Tristan da Cunha: Building the Most Remote Settlement on Earth

over the course of human history mankind has spread to every corner of the globe from nigh on inhospitable polar extremes to hot arid deserts to wild jungles and well just about everywhere in between societies are defined by what they had to achieve what they had to learn simply in order to survive for some that means managing a dangerous wilderness others get by with the task of growing enough food whereas for others it's a matter of making peace with the neighbors but for the inhabitants of tristan da cunha the challenge of survival is unique how does a society manage to function in the most remote settlement on earth at 1 242 miles that's 2 000 kilometers from the nearest settlement the island of saint helena and 1732 miles or 2787 kilometers from nearest urban center south africa's cape town tristan de cuna represents the single most isolated location in the world even antarctica's a munson-scott south pole station is more accessible at a mere 808 miles or 1301 kilometers from the permanently inhabited vostok research station tristan de kuna by contrast is further from any city in the world than london is to istanbul and moscow is to jerusalem and it's roughly the equivalent of the distance between chicago and los angeles suffice to say it's really really far away [Music] tristan de kuna is the closest place to the middle of nowhere that currently exists but even that somewhat undersells exactly what we're dealing with here part of the broader overseas british territory of saint helena ascension and tristan de kuna the name tristan takuna can refer to either the single inhabited island colloquially known as tristan or the entire six island group that make up the territorial administrative unit dotted around tristan varying distances at nightingale island middle island stalton half ireland and the aptly named inaccessible island and more on that just a little bit a little further from tristan is gough island which has a small manned weather station the first point to note is that all of these islands are really really small tristan is just over 38 square miles or 99 square kilometers with all the other islands coming in at anywhere from 35 square miles or 91 square kilometers to just 25 acres that's just point one of a square kilometer wet windy and mild the area hosts a variety of animal and plant life with many species that cannot be found anywhere else in the world tristan's highest point of elevation is 2082 meters or about 6 700 feet above sea level which when combined with its small size makes it the sort of craggy imposing volcanic island that's likely to house a super villain's underground lair most the island is covered in cliff faces and low-lying flora with tristan's only occupied port edinburgh of the seven seas situated at the single place on the island that is both flat enough to build houses and boasts a safe access point to the sea this is in contrast to the other islands in the chain particularly in accessible islands which earned its name from the thousand-foot cliffs that have kept it well inaccessible seas in the area are rough choppy and very windy with tristan's tiny harbour reachable only 70 days out of the year due to the weather as we might expect from an overseas british territory the history of tristan de kuna is one of colonialism and expansion by western nations the islands were initially cited in 1506 by a portuguese naval admiral tristauda cunha from whom the islands rather obviously get their name conveniently located along a pre-existing sailing route from europe to the indian ocean tristan was a perfect location to use as a midpoint from brazil to cape aguiles africa's southernmost tip however like any location tristan is only as perfect as it is accessible which is to say not very inaccessible island we're looking at yay as such this natural candidate for a permanent supply base in the southern atlantic was mostly abandoned through the end of the 18th century the first real attempt to create a home on tristan nicuna was made in 1810 by a party of just three men led by jonathan lambert a trader from salem massachusetts seeking to make tristan into his envisioned islands of refreshment which could probably translated to pre-victorian truck stop lambert's ambitions unfortunately were greater than his capabilities when a ship arrived in 1812 to see how things were ticking along the last surviving member of lambert's original crew informed his visitors that lambert the third original crew member and a force later arrival had drowned five months after setting up camp in 1816 tristan moved to its next chapter when the island chain was claimed on behalf of king george iii partly due to its purported strategic importance a claim that was dismissed rather quickly realizing that tristan might be more trouble than it was worth the british navy set sail away from the islands but they left behind the first long-term occupants the first real settlement on the island was a commune founded in 1817 where the population ebbed and flowed based on whichever shipwrecks happened to have occurred nearby due to the island's occupants being mostly single men a sea captain who made frequent stops at tristan was given the task of recruiting single women from the settlement on saint elena for the reward of a sack of potatoes for every woman he brought back somehow this actually worked and six years after the captain first returned the island had 22 children among six adult couples there are ongoing questions as to whether the single women's agreement to go to tristan was entirely voluntary but for now the jury's still out on that one over the following decades tristan became more and more isolated as the completion of the suez canal and the decline of wailing in the area began to reduce the local sea traffic several crises popped up invasive rats an insurance racket by visiting reverend and an incident in which the island's 15 able-bodied men were lost at sea in a single lifeboat in an attempt to trade with a nearby ship essentially leaving the entire settlement widowed nevertheless life persisted on tristan and across decades the settlers learned to use what they had in order to subsist even across a 10-year period before and during world war 1 when the settlement wasn't visited a single time the community there continued to grow world war ii saw tristan hold a small yuba monitoring station and with lots of extra time on their hands the visiting soldiers helped to erect new homes a school a hospital and a store cash wages were paid to workers for the first time and a running water and sewage system was created for the islanders outsiders were assigned to tristan doctors teachers radio operators and commercial fishery was established to take advantage of the area's abundant crawfish population of course in the long arc of history we just can't have nice things and as tristan's economy boomed for the first time tragedy struck unlike the volcano on an accessible island which had been extinct for a long time the volcano ultra stan was very much alive luckily as the ground began to swell and fishes opened over the course of several days the settlers were able to evacuate with no casualties the islanders were ferried to hampshire in the uk where they were ravaged by influenza a new disease to most of them and received news of the devastation on tristan but despite expectations from british officials that the islanders would be remaining in the uk the tristanians insisted that they would return home and barely two years after the disaster nearly the entire population returned [Music] in the 21st century the iphone tristan has taken a unique form that is largely dictated by its history and conditions the island's population is just 242 islanders plus eight islanders located overseas and another 22 expatriate occupants all of the permanent residents of farmers and land is held communally and not by individual owners outsiders that is to say anyone who isn't a permanent resident cannot buy or sell land the island chain is not accessible by air and is visited less than once a month by the occasional south african fishing boat internet access is limited and very very slow and the island has only one road nevertheless the community there thrives in isolation with a school two churches a bar a bus line basic medical staff and resources and an ambulance for which the lights and sirens have never been turned on tristanians have developed several distinct cultural traditions including a heavy emphasis on dance that features uniquely justinian affairs writer simon winchester also observed a unique dialect of english when he visited tristan which he described as a sonorous amalgam of home countries lockjaw and 19th century idiom afrikaan slang and italian for the most part residents of the island and their expatriate visitors have been able to make a life of themselves and their loved ones are distinctly modern society and one of the least globalized places left out there however when disaster does strike it's often crippling to island life and difficult to manage in remote communities supplemental resources are often scarce in times of crisis and tristan is no exception a cyclone in 2001 a fire in 2008 in an oil spill in 2011 have all threatened the infrastructure and ecology of the area and have typically needed significant emergency aid from the british government which could be slow to arrive routine problems on tristan can be tough to manage as well the island only has resources to educate children until age 16 with young tristanians expected to travel to international boarding schools if they want further education this effect is known as a brain drain and has been observed around the world as young people from more isolated impoverished or dangerous areas travel to receive an education and never end up returning to their own communities as such the communities they came from may not reap the benefit of having raised these young minds a factor that likely impacts tristan as well medical care until stan is mixed bag while the island boasts a small and competent medical team the island lacks the resources to deal with serious or complicated medical issues or perform surgery and the medical staff is not equipped to handle childbirth on the island as such tristanians with complex medical conditions or expectant mothers must coordinate with fishing and other vessels that happen to be passing by after possibly weeks of travel the sick or expecting will reach cape town where they can receive the care they need finally genetics in the settlement pose a unique problem half of the island's residents suffer from asthma as a direct result of the naturally small and concentrated gene pool every justinian has one of only nine surnames that found among the island's residents collins glass green hagan laborello repeto rogers squib and swain and common ancestors on the island are a norm scientists have even worked with tristan's unique population to isolate an asthma gene among the island's occupants although that finding has been less useful globally than it was originally hoped justinians also have frequent issues with glaucoma and other health problems that are common within communities that share a small gene pool [Music] we could spend hours on one of our videos listing off all the societies in the world that have a hunger for self-sufficiency and tristan dacuna is firmly among them while the islands can provide food staples for itself it relies upon shipments of diesel fuel and gasoline in order to keep the lights and it can only obtain a wider food variety by importing food from outside locations a recent competition co-sponsored by the royal institute of british architects hoped to change that with its main objective being to solicit ways that the community can be more efficiently reconstructed and powered poor insulation high levels of mold and inefficient energy sources are all constant problems for tristanians and providing sustainable energy to the island has proven difficult in the past indeed prior initiative to use wind turbines did not go nearly as well as expected the competition winner brought carmichael architects has proposed significant renovations to original homes and the establishment of a more dedicated community compound where technology can be readily accessed and a garden and fishery will allow a dramatic expansion to the amount and variety of food that the island can produce justinians have continued to work on a number of other initiatives around the island chain the new healthcare center was opened in 2017 and has continued to upgrade its equipment ever since a house mouse eradication operation is underway on gough island in an attempt to undo the effects of centuries of damage by the invasive species and return the island to its former beauty further a new trade deal recently exempted rock lobster one of tristan's main exports from tariffs previously imposed by the eu in a move that will likely cause significant economic growth on tristan perhaps the biggest recent development for the tristana kuna chain however is that a recent international partnership between the uk and a long list of cooperative entities has declared the entire island chain as the atlantic ocean's largest no-take zone golf and inaccessible islands are unesco world heritage sites and wildlife reserves since 1995 but this newest move by the uk exponentially increases both the size and scope of the protection in the area almost 700 000 square kilometers 270 000 square miles are now protected constituting the world's fourth largest no-take zone the area which is rich in marine wildlife from fish to mammals to seabirds is now entirely off limits to fishing vessels tristanians will now be able to reap the benefits of greater biodiversity in the area while moving to a higher profile position as stewards of the protected zone and maintaining their own marine revenue streams the partnership is widely regarded as 2020's single biggest contribution to marine conservation around the world and is a major step in making tristana cunha a more resilient stable and healthy corner of the world trystanda kuna may not be a world wonder or a gargantuan feat of modern day engineering the island chain has barely more inhabitants than your local grocery store does at a given time and throughout most of history it has subsided and gotten along okay doing its own thing while the rest of the world echoes off in the distance but tristan is the most remote place in the world by a wide margin and in the face of all odds from isolation to geologic threat to resource scarcity it has survived with a bit of oxygen blown down on it this little ember of humanity has been kept alive for centuries at the absolute fringes of our world the simple fact that tristan de kuna is here at all that it has had the tenacity and resilience to survive and then thrive is simply remarkable all on its own so i really hope you found today's video interesting a little bit different to what we normally do here on megaprojects if you liked it well let me know in the comments below and if you've got suggestions for stuff like this or just you know more typical mega project stuff you can use the comment section i do look there and as always thank you for watching [Music] you

Channel: Megaprojects

Views: 308,344

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Id: V6G8ahFPJjg

Length: 15min 7sec (907 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 17 2022