How Cultures Are Shaped By The Rivers Of The World | Compilation

[Music] the yangtze river holds the key to china's future flowing over six thousand kilometers from its source on the tibetan plateau to its shanghai delta it's the most used waterway in the world and one of the most deadly in the last century alone its floods have killed over 300 000 people now man has struck back with an engineering project designed to corral the river's destructive forces and bring it firmly under human control the three gorges dam is so large it's visible from space designed to produce enough electricity to power a tenth of china's total needs the dam feeds the frenzied expansion of inland mega cities such as chongqing the fastest growing urban centre on the planet but this progress has come at a huge cost upstream of the dam the three gorges region has been drastically altered and some two million people forced to flee their homes [Music] downstream at the mouth of the river the impact of the dam is eroding the coastline at an alarming rate threatening the very foundations upon which shanghai's booming economy is built this massive push for growth is risking environmental disaster china's greatest river faces a critical new challenge [Music] china is witnessing an economic growth the pace of which the world has never seen old and young rich and poor its people have endured much in the name of progress many have benefited from the country's new wealth others have been left behind less willing or less able to buy into the dream but relentlessly the dream goes on driven by the communist party's guiding idea personal sacrifice for the greater good it's not only the people who are made to conform to this vision of the future so too is the landscape [Music] the story of the yangtze river is the story of modern china it's the starkest example of the government's quest to control nature in its pursuit of progress but the yangtze is not a river to be toyed with it has the power to make and to break this country it always has [Music] for generations the yangtze has fertilized the crop which feeds the world's largest population china's rice fields flourish on the nutrients which the river provides for on its course from mountain to sea the yangtze feeds off the surrounding landscape collecting vast amounts of mineral-rich sediment in its waters when it reaches the flatlands the yangtze floods distributing its fertile silt across the land [Music] today the flood plains of the yangtze river basin produced nearly half of all china's grain and cotton but while the river gives it also takes away the annual flooding of the yangtze has often posed a deadly threat to those who live near it most recently in 1998 a flood crest 53 metres high surged down river submerging an area the size of new zealand and destroying 5 million homes [Music] who kenchan is a farmer whose house lay directly in the path of the yangtze's fury in 1998 our village was the first to be flooded from the beginning of the village all the way down there the water flowed through the village and covered all this land we had to travel by boat and all the buildings were submerged as the waters forced 14 million people to flee for their lives the government declared a state of emergency the soldiers and the police came to our rescue they rescued our families they used helicopters boats and life boys to get most people out [Music] the total cost of the 1998 flood topped 30 billion dollars bolstering the belief that something drastic had to be done to protect the people from floods [Music] this is how the government proposes to solve the problem of the yangtze flooding with the barrier of the three gorges down standing 185 meters tall and over two kilometers wide this gargantuan structure is china's largest building project since the great wall [Music] now in its final stages of construction the dam will create a 5 trillion gallon reservoir hundreds of meters deep and 650 kilometers long holding back the waters which have caused such devastation in the past [Music] the idea for the dam goes back a long way in the 1950s the communist leader maozi tung was a wholehearted supporter of building the largest hydroelectric dam in the world he talked of surprising the goddess of wu gorge by creating a huge man-made lake between the deep canyons but it wasn't until 1994 after mao's death that the project got official approval and the people's republic of china ordered the damning of the yangtze to begin it was to be one of the most ambitious and controversial engineering projects in history twenty thousand people work tirelessly round the clock in a race to meet its engineering deadlines so far the costs have topped 25 billion dollars but many workers paid the ultimate price over a thousand have died in the building of the dam has been involved in the project since the beginning and is chief engineer at the site today government experts like shugan claim that the dam allows them to control the river's flow reducing downstream flooding and potentially saving hundreds of thousands of lives by building this dam we have reduced the likelihood of flooding from once every 10 years to once every 100 years if the 1998 flooding reoccurs this dam would make a huge impact the residents below will not be affected few dispute that the dam will be able to control the flow of the river but it might at the same time be creating a threat of flooding worse than anything that's gone before because the three gorges region is an earthquake zone and this concrete megastructure is built on a seismic fault line the danger of trapping such a vast reservoir in a seismically active region has been a cause of major concern and though the government claims the risks are small the dam was built with these dangers in mind in this area earthquakes are rare an earthquake of more than six on the richter scale would only happen once every ten thousand years but this dam is designed to cope with an earthquake as strong as level seven but if the science is wrong and an earthquake makes the dam fail the effect on the 75 million people living downstream would be catastrophic what's more some experts claim that the dam might actually cause an earthquake the sheer weight of the reservoir could stress the earth's crust to danger levels such events have been recorded even in areas with no previous history of tremors but the scientists are calculating that the risk of earthquake is small compared to the benefit the dam offers and so far the scientists seem to be right since the dam was built the rains have come and gone and though there's been some localized flooding downstream the waters have been contained loss of life has been at a minimum but saving lives is just one of the reasons this dam was built just as important is that it's crucial to china's industrial ambitions [Music] the three gorges dam is designed to tame the yangtze transforming it from wild river to one of the most navigable and profitable waterways in the world before the dam was built the yangtze's current was so strong that large river traffic had trouble getting upstream the dam has changed that controlling and diluting the flow of the current in its immense reservoir and enabling heavy cargo ships to navigate deep into china's heartland [Music] the huge physical barrier which the dam poses to traffic is counted by the most complex system of locks ever built for ships traveling through these locks it's a five-stage four-hour ride through the cement corridors from one level of the river to the other [Music] the system allows ten thousand ton cargo ships to travel two thousand kilometers in both directions along the river's course river traffic on the yangtze is set to increase from 10 million to 50 million tons per year [Music] this water super highway is revitalizing china's inland provinces where gigantic cities with populations of tens of millions are taking shape the dam not only links these cities to the outside world it quite literally powers their growth by harnessing the river current the dam creates prodigious amounts of electricity crucial to a booming economy this is the largest hydroelectric power plant ever built when it's at full capacity the dam's turbines will create as much energy as 18 nuclear power plants supporters of the dam claim its clean electricity is crucial in cutting carbon pollution and reducing china's dependency on fossil fuels but many people are unconvinced from the outset the three gorges project has caused mass protest the like of which has never been witnessed in communist china to understand what lies at the heart of the protesters fears we must travel upstream into an ancient landscape that has been irrevocably changed to find millions of people whose homes and history have been destroyed by the [Music] dam the three gorges region has long been renowned for its spectacular landscape before the dam this was characterized by 100 meter canyon through which the yangtze river cut its path [Music] today much of the most dramatic landscape has disappeared beneath the rising waters of the dam's 650 kilometer long reservoir change two are the lives of the people [Music] 120 kilometers upstream of the dam the residents of wu shan town have first-hand experience of the huge social upheaval it has caused when the dam first became operational in 2004 water levels in this region rose by 50 meters submerging practically all of old wushan it's a drastic change which the chinese authorities are keen to justify most of the old city is now in the water it's become a spectacular though he lived in the old city chen chi-ying was one of the government officials charged with coordinating the evacuation of its residents to the new city further uphill this migration took four stages to complete so this new city was not completed within just one or two years we had to firstly set a small area to use as a testing point and then move people gradually by now we have around 30 to 40 000 migrants living in this new city today the reinvention of buchan continues as the last remnants of the old town are destroyed to make way for the new the government claims that this change is good bringing wushan into the 21st century many locals disagree some still cling to their old way of life tending their shrinking farmland among the ever encroaching high-rise blocks but in a country where public protest against the dam has been forcibly suppressed these people's voices will be drowned out too this empty field behind will also be developed as part of the new city it will be used very quickly these farmers homes stand directly in the path of progress and in the end they'll have no choice but to move for in china all land is owned by the state citizens lease their properties from the government on a long-term agreement but the authorities can renege on the deal at any time and if they wish submerge entire cities for the sake of creating a new china so far the rising waters have engulfed a staggering 13 cities 140 towns and over 1 300 villages up to 2 million people have had their homes repossessed in the name of progress one in five have been moved to different provinces where dialect climate even diet are different many more have watched their livelihoods disappear along with their homes [Music] owns a charter boat service operating from wushan docks today she ferries the tourists who flock to see what's left of the beautiful gorges along the yangtze and its tributaries a few years ago however tialan would have been a living part of the landscape which is now underwater before we opened this tourist boat company we owned a family inn in shandy chong and we were farming when the three gorges reservoir began to fill sierland's farmhouse was among the first buildings to be submerged as the waters rose around her she was relocated to a new home upon the hill it was to be the first of many moves to avoid the rising tides we've moved three times haven't we once in 1997 when the river was cut off and once in 2003 and then once more in 2005 we had to move everyone and everything it involved a lot of cost and effort despite her personal trials the government seized sielan as a success story she's made the most of the opportunities and financial compensation offered by the authorities to create a new life for herself not everyone has adapted so well many older people are unable or unwilling to take advantage of the retraining which is available and a lifetime working the land leaves them ill-equipped to deal with the confines of urban living even those who have bought into china's vision of the future find it difficult to forget the past i do miss my old home a little i can't forget the time when i used to farm and run the family in the memories of serving guests those days were really relaxing [Music] it's not only recent history which has been wiped away by the rising waters so too has the ancient past the yangtze river basin is the traditional home of the great dynasties and kingdoms of old asia the natural barrier created by the river made it an important political boundary and the scene of many historic battles [Music] the three gorges region is particularly rich in dynastic architecture many emperors built great temples on the steep river banks [Music] when the water levels began to rise the chinese government funded a 125 million dollar project to save the most important sites from being submerged in what's been described as the biggest historical salvage operation ever entire buildings were meticulously catalogued and moved piece by piece to higher ground [Applause] but many of the most important relics could not be saved because they lay embedded in the very landscape which was to be submerged [Music] before the building of the dam the government commissioned a major archaeological survey of this area was chief coordinator of the project in the wushan region much of his research focused on the ba people an ancient civilization that lived on the steep slopes of the yangtze and its tributaries some two thousand years ago the most impressive evidence of ancient bar culture is to be seen in the cliffs high above the river we are now on the da ying river we can see a coffin set high in the cliff up there how the bar people manage to lay their dead in their final resting place is a mystery exactly why they did so is also unknown there are two explanations the first is that the bars descendants wanted to honour their ancestors and so buried their bodies in a high place the second explanation is that they did it to prevent vandalism the bar people couldn't possibly have imagined that ultimately it wouldn't be thieves who would steal their ancestors remains but the river itself when the waters began to rise in 1998 archaeologists were just beginning to develop a better understanding of the cultural wealth of bar civilization but their discoveries came too late to stop the flooding while some coffins have been rescued and removed to museums many more have simply been submerged in total over a thousand archaeological sites have been lost as the waters of risen [Music] [Applause] but the unique heritage of this region has never been more crucial to its survival as the rich farmlands on the lower river banks have disappeared underwater so too have people's livelihoods [Music] the government sees tourism as providing a replacement income and has poured money into enticing visitors to the three gorges region using its history as a unique selling point one of the most popular tours is a trip up river traditional style [Music] before the three gorges reservoir was created parts of the yangtze and its tributaries ran too shallow for heavy cargo to sail the river's length big ships had to be dragged upstream by hand men known as trackers were employed to pull barges along using nothing but human effort and heavy rope today tourists pay for this picture postcard experience of life on the old yangtze upstream however a new china is emerging to replace the old a china characterized by mega cities and mega progress [Music] this country is urbanizing faster than anywhere in history and the yangtze is at the heart of this massive social change some people are embracing the changes others are struggling to keep pace as is the river itself [Music] [Applause] [Music] 650 kilometers upstream of the dam at the tip of the three gorges reservoir is the mountain city of chongqing symbol of china's brave new world [Applause] in the last 10 years the area covered by the city has more than doubled so too has the population now the municipality of chongqing is home to a staggering 30 million people and rising this is the fastest growing urban centre on the planet to keep pace the city map needs to be redrawn every three months chongqing is at the forefront of what the government calls the great western development the three gorges project is just one part of this multi-billion dollar strategy to revitalize china's heartland as well as investing in roads bridges and dams the government must create some 24 million new jobs every year just to keep the country's ever-increasing population in work in a region where so much has been sacrificed to make way for progress a booming economy makes up for distress and appeal one of those at the cutting edge of the government's development plans is ying ming shan he's the founder of the life and sedan factory employing 9 000 workers with an annual turnover of more than a billion dollars imprisoned in the 1970s for being an advocate of capitalism today ming shan is 24th on china's rich list he's held up as a shining example of the new entrepreneurial spirit which the government now wants to encourage sometime we are able to produce motorbikes and cars here these life and products are sold to around 128 countries worldwide you can buy leaf and motorbikes even in the uk the three gorges dam has been the cornerstone of ying ming shan's success it provides the route by which his factory's products can reach the international market before the dam was built large river traffic could only reach chongqing in the rainy season when melting ice and monsoons meant the yangtze ran deep and fast through the city but the building of the dam and its huge system of locks allows ships to travel to and from chongqing all year round of course the main benefit which the yangtze river provides is comedian shipping the cost of shipping is very very cheap what's more before the building of the dam the electricity supply to chongqing was extremely unreliable yin ming shan had to factor power rationing into his business plan the stop three ensure four campaign meant that every week there would be three days without electricity to ensure four days with it but there are no power cuts now because of the three gorgeous power stations [Music] today the hydropower produced by the dam provides the whole city with cheap reliable electricity to feed its growth [Music] this commercial wealth attracts no fewer than half a million new citizens to chongqing every year they come in search of a better life though it's not always easy to find [Music] wedged between the city's bustling port and commercial center is the shenzhen district where the bang bang bang live and work [Music] this 100 000 strong crew of porters literally bear the city's weight on their shoulders arriving in droves from rural areas with no skills and little education they acquire the cheapest of tools a bamboo pole and some rope which they use to earn a living around the city port it's this bamboo pole called bang bang in chinese which earns the porters their name their services are hired by everyone from businessman to tourists to move all kinds of goods between ships and dry land originally from a countryside village houshen moved to chongqing two years ago and has been working as a bang bang man ever since because chongqing is located high on the mountainside with bumpy roads bam bam is used to help people carry things some people have a lot of luggage which they cannot manage to carry themselves this is why ban ban exists though he carries more than his own weight in goods shane earns little more than seven dollars a day after sending a few dollars home to his parents he supports his wife and two children on what's left living in one of the poorest areas of the city shen shares his rented flat with his sister and her family to keep living costs lower this is the bathroom and there's the kitchen four adults and four children are crammed into this tiny living space yet even this is an improvement on shen's previous standard of living in the countryside he sees it as the first step on the road to a new future for his family i traveled over 200 kilometers to chongqing in the beginning i did it to survive my previous living conditions were very harsh now we are here for our children to provide them with better living conditions and education the bang bang men are living testament to a common belief that the future of china belongs to those who seize opportunity but as they strive with every step to improve their lives few realize that the economic boom which provides their opportunity is poisoning the river upon which they depend chongqing is just one of 200 cities that get their water supply from the yangtze these massive urban areas produce vast amounts of domestic and industrial waste 25 billion tons of which is dumped straight into the river every year [Music] pollution levels on the yangtze have reached an all-time high the situation has been made worse by the three gorges dam the economic growth helped by the dam has dramatically increased the amount of pollution created by cities like chongqing now the authorities struggle to keep pace with the development that threatens to choke this river and its people [Music] udongming is an environmental scientist who campaigns to protect the yangtze from the effects of pollution the yangtze river area is an industrial development zone the most common sources of water pollution are firstly effluent from factories second is domestic sewage third is agricultural pollution fourth is shipping waste is just ordinary rubbish few people are brave enough to report the environmental crises faced by the river in the past dunming has received death threats for speaking out but on the yangtze the evidence speaks for itself as this river absorbs more than 40 percent of all china's waste and it's not just the main waterway that's suffering over a third of the yangtze's major tributaries are also seriously polluted the problem is clearly evident in the suburbs of chongqing this stream is called clear water stream but now you can see it's permuted approximately sixty thousand to eighty thousand tons of sewage enters this stream every day this stream flows into the jarling river which then flows into the yangtze 15 kilometers downstream in the past people assumed the yangtze was too big to poison as any toxins were flushed away by the 900 billion tons of water that flowed through the river every year but the reservoir created by the three gorges dam has altered that current while the speed of the water on the river's surface has increased the velocity of the flow beneath has fallen to practically zero the river can no longer carry waste away from the city and it now accumulates in a stagnant reservoir a polluted yangtze spells disaster for the local population this river provides drinking water to 400 million people that's one in every 15 on the planet the polluted water has been blamed for unusually high rates of cancer and birth defects among people who live near the yangtze [Music] though the government insists yangtze water is safe to drink udong ming still chooses to hike four hours every week to draw his own supply from a mountain spring this water is very natural it comes from the rain and it's filtered through the forest it's spring water it's very good but spring water is a luxury the poorest urban masses of china simply cannot afford long hours and hard labor leave no time for water gathering neither do the people know how much the waterway they live along has been damaged this is true for every kilometer of the river's course as it leaves chongqing forging its way downstream towards the east china sea it becomes ever more apparent that the yangtze is overused and under threat the threat is so severe that it's causing the river to fail in its age-old function of feeding the people it's even causing the river to eat away at the shoreline potentially destroying the very cities it has helped create [Music] one third of the way along its seaward journey from chongqing the yangtze comes up against the gigantic physical barrier of the three gorges dam [Music] the effect of the water flow meeting this structure is like a speeding car hitting a concrete wall the river and all that's carried along in its waters are stopped dead in their tracks [Music] the dam is a feat of engineering of which the chinese government is very proud tourists are welcome to the site to marvel at what's nicknamed china's new great wall [Music] during the official tour visitors are told the success story of the building of the dam but deep inside this structure a different story is emerging revealing a massive flaw in the three gorges plan [Music] for while the water can still continue downstream through the dam the same cannot be said about the life-giving silt carried in the rivers flow [Music] the yangtze is one of the most sediment rich rivers in the world it is silt which gives the river its murky brown color and deposited by the current it has shaped this landscape for thousands of years special silt valves are built into the dam wall to allow the sediment to flush through but the sheer amount of silt presents a huge technical challenge the system struggles to cope as an average of 140 million tons of silt are trapped behind the dam every year at this rate sediment buildup in the bottom of the reservoir will raise the water levels upstream severely increasing the threat of flooding in chongqing there is even talk of yet again forcibly resettling a million people from this area to higher ground out of harm's way but it's at the end of the river's course that the most dramatic ill effects of the trap silt become apparent a thousand kilometers downstream of the dam the city of shanghai sits at the mouth of the yangtze delta a glittering testament to china's economic growth this bustling port is built quite literally on the wealth of the river over two-thirds of the city's foundations are built on silt deposited here by the yangtze over thousands of years [Music] yangshi lun is a geologist who leads a research project on silt levels in the yangtze river much of his research is focused on the island of chong ming [Music] lying north of shanghai city centre right in the middle of the yangtze river channel this entire island owes its existence to river silt wasn't any chance 50 years ago this place was covered by water there were no plants growing here the reason it exists now is because of silt from the yangtze river once the silt piled up to a certain height plants began to grow today the wetlands of chong ming are a protected conservation area incredibly rich in wildlife they provide a crucial stop-off point for migratory birds traveling from the southern to the northern hemisphere they are also a vital breeding ground for many aquatic animals but only a fraction of the yangtze silt wetlands are given over to nature on shanghai's mainland urban development has taken over as china's economic capital shanghai is growing fast its delta is one of the most densely populated regions on earth [Music] boasting some of the most expensive real estate in the world this city already has nearly twice as many high-rises as new york and continues to build them at an extraordinary rate the government hopes that the river will continue to replenish the coastline providing the new land needed for expansion but there's a flaw in the plan there isn't enough silt for the job [Music] our research shows that between 2003 and 2006 some 140 million tons of silt was trapped in the reservoir satellite readings show the tidal wetlands are in danger of disappearing because of sediment trapped in the three gorges dam rather than bulking up the valuable shoreline the yangtze is now eating away at what's already there up to four square kilometers of coastline has already disappeared due to coastal erosion protecting what's left and planning for the future will be a costly business it's a soundhead it's a girl where you shanghai's plans of reclaiming more land will be very difficult to achieve we probably need to revise this plan and introduce new methods to protect the silt for example building a breakwater embankment it will be more expensive because we must build it stronger and higher than before [Music] it's not only shanghai's landmass which is disappearing so too is its river wildlife shanghai fish market is a chaotic testament to the quantity and variety of fish life that the yangtze river supports 80 of all china's freshwater fish are caught at the river delta here in shanghai the industry is worth 700 million dollars a year but in recent years there's been a dramatic downturn in profits between 2005 and 2006 fishing yields at the mouth of the yangtze fell by nearly a half the vast majority of the fish that are caught today are less than one kilogram in weight while overfishing has undoubtedly contributed to the decline of fish stocks so too has the building of the three gorges dam ping is a scientist at shanghai's water research center he believes that the loss of silt plays a huge role in the decline of fish the speed at which the wetlands are being formed has slowed and this has caused the wetlands at the yangtze delta to shrink the loss of these wetlands has a direct influence on fish because the wetlands are an important breeding ground and provide the habitat for young fish to grow the reduction in sediment is also affecting the river's delicate ecosystem it is the silt which feeds the microscopic plankton that forms a vital part of the food chain at the yangtze delta experiments conducted at the water research centre show the decrease of silt is affecting the amount and variety of plankton growing in the waters as certain types of fish friendly plankton struggle to survive damaging species take over causing blooms of algae which are toxic to fish [Music] but perhaps the greatest threat of all to the river's health is the aggressive commercial development which is swamping its waters the new lock system of the three gorges dam has improved the navigability of the yangtze as a result of the amount of river traffic has dramatically increased shanghai is now the world's busiest port transporting over 443 million tonnes of cargo annually but the incredible increase in volume of ships spells disaster for wildlife any creature trying to cross these crowded waters would be like a rabbit crossing a 12-lane highway the pollution which is a byproduct of the shipping industry also poses a deadly threat the direct effects are noise waste pollution and traffic collisions which cause toxic waste to be discharged the indirect effects arise from maintaining the river's shipping route which has to be dredged to maintain the yangtze's deep river pathway a channel 80 to 90 kilometers long 300 meters wide and 10 meters deep has to be done this is detrimental to the fish's habitat the combined effects of silt loss and industrial development have had such a dramatic impact that the government has been forced to impose a seasonal fishing ban on parts of the river even when they are allowed to cast their nets fishermen who used to make a handsome living often returned to shore with a meager harvest many native species which were once a common catch are in danger of becoming museum specimens one fish on the brink of disappearing is china's iconic river sturgeon once the staple diet of locals these massive fish can grow up to four meters in length and weigh over 450 kilos recent human development and changes to the environment have seriously affected these fish their numbers have declined rapidly and they are close to dying out of being with that to prevent the river sturgeon from disappearing completely the chinese government has funded a major conservation project parts of the wetlands have been made designated breeding grounds and tens of thousands of sturgeon fry released into the water to help replenish dwindling numbers local fishermen are now obliged to return any sturgeon court back to the water but these efforts may be too little too late experts fear that the river sturgeon is destined to suffer the same fate as the baiji dolphin an aquatic species unique to the yangtze which was declared functionally extinct in december 2006 the paigee's disappearance and the drastic decline of fish life in the yangtze are indicative of the failing health of their habitat at shanghai it's clear that the cumulative effects of human intervention along the river's course have made the yangtze sick as it approaches the end of its long journey through the land the river reaches a critical turning point the three gorges dam has caused change and progress along every kilometer of the yangtze's route but it has also spawned a rate of development which the river cannot physically sustain as the trend continues seventy percent of these waters could be classed unusable within five years if the yangtze is ever to recover drastic change is needed but now the path to progress has been set the river and the people who depend on it are trapped in a poisonous cycle of growth it was initially predicted that the three gorges power station would produce enough electricity to meet a tenth of china's needs but the pace of development has exceeded all expectation and demand already outstrips supply to solve the problem yet more dams are planned for the axi the wealth and the future of china continue to depend on this incredible river but what that future holds for the river and its people remains to be seen the amazon river is an extraordinary force of nature stretching over 6500 kilometers across the south american continent it feeds the largest tropical rainforest on earth [Music] its waters contain a greater variety of fish than the entire atlantic ocean [Music] not only is this the richest river on earth it is also the mightiest up to 100 meters deep and 40 kilometers wide it carries more water than any river in the world this precious resource has never been tamed by man from source to sea not a single bridge crosses its waters not a single dam holds its flow but while the river cannot be controlled it could be destroyed [Music] today commercial development is killing the wilderness which protects the amazon and its future hangs in the balance the crucial question now is how long can this great river continue to run wild [Music] the amazon river has immense power over everything that lives near its waters though it flows through one of the most remote regions on earth seven million people have made their home on the riverbanks [Music] from isolated village to bustling metropolis none of those who live near it can control the force of the amazon they have simply adapted to a life determined by the river the power of its waters and the remote landscape through which it travels have for centuries protected the amazon from man until recently this rainforest was believed to be one of the world's most stable environments but aggressive commercial development is destroying the jungle and the protection it offers is being stripped away today the delicate eco balance of the region is being pushed to the point of no return the amazon river its wildlife and its people are vulnerable as never before [Music] from its peruvian headwaters to its brazilian delta the amazon river cuts across south america its river basin the largest in the world is riddled with a thousand tributaries all flowing towards the main artery of the amazon itself while its glacial source lies high in the andean mountains of peru the amazon story proper begins here over one thousand eight hundred kilometers downstream where the ukayali and marignon rivers meet only at this confluence in the peruvian rainforest does the river take on the name amazon a few kilometers downstream mariscal castilla is one of the first villages on the amazon the peruvian name for these villagers is ribarenos literally meaning river people of spanish and indian descent the riborenos are not indigenous to the rainforest but have adapted to live at the water's edge and developed an intimate relationship with the natural environment coping with the shifting waters is part and parcel of life here particularly during the rivers seasonal floods in the wet season increased rainfall over the forest dramatically increases the amount of water in the river in a typical flood levels rise by up to 20 meters and the area covered by the river triples [Music] at this time the amazon carries so much extra water that the south american continent sinks several centimeters under the weight and rises again as the waters recede [Music] it is this immense fluctuation in flow which makes the amazon impossible to control and so the riberenos have no choice but to adopt a lifestyle which accommodates the river's extreme floods their houses are designed for this purpose built on stilts to allow flood water to flow beneath but this is not always enough to keep them safe for not only does the amazon flood it changes course so dramatically that a village could certainly find itself at the bottom of the new river channel maria pazango has lived in mariscal castilla all her life in the last 10 years she has had to rebuild her home several times to avoid the roaming waters the river started to erode and erode the riverbank before this platform was washed away i ordered a new house to be built over there so i had to move there before my house disappeared with the riverbank the huge volume of water in the amazon means it can easily change its course through the flat terrain and soft soils when the river moves the people have no choice but to move with it yet the ribberenios live here not despite but because of the river's ever-shifting flood patterns for it is this which makes the river banks or vasia as they are known the richest tracks of land in the whole rainforest here i've got the tomatoes the chicago and the potatoes which we eat the magic ingredient which makes this land so fertile is silt washed down from the andes mountains suspended in the murky brown waters of the river when the amazon floods this mineral-rich silt is distributed over the earth rendering the ground remarkably productive these vasia floodplains can support continuous agriculture albeit on a small scale this year the river has replenished the mud and that's why my rice is over there last year that didn't happen and my rice failed to grow to maintain the fertility of the soil the river enos only clear small patches of land at a time and grow many different varieties of crops in the same area as well as providing fertile soil the river also provides fish to eat and the locals have developed unique ways of catching them these men are collecting leaves from the huaca plant for fishing first the juaka leaves are crushed to release their juices next the crushed leaves are transferred to a basket and dipped several times in one of the many river pools near mariscal castilla village as the huaca poison is released it depletes the oxygen in the water making the fish drowsy and forcing them to the surface for air once they are within reach of the river enos's spears they are easy prey to survive on the riverbank the river enos have come to develop a deep understanding of the river and to accept that it holds absolute power over their destiny but subsistence farming is a precarious existence and an increasing number of riberenios are leaving the seclusion of their barsia villages in search of a better life many end up here 125 kilometers downstream in the city of the quitos the jungle metropolis perched at the junction where the amazon meets two major tributaries iquitos has four hundred thousand residents today some seventy percent of the population of the amazon basin lives in cities like these even in the jungle urbanization is a growing trend surrounded by water and rainforest equitos is the largest city in the world that can't be reached by road travel within the city is mostly by rickshaw travel to and from the city is by plane and boat even though it is over 3 700 kilometers from the sea iquitos is saved from total isolation by the water highway that is the amazon river this waterway provides the city with a precious commercial link to the outside world [Music] but this link comes at a price at just 106 meters above sea level the residents of aquitos have no means of controlling the waters which surround them life here is lived at the mercy of the river the suburb of belen is a perfect example during the wet season belen can only be reached by boat many of the houses here are built to float on the rising waters houses that don't float are designed to be flooded families who live in these two-story homes move their possessions to the upper levels during the wet season allowing the ground floor to be swallowed up by water when the floods have receded the family claimed back that half of their home only to give it over to the river again next year of the 40 000 people in berlin live in poverty many are migrants who have left remote river settlements in search of a better life in the city but with high unemployment and without land to grow their own food they struggle to feed their families living in cramped housing with no electricity and no running water under these conditions the damp and humid atmosphere of the amazon takes its toll malaria and respiratory diseases are commonplace [Applause] when people become ill their first port of call is pasaje paquito or medicine lane located in a part of belen which doesn't flood this market street sells nothing but local plant and animal remedies it's common in this area of the amazon this grows near the river and the surrounding area it's good for cones and impotence for men especially and to reduce inflammation it's not just the locals who recognize the health benefits of the local produce a quarter of all pharmaceutical drugs are derived from plants which only grow in the delicate ecosystem supported by the amazon river but unrefined remedies are no match for the killer diseases which blight the residents of belen when local medicines have failed their only hope is a charity-run medical center [Music] is a doctor who works at this dropping clinic for the poorest residents of belem there are always more patience than he has time to see he has been brought to the clinic by his mother who's worried about his persistent cough dr gonzalez believes that the child's condition is directly caused by living near the river the child has a chest complaint he's got acute bronchial obstruction syndrome asthma in short and so he will be given treatment this acute bronchial obstruction syndrome is more virulent when children live in very humid areas such as here close to the river excessive humidity in the morning and at night closes the bronchi so that he can't breathe easily he coughs a lot and can't sleep but perhaps the greatest danger to people's health is not the air but the water itself as the river in aquitos is increasingly polluted in these shanty towns there is no sewer system to deal with the waste produced latrines empty into the river canals during the dry season people walk the plank along the wooden pathways to avoid the human excrement which flows beneath during the floods the waste gets carried by the river into people's houses what's more the poorest residents of aquitos have no pipe drinking supply they're forced to use the untreated river or rain water for their daily use to disastrous effect child mortality rates in berlin are shockingly high infections like dysentery and non-dysentery diarrhea are caused mainly because people have no access to clean water to drink bacterial viral and gastrointestine infections are very common it's ironic that though the amazon carries more fresh water than the combined capacity of the next eight largest rivers on earth people who live on its banks don't have clean water to drink yet the river itself is largely to blame for the amazon floods and changes course so dramatically it can't be relied upon to provide a piped water supply in the last few years the river has moved away from the centre of aquitos what was deep water one year became dry riverbed the next [Music] but where humans struggle to cope nature has no problem as it leaves the ketos flowing from peru into brazil the amazon runs more or less parallel with the equator where the earth receives maximum energy from the sun [Music] under these conditions wildlife thrives in many specialized forms [Music] the amazon's flooding creates a unique environment to which nature adapts in the most remarkable way the flooded forests are a great example these waterlogged jungles occupy swathes of land up to 20 kilometers either side of the river during the wet season the soil in which these plants grow is underwater the smaller trees are completely submerged to survive they grow roots up to 20 meters long anchoring themselves against the force of the floods some trees even grow new roots reaching down from their branches to absorb nutrients from the water what we know about the wildlife of the amazon just scratches the surface the area covered by the river basin is so vast that there are still tributaries which have yet to be explored and thousands of plants and animals which are uncatalogued scientists are continually working to understand the extremely complex ecosystem of this region one of the amazon's many wildlife research projects is based here at the piranha reserve in the middle reaches of the amazon working from a floating laboratory maria suarez is director of the operation we measure and weigh the fish first we weigh it then we measure it and remove the stomach so we have an idea of what its feeding habits are this information is very important as the main aim of the project is to compile and compare data the piranha reserve is home to a huge variety of fish perfectly adapted to living in this underwater jungle during the flood season lots of trees produce various types of fruit which provide an excellent source of nourishment for the many species of fish species in the stomach of a sardine it's a long sardine a species of the triple tails and it's a smart fish for eating charumara is a very tasty fruit even people can eat it it's sweet and tasty and the tree itself is also beautiful in this symbiotic relationship the trees also benefit as the fish distribute their fruit seeds in their droppings the fish supported by the river are a crucial food source for the riberenios who live on piranha reserve in return for protected fishing rights they share their local knowledge with the researchers helping them track the migratory paths of fish and identifying new species priceless information in a place where only a fraction of the wildlife has been scientifically documented in the amazon basin there are currently 2 000 museum catalog species but we can conservatively estimate that there are in fact some 3 000 species why is this a conservative estimate because there is still a lot of narrow river channels and river pools that have not yet been surveyed working in collaboration with local people research projects like this one discover some 50 new species of fish every year the knowledge gained helps the river enios both exploit and protect the ecosystem upon which their livelihood depends dare not hunt the legendary boto dolphin [Music] up to 3 meters long and weighing some 90 kilos the boto vary in color from gray to pink [Music] with a brain 40 larger than humans they are supremely intelligent and naturally playful joy de lima is a fisherman who's had many a close encounter with the botox [Music] if a dolphin thinks you're afraid of it lots more dolphins will turn up and they will try and tease you if you're in a small canoe smaller than this one they'll try and drown you the dolphins mischievous nature has fueled all kinds of local myths rumor has it at night the boater emerged from the river to court local women yes it appears like me like me in the form of a male a physical body it approaches women and believe me this is true it really happens even here it has happened they take advantage of women when they're vulnerable though they're not really able to walk on land these dolphins have evolved perfectly to suit their environment [Music] practically blind since there's not much to see in the murky river waters they hunt their prey with sonar detectors and have a flexible backbone to weave their way through underwater vegetation [Music] the amazon dolphins are not the only river dolphins in the world but they are one of the few types that are thriving protected by the untamed river in the remote piranha reserve the boto and the fishermen have developed an understanding but elsewhere on the amazon commercial development is placing animals and humans in direct conflict [Music] some 4 000 kilometers downstream of its source the amazon approaches its largest tributary confluence here the dark and clear waters of the rio negro join the muddy flow of the amazon for 11 kilometers the black and brown waters flow side by side before finally mingling to create the largest river in the world over eight kilometers wide and 100 meters deep at this point the amazon is a trade super highway along which products can be exported from the heart of the rainforest directly to sea upstream of the confluence the city of manaus is perfectly positioned to take advantage of the river's commercial potential today manaus is a trading point for all kinds of cargo in the early 20th century however rubber was the key commodity to be exported through these docks tapped from the rainforest the rubber was shipped down the amazon from a mouse to anywhere in the world [Music] in those days manaus was known as the paris of the tropics the ruined old buildings in the city centre are a reminder of the immense wealth which rubber once brought [Music] but the glory days were short-lived in less than 30 years the amazon rubber industry went bust as rival plantations opened in asia and synthetic rubber became available to help manaus reinvent itself the brazilian government have declared it a duty-free zone consignments in and out of the city are tax-exempt encouraging international investors to set up here [Music] today billions of dollars worth of goods enter and leave manaus every year this commerce attracts thousands of new migrants to the city all hoping to share in the wealth which the river brings to accommodate the growth manases city limits are expanding further and further into the surrounding rainforest encroaching on the wilderness and its wildlife [Music] one of the most common animals here are caimans crocodilian reptiles unique to the amazon [Music] in the 1980s caimans were an endangered species but a project to save them has led to an explosion in their numbers some believe several million caimans now live along the amazon outnumbering and posing a real danger to the human population [Music] for those who make a living on the water the risks are deadly al del cimir cardoso is a fisherman who was attacked by a cayman a few years ago as i was removing the fish and sorting them out i didn't pay attention to this side and they came and jumped about a meter high straight at me enough and so i saw that it was an animal i was able to move my head this way and throughout my arm it grabbed my arm and flooded the boat [Music] in the 20-minute struggle that followed the cayman tried to drag out el samir under water by his arm [Music] broke in four parts this joint was severed here this finger was severed it was only attached here only by playing dead did al dasamir get away with this life but it's not just fishermen who are now at risk for as the number of caymans increase and as manaus expands animals and humans compete for living space the narrow river canals which flow through manassas suburbs are a great example here the caymans thrive among the urban waste but many people also live next to the canals it's a situation which is bound to lead to conflict cynthia marta owns a restaurant which backs onto one of the many river canals she arrived at work one morning to find a surprise visitor waiting for her when i arrived at the gate there was a cayman two and a half to three meters long it was very frustrating because i imagined i came here cynthia had to try and drag the cayman back to the canal from which it had emerged it rained a lot that night i think the river canal filled up and it climbed out and we had to build a wall so that we could feel safer but dealing with the local wildlife is just one of the challenges of urban development for as its economic revival continues manaus's electricity needs are also increasing one of the greatest potential power sources in the entire amazon region is the river itself [Music] it's a force that developers would love to harness particularly in brazil where 80 of all the country's electricity is created by hydro power so far the amazon has not been damned it's too big to control and with a gradient of less than 100 meters over most of its course it's just too slow to produce electricity [Music] but many of the hundreds of tributaries which join the amazon have much faster currents and it's these arteries which are being clamped in the race to produce hydropower [Music] some 150 kilometers east of manhas on the watumia tributary of the amazon is balbina dam today the lake formed by the dam looks beautiful and tranquil but in the 1980s when it was built it caused so much environmental damage that balbina was dubbed one of the greatest errors ever committed in the amazon its story sounds a terrible warning of the dangers of damming a river in the rainforest before it was built the developers claimed that balbina would flood some 2360 square kilometers of rainforest to produce 250 megawatts of electricity most of which would be fed to manhouse from the outset environmentalists were critical of how much jungle would be lost to produce such modest amounts of power what's more many indigenous communities lived in the area which was to be flooded their homes and livelihoods would be destroyed when the waters rose as opposition reached fever pitch the authorities decided to end the debate without warning closing the floodgates 30 days early the effects were catastrophic the engineers grossly underestimated the area which would be submerged when the floodgates closed the water spread out everywhere over the flat landscape animals and humans fled for their lives elidio de silva is one of the local people who witnessed the carnage most of the animals that were killed at that time were monkeys the monkeys died because in this large area as you can see there weren't many islands left as he watched tens of thousands of animals drown elidio joined a desperate mission to rescue as many as possible we went out to collect the animals to move them to the higher land to save them many more died mainly because we didn't have enough boats to collect all the animals not only was the habitat destroyed so too was the water for in the haste to fill the dam the area had not been cleared of jungle as the trees rotted down the reservoir became slick with scum killing the fish and poisoning the local drinking supply the water was so bad we couldn't drink it so the company provided some water wells but they weren't proper wells it was just a gesture to keep the people happy as the water pumps also began to draw toxic water the residents of old balbina were relocated to a purpose-built village on higher land here they remain today surrounded by modern amenities but deprived of their traditional way of life in the new balbina unemployment and alcoholism are high despite the lessons of balbina there are many more dams planned for the amazon basin as south america's energy demands increase but in recent years the region has seen dramatic changes in climate which threatened to put a halt to all hydropower plants [Music] downstream of banaus where the rio negro and amazon meet catalog is one of the many lakes formed by the roaming waters though they have no running water or electricity the community which lives here are used to coping with life on the river every house in the village is designed to float even the builders here work on water [Music] but in 2005 life changed in a way these villagers could never have imagined in the summer of that year the amazon suffered the worst drought on record wreaking havoc in the region on lake catalou the residents found themselves totally isolated [Music] raimunda viana remembers the effect it had on the community there was a lot of hunger because the fish died the floating houses were stranded there was no water and we had to the villagers became desperate as the shrinking waters filled with dying fish when their food and water supplies dwindled to nothing the people congregated every day at the church to pray for an end to their suffering [Music] and when the rain came people would be by the gutter collecting the water in little bowls from the gutter just for something to drink and to avoid carrying the water in the hot sun the situation was the same all over the amazon river waters receded so far that boats became stranded there were even stories of fish being cooked alive in the heat of the shallow waters as the river dried up the jungle suffered two transformed from wet sponge to tinderbox an area of more than a thousand kilometers square was lost to forest fires the smoke prolonged the crisis inhibiting the formation of clouds and making the drought worse [Music] usb when their prayers were answered and the reigns eventually arrived the people of the amazon assumed the drought of 2005 was a once in a lifetime event but a year later the droughts returned as a pattern emerges scientists are beginning to question why this river is suffering such unprecedented change [Music] many blame deforestation for the increase in droughts trees are the water towers of the amazon drawing moisture from the ground and releasing it into the atmosphere until it eventually falls again as rain but an area of jungle the size of six football pitches is cut down every minute destroying the water cycle which is the lifeline of this region what's more the burning of forests is increasing global warming and the likelihood of further droughts for though the trees of the amazon produce more than 20 percent of the oxygen on earth deforestation fires are now responsible for a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions for the river the crisis is even more immediate as most of its water comes from precipitation [Music] without rain from the rainforest the amazon as we know it would cease to exist [Music] and the further the river continues on its eastwood course the greater the threat becomes [Music] 200 kilometers downstream of manaus is the city of santa rem positioned at the confluence of the tobaccos and amazon rivers and fed by thousands of kilometers of jungle highway santa rem is a vital export terminal for rainforest products from the city docks it's a straight 300 kilometers along the amazon river to see of all the cargo processed here the most profitable is sawyer ships laden with soybeans sail from santa rem directly to europe and the united states where the sawyer is used to feed animals destined for the supermarket and fast food chains but this seemingly inert cargo poses a deadly threat to the amazon and to the people for sawyer is now the main engine of deforestation in the whole region one million two hundred thousand acres of prime rainforest have been cut down to make way for the crop [Music] much of the jungle being cleared is home to indigenous tribes and traditional communities but the massive profits to be made mean that some developers will stop at nothing to get their hands on new land those who stand in their way risk being gunned down it's a fact which maria dos santos knows only too well as president of the workers union she has received several death threats for defending the rights of local farmers against the sawyer magnets for the last two years she's been protected by 24-hour armed guard my zucchini movie what moves me is knowing that people are slowly getting their rights it's about facing fighting maybe it wouldn't be dangerous if we didn't want to face the enemy but we decided this was the approach the union would take sawyer is a relatively new threat to the amazon the biggest cause of deforestation used to be logging and cattle ranching recently however developers realized that the vast tracts of land available here were ideal for the production of soya which is only profitable when grown in huge quantities the first region to be exploited was mato grosso in the far south but it was only a matter of time before the sawyer magnets arrived in santa rem 1999 or 2000 we'd already heard that they were on their way that the sawyer farmers would arrive in our region some people try to explain it to us but we never really knew what it meant [Music] the most obvious symbol of sawyer's arrival in santa rem was the construction of the privately owned export station next to the city docks built without planning permission the legality of this station is still being debated in the courts the first santa rem's residents knew of it was when the city beach was suddenly replaced by an immense industrial platform soon after however the implications hit home as local farmers were forced to sell their land to the more unscrupulous sawyer magnets since most rural workers had no documents to prove they owned their farms making them sell was relatively easy [Music] so they would register the land and then they'd say to the people living on it look now we have this documentation either you accept our offer or you leave with nothing they threatened to call the police so the farmers would accept some 5 thousand ten thousand in ignorance they'd even say to him look you can go to the city and buy a house there and you'll have a better life you can watch tv and leave this wilderness which has no electricity and so the people would fall for this calm many of the rural migrants come here to santorum's shantytown suburbs but they soon realized that ten thousand dollars does not go very far in the city [Applause] in the countryside they could grow their own crops for food and profit whereas here they have nothing to create an income these back streets are full of desperate families who have lost everything to the greed of the sawyer industry these are the kind of people maria tries to help among them is a woman who doesn't want to be identified for fear of her life five years ago she and her husband fled to the city when their rural village was burned to the ground by guerrillas working on behalf of the soil magnets their boys got into chairs when we got to the city god gave us this place and the people here helped us this hut was built by the people after reaching the city however her husband took part in a compensation claim against the sawyer farmers now he has a price on his head when i used to walk through the city people would say to me they are making plans to kill your husband i was in such a state that i couldn't eat when my husband came here i asked him to stop everything the poor can't challenge the rich because the rich have money to kill people you might as well already be dead i the fight for justice continues meanwhile the threat from sawyer is increasing [Applause] several new roads are planned in the amazon which will cut through the rainforest establishing new trade routes and opening new areas to development in all this the river continues to be the most vital link of the export corridor from santa rem the heavily laden ships continue eastwards for another 1300 kilometers before the amazon finally meets the ocean more than 240 kilometers wide the river enters the sea with such power that it pushes the salt water back hundreds of kilometers from land [Music] in the incredible force of this flow the soya and other products of the rainforest are carried away to market but in forming a part of the commercial chain the river is a tool of its own destruction [Music] for the rainforest and the river are interdependent what destroys one will undoubtedly destroy the other [Music] today the amazon river still carries one-fifth of all the world's fresh water for the people who live near it the river still dictates the place and pace of life but it's clear that the amazon can no longer escape the influences of the modern world [Music] for how long the last great untamed river on earth will continue to run wild remains to be seen [Music] the ganges is the most venerated river on earth on its 2500 kilometer journey from source to sea it flows through the physical and spiritual heart of india to bathe in these waters is said to purify the soul to die on the riverbank is to gain entry to heaven the ganges spiritual influence is matched by its physical power [Music] the river and its tributaries support half a billion people but today a crisis is looming which threatens to turn this river of life into a river of death as india's population keeps growing the pollution created by its people is defiling the waters which they worship each year over a million young children are poisoned by this river today the ganges though holy is less than pure [Music] no river on earth has as much influence over its people as the ganges to millions of indians this river is a physical lifeline providing their only source of fresh water to hindu believers the ganges is also the earthly form of the goddess ganga [Music] its waters are said to be so powerful that just a drop can cleanse the body of sin [Music] for thousands of years this river has been the bedrock of indian culture and belief to the people she is the mother who grants the maternal salvation but in recent times the quantity and quality of this water has been threatened while the himalayan glaciers which feed the river are retreating the amount of pollution entering the waters is rising day by day within a generation the ganges might not only be too polluted to use it might cease to exist today the people of india are facing the greatest challenge in the history of the ganges how to purify a river which to them is the embodiment of purity itself [Music] in hindu culture ordinary water is believed to have extraordinary powers millions of indians follow a daily ritual of pouring a handful over themselves to remove the impurities which accumulate in the course of a day when water is moving in a river it's even more precious since it carries any pollution away in its flow all of india's major rivers are considered to be holy but the river ganges is the holiest of [Music] all from its source in the himalayas to its delta in bengal the ganges creates a river basin that supports one-tenth of the world's population but according to ancient hindu scriptures the river ganges originally flowed in heaven long ago she agreed to fall to earth to help humankind by cleansing and resurrecting the ashes of the dead to save the world from the impact of the river's descent the hindu god lord shiva caught the ganges in his hair [Music] today a whole culture of worship has sprung up around the place where this mystical event is said to have happened situated at the foot of the himalayas gangotri is the first town through which the ganges flows on its course from mountain to sea this also marks the place where the river ganges is said to have fallen from heaven to earth in winter gangotri is snow bound and desolate but as soon as the ice melts and the roads open the place comes alive with thousands of pilgrims [Music] visiting the ganges at gangotri is one of the most powerful pilgrimages a hindu can make at an altitude of over 3000 meters reaching gangotri is no small task pilgrims arrive by bus enduring a journey of days on overcrowded coaches along treacherous mountain roads when they eventually set foot on solid ground foremost in their mind is reaching the river which they call mother ganga once at the water's edge they fulfill their pilgrimage by bathing in the ice cold flow just as goddess ganga came to cleanse the ashes of humankind these pilgrims believe that the river will remove their sins here where the river runs fast and pure its cleansing powers are thought to be particularly strong to thank the river for purifying them the pilgrims may offer prayers of the temple built so it is said over the exact rock upon which lord shiva sat to receive the ganges in his hair some pilgrims employ priests to conduct private ceremonies of devotion for a few rupees payment they make offerings to mother ganga on the pilgrims [Applause] the effort of reaching gangotri means that only devout pilgrims are prepared to endure the long coach journey to get here but the most devout of all do not travel by bus they choose to walk every step of the way i have come from banaras it's very far it's a thousand kilometers away i walked all the way it took me three months i didn't have any money and by begging for food and drink i managed to come here nani nath is a sadhu literally meaning good man he is one of some four million sadhus in india who turn their back on the real world and dedicate their lives to the contemplation of god for these men pilgrimage is a way of life and enduring the hardship of walking to gangatri is a sign of their devotion living on charity and donations some sadhus wear orange clothing to symbolize their rejection of material things [Music] some like nane cover themselves in ash as a sign of austerity for sadhus coming to gangotri is an essential part of their lifelong quest to worship the deities among whom goddess ganga is one of the most powerful every morning i get up bathe before my rituals and apply ash i perform prayers to the mother ganga and for the people then having had my meal and water and after the evening prayer i have to sleep the next morning i wake up at four o'clock and bathe again this is how one has to live in gangotry but for the most about pilgrims gangatri is not the end of the journey many continue walking 17 kilometers beyond the town across the gangotri glacier to the ice cave at gamuk literally meaning cow's mouth this ice cave contains the milky glacial spring which feeds the ganges [Music] as the spiritual source of the river hindus believe that the waters cleansing powers here are sublime but the exact location of this spring has shifted over the course of time as the ice fields which feed the river have retreated one man who's watched this alarming transformation take place is swami sundaran he now lives in gangotri but first visited the town as a young pilgrim in 1948 me i first came to gangatri in 1948. gangatri is at ten thousand three hundred feet the flowers that were here at that time the deer the brown bear the white bear they disappeared at that time there were only four houses now an entire town to settle here the house which swami sundaran built for himself is a testament to his lifelong passion for photography when he traveled on from gangotri to gammuk he took his camera with him from right to left this is a panorama of eight photographs behind the shivering peak is the meru glacier its thickness has been reduced by one kilometer swami's photographs document the disturbing changes which are happening on the himalayan ice fields each year the gangotri glacier shrinks by 25 meters this would explain the apparent confusion in religious accounts of where the ganges begins for though the glacial spring which feeds the river rises today at gamuck four thousand years ago when the hindu scriptures were written the glacier would have extended all the way to gangotri giving rise to the legend that it was here the ganges fell to earth [Music] the glacier is shrinking for two reasons it's clear global warming has a part to play but the pilgrims themselves are also responsible [Music] to feed gangotris religious tourism industry thousands of trees are being cut down for fuel and building causing erosion and weakening the glacier walls due to hot weather deforestation water experts warn that at this rate the glacier will disappear by 2035 and the spiritual source of the ganges will dry up completely the effects of such an event would be catastrophic for all those who depend on these waters to sustain both their body and their soul [Music] from gangotri the ganges plunges downstream through the rugged mountains of northern india bringing life to the land in these poor and remote regions the river provides the only source of fresh water in a country which suffers severe water shortages this is the greatest gift the ganges can bestow [Applause] [Music] later along its course the river sustains many more people as its waters are diverted and pumped to thirsty cities and towns today the ganges and its tributaries support half the population of india [Music] as well as quenching people's thirst the river sustains their livestock and fertilizes their land the reason for this is that the ganges carries more silt than any other river in the world mineral-rich sediment eroded from the himalayan rocks is carried along in the flow and deposited across the river valleys creating rich agricultural soils it's no wonder that the gifts which the river brings are seen as blessings from the goddess some 225 kilometers downstream of gangotri is the town of haridwar haridwar is revered as the place where the ganges leaves the mountains and enters the plains becoming the force which fertilizes the land each year 18 million people visit the town to celebrate this crucial junction in the river's story [Applause] steep river slopes are lined with specially built steps known as gaps to allow easy access for bathing but anyone entering these waters takes a big risk for here where the ganges changes from mountain torrent to mighty waterway the current is particularly strong each year several people are washed away by the raging waters yet it's precisely because of the fast waters that the worshippers flock to bathe here the rapid current is proof that the river arrives fresh and pure from the [Music] mountains what's more haridwar is one of the first major towns downstream of the ganges source that is easily reached by road making it one of the most popular pilgrimage sites in india since it's the religious obligation of every hindu to make at least one visit to the ganges in their lifetime coming to haridwar is a chance for the whole family to fulfill their duty the town is set up to cater for this mass religious tourism from the shade of their wooden shelters hindu priests offer a variety of services from arranging accommodation to conducting religious ceremonies one which is particularly important to hindu families is the mundane a head shaving ceremony performed in the first or third year of life the hair present at birth represents unwanted traits from past lives to ensure the child doesn't carry bad qualities from the past to the present the head is shaved and the old hair thrown to the ganges to be purified families go to extraordinary lengths to ensure that their children's mundane ceremony takes place on the ganges before leaving haridwar even the most pious tourists like to buy a memento of their visit among the most popular gifts are sealed vials of river water known as gangajal the label claims that adding a few drops of gangajal to your bath will ease all kinds of illness and rid the body of sin most locals however choose to buy a plastic bottle which they fill up for themselves [Music] what seems like a cheap gift is in fact the most precious souvenir any visitor can take home for hindus believe gangajal has supernatural powers it's claimed that never mind how long it's kept ganges water does not deteriorate but stays fresh even when exposed to the air it's even said that mosquitoes can't breed in gangajal the pilgrims believe the river possesses these powers because it's the earthly form of the goddess ganga but some seek a more scientific explanation downstream of the main bathing gats dr dua leads a team of scientists from the malaria research center taking samples of ganges water for analysis through studying the precise composition of these samples dr doyle's team have revealed that ganga jal does have unique qualities yes it's true that gangajal has a higher level of dissolved oxygen compared to water from other areas this is firstly due to the fast flow of the river and secondly the turbulence of the water the water is very turbulent and we think that is why it has higher levels of dissolved oxygen the scientists believe that the high levels of oxygen in ganga jal make it difficult for bacteria to reproduce this would explain why the water stays fresh for so long but today dam and water diversion projects are altering the flow of the river current and so threatening the water's self-cleansing qualities mosquito breeding will automatically increase because of this we are undertaking studies in the haridwar region we immerse mosquito larvae in the water to see whether mosquitoes breed in it or not we check this in our laboratories we now believe that mosquito breeding does happen in ganga japan dr dual's research not only explodes the myth that mosquitoes can't breed in ganga jal it's also the first clue to a terrible crisis which threatens the river today as it continues its course through the land there's a growing contradiction between the religious view of the river's purity and the actual physical state of its waters as night falls on haridwar pilgrims congregate for the evening prayer ceremony called ganga arti meaning river worship this is a powerful celebration of the life-giving qualities which the ganges carries forth from here to fertilize the land but the beauty of the ritual belies a terrible irony for while haridwar is where the ganges matures into a mighty river it also marks the place where this river of life begins a bitter battle to survive the pollution and excesses of the modern world [Music] leaving the himalayas and haridwar behind the ganges enters a very different landscape these low-lying regions known as the gangetic plains are some of the most productive and densely populated in asia [Music] the land owes its fertility to the ganges as the silt carried in the river's flow creates a rich soil in which crops flourish producing nearly half of all the country's wheat and rice these floodplains are the bread basket of india [Music] it's no wonder that the ganges is revered as the river of creation and abundance it's the river's natural fertility that supports the region's exceptionally high birth rates which are said to propel india's population to around one and a half billion people by 2030. by then india will have overtaken china as the world's most populous country [Music] but the population growth which the ganges has helped create is now threatening its very existence because urban development is poisoning the river and the people who depend upon it [Music] located in the middle of the gangetic plains kanpur is the first mega city on the ganges it's home to over 4 million people and a booming leather industry the rich farmlands all around kampur have the highest concentration of livestock in india making this the perfect place for leather production [Music] kanpur's 350 tanneries specialize in processing hides into heavy leather in an industry which yields 375 million dollars a year but poor planning means there's no effective system for dealing with the massive amounts of industrial waste produced for those who work and live here the sulfurous gases pouring from the factories are a serious health risk rates of respiratory disease in this town are extraordinarily high [Music] for the river the effects are just as deadly most of the byproducts from the tanning industry end up in the ganges [Music] though it is mandatory that tanneries have their own effluent treatment plants at least half do not all manner of waste from animal carcasses to toxic effluents laden with carcinogenic chemicals pour through four major drains directly into the river [Music] is a fishing village a few kilometers downstream of kanpur's leather industry the residents here depend directly on the river for subsistence fishing used to provide this community with a good living as kishan pal kashiad recalls we used to watch our elders hunting for fish here and they had to carry their catch in buffalo carts such big fish long ones weighing about 20 kilos people couldn't even lift them sometimes then as we grew up the amount of fish gradually decreased some fish don't even come here anymore because of the bad water that flows from to most fish the pollution in this water proves deadly among the few species hardy enough to survive is the local royal fish but when caught their flesh is so laden with toxins it is practically inedible but sometimes it turns out to be bad and makes the children sick [Music] the people of madapol know only too well how pollution is poisoning the river but they can't escape its deadly effects they depend on these waters for their survival when we're out fishing we only have this water to drink but when you raise your hand it smells foul and there's animal fat flowing in there your hands are sticky from the water and it's so disgusting god knows what they discharge into the river it's not fit for drinking when you raise your hand like this you can see animal fat floating in the water today the river is so polluted that it's impossible to make a living from fishing anymore to survive people like kishan have tried farming instead [Music] but even the land is poisoned by the river water used to irrigate the crops we want to use the sand to grow cucumbers melons and vegetables but when you plant seeds in the soil they don't germinate even if they do germinate and the plant becomes so big it dies yes that's it for us life is [Music] for kisham and his family the future looks increasingly grim as kanpur's industrial development continues [Music] commercial growth attracts tens of thousands of new residents to the city every year but this mass migration simply makes the problem worse for the population of campo produce their own waste around 360 million liters of sewage per day poor planning means the city's treatment plants struggle to cope and vast amounts of raw sewage are deliberately discharged into the ganges the river has become a deadly threat to the people who depend on it nowhere is the problem more acute than at the holy ghats where the local people attend their daily bathing rituals [Music] even here the ganges is considered to be holy and washing in its waters is supposed to rid the body of pollution these days the opposite outcome is more likely [Music] at the city's hospital the true extent of kanpur's pollution problem is made shockingly clear some 300 people a day come here seeking treatment for respiratory diseases caused by air pollution the number of people suffering from waterborne diseases like cholera diarrhea and hepatitis is even greater women and children are especially vulnerable dr kieran pandy is an obstetrician who has first-hand experience of the deadly effects of pollution on people's health other water polluted if the water is polluted and people are drinking it then the pollution is entering their bodies worm infestations are water-borne diarrhea is solely a water infection viral fever also originates in water will be it's not only the organisms in the water which are dangerous so two other chemicals though the local drinking supply is treated before reaching the pumps tests show that this water still has high levels of carcinogenic chromium the untreated water being used to irrigate the crops is extremely contaminated containing 64 times more arsenic and 120 times more mercury in recommended levels these chemicals can not only cause cancer they also destroy the nutrient content of the food add water means a bad diet for these women almost half of all the patients we see have anemia [Music] we have problems of malnutrition so we often get patients with hemoglobin levels of one to three milligrams and because of this the child's growth is affected it could also lead to premature delivery and underweight babies and even sometimes death there's no doubt that the polluted river is to blame for much of the death and disease suffered by the people of kanpur but they can't afford to protest too much the wealth generated by the tanneries drives the local economy for many residents a dirty ganges is a regrettable but necessary price to pay [Music] downstream however there are cities for whom pilgrimage is crucial to the local economy here a poison ganges presents a massive problem [Music] the city of allahabad sits at one of the most sacred river confluences in india this is where the holy ganges meets the earthly yamana and the mythical saraswati river hindu mythology says that gods and demons fought a war here over the nectar of immortality spilling some at the river's confluence during the kummela festival pilgrims gather to venerate the place where the nectar fell in one of the most important events in the religious calendar [Music] in the course of this 45-day festival allahabad is transformed as some 70 million faithful descend upon it in what is perhaps the largest gathering of humans ever [Music] the most important event of all is the royal bath when pilgrims rushed to the water's edge to perform a unique cleansing ritual for mother ganga [Music] according to legend when the goddess agreed to liberate mankind from its sins she asked who would purify her afterwards it was deemed to be the sadhus who during the kumela would bathe in the water absorbing the river's sins and purifying her again and again [Applause] being first to the river to cleanse the goddess is a much sought after right and has been the cause of stampedes in the past [Music] but in 2007 things took a very different turn as the most committed holy men boycotted the festival [Music] disgusted by the pollution and islands of rubbish floating in the river they refused to bathe until the authorities cleaned up the waters some even threatened mass suicide [Music] these protests marked a critical junction in the river's story even the sadhus felt they could no longer ignore the contradiction between their religious beliefs and the physical state of the waters shocked by the swell of public opinion the authorities opened an upstream dam to flush pollution away from the main gas it worked the sadhus were appeased and the festival went ahead [Music] but in the minds of the public a new truth had been established that the ganges though holy is now less than pure it's becoming clear that drastic long-term action is needed to prevent this river of life from becoming the river of death [Music] 125 kilometers downstream from allahabad the ganges reaches the city of varanasi at this holiest of sites the river is facing its most dire crisis [Music] varanasi is said to be the spiritual home of all 330 million hindu gods and goddesses it's also the only place on its entire course where the river runs northward in the direction of its source legend has it that the ganges fell so in love with varanasi she nearly gave up on her seaward journey to stay in the city [Music] this is the most important pilgrimage site in india [Music] hindus believe that those who are cremated and have their ashes thrown to the ganges at varanasi will receive eternal salvation for this reason sick people make a desperate pilgrimage from all around the country to spend their last days in this city living in the most primitive conditions these women have chosen to leave their families behind and face death alone surendra pasayad attends to the island dying on the riverbanks the old people who come to varanasi think in return for a small payment surendra makes sure that these women receive food and medicines for their pains but to him it's about more than money helping the old people gives me more spiritual fulfillment than the act of just praying i get a greater reward from serving the old people than from worship alone that's why i do this work not only does surendra care for the sick he looks after the dead too when these women die surendra will fulfill their final wish by making sure that their bodies are ritually burned on the riverbank [Music] the main cremation business is based here at the manikinika gat the holiest of all places in this city of holies working in this death factory is a dirty and dangerous job those who keep the fires burning day and night belong to the social group or caste known as the untouchables in traditional indian society untouchables are recognized as having the lowest status of all the castes but at manukanika they command huge respect for rich or poor high or low caste the deceased and their families depend on these workers to carry out a proper hindu funeral [Music] package deals are available even for the dead all the wood incense and manpower needed for a full cremation can be bought for some 950 rupees that's about twenty dollars once the price is agreed the death servants go to work firewood is weighed for the fire onto which the body will be placed [Music] the corpse is lit from an eternal flame which is supposed to have been burning since the dawn of time meanwhile the chief mourner usually the elder son has his head shaved as a symbol of his grief [Music] after the ritual preparation the mourner takes the twigs of holy kusher grass from the eternal fire to set the pyre [Music] alight the corpse burns and the fire conveys the deceased to heaven to the wider world the public nature of this ceremony may seem a carb [Music] but for hindus it is only right that this celebratory ritual should happen in the open [Music] few tears are shed as the mourners watch the souls of their dead ascending to the afterlife [Music] you can attain all forms of happiness here there's no greater pleasure than salvation so varanasi isn't a sad place after the cremation the ashes are thrown to the river and the mourners walk away without looking back the funeral workers in the meantime rifle through the charcoal in search of gold teeth and other precious remnants [Music] but it's not only people's ashes that are thrown to the river pregnant women and dead babies are considered devoid of sin they don't need to be cleansed by cremation and their bodies have floated directly on the water [Music] at varanasi corpses wrapped in ornate shrouds are often seen floating along [Music] the beach opposite the city is also littered with human remains yet still every morning hindus gather to bathe driven by an unshakable belief in the river's purity one of them is dr bhadra mishra dr mishra was only 14 when he became the seventh priest in his family a position passed down from father to son he's also a professor of hydraulic engineering and is fully aware of the pollution which plagues the river yet for him bathing in these waters is not a matter of choice but a matter of faith cleanses our sins i will not break from tradition but i also just can't believe that there is no pollution entering the ganges there certainly is so in my case there's a rationally trained mind as well as a committed heart dr mishra believes it is the authorities not the pilgrims who are to blame for most of the pollution on the ganges saying that it's only the pilgrims that are making the river impure and dirty this belief should come to an end the ganges is being harmed by those people who are overseeing the functioning of the cities and the factories and those who are dumping the effluence of the many factories into the river which we refer to as point sources of pollution sources of pollution 95 95 of the pollution is caused by point sources of pollution frustrated by the authority's indifference dr mishra began his own ganges cleanup campaign and established a research laboratory to monitor pollution levels today krupam dube works at the lab testing samples of river water for a bacterium called fecal coliform which is present in human sewage if it's ingested this organism can cause deadly illnesses such as typhoid and hepatitis the amount of fecal coliform present in the water is a prime indicator of the health hazard which it poses the test results at varanasi are shocking for drinking water the fecal coliform content should be 500 or less that's the permissible limit [Music] our samples are taken five meters from the riverbank because that's the furthest point from the bank that people are able to bathe they also drink the water from there and the fecal coliform count is found to be between 40 000 to 80 000. the biggest reason for this is sewage today over a million liters of sewage is dumped into the ganges every second at varanasi the biggest problem is poor infrastructure with the population of more than three million this city suffers frequent power shortages without electricity the pumps which operate the sewage plants shut down and the back flow of waste ends up in the ganges the scale of varanasi's sewage problem means the ordinary people are powerless to change it but driven by an innate desire to help the ganges they do what they can every morning these men gather at the riverbank to clear the pollution with their bare hands garlands flowers plastic clothes we pick them all up and put them in the boat we take this rubbish to the other side of the river where the dogs and crows eat it all up they also pick up human corpses and carcasses of sacred cows often found floating in the waters but their efforts are just a drop in the ocean of course we feel there shouldn't be any pollution we try and clean up but the pollution continues how much can be cleaned there are just a few of us cleaning but god knows how many are polluting [Music] varanasi marks a crucial point in the ganges story it's here that the spiritual cycle of life and death associated with the river reaches its climax it's also where hard science is most at odds with hindu belief the evidence proves that the ganges at varanasi is anything but pure [Music] many claim that the pilgrims faith makes them blind to the problems others believe that even if people knew about the pollution they would still feel compelled to bathe oh for them the ganges is the medium of life just like a fish cannot be separated from water they cannot be separated from the ganges what's more dr mishra is convinced that the people best place to purify the ganges are the very people who believe in her purity if i sit with the masses and say please don't say that it's unbearable what are you saying can the mother ever be dirty or polluted when you show them what's happening they say no the city's sewage and drains should not be emptied into the river this must stop if this love and respect for the river can be harnessed it can become a great power which can help us in so many ways if the power of love can truly save this river then there is hope yet for no river on earth is as loved by its people as the ganges [Music] perhaps 4 000 years of faith in the purity of these waters will undo the last 50 years of neglect [Music] but pollution is just one of the problems to be faced as the glacier which feeds the river continues to recede there is a real danger that the source of the ganges will disappear yet india needs the river today more than ever as the population boom continues the amount of water available to each person is rapidly decreasing it's estimated that by 2020 india's demand for water will exceed all sources of supply drastic change is needed to save the river and protect the future of her people how that can be done is the challenge facing india today [Music] this is the story of a river which has formed a nation but also one which brought it to the brink of disaster [Music] at over three and a half thousand kilometers long the mississippi flows right through the heart of america it has brought great wealth to the country making it the richest nation on earth but great suffering and hardship too making it in many ways the most impoverished it is also a river which rocked a nation [Music] the blues rock and roll gospel and jazz they all flowed into america on the muddy waters of the mississippi and out again to the rest of the world as a revolution of song stars spangles and suffering the mississippi made america what it is today [Music] there's no place in the world like the mississippi it's a mysterious place full of contrasts and paradox north south black white poor and rich and where music has always been played even when there was very little to sing about [Music] the story and song of old man river comes through in the voices of people such as david honeyboy edwards who is the last living delta bluesman [Music] reverend noah smith who works all the hours god sends to find some hope for his dirt poor congregation and ellis smith the oldest survivor of the worst flood in american history he just keeps rolling [Music] the mississippi begins its journey in lake itasca and runs south for 3700 kilometers before reaching the sea in the gulf of mexico [Music] this is a river which dominates the whole of the american landscape but it's the southern stretch also known as the lower mississippi which has dominated american culture and life our story starts here where the pea green flow of the ohio merges with the muddier waters of the mississippi on this confluence lies the little town of cairo there's no signpost or frontier fence but this place marks the beginning of the lower mississippi and also the border between america north and south [Music] [Music] today keru looks more like a film set from an old western than a place where people live and work a modern-day ghost town it's like many other places in the american south where poverty is a killer disease wiping out whole communities in recent years keiru's mainly black population has shrunk from 15 000 to less than 3 000 leaving it a city of abandoned buildings and dead hopes there's no hospital here no park no restaurant drugs are common and decay is dominant this is commercial avenue which has been the major commerce center throughout cairo's history if i could travel back in time i'd love to see it in different decades like the 1880s and 90s when the riverboats were playing this area into the 30s when the blues first started migrating northward it had to be just a magnificent multicultural fun you know exciting place stace england is a local musician who grew up not far from keru he's always been fascinated with this place and has spent many years here researching and writing songs about its rich past [Music] it's hard to believe that this place used to be one of the busiest and richest ports in the country but something happened here to make keiru's wealth disappear in recent years [Music] this building was a bar duke's bar which opened in 1933 and just closed a couple of years ago which broke my heart i love that place that was my office in cairo during my research a bar here the fat boys has always been a bar for many many many years and changed hands and names there's a very famous neon maker here in cairo and most of the signs were in neon so in the 40s you would have seen this place blinking and lighting up like las vegas basically as you walked around so it's very emotional for me to be in a spot like this and have a sense of that history [Music] stace believes that keiru should be celebrated and preserved because of the unique role it has played in american history it was here in this town which marked the start of the american north that black african american slaves could claim their liberty for over 300 years slaves were sold to white masters all along the mississippi but the harshest conditions were always found in the southern states and so many tried to escape to keru their gateway to a better life in the north imagine if you're a slave in the south or right after civil war you're a freed slave or son of slaves you're coming up crossing into the north would have been a dramatic life of ever-changing life event to finally find yourself on free soil and say i'm a man now nobody can tell me what to do so this was a dramatic point for that activity in fact even into the 40s and carol this was a demarcation point if you were coming from the south on a train car you had to ride in the black car and then carol you could switch and ride in the mixed race car before the days of modern transport fleeing slaves traveled to cairo via a network of secret river routes and safe houses nicknamed the underground railroad their journey was fraught with danger and if they were caught they'd be sold down river a notion which became synonymous with receiving a death sentence the lucky ones reached keiru where they were greeted by people who gave them help and refuge and it is said that once the slaves arrived here they fell to their knees and kissed the free ground [Music] if you stand on the docks in keiru today you'd be forgiven for thinking that the town is still as busy as ever but there's one big difference these days bigger ships mean bigger fuel tanks and fewer pit stops the result for keru has been devastating nothing stops here anymore stace believes that not all is lost and that if keru could celebrate and cash in on its past then maybe it would have some chance of a future 220 kilometers downstream there's a place that's doing just that once a little town smaller than kairu memphis grew to become the capital of the mississippi river and the music mecca of america blues soul and rock and roll memphis has it all locals claim that all this music originated here but the truth is that all the notes and the riffs and the rhythms were carried into memphis by the mississippi herself a byproduct of all the river and slave trades [Music] memphis's golden age of music goes back to the 1940s 50s and 60s when musicians like elvis presley b.b king and otis redding made memphis their home and when places like stacks and sun records gave street kids the chance to become international superstars its creative hub at that time was beale street and today it's one of the leading tourist attractions in the state of tennessee [Music] but long before it opened its stores to visitors memphis was the original wall street of america [Music] during the 1800s the city developed into the most important trading center in the country its strategic position right on the banks of the mississippi attracted huge investment making it the largest cotton centre in the world and the largest slave market in the mid-south [Music] king cotton as it was known then was a hugely profitable cash crop grown on the southern plantation farms and traded here [Music] hundreds of thousands of people travel to memphis along the mississippi to buy sell and be sold forming what was in effect a huge melting pot of cultures this unique sharing and mixing of black and white experiences on the one hand sowed the seeds for memphis's rich musical legacy but on the other created a deeply rooted racial intolerance which exploded during the violent civil rights protests of the 1960s and 70s [Music] the assassination of martin luther king at the lorraine motel in memphis during the spring of 68 is seen by many as the beginning of the end of memphis's golden era during the late 60s and 70s musicians stopped coming to memphis traveling further north to places like chicago and detroit instead all the bars and juke joints on beale street had to close down the recording studios stopped recording and the city seemed to lose its heart but perhaps not its soul just as stones throw from the mississippi is stacks records this place used to be one of the largest african-american businesses in the united states and an oasis of black and white integration stacks was always a place where the color of your music was far more important than the colour of your skin for those of you that don't know this lady she is i consider the mother of stacks let's give a big hand to miss deeney parker [Applause] i was with stats records in fact from about 1961 when i came in to be a superstar and i realized that i didn't have the soulful delivery of aretha franklin and i wasn't nearly as talented as lattice knight and my legs were never going to be as long and as gorgeous as tina turner's and so i decided that i had to do something that would put me behind the desk where it really didn't matter when stax was forced into liquidation in 1976 former stack secretary deanie parker refused to give up hope she grew up on the tough streets of memphis and so knows better than most how important it is to hold on to the dream over the past few years she has been instrumental in rebuilding stacks not as a recording studio but as a music academy which once again gives street kids the chance to shine it is unfortunate that for the last 15 years children have thought they were listening to music when in fact they weren't what they were listening to was rhythm and rhyme also known as hip-hop and that god-awful wrath and so they've just not had the exposure they've not had the encouragement and they've not had the training because we're determined to do for children today and children in the future what stax records did for us but much like it was in the 60s stacks is just an oasis within a much harsher environment on the streets outside stacks the african-american community is still struggling with endemic racism in a city which is considered the most violent in america [Music] apart from its role as the support act to some of the best music in the world the mississippi's claim to fame is that it's the world's flattest river where water skiing was invented and where early river trade and traffic made it the first super highway of the new world [Music] because it's so wide open and even traveling up and down the mississippi is plain sailing for these tugboats which can stretch up to a mile long and carry the same amount of freight as a thousand railroad cars [Music] these are the power horses of the mississippi and they're a very different animal to the elegant vessels of old the mississippi paddle steamers are as famous as the river itself evoking a nostalgic sense of romance and carefree adventure on these decks 200 years ago there'd be a very different crowd there'd be sassy women rubbing skirts with cigar smoking men and rugged riverboat captains keeping a lookout for any mississippi rogues or pirates all right see that big sand bar there that's what we'll quit looking that way with this lady keep looking that way quick don lancaster has been a riverboat pilot for over 30 years as a young man he worked as a police officer patrolling the mean streets of memphis but always fancied himself as the romantic lead in an epic riverboat adventure i think i've lived most of my life on the river i thoroughly enjoy it i do it six days a week sometimes as many as five trips a day [Music] some people like racing some people like flying i love the river and that's where i spend most of my time don began his training in the parlor houses of the great steamers and worked his way up to captain he now runs day trips for sunday sailors who seem more interested in taking it easy than in tearing up the mississippi [Music] at one time my youngest son was the youngest pilot on the mississippi river we used to have a lot of fun we worked for a company that had two paddle wheelers and we'd get out there and would load it to passengers and then we would challenge each other to a race everybody just had a fit you know oh we're racing we're racing and and sure enough we'd go by downtown memphis wide open with the paddle wheels flying i always won though you see i told him everything he knew but i didn't teach him everything i knew and we used to have a lot of fun [Music] mark twain was also a riverboat pilot and one of america's most famous authors he wrote about the original steamboat races and about all the gambling and dodgy deals which happened here before gaming was outlawed in 1870. in the lawless days before the big expansion into the wild west the mississippi was america's last frontier with its boats becoming a popular hangout and hideout for all sorts of cowboys and chances in those days there would be music to accompany all the action and legend has it the jazz was invented on a mississippi paddle steamer by an itinerant musician called jasbo brown who gave his name to this style of playing [Music] they say that some parts of the river have not changed much since twain and jasper's time but life on the river has certainly begun to alter its course this used to be a completely rural farming area run by a few wealthy white families who made their fortunes by growing cotton and using slave labor but it's now changing with big corporate farms moving in and with strip malls motels and burger bars appearing where there used to be shotgun shacks and juke joints up until 10 years ago tunica was just about the poorest town in the country it used to be called america's zimbabwe because of its harsh third world living conditions but now it has hit the jackpot thanks to some of the strangest looking boats ever to take to the river [Music] when tennessee legalized gambling in the 1990s it stated that all activity must take place on the mississippi and so tunica lying a few miles away from the river diverted some of the mississippi's flow to create small pools on which they could float their modern day pleasure palaces they don't look like boats and you can't even see the water but it is there underneath for the flashing lights and spinning wheels and it's allowed tunica to become the third largest gaming region in the united states the world poker championship has been held here with ten thousand dollars set as the minimum buy-in fortunes have been made and lost but the biggest winner is tunica itself with the casinos now providing work for ten thousand people and generating enough tax revenue to provide better schools better roads and a better quality of life what effect all this glitzy theme parked wealth will have on the culture and music of the mississippi we'll have to wait and see one thing is certain tunica's overnight success story seems to be the exception not the rule as the river seeps deeper into the south and into the famous region known as the mississippi delta what we will see is a place that may no longer be bound by slavery but is still today bound by the chains of modern day poverty we'll also catch glimpses of its cotton rich past the mansions and vast estates and see how they sit now in the 21st century south [Music] um [Music] the delta was formed over thousands of years as a mississippi flooded and receded leaving behind it a rich silty deposit which formed some of the best soil in the world this gift of the mississippi allowed the delta to develop into the most productive and richest cotton growing center in america [Music] the dollar wealth from this land and its cotton plantations was always enjoyed by a minority of local white masters but its rich cultural heritage found its way to the rest of the world [Music] [Applause] right in the heart of the mississippi delta lies the hopson plantation it's still a working farm which has been owned by the same family for nearly 150 years but life isn't easy here even for the once wealthy white population ever since the demand for cotton decreased with cheaper crops being produced elsewhere in the world hobsons has had to diversify and is now a struggling tourist attraction as well as a struggling farm [Music] david honeyboy edwards remembers this place when it was a busy plantation with his family along with many others doing all the cotton-picking work at 92 honeyboy is the last living delta bluesman and the true embodiment of the mississippi river and its culture [Applause] i learned how to camera learn how to play music and i learned how to get around it i never went off like growing i never worked on a farm too much i would hustle for myself never wait none when i got big enough i started recording restaurants making my money i learned how to get my goods and i had women to help me out too you know i didn't know how to do that had women to help me out too i had good women pani boy was part of a subculture of blues artists who were refugees from the plantation system these men lived on the wild side but their songs came out of pain and suffering in the backbreaking hot sweltering days they would communicate with each other by calling and answering in rhyme and song people was on their slavery working on slavery and the blues come from hollow songs holler songs mean this did work all day long and they have to say someone sang and do something to keep make the day easy to pass by and they do hollow songs and hollow songs turn into the blues you get low down dirty shame blues you then you get up temper blues being rock and roll blues you can play a low down very shane blues that my mom and dad and i pop across the sea i ain't dead but i just was to be that's something you know and that's a low down blue honey boy grew up with the blues he was born in these fields the grandson of a slave and the son of a sharecropper sharecropping was a tenancy agreement which allowed former slaves to rent out a thin strip of land and work it themselves but in effect it bound the black workers ever more closely to their masters the sharecroppers had to give half their crop to the plantation owners and pay back nearly all their profits in rent they ended up owing money and so were kept in chains as effectively as they ever had been as slaves you take 10 off to 20 for him for for the land and stuff you only got 10 but you got to pay him for everything you got out of your 10. when you pay him back then you ain't got nothing he got all of it then he turned and asked you do you need some money for christmas [Laughter] honeyboy knew he had to get out somehow and so on his 70th birthday he picked up his guitar kissed his mama on the cheek and went out to follow his dream of becoming a bluesman [Music] ever since slaves traveled upstream to the freedom of the north african americans always chose to follow the river route whenever they went travelling honeyboy did the same knowing that the black communities which had settled along the banks of the mississippi would provide him with a safe haven after darkness [Music] today honeyboy is still traveling up and down the mississippi playing his blues to delta folk and is still enjoying his rock and roll lifestyle with women dancing at his feet [Music] cotton is still grown in these fields but most of the farms are now run by big corporate organizations and the mansions have been brought up by rich businessmen who fancied a holiday home in the south machines do most of the harvesting work with many delta dwellers having to move out to find jobs elsewhere for those that remain it still seems that it's the african americans who do the hard work while white managers look on [Music] over the years many people have reaped the rewards that the mississippi has brought the rich soil the trade the diverse culture but all this is just part of the story there's also a very dark undercurrent that flows through these waters this is an awesome river which can cause death and destruction on a massive scale when hurricane katrina hit new orleans in 2005 the world realized the full extent of its force but it was only after the waters had receded that the real truth finally surfaced the flood was not just an act of god it was a man-made disaster which should have been averted a system of levees ostensibly built to protect the population had actually put them in the gravest of danger a lesson which should have been learned from the past because all this and worse had happened before [Music] in 1927 a massive flood engulfed the whole lower mississippi region with its epicenter in the little delta town of greenville from cairo to new orleans 70 000 square kilometers became covered in up to 15 meters of water with hundreds of thousands of people losing their homes their land and their lives [Music] two of those who survived the flood are catherine and ellis smith [Music] the mississippi has no prejudice it displaced and killed black and white alike i had no idea where my folks were they i saw him in april and i didn't see him anymore until october [Music] ellis and his family were poor subsistence farmers who had worked this land for generations living on the outskirts of greenville right in the heart of the delta they were used to the floods grateful to them in fact for irrigating their crops and renewing their soil but that fateful winter the rains came in biblical proportions they fell from the sky like crashing waves beating down on those most the rich townsfolk and plantation owners had the means to move away to higher ground but the poor were left behind as the rain fell and the river rose [Music] i was 17 and i had to learn a lot picking up dead people all like that it was wouldn't do good but i got used to it nothing i could do about it but pick them up and take them somewhere i brought a lot of them to the levee it was two of us a friend of mine he went south and i went north every day we'd bring something somebody back in and we kind of got used to it some of them were in terrible shape and building that water just know if they were just floating and mules horses and pigs and all that stuff going down the river catherine smith lived on higher ground away from the levees as a young girl of six she watched in horror as whole families scrambled to find anything that would float mother had a friend in uh close to scott who had three or four children and they were trying to move to another place that was higher and in the in the move one of her children fell over in the river and drying they couldn't get them it was just terrible i remember how awful i felt about that you know it's just i couldn't understand it but they lost them the mississippi has flooded these lands for thousands of years but in the past excess water simply got soaked up by the river's natural floodplain from the 1800s however man decided that he wanted to control the river and so flood defenses or levees were built by the army corps of engineers to confine the mississippi in a narrow channel these solid banks of earth were designed to prevent future flooding but just two months after the flood system was completed the rising waters forced into a narrow channel by the levees turned the mississippi into a volcano of a river which erupted onto the land like an angry sea [Music] as the waters gradually subsided and the poor and destitute made their way back to find their families and rebuild their broken lives it was clear to all that the mississippi was not to be enslaved if man was foolish enough to try and control nature oh man river would always sometimes violently break free of his chains but some lessons are never learned [Music] one of the major structures along the lower mississippi is the old river control which was completed in nineteen sixty three to its east is the state of mississippi to the west louisiana for a hundred years or so the mississippi had been diverting more and more of its flow to a smaller distributed channel but the army corps of engineers warned that if this process were allowed to continue then it would have major economic repercussions for the whole country all the heavy industries along the lower mississippi use huge amounts of water in their production if they lost their supply they'd lose their business and so the old river control was built with giant floodgates that could be opened and closed as needed in order to ensure that the mississippi state on track [Music] the atchafalaya river is the course it would have taken today if man had not interfered this small distributed channel of the mississippi flows out of the delta and into the state of louisiana one of the most culturally diverse regions in america but like the delta also one of its poorest [Music] there are 37 million poor hidden in the land of plenty and most of them live in the south [Music] many families here survive on extremely low wages with a quarter of all louisiana's children living in abject poverty in a place like this where salvation is in short supply hope has to come from somewhere on high [Music] [Applause] gospel has always been the sister music to delta blues some say the blues is just gospel without the god factor but whilst blues songs describe the hardship and its real consequences gospel tends to use the story of deprivation and suffering and turn it into one of empowerment and salvation often using the mississippi as a metaphor for washing away the pain [Music] let us go into the house of god are y'all glad to be here today how many of you are mine i'm just so happy about just being [Applause] reverent noah smith is the pastor of a small church on one of the mississippi basin's little rivers or bios gospel music was born out of a condition because the people especially i can speak from a black perspective they went through so much and they had to get something to try to comfort them at that particular time so they would sing songs based upon what the situation was and their need and they would find hope they would find peace they would find uh uh strength they would find power they would find joy and they would get songs to deal with that situation to rise them above it so they can be able to still praise god during slavery african americans were forced to abandon their own faiths and ordered to adopt their white masters religion initially a tool of oppression christianity eventually came to be embraced by the african-american community with the baptist faith growing to become particularly prevalent in the deep south today [Music] down by the riverside down by the riverside down by the riverside down by the riverside won't study war no more you follow me because once i get down to the river i know that all of the trouble that i may have experienced then it's all over there because i can find peace and transquility by the river as late as the 1960s river baptisms were quite common in the delta with gospel quite literally being sung down by the riverside and the faithful being cleansed by the mississippi waters i was 12 years old when i got baptized and when i got baptized i got baptized in the river because back then the churches the building where we would go to worship didn't have pools like we have now [Music] but these days the mississippi and its smaller channels are too polluted to wash away anybody's sins and so reverend smith's congregation along with most of the others in the area have had to install a private pool to do the job jesus was baptized in the jordan river you follow me in the jordan river it wasn't on pool but after the years uh uh bacteria and contamination all leaks and everything start to flowing in the buyer and it become unsafe for people to get baptized in the bayou now the river today along its entire length is showing signs of decline 58 million tons of toxic discharge travels down the mississippi every year with strong claims that river and industrial pollution are directly responsible for many cancer-related illnesses every year the mississippi serves as the primary source of water for 18 million people but because it's the poor who have to drink it nothing is being done to address the problem reverend smith however still sees a purity of spirit in the toxic waters of the mississippi and tries to find some hope for his congregation most of whom live on less than ten dollars a day uh the river means a lot to the to the gospel you know and i'm thinking about right now in my church just having a a boat trip where i can get everybody on the water and that would bring peace and to their minds because they may be going through some rough times in their life but i know that once i get them on the water and start to preaching the gospel to them and start singing zion songs my choir singing zion song gospel mixed with water have the tendency of bringing trouble down in your life because it's all about you y'all got to understand it's all about jesus y'all know that let me tell you something i told y'all last week you ought to have some shouting y'all everybody they ought to have some shot in here you undercover looking around at nobody else you ought to have your own shot because i got some shout in there tell us i got some shouting man tell them i've got some shout out in there oh somebody [Applause] [Music] the mississippi river flows through 10 states with its basins stretching out into 31 american provinces [Music] is the last state it reaches on its way to the sea of the gulf of mexico and much of this region remains unpopulated with the exception of wildlife snakes alligators and black bears share this space with another endangered species [Music] the arcadians were a group of french settlers who were expelled from nova scotia by the british in 1755 and began arriving in louisiana 10 years later 250 years on and they're still here better known these days as cajuns butch herbert is quintessentially cajun he still tries to keep the old traditions alive but he is one of a dying breed i'm proud to be a cajun imagine like i'm proud to be a louisiana i'm proud to be from southwestern further south you go the prouder i am and that's my heritage i feel that way my mother couldn't speak french and my father could and he couldn't teach him so we never could speak french and when i was going when i started school i was forbidden to speak french yes you couldn't speak french in school no couldn't that's that's that's how they were like right now they're trying to to ban spanish and i i think really and truly that if a person could buy an angle he is bet off only a very small percentage of cajuns still speak french but they keep their heritage alive in other ways through their music and their cooking whether you're making gumbo or jambalaya shrimp seems to be the main ingredient in most of the dishes it's hardly surprising that fishing for shrimps around the louisiana coastline used to be a way of life and a family tradition for many but today the fishing industry is netting an ever smaller catch with many fishermen having to look for work on the oil rigs in the gulf of mexico for the die hards like butch and his 18 year old nephew it's becoming increasingly difficult to make a living from shrimping cheaper imported shrimp from south america and southeast asia have greatly cut into the local fisherman's market fuel is also becoming more expensive and pollution in the waterways is taking its toll all this has caused great resentment amongst the cajuns who feel even more bitter now that a new wave of immigration is adding to their problems they come from vietnam they're refugees in the united states subsidize them the catholic religion subsidize them get money give them places to stay give them housing food and they have a and they have a discount on all the equipment so i can't compete with vietnamese i can't but i still i don't hold that against him i hold that against our country the cajun way of life may soon be lost in the bays and bayous of louisiana with the legacy living on only in the stories that butch and others like him will tell their children and the grandchildren culture won't exist in 50 years i can't hand it down to my grandkids and the simple reason is because of progress that's what they call progress simple reasons progress [Music] 50 miles east of butch's home through the swampy wilderness of its basin the mighty mississippi again becomes an urban river flowing thick and fast into its last port of call [Music] new orleans is a city which doesn't just lie on the banks of the river but is largely surrounded by it it is here in the aftermath of the devastating storms of 2005 that the true divisions in modern american life became shockingly clear [Music] this old port is still a vibrant colorful city with music at its heart after suffering one of the worst natural disasters in us history new orleans is gamely giving the impression that the good times are rolling again but a couple of miles to the north or east the cajun brevora and the voodoo spells fall away like a mardi gras mask the streets fall quiet and the city becomes a dead zone [Music] this is the ninth ward one of the lower lying and consequently poorer parts of town many perhaps most of the city's dead came from here as was the case in the flood of 1927 these people simply had no means of escape the bodies were washed away with the flood waters or left to rot in attics with the number of dead later found here eerily recorded in black paint on the carcasses of their homes [Music] the members of the new wave jazz band were born and brought up in the city julius lewis remembers how things used to be before katrina this place was uh alive and up and running there was people everywhere businesses booming and uh you know most people down here own their houses they were small but they were you know mostly owners unfortunately they didn't have the insurance but it was uh very busy and very lively very spirited they had their own type of culture down here you know and it's so sad today that to see it this way with uh no houses and no people on the 29th of august 2005 as hurricane katrina passed to the east of the city the flood protection system in new orleans failed in 53 different places with nearly every levee in the metro area breached percy alessinia was lucky enough to own a car and so he piled it high with as many people as he could and raced out of the city but once the flood hit like i said i went out to the country and i tried not to look at the television because it was too too depressing and i knew eventually i'd had to come back and face the reality that everything was gone so my thoughts were basically on rebuilding my life from start from scratching all over again and making it much better but the disaster part i just you have to put that behind you and move forward you can't dwell on it because all they do is make you depressed you just got to just pick up and start over and say hey god does everything for a reason and keep going with the flow julius had no way out he got trapped in the city and was lucky to escape with his life but he lost his home his friends and his family like most of new orleans musicians he's now relocated in one of the other towns upstream but comes back to play with his band today new orleans is fighting for its life the flood killed nearly 2 000 people and washed away many more only half its population and its musicians have returned to start rebuilding their city and their lives it's a struggle but like many of the other places we've seen along our journey hope lives on here in the minds and the hearts of those who have suffered and lost the most and in the music of the younger generation the belief on the streets is that if the music survives then the spirit of new orleans will live on music is new orleans without music new orleans would be on the water the tradition the grass the jazz the sound the flow it's all that's what new orleans is all about the tradition must go on you must pass it down and keep it going regenerate it keep the energy and the fire going this is new orleans new orleans is jazz when you think of jazz it's here it's what you're thinking about new orleans and so as we come to the end of our journey along the mississippi and as old man river quietly retires to the sea weary from the centuries of trade travel and injustice that he has seen along the way it is the music and the spirit of the place that we take with us a reminder that no matter how hard the struggle or how harsh the conditions the true spirit of both man and the river just keeps rolling along the rhine the great artery feeding the heart of europe this is a river which has changed the course of history it has both united and divided europe's people on the one hand the rhine is a vital trade route connecting countries and cultures on its 1 300 kilometer journey from source to sea on the other hand it's a barrier between nations a border to be crossed throughout history the rhine has known bloody battles and heard the whale of war but today this river and its people are fighting a new battle against the effects of climate change for as the world warms up the alpine glacier which feeds the river is melting fast [Music] in less than a century the source of the rhine could shrink to nothing the mighty waters might cease to flow and the lives of the people and countries who share the rhine could be changed forever [Music] the netherlands germany france liechtenstein austria and switzerland six countries touched the banks of the rhine but for most of its length this is a german river [Music] the rhine has long been a key to german identity patriotic monuments stand all along its banks [Music] in the course of its journey the rhine passes through castle-rich gorges alive with myth and fantasy and immortalized in the music of richard wagner those same legends twisted in the name of nationalism and racism were a sinister theme in the dreadful violence of world war ii [Music] those terrible days are long gone but now another war is being waged on the rhine a fight against time for as the glaciers which feed the rhine continue to shrink there is a real danger that the source of the river will dry up completely the people who live and farm in the mountains right next to the glacial source are acutely aware of this impending threat my father always used to say that it took 10 minutes to walk from the village to the glacier and now these days you can walk for three hours and you're still not at the glacier as global warming takes its toll the future of europe's busiest and most important river is endangered like never before [Music] the rhine has two glacial sources high in the swiss alps after their tumultuous descent through the mountains these two waterways join to form europe's most iconic river flowing through the vineyards of france along the spectacular rhine gorge and through germany's industrial heart the rhine travels through the netherlands before finally reaching the sea at rotterdam stretching over 40 kilometers of waterfront rotterdam is one of the busiest ports on earth the rhine delta is crucial to the economic success of europe over 400 million tons of cargo pass through here every year this is where the rhine flows into the north sea where great vessels loaded with goods leave europe and head for the rest of the world to keep the massive volume of traffic flowing 300 000 people are employed at the port practically everything here is computer controlled even the ships navigate by radar [Music] strangely serene picture disaster is never far away [Music] for rotterdam is more than just a transit port it's a massive industrial complex and the most important petrochemical site in the world this is a very volatile place thousands of tons of raw industrial materials are refined into commercial products here with massive containers of flammable liquids and explosive chemicals lining the riverbank fire is always just a spark away when disaster strikes specialist firemen like alex truman are the ryan's first and only line of defense yeah for me for me anyway it's a way of life absolutely it's irresistible it's in the blood my father is in the fire service my brother too [Applause] it's a dangerous career choice with every fire that alex attends the risk of explosion is huge as more than half of all goods which pass through this port contain dangerous cargo [Music] what's more the ferocious heat of the flames could release toxic chemicals into the atmosphere poisoning the environment and the half a million residents of nearby rotterdam city alex and his family are among them if you stopped to think about it you'd be worried about the dangerous things that could happen the moment you focus on what could go wrong you would not be able to sleep [Music] alex's skills are so specialized that companies from all over europe send their staff to be taught by his team at the port's disaster training area this complex even includes a grounded tanker that's set on fire several times a day so trainees can practice how to respond to industrial accidents [Music] yet the danger on their doorstep seems to go unnoticed by the majority of people in rotterdam i think a lot of people see what is happening around them but they don't stop to think things could go wrong they don't even know what could go wrong perhaps they just don't want to think about it many of these people are employed at the port without this dangerous industry there would be no jobs but the rhine has always been more than just an economic lifeline it's a river which feeds culture and tradition [Music] before they learn to control the river fishermen would tell of rhine maidens goblins and other mysterious creatures which they believe lived beneath the treacherous [Music] waters today these fishermen's tales have become folklore and the dangerous waters that inspired the legends have been tamed transformed into a placid waterway for industry but it's this industry which has nearly killed off the only way of life the fishermen of the rhine have ever known one man who still trawls the waters is vilcandenbor even though he has a degree in mechanical engineering vilcan decided to follow in the family tradition of fishing for a living like his uncle and grandfather before him he specializes in catching eels a popular delicacy in this area of the netherlands they arrive here in the river estuary they swim upriver grow and mature until they're ready to spawn and then they make their way back to the sargasso sea where they reproduce but some 30 years ago a good catch like this would have been unthinkable because of the vast amounts of pollution in the river vilkan remembers the difficult times his grandfather experienced the violence pollution definitely affected fish stocks certainly in the 60s there were fewer eels in the river for vilkan 1986 was a particularly bad year just a few months after he became a professional fisherman a chemical factory upstream of rotterdam port exploded spewing toxic fertilizer into the waters the river turned red and nearly all the fish perished vilcan realized then that his livelihood was in danger today he's one of only six fishermen left to ply their trade among the massive tankers and cargo ships in rotterdam port but the tide of fortune may be changing as the authorities have recently made a concerted effort to clean up the waters in the last few years we've seen much more salmon they'd virtually died out due to pollution in the 50s and 60s we hardly caught any but in recent years we've started to catch a few hundred a year ago as the fish return to the rhine vilkan hopes that one day his sons will join him and carry on the family tradition further upstream however the rhine and its people share a more painful legacy one of suffering tyranny and war [Music] at the eastern edge of the netherlands near the border with germany the rhine forms a natural boundary between the two countries a frontier to be breached this is a river that has heard the feet of marching armies and the thunder of bombs never was the whale of war louder for the rhine than during world war ii [Music] as the allies advanced adolf hitler used the river as the last line of defense to protect germany and the nazi occupied territories caught up in the heavy crossfire were the people living along the rhine's banks tano petersey was only 12 when the germans first occupied the dutch town of arnhem he remembers growing up in an atmosphere of fear and suspicion where you looked over your shoulder before talking to your neighbor the besetting the occupation had all kinds of unpleasant consequences for our country persecution concentration camps murder and death [Music] then in september 1944 the british hatched a plan code named operation market garden to try and bring the war to a rapid end through the large-scale use of airborne forces the allies hoped to capture several vital bridges including this one at arnhem allowing them to advance into the heart of germany but operation market garden was a terrible failure turned out to be a bridge too far but we did not know that then because it took three days to drop 30 000 paratroopers the british lost more than just the element of surprise thousands of allied soldiers were killed most never even reaching the bridge others took refuge in people's homes only to be tracked down and shot the germans started burning houses they suspected of harboring british soldiers a dedicated member of the red cross tano was undeterred by the threats when we arrived they said you were lucky you've just driven through the front line but yes so what nothing happened that was my performance during the battle of arnhem simply fetching food for those people who had fled their burning homes [Music] it was to be another nine months before the allies would succeed in crossing the rhine and the war would finally end today for veterans like tano petersey the bridget arnhem stands as a proud tribute to their heritage and to the fight to protect their liberty and their homes for some however home and a familiar way of life are not defined by a single place home is the river itself for hundreds of years these cargo barges have moved and procession up and down the rhine piloted by the families who own them and who live on board [Music] hair veldman and his wife both come from a family of rhine barge owners who make their living transporting goods up and down the river they've grown up on the water [Music] from they have been a daughter we've been sailing together since 1984. me and my wife ria open we started on a smaller ship of 700 tonnes after that we had a ship built to 1500 ton and this one is five years old and it's 3 000 ton my 18 hours 17 or 16 depending on how much time you have and where you're going though they do have a home on dry land in the netherlands where the children go to school they spend a great deal of their life afloat in some comfort here okay this is the kitchen here we have our meals at lunch time and in the evening this is the oven and electrical things like the microwave the fridge and the freezer this is the living room this is the table that we eat at when we have family and friends over the lounge and our son stefan this is where we relax the television and this is our eldest son's bedroom as they journey along the river barge families witness firsthand the ever-changing history of the rhine and the land through which it travels leaving the netherlands the veldmanns crossed the border into germany and towards stewiesburg a town steeped in its industrial past strategically positioned at the confluence where the rhine meets the river rue it was here that the fat seams of coal and iron ore mined from the river valleys came together to be processed into steel in the 19th century duesberg was a boom town and the largest inland port in the world over half a million people were employed here in the dirty and dangerous heavy industries steel made in duisburg could be sailed down river and exported directly to sea today the workings of the old industrial powerhouse are rusting away [Music] coal and iron are no longer the backbone of the local economy and dewisberg is shaking off the shackles of its polluted industrial past instead of belching out poisonous gases this enormous old steel plant has been converted into a leisure facility [Music] the old gasometer has become a scuba diving school nothing much is produced in jewishburg anymore but it's still a thriving center of trade this marks the last point inland along which the rhine can receive ocean-going vessels at dewisberg large ships must transfer their goods onto smaller boats and vice versa it's in this transfer and trading of cargo that the city makes its money the veldmann's barge is just one of twenty thousand cargo vessels which pass through jewishberg every year when they reach port they'll unload the steel which they're carrying frauvelman will take their jaguar off the deck and drive back to the netherlands while her husband retraces their journey with a different load [Music] in times gone by however people would have dismissed the notion of free trade along the rhine as nonsense [Music] upstream of duisburg the french and germans in particular pushed and pulled over the right to control this valuable trade route the river town of quebec has a long history of disputed ownership this confluence of the french river moselle and the mighty rhine has changed hands between france and germany several times over in the last thousand years now the headland that defines the river junction has been declared proudly german known as deutsches eck the german corner this popular tourist attraction is actually a celebration of the legacy of one man emperor wilhelm the first [Music] at the end of the 19th century wilhelm was heralded the first emperor of germany he unified all the previously disparate german states into one powerful force a force that was to be used and misused in the name of german nationalism today the politics of old europe are consigned to the past and it's left to the tourists german and international alike to appreciate the statue for what it really is a beautiful monument but deutsche is not the end of wilhelm's legacy to germany and to europe he and his government were instrumental in the early straightening of the rhine river channel [Music] in the early 1800s the river was known as the wild rhine with numerous channels and hundreds of islands the constant rise and fall of the water was flooding villages and valuable fertile lands so as part of a scheme to control the river wilhelm and his government implemented a rigorous process of straightening the rhine [Music] 200 years later and today the banks of the river have been dramatically transformed from a network of smaller waterways into a single large one effectively a canal cutting through europe this new deeper wider river has enabled boats from across the continent to come together and share goods and cultures [Music] but this free trade facilitates the passage of more than just barges and their load for as ships pass more freely through the waterways they carry an unwelcome and potentially lethal cargo a lot of ships carry ballasts to keep the ships balanced as they are traveling through foreign countries they draw and release water to regulate that balance depending on how heavily laden they are transporting river creatures without name for dr stefan nehring checking on the creatures that live in and around the rhine is a favorite hobby what began as a childhood fascination with the river has led to a career as a marine biologist and the things he's finding among the stones are worrying him interesting it is very interesting looking at what can be found under these stones on the banks of the rhine quite a few creatures live here we see a little shrimp this is a crustacean which comes from the black sea and came to the rhine over the mayan danube canal it's a predator and it loves eating the other shrimps which are indigenous to this region and that's why it's called in the science world besides the numbers of these tiny yet deadly killer shrimp have increased steadily as the map of europe has changed its natural home is in fact the black sea region but in the 1980s this creature traveled along the danube and was found in germany for the first time in 1991 we think that this happened because the eastern bloc countries opened themselves up to the west and that led to an increase in the movement of shipping but the killer shrimp's voracious appetite has caused the extinction of many native species and it's impossible to turn back the clock an exclude with nehemiah exotic and foreign creatures never become indigenous they are always considered to be exotic and are a threat to the local planets in wildlife either they eat them or they all adapt and then they become exactly the same as each other and that's what's called the mcdonaldization of the environment [Music] further upstream the rhine hosts a different kind of foreign traveler a popular tourist destination this german stretch of river is known as the romantic rhine and is steeped in myth and legend the highlight of the tourist trail is here at lorelei rock made famous in the folklore the story goes that a young maiden betrayed by her philandering fiancee falls to her death from her watery grave she lures unsuspecting sailors who bewitched by her beauty take their eyes off the task of navigating the most treacherous stretch of the rhine and perish [Music] the folk story of the rhine maiden of the lorelei echoes a historical truth the rhine here has always been a very difficult stretch of river to navigate the rocks are close to the surface and shifting currents straw and unsophisticated craft into dangerous waters many sailors have lost their lives [Music] this isn't the only folklore which connects the waters of the rhine with quintessential german myths the story of a horde of gold said to be stolen from three other rhine maidens is what inspired richard wagner to compose his famous operatic cycle the ring of the nebula the rhine maiden's legendary beauty was to become a blueprint for the aryan ideal of a blonde and blue-eyed race an ideal used as a propaganda tool for hitler's brutal regime and the terrible persecutions carried out in the name of racial purity this is the oldest jewish cemetery in germany [Music] all the graves here date back to before world war ii and they tell a tale of a large and successful community this is heiliger sands in the river city of verms [Music] there are some jews living in worms today but these are recent russian immigrants the german jews who'd made verms their homes since medieval times were quite simply wiped out on november the 9th 1938 the nazis unleashed a wave of violence against germany's jews in the space of a few hours thousands of synagogues and jewish businesses and homes were damaged or destroyed [Music] this was called chillingly cristalnacht christian act means night of glass and refers to the shattered window panes that carpeted the streets but it also commemorates the shattered lives of those jews living in germany during world war ii more than 70 years later and people of all faiths and cultures are living and working in the streets of vermont once more these old cobbles echo with the sound of new life it's a multiculturalism that is reflected in communities up and down the rhine as people from many nations were invited to work in germany during the post-war reconstruction the largest group of foreign residents came from turkey [Music] hassan osdamir is a turkish author and poet who arrived in germany as a 16 year old and never went home [Music] hassan is one of an estimated 1.7 million turkish immigrants in germany he lives sure in ludwig's hafen a few miles upriver from verms in the latter half of the 20th century this city grew rapidly as turkish immigrants flooded in to plug the acute labor shortage caused by world war ii at first these migrants were to be guest workers coming to work for a limited period of time only men arrived without their families and took poorly paid factory jobs considered too dangerous or too dirty for german workers but increasingly the immigrants sent for their wives and children and settled in small communities across germany it was a difficult process of integration in the early years tensions flared between the turks and germans today the immigrants have created a home from home in the inner city areas many of today's turks living in germany now consider themselves first generation germans [Music] the big caster by the australian that is foreigner is a term i reject completely you just shouldn't call immigrants that anymore because now they are a big part of the society here um we can't imagine germany without immigrants now germany has changed completely and there is a new generation growing up here who have taken on a responsibility to this country and because of that and when you speak of foreigners then you should consider germans too as foreigners because they don't know the real germany anymore [Music] as the old prejudices are fading the atmosphere in this river town now is more about acceptance and tolerance a new mosque has been built in ludwigshafen and people of all faiths are welcome here they even encourage school trips to visit and to learn about islam his new way of life now this turkish poet inspired by a river writes all his work in german [Music] the river flows and i can describe the river like an immigrant the river separates the countries coming between people as it flows through towns etc the river is on a continuous journey and as it changes it flows and in changing it gathers strength and flows faster all the time upstream of ludwigshafen the river that is hassan's creative inspiration continues to change [Music] this time from a german to a french river here the waters also form a natural and long disputed boundary between nations with french alsace lorraine on one side and the german black forest on the other the rhine now divides the two countries that have pushed and pulled over its banks for hundreds of years it's the communities in this region that have had to face the consequences originally french citizens the alsatian people became prussians following the franco-prussian war of the 19th century fifty years later following the first world war they became french again [Music] jean-gal's family have been wine growers in rickvie in the region of alsace for nearly 400 years and they've personally felt the tug of two nations fighting for their loyalty my grandfather was born a frenchman in 1869 but became a prussian in 1871. 1918 he was french again and during the war the nazis took alsace with an iron fist and attacked us so we had to become hitler's supporters not the real us but in appearance my grandfather died a frenchman again in 1950 seems very strange all this changing of nationality but it was one big family drama at the time we were always in the wrong army always on the losing side when you put the alsatians into an army it's the one that loses and after that we are back with the winners again it's a complicated story but at least it's made us into proper europeans although living next door to the rhine brought a major identity crisis it's also brought a lot of wealth to the family wine business from here we have a great view of the vineyards of alsace to the right the voge the rhine plain and the rhine river a little further away not too close it would be dangerous and then there is the black forest and from the point of view of the river it is the most southerly point of the river where the water goes north so it's ideally placed for the business of exporting wine [Music] jeans and the other vineyard owners in alsace export most of their wine directly down the rhine to other parts of europe and the world to make money in the wine business you need to sell the product to people who have money but no wine themselves and for us those people are in northern europe because of the rhine we can share our wine with people in the lower lands if you drop a cork in the river here it will reach the end of its journey in rotterdam despite having to change their nationality several times jean rugel's family have survived as winemakers against all odds but their future depends on the survival of the rhine and the river is under threat not only from the melting of its source high in the swiss alps but from pollution too further upriver the rhine crosses the border of a fourth country switzerland which is also home to the twin sources of the rhine the border and hinterine rivers [Music] as a landlocked country the river is central to switzerland's economic success marking this junction where the rhine into switzerland is the swiss german city of baal a wealthy centre of commerce established on the proceeds of specialty chemical and drug industries but for the river and the people of baal success has come at a price irene vigger has lived in bal all her life 1986 is a year which he remembers all too vividly it was in this year that a fire engulfed a riverside factory causing a disastrous chemical spill which turned the rhine red downstream as far as rotterdam the pollution killed wildlife and devastated the rhine fishing industry in baal where it all began the poison also hung in the air it was the middle of the night when we heard the sirens and we were born to close our windows there was a smell in the air which lasted for years until the water and the air was clean again extra special care is taken to test the purity of the water in the river these days that's the work of these scientists in the rhine water quality monitoring station [Applause] this water contains the effluent of six hundred thousand people it's now drinkable when boiled that's quite a boast yet these are better now and there are provisions in place that should prevent the same thing happening again but one sees it somehow like powder in the barrel of a gun today in baal there's a real determination to protect the rhine from the ill effects of development but there's also a real desire to preserve the industrial heritage which has brought such wealth to the city irene is one of the leaders of a community project which aims to do both we live in the area and we love the old factories and we decided to try and create a cultural meeting point for the community this old machine factory belonged to a world famous company but they moved out because there wasn't enough room to expand and they just left the building empty we thought it would be a good idea to bring new life to the place for the sake of the community with a library a restaurant and even a circus skilled school this is now a place for the whole community and the rhine is at its heart this center is some distance away from the rhine and at the beginning we were criticized because it was not in the center of town but i think that even here you feel the flow of the rightness are surpassed later here [Music] from source to sea the rhine and its mighty waters shape the lives of all those who live on the riverbank but what happens if the flow of the great rhine is reduced as its source melts and eventually dries up completely it's a sobering thought that these magnificent rhyme waterfalls the largest in europe could be reduced to slow moving waters [Music] approximately 700 cubic meters of water pour over these rocks every second depending on the time of year in the summer the rhine's glacial source melts more quickly and so the water flows more powerfully but as our climate changes the seasons are merging into each other and the ice is melting throughout the year if the world continues to get warmer the glacier will eventually disappear and the great rhine could become nothing more than a stream everything about the river will change [Music] its physical presence and its vital role in the lives of individuals and countries the journey to the twin sources of the rhine climbs through some of the most spectacular and dramatic landscapes on the continent steep rocks line both sides of this narrow valley where the rhine is no longer a navigable waterway this is the rio nalte also known as the rhine grand canyon and it leads to the secondary source of the great rhine [Music] this small frozen lake is the source of the vorderine [Music] but the major birthplace of the rhine is the reinval de glacier affectionally named paradise after an ancient folk tale [Music] it's here that the threat to the river becomes all too clear [Music] passed down from generation to generation the folk tale tells of a poor farmer who lived in this valley whose only possession was a tiny field on top of the alps called paradise [Music] a greedy neighbor stole the land but mother nature cast her spell and in the morning the field was hidden under a thick blanket of ice forming the reinvelden garcia and the source of the rhine [Music] today this little paradise is under threat once more the glaciers lost a quarter of its volume in just 25 years [Music] hair and frau lares have lived and farmed in hinterine beneath the glacier all their lives yes the whole village owns it and then there's a shepherd up there we share him we all share him and so we don't have to worry too much as long as everyone understands each other and we don't quarrel when there is a disagreement it's on sicily difficult and everyone has to negotiate he said montmartre was my night for midterm and show on the street you don't need to be an environmental expert to notice the shrinking of the glacier in hinterine the people here know that their environment is changing fast my father always used to say that it took 10 minutes to walk from the village to the glacier and now these days you can walk for three hours and you're still not at the glacier [Music] and when my father used to say that it was only in the 1920s before when it rained it all stayed on the mountain but now it all comes sliding down and there's a danger of an avalanche and so and it keeps on coming in a strong flow then for a week and then the whole thing stops again that's the difference for sure and if the glacier thaws to nothing the effects could be just as terrible the drinking water in the village comes from a very good source but if there's nothing flowing down it'd be like a desert here [Music] as the relentless melting of the glacier continues the rhine and the lives of all those who depend on it are in danger [Music] if the source of the river runs dry what then for the farmers and the fishermen the countries and their boundaries the communities and their culture if the course of the river is changed forever life in this part of the world will be [Music] unrecognizable the rhine is a river of stunning beauty and great historical importance these waters power the economy of europe since time immemorial the river has served many lands and peoples from those who live near it to those who live thousands of miles away people have fought to own the rhine and the land on its banks perhaps the time has come for those people to unite to save the river and to fight side by side for its future [Music] from the beginning of history the nile has been the lifeblood of one of the greatest civilizations on earth its waters have flowed at the feet of aristotle and cleopatra joseph and moses the crusaders and the pharaohs of ancient egypt all have bathed in this stream [Music] the egyptians have always believed this river to be their own exclusive gift from the gods and up until recently it was allowed to flow unhindered to their lands but now all this is set to change upstream ethiopia is busy building dams which threatened to cut off egypt's water supply at the source many of the wars of the 20th century were all about oil but wars of the 21st will be over water with the nile the longest river in the world at the center of the conflict [Applause] fresh running water has always been the lifeblood of our world but is now more precious than ever over the next 20 years the amount of water available to everyone is expected to decrease by a third [Music] but this story isn't just about water it's about the nile as an icon for deeply held beliefs and about a sense of belonging which stretches back a thousand years this epic journey will follow the river back to its source in ethiopia and as the nile winds its way back home its waters will wash through the lives of people who cannot survive without it the nile flows from the heart of africa in two main channels the white nile which rises from lake victoria in uganda and the blue nile which flows from the mountains of ethiopia and which has nourished the growth of egypt and its capital cairo pounding traffic and pulsating crowds form the backdrop to an exhilarating mix of present and past and right through it all flows the river nile the lifeline and the heart of the city most of the citizens here take this river for granted for them it's a nice place to take a walk with the family a great location for an apartment or just a place for a bit of peace away from the cacophony of the streets [Music] they probably don't even think that without this river they wouldn't even be here [Music] in a country with hardly any rainfall the nile gives the people water work food life for some it also gives them a place to live like abdullah and his family who live on the nile all year round [Music] of course life is hard especially when the weather is cold some people live very comfortably and others have a hard life like us but we try not to aim too high some people are born rich and we are poor and humble such is life no more with 17 million inhabitants and still growing cairo itself has more than doubled in size over the past 50 years the city is now home to nearly the same number of people as the whole of australia all in one confined chaotic sprawling city there's just not enough room here for everybody and so some people have been pushed off the land and onto the river i've been brought up on a boat with my father i worked beside him and with him before he passed away and i got married my wife was from the village of el manufa i told her that she could stay there with her parents that she refused and said that we have to be together on the boat the live in a small community these wooden boats are their homes they fish on them by day and sleep in them at night they get all their water directly from the river wash their clothes bathe their babies in it they also earn a meager living from it taking home between 10 and 20 us dollars a day for their catch abdullah can only buy the bare necessities of life they could never afford an apartment or a house [Music] but in spite of their difficult living conditions abdullah still loves his life on the nile [Music] when my mother died i remember her telling me how i was born on the boat before being taken to hospital [Music] you take me away from this river and i die i love the knife [Music] this love affair with the nile lies at the heart of the egyptian psyche and has existed since the age of the pharaohs and their pyramids [Music] these monumental structures are about an hour's drive away from the nile in giza far enough through the pounding traffic and hot messy cairo suburbs to seem completely divorced from the river and its concerns [Music] but it wasn't always like this [Music] in ancient times the nile flowed right by here because during the summer months the river flooded and broke its banks with the flood waters reaching as far as giza and beyond this naturally recurring phenomenon was the secret behind egypt's success the life-giving floods provided the pharaohs with a dynamic surge of water which allowed them to grow their crops and feed their people it also allowed them to carry giant rocks so that they could build their pyramids [Music] the ancient egyptians had no idea how the floods came to them during the hot summer when other nations withered and died in the dry heat but they gave their gods eternal thanks for the miracle on which not just the pyramids but their whole nation was built and to this day even though the floods have dried up and their gods are long gone the monuments that were built in their honor remain as testimony to egypt's historic right to own and control the nile but ancient rights to the river don't always answer the needs of people today shoprament is a village on the outskirts of giza and right on the edge of the desert [Music] compared to some locals here are fairly well off but they still haven't got what they need most [Music] fresh running water [Music] most of the homes here have a tap but the murky stuff that comes out of it is just too dirty to drink and so the locals have to either carry their water from distant standpipes or buy their water from private vendors at twice the rate of meat consumption [Music] the water from the taps is no good for drinking and cooking you can use it for domestic tasks but my water is good the villages can use it for drinking and cooking as well seller he used to have a spice stall in the local souk but saw an opportunity to make more money selling something far more valuable than saffron i've been doing it for eight years the more i work the more i get clients the inhabitants of the village all the cafes in every household now [Music] the recent population growth in egypt hasn't been matched by a growth in the country's infrastructure and so for the people living on the outskirts like here in shopremont there's a desperate shortage of basic facilities [Music] forsyth mohammed however business is booming with people throwing money at him there are 800 water cellars in cairo and giza and with the country still growing at an alarming rate they're working overtime to try and meet demand so syed mohammed is soon planning to buy another horse and cart to expand his business [Music] it's easy to sympathize with egypt's need for more water and the government is now desperately trying to find new ways of stretching the nile's supply to satisfy the needs of its burgeoning millions but some people say that the country is already using up more than its fair share [Music] its right to its own water supply is now being challenged by a desperate and determined neighbor who is prepared to go to extreme lengths to secure its own stake in the nile [Music] the situation's never been so volatile and egypt has been threatening war with ethiopia set firmly in its sights [Music] the nile in egypt flows almost entirely through desert apart from the thin strips of green watered land which border the river on either side the whole country is made up of inhospitable wasteland [Music] since the stone age most egyptians have lived very close to the nile dependent on it for everything [Music] from the urban centers of cairo and giza the nile winds its way back through the flatlands of egypt to the agricultural regions of the nile valley where once again the river plays a central role in society [Music] [Music] who own a small piece of land in the nile valley muhammad however may be the last of a long line dawn till dusk since muhammad was old enough to carry a faz or a min gel the pace of life for them has an ancient rhythm and this scene could have been witnessed a thousand years ago they inherited their skills and their tools from their forefathers and used the same irrigation channels and canals first commissioned by the pharaohs to ensure that the nile never fails to reach their crops [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] muhammad and his ancestors have always played a crucial role in egyptian life but their age-old position is now under threat [Music] the longevity of this ancient civilization reflects more than anything else the time-honed skills of these farmers but also the eternal fertility of its soil a power which is unparalleled in human history where other civilizations withered and died as their soils were exhausted egypt's land was continuously replenished by the annual floods which inundated the country every year [Music] these floods had allowed the pharaohs to build their tombs but far more importantly they gave egypt an annual deposit of rich and glorious mud from which they could grow an abundance of food [Music] denial is everything for the egyptian farmer and everything for the land in the good old days the nile stood flooded for three months so it softened the soil then when the nile's water subsided we could start cultivating [Music] but times have changed [Music] huge damning projects upstream have been built to provide egypt with a much needed supply of electricity but they also stemmed the flow of the river and wrecked the lives of the egyptian farmers [Music] egypt used to have some of the best soil in the world but the damning schemes destroyed the silting process which had naturally enriched this land for thousands of years muhammad's fields now yield a very poor return we used to grow our crops without chemicals but now we have to use chemicals without them we get a poor harvest but the sprays are very expensive the artificial fertilizers simply aren't as effective as mother nature and they're also a big drain on his profits it's a bleak situation and muhammad no longer sees a future here for his sons [Music] as a direct result of modern damning methods agriculture in egypt is in decline for the first time in its history and farmers are being forced out of a way of life that has supported this nation for thousands of years [Music] as the river journeys towards egypt's southernmost border it's hard to avoid the signs and signals that this is fast becoming a very modern nation with tourism now replacing farming as the mainstay of the egyptian economy and with the old ways gradually disappearing into the sand [Music] but no matter how much life changes along its banks the nile remains an eternal and constant presence in egypt whether people plow the land or relax in linen suits on the decks of cruise ships the river is always close and ever present the star attraction for locals and visitors alike [Music] [Music] in aswan however a city very close to egypt's southern border the river is upstaged by a colossus which took 10 years to complete and used up enough building materials to have constructed 17 great pyramids at giza [Music] the aswan dam hailed as egypt savior when it was completed in 1970 the dam provided the country with 90 of its electricity [Music] but perhaps the most important reason for building this dam had nothing to do with generating power egypt is the driest country in the world [Music] the nile although an almighty river has sometimes revealed itself as an extremely vulnerable force it is almost entirely dependent on upstream reigns to feed and renew its flow and in the past when these failed the nile and the whole of egypt also failed [Music] one of the worst ever droughts happened during the times of the pharaohs and is recorded on this stone known as the famine steely these hieroglyphs tell of a seven year long drought when the rains did not come and when the nile was turned into a mud bait trench as if dug out especially to receive the dry corpses of the nation [Music] but the aswan dam changed everything it allowed egypt to store vast quantities of nile water in lake nasa and gave the country direct control over its most precious resource for over 30 years the dam has supplied egypt with enough electricity and water to satisfy the needs of all its people during the 1980s when ethiopia suffered years of terrible drought and famine egypt was able to bask in the reserves held in lake bassa [Music] but not anymore with 63 million inhabitants now filling up all the areas along the nile and with the population explosion set to continue the aswan dam may not be enough to save egypt from dying of thirst in the future the solution to this seemingly impossible situation may be found in the most unlikely of places the toshka project seeks to relieve population congestion and reclaim some four thousand square kilometers of land for agriculture by irrigating the desert and people will be able to live here the people will talk about this project as they talked about the pyramids and the pharaohs irrigation secretary ahmed mossi is the government's representative in toshka he believes that by diverting water from the nile and pumping it into the middle of the desert egypt's future will be assured but to turn toshka from desert to settlement requires an extra 5 billion cubic liters of water every year a situation which has greatly angered the other african nations niles waters flow through 10 countries but it's egypt which has always been allowed to use most of it a massive 65 leaving next to nothing for the other nations to share between them the distribution and ownership of the nile has nothing to do with the amount of water which flows through each country it is in fact the result of an old colonial agreement the 1929 treaty between egypt and great britain whose empire at the time stretched over a great swathe of the nile basin gave egypt the power of veto to stop any upstream developments from affecting the amount of water reaching its lands in return for cotton and an easy trade route to india the british gave egypt full control of the river and a lion share of its flow [Music] these rights are still maintained today whilst other nations are prevented from harnessing a single drop of the nile egypt is now diverting even more of this precious river to grow crops in the middle of the desert [Music] ahmed however is promising faithfully to offset the use of extra water here by limiting consumption elsewhere in egypt [Music] the project has not and will not cause any differences between us and the other nile countries none of the rights of other countries are lost and but critics say that egypt will soon be demanding an even greater share of the nile than it's getting all ready [Music] with the other nile nations fed up of taking a backseat and now claiming their right to the river water walls could soon become a very real and potent danger with ethiopia a country on the front line [Music] [Music] [Music] from egypt the nile snakes back through the deserts of the sudan before splitting into two separate streams from this point the nile becomes two rivers the white nile with its source in uganda and the more powerful blue nile which now takes us to the source of our story ethiopia [Music] the ethiopia we expect to see is a parched and barren country ravaged by dictatorship and civil war and left to rot in the midday sun [Music] but this isn't the whole picture ethiopia is an incredible country of immense beauty with an abundance of one of the most precious natural resources in the world [Music] water [Music] this is the country which provides egypt with 90 of its water supply and is the source of the nile itself but despite its apparent water wealth ethiopia's problem has always been a crippling inability to use the vast percentage of it [Music] as the nile flows through a lush but almost impenetrable valley named the blue nile gorge it becomes clear that this is a country with a very different relationship to the one that egypt has with the river far from being ever present never close the nile in ethiopia is often trapped by terrain making it impossible for the river to seep out and irrigate the surrounding lands it seems almost to be swallowed up by the landscape consumed by some dark force superstition has long held that the blue nile gorge which stretches for 400 kilometers right through the heart of ethiopia is an evil place populated by dangerous spirits this along with its extremely harsh geography has always been a serious obstacle not only in accessing the nile but also in the search for its source the ancient egyptians probably traveled upstream as far as this point but weren't able to penetrate any further it was only in 1968 that the gorge was finally navigated and to this day rumors of deathly rapids huge crocodiles and ruthless bandits deter would-be travelers the cruel paradox for locals is that even though this is the country which feeds the nile ethiopia has never been able to use it to feed itself as this journey to the river's source continues through to the farming heartland of ethiopia it becomes difficult to grasp why this fruitful country should still be dependent on food aid for its survival but nu temesgen knows only too well why this is still the case he and his wife wubit own a small farm just at the end of the blue nile gorge in the foothills of ethiopia and even though the nile here finally breaks free of its confines to flow right through their fields and you can hardly use a single drop of it so the nile is far for me i cannot afford a motor pump and i cannot fetch it with my bare hands so only my cat will drink from it if i could i would be very happy to bring the nile to my land no but it is beyond our ability and nothing enu used to be a builders labourer with nothing to his name but he worked hard and saved up his meager wages to buy a small plot of land and get married his family now work together on the farm the days are long and hard with each one of them contributing not just to their livelihood but to their survival unlike egypt there are hardly any irrigation or water storage systems in ethiopia and so farmers here are entirely dependent on the annual rainy season to grow their crops when there's rain there's plenty of food but for nine months of the year not a drop will fall from the skies then this place will become a dry and barren dust bowl the most frustrating thing is that since a little tributary of the nile flows through his land he could potentially irrigate their fields all year round but instead all they can do is carry little quantities of it in plastic jerry cans this is wubitz job she has to make this trip four or five times a day to provide just enough water to cook clean and wash enu's dream is to someday be able to afford a water pump so that whoo bit won't have to do this back-breaking work and so that he'll be able to properly irrigate their fields then our country will be like a flower hand labor will be replaced by machines and water will be used for development if the nile is given to the farmer the farmland will be so big oh if i get that i will be a rich man all this should be possible [Music] this vast country has an estimated 000 square kilometers of good farmland an area larger than belgium that if properly irrigated could feed all its people all year round to do so however would reduce the river's flow to egypt dramatically and result in almost certain conflict between the two nations it's a political stalemate and in the meantime nothing is being done to help the starving people and struggling farmers of ethiopia enu and his family just have to make the most of the summer reigns and hope for a better future when ethiopia will be able to realize its potential and blossom into a fully developed nation [Music] but for now the unavoidable truth that this is a country still struggling to provide its people with the bare essentials to survive is still as glaringly clear as the bright ethiopian sun in a place where human beings are so entirely at the mercy of nature and its forces on good soil and good rains with hunger and thirst their old companions it's hardly surprising that some people here still cling to the comfort of ancient beliefs [Music] it's not uncommon throughout this country but especially in the areas closest to the nile to find small groups of people huddled by the river quietly chanting verses and throwing offerings into the water a piece of bread a cup of coffee or sometimes a live sacrifice to give thanks or perhaps appease the great river tribe is one of the oldest in africa and their way of life has not changed for thousands of years they live on one of the niles tributes only 30 kilometers away from its source and still make boats out of papyrus reminiscent of those that would have been used in ancient egypt gebre simachu is one of the tribe's elders [Applause] the fish harvest is disappearing and papyrus is not found near like before it is a difficult life these people are utterly dependent on the nile for everything their food and their faith apart from the little money they make by selling baskets in the local market they live a hand-to-mouth existence with no land to farm and no animals to rear their relationship with the river is one of complete respect believing that the nile is an awesome force there to serve the needs of all the people but belonging to nun the nile is the earth's resource belongs to the earth as it goes on its travels on earth it belongs to no one once in a while a sheep is bought to be sacrificed but today a chicken seems to suffice the animal's blood will be poured into the water making sure that not a single drop touches the earth if it did the niles roth would be incurred and then who knows what might happen the nile is our caretaker and we sacrifice for it it supports us when we were kids and swam in it it did not harm us this is because we sacrificed for it over recent years the village elders seem worried that their sacrifices aren't working as well as they used to the nile and its environments are changing they say and they don't know what to do about it as the sun sets on the waito village we can but ponder on gabriel's words the nile belongs to all and yet to none wise words that a wise world would choose to hear [Music] for more than 6 700 kilometers the nile snakes through forests slashes through gorges and floats through deserts offering some of the most graceful sights in africa it journeys past monuments and mountains through lush fields and urban expanse but its home is here in lake tana the source of the nile over 60 small rivers run into this vast inland sea but only one flows out the blue nile it's here hidden in ancient texts that we will unlock the secret why ethiopia has never been able to unleash the power of its river the ethiopian or coptic church is among the world's oldest christian christianity here goes back to the fourth century with the ark of the covenant said to be hidden somewhere in these mountains one of the most important sites is lake tana itself with many ancient monasteries founded on tana's 37 islands one of the most celebrated and revered is kibran gabrielle which still houses a small community of monks all of whom are entirely dependent on the lake and the nile for their spiritual and daily needs and is one of our most precious resources [Music] since he was 15. ethiopia is one of the most devout and christian countries in the world religion is extremely important here with politics and faith always closely intertwined ethiopia's spiritual makeup has been one of the main reasons why the country has not been able to utilize the sacred nile to understand more we have to follow abba mariam into the monastery's old scriptorium where they keep priceless religious artifacts and ancient texts this is where it explains about egypt this book was made of parchment and it was written a very very long time ago in this book from the early middle ages there's a note referring to anaboon or archbishop being sent from egypt to ethiopia it's this line that holds the key [Music] in the crucial area of religion ethiopia was for centuries under the rule of the egyptian church even their archbishop their boon was sent to them from egyptian hq with that kind of dependency on egypt for their spiritual health ethiopia was always kept under their yoke afraid that if they ever dared interfere with egypt's lifeline then they would lose their archbishop and their own religious heartbeat [Music] but then in 1959 in an act which expressed a growing national self-confidence the ethiopians broke away from the egyptian church by so doing they released themselves of any spiritual dependency and set the stage for what could be a conflict of apocalyptic proportions of man it would have dried up by now but it will always be there we'll use it all in our lives [Music] with hardly any contact with the outside world abba maryam and his small community on lake tana seem unaware that the future of the nile may now hang in the balance [Applause] [Music] 200 kilometers from lake tana on one of the main distributes of the nile looms a huge concrete structure which could change the nile basin forever when completed the takisi dam will be one of the largest in africa although the plan at the moment is to use it to generate hydroelectricity it has the potential to retain a vast amount of water for irrigation blocking much of its flow to egypt if the takisi scheme is successful ethiopia plans to build many more dams just like it and if this happens some experts say that egypt's water supply could be reduced by 40 [Music] the ethiopian government's first goal is to change the life of the poor give them power build dams to provide drinking water there are some people who have to walk six to seven hours to fetch [Music] is the ethiopian site manager and has been working on this project for six years he hardly ever sees his family who live in the capital addis ababa but all the effort and sacrifice he says will be worth it his children were very young during the famine of the 80s and he says that he never wants to live through a period like that again [Music] at first our problem was that we were unable to use our natural resources especially unable to use the cheap resources the rivers hence there was big famine in our country now is the time to eradicate that famine [Music] the takizi project was on the drawing board for many years but potential western investors such as the world bank were always scared off by belligerent noises from the egyptian capital so ethiopia went east in search of help and in 2002 found a chinese backer for this project the takizi marks a definite turning point in ethiopia's history and in its potential to harness the nile it also marks the realization of many of egypt's fears after thousands of years of just letting it slip through their fingers ethiopia's new determination and ability to utilize the blue nile is likely to put it on a collision course with egypt the country which makes most use of the water downstream conflict has been threatened by both sides but asphalt believes that all this doesn't have to lead to war that's watching when we take such measures to feed our people egypt our neighbor and brother should not be nervous and should never be before there was not much understanding between us now we know each other very well downstream inhabitants for the first time in history all 10 nile basin states are meeting around one table to discuss how best to share the river despite asphalt optimism relations are still tense and agreement between the countries is a long way off [Music] there is hope however with ethiopia and egypt now starting to work together to face realities and find a solution to their conflicting demands [Music] one thing is certain to avert disaster there will have to be compromise on both sides war can only be avoided if every country begins to see the river as a gift for all but a prize for none [Music] the nile more than any other river in the world evokes a feeling of continuum and everlasting presence [Music] from aristotle and moses through to present-day politics the nile flows through the world's consciousness and its history now is the time to make sure that it flows through its future

Channel: TRACKS - Travel Documentaries

Views: 451,612

Keywords: TRACKS, community traditions - rivers, cultural anthropology, exploring world rivers, glacial springs, global water systems, indigenous river cultures, majestic waters, modern rivers, nature-driven narratives, remote locations, river chronicles, river geography, river lifestyle, river societies, rivers of the world, social studies - rivers, water source exploration, water systems, world cultures, world's watercourses

Id: HxpJlxeQZxQ

Length: 305min 10sec (18310 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 20 2022