Atlantic Rising on BBC World Service
Posted By Will on April 21 2010
I am a bit slow off the mark in notifying people about work we have produced. This should have been penned on Sunday.
Over the past five months, we have been producing a mini-series for the BBC World Service. The series focuses on people in West Africa, whose work tackles issues and arguments around climate change. Some of them are experts, others are ordinary citizens. All of them believe passionately in what they are doing.
The series appears in the Outlook strand and airs four times on the day of broadcast. Two have already aired, and another two are coming up on 26th April 2010 and 3rd May 2010. A summary of each programme is included below.
The Guardian of the island: James Island is a former slave fort in the River Gambia. It is also Mustapha's Gabang’s island. His father was the first caretaker there and when he died Mustapha stepped into his shoes. Looking after the island and the visiting tourists is the only job he has ever known. But now his island is threatened. Erosion is gnawing at the main castle's walls. Moustapha has single handedly built a sea wall to protect this UNESCO site, but time is running out. The irony of global warming destroying the very buildings used to enslave his ancestors is not lost on him. But he wants to preserve the memory of these atrocities so that future generations can prevent it ever happening again.
The Sewer Man: Maseka Samba’s job is one of the toughest in Gambia's capital, Banjul. He is the cleansing officer in the city council's sewer department. And once a month he has to organise National Clean Up day, when residents take to the street to clean up their rubbish. His task is nearly impossible. Most of Banjul lies below sea level and the British-built pump that keeps the ocean out of the city, has been broken since 1974. Every day the incoming tide washes sewage back into the city. With rising sea levels making his life even harder, Maseka is resigned to a life of service. If only he could get residents to stop throwing litter in his drains.
The War-torn Conservationist: Tommy Garnett grew up in rural Sierra Leone where diamond mining companies ravaged his local forest. He made a promise to one day return the forest to its natural state. But one year after he started working, civil war broke out. Like thousands of others he moved to Liberia and worked in the refugee camps. Now he is back in Sierra Leone teaching sustainable forest management. But he is no happy tree hugger, "people don't care a damn about climate change if it stops them putting food on the table. We have to find a way of improving people's lives." Deforestation is Sierra Leone's biggest problem. Tommy might be the man to offer a solution.
The Saviour of Keta: Over the last 100 years the ocean has ripped 1km of coastline form the village of Keta in Western Ghana. The town is now one fifth of its original size. Facing a bleak future, residents turned to local lad and civil engineer, Rex Edeka. Rex worked with the Ghanaian government to secure an $84 million loan from America to start the Keta Sea Defence project. For four years the town was turned upside down as American machinery and engineers moved in, extracting millions of tonnes of rock and sand. The project was a huge success, Rex was heralded as a hero. But why is he still frustrated and ashamed of his work?
We owe a huge debt of gratitude to Jo Coombs and everybody at Loftus Audio, who helped edit the final pieces and managed to persuade the BBC to get involved.
We will be recording more as we move through South, Central and north America…. so watch this space.
