Fragments of Eden (1984)

[Music] [Music] [Music] hi I'm Jorge page for nature in the middle of the western Indian Ocean just south of the equator lies a group of small islands made of granite outcrops from a vast submarine plateau their origin is something of the mystery they're the only oceanic islands in the world composed of granite geologists think they may be remnants left behind when the continents of India and Africa drifted apart millions of years ago because of their long isolation species of plants and animals which can be found nowhere else on earth evolved on these mysterious Islands since the arrival of man in the 17th century some species have disappeared forever but enough remain that we call our film about these remote islands fragments of Eden the log of an East India Trading ship in 1609 furnishes the first glimpse of a cluster of islands in the Indian Ocean to the bosun Thomas Jones they were more than desolate rocks they seemed an earthly paradise an English merchant on that ship John Jordan kept a diary he records a good refreshing place without any fear or danger except the alligators where you cannot discern that ever any people had been there before us alligators no longer lie in wait here but much life does remain on these islands of granite [Music] many of the smaller creatures may have come here originally on driftwood perhaps his eggs [Music] [Music] birds of course could fly here but these islands are home to many that are unique [Music] the earliest human visitors here were less concerned with these granite islands as a source of beauty than as a source of food and riches they had a little effect on the crab population but many visiting Turtles never made a return trip back into the sea but even before the islands were discovered produce from their Shores was being marketed in distant lands from these islands came a treasure from the sea for which an emperor once paid four thousand gold florins far to the northeast beachcombers on the shores of India once recognized a fortune in this enigmatic nut of prodigious size and erotic form but from which nothing could ever be persuaded to grow it came they thought from some strange palm that grew in the sea they named it Coco de Mer and invested it with magical properties a legend was created a myth that lingered until this mysterious archipelago was discovered the Seychelles already ancient when our own species was just emerging 1 million years ago they probably looked just like this but the granite rocks in fact had cooled 500 million years before only within the last three centuries have these islands been inhabited a colorful colonial history has left the islands with an intriguing assortment of people a mix of French Madagascan African oriental British and Scandinavians they now crew the schooners populate the plantations and speak with a distinctive patois of the French Creole the Seychelles economy it was once said stands on a nut the coconut though it's spiced with cinnamon vanilla and cloves to move the produce of the plantations from the outer islands to the main island of maje the local craftsmen have shaped the islands trees into schooners and brig lager and bark and this elegant pirogue essential to the safe crossing of the treacherous coral reefs fringing each Island the very earliest explorers paid great heed to the quality of the trees available for building ships John Jordans diary notes as good timber as ever I saw of length and bigness and a very firm timber you shall have many trees of sixty and seventy feet that was in January 1609 he went on to write we anchored within a pistol-shot of the shore and watered and wooded at our pleasure with much ease where we found many coconuts both ripe and green of all sorts and much fish and fowl and tor tells the tour tells giant tortoises were good meat as good as fresh beef but Jordan wrote after two or three meals our men would not eat them because they did look so ugly and so great that eight of them did almost laid our skiff a century and a half later soon after colonization by the French nearly all the giant tortoises were killed the alligators were hunted to extinction and much of the remarkable forest was felled to grow more coconuts and spices for the new trade developing in the Seychelles [Music] there is still that earthly paradise to be found here and General Gordon hero of Khartoum found what he believed to be a fragment of the true biblical Eden hiding in a granite Valley on the island of pearl ash to Gordon's eager devout I hear indeed was a garden eastward of Eden out of its ground he wrote might grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food he found what he thought might be a Tree of Life also in the midst of the garden and the tree of knowledge of good and evil but around the beasts of this Eden and what's today known as the Valle de Mai there weaves a biological mystery that parallels Gordon's search to justify Genesis how did these varied animals and plants come to be isolated a thousand miles from anywhere on 29 tiny isles of rock a seychelles blue pigeon feeds on a fruiting fig both the species of pigeon and the species of fig are found nowhere else on earth there's a hothouse menagerie of island life here but there are no native mammals apart from two kinds of bats people have been here for about a twinkling of the eye compared with the unimaginable span of time since these islands came into existence and how did the plants get here from where did the ancestors of this pandanus seed come did they float across the ocean or have they as general gordon believe been here all the time leftover plants from a vast sunken economy and the plants or creatures like this tree frog been here since the islands were isolated they would probably now bear little relation to the tree frogs or plants of distant Africa Madagascar or India but in fact many are recognisably relatives of those on far-off Shores [Music] modern science revising the myths tells us that these islands are indeed the crowns of mountains that once stood dry on the edge of africa an edge that once joined onto what's now the coast of India the islands are the fragments left when India drifted away from Africa some of the trees here are also found in Asia the then-new Indian Ocean wore away the surrounding land as it still is wearing down the present islands mist and rain soaked a curious summit flora finds a tricky foothold in poor soil pitcher plans must supplement their diet by digesting insects these are fragments of the ancient primeval plant community there's hardly anywhere here that you aren't reminded that these mountain slopes on the main island of mahi have been heavily used a tropical forest extracts water from the mists and without it the reservoirs may run dry it would be to the Islanders pero if what little is left of the original forest is cut for burn a typically drab island Sunbird once fed on nectar in insects among mountain moss forest trees with names like Behrouz kappa seen a Latanya but now it lives in this woodland of introduced cinnamon trees that have gone wild largely replacing many of the native trees for the first hundred years of settlement the planters and their slaves tried to break into the spice trade then monopolized by the Dutch it's ironic that the cinnamon forest from which these women are cutting whole trees to obtain the bark and leaves are now a virtue their roots hold onto the poor soils that in the wake of cutting and burning the original forests might have washed away in the monsoon rains the leaves will be distilled for cinnamon oil from the bark will be cut the familiar cinnamon sticks such human changes to vegetation in other parts of the world have taken place over many thousands of years but here on these islands the transformation has occurred in a little more than a century and a half hi in the remaining Moss forests there are still echoes of that undiscovered country a begonia clings to a mossy rock face and not far away and unique to the Seychelles the flower of a tree known here as Bois Maron [Music] granite is the most common rock of all continents it can look like this in India Africa or Madagascar so the Seychelles are a little bit of continent in the middle of the Indian Ocean what gets on to them clings hard to survive be it plant animal or man within these splits in the rocks soil accumulates and they recede will grasp hold still true today pines and palms can stand firm against the torrents of rain that cascade over these boulders but these forbidding rocks are shelter to quite delicate blooms the wild vanilla and orchid that found its own way here it has stems that are green and fleshy and has no leaves at all it's found nowhere else that a kind of cave swiftlets lived among these rocks was long known but just where it nested wasn't revealed until 1970 when two small boys proudly led a visiting biologist down behind the stilt roots of a large pandanus into a secret cave and there were the nest of lazy rondelle as they call them here hanging from the near horizontal roof they're built of lichen cemented together with saliva tough and flexible but quite dry to the touch in totally dark caves these birds echolocate like bats to find their way about their color is much darker than similar birds in Madagascar and they're considered to be a Seychelles Island race of that species they lay only one egg per nest unlike the Madagascan types - and that also is an island adaptation there are fewer predators here and there's more competition for food on these scraps of land so island species tend to raise fewer young than their continental cousins below the nests there have accumulated great piles of guano a delight to cockroaches and a sign that the caves have been used by generations of swiftlets the mystery of the cave swiftlets was solved but there's another little-known creature again peculiar to these islands it's a creature of the night often its presence is indicated only by its saw-like rasp of a cry that gave it the Creole name sea air meaning woodcutter by playing a recording of the cry it's possible to provoke a meeting with a bird declared to be extinct for over half a century but then miraculously rediscovered its the Seychelles bare-legged scops owl and it's never been filmed before it's about the size of America's burrowing owl its legs are indeed bare of feathers and that plus the small size of its ear tufts plainly distinguishes it from its African counterpart that kissing between what is an established pair is a kind of dress rehearsal for the courtship feeding that occurs before breeding it's extraordinary how little is known about this owl it probably nests underground rather like the swiftlets but a nest has never been found it probably lives on lizards frogs and insects there never were any small mammals here originally but not one of the 40,000 or so people who live on maje has ever discovered the answers the Owls or perhaps is puzzled by the lights and sounds as we are about their secret life of which this is for all but a very few people our very first glimpse it's thought that there may be no more than 80 of the owls on maje much of the fascination of the Seychelles lies in these mysteries that every island hides each is a time capsule that provides a glimpse of its history if you can reach the farthest of them your journey is seldom unrewarded away to the east of maje sits frigate the most remote of the granite islands and scarcely a mile across pirates once camp beneath those trees of their Treasure Island stockade little remains but visitors can almost sense their ghosts this is where Jon Jordan shipmates sighted those first huge tour tells the giant tortoises they found so ugly perhaps they saw to the magpie Robin it was found on many of the islands and relied much on the scraping and digging of the tortoises to turn up a meal for it Prickett is now a microcosm of those 17th century days and the millenia before for there are only 90 or so tortoises left and a near handful of magpie robins but the giant tortoise still has several hundred thousand of its kind south on the at all of Aldabra while all the magpie robins in the world live here on tiny frigate island this gardener has done its work the robin will move in to feed there are just twenty four of these birds but that actually represents a success story not long ago there were fewer than a dozen they were then the rarest bird in the world throughout the islands they fell victim to the domestic cat a disastrous introduction as have been the rats that jumped ship on some islands and the barn owls brought in to catch them but the Owls found the seabirds easier prey on frigate they finally trapped all the cats and the ground feeding Robin can now safely steal the eggs of skinks and the company of scorpions with no danger from the alien cat that had never learned to fear this is not an earthworm on the Robin's menu or even a snake it's a curiosity called a Sicilian a burrowing amphibian a legless ancestor of the modern frog it certainly been here longer than the giant tortoises and the Sicilian is one indication that the islands have never been covered by the sea when most of the old tortoises had been butchered by the first settlers the magpie Robins found the activities of people clearing undergrowth as rewarding as the diggings of its reptile Ally but the complete removal of forest cover was not to the liking of this shade seeking bird and that contributed to its decline even though it's blessed with the sanctuary of frigate Island known here as the P chantez the singing Robin it's a type of thrush a family widespread in Asia another echo of that ancient land link [Music] near Frick it is this island called La Digue takes its name from a ship of an early colonizing expedition in 1768 it's the most populated of the outer islands and famous for its coconut plantation and it's boat builders step ashore and you step back in time to a leisurely age when life revolved at the pace of the Bullock there's never been a need to rush in this tropical beat they still export most of their copra or dried coconut they crush some of the coconut for oil to be used at home coconut oil gives the characteristic flavor to the Creole cuisine be it an adventurous dish of curried fruitbat or just the fish from the sea Lodi perhaps more than the other islands brings people and the unique biology of the Seychelles into direct conflict the people need wood for fires and for boat building and they need space to grow coconuts there seems hardly room now for the scraps of original woodland still left on the small marshy plateau of this tiny island and yet here where the modesty blooms under the badami a and the taka maka trees their lives one of the most attractive birds of the Seychelles it's the Black paradise flycatcher a bird found almost nowhere else the males and females are quite different partly an adaptation to how they feed on this island she hunts in the upper storeys of the forest to feed her single fledgling and her livery white underneath perhaps makes her less noticeable to insect prey when seen against the patches of sky above he hunts lower down more covert in his elegant dark plumage the nest is safer from egg stealing skinks if out on the end of a branch but it does come into full view of people out there something that for millions of years was not a concern [Music] The Fearless fledgling is eager to fly but still relies on being fed by its parents its first flight takes it to the edge of its parents territory not far away there's a female of a neighboring payer mother drops in with a dragonfly in this case the next-door female is perhaps a distracting influence father threatens the intruder and now perhaps the meal can proceed as intended among the trees of La Digue there are some 25 pairs of paradise fly catchers but that will only last as long as there are trees for them to live in the tack emaki tree and the badami a tree though have those other uses and these people have a reputation to maintain as the finest of boat builders it's a tribute to them that so far they've been prepared to leave places for the flycatchers to live and unless modern machinery regrettably speeds up the rhythm of life on La Digue here at least the birds and the people are finding a brief harmony but on the adjacent island of Perl I can be seen the dramatic results of the Seychelles appetite for its own timber what's left of that Eden is almost confined now to the unique and protected valley that so inspired General Gordon in 1880 the delay to my he sought there the tree of life he found the breadfruit tree he sought the tree of knowledge of good and evil and declared it was this the Coco de mayor the palm that bears that fabulous nut that was once treasure on India's shores and that was discovered to grow only here on this island of Palms its ancestors were here well before the continents drifted and it's true biology is more intriguing than all the myths to begin with the male trees thrust out enormous catkins that bear tiny male flowers distinctively scented and certainly attractive to large green geckos which feed on the pollen there's still some mystery as to how the pollen reaches the female trees a local fairy tale has it that after dark on stormy nights the male trees walk over to the females slugs find the male catkins attractive to grazing on the pollen under the giant leaves of the female trees hang the enormous ripening fruits together weighing some 400 pounds or more the famous nut is inside the green husk the female flower is disappointingly drab considering it gives birth to the largest seed in the world the fruits are killed by seawater so they never escaped from the island in any shape to grow elsewhere it said this palm can live a thousand years when dead they're headless trunks provide nest holes for a parrot the black parrot of Prowler island the national bird of the Seychelles it doesn't attempt to eat the Coco de mayor it prefers nuts or seeds inside the fruit of other palms of this magical Valley it discards the soft parts the French perhaps more accurately called it the coffee colored parrot and one might wonder why it isn't as gaudy as parrots usually are one reason could be that among Island birds the bright plumage associated with competing for territory or for mates isn't quite so necessary on an island the rules are changed prey line is small the number of territories available restricted so tone down the colors and there's less aggression food sources can be shared and breeding territories can be used by more than one payer throughout the tropical year it may also be that with only one type of parrot on the island bright plumage is simply unnecessary the black parrots have this valley all to themselves and can afford to be drab and complacent there are some fifty or so parrots using this valley and a favorite food is this introduced by Lim be the fruit is a bit like a gherkin but the parrots pick out the pips and the rest drops down to the skinks they've adapted the techniques used on the native palms to this new delicacy officially they're still on the endangered list there are not enough fruiting palms and there's a shortage of trees to nest in but the Seychelles National Park policy will perhaps guarantee pride of place to retaining the black parrot their national bird there are reserves or national parks planned for many of the islands each has its special needs all of this island called a reed was purchased privately over ten years ago it's now administered by the Royal Society for nature conservation in the past it was an island noted for its seabird colonies many of which were over exploited for food inevitably the numbers decreased but now the birds are building up again this Northcliffe is used by the huge and gaunt winged frigate birds but only as a roost they probably bred here once long ago and the signs are they'll do it again under this new management more than 2000 frigate birds come here between October and November by day they feed at sea skimming the surface for squid and flying fish this island too has its own plants the botanist are still playing games with the official name of this bush once it was listed as a gardenia and smells like one but its fruits can be used like lemons so to the Creoles it's always been bwahhh citron and you can walk through a forest of seabirds the pisonia trees are laden with fairy terns competing for branches to nest on the tropic bird is graceful in flight but ungainly at landing it leaves its family down on the ground the moving carpet of skinks is what catches the eye first and then in a granite nook there is the tropic bird chick with its parents it's clear at once how vulnerable such birds are to the rats that have ravaged other islands no ground predators existed naturally [Music] natural deaths like this one did occur the herds of skinks were the scavengers [Music] these reptiles play the role that small mammals perform on the mainland on these islands there was a give-and-take that found its own equilibrium until people tipped the scales with careless introductions of alien species this naughty turn is beyond assistance but it won't lie for long like the skinks cleaning up on land there are these beachcombers to do it here the ghost crabs miss nothing with their elevated eyes but their's is a waiting game [Applause] dusk brings in Bridal turns [Music] into come the shearwaters heading for their burrows among the boulders as a food called foo K they were eaten by the hundreds the long wait is over the crabs moved in once it was dark by morning they'll have eaten everything you [Applause] [Applause] the January Day in 1609 bosun Jones wrote in his log these desolate islands are very diligently to be sought of them that shall prevail hereafter because of the good refreshing that is upon them these islands seem to us and earthly paradise those first human footprints among the many tracks on that beach left no permanent mark but for a century they were the writing on the wall for the fish and fowl and those ugly tor tells they were a sign of the plunder to come the hawksbill turtles fate was sealed by the beauty of its shell they called a tortoise shell but it came from this turtle unlike the giant land tortoises enough turtle survived to keep their species age-old appointment with these granite islands it's perhaps 30 years since this turtle hatched here on this protected Island called curios each will lay about 200 eggs and then return to the sea unmolested the hawksbills leave a buried treasure far richer than any Pirates hoard a living link with island life stretching back to the birth of this ocean to which they'll soon return they leave a promise of new lives to come [Music] those that did travel hereafter stayed though now the old colonial days are just memories like this governor's name for the market once green turtles and hawks bills were sold in this market but they became officially a forbidden fruit of the sea now that law is under review the Seychelles Republic has advanced to its independent future the outside world has found them in a way the ancient continents have rejoined the Islanders do still rely on what they can grow or catch here for themselves but the evolution of the Seychelles is quickening there is one import that they can afford the rising tide of tourists but that could swamp them with a hundred thousand visitors a year the people of the Seychelles have the turtles in their care as they have the fish and all the natural wonders of their islands scattered over almost half a million square miles of sea a fragment of Eden in the Indian Ocean [Music]

Channel: ThisOldVideo2

Views: 53,764

Rating: 4.7339244 out of 5

Keywords: Seychelles, archipelago, island

Id: yx8Z-pn16SQ

Length: 54min 46sec (3286 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 07 2014