(sophie fouron) i have to walk really slowly, but i can actually get really close to them. right there, royal penguins. we are between argentina and antarctica, in a windswept country: the falkland islands or the malouines, or the malvinas, depending on where you come from. you might remember the 1982 falklands war,

between argentina and great britain. here, there's most definitely a "before" and an "after" 1982. after the war, the falkland islands developed a fishing industry, and they became rich. the falklands are still a british overseas territory, but they're independant on many, many levels. they have a great education system, they have their own constitution, they have a great hospital, and they're only 3000 people living here. pretty impressive. and people seem to be very happy. it's a land of wind, of sheep, of fish. and it's a land of penguins. welcome to the falklands.

(john fowler) you're on the falkland islands. we're in the south atlantic, about 250 miles off the nearest point of the southern part of latin america. it is a windy place, but once you've learned to walk sort of leaning against the wind, it's easy. (sophie fouron) john fawler. born in england, he's lived in the falklands some fifty years, during which he has been a teacher, guide, journalist and editor. with extensive knowledge of this land he calls home, these are his islands. (john fowler) we're an immigrant society. there is still a majority

of people of british origin. at the moment, according to the last census, there are 2850 or so inhabitants of the falkland islands of whom just about 2000 now live in stanley, and the rest are scattered around what we call the "camp," which is anywhere outside of stanley, including a smaller number of people who live on small islands, which they run as sheep farms and also as tourist destinations. the falkland islands used to be a colony. now, it is technically a british overseas territory. the argentines have claimed it since 1833, but then, the argentine community was dislodged by the british. they ignored the fact that in 1850, a treaty of perpetual friendship was signed between the argentine and the british government, so everything that may have been disagreed about, it was gone. generally, when the argentine government of the day was unpopular, some would say: "réclamos las malvinas!"

and everybody would applaud, and that was great. only this time, they made the mistake of doing it. on april 1st 1982, the governor rex hunt turned up and told us that he had just received a telegram from london to say that we were going to be invaded by the argentines at dawn, the following day. and walking away from that meeting with some colleagues, we thought this has to be a joke. but it wasn't. we were invaded at dawn the following morning, and we enjoyed 74 days of argentine occupation until, eventually, the british liberated us. over the years since 1982, visiting military have been adept at finding souvenirs, and now most of what was left behind has disappeared. obviously, there are still minefields, which are probably the most significant souvenir of this unhappy time.

(julius unsing) as we walk around the peripheries of the minefield, if there is an unplanned explosion, all i'd like you to do is i'd like you to stand perfectly still. i'd like you to check yourself over, look to myself or philemon, give a thumbs up, and then we will tell you what to do after that. (sophie fouron) does that happen often? (julius unsing) no, not at all. (sophie fouron) o.k. (julius unsing) just a quick sort of overview on a little bit about the problem itself, dealing now with the port stanley area. at the end of the conflict, there were 117 minefields remaining, and there were around 68 records for those, which were handed over by the argentines. the rest of the records were either lost, mislaid, or certainly haven't

been found since. (sophie fouron) i'm not going to go in front. (robin swanson) you're perfectly safe here, because everybody's wandering around. (sophie fouron) we have to go back in time in a bit, and if you can explain why there are so many mines here in the falklands. (robin swanson) in 1982, in april, there was an invasion by the argentinian forces. when they arrived, they laid a lot of mindfields to protect their positions in case there was a counterinvasion. so there were two sets of mindfields if you'd like: one set that was orientated towards the east, and another set that was orientated towards the west. (julius unsing) this is a particular mine we're looking for. this one is free from explosives, completely free from explosives. (sophie fouron) can i hold it? (julius unsing) no, i can't allow you to touch that. it requires a pressure of around 10 kilograms to set it off, which is a person standing

on it, and it has minimum metal inside it. (robin swanson) that little spring is about 0.18 of a gram of metal, which makes it extremely difficult to detect. you can't just wander along the top of the surface... (sophie fouron) with a metal detector. (robin swanson) with a metal detector. (sophie fouron) why did it take so much time to start demining? (robin swanson) there was an initial phase of demining immediately after the war ended. after about two weeks, they were actually sustaining casualties, mainly because they couldn't detect the mines. so then, they took a political decision back in london that it was not worth taking any more casualties now that the war was over. so the aim then was simply to fence it off and leave it. (john fowler) and for over 30 years, there were no accidents involving human beings and mines. but the british government were signatories

to the ottawa demining convention and came under increasing pressure to do something about the mines in the falklands. then, the british government began a demining campaign which has now gone on every summer for the last six years. the actual guys who do most of the work are from zimbabwe in africa. they are tremendously tough, tremendously skilled. we recognize what a great job they do. and as a community, we're tremendously grateful to the effort they're making on our behalf. (julius unsing) as we cross this area here, please be aware. do not kick, touch or pick anything up in this zone. not that there is anything dangerous in there. it is just a precaution, right? - o.k. - if you do happen to observe anything here, please let one of us know. please don't walk anywhere past the inner fence,

and if you do, please immediately stand still and then we will inform you what to do. - i would listen to you, julius. - thank you. so please, follow me. come forward and meet... - o.k. can i go talk to the...? - of course you can! please do. - o.k. i don't... gentlemen! hello! (men) hello! how are you? - can i just step here? - yeah, of course. - of course, o.k. you're all from zimbabwe. (men) yeah. yes. - how do you like your experience here? (man 1) it's very nice. - yes? - yeah. - you like it? - people in the falklands are very friendly. everything in the falklands is nice, except the weather sometimes. - i know! the weather. this is a beautiful summer day apparently. - yeah. very beautiful. - how long have you been here? - since 2010. - 2010! - yes. - so you're a falklander. - yeah, sometimes. - how many months do you stay here before you go back home? - now, i stay nine months. - do you like your work?

- 100%. - zimbabweans have an expertise in demining. could you tell me about that? - maybe some of them were tending to active minefields in zimbabwe. these types of mines... yeah, they are very harsh. the type of mines back there, they're very sensitive. so if you start with very sensitive mines and you come to the mines that are a little bit sensitive, your work is upgraded. so that's why i like it so much. - have you worked in other countries? - yes. - which ones? - afghanistan. - afghanistan? - tyrrhenian sea, lebanon, falklands and zimbabwe. - and you? (man 2) kosovo, lebanon, iraq, afghanistan and laos. (sophie fouron) it's a very dangerous job you do. it's a very, very dangerous job. are you ever scared at all? (man 2) no. it's like when you're driving, you have

to be cautious. it's the same with demining. - after your work is done here, because it will be done eventually... (man 1) yeah. - all the mines will be removed. do you think you will stay here? (man 1) no. we're going to go to other countries to remove mines. - yes. - that is my work. - that's your work. - yes. i want all the world to be mine-free. (julius unsing) of course, there is a lot of wind, and we sometimes stop demining operations when the wind becomes so strong that there is a risk of a deminer being blown out of the safe lane. (sophie fouron) the wind. the wind in the falklands. [workers singing traditional song]

(john fowler) the war brought many, many changes, particularly changes in the attitude of the british government towards the falkland islands. they began to support what we wanted to do for a long time, which is to set up a fisheries conservation zone and to start selling licenses to fish, which radically changed our economy. in 1984, the total revenue of the falkland islands government was about 4 million pounds. 18 months later, it was about 28 million pounds. we suddenly went from being an economic basket case to being a relatively rich country. and one of the first things that was undertaken was to link all the isolated places on east and west

falklands with all-weather tracks. so now, it is possible, for example, for children to get into school, for farmers to come into stanley to help with tourism, and for people to move about for social and sporting occasions, to a degree which was impossible. there's also the government air service, which is essentially a taxi service. so you ring up to say where you want to go, and hopefully, the next day, you're listed as being part of the passengers for that day and you fly away. it's called figas, which stands for falkland island government air service. (sophie fouron) hello! (troyd bowles) hi! - good morning! i'm sophie. - hi sophie! troyd. how are you? - nice to meet you, troyd. - good! thanks! yeah. - yeah, so you're giving me a lift this morning. - yeah. to douglas. - let's go see the plane. - yeah. we'll go and have a look. the falklands are a lot bigger than most people realize. several of our flights are over 100 miles. the islands are

spread over a big area, the islands and certain parts are a long way apart, and this is the only way. now, you pull that until you're comfortable. ... ready for departure. (sophie fouron) this morning, we're off to see mallory. she's a teacher on lorenzo farm, so it'll be interesting to see how school works there, in a remote place like lorenzo farm. it's not that far. it's only a twenty-minute flight, but still. very remote. (troyd bowles) there's a whale over here. two of them. (sophie fouron) oh! o.k. (troyd bowles)

three of them. four of them. (sophie fouron) oh! wow! - there we go. - how long have you been doing this for? - so i've been doing this just over 20 years. - my god. and you're from here? - yeah. i am from the falklands. - how many flights a day do you usually do? - with figas, generally at this time of year, we'll do anything from four to eight in a day. - the people living in these remote places, they have to be self-sufficient. - yeah, absolutely, especially in the islands. they really have to plan ahead. certainly, most of the other islands get one visit from a supply ship every six weeks, and often less than that. this is douglas coming out now, which is lorenzo farm. there we go. we're there. (john fowler) when i came here, stanley was where retired people and the government people lived. the work of the islands was done out on the many farms around the falklands. so i came

here with my wife to work, and at first we would have been quite happy to leave, but we found that the people, particularly the people of the camp where we were working, were tremendously generous and helped us as town people to understand how you could actually have a good time in this vast open space. the aim has been, since the 1980's, really to make sure that every child in the camp has contact with a trained teacher every day. with the reduction of the number of people living in the camp, now we have discrete telephones from everywhere in the camp, which we didn't have, so they can have telephone lessons. but we still have a small number of traveling teachers. (sophie fouron) thank you! - o.k. we'll see you later. - hello! - hello! hello! - hi! finally! - hi! i'm mallory. nice to meet you! - nice to meet you mallory!

bye troyd! (mallory barnes) let's have a look! (sophie fouron) what's this? (kery) eggs. (mallory barnes) dinosaur eggs. (sophie fouron) dinosaur eggs? (sophie fouron) i love it already! oh! nice! tanya! where are the kids? (tanya clarke) upstairs. you can carry on upstairs. (sophie fouron) the school is upstairs. (tanya clarke) the loudest room. (sophie fouron) yeah. follow the noise. (tanya clarke) follow the noise. (sophie fouron) can i interrupt school? (mallory barnes) of course you can. yes! (sophie fouron) wow! let me help you. let me help you. (kery) thank you. (mallory barnes) so this is our second week of dinosaurs. what's your favorite one? (kery) tyrannosaurus rex.

(mallory barnes) is it? what's your favorite one, martin? your favorite dinosaur? too busy. any children outside of stanley are called "camp kids" and those children up until about the age of 10, they either have a settlement school, or a traveling teacher. and then at 10, they'll go into stanley at the boarding school there. (sophie fouron) o.k. (mallory barnes) so there are three traveling teachers for the remote farms. and then there are four settlement schools on the bigger farms. and they're permanently open. - what happens when you're not here? - they have telephone lessons. - telephone lessons? - yeah. it used to be radio lessons, and everybody could listen in on their radio sets. so there was one teacher that used to read through this book. i can't remember what book it was, but people would tune in at the right time to hear the rest of the story. but it's on the telephones now. and another teacher phones when i'm not here. - every day? - yes. - so this system is for how many kids total, right now? - i think less than 20.

if these kids were ignored until they go to the boarding school, they'd miss their formative years, so it is really important that they're at the same level as all the other children and they have the same opportunities. right. should we put these poor little ones in the swamp to have them cleaned? - how long have you been here for? - just since august. - and so far? - fantastic. i love it. i absolutely love it. so i was only meant to be here for a year, but i've extended for two, now. - why do you love it so much? - hum... the job and the people. the community here. you feel welcomed from day one. it's so nice. and the job, it's just exciting, coming to a different place every two weeks and having these two. - and you sleep here, in the house? - yes. yeah. - what's a typical day like? - i'm usually up at about 7. we'll have breakfast and i'll usually come upstairs with a coffee and get stuff ready for the rest of the day. - do you feel like you're part of the family? - yeah. very much.

(tanya clarke) there are bread rolls if you want a bread roll. - bread rolls? (mallory barnes) just on the side. - we've been smelling the bread all morning. thank you tanya! (tanya clarke) you're very welcome. - yeah. thank you, tanya. - what is it like to have mallory around? - it's really good. she's easy to have in the house. she's good with the kids. i think we are so privileged to be able to stay in our home and have a teacher come to us. - the first time i came, i was scared about the family, because i didn't have a clue who they were. i had never been on a farm before. basically, they gave me the keys to a pickup truck, showed me on a tourist map: "this is lorenzo." and i just looked at them at school and i said: "what if i get lost?" and they just laughed at me and said: "you can't get lost. there's only one turn." i was terrified.

(john fowler) when i first came to the falklands, on the farms, the lights would go out at half past 8 pm or 9 o'clock. now, all the houses outside of stanley will have 24-hour power. still, they don't get the degree of services that we get here, so they have to be a very much more self-reliant community. (sophie fouron) i didn't think i was going to feed a little lamb today. i'm enjoying this. (mallory barnes) guys! come on! school time! - school time! - come on! - bye guys! (tanya clarke) say bye! quick, quick, quick! (sophie fouron) how many sheep do you have? - we have about 5500. and we're a small farm. - 5500? i was expecting a hundred. - no. - 5500. (shane) shane. (sophie fouron) shane. nice to meet you! not your first time doing this. (shane)

i've done one or two before. (tanya clarke) you have to stay back. (sophie fouron) living out here, you need a wind turbine, and then a generator. (shane) a backup, yeah. - backup generator? - yeah. - if the generator breaks down, you can't just call your local electrician to pop out, so these guys have taught themselves to maintain pretty much everything on the farm. - so you're electricians and plumbers, and carpenters. - you just do your best. - jack of all trades. - jack of all trades. - jack of all trades. - would you want to live somewhere else? - oh no, no. this is home. great for bringing up children. free, no crime. (sophie fouron) so the noise is the generator, right? (tanya clarke) yes.

(sophie fouron) you have one wind turbine, now. (tanya clarke) yes. that powers two houses. - and it's enough? - once we've got it charged right up with the assistance of the generator, then it will last two days and we do our washing, we use the dishwasher. - all the comfort you need. - yeah. and we just put the generator on when we need it. we're just trying to speed up a bit to catch up with jeannette. - uh oh. they're going to want to go with them, right? - yeah. - o.k. but you want them to go there. so you're used to this, having to manage and be self-sufficient about a lot of things. - definitely. my dad... we were talking about this not that long ago, before there was no air link, there were no telephones, there were no fax machines. so if a generator broke down and he needed a spare part, he had to write a letter to the suppliers, he had to draw pictures and hoped that they knew what part

was needed. it would then go to the united kingdom. - o.k. - three months later, you would get the part and it wasn't always correct, so you had to start the process again and wait another three months. - and all this time, you don't have the generator. - yeah, and i always say to him: "what was the biggest thing that changed here? was it the internet? was it the telephone?" he said: "the fax machine." because you could write your letter, you could draw the pictures and send it and they would reply. (sophie fouron) it's far from everything (tanya clarke) yes. - and it's not on the way to anywhere. - but there are massive positives to that as well. - i know. and i know you want to keep it that way. - yes. - you wouldn't live anywhere else, right? - no, no. (john fowler) tourism has two principal sectors, one of which is the land-based element.

so there are a number of accommodations around the place. it's a tremendous destination for people who enjoy wildlife, who want to see penguins, who want to see albatros. i've seen in britain people with high powered binoculars trying to look at the kind of bird which, when i walk along a beach here, is running around my feet. we have five different kinds of penguins that breed here. that's before you get to dolphins or whale sightings and all the other smaller birds. so not only do we have a great variety, particularly of birds, but they are so much less afraid, so much more accessible than they are in other places. (patrick watts) it all started in 1948 when one single pair turned up here, and since then, it's slowly increased. i came over in the 1970's and i counted about 80 penguins, and now here we are today, 60 hard years

later and we have 4000 king penguins. (sophie fouron) i'm listening, but i'm also looking at these beautiful ones here. - yeah. - those are... they're not obviously king penguins. what are they called? - these are the gentoo. - the gentoo. - yeah. - hello! (patrick watts) i always find that if you just say hello to them, they will come and say hello to you. (sophie fouron) hello gentoo penguin! (patrick watts) i think we're doing o.k. because the numbers of all the penguins are increasing every year. - well that's good for your tourism industry, isn't it? - yeah, but nothing happens in the winter, don't forget. the winter is very quiet. and in fact, this place closes down in the winter because

the landowner prefers the people not to come in. - o.k. - and just leave the penguins to rest during the winter time. they see us from the first of november until the middle of april. that's our cruise vessel season now. it's a long season. it's increasing all the time. it started with two ships, now there's a hundred ships coming to the falklands from the beginning of november until the middle of april. and of course, there's another aspect of this too that we have to remember: penguins make money. we are talking about many thousands of pounds in revenue from the penguins. - but it is a booming industry now in the falklands. - it is indeed, and that's why we have to be more aware of it and take care of it, and why we have to sort of show respect to the wildlife to maintain what we have, because if we don't, we could ruin it all overnight. when i was a boy growing up here, the big popular thing in the spring was to eat

the eggs of the penguins. and you would actually anticipate this. you'd wait for it. and people would go out in small boats and they'd collect the eggs, and bring them in by the hundreds. and then we'd all go down, or my parents would, with a bucket and we'd pay 2 shillings and 6 pence in the old money, and we would buy probably 50 eggs. and you would boil them, you would scramble them, you would have them in omelets, and it was so exceptional. and they're very nutritious. but of course, don't forget: they lay two eggs. therefore, the men dealing with this would take the first egg and leave the second egg to be hatched. - to be hatched. that's absolutely amazing. there's about 2000 in there, and don't forget there

will be another 2000 at sea getting food to come back to relieve the parent that's sitting either with the egg or with the chick that's already been hatched. - there are rocks around these penguins. what's the explanation for that? - the warden waits until he sees where the colony is because they move a little bit every year, and then he will put a ring of rocks around the egg site and we dare not go inside those rocks, otherwise we're in big trouble. people could walk in amongst the penguins when they were breeding, and consequently, you'd find loads of abandoned eggs every morning because there was no respect for them. now that doesn't happen. - are you afraid that this could turn into disneyland or "penguin land"? - if there was a road put all the way from stanley down here, which the landowner would have to pay for, then what would happen if you got, i don't know... say 20 coaches coming down, 30 coaches with 50 people, you'd be overwhelmed with people. would the penguins

be able to withstand that pressure even? back in the days when there were shipwrecks around the falklands, and there's been 400 shipwrecks in these islands, the shipwreck sailors had nothing else to eat except penguins. - really? - and they said they didn't taste very good. they tasted very salty. there wasn't much meat on them, but there was nothing else to eat. (john fowler) in the early days, young men could get on this once-a-month ship, when they were tired of working with sheep, to get to see the outside world. it is still a very, very strong community here, although there are many more people than there used to be. when stanley began, the population may have been 18 or 19 people. the first governor imported or recruited a whole heap of ex-military from britain to form a kind of militia, but also to be colonists.