The Indian Ocean.
Home to the world's most exotic islands.
And beautiful and rare wildlife.
I'm travelling through 16 countries around the edge of this vast ocean,
that stretches 6,000 miles from Africa to Australia.
'Steeped in history, the Indian Ocean is vital to world trade.
'It's a journey of extremes.
'From stunning islands,
'across pirate-infested seas,
'to remote villages...'
Salama!
GUNFIRE
'..and war-torn lands.'
What was that? MORE GUNFIRE
This is a journey about much more than just what's under the waves.
It's about the lives of the millions of people
who live around this, one of our greatest oceans.
'On this leg of my journey I am exploring the tropical islands
'of Madagascar, Mauritius and the Seychelles.
'Remote and exotic, this is the Indian Ocean of picture postcards.'
If you're going to try and imagine paradise,
that's it.
'But it's a region battling the threat from Somali pirates.'
It's the 21st century
and you're going after pirates in the Indian Ocean. Yeah.
'I discover the truth about Madagascar's unique wildlife.'
Such a cute scene.
'And in the beautiful Seychelles, I get a taste of paradise.'
Bat? Yeah, bat. Vampires and all of that!
I'm just about to land on an island
of the south-west coast of Madagascar.
And I'm beginning another leg of my journey around the Indian Ocean.
Madagascar is the biggest island in the Indian Ocean,
more than twice the size of Britain.
I was heading for Andambatihy,
one of hundreds of tiny islands that pepper Madagascar's coast.
So this is Gildas. Gildas is going to be guiding me around Madagascar.
Say hello, Gildas. Hello!
Let's say hello to the locals as well. Salama! Salama!
'The island is home to a fishing community of just 20 families.'
Who's the boss in the village?
There is the boss. This is the boss, OK. Salama.
And what's his name? Foringa. Foringa.
LAUGHTER
My pronunciation always gets a laugh. I'm Simon.
'The coastal people of western Madagascar are known as the Vezos.
'They depend entirely on the Indian Ocean for their survival.'
I'm just looking around us as we come into the little village.
And you can see all of the tools and stuff of fishing.
Obviously you've got the nets here.
Then you've got a pirogue, a sort of canoe through there.
If you just look around here, they're drying some of their catch.
Tiny little fish.
'But drying fish can be tricky in the rainy season.'
A storm is just starting now,
so everybody is pitching in
to try and gather up some of the fish to keep them dry.
Small hands and big hands.
I think this is going to be quite a feature of this journey.
We're going to have to endure quite a lot of stormy weather,
because we are in the path of the monsoon.
This is part of life in the Indian Ocean.
And at this point, at this time of the year,
we're going to get a lot of rain on us.
At least we have - we're taking shelter in this hut.
But we have got some entertainment from the locals here.
Hello, hello! Hello, hello!
Hello, hello. Hello, hello.
Welcome... Welcome.
To our... To our. Island. Island.
We could just stay here and start an English class, maybe. Yeah.
Because there's no school here. So we'd be the first school here.
Can we ask the young lad here,
has he got any idea what job would he like to do when he's grown up?
He said fishing.
It's not entirely surprising, is it? It's not surprising.
Really, that would be the only life they know?
Yeah. This is every day, every day.
Big smiles. Big smiles.
With no schools and little healthcare,
life on these islands is pretty basic.
There's no roof. There's no roof. No roof. No roof.
Anyway, we've got to put one on.
'Monsoon clouds were lurking on the horizon,
'so putting a roof on the hut where we'd be staying
'seemed like a good idea.
'We used a sail from one of their boats.'
Ah, hang on. Yay!
There's no mucking about here.
Bish, bash.
That's not too bad, you know.
'By the morning the sky had cleared.
'And with better weather,
'Foringa, the village chief, took me out fishing.'
Is it just that I've got a very large arse? Why are these so narrow?
You'd think they would make them a nice comfortable large seat.
'The Vezos are nomadic, migrating from island to island
'around this part of the Indian Ocean,
'sometimes travelling hundreds of miles to find the best fishing.'
Come on, son, put your back into it!
'I was heading out with men who were born to fish.
'It was going to be a struggle to keep up.'
All right, so let's go spear fishing.
'Holding their breath, Foringa and the other fishermen
'can stay under for more than five minutes at a time,
'and dive to depths below 20 metres.
'I couldn't manage half of that.'
And they've gone down again.
They have got lungs... lungs the size of barrage balloons.
I can't stay down for anything like as long as they can.
I'll have another go.
'As well as using simple spears, the Vezo fishermen also use harpoons
'made from wood and strong rubber bands.
'It was tough going.'
They've caught two small fish. But they're really not very big.
They're not going to feed the family, that's for sure.
'Finally, Foringa landed the catch of the day.'
Exhausting. Exhausting?
But look. But look at this. Wow!
How did you do to catch this? You're a very funny guy!
'Even with a disappointing catch, Foringa wanted to share it with us.
'It soon became clear
'this community has been struggling in recent years.'
Thank you very much.
This looks fantastic. How long have you been fishing in these waters?
And how has the fishing changed over that time?
TRANSLATION: I started fishing when I was 18.
Then I got married and had a family, so I had to feed them.
Back then there were lots of fish and they were easy to catch.
But nowadays it's really hard. You have to work hard every day.
Before, we'd only go out for two or three hours to catch a lot of fish.
How many children do you have,
and do you imagine that they'll become fishermen in years to come?
Er, I...I...
I've got...
SHE SPEAKS
..seven.
So you couldn't remember how many children you've got!
Your wife had to tell you how many children you've had.
It's because I have too much to think about.
I couldn't remember.
OK.
That's completely fair, and we know you've got a lot to think about,
and you're working very, very hard for your family.
'Seven children is not a big family in this part of the world.
'In recent years, there's been a population explosion among the Vezo
'that has led to too many fishermen, overfishing,
'and a decline in fish stocks.
'I said goodbye to Foringa,
'and headed to the mainland of Madagascar,
'where most of the Vezo live.
'My guide Gildas works for a British conservation group, Blue Ventures.
'They've set up a marine park
'to try and protect the fish stocks in the area
'and the precious coral reef they inhabit.
'On the mainland,
'the evidence of a booming population
'became even more obvious.'
Salama!
There's a lot of them!
They're pushing me and Gildas out of the way to get to the camera.
We can't be having that, really!
Two presenters are enough. Yeah!
'Blue Ventures have realised
'they can't hope to protect the environment
'without doing something to address the population boom.'
About 53% of the population is under 15 years old. Really?
Really.
So most of them are here? Yeah.
At the moment, we try to address the population problem
by implementing the family planning project.
So you started out, then, as conservationists,
looking to protect marine areas, but then through that,
you've realised that that you've got to work with the people to... Yes.
..protect them, but also introduce family planning. That's fascinating.
Yeah, yeah.
'It's a radical move for a conservation charity.
'Blue Ventures have helped introduce a family planning programme
'covering thousands of villages in the area,
'handing out condoms and other forms of contraception.
'Madagascar has one of the fastest growing populations in the world,
'high rates of illiteracy among women,
'and lack of access to contraception are a key cause.
'Conservationists are often afraid to discuss the impact
'of human population growth on the environment.
'After all, rich foreigners telling poor villagers
'to have fewer children is controversial.
'But the staggering growth of the human population on our planet
'is a catastrophe for the natural world.
'And here at least, Blue Ventures is bravely doing something about it.
'It was time for me to head along the coast
'and explore more of this island.'
We're not sure what the road conditions are going to be like
because it's been raining, it's the rainy season,
it's going to rain again,
and there's some rivers that we may or may not be able to get across.
The road's rubbish.
Don't know how long it's going to take,
but hopefully, we're going to get there.
Shall we go? Yeah.
ENGINE SILENT
'It wasn't a promising start.'
You've got power, though?
Battery. OK.
Push? Push.
Oh, my god, this is a tank!
ENGINE STARTS
Oh, brilliant.
Not too bad. No. I'm sure we'll have worse.
'Southern Madagascar is stunning.
'The Indian Ocean coastline is almost completely undeveloped.
'The island separated from the rest of Africa millions of years ago,
'and its parallel evolution means that many plants and trees here
'are found nowhere else.
'Travelling inland, we hit our first major obstacle.'
It's not looking good, is it? Yeah. I think they took the wrong way.
What the hell were they doing there?
As you can see, there's a four-wheel-drive stuck in the river,
and there's lots of villagers offering to help to get them out.
For a fee. We don't want to be in the same situation.
It's all right now.
Well, that looks like what we should do, surely.
We should go across the river just there.
Yeah, but you have to enter this land to be able to do that,
you have to pay this guy.
I think we might have to pay the guy. We have to pay him.
So how much?
He say 2,000. 2,000.
Is that for both cars? Yeah, yeah.
So that is about 70 pence. Yeah.
For both cars going through his field? Yeah.
Well, that seems a very fair sum for us to pay in the circumstances.
Let's give slightly more as a little tip for his generosity.
OK. OK?
Thank you very much.
Is he happy with that? I think he's very, very happy. Very happy?
There's a sort of wry smile playing across the lips.
'There's always been flooding here in the rainy season.
'But the problem's getting worse.
'Trees help to soak up floodwaters, but there aren't many left.
'Movies and wildlife documentaries always paint an image of Madagascar
'as a forested paradise teeming with wildlife.
'The reality is completely different.
'I met up with Charlie Gardner from the conservation organisation WWF.'
Where are the trees? Well, they've been cleared.
This is land that's been deforested, used for cultivation,
then been abandoned because it's lost its fertility.
But it would have been a very diverse native forest,
filled with as many as a couple of hundred different species of tree.
A couple of hundred? Yes.
Just in this area? Just in a relatively small area, absolutely.
In Britain, we have 30-odd species of native tree.
In Madagascar, we have approaching 1,000. That's incredible.
'A staggering 90% of the forest in Madagascar
'has already been chopped, logged or burned.
'The trees have been cut for fuel or to clear land for crops.
'But without trees to bind land together and store rainwater,
'humans can pay a huge price.
'Charlie took me to see what happens
'when vast areas of forest are destroyed.
'The Onilahy River is one of the biggest in Madagascar.
'As we drove along, I could see it had just burst its banks,
'flooding farmers' fields.'
So we're just going in search of a farmer who's got fields in this area
that we think might be down where the river has broken its banks.
Salama! Salama.
THEY SPEAK IN DIALECT
It turned out this farmer had lost all his crops to flooding.
Is this problem getting worse?
TRANSLATION: Yes, it's getting worse and worse.
Once the Onilahy floods, it destroys everything,
the manioc, the cassava, the rice.
There's no food.
You just have to try and fill your stomach with air,
and close your mouth, because there's nothing to eat.
I can just see people walking across the flooded area now.
You can see how deep it is.
Look, they're up to their necks. They're having to swim, almost.
I'm just going to go back and try and see if we can meet the villagers
who have just swum across these flooded fields.
They're just coming out of the water now.
Salama, salama, salama.
Can we ask the guys, where have you come from?
You're actually coming here,
you're swimming here to look for somewhere to stay, then, presumably?
This is really just another consequence of the deforestation,
I think, isn't it?
Yes. This is part of the problem.
Flooding is very linked to deforestation.
Most of Madagascar used to be forested.
So when it was forested, and when it rained,
the vegetation in the roots helped the water infiltrate into the soil,
so the forest acts like a sponge, really,
and then the water drains really slowly into the rivers over time.
Whereas once you clear those forest, when the rain falls...
As has happened?
Yes, as has happened,
then when the rain falls, it comes off these slopes in sheets.
There's nothing to retain it,
and when it's coming down in sheets like that,
it's bringing soil with it.
'The loss of the fertile topsoil has devastating long-term consequences
'for the environment, and for millions of subsistence farmers.
'Gildas and I travelled on,
'across Madagascar to a place called Berenty,
'in the south-east corner of the island.'
Of course, it's not just the trees that are being destroyed.
I think we need to go and find out a little bit more
about the wildlife that's being lost when the forests are chopped.
'There's a wildlife reserve in this area
'that's featured in countless nature documentaries in recent decades.
'The reserve was established in the 1930s by a French plantation owner.
'It's become synonymous with Madagascar's most iconic animals.'
We've come to one of the most famous wildlife reserves on the island,
and we're looking while we're creeping through the bushes,
looking for Madagascar's lemurs.
WHISTLES
'But spotting lemurs here is not so easy,
'and it was more than an hour before we saw anything.'
(They're just on the trees over here.
(Can you just see them up there?)
'Here in Berenty, you can see sifaka lemurs,
'and the most famous, ringtail lemurs.'
(Such a cute scene.)
'Lemurs are unique to Madagascar.
'Scientists believe they're descendants of primates
'that travelled across the Indian Ocean from the mainland
'millions of years ago, on logs or rafts of matted vegetation.'
This place is beautiful, but, and it's a huge but,
this reserve contains a large chunk
of the only remaining forests of its kind in Madagascar,
and this place is actually tiny.
It's not much bigger than some London parks,
and this on an island that's the fourth largest on the planet!
The lemurs have really got nothing left.
'After hours of searching for lemurs in the forest,
'it was time to go back to the visitors' lodge.
'We were greeted by an amazing display.'
Are you all right? Are you lost? No, hopefully not.
Chances are, if you've seen lemurs filmed in Madagascar,
it was shot here, and it turns out, we're reliably informed,
that almost all of the shots are generally filmed
in an area around these buildings, bungalows,
with the cameramen straining to keep the buildings out of shot.
We're not going to do that,
because I think you should see the reality here.
I think if you take the buildings out of the shot,
this place generally might give the impression
that there's a lot of wilderness of wild paradise left in Madagascar,
and that is not the case.
'Completely surrounding the nature reserve
'is an endless expanse of agricultural land.'
So, look.
Ooh! This is what's outside!
Vast, vast plantations of sisal.
My goodness!
Far as the eye can see.
Thousands and thousands of acres of it.
In some instances,
it's used for making environmentally friendly packaging for Europe.
'The founders of Berenty cleared huge areas of forest,
'and left just a token sanctuary that now provides habitat
'for a small number of lemurs.'
It's ironic, really,
because the reserve is now seen by conservationists as a huge success,
but if anyone had said back when this place first started up,
I think in the 1930s, that what the owners were going to do
was going to cut down thousands and thousands of acres
of pristine forest,
and replace it with millions and millions of sisal plants,
and leave one tiny little area of forest for the lemurs,
I think the conservationists would have been absolutely up in arms!
Well, that's what's happened.
'The environment here has taken a hammering,
'but Madagascar's still poor,
'plagued by bad roads and a chronic lack of infrastructure.
'I headed on, travelling just 50 miles in six bone-crunching hours.'
So that was the bus to Tana, the capital of Madagascar,
from Fort Dauphin, a city in the south that we're heading for now.
It's amazing, really, to think this is the main road,
the main thoroughfare in this part of the country.
Bloody awful!
'This is one of the poorest countries in the Indian Ocean,
'with high unemployment and more than two thirds
'of its people living on less than £1 a day.
'Madagascar does have valuable natural resources,
'but is there a way of providing people with jobs and salary
'while protecting what's left of the natural world?
'Just outside Fort Dauphin,
'there's a controversial project that some think offers a solution.
'The road to it was certainly an improvement.
'The road services a mine
'which is owned by the multinational conglomerate Rio Tinto.
'The mine provides jobs for several hundred local people,
'extracting hundreds of thousands of tonnes per year
'of an obscure mineral called ilmenite.'
This is a giant floating platform.
It's like a big vacuum cleaner, ready.
It receives a lot of the dirt,
the sand, and it's sucked up by a dredger over there,
and it processes it to take out the black stuff in the sand here.
That's then turned into ilmenite, which I was not familiar with,
but turns out it's the principle whitening agent
used in everything from white paint to toothpaste to white plastics
to white computer keyboards.
Basically, the stuff of life, the stuff of everyday life.
And it comes from places like this.
'The mine was bitterly opposed by conservationists,
'because creating it involved clearing an area of rainforest.
'The company claimed the forest would have been logged anyway,
'with few long-term benefits for locals.
'International pressure did force the mining giant to establish
'a conservation project including a plant nursery.
'Rio Tinto have promised to replant some of the forest
'after they've finished mining.
'So the mine could provide jobs
'while minimising damage to Madagascar.
'Johnny is a botanist working for the mining company.'
Johnny, where are you taking us to now?
TRANSLATION: This is where we prepare the seeds.
We're working in partnership with Kew Gardens
and the Millennium Seed Bank in England.
You can see here a sample of the biodiversity from 600 species
growing in the forest.
This is a treasure for future generations
and for mankind.
Madagascar is such a desperately, desperately poor country.
Maybe, just maybe this could be part of the solution.
Concentrated development in a small area employing lots of people
and respecting the environment.
It might just work, so long as they do actually replant the forest.
'It was time for me to leave Madagascar
'for another island treasure of the Indian Ocean.'
So, here we go.
From one of the poorest countries in the Indian Ocean
to one of the richest.
'I headed east to Mauritius.
'Although Mauritius is 250 times smaller than Madagascar,
'it's more than 15 times richer.
'It's also one of the world's premier tourist destinations,
'with fabulous beaches.
'The luxury on offer here seemed a million miles from the poverty
'I encountered in Madagascar.
'Local oceanographer Vassen was going to show me around.'
Vassen? Hello, Vassen. Simon Reeve, BBC. Hello.
Thank you very much for coming to meet us here. Pleasure, pleasure.
You're looking as though you're about to go in the water. Yeah.
You're going to do the same thing, so I hope you have your bathing suit.
I've got some swimming trunks. Swimming shorts, I should say. OK.
You should be OK. All right.
Vassen, this is a nice boat. Thank you.
'As part of his work, as a conservationist,
'Vassen studies the coral reefs around Mauritius.
'He took me to see a reef on the south-west of the island.'
Now, this is more like it. This is the Indian Ocean.
'Coral reefs are among the most fragile
'and precious environments on Earth.
'Vassen took me down to see beautiful coral,
'and rare and exotic fish.
'There was a red lionfish with its poisonous spines.
'And butterfly fish,
'which lived with the same mate until the end of their lives.'
This is one of the most extraordinary
and beautiful environments I can ever remember being in.
Such a special place.
'You'd expect to see beautiful beaches
'and coral reefs in Mauritius,
'but what I didn't know was that the capital, Port Louis,
'was an industrial hub.
'It's home to one of the biggest container ports in the Indian Ocean,
'and a multi-million pound tuna fishing industry.
'There's two huge canning factories here,
'and Mauritius is the biggest exporter of tinned tuna to the UK.
'To learn more about that side of life in Mauritius,
'we've been given permission to film in the port.'
And this is the head of the Mauritius ports authority. Passport here.
And you need the letter? Yeah, the letter, please.
'The port had already granted us access,
'so getting our entry pass should have been just a formality.'
Oh!
Well, very interesting.
So, basically, we've being refused the chance,
we've been refused permission to film any fishing inside the port.
They've banned us, effectively. Very strange situation.
They say that you would be allowed to film ALL commercial activities
happening in the port area, and now, suddenly,
the situation has changed
and you are not allowed to film any fishing activities,
so I do suspect that some private operators
may have made some pressure on the authorities to reverse the decision.
'The international fishing fleets had stopped us from filming,
'but then we spotted a huge European fishing trawler,
'offloading a massive catch of frozen tuna.
'In recent decades,
'commercial fishing fleets have plundered the Pacific and Atlantic.
'Many species are facing extinction.
'Now, with fish stocks wiped out elsewhere,
'the fishing fleets are turning their attention
to the Indian Ocean.'
So this fish is being discharged, it's being stowed in cold rooms
and then it goes to the processing factory, the canning factories,
and that's the fish you are eating in the UK in your cans.
Why are they being so secretive about this?
They care about their customers because this is their business.
One-third of all the fish swimming in the oceans
have disappeared because of over-fishing.
50% of the stocks are fished up to their limits
and they're starting to collapse.
Maybe in 10, 15 years, we won't see any fish any more in the oceans,
and that's a worry of many people.
Now the consumers start to be aware of this.
So they're worried that people will start to realise
we're fishing our oceans to death?
Exactly. I think it is a clear conclusion.
We are fishing our oceans to death.
It's a frightening thought but not far-fetched.
According to a UN report,
there could be no wild fish left by 2050.
It's not just the fishing fleets that are expanding
their reach into the Indian Ocean.
For centuries, the great powers have competed for control of Mauritius,
which has a key strategic location.
Now the new superpowers
have their eye on this little chunk of paradise.
Vassen took me to a new Chinese development called Jinfei,
a free trade zone for Chinese businesses.
So this is all part of the Chinese zone?
I think it's the main road in the middle of a Chinese zone.
The size of it!
This is incredible.
One of the first businesses to arrive in Jinfei
is a Chinese restaurant.
While the site is under construction,
meals are served in tents called yurts.
The owner has huge plans for this site.
So you're going to build the hotel, the recreation centre...
Casino, karaoke, massage.
Wow. This is just the beginning of your vast project here.
You are a very rich lady?
SHE SPEAKS IN HER OWN LANGUAGE
She says, "Little, little."
You're going to need more than a little
to build all this, aren't you?
Thank you, Mrs Rich Lady. You're welcome.
So this is just one huge plot of land? Yeah.
It's a small China in Mauritius
where they're going to have around 40,000 people, 40,000 Chinese,
and they're going to live here, sleep here, work here...
and maybe give birth here.
BOTH LAUGH
So it's going to be like a Chinese colony?
Yeah, like a Chinese colony in Mauritius.
'Jinfei is a huge commercial enterprise,
'but it represents just one small part of Chinese plans
'for expansion in many countries around the Indian Ocean.'
We're in a sort of Mongolian yurt, part of a Chinese restaurant,
in Mauritius in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
Yeah, you're not in Mauritius any more.
This is quite an unusual place. Mmm.
Are you going to try one of these?
I'm sort of tempted. But I do like the hats. Yeah.
Don't look, don't look. Aw!
I'm not trying to suggest in any way
that you're not an entirely serious guy.
HE LAUGHS
OK. You don't look very serious, Simon.
No, well, I'm not a very serious person, quite frankly.
But the Chinese are not the only ones
rying to stretch their influence in the region.
Indians have travelled across the Indian Ocean
for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
Two-thirds of the population of Mauritius are of Indian descent,
and Hinduism is the biggest faith here.
The Indian government and military are piqued at the Chinese incursion
into what they see as their backyard.
An Indian construction company is now building a rival commercial city
at the cost of 1 billion, which will compete with the Chinese.
It's not just the influence of India and China
that's felt here in Mauritius.
America is still the dominant military superpower
in the Indian Ocean
and America has an island airbase to the north east of here
called Diego Garcia that's like an unsinkable aircraft carrier.
Diego Garcia is the most important American military installation
outside the US.
It sits on the Chagos Islands which are a British overseas territory
leased by the British government to the Americans in the 1960s.
'When Britain gave away their island,
'the local Chagossians were forcibly evicted.
'Families were uprooted from their homes,
'their pet dogs were rounded up and killed.
'Many of the Chagossian people ended up here,
'living in the slums of Mauritius.
'Rita was living in the Chagos when Britain forced out the locals.
'She is now 85.'
Bonzour. Bonzour.
How did you come to leave the island?
What brought you here to Mauritius?
TRANSLATION: When the island was sold in 1965,
I was still living there.
We didn't know the islands had been sold, we were like children.
We didn't know anything.
At that time, I had a 17-month-old daughter
who had just started to walk.
I was told I had to go to Mauritius to get her treated.
But after we got here, the child died.
I told the authorities I had to go back to my country
because I couldn't bear the miserable life here.
I was told I couldn't go back to my native country
because the island had been sold.
'Rita's friends and family have been preparing
'a traditional Chagossians meal for us.'
I'm just pulling some glasses off a metal tray here
that Rita's got of London.
And she's got pictures up around the house of the Royal Family.
One of the things that particularly upsets me
about this situation is that the Chagossian people
generally still feel very fond of Britain,
and yet Britain has treated her
and the Chagossian people appallingly.
'The Chagossians are still campaigning
'for the right to return to their homeland.'
Rita, do you really want to go back to Diego Garcia
and the Chagos, even now?
TRANSLATION: They have got to decide.
Either they give us back our island
or they give us compensation for the rest of our lives.
Those are the two things we're asking for.
The British government say they regret the forced resettlement
of the Chagossians, but they did offer some compensation at the time.
We wish you the very best of luck in your campaign.
We can only hope you'll be able to return to your island home.
Aw.
Thank you, Rita. Can I have a kiss goodbye?
'But the American military
'seem unlikely to give up their crucial base,
'especially now that China and other rival powers
'are increasing their presence in the Indian Ocean.'
Well, that's the end of the Mauritius bit of our journey.
It wasn't what I was expecting at all.
But now we leave Mauritius
and we head to the final country on this bit of the trip,
which is the Seychelles.
To the north of Mauritius,
the Seychelles is an archipelago of 115 islands
scattered over a vast area of the Indian Ocean.
I was flying to the capital, Victoria.
'At the airport, I was met by my guide,
'a local newspaper journalist called Rita.'
Rita? Yeah. Hello, Rita. Hiya. Nice to meet you. Simon. Hello.
'Even more the Mauritius,
'the Seychelles has a reputation as paradise.
'First off was a quick trip to see what all the fuss is about.'
So this is what the Seychelles can offer you as a beach.
As a beach, just a beach. Just a beach. Come on, straight in.
BOTH LAUGH
Ah! Rita, it's absolutely gorgeous, what's wrong with you?
It's cold, it's cold, it's cold! It's not cold. It is too.
I tell you what...
it is absolutely beautiful.
This is, I think, the clearest sea,
or the clearest seawater, I have ever been in in my life.
The beaches may be five-star but what about the local grub?
It's lunchtime on Sunday, beautiful beach,
Rita has brought us to a lovely beachside cafe for lunch.
But what is under the plate, Rita?
Shall we have a look? Yeah, why don't we?
What is it? Oh, doesn't look too bad.
Fruit bat curry. Bat?
Yeah, bat. Related to the vampires and all of that.
It's only got little... what is that? A leg or a wing?
I prefer not to know. What do you mean you'd prefer not to know?
How often do you eat this? Do you want to know something funny?
This is my first time having bat.
Your words just before were, "This is a delicacy here." I know.
You've never eaten fruit bat? No.
It's quite bland, really. I'm getting curry. Yeah.
And that's about it.
It's not as bad as we thought it'd be, is it?
I didn't think it would be too bad
but I think you've been putting off this moment for your entire life.
I feel quite privileged to be here with you
as you finally have some fruit bat.
I'm working my way through the bat curry here.
I tell you, chicken any day.
I mean, this is enough to turn somebody into a veggie.
It's hard to get a real sense of what's so extraordinary
about the Seychelles from sea level.
There are literally hundreds of secluded beaches,
and with just 85,000 inhabitants,
the Seychelles has the smallest population of any country in Africa.
This is amazing. Just look at this place!
If you're going to try and imagine paradise, there you go. That's it.
Just look at the colour of the water down here.
That is proper tropical seas.
Environmental legislation is very strict here
and the Seychelles is a world leader in eco-friendly tourism.
Nearly half of its total landmass is under conservation.
I tell you what's particularly nice to see
after we were in Madagascar
where they've chopped down all their trees,
it's so nice to see just forested land.
The Seychelles isn't some rocky desert island.
Look at this, look how verdant this is.
You might not be surprised to learn
that tourism is now the single biggest industry in the Seychelles,
employing nearly a third of its people.
What the Seychelles is perhaps best known for
is its luxury high-end resorts.
Just look at this place up here.
This is the sort of thing you see in a Bond film.
This is how the other half live, eh?
'Many of the islands in the Seychelles are privately owned
'but they are not all inhabited by
'billionaire business types or pop stars.'
Look at this!
This is like something from a dream.
Nobody lives here. This isn't real, surely?
Come on, Rita. DOG BARKS
I'm Simon. Simon Reeves.
You're Simon. And you are? This is Craig. Craig.
And who is the smashing lady? And this young lady is Rita. Rita.
Nobody neater. Aw! SIMON LAUGHS
'Yorkshireman Brendon Grimshaw bought Moyenne Island in 1962
'for the princely sum of £8,000.
'He lives alone on the island, though it's open to visitors.'
So this is your home? Yeah, this is where I live.
Whoa! What do you see?
That I was not expecting. What?
There's a giant tortoise on the steps to your house.
They come in sometimes. They're welcome. They?
Would you like to join one for lunch? It can be arranged. They?
How many have you got? 120.
120? And they're totally free.
They go where they like.
'Giant tortoises are indigenous to the Seychelles
'but have been killed off on most islands.
'Over the years, Brendon has been gradually reintroducing them
'to his corner of the Indian Ocean.'
These are one year old. Oh, my goodness. Careful he doesn't drop.
Oh, he won't drop. Plus, it has got a hard shell, Simon.
It's a hard shell, it's not a crash helmet.
What I can't find is my little one.
Brendon, you've got another tortoise that's so small it disappears? Yeah.
Where? In here? Where?
THEY LAUGH
You've got another tortoise that's so small it's vanished? Yes.
Is it in there somewhere?
I think it's...
How the hell did it get in there? You found it! Yes.
What you doing in there, you silly thing? Huh?
You are one of my favourites.
How old would this one be?
He's about two weeks. He was born in my bedroom.
'Giant tortoises are among the world's longest living creatures.
'They have been known to survive for more than 180 years.'
I love this.
"Please respect the tortoises. They are probably older than you."
Yes, they are. But there is no tortoise older than me.
Really? Mmm-hmm. How old...?
So they have to behave themselves when they see me around.
Brendon, do you mind if I ask, how old are you?
I'm getting on for...86.
86.
Do you think that because you've had such a passion
and you've been working for so long protecting, looking after,
creating the island in the first place...?
I think it's knocked decades off you.
It certainly helped me to keep alive, yes.
It's given me something to do
and also something that I know is worthwhile.
Brendon's island, Moyenne,
was recently declared a national park by the Seychelles government.
It's thought to be the smallest national park in the world.
There were only four trees in this area. Four!
I brought in, altogether, 16,000 trees.
SIMON GASPS
We were not doing it to make a national park or anything like this.
No, no, no. We were doing it to make the place habitable for me.
Look at this! Yeah. It's rather beautiful, eh?
You've created paradise here, Brendon.
People say that. I wouldn't go as far as that.
What would you call it? Hard work. SIMON LAUGHS
Brendon, would you ever sell the island?
The only reason somebody would want to buy this island
is to build a big hotel.
And have you never been tempted?
You must have been offered millions, surely?
I have been offered millions, yes. And you've said no every time?
And I've said no.
What's been achieved here
has happened with a huge amount of hard work
and an extraordinary amount of planting
while the rest of us have been busy tarmacking over our front gardens
to turn them into car parks.
He might be an accidental conservationist,
but by his actions, Brendon has created a little patch of heaven.
All the best. Thank you very much indeed. Bye.
Bye-bye!
In the 18th-century,
these isolated tropical islands were a haven for pirates.
And in the 21st-century, the problem has returned with a vengeance.
Modern-day pirates operating from their bases in war-torn Somalia
have launched hundreds of attacks on ships and boats
across the western Indian Ocean
and around the waters of the Seychelles.
'We met up with Colonel Michael Rosette,
'the head of the Seychelles Coast Guard.'
Those are some of the skiff
which we have taken over when we apprehended Somali pirates.
So these are the pirates' boats? Yeah, those are the pirates' boats.
Normally, they are equipped with a 40 or 60 horsepower outboard engine.
They have enough speed to overtake any bigger boats.
The thing that really strikes me is the idea that the Seychelles,
which I would consider paradise islands,
have been more affected by piracy
than any other country after Somalia.
There are other southern countries which are suffering
but not as much as the Seychelles.
We are in the centre, or the eye of the storm, as we say.
So most of the activities have been revolving around the Seychelles.
Some of the areas where fishermen used to go fishing,
now it's not safe for them to go fishing
because we have seen cases where local fishermen have been hijacked
and taken hostage by pirates.
The pirates arrested by the Coast Guard in these boats
were standing trial in the main court in the capital, Victoria.
Seychelles is actually one of the few countries
to have captured pirates and to put them on trial.
The Seychelles government estimate that as a result of piracy,
revenue from fisheries is down 30%.
Tourism has also been hit.
At the same time, they're having to spend an extra £2 million a year
to combat the pirates.
These 11 men are accused of attacking a Seychelles fishing boat
and seizing seven fishermen.
How do you feel when you see them up close like that?
It's mixed, actually.
You feel pity because you might have an idea what he's trying to escape
but at the same time you feel angry
cos they are taking part in criminal acts
and we have to foot the bill
and it's not our fault they have problems in their own country.
We have nothing to do with that. But somehow we are paying for it as well.
We later heard the pirates each got ten years in prison.
The Seychelles main prison can accommodate 450,
but as attacks continue,
a new high-security wing is under construction
to house dozens more pirates.
'Somali gunmen are striking across a huge area of the Indian Ocean
'and the Seychelles is at the centre
'of international counter-piracy operations.'
A NATO warship has arrived here in the Seychelles
on anti-piracy operations
and they are going to let us on board.
My goodness. Thank you very much.
It's huge.
'The De Ruyter is a Dutch frigate,
'part of NATO's operation Ocean Shield.
'The task force commander is Commodore Michael Hijmans.'
How many pirate attacks are you recording in your area per week,
per month, per year at the moment?
At this moment, we have dozens of attacks already.
Almost every day, there are three to four attacks.
Three to four attacks every day? What are the pirates going after?
What sort of ships are they trying to attack?
At this moment, the pirates are after almost every ship
they can lay their hands on.
They attack small dhows, small fishing vessels,
which they also use as mother ships
and they use the crew to be held hostage.
And that's one of the main problems we face -
on all these mother ships, there are hostages,
so it's very difficult to attack them
without harming these innocent seafarers.
We have had reports of severe torture, of fake executions,
of strangulation, of beatings
and a lot of other bad things are happening to the crews.
The De Ruyter is one of just a handful of Western warships
that are patrolling an area of Indian ocean
twice the size of mainland Europe.
With pirates capturing ever bigger vessels
and keeping hostages on board,
NATO is deploying more sophisticated warships,
equipped with helicopters and Marines.
I was allowed to join them on an exercise.
It was a joint operation with the Seychelles Coast Guard
to practise rapid boarding of larger pirated vessels.
It's extraordinary that this is happening now.
It's the 21st century
and you're going after pirates in the Indian Ocean.
Did you ever think this would happen when you joined up? No.
OK, so the plan is, we're going to approach the target vessel
and the Marines are going to rappel down using this rope
and take control of it.
I imagine it's all going to happen extremely quickly.
That's the whole idea.
The Marines rehearsed rapid rappelling onto the ship.
They moved quickly, because in a real assault,
their lives and the lives of hostages would be at stake.
While the Marines secured the target ship, I headed back to the frigate.
They're taking the Marines off the target vessel now.
Soon they'll be back on board here
and then this ship will be off patrolling the shipping lanes
to keep them free from pirates.
This is the end of this part of my journey around the Indian Ocean.
On the next leg, I'll be heading back to the African mainland
and travelling through the pirate-infested Horn of Africa,
one of the most dangerous regions of the world.
'Next time, I visit the most important river delta on
'Africa's Indian Ocean coast...'
SIMON GASPS
You have succeeded. Yay!
'..and I go to the front line in the world's most dangerous city.'
How does he know it's out of bounds? GUNFIRE
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd