Deadly Dilemmas

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.

But it's a paradise under threat.

I've sent eight ordinary kids from the UK...

Oh, Madagascar!

..to discover for themselves how the people

and animals can both survive here together.

This was never going to be easy.

Lemurs can only be found in Madagascar and on our mission,

one of the things we did, was to track down some in the wild...

..with guides to help us find them in the jungle.

Be careful on the bridge, it's a bit wobbly.

And sometimes, it took hours just to find any sign of them.

I'm really excited about seeing any kind of lemur.

But in the end, we were not disappointed.

One lemur we were really happy to see, was the Bamboo Lemur.

See just up there, that's one of our animals.

The greater bamboo lemur.

That's, pretty special.

Very privileged.

But with rainforests in Madagascar being destroyed,

these animals have become one of the most critically endangered primates

in the world.

Seeing these guys up close, made us want to find out

what exactly was harming them.

Why are lemurs so rare?

The habitat they live in is being encroached by human population.

People are chopping these down for agricultural use, because

human population, ever expanding, if the bamboo goes, they go.

So it's pretty dire the things that are going on with

lemurs in Madagascar.

Knowing that only 500 of these bamboo lemurs are left

in the entire world, made us think it's reaching crisis point.

It's kind of a battle between the lemurs and the humans

and right now, we don't really know who's going to win it.

Surely, the lemurs have to win and we should protect them at all costs.

What do you think?

On our mission, we got to hang out with lots of local people.

We saw that life for them was very different to ours back home.

We met up with Fabrice, who wanted to show us

why chopping down and using trees is really important.

Fabrice, what's your house made of?

Do you know how many Ravenala trees it takes to

build this room?

But housing isn't the only reason why trees are being cut down.

We found out, that they also have to be cleared to grow rice.

Rice is grown in flooded fields, called paddies, and is

the main food source for the 20 million people living in Madagascar.

How long does it take him to grow all of the rice.

How much rice do you get from a field of this size?

And that's only just enough rice to feed his family.

It's not enough to sell to make any money.

We decided to have a go ourselves.

Imagine how that boy has to do it every single day

for like an hour on his own.

We have to do so much for not even that much food

and it's like more effort than what you get in return.

Meeting people that have to use the land around them so they can

eat and survive, made us think that they have to cut down the trees.

The problem is, you can either save the rainforest and the lemurs,

or save the people.

You have to make the right balance because they need all the trees,

they need to cut it down and things,

so that they can grow their own food so that they can survive,

but in doing so, that endangers the forest and the lemurs.

So people need to chop the forest so they can live.

What do you think?

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.

But it's a paradise under threat.

I've sent eight ordinary kids from the UK...

Go Madagascar!

..to discover for themselves how the people and animals

can both survive here together.

This was never going to be easy.

Madagascar is surrounded by tropical seas

and we were going to be lucky enough to go and explore them.

It's like a paradise beach.

So the coral reefs are very, very important.

It was seeing the coral reefs that we were most excited about.

It's going to be amazing. Wow!

I'm a bit nervous because I've never properly done

snorkelling before, so, should be interesting.

The purpose of our snorkelling trip was to collect data,

to find out how abundant the marine life was out there.

Around the world, coral reefs cover less than 1% of the ocean floor,

but a quarter of all species that live in the sea need them to survive.

We learnt that coral is made of tiny animals that build

structures around themselves.

And even though they look like bits of rock, they are actually

living creatures that provide homes for tons more wildlife.

But we discovered that this reef wasn't as healthy

as it should have been.

When we did a survey of the reef,

we saw that the corals weren't as colourful as we'd hoped.

It looked pretty barren, like it was dead.

It was all sort of dull and there weren't as many fish.

They were hiding in the little sparse bits of coral

that there were, and that's like, that's really, really sad.

Reefs in Madagascar are at a serious risk of losing all of their coral.

Seeing this, made us think we have to stop them

from disappearing completely.

You can see like all these little holes,

all the little animals live in there.

What do you think?

One of the things we found out on our mission,

was how local people live off the sea.

What type of fish?

And it was the coral reefs just off the shore

that were so important to them.

So we went out fishing with some local women.

I'm going to end up falling backwards.

Look, we've got a fish.

I can feel it wriggling.

And it was here we discovered one of the major reasons

why the corals are dying out.

The only way these women can catch fish to feed their families,

is to walk all over the coral reef.

I thought it was just sand and a bit of rock underneath us,

but it's load of bits of broken coral.

I feel like by stepping on all these corals, we're sort of ruining

loads of other things, as well.

It dawned on us what we were doing.

Every step I take, I hear.... I don't like it.

Jamie's loving it, she's out there like... Look where she is.

Don't know what to do, really,

because we can either save the fish or the people go hungry.

It's a really awkward situation.

We realised that we have a choice, but they don't.

The women are forced to fish near the shoreline.

It's the only practical way they can feed their families.

They don't know what they're doing.

I don't think that anyone has ever explained to

the women, like, what they should and shouldn't be doing.

As a team, we were divided on our thoughts.

We just looked down at the reefs,

and like what we were like stepping on and then we just felt awful.

I'm not saying that, like,

that I agree with stepping on the coral,

it's just that they...

I wanted to help them because they're, you know,

they, they have no food.

It's a difficult situation, everything today has been

quite difficult and it... it's contradicting.

I don't... My mind is saying something different

to like, my heart.

We saw that these women couldn't help it, they need to

feed their families,

but in doing so, they are destroying the coral.

What would you have done in this situation?

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.

But it's a paradise under threat.

I've sent eight ordinary kids from the UK...

Go Madagascar!

..to discover for themselves how the people

and animals can both survive here together.

This was never going to be easy.

On our mission, the one thing that became immediately obvious

when we arrived, was the culture.

The smells, the colours, but also, unfortunately, how poor it was.

I was a bit shocked by the fact that the villagers were so poor.

I didn't expect them to be that poor.

The poverty we've seen here is quite hard to deal with,

'cos you just see it everywhere.

The lifestyle here was completely different to back home

and most of the time, finding food is more important than just playing.

Compared to this, we've got an easy life.

Where they're got chores to do the rice,

we don't have chores as hard as that.

Rice only goes so far and when you have many mouths to feed,

it's easy to understand why some people in Madagascar

are forced to rely on other ways to get food.

And finding enough meat is the biggest problem.

We discovered that the people were catching all kinds of wildlife,

stuff that we wouldn't normally choose to eat

and unfortunately, that also means endangered animals -

in particular, bats.

Around the world, bats are a great source of protein

and as we discovered, are easy to catch.

We went into a cave where bats are regularly hunted.

That is a lot of bats.

Is bat considered like a speciality or is it just general food?

I think the fruit bat, the largest one,

it's even sold in the restaurants, in some restaurants,

but these ones are generally eaten by people

when they don't have any other food.

So it's kind of like something to fall back on

-if there's nothing else to eat?

-Yes.

And the method to catch the bats was quite shocking.

They are basically just knocked down.

It's just smacking them with a stick.

-Well, it is wrong, either way.

-It's quite crude.

I think it's quite crude, you know, just pick up

a big stick, smack a bat with it, dinner.

I just think they want food.

Hitting them with a stick works, so they're going to do it.

So in a place where protein is hard to find,

is it right that people eat endangered animals?

What would you do?

Just hold on to that one, that's a stronger one.

On another day, we witnessed not the locals eating bats,

but conserving them.

It was cool to see how their specialist skills came in handy.

How does he do that?

Oh, the bats are coming down!

We got involved with a health check on these bats

and we found out that they had a really useful job.

Something which was a surprise to us

and something not many people in Madagascar might know about either.

Bats all over the world eat loads of insects,

insects that can be real nuisance to human beings.

11, 12.

And these bats target one insect in particular.

They eat mosquitoes, which doesn't sound very impressive,

but it's mosquitoes that carry malaria.

Malaria is a deadly parasite that kills

millions of people across the world.

You can catch it if you are bitten by an infected mosquito.

If they conserve the trees and the bats, for a start,

they'd have less mosquitoes because the bats,

one of their favourite things to eat is mosquitoes

and that means there'd be less risk of having malaria

and other mosquito related diseases round the area.

It seems that animals that are eaten, can also play

a key role in an ecosystem.

And as malaria affects a lot of people in Madagascar,

surely we should protect bats at all costs?

What do you think?

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.

But it's a paradise under threat.

I've sent eight ordinary kids from the UK...

Go Madagascar!

..to discover for themselves how the people and animals

can both survive here together.

This was never going to be easy.

When we were on our mission, it was unbelievable to see how many

tourists wanted to get up close to the wildlife.

There's so many tourists around us. It's absolutely packed.

But sometimes, loads of tourists isn't such a good thing.

Their impact can have a negative effect on the environment.

One of the major reasons so many tourists go to Madagascar,

is to see humpback whales.

Oh, my!

Oh, wow!

That's cool!

And it's easy to see why it's such a popular tourist attraction.

Whoa! That's close.

The problem is that too many tourists boats can cause

whale stress and confusion.

We discovered that sound is really important for whales to be

able to communicate with each other.

But their song is actually really beautiful.

-It's like...

-MAKES WHALE SOUND

And around the world, it has been found that noise pollution

can be extremely dangerous for whales.

Too many tourists can wreck

and destroy the whole point that the tourists are there.

I personally think that this island is much better without tourism,

because I think the tourists ruin a lot of the natural beauty

of this island.

Should we stop tourists from getting up close to wildlife?

What do you think?

We discovered that Madagascar is an extremely poor place.

You see these kind of things on TV, but when you see them in a reality...

-It's like more of a shock.

-..it's totally different.

One of the things we learnt on our mission,

is how tourists can have a positive effect in Madagascar.

Merci. Merci beaucoup.

I bought my mum a scarf.

And like, to see their faces glow when I bought it, made my day.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We found out that handmade products that tourists buy,

create jobs for local people.

And souvenirs in particular are a real money spinner.

-Nadine.

-Bonjour.

-Bonjour.

So, are you ready to stuff some whales and to make it?

-Yep, definitely.

-Good.

We're just stuffing some broken up foam into the whale

to make it into a pillow.

She makes five of these big ones in one day

and I reckon I could make about five of these little ones, maybe.

-No, you couldn't!

-Actually, no.

Our idea in the future is that people care more about the whales

after working with us.

They will see that tourists buy these kind of things,

because whales exist, so they will care about the whales existing

and coming to Madagascar.

This is the link that we do between economy and, of course,

the conservation of marine mammals, the conservation of the whales.

Good? Cool.

Yeah, this is the first thing out of fabric that I've made and

obviously, I didn't even make...

I just stuffed it and sewed up the hole.

So, hopefully, it will sell.

It was amazing to see what other things the locals can make

with a bit of imagination.

I had absolutely no idea that you could make jewellery

out of so much stuff.

Whale tail.

It's great that they can make these products and they're sustainable

and help the environment and they earn money at the same time.

The extra income from all these products,

makes it a win-win situation for both the locals and the whales.

All the products get sold here for souvenirs,

like when people come in from having their boat trip.

It's giving the people that make them a job.

So, I just think it's a great cause

and it was really good fun just to be part of it.

With tourists bringing in money for local people,

surely this is a good thing for wildlife.

What do you think?

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.

But it's a paradise under threat.

I've sent eight ordinary kids from the UK...

Go Madagascar!

..to discover for themselves how the people and animals

can both survive here together.

This was never going to be easy.

One of the things we learnt on our mission was that sadly,

many animals in Madagascar might go extinct...

..even within our lifetime.

I never thought that I would get to be this close

to one of the most endangered primates in the world.

But we met many dedicated people,

working hard to prevent such species from dying out.

And the reality of preserving animals in the wild,

is not always guaranteed.

Does everybody have their fingers crossed?

All right, guys. Last trap's empty.

The fossa, in particular, was so rare,

we weren't able to track one down in the wild.

The elusive has remained elusive.

Instead, we went to a zoo where they had a rescued female and her baby.

Mini fossa. Baby fossa.

Ah!

Much smaller than I was expecting.

It kinda looks like a cross between a cat

and a dog, with like a stretched out body and a lemur tail, basically.

It's amazing to get this close to such a small,

like, a baby fossa, it's amazing.

Having young in captivity,

is a positive sign that they are doing well,

which is a good thing as we discovered that wild fossa

are now being pushed out of their territories by dogs.

The village dogs here will sometimes go in the forest

and when they go in, they completely displace the fossa from the area.

It would be difficult for these guys to live safely in the wild.

To save this species, surely we should keep them safe in captivity?

What do you think?

But there is an alternative way to saving a species.

Another incredible thing we got involved with,

was to get up close with some really endangered turtles.

Why is this species of turtle so endangered?

Well this is the only turtle that's found just in Madagascar,

so it's the only one that's endemic to this area.

When people are fishing, people will actually eat the turtles

as well, because they need some protein.

At this conversation centre, the turtles' future was not to be

a life in captivity.

They're really cute and they're quite small.

They were part of a different solution.

When baby turtles become big enough adults,

they are prepared to be released back into the wild.

A-ha, it pee'd!

24.4.

24.4.

Our challenge was to travel five hours off road

to get to a remote lake that was an ideal spot for the turtles.

This bag has some of the turtles that we tagged

and micro-chipped and that yesterday.

So, I'm going to be very careful while carrying it,

because very, very precious goods in here.

When we got to the lake, we realised why it was the perfect place.

Cos it's their sacred lake and we're entering it

to release these turtles, so it's... We're going to do it their way.

Their way was to have a ceremony which would ensure

the protection of these turtles.

This lake was so sacred to the local people,

it means they do not hunt or fish in it.

Releasing the turtles here was the only realistic way

they could have a future in the wild.

I think the turtles have definitely got a good home here,

'cos all the people are like in unity with their lake,

so the turtles are really well protected by the people.

Surely releasing animals into protected areas like this,

is the best way to save a species?

What do you think?

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd