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tv   The Travel Show  BBC News  April 24, 2022 1:30am-2:01am BST

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this is bbc news, the headlines... government officials in ukraine say at least eight people have been killed in missile strikes on the southern port city of odesa. the dead include a three—month old baby. 20 other people were injured in the attacks. the ukrainian foreign minister says they were designed to "spread terror." ukraine's president zelensky has announced that the us secretary of state and us defence secretary will visit kyiv on sunday. they're the most senior us officials to visit ukraine since the start of the conflict. mr zelensky expressed his gratitude to the us for its provision of weapons. voting has begun in some french overseas territories in the second round of the presidential election. the polls will open in france
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itself in a few hours�* time. the incumbent, emmanuel macron, is going head to head with the far—right candidate, marine le pen. now on bbc news — the travel show. this week on the show... going wild in chile. we've actually found a huemul deer. can you see him in the distance? treasure hunting in lebanon. and on board a leaky boat in crocodile—infested waters. i have lots of water in my boat. i don't know exactly why yet, but here it is.
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chile and patagonia, a place where tradition is meeting progression. a wild majestic spectacle where one of the world's longest countries has benefited from the largest land donation in history to create a conservation project on a vast scale. among the plans in place is an initiative hoping to bring more visitors to the area, called the route of parks, joining 17 old and new national parks together to create a huge
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network of wild areas to explore, more than 1,700 miles. myjourney to its heart takes me six hours in a 4x4, along rough terrain. so, we've blown a tire, and as you can see behind me, the road is pretty rough. we've hit one of these huge potholes, and i guess that's part of the story of tourism here. the infrastructure is still a work in progress for the government, but for two philanthropists, doug and kris tompkins, the route of parks was just the latest part in a decades—long project in both chile and argentinian patagonia. doug had spent time in patagonia before, creating the clothing brand north face, and kris had been ceo of the brand patagonia.
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when he decided to get out of business and do something different with his life, just dedicate his life to conservation and those things that he loved, these two countries came back into the front of his mind. in 1991, doug bought a coastal farm in southern chile, and over 30 years, along with kris and the tompkins conservation organisation, they bought 2 million acres acres across chile and argentina. rewilding came high on their agenda, repopulating the diverse range of species that had become critically imbalanced. the numbers of nandu birds in chile have dropped significantly. in this valley, rewilding has raised numbers from a dozen to around 70 so far.
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so, how does the nandu fit into the ecosystem here? the changes here have brought new opportunities for locals through tourism and a range of work, including for that traditional chilean
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cultural icon, the gaucho. don daniel now helps monitor the native huemul deer. traditionally, gauchos are horsemen skilled at protecting cattle and sometimes hunting predators. but now, dan daniel has a wider review of the predators as an important part of the animal network. beeping today, don daniel uses modern techniques to track the tagged huemul deers nearby.
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so, the signal's quite strong when we point the antenna that way. it's like one of those tv antennas from the �*70s or �*80s that you had on your roof. but it seems to be doing thejob. 0h, yep...i can hear it. beeping 99% of the original huemul population are thought to have been lost, leaving them endangered. but with don daniel's help, we soon spot something in the distance. gosh, look at don daniel go! so...we�*ve actually found a huemul deer. can you see him in the distance? he's just sitting there
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in the grass, and he's quite well camouflaged. we move for a closer look and quickly see that there are in fact three huemul together. so, we're approaching the deer from a lower ground angle so we don't scare them.
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it's unbelievable that now the numbers have grown, and we've been able to track them within the space of a quarter of an hour, and here we are, and we're able to get this close to them. in 2017, tompkins conservation donated the last of the parks of the chilean state under the condition that they are protected as national parks. the chilean government also added to existing national parkland to create the route of parks, an area the size of switzerland. the tompkins donation was said to be the biggest private land donation to a country in world history. but it was not without controversy. i think that colonisation of territory in human history is absolutely discussed as it should be.
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there's no question about that. i don't think we can roll back the clock and hope that slavery didn't happen and that almost the entire globe was conquered by 11—5 imperialist countries. there's no question about that. i'm very proud of what we do because every hectare we have ever purchased goes right back to the people of the country. tragically, doug never saw the completion of the donation, passing away in 2015. a good friend of mine from new york city wrote to me just a few days after he died, and she said, "look, you have a choice here. you can be the long—suffering widow, or you can get out of bed and go do these things." and she was right. i had — that was a conscious decision i was going to have to make.
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and so ijust thought, ok, let's go for it. and that's when i started trying to tie up everything, and within two years, we had them all donated. wow. and that was a lot of work. and i think it saved my life, needing to do that. yeah. and what would doug have said, sitting here now? 0h, he would have said... "good job, bird." imagine he's pretty happy, yeah. good. i'm happy. yeah. i mean, we're not done yet, but i hope we're never done. stay with us, because still to come on the travel show... the neglected
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treasures of tripoli. we're with the man who's made it his mission to document these lebanese artefacts before they disappear forever. and we catch up with karolis as he attempts to make it up sri lanka's historic hamilton canal by paddle. and this time, he's in it up to his neck. so, don't go away. welcome back to patagonia here in the foot of chile, and just over there, you can see the border with argentina. and i can tell you — it gets pretty chilly down here. but let's head now to a totally different climate and a different part of the world. we're crossing to lebanon next, and to its second city, tripoli. it's not quite as well known as its big brother, beirut, to the south, but what it lacks in fame, it makes up for in public art and architecture. after hundreds of years out in the elements, its many artefacts are beginning to show signs of wear and neglect.
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but one man has made it his mission to record these islamic treasures for posterity. call to prayer the priority today of the people is not art. it's about finding medicine or finding food to sustain their daily life. despite this art still valuable and important, now it's more important than ever because we have a huge risk of losing it. i was born in tripoli, i was raised in tripoli,
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my family's also from tripoli. tripoli's everything to me. what i really like in this city, it's like a really authentic city, yet it's still working since its establishment, so it never stopped. and the people here, they are fighters and survivors. when i started really exploring this city, ijust saw how rich the city is like in art and architecture and culture and tradition. we go right, then we go left, then there is a door of an old facade of a school. then if you notice, you see a beautiful pattern just in the middle of the stairway going up. can you imagine how much work this will take, someone will design it and then
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someone will try to sculpt it and to carve it into stone and then someone to come and place it here to decorate this facade and then just forget about it, easy. look at this example, by the way. you would see 700 year old patternsjust covered with graffiti. they could have done it on a lot of other places, whyjust here, on top of there? and look at this two beautiful schools. you can see the history of the city literally fading away. the purpose of this project is to document and digitalise islamic art that we have in the city to preserve them for the future generations. one, two, three.
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after taking three photos from three angles, i will be importing them to this programme so i can take the mutual points and then create a photo, so i have a very sharp 2d version of the pattern itself. god forbid if anything occurs in the city, it would be a catastrophe because we would be losing the original artwork but since we documented these artworks we are able to create the exact professional version that the artist used 700 years ago. a lot of my work now reflects the history of the art of the city and working with these old materials and artistic designs, ifelt like i was part of history now. like there's something of me
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attached to these stone pieces. i wish i could be positive, hoping good things for the future of lebanon and tripoli, but the problem is we are losing a lot of good minds travelling and emigrating everywhere in the world. but i hope one day tripoli would regain its power and its glory and that the people would have more time and more energy to respect art and to love the city, and maybe to see it the way i see it. explorer karolis mieliauskas is on his latest challenge, paddling 50 kilometres down sri lanka's canal network to the capital colombo.
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after meeting people leading the efforts to clean the waterways, wejoin him in negombo for the next stage of his journey. this time, he's navigating a lagoon, visiting the city's largest fish market and exploring the forest that could prove a vital tool in the fight against climate change. so i am here on the canal this morning, starting my trip to the lagoon. this is actually how the water looks like. yes, you are right, it's black. i entered the lagoon just a few hundred metres away, what i expect now at least a much clearer and clean water. in the beginning it doesn't look like any better but further on, looks promising. they say the biggest fish market is here on the corner and i must visit right now.
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so the biggest fish market here in negombo, they say most of the products here comes from the lagoon but some fishermen also come from the ocean. let's have a look, looks very busy. i was told that here in sri lanka fish stocks have fallen dramatically in recent years and that pollution might be part of the problem. in this fish market, recently they don't have a lot of fish because the people, they are throwing a lot of the plastic, something like that. so going out of the market, i want to see the mangroves.
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i see a little waterway, mangroves. to go somewhere inside, you know? mangroves can be a very good weapon in fight against climate change. somebody said to me that during afternoon hours, some grilling proccesses are going on in the mangroves, but funny thing is, is not so easy to see something. but i can feel the nice smell of something is grilling. maybe is my lunch. what's going on? food time. food time? wow, looks amazing. prawns? from the lagoon? ok, so is the same as i saw in market today.
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thank you! i think it is too much for me! thank you, i appreciate it. put some lime on the fish and prawns, extremely good. this fish is amazing, and this is, i know already from yesterday is coconut with something. with lemongrass! amazing. i better go, i guess. don't want to take it too long today. 2.40pm, and these kilometres around ten kilometres probably still awaits on the lagoon and is not so easy. i was expecting lagoon to be huge, but now when i'm here, it looks like middle of nowhere. i think i have a little crack here, i don't know.
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something unexpected has just happened and i have lots of water in my boat. i don't know exactly why yet but here it is. probably leaking somewhere. i discovered it's the waves spilling over into the boat. by the time i get most of the water out, night is approaching fast. still a few kilometres to go and the sun is down already. now is absolutely the time to get out from here. i can see already lights there in front of me, maybe in a couple of kilometres and this is all saints church lights. i googled already before and now i have to reach this place otherwise is maybe too dangerous to stay, there is so called crocodiles. i haven't seen them but i don't want to feel them for sure. and is getting completely dark now so probably will not manage to reach the place with any kind of light.
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i have a torch. so now remains tojust keep going. and dojoin us next week to see if karolis makes it all the way to the end. also coming up, rajan's in dublin on the 100th birthday of one of its best—known but most challenging classic novels and meeting what have to be some of the luckiest librarians in the world. wow! look at this! the ceiling is incredible and it goes on and on for a long, long way. at must be at least 60 metres or some. and you can see more of our recent travels on the bbc iplayer. you can check us out on facebook and instagram, too. just search for bbc travel show and look for that little blue logo. but until next time from all of us here in chile and patagonia, it's goodbye.
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hello there. there are some changes on the way for next week, and i'll show you those a little later on. saturday, though, was dry with some spells of sunshine for much of the country. and warm, as well — in dorset, temperatures reached 20 celsius. different story in the far north of scotland, where we've still got a lot of this cloudy weather. temperatures were nearer 8—9 celsius in the afternoon. it was also cooler around those north sea coasts. the wind continues to come in off the north sea, where sea surface temperatures are only around nine degrees. we've still got those east—to—northeasterly winds on sunday, not as strong as on saturday.
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many places will be dry with some warm sunshine coming through, as well. now, close to this area of low pressure, there could still be a bit of rain threatening the far south of england. still got high pressure to the north of the uk, keeping the run of east—to—northeasterly winds going. and these are the temperatures we start with on sunday morning. still a bit of rain there potentially in the far south west of england to move away. elsewhere, though, a generally dry and sunny start. we'll see some cloud building up, particularly in england and wales, and there could be 1—2 isolated showers popping off, but generally it's dry. similar story for northern ireland — more sunshine in the southwest of scotland, where it's a bit warmer, north—eastern parts of scotland cooler still with some of that low cloud. highest temperatures, southern england, south wales, 18—19 celsius. most of the wet weather on these weather system is getting steered to the south of the uk. high pressure is dominating, and it's centred all the way up there into greenland. now, we'll have lighter winds on monday. they're coming more from the north, so it'll be a bit cooler.
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and we'll find more clouds spreading out and increasing through the day, and the greater chance of catching 1—2 showers in england and wales. should be dry in scotland and northern ireland, cloudy in northern parts of scotland, and generally it's cooler on monday, with highs around 1a celsius or so. and it could be a chilly start on tuesday, with cloudy skies across the north, and that northerly breeze will push the cloud further south, and temperatures will range from 16 in the southwest of england and south wales to only around nine celsius in northeast scotland and the northeast of england. so, these are the changes for next week — it'll be cooler, there'll be a lot more cloud around, but this generally dry theme is set to continue. goodbye.
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welcome to bbc news — i'm chris rogers. our top stories... the ukrainian port city of 0desa is struck by russian missiles — killing at least eight people and injuring many more. president zelensky says the us secretary of state will arrive in kyiv on sunday — the highest—level us visit since the war began. the polls will open in france in a few hours — emmanuel macron and marine le pen are urging people to vote. four people are found after a tourist boat went missing off the coast of japan — more than 20 are still unaccounted for. and — carnival returns to rio — after two years — the samba beat is back on the streets.

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