WORLD'S LARGEST REFORESTATION | Motorcycle World Tour | Africa #9

He has been the minister of ecology and fisheries in Senegal. He has been a diver for 30 years... ...and he founded the Dakar Oceanarium. This guy has run business and hotels... ...and apparently he did very well in his day. He is Senegalese, born here in Senegal... ...with a Senegalese family. But he is of Lebanese descent. Because of this, he is white Senegalese and has a foreign look to him. I talked to him for a while and he invited me to visit him. He told me more or less where he lived... ...and I've been asking people and everyone around here knows him. He has a plantation of something, but of what, I don't know. Honestly, the entrance to the house is beautiful. He offered me a room with a bed... ...and told me that I could stay as long as I wanted. His brain works very fast and he has a lot of ideas in his head. Among other things, for example... ...he has done the largest mangrove plantation in history. The mangrove swamp is super important. Because of human beings, it has been disappearing. So, he managed to organise around 100,000 people... ...to replant more than 150 million mangrove trees. It's a beautiful project. He hasn't received financial support from the government. He didn't see a penny, but he did reforest Senegal. They called him from France to say that they had cut them off. It turns out that they had found a place in India... ...where the mangrove grew faster... ...and he was left there with nothing. He isn't your typical ecologist, paying lip service... ...with his Toyota Prius... ...going around saying how "green" he is. No, he is an ecologist in practice. If he thinks he can do something, he does it, period. And that's it. He says that he doesn't do it for the people... ...because we are all capable of doing it. He does it for nature. He reminds me of Pepe Mujica. He's a guy who must have a lot of money. But he dresses in old clothes... ...and in his house, for example, he doesn't even have hot water. He has an old car. He lives an austere life... ...although that word is too impolite now, because of how it is used. I filmed some videos of the mangrove plantation... ...that they has been planting. It was just one of more than 1500 spots that he has. He's also made documentaries. He has met Jacques Cousteau... ...at award ceremonies for his documentaries. He is fighting against deforestation here in Senegal. Which appears to come from Gambia above and from Guinea below... ...they illegally cut down trees... ...and sell them to the Chinese Mafia. There's a problem here... ...only one week before I got here... ...there were 13 murders. There was a massacre precisely because of this issue. They're seeing increasingly more forests getting destroyed. I guess they have had enough... ...and 13 people who were illegally going to cut down trees well... yeah, that happened... I heard a couple of pretty loud bombs one night... ...My friend said to me that it was definitely related to this. And it turns out that right as I was at his house... ...after all the disruption... ...the President of Senegal came out on TV... ...and said that he was prohibiting logging. He knows that they're going to carry on logging... ...but at least it is slightly more illegal now... ...and they will have to find other ways. This is very good news!... ...and a coincidence that I just managed to catch it at his house. We usually think that individually, we can't do anything... ...or we want to believe that, because it's easier. But he alone, has brought together all the village leaders... ...and organised the largest reforestation in mangrove history. So if you want to, you can. Everyone knew him... ...We were walking down the road and everyone stopped to say hi. People have come to his house to threaten him... ...because of how openly he speaks in the media. They're telling him that they know who he is... ...they know who his family is... ...and he needs to watch what he says. Because usually in interviews he doesn't mince his words. He bought a drone and went to Gambia... ...traveled across Gambia to highlight cases of illegal deforestation. The army came out after him and shot at his drone... And he has... he really has a ton of pretty cool war stories.

Channel: Nico - Ride Me Five English

Views: 180,851

Keywords: motorcycle travel, motorcycle world tour, around the world, motorcycle, motorbike, bike, transalp, transalp 650, travel in africa, travel in motorcycle in africa, adventure, honda transalp, travel, africa, motorcycle africa, solo travel, travel around the world, motorcycle around the world, world motorcycle, offroad, trail, travel the world, motoadv, adv, motorcycle adventure, roadtrip, reforestation, ecology, mangrove, reforestation africa, reforestation senegal, haidar el ali, environment

Id: UKnICi846TM

Length: 16min 17sec (977 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 05 2020