family.

Is it the yucca that's your main income,

or is that the illegal logging?

Do I value protecting Manu

more than I value a family?

I probably value Manu more.

Charlie knew he'd have to act tough to protect the Amazon,

but when he went to kick Elias out,

he just couldn't bring himself to do it.

Yeah!

How are you doing?

I think the worst thing was when Elias told me

he had a disabled daughter...

..I didn't believe him.

And I actually thought he was using that as a tool to try and, er...

..sway me.

And then when I met her, I felt so cynical and guilty

for making that assumption.

Charlie promised his family that this would be his last trip

to Peru for a while.

But unless he can work out what to do with Elias,

he will have achieved nothing.

And to make matters worse, the park guards think that while he's

been away, somebody has been smuggling trees through his land.

Do you know these guys? Do you know who they are?

By allowing him to stay on the land,

Charlie may have given Elias and his friends

the perfect cover story to continue logging the park.

Of all the things I've encountered while I've been out here,

Elias has been the most complex.

I'm sort off stuck between wanting to boot him off

because that's, I suppose, what my original idea was,

and knowing that morally,

it would be reprehensible for me to boot him off.

So now, what do I now do to sort this situation out?

But it's got me thinking, if nothing else!

I could just walk away, that's the other thing.

And if I walked away from it,

the only loss would be the money I'd spent on it

because the land would still exist in exactly the same way it did before.

There are countless people like Elias throughout South America

who rely on the forest for their survival.

But if they carry on hammering the Amazon at the current rate,

then within 200 years, the rainforest will only exist

in a few protected areas.

And the crazy thing is, we don't even know what we're losing

because modern science has studied less than 1% of the Amazon.

COCKEREL CROWS

Don Alberto is a shaman for the huachipaeri tribe.

He believes in a world that cannot be seen.

A world of spirits.

And part of his role in the community

is to heal the sick and mend the soul.

Though his methods look ridiculous

in a world where medicine comes out of a bottle,

many of our potions have ingredients found in the Amazon.

And Charlie has asked the Don to take him

on a tour of his medicine cabinet.

Oh, well, I'll take them anyway.

If this can cure cancer, why doesn't the world know about this?

Worldwide, there are 3,000 plants that have been

identified as being useful in treating cancer.

And 70% of them are only found in the rainforest.

Our world of concrete and glass is so removed from nature

that Alberto's connection to the land seems alien.

Personally, I have a great big spiritual hole in me

because I don't believe in anything

that I can't have proved or see.

Don Alberto has a patient whose left arm is paralysed.

He uses chanting and tobacco to channel nature's energy

and calls on the spirits to help him diagnose what is wrong.

Do you think it's through experience that you can work out,

make diagnoses, or do you think it's the plants speaking to you,

or the forest speaking to you and giving you the knowledge

of maybe what's wrong with him?

I think it's very easy to romanticise the idea

of Amazonian, shamanistic medicine.

And I think it's very easy to romanticise it

over the top of our own medicine and actually...

we can't forget that our medicine is unbelievably good.

We are incredibly good at curing things and making medicines and...

I think we're a lot better at it than he is.

It sounds awful, doesn't it?

But his approach and his explanation to me

is that the actual compound is only one part of the process.

And there's another whole pile of elements,

both physical and spiritual, that need applying as well.

How are you feeling? Has it made any difference in the night?

A shaman doesn't learn about the forest from books or science.

The forest speaks to Don Alberto.

And there's one plant more important than any other

to open his mind to the energy flowing through nature.

DON ALBERTO LAUGHS

Alberto is brewing an infusion of 12 different forest plants

that will give Charlie a glimpse of the world he sees.

Plants talking to people? Er...

-..a load of old

-BLEEP.

HE CHUCKLES

I'd love to think it wasn't.

I suppose that's why I'm here, I want proof. I want some proof.

According to western science, Ayahuasca activates

parahippocampal areas of the brain

that are involved in processing emotion and memory.

Don Alberto describes

how forest spirits will talk to Charlie in a dream

and show him his true path.

HE CHANTS

Snakes, wasps, spiders, crocodiles.

There were a lot of animals in the visions,

but the only ones giving me messages were actually the rainforest animals.

HE CONTINUES TO CHANT

Whatever he did, it worked!

It really worked.

What I wanted to do was go on a journey

to discover more about the forest.

And it irritatingly, was about me.

The understanding of myself

and being given this understanding by the creatures of the forest

was the most enlightening

and profound experience I've ever had.

It absolutely blew me away.

And what I realised is that,

-although I have what

-I

-think is a knowledge and understanding of the world,

I will happily admit that it might not be right.

And I look at Alberto in a different way.

I know a bit more. I wouldn't say I know, but I know a bit more

about what he's talking about

when he talks to me about the forest spirits.

Because essentially, I've seen them.

The rainforest sustains a culture and understanding of the world

that we've almost forgotten.

It may contain medicines that could save millions of lives.

Who knows how many species of plant and animal make their home here.

In fact, it's almost impossible to comprehend how much is being lost.

And whatever's being done to save the rainforest,

it just isn't working.

Before Charlie goes back to his land,

he wants to see for himself

one of the biggest threats facing the Amazon.

And so he's travelled over the border to Brazil.

About three hours on this road now.

What's getting me is the...

..the scale of the deforestation here.

Well, it's not deforestation, it's annihilation.

It's just massacred this place in every direction, as far as I can see.

It's hard to imagine these endless fields were once full of life.

And it's all been wiped out to accommodate just one animal.

COW LOWS

Charlie's going to spend the next couple of weeks on Dino's farm.

Compared to most ranches in Brazil,

300 head of cattle is tiny.

But Dino still needs the help of all four of his sons

when it comes to vaccinating this year's calves.

Ah! You're so desperate to see me fail, aren't you?

CALF LOWS

It's kind of like playing rugby, but cattle rugby.

It's crazy.

Take one of the world's most complex ecosystems

with the highest diversity of animal life on Earth

and, you know, you reduce it to this...

Grass.

Doesn't really get more basic than that, does it?

Since 1970, over 140 million acres of rainforest

have been destroyed in Brazil, just to raise cattle.

But once the big trees have been removed,

there are no nutrients from the leaf litter

and no shade from the canopy, so the land slowly dies.

The easiest way to keep the farm going

is to destroy more forest.

Dino's sons have selected an area

they're going to burn down in the next few days.

It's going to be quite a big operation, they're telling me.

I think even they're nervous about it, it's so big.

BIRDSONG

I can hear a screaming pea heart,

which is an amazing-sounding rainforest bird.

BIRDSONG

Oh, can you hear that? That is the classic sound of the rainforest.

BIRDSONG

That's...

That's the sound.

I'm going to stop because I don't want to cry in front of these guys.

It's weird, isn't it? It's the sound that's killing me,

not the... Not what I can see.

It's the sound of that crappy little brown bird.

The Brazilian forestry code

is considered by many environmentalists to be a joke.

Though 80% of private land is supposed to remain forest,

the law is largely ignored.

Is it dangerous?

HE EXHALES

It already looks apocalyptic.

I can't imagine what it's going to look like when it's on fire.

It's completely normal to them.

This is like, you know, using Excel

or doing photocopying in an office to them.

And I'm worrying about a piddly 100 acres.

It does put it into perspective.

Just being in Brazil makes me realise how pathetic

and insignificant my bit of land is.

Trees that produce oxygen

have been replaced by cows that produce methane.

And the damage this does globally

is far greater than the pollution

caused by every engine in every car on the planet.

Totally irrelevant what I think, you know,

when I'm worrying about it or depressed about it, it's rubbish.

You know, I just think, "Screw me, screw what I think."

There's a big problem here.

Whether I'm depressed about it or not...

the problem is still here.

30 years ago, Dino came to the Amazon as a landless peasant.

At the time, the Brazilian Government was giving away chunks of the rainforest

to anyone brave enough to tackle this new frontier.

This is my kind of farming, herbs.

You've got everything. You've got coriander!

Mm! That's really good!

How do you kill the pig?

So, you hold it down and...?

Does it make a lot of noise?

-Meh!

-Meh!

CHARLIE LAUGHS

I don't know why I'm laughing. I don't want to do it.

Are we going to do it now?

SQUEALING

(Ohhhh!)

That's actually just... It's completely freaked me out.

We were just wandering in the garden

and then suddenly, we're smacking a pig over the head with a hammer.

That's so weird. Really, really weird experience.

I don't know why, it's so normal.

I'm a human. I should be able to kill a pig.

Why hang around? We were going to kill a pig, let's kill a pig!

He's definitely the boss. He's almost like a sort of mafia boss.

And his sons all do what they're told.

But to run Dino's kind of business,

which is hard and needs serious labour,

to have four strong sons in their 20s and 30s is ideal for him.

ANIMATED CHATTER

But not only that, this place is lawless.

This is the Wild West.

So to have that level of protection,

-I

-think, is exactly what he needs.

No-one is going to mess with his family.

LAUGHTER

Not like this.

Lots of people would be horrified at what you're doing.

Because people don't like chopping down the forest.

It's a weird feeling I'm having today.

I feel...I feel like a bit of a fraud.

So my brain is telling me,

you know, this is wrong, I should say something,

but on the other hand, they're some of the nicest people I have ever met.

Everyone is happy and smiling all the time.

And...

Oh, God, look! There's another beautiful tree.

You going to cut this one down?

Why not?

HE LAUGHS

Obrigado.

There is some hope.

MUSIC PLAYS

I'm going to have to man up a bit, aren't I?

I'm going to have to do some man work.

LAUGHTER

These guys must think I'm so weird, not knowing how to do this.

Yeah!

Oh, the seal of approval!

This is what all of this is all about.

A hunk of meat.

And the amount of rainforest that goes into this...

is pretty astonishing.

When you look at all the products that the forest gets cut down for,

they're all luxury products.

Cocaine, gold,

high-quality Brazilian beef,

mahogany.

All these things are luxury products.

They're not products that anyone round here particularly,

you know, is desperate for or needs to survive.

They're all getting shipped off around the world.

To us, really.

ANIMATED CHATTER

It's so fatty, it's so good!

I bought some land in Peru. Only 100 acres.

And there's a guy living on it

and he seems to be still cutting it down.

What do you think I should do with it?

His dad owned it. He grew up there, he's been there all his life.

And I kind of feel like a rich gringo is coming along

and pushing him off his land.

Even though it's mine.

Si.

No-one looks after it.

That's why I'm trying to work out what to do with it at the moment.

We shouldn't live in a world where Dino has to do this

to get himself out of poverty.

And that's why it's not his fault.

There's absolutely not a single shred of blame in me

for anything that he or his family do here.

Which surprises me.

Would I cut down the Amazon if I was in his position?

I don't know.

To feed my sons.

Christ, if my kids... I suppose if my kids were starving

and I had to do it and I had to provide for them and I lived here,

then, yes, I suppose I probably would.

Hola!

ANIMATED CHATTER

LAUGHTER

Everyone's desperate for me to light the fire.

CHARLIE LAUGHS

No, you do it.

You're the expert!

Whoa!

That quick and that simple.

WHOOPING

Already I can feel the heat coming off that thing

and it's about 50 feet away.

Everyone's getting the hell out.

Oh, no, he's not, he's going in to start some more.

BIRDSONG

LAUGHTER

FLAMES ROAR

Do you know, the more I see this stuff,

the less value I put on my land.

I just think..."What's the point?"

You look at what Dino has burnt down.

A much larger area than my bit of land.

The scale of this place is unbelievable. It's...

It's almost impossible to show the scale, the enormity of this place.

Just the drive to get here.

And I've got this piddly little pinhead of land.

You just think, "What's the point?"

I mean, at the very basic level, buying my land was utterly pointless.

Yeah.

We've got loads of money sloshing around doing nothing,

even though we're in a recession.

There's still billions of pounds being chucked into the wrong areas.

Where I come from, you know, everyone knows the problems,

but the most people do...

is feel bad about it.

They don't do anything else.

Yeah. No, I get that.

And that's why I don't blame you guys.

-I grew up being told that these

-BLEEP

-are cutting down the Amazon.

And then I meet you, I meet your family

and you're some of the nicest people I've ever met.

And, er... I take it all back.

But it changes my view on everything.

LAUGHTER

Perhaps it's to be expected

that in the badlands of Brazil's Wild West,

one of the devils burning down the Amazon would tell Charlie

that he has to keep fighting to save the rainforest.

After all, Dino knows better than anyone what we're losing.

It's a great big responsibility that I've landed myself with.

And personally, I think it would be irresponsible for me,

now that I've taken on this burden, to walk away from it.

It's absurd how much money human beings will spend

on destroying the planet and how little we'll pay to save it.

You could buy the whole Amazon

with the money Britain spends on the military in just three years.

But if you buy the rainforest,

what are you going to do with all the people?

With only a few weeks before he has to return home,

Charlie tries to get to know the very man he has seen as the enemy.

A man who has spent his entire life cutting down the forest.

Right there, and then looking up the path, yeah?

-Ah, yeah, yeah.

-Yeah?

-Yeah.

Elias, you asked me what I do, well, this is what I do.

I film wildlife, I film animals,

I take photos of animals.

And back in England, I sell those pictures.

And that's how I make my living.

OK, Elias, rather than me sticking it up,

I want you to do it. Here you go.

Hm. Yeah.

HE LAUGHS

I can't wait to see your results.

I suppose I knew Elias by reputation before I knew the man.

And, um... So the first encounters with him,

I was always... I was always scared, I suppose.

I don't know why, looking back at it now.

But the more I've got to know him, the more I like him.

He's... He's a good guy.

Ah! Well done! It's there.

Really good, Elias.

Ah, yeah, look at that. Yeah, yeah.

You gave them some yucca.

Yeah, perfect.

OK, Elias, let's see what you've got.

Ah, there we go, look at that!

CHARLIE LAUGHS

You nailed it.

That's your first wildlife shot, Elias.

One of the things I think I've learnt about the rainforest

-is that all the

-BLEEP

-that are destroying it...

..every single one of those that I've met are nice people.

-They're not

-BLEEP

-at all.

Hola!

It's good to see you guys again.

Como estas, Elias? Bet you're glad you're not working today.

HE LAUGHS

Up here?

Wow!

Ah! Well done, Elias!

Yeah. Well done, Elias.

My photography a year ago was 100% animals.

And now...it's 95% people.

I've gone through this whole process of understanding people.

People I never really liked and wasn't that interested in.

And I've realised that people ARE the solution.

And that is a monumental change in me.

After nearly a year in Peru,

Charlie has finally realised

that the way to protect his land is to invest in people.

When I first came here, all I wanted to do, to be really honest,

was get you off the land

and try and stop any logging, any hunting, any activity on it.

I just wanted it to stop. And that was...

That's what I wanted to do at first.

I don't want to sound horrible for saying that,

but you were, to me, the big problem. Yeah?

So I suppose the big thing I realised

was that you are also part of the solution.

And this was the key thing I realised.

And...that's why, if I want to try

and make that land good land again, make it good forest again,

I need you to help me.

So what this all boils down to, Elias, is me making you an offer.

I want you to re-forest that land,

to re-plant the trees in it.

And for doing that, I will pay you

slightly more than you get from your yucca

and your illegal logging activities.

And it's up to you to think, "Right, do I want that?

"Do I want to work five days a week for this guy?"

Can you do it? Do you want to do it?

You see, Elias, you're an expert on trees.

LAUGHING: I couldn't ask for someone better to be doing it.

I think we can take that place and we can make it something special.

And, you know, in my ideal world,

something that YOU could be proud of

to see growing rather than cutting it down.

Yeah, I'm pretty chuffed.

I'm trepidatious. I'm not stupid.

There's a very high chance of failure.

But I'm not going to let that cloud my excitement

about the whole idea of Elias working with me.

And, yes, it might fail, but I do trust him.

As well as paying Elias, Charlie is going to bring in experts

who understand how to restore damaged rainforest.

Look at that! A little rainforest there.

They're going to plant a mixture of hardwoods

and fast-growing softwoods,

as well as bananas and other crops that can grow alongside the trees

and provide Elias with a second income.

With any luck, he'll be self-sufficient within five years.

I think the thing about this is it's so simple and symbolic,

planting trees, but it's who I'm with here today doing it.

And...I'm doing this with Elias and THAT'S the key to this.

Not putting trees in the ground and letting trees grow, it's who I'm doing it with.

Come on, Elias, give me a hand. We'll do it together.

We've got a lot more of these to go, Elias.

We've got a whole rainforest to plant. We can't stop now.

LAUGHTER

Well done! Muy bien!

Charlie didn't find a way to protect the national park,

but in this corner of the Amazon,

he has already made a difference.

Watching Heydi and Elias,

I felt quite proud.

I suppose it hits me in a...

..sort of, um...a very happy way.

Because it was a very nice moment to watch.

But there was something really wretched about it...

..as well.

Because it's not solving a massive problem,

it's solving a very tiny problem.

And it hasn't even solved it yet.

But...I feel like at least I'm doing something,

even if it's just one tiny, small thing, which this is.

All we can do is hope, isn't it?

-Actually, no, that's

-BLEEP.

-It's not all we can do is hope.

We can get off our arses and do something.

ANIMALS CHITTER

Go on an interactive journey with the Open University

to explore the challenges facing the rainforest.

Go to...

..and follow the links to the Open University.

# I'm going to fight them all

# A seven nation army couldn't hold me back

# And I'm talking to myself at night

# Because I can't forget... #