Simon Reeve's South America (2022-…): Season 1, Episode 5 - Chile to Tierra Del Fuego - full transcript
Atacama desert of Chile, Andes mountains to Patagonia, and Tierra del Fuego.
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I'm on a huge journey.
I'm travelling the length
of the Americas,
the two continents that, together,
form more than a quarter
of Earth's land surface.
On this adventure,
I'm travelling down
through South America.
We're in such a remote part
of planet Earth.
It's a journey
of more than 4,000 miles
through some of
the world's greatest landscapes...
..encountering spectacular wildlife.
The cat is on the move.
From its iconic cities
to the Andes Mountains,
it's a continent
of dramatic extremes.
Down!
Along the way,
I meet the inspiring...
Yolanda! Abrazamos?
..and the surprising people...
These guys are Mennonites.
..who make South America
so extraordinary.
CHEERING
There's Wi-Fi here,
nowhere else for miles around,
apparently.
We do our own thing.
We're happy here, man.
WIND WHISTLES
Oh, it's epic! Look at this view!
So, down beneath me,
and all around me,
is the driest desert
on planet Earth, the Atacama.
To get a bit of perspective
on this incredible landscape,
I've taken to the air, paragliding.
I was in Northern Chile,
starting the final leg of my journey
down through South America.
Below me, the Atacama Desert
is 40,000 square miles of sand,
red rock and arid mountains.
It's endlessly, pitilessly dry,
and also one of
the oldest deserts on Earth,
arid for tens of millions of years.
Floating above it was as close
as I'll get to paragliding on Mars.
It's the very particular conditions
of the area here
that make the Atacama what it is.
The snow-capped Andes Mountains
block rain coming from the east,
and the cold upwelling waters
of the Pacific
conspire, really, to mean that,
in some areas of the Atacama,
there is less than
one millimetre of rainfall per year.
Wow!
Now we're just on the edge of
the desert, right next to the sea,
and even here,
there is a human settlement.
This is the industrial city
of Iquique.
Yeah.
All right.
OK.
SIMON LAUGHS
Sorry! Sorry!
Ah! Ah!
That was pretty good, though...
..except for following
the final instructions.
Yes, you forgot.
I forgot the final crucial bit.
Oh, that was astonishing.
It's nice to be back
on solid ground, though.
It might seem bizarre
there's a thriving modern city
plonked down here in such a remote
and extreme corner
of planet Earth...
..but they've been mining
the desert here for centuries,
and Iquique is now
a bit of a boom town.
Chile has been one of the great
South American
economic success stories
in recent decades.
Average income levels here
aren't far off those
in parts of Europe,
partly because Chile exports
enormous quantities of copper.
They make a fortune
from mining copper here,
but Chile's government
has also made Iquique
one of the biggest tax-free ports
in South America,
which means hundreds of firms import
and export electronics, appliances,
toys, booze, and especially clothes.
I drove outside the city
to the fringes of the desert.
This is a strange, barren area...
..right underneath
these looming cliffs.
Oh, my God!
I've just had one of those moments
of awful realisation.
So, what I'm standing on...
..is clothes.
Underneath my feet,
underneath the ground over here,
there are tens of thousands
of tonnes of clothes.
I was above what is basically
a mountain of used,
discarded clothes.
Each year recently, here in Iquique,
it's thought an incredible
60,000 tonnes of clothing
have been dumped illegally.
The council have just
bulldozed it all into the ground,
creating an enormous landfill.
You can see these layers
and layers of clothing
coming out of the ground here.
A pair of trousers here.
It is mad
that we create this clothing
and then so readily throw it away.
It takes more than
three tonnes of water
to produce a pair of jeans...
..and then, boom...
..it's chucked.
Traders here import bales
of recycled clothes
from Europe and the US.
They resell them
across the continent,
and many clothes do find a new home,
but due to the explosion
in so-called fast fashion,
there's now just so much -
a tidal wave of cheap clothing -
that millions of pieces
are dumped here,
showing perhaps
how wasteful we've become.
Bloody hell!
This is a...
This is a...
I almost can't believe it.
So, this is
a 100% pure cashmere jacket.
This is madness.
This was something called
Peterborough Row,
"Only at Bloomingdale's,"
one of the finest stores
in New York.
I'm just staggered.
Clothes with tags on.
These have come
straight from stores.
Ah!
Gap.
It's not quite my size.
We're addicted to clothing trends
and fast fashion.
In the UK, in 2019,
we spent a whopping £61 billion
on new outfits -
the highest level in Europe.
Many clothes are worn
just a few times and then chucked.
And there's an environmental cost.
The clothing industry pollutes.
It's said to use a quarter
of all the chemicals made on Earth.
This is really
the clothing industry's
dirty secret.
This is where fast fashion
and old favourites go to die.
In the UK now,
we throw away something like
13 million items of clothing...
..per week.
I think the clothing industry,
globally,
it has got away
almost under the radar,
environmentally, for far too long.
There's a focus on other industries,
but the clothing industry has
an enormous ecological footprint.
It's responsible for about 10%
of all carbon dioxide emissions.
That's as much as
international flights
and shipping combined.
Just next to the dump
and the sands of the Atacama Desert,
I found a new makeshift settlement
that's sprung up from nothing.
This is a really basic
little shanty area.
It's been chucked together at...
..at relative speed
by people with very little.
It's mostly migrants living out here
in the dust and heat.
Many have made
an extraordinary 3,000-mile journey
from Venezuela to the north,
where the collapsing economy,
poverty and hunger
means almost a quarter
of the population has fled.
It's one of the biggest migrations
in the world,
a humanitarian crisis largely
ignored outside this continent.
At different points on my journey
down through South America,
we've seen the difficulties
facing Venezuelan migrants
as they attempt
to find safety, a job...
..a home, a future.
But this is the furthest south that
I've seen that they've travelled.
My God, they have been through
hell, often, to get here.
Say hello.
I stopped off to meet
some of the new arrivals -
a young couple who made
the gruelling journey from Venezuela
with their two young daughters.
Hiya. Simon? Simon. This is Maria?
And you're...? Mayason. Mayason.
Mayason? Mayason.
So, where have you come from,
and why?
When you say the situation
in Venezuela was complicated,
what do you mean?
What has been the worst bit
of the journey to get here for you?
I can't imagine a situation
where my partner and child,
they're on the road somewhere
and you're, what,
getting phone calls
saying what's happening
and you're trying
to send money to them?
How was it for you?
I feel like we've just
sort of landed in your world
at what looks like
quite an important moment
because you're in the process,
I am guessing,
of building and decorating
your own shop.
Is that right? Is that what
you've got the paint for?
This is a big moment.
This is you two
properly building a future here.
Well, I thought they were fantastic,
inspiring, and genuinely moving.
Thousands of miles from home,
on the edge of the Atacama Desert,
this young couple were building
a future for themselves
and their children, and that future
starts with their little shop.
It's a small space...
..but I reckon
you two could do great things.
What would you like
the outside world to know?
What would you say to other people
in Chile and South America
and elsewhere in the world
about your situation
and the situation of Venezuelans?
Millions of Venezuelans
have now left the country
and they are travelling enormous
distances across South America
to get to somewhere like Chile
in the search for a better future,
an education for their children,
a job.
Not all of them
will end up somewhere like this,
but a lot of them will.
Right, I'm going to be
one of the first customers,
and I would like
a bottle of delicious orange juice
and maybe some Tuareg biscuits,
which look pretty good.
Oh, man! A drink for the whole team.
Brilliant. OK. Gracias!
It's underway!
The shop is happening!
He's a good businessman, as well.
He didn't give me a small bottle.
Gracias!
Buena suerte! Igualmente.
THEY LAUGH
I wish them all the luck
in the world.
It was time to leave the Atacama
and continue
my South American journey
heading ultimately
to the bottom of the continent.
Chile is, of course, the longest,
thinnest country in the world.
Move it over Europe
and it would stretch
from the Arctic Circle
to Southern Spain.
I crossed the border to Argentina
and headed to the capital -
one of my favourite cities.
Buenos Aires was built
on waves of European migration.
In the late 19th century,
millions of Italians and Spaniards,
plus Germans, French,
Poles, Russians, Scandis and Brits
came here seeking their fortune
in the New World.
They poured out
into the rich land of this,
the eighth largest country
on the planet.
Now, Argentina is blessed with
incredible natural resources,
and it's easy to forget now,
but for many decades,
Argentina was one of
the richest countries in the world.
In the late 1800s,
the GDP per capita here
exceeded that
even of the United States.
There was an expression,
"As rich as an Argentinian."
I'd arrived late
and it was getting past my bedtime,
but my guide in Buenos Aires,
Catalina Sarabi-Rouse,
took me across the city
for a drink in a trendy area.
Where we're driving through now,
I mean, it looks... Pretty.
It looks gorgeous. Yeah.
It looks like we're in
an incredibly wealthy,
very European...
It is a very European city,
famously.
It's a nice place, pretty place.
It's pretty cool.
Culturally, intellectually,
emotionally,
so much of this city keeps
its connection with the Old World.
Yeah, and my family,
my great-grandfather,
he was the first one
to come to Argentina, and I'm 26,
so it's not that far away,
for my family,
the first one to come... Right.
..in a boat. So, we all...
Whoever you talk to,
they are going to tell you,
"Oh, yes, my grandfather was
the first one to come to Argentina."
Even into the early 1900s,
this was among
the top ten richest nations,
and then it all went wrong.
Like a punter in a casino
who keeps betting badly,
for decades, Argentina lurched
from one economic disaster
to another.
Over the last 100 years,
no other country in the world
has suffered
such a steep economic decline,
and the problems are still ongoing.
They impact millions,
especially the young.
Cheers. Cheers!
Thanks for bringing us here.
Tuesday night. It's quite cold.
Still, there's people out.
Life goes on, doesn't it?
The thing is that it's not something
that you can do that often.
That's how it works.
I'm 26 years old
and I have to get three jobs.
I end up not being able
to earn enough money
to face my day-to-day -
things I want to spend my money on,
pay your rent, pay your food,
your insurance, your -
I don't know - your phone,
whatever you need.
I gather that
the economic problems here
disproportionately affect the young.
Hmm.
Do you feel that? Do you see it?
I feel it in a way that
it's related with our hopes
and our dreams.
I have lots of friends that
they start deciding,
instead of working here
and trying to make a career here,
they just go abroad
because when they realise that
buying a house will be impossible,
renting a house or a small flat
will be very hard,
and there are not
so many opportunities,
they say, "OK,
maybe if I go to Europe..."
They try different countries.
There's something deeply tragic,
I feel,
about a country
that was so built on immigration
now being such a potential source
of emigration.
Yeah, I have lots of friends
that they decided to just go
and try some luck,
as we say here... Yeah.
..somewhere abroad
because they realise that,
here, things are not that simple.
Here, why should I keep on trying
if everything is so, so hard?
One survey of under-25s in Argentina
suggested seven out of ten of them
want to leave the country
because, despite the glitz
of Buenos Aires,
there is a massive
cost-of-living crisis here.
Any country
most youngsters want to leave
is clearly in dire straits.
The problems here can be pinned on
decades of poor leadership,
economic mismanagement, bad luck,
a self-serving elite, corruption,
and international money markets
turning against the country.
And one aspect of the crisis
impacts everyday life here
perhaps more than any other -
crazy levels of inflation.
So, Catalina is taking me now to,
I suppose,
the heart of the economic problems
of the country.
Is that fair? Yeah.
Where are we going?
We're here - the supermarket.
Come on, let's go.
We've got problems with inflation,
but imagine what it's like
for people here.
At one point, it was 1,000%,
and it was still 60% when I visited.
Well, milk.
Last week, this one -
this milk - was 140.
One week ago. Seriously?
Now it's 160. Exactly.
The price grows week to week.
If we take two, we are going
to win some money this time.
Win some money? So, you're almost...
You're spreading your risk
with that, aren't you? Exactly.
There is another way
we find by saving,
and it's through toilet paper.
OK. I wasn't expecting that! Yeah.
Come with me.
I'm going to show you. Over here.
I'm going to tell you
what my mind is thinking. OK. OK?
I look at how long
the toilet paper is.
Yeah, how many sheets per roll.
Yes. Exactly.
What I think is, "OK,
if I take four of these ones..."
Yeah. "..I will be able
to handle them for -
"I don't know - maybe four months."
So, this way, when I come back
four months from now... Yeah.
..I will find this price
500 by then.
You think it could go up
to 500 pesos,
but you've saved that increase
over the next few months. Exactly.
Inflation means prices keep rising,
but usually wages don't keep pace,
making everything really expensive.
But it's gone on so long here,
people lose track
of what things are actually worth.
In the UK,
those four packs of loo roll,
based on our average salaries,
would be £60.
Oh, wow! Look!
CATALINA LAUGHS
Buenisimo!
There's quite a lot of value
in that, isn't there?
So, if you can fill your house with
toilet paper... I definitely would.
This is gold.
# Ah! #
Big business
and the wealthy elite here
insulate themselves
from the economic problems.
They turn their pesos
into US dollars
and get them out of the country.
Some suspect there's
more Argentinian investment wealth
stashed in American banks
than there is in all of Argentina.
In Latin America, the richest 1%
hold almost half
of all personal wealth.
It's just about THE most
unequal region of the planet.
So, what's this place?
Well, here we are
in a place where they give food
for the little children.
Hola! Hello! Hola!
It's like a food kitchen?
Exactly. It's a food kitchen. Hola!
The poorest in society suffer,
but, here, there's organisation...
Wow! ..and inspiration.
It smells fantastic. It looks
pretty bloody good, as well.
Elena Gonzalez runs a soup kitchen
from the back of her house.
In a country of 45 million,
more than 4 million people
now rely on thousands of food banks
and soup kitchens for sustenance.
Very roughly, how many meals -
individual meals -
do you think
you serve out to people?
Do you pay for this
out of your own pocket?
It's very impressive
to see, actually,
the children at the table here.
Yeah, most of the boys
are waiting for...
..until they all have food to start.
Elena's never been so busy.
Even before the Covid pandemic,
many parents struggled
to put food on the table.
Now, since the pandemic started,
the number of people
living in extreme poverty
on the continent
has risen by 16 million.
Almost two-thirds of Argentina's
children live in poverty.
Communities and countless charities,
like Barrios de Pie,
who fund Elena's kitchen,
fight to help families survive.
So, what's your own personal story,
your background? Can you...?
Can you empathise with the struggles
of the families here?
You had a stroke, I think,
just a few weeks ago.
Why are you still...?
Why are you still doing this?
It must be physically draining.
People like Elena, and others
who run these community kitchens,
are real heroes
in this economic crisis.
Day after day, week after week,
they provide thousands -
hundreds of thousands - of meals,
and often with
very limited resources,
and they do it with ingenuity
and with heart and with love.
I travelled south,
back towards the Andes Mountains
that run like a spine
between Argentina and Chile.
This is completely spectacular.
I'm arriving now into one of
the most glorious landscapes
in all of South America - Patagonia.
The region of Patagonia
covers the south of the continent
on both sides of the Andes.
Its lakes, forests, grasslands
and mountains will keep me company
through to the end
of my South American journey.
There's a little bit of rain,
and we're heading uphill,
because we are climbing up
into the Andes Mountains,
and we're going to cross into Chile.
It's quite exciting
to see snow in the Americas.
Thanks, mate.
I love the extremes
of South America.
On this journey, I've been from
the rainforest of the Amazon
to the largest tropical wetland
in the world - the Pantanal.
There was the dry forest
of the Chaco,
the desert of the Atacama,
and now, here, look at this!
It's like we're in Lapland!
I love South America.
HE CHUCKLES
Down from the cold,
snowy peaks of the Andes,
I drove towards the border
on the Chilean side of Patagonia.
Now we're on the Pacific side
of the Andes again
and it's a lot wetter on this side.
We're into, well,
you were saying rainforest.
Rainforest, cloud forest,
but a much more lush environment
on this side.
Yeah, exactly. Absolutely.
We're now at the official border
with Chile.
There's a long queue.
It's very boring.
Passports, documents.
We need to get across,
then find a hotel
and pick up filming tomorrow.
This heavily forested region
of Patagonia
is the ancestral land
of the Mapuche people -
South America's largest
indigenous group.
There's around 1.5 million Mapuche
in Chile.
Like so many indigenous groups
I'd met on my long journey
through the continent,
the Mapuche no longer own
the expanses of land
that once was theirs.
Much of the land here
is now owned by farmers
and logging companies.
In some places,
old forests have been cleared
and replaced with plantations
of non-native trees -
thirsty, exotic trees
that suck scarce water.
All right.
Juan Pichun campaigns
for these forests
to be returned
to the Mapuche people.
He's been labelled as a militant.
This is eucalyptus, isn't it?
And this is non-native.
This isn't from Chile.
This isn't a South American plant
or a tree, at all, is it?
Is it fair to say, then,
that, as Mapuche,
you're not just angry about
your land being taken from you,
it's also how the land
is now being used?
A lot of Mapuche see these as
almost like the final insult.
It's not just that their land,
as they see it,
has been taken from them,
but it's now being used
for these eucalyptus trees.
There's a growing conflict
over this land.
Forestry is a lucrative industry
in Chile,
generating more than
$2 billion in exports.
Companies don't want to
give that up to the Mapuche,
but I travelled on to an area
where some Mapuche are
resorting to extreme tactics
to push out what they
see as outsiders.
Another burnt-out house.
Mapuche activists here are
targeting logging companies,
farms, and even homes.
Oh, my God!
Can we stop? Can you just stop here?
I'll be able to just jump out.
Bloody hell!
So, this was, say,
a little vineyard -
not so little, actually -
vineyard restaurant,
and a couple of nights ago,
it was burned to the ground.
The talk locally,
and on the news, is that
it's a militant Mapuche group
that is responsible.
It's very hard to know.
I found restaurant owner
Grasiella and her husband, Jose,
surveying the wreckage.
This is my wife's dream
and she had many plans for it.
It's all gone now.
They burned it.
Who is "they"? Well, the...
..terrorists. They are terrorists.
They say they are Mapuche,
but they are terrorists.
They're telling us that
we must leave the area,
and that all the farm owners
must leave, and things like that.
Do they claim your land?
No, not yet,
but it's a matter of time.
They start asking for
more and more and more,
so I think they want everything.
For many years, armed Mapuche groups
have been attacking
the equipment and property
of forestry companies
and large firms.
They've caused hundreds of millions
of pounds' worth of damage.
And then, much more recently,
the groups seem to have started
attacking even small farms
and people have been killed.
This has rapidly become
a crisis in Chile.
The government has declared
a state of emergency in this region.
It was upsetting to hear from those
who've lost livelihoods and farms
to the direct action.
And when you remember what happened
to indigenous people here
after Europeans arrived,
and how they've been oppressed
and marginalised,
even over the last century,
it's also hard not to feel
sympathy for the Mapuche.
The bloody door is broken.
HE GRUNTS
OK.
Over the top.
HE GROANS
And this...is where we're staying.
Oh, look.
"Stop the repression
of the Mapuche people."
This is a gorgeous area
of the country,
but they don't get
as many tourists here,
in part because of the...
I was going to say problems,
but it's a conflict, really.
And, my goodness, it is heating up.
I'd arranged to meet up
with one Mapuche group.
Early start,
and we're heading up a mountain
for a Mapuche New Year ceremony.
It was the middle of winter
in the southern hemisphere -
winter solstice,
the shortest day of the year.
The Mapuche celebrate
the imminent return of the sun.
Elders tell stories
and make offerings to the Earth.
Local Mapuche leader,
Alberto Curamil,
was in charge of
the New Year ceremony.
Alberto, what's happening today?
HORNS PLAY
The Mapuche have a grand
but tragic history.
Renowned as fierce warriors,
they were never actually conquered
or colonised by the Spanish,
but were forcibly incorporated
into the Chilean state
in the late 1800s.
During the brutal dictatorship
of General Pinochet,
which started in 1973,
many Mapuche leaders were murdered,
imprisoned or exiled.
Vast areas of Mapuche territory
was then handed to rich,
connected families
during the 1970s and '80s.
Loggers and miners moved in,
and anger and resentment
still runs deep here.
We've been asked to keep
a bit of a distance...
..which is understandable.
This is a...
These are a traumatised people,
in many ways,
and they don't trust outsiders
entirely,
and they certainly don't trust
people with cameras.
Chile has long lagged behind
other South American countries
in terms of recognition
and protection
of its indigenous peoples.
Many of the Mapuche feel left behind
by the economic growth
this country has experienced
and by what they feel is
discrimination against them.
After Chile returned to
being a democracy in the 1990s,
the government said it would
give land back to the Mapuche,
but progress has
generally been very slow,
and a lot of the Mapuche are saying
they've just really had enough.
Mapuche ancestral territory
covered a vast area of
Southern Chile and Argentina,
stretching from the Pacific
to the Atlantic.
Many now talk of taking it back
and forming their own nation,
which they call Wallmapu.
What tactics are acceptable,
do you believe,
for the Mapuche to reclaim
what you believe is yours?
Alberto is an award-winning champion
of the environment
and indigenous rights.
Like many, he supports
the campaign of sabotage
and he's completely committed.
He's been shot, arrested and jailed
in pursuit of the Mapuche cause.
I was getting closer
to the end of my journey
down through the continent.
From the Amazon to
Bolivia and Paraguay,
I'd met with indigenous groups,
and I'd heard and seen
how they're still struggling.
Many believe the
Mapuche insurrection
is a warning that other
countries in the region
need to address the marginalisation
of their First People.
I think what I've seen here
is actually one of
the most important issues
I've encountered on my journey
down through South America,
on my journey down through
all of the Americas, actually.
How can the millions
of indigenous people
reclaim more of their rights
and their wealth
after hundreds of years of
discrimination and exclusion?
I headed towards
the Pacific coast of Chile,
where I had a ferry to catch.
I'm leaving the mainland now
and I'm heading for
the first of two islands
that I'm visiting on this
final leg of my journey.
This island we're heading to now
is called Chiloe.
The island of Chiloe
is one of hundreds
that pepper the Pacific coast
all the way down to
Tierra del Fuego,
my final destination.
Islanders here have
always relied on fish.
Trawlers would head out
into the ocean,
often for days on end,
to bring back their main catch
of anchovies, mackerel, hake,
as well as shellfish,
like crabs and mussels.
But in the last few decades,
there's been
something of a revolution
in Chile's fishing industry,
and the affects have rippled out
across the ocean
and around the world.
Chilean conservationist
Liesbeth van der Meer
is one of the leaders of Oceana,
a global campaign group
focused on ocean conservation.
She took me to
the local fish market.
So, this is the fish market in...
..for the island, for the town?
Yeah, for the whole island.
So, right here, you have...
This is hake, salmon.
Salmon and...?
Merluza.
Before, we used to have
over ten species here -
native species -
but now you can see
all we get is hake and salmon,
and you can see this in
every single stand repeating itself.
These markets used to be filled
with native fish.
These are giants!
HE SPEAKS SPANISH
He's going to weigh that salmon. OK.
Flippin' heck!
Pesa siete kilos. Seven kilos.
Where would this have come from?
Artisanal fishermen
fished it. Right.
This comes from escaped salmon.
Escaped salmon?
And how can you be so sure
that it's escaped?
Because it's Atlantic salmon.
And we are not by the Atlantic.
Exactly.
Fish farms are the revolution here.
Hundreds of thousands
of Atlantic salmon
have escaped from
farms off the coast
and become an invasive
species in the Pacific.
With few natural predators,
they've caused havoc
in the ecosystem,
and native fish have
taken a hammering.
Fish farming is booming globally,
and Chile's a major player,
second only to Norway as the world's
largest producer of salmon.
About a third of the world's
farmed salmon comes from here,
comes from Chile.
It's an enormous industry.
It supports more than 60,000 jobs.
And I'm hoping that one
of these fishing boats,
if we can just arrange it with them,
is going to take us out
to see where all the
fish are coming from.
Right, success.
I can remember when
salmon was a luxury
we ate at Christmas
as a special treat.
Now, around the planet, we consume
more than 4 million tonnes a year.
That massive change,
for better or worse,
is the result of fish farming.
We can see them jumping, can't we?
Yeah, those are the salmon.
Is there an average for
the amount that's in there?
What are we talking?
This whole facility
probably has around...
..100,000 salmon in there.
100,000 salmon.
Because what you see here,
it's only, you know,
one-tenth of what is actually
underneath the water.
It's almost 40m down,
so 20 floors of a building,
filled with fish.
These fish are very confined.
I mean, you can see them
jumping here. Yeah.
They're extremely confined.
This is why they also get sick,
and they have sea lice.
Sea lice? Ugh!
They... That's a creature
that almost eats away
at their bodies, isn't it?
Exactly, and so we have to use
anti-parasites on them.
These are like insecticides.
And because they're
so close together,
this has become a plague.
So, imagine... A plague? Yes.
Is that what you said? A plague?
Yes. This is exactly like...
Wow. ..in humans, you know,
when their immune system is down,
they're sick, they need antibiotics.
They're crammed into
these small spaces -
relatively small spaces, arguably -
so it's easier for
parasites and disease
to transfer from one to the other.
Exactly.
So, we use 2,500 more
times antibiotics
than Norway does to produce
the same amount of salmon.
Oh, my God!
In Chile, Liesbeth's group, Oceana,
warns that excessive use of drugs
could result in the emergence
of antibiotic-resistant bacteria -
a potential threat to human health.
Oceana also accuses salmon farms of
polluting the sea with pesticides,
salmon faeces and uneaten food.
That, in turn, spurs
the growth of algae,
which starves parts
of the ocean of oxygen.
The fish are moving away.
The oxygen that we used to have here
is not the same quality,
so now there are less fish,
they have to go further,
and maybe the most that
they can find is salmon.
The salmon industry says
it's trying to reduce
the use of antibiotics,
and the Chilean government's trying
to curb the environmental impact
of salmon farming under
pressure from conservationists
and local fishermen
who say they've lost out
because of the
industrial fish farms.
You can see it in
these people. Yeah.
These people are now fishing crab,
but, before, this used to be
very productive waters
with a lot of valuable fish,
and now we're down to
only a few species.
You will see it in the markets,
you will see it in the water,
and that is worrying.
What are you fishing for here?
Right, it's got to be
bigger than that. OK.
How has the salmon farming
affected your fishing?
Chile's fish farm industry
says farmed salmon is actually
one of the most sustainable ways
of creating animal protein.
The aquaculture industry,
as it's known,
says it's one of the best ways
of feeding our burgeoning
human population.
That may well be true,
but hopefully not at the
expense of local fishermen,
the ocean or other fish.
Back on the road, I travelled south
through the forests of Patagonia.
This was the final stretch
of my journey,
as I headed right down
to the bottom of South America.
It's isolated down here,
but on a continent of more
than 400 million people,
it's not empty.
Hola, buen dia.
Hola, buenos dias, caballero.
This ferry is going to take me
to the end of the world -
el fin del mundo.
It's nearly 20 past nine
in the morning,
but I'm so far south
and it's winter,
so the sun's only just coming up.
I was on my way to South
America's biggest island,
which forms the toe
of the continent.
When the explorer Ferdinand Magellan
came this way in the early 1500s,
he saw so many fires
along the beaches
lit by indigenous people
that he named this area
the Land of Smoke.
The Spanish King decided
that was not catchy enough,
and he renamed it the Land of Fire.
This is Tierra del Fuego.
Tierra del Fuego is an archipelago
and the most southerly land on
the planet outside of Antarctica.
It's split between Chile
and Argentina.
It's remote, windswept and
jaw-droppingly beautiful.
This landscape is
absolutely breathtaking.
We've got to stop here, haven't we?
All right, let's go
and have a quick look.
This is the end of the Andes
in South America.
The mountain range really
ends completely in Antarctica,
a few hundred kilometres
to the south,
but, here, this is where it ends
in Argentina and Chile.
You've got the mountains bathed in
this almost candy-floss colour.
I'd seen so much destruction
travelling down
through the Americas,
but also so much beauty,
so much diversity,
so much that is still
left to conserve.
Marcelo Noria is a mountaineer
and my guide through this
majestic and faraway land.
Look at this place. Mm.
You know, all over the world,
there's a lot of people,
they're running all the time.
But here, we have peace.
These trees are very special -
the most southerly forest
on planet Earth.
It is the sub-Antarctic forest.
We are the nearest point
to Antarctica.
Australia is 2,000km more north
than the point we are now.
That is amazing.
I'd travelled 4,000 miles
through a continent stuffed
with spectacular landscapes,
but the end of my journey
really was in sight now.
So, we're now arriving into
the most southerly city
on planet Earth. This is Ushuaia.
The city of Ushuaia is the gateway
to the famous Beagle Channel,
a 150-mile, east-to-west waterway
which links the Atlantic
with the Pacific.
One final treat.
The channel was named after the
ship Charles Darwin sailed on
when he came here
on his famous voyage.
What he found was natural
wonder teeming with life.
"No-one can stand in
these solitudes unmoved,"
he wrote, and he was right.
In the middle of the Beagle Channel
is Sea Lion Island.
SEA LIONS GRUNT
Look at them all!
They're so bloody noisy!
It's brilliant!
The males can actually grow
to almost three metres long.
They can weigh a third of a tonne.
And this whole area's a really
important breeding site for them.
A thriving sea lion colony
needs abundant fish stocks
and a healthy marine environment,
but plans were recently put forward
to introduce salmon farming
in the Beagle Channel.
The farms would bring some jobs
and economic development,
but the people of Tierra del Fuego
worried they would lose out
in other ways.
The people from Argentine
and the Chilean side,
they kayaked in together
and they stayed in the middle
of the Beagle Channel
and held up banners to say,
"No to the salmon. Out, please."
And after that,
the authorities heard the people
and said, "No salmon industry
in the Beagle Channel."
So, the salmon farming was stopped?
People power worked?
The government listened?
Yes, it's true.
I'd already learned salmon farming
can affect biodiversity in the sea.
People here were worried
salmon farms could impact
their tourism industry
and also Mother Nature.
Even down here at the
bottom of the continent,
people are facing
one of the great issues
challenging the rest of
South America and all of us -
how to build an economic future
without destroying the environment.
There is hope.
Vast areas of land across
the south of this continent
have been turned into national
parks and protected areas.
We used to hunt sea lions
in huge numbers.
Now their numbers,
I'm pleased to say,
are pretty stable.
They're fairly protected.
We can protect them,
we can protect this
and we can protect more.
Throughout my journey
through South America,
and down through the Americas,
I'd been awed by the wildlife,
but I'd been left marvelling
at the sheer wonder of humanity,
and I'd been overwhelmed
by a desperate hope
that we will get better at
looking after our only home.
I'm really coming to the end now.
I feel very emotional.
These have been the greatest
journeys of my life.
I've travelled the length of the
two continents that, together,
form more than a quarter
of Earth's land surface.
It's been such an honour,
such a privilege.
Thank you so much to
everybody I've met
and all those who've
joined me on this journey.
It's been amazing...
..but this is the end.
---
I'm on a huge journey.
I'm travelling the length
of the Americas,
the two continents that, together,
form more than a quarter
of Earth's land surface.
On this adventure,
I'm travelling down
through South America.
We're in such a remote part
of planet Earth.
It's a journey
of more than 4,000 miles
through some of
the world's greatest landscapes...
..encountering spectacular wildlife.
The cat is on the move.
From its iconic cities
to the Andes Mountains,
it's a continent
of dramatic extremes.
Down!
Along the way,
I meet the inspiring...
Yolanda! Abrazamos?
..and the surprising people...
These guys are Mennonites.
..who make South America
so extraordinary.
CHEERING
There's Wi-Fi here,
nowhere else for miles around,
apparently.
We do our own thing.
We're happy here, man.
WIND WHISTLES
Oh, it's epic! Look at this view!
So, down beneath me,
and all around me,
is the driest desert
on planet Earth, the Atacama.
To get a bit of perspective
on this incredible landscape,
I've taken to the air, paragliding.
I was in Northern Chile,
starting the final leg of my journey
down through South America.
Below me, the Atacama Desert
is 40,000 square miles of sand,
red rock and arid mountains.
It's endlessly, pitilessly dry,
and also one of
the oldest deserts on Earth,
arid for tens of millions of years.
Floating above it was as close
as I'll get to paragliding on Mars.
It's the very particular conditions
of the area here
that make the Atacama what it is.
The snow-capped Andes Mountains
block rain coming from the east,
and the cold upwelling waters
of the Pacific
conspire, really, to mean that,
in some areas of the Atacama,
there is less than
one millimetre of rainfall per year.
Wow!
Now we're just on the edge of
the desert, right next to the sea,
and even here,
there is a human settlement.
This is the industrial city
of Iquique.
Yeah.
All right.
OK.
SIMON LAUGHS
Sorry! Sorry!
Ah! Ah!
That was pretty good, though...
..except for following
the final instructions.
Yes, you forgot.
I forgot the final crucial bit.
Oh, that was astonishing.
It's nice to be back
on solid ground, though.
It might seem bizarre
there's a thriving modern city
plonked down here in such a remote
and extreme corner
of planet Earth...
..but they've been mining
the desert here for centuries,
and Iquique is now
a bit of a boom town.
Chile has been one of the great
South American
economic success stories
in recent decades.
Average income levels here
aren't far off those
in parts of Europe,
partly because Chile exports
enormous quantities of copper.
They make a fortune
from mining copper here,
but Chile's government
has also made Iquique
one of the biggest tax-free ports
in South America,
which means hundreds of firms import
and export electronics, appliances,
toys, booze, and especially clothes.
I drove outside the city
to the fringes of the desert.
This is a strange, barren area...
..right underneath
these looming cliffs.
Oh, my God!
I've just had one of those moments
of awful realisation.
So, what I'm standing on...
..is clothes.
Underneath my feet,
underneath the ground over here,
there are tens of thousands
of tonnes of clothes.
I was above what is basically
a mountain of used,
discarded clothes.
Each year recently, here in Iquique,
it's thought an incredible
60,000 tonnes of clothing
have been dumped illegally.
The council have just
bulldozed it all into the ground,
creating an enormous landfill.
You can see these layers
and layers of clothing
coming out of the ground here.
A pair of trousers here.
It is mad
that we create this clothing
and then so readily throw it away.
It takes more than
three tonnes of water
to produce a pair of jeans...
..and then, boom...
..it's chucked.
Traders here import bales
of recycled clothes
from Europe and the US.
They resell them
across the continent,
and many clothes do find a new home,
but due to the explosion
in so-called fast fashion,
there's now just so much -
a tidal wave of cheap clothing -
that millions of pieces
are dumped here,
showing perhaps
how wasteful we've become.
Bloody hell!
This is a...
This is a...
I almost can't believe it.
So, this is
a 100% pure cashmere jacket.
This is madness.
This was something called
Peterborough Row,
"Only at Bloomingdale's,"
one of the finest stores
in New York.
I'm just staggered.
Clothes with tags on.
These have come
straight from stores.
Ah!
Gap.
It's not quite my size.
We're addicted to clothing trends
and fast fashion.
In the UK, in 2019,
we spent a whopping £61 billion
on new outfits -
the highest level in Europe.
Many clothes are worn
just a few times and then chucked.
And there's an environmental cost.
The clothing industry pollutes.
It's said to use a quarter
of all the chemicals made on Earth.
This is really
the clothing industry's
dirty secret.
This is where fast fashion
and old favourites go to die.
In the UK now,
we throw away something like
13 million items of clothing...
..per week.
I think the clothing industry,
globally,
it has got away
almost under the radar,
environmentally, for far too long.
There's a focus on other industries,
but the clothing industry has
an enormous ecological footprint.
It's responsible for about 10%
of all carbon dioxide emissions.
That's as much as
international flights
and shipping combined.
Just next to the dump
and the sands of the Atacama Desert,
I found a new makeshift settlement
that's sprung up from nothing.
This is a really basic
little shanty area.
It's been chucked together at...
..at relative speed
by people with very little.
It's mostly migrants living out here
in the dust and heat.
Many have made
an extraordinary 3,000-mile journey
from Venezuela to the north,
where the collapsing economy,
poverty and hunger
means almost a quarter
of the population has fled.
It's one of the biggest migrations
in the world,
a humanitarian crisis largely
ignored outside this continent.
At different points on my journey
down through South America,
we've seen the difficulties
facing Venezuelan migrants
as they attempt
to find safety, a job...
..a home, a future.
But this is the furthest south that
I've seen that they've travelled.
My God, they have been through
hell, often, to get here.
Say hello.
I stopped off to meet
some of the new arrivals -
a young couple who made
the gruelling journey from Venezuela
with their two young daughters.
Hiya. Simon? Simon. This is Maria?
And you're...? Mayason. Mayason.
Mayason? Mayason.
So, where have you come from,
and why?
When you say the situation
in Venezuela was complicated,
what do you mean?
What has been the worst bit
of the journey to get here for you?
I can't imagine a situation
where my partner and child,
they're on the road somewhere
and you're, what,
getting phone calls
saying what's happening
and you're trying
to send money to them?
How was it for you?
I feel like we've just
sort of landed in your world
at what looks like
quite an important moment
because you're in the process,
I am guessing,
of building and decorating
your own shop.
Is that right? Is that what
you've got the paint for?
This is a big moment.
This is you two
properly building a future here.
Well, I thought they were fantastic,
inspiring, and genuinely moving.
Thousands of miles from home,
on the edge of the Atacama Desert,
this young couple were building
a future for themselves
and their children, and that future
starts with their little shop.
It's a small space...
..but I reckon
you two could do great things.
What would you like
the outside world to know?
What would you say to other people
in Chile and South America
and elsewhere in the world
about your situation
and the situation of Venezuelans?
Millions of Venezuelans
have now left the country
and they are travelling enormous
distances across South America
to get to somewhere like Chile
in the search for a better future,
an education for their children,
a job.
Not all of them
will end up somewhere like this,
but a lot of them will.
Right, I'm going to be
one of the first customers,
and I would like
a bottle of delicious orange juice
and maybe some Tuareg biscuits,
which look pretty good.
Oh, man! A drink for the whole team.
Brilliant. OK. Gracias!
It's underway!
The shop is happening!
He's a good businessman, as well.
He didn't give me a small bottle.
Gracias!
Buena suerte! Igualmente.
THEY LAUGH
I wish them all the luck
in the world.
It was time to leave the Atacama
and continue
my South American journey
heading ultimately
to the bottom of the continent.
Chile is, of course, the longest,
thinnest country in the world.
Move it over Europe
and it would stretch
from the Arctic Circle
to Southern Spain.
I crossed the border to Argentina
and headed to the capital -
one of my favourite cities.
Buenos Aires was built
on waves of European migration.
In the late 19th century,
millions of Italians and Spaniards,
plus Germans, French,
Poles, Russians, Scandis and Brits
came here seeking their fortune
in the New World.
They poured out
into the rich land of this,
the eighth largest country
on the planet.
Now, Argentina is blessed with
incredible natural resources,
and it's easy to forget now,
but for many decades,
Argentina was one of
the richest countries in the world.
In the late 1800s,
the GDP per capita here
exceeded that
even of the United States.
There was an expression,
"As rich as an Argentinian."
I'd arrived late
and it was getting past my bedtime,
but my guide in Buenos Aires,
Catalina Sarabi-Rouse,
took me across the city
for a drink in a trendy area.
Where we're driving through now,
I mean, it looks... Pretty.
It looks gorgeous. Yeah.
It looks like we're in
an incredibly wealthy,
very European...
It is a very European city,
famously.
It's a nice place, pretty place.
It's pretty cool.
Culturally, intellectually,
emotionally,
so much of this city keeps
its connection with the Old World.
Yeah, and my family,
my great-grandfather,
he was the first one
to come to Argentina, and I'm 26,
so it's not that far away,
for my family,
the first one to come... Right.
..in a boat. So, we all...
Whoever you talk to,
they are going to tell you,
"Oh, yes, my grandfather was
the first one to come to Argentina."
Even into the early 1900s,
this was among
the top ten richest nations,
and then it all went wrong.
Like a punter in a casino
who keeps betting badly,
for decades, Argentina lurched
from one economic disaster
to another.
Over the last 100 years,
no other country in the world
has suffered
such a steep economic decline,
and the problems are still ongoing.
They impact millions,
especially the young.
Cheers. Cheers!
Thanks for bringing us here.
Tuesday night. It's quite cold.
Still, there's people out.
Life goes on, doesn't it?
The thing is that it's not something
that you can do that often.
That's how it works.
I'm 26 years old
and I have to get three jobs.
I end up not being able
to earn enough money
to face my day-to-day -
things I want to spend my money on,
pay your rent, pay your food,
your insurance, your -
I don't know - your phone,
whatever you need.
I gather that
the economic problems here
disproportionately affect the young.
Hmm.
Do you feel that? Do you see it?
I feel it in a way that
it's related with our hopes
and our dreams.
I have lots of friends that
they start deciding,
instead of working here
and trying to make a career here,
they just go abroad
because when they realise that
buying a house will be impossible,
renting a house or a small flat
will be very hard,
and there are not
so many opportunities,
they say, "OK,
maybe if I go to Europe..."
They try different countries.
There's something deeply tragic,
I feel,
about a country
that was so built on immigration
now being such a potential source
of emigration.
Yeah, I have lots of friends
that they decided to just go
and try some luck,
as we say here... Yeah.
..somewhere abroad
because they realise that,
here, things are not that simple.
Here, why should I keep on trying
if everything is so, so hard?
One survey of under-25s in Argentina
suggested seven out of ten of them
want to leave the country
because, despite the glitz
of Buenos Aires,
there is a massive
cost-of-living crisis here.
Any country
most youngsters want to leave
is clearly in dire straits.
The problems here can be pinned on
decades of poor leadership,
economic mismanagement, bad luck,
a self-serving elite, corruption,
and international money markets
turning against the country.
And one aspect of the crisis
impacts everyday life here
perhaps more than any other -
crazy levels of inflation.
So, Catalina is taking me now to,
I suppose,
the heart of the economic problems
of the country.
Is that fair? Yeah.
Where are we going?
We're here - the supermarket.
Come on, let's go.
We've got problems with inflation,
but imagine what it's like
for people here.
At one point, it was 1,000%,
and it was still 60% when I visited.
Well, milk.
Last week, this one -
this milk - was 140.
One week ago. Seriously?
Now it's 160. Exactly.
The price grows week to week.
If we take two, we are going
to win some money this time.
Win some money? So, you're almost...
You're spreading your risk
with that, aren't you? Exactly.
There is another way
we find by saving,
and it's through toilet paper.
OK. I wasn't expecting that! Yeah.
Come with me.
I'm going to show you. Over here.
I'm going to tell you
what my mind is thinking. OK. OK?
I look at how long
the toilet paper is.
Yeah, how many sheets per roll.
Yes. Exactly.
What I think is, "OK,
if I take four of these ones..."
Yeah. "..I will be able
to handle them for -
"I don't know - maybe four months."
So, this way, when I come back
four months from now... Yeah.
..I will find this price
500 by then.
You think it could go up
to 500 pesos,
but you've saved that increase
over the next few months. Exactly.
Inflation means prices keep rising,
but usually wages don't keep pace,
making everything really expensive.
But it's gone on so long here,
people lose track
of what things are actually worth.
In the UK,
those four packs of loo roll,
based on our average salaries,
would be £60.
Oh, wow! Look!
CATALINA LAUGHS
Buenisimo!
There's quite a lot of value
in that, isn't there?
So, if you can fill your house with
toilet paper... I definitely would.
This is gold.
# Ah! #
Big business
and the wealthy elite here
insulate themselves
from the economic problems.
They turn their pesos
into US dollars
and get them out of the country.
Some suspect there's
more Argentinian investment wealth
stashed in American banks
than there is in all of Argentina.
In Latin America, the richest 1%
hold almost half
of all personal wealth.
It's just about THE most
unequal region of the planet.
So, what's this place?
Well, here we are
in a place where they give food
for the little children.
Hola! Hello! Hola!
It's like a food kitchen?
Exactly. It's a food kitchen. Hola!
The poorest in society suffer,
but, here, there's organisation...
Wow! ..and inspiration.
It smells fantastic. It looks
pretty bloody good, as well.
Elena Gonzalez runs a soup kitchen
from the back of her house.
In a country of 45 million,
more than 4 million people
now rely on thousands of food banks
and soup kitchens for sustenance.
Very roughly, how many meals -
individual meals -
do you think
you serve out to people?
Do you pay for this
out of your own pocket?
It's very impressive
to see, actually,
the children at the table here.
Yeah, most of the boys
are waiting for...
..until they all have food to start.
Elena's never been so busy.
Even before the Covid pandemic,
many parents struggled
to put food on the table.
Now, since the pandemic started,
the number of people
living in extreme poverty
on the continent
has risen by 16 million.
Almost two-thirds of Argentina's
children live in poverty.
Communities and countless charities,
like Barrios de Pie,
who fund Elena's kitchen,
fight to help families survive.
So, what's your own personal story,
your background? Can you...?
Can you empathise with the struggles
of the families here?
You had a stroke, I think,
just a few weeks ago.
Why are you still...?
Why are you still doing this?
It must be physically draining.
People like Elena, and others
who run these community kitchens,
are real heroes
in this economic crisis.
Day after day, week after week,
they provide thousands -
hundreds of thousands - of meals,
and often with
very limited resources,
and they do it with ingenuity
and with heart and with love.
I travelled south,
back towards the Andes Mountains
that run like a spine
between Argentina and Chile.
This is completely spectacular.
I'm arriving now into one of
the most glorious landscapes
in all of South America - Patagonia.
The region of Patagonia
covers the south of the continent
on both sides of the Andes.
Its lakes, forests, grasslands
and mountains will keep me company
through to the end
of my South American journey.
There's a little bit of rain,
and we're heading uphill,
because we are climbing up
into the Andes Mountains,
and we're going to cross into Chile.
It's quite exciting
to see snow in the Americas.
Thanks, mate.
I love the extremes
of South America.
On this journey, I've been from
the rainforest of the Amazon
to the largest tropical wetland
in the world - the Pantanal.
There was the dry forest
of the Chaco,
the desert of the Atacama,
and now, here, look at this!
It's like we're in Lapland!
I love South America.
HE CHUCKLES
Down from the cold,
snowy peaks of the Andes,
I drove towards the border
on the Chilean side of Patagonia.
Now we're on the Pacific side
of the Andes again
and it's a lot wetter on this side.
We're into, well,
you were saying rainforest.
Rainforest, cloud forest,
but a much more lush environment
on this side.
Yeah, exactly. Absolutely.
We're now at the official border
with Chile.
There's a long queue.
It's very boring.
Passports, documents.
We need to get across,
then find a hotel
and pick up filming tomorrow.
This heavily forested region
of Patagonia
is the ancestral land
of the Mapuche people -
South America's largest
indigenous group.
There's around 1.5 million Mapuche
in Chile.
Like so many indigenous groups
I'd met on my long journey
through the continent,
the Mapuche no longer own
the expanses of land
that once was theirs.
Much of the land here
is now owned by farmers
and logging companies.
In some places,
old forests have been cleared
and replaced with plantations
of non-native trees -
thirsty, exotic trees
that suck scarce water.
All right.
Juan Pichun campaigns
for these forests
to be returned
to the Mapuche people.
He's been labelled as a militant.
This is eucalyptus, isn't it?
And this is non-native.
This isn't from Chile.
This isn't a South American plant
or a tree, at all, is it?
Is it fair to say, then,
that, as Mapuche,
you're not just angry about
your land being taken from you,
it's also how the land
is now being used?
A lot of Mapuche see these as
almost like the final insult.
It's not just that their land,
as they see it,
has been taken from them,
but it's now being used
for these eucalyptus trees.
There's a growing conflict
over this land.
Forestry is a lucrative industry
in Chile,
generating more than
$2 billion in exports.
Companies don't want to
give that up to the Mapuche,
but I travelled on to an area
where some Mapuche are
resorting to extreme tactics
to push out what they
see as outsiders.
Another burnt-out house.
Mapuche activists here are
targeting logging companies,
farms, and even homes.
Oh, my God!
Can we stop? Can you just stop here?
I'll be able to just jump out.
Bloody hell!
So, this was, say,
a little vineyard -
not so little, actually -
vineyard restaurant,
and a couple of nights ago,
it was burned to the ground.
The talk locally,
and on the news, is that
it's a militant Mapuche group
that is responsible.
It's very hard to know.
I found restaurant owner
Grasiella and her husband, Jose,
surveying the wreckage.
This is my wife's dream
and she had many plans for it.
It's all gone now.
They burned it.
Who is "they"? Well, the...
..terrorists. They are terrorists.
They say they are Mapuche,
but they are terrorists.
They're telling us that
we must leave the area,
and that all the farm owners
must leave, and things like that.
Do they claim your land?
No, not yet,
but it's a matter of time.
They start asking for
more and more and more,
so I think they want everything.
For many years, armed Mapuche groups
have been attacking
the equipment and property
of forestry companies
and large firms.
They've caused hundreds of millions
of pounds' worth of damage.
And then, much more recently,
the groups seem to have started
attacking even small farms
and people have been killed.
This has rapidly become
a crisis in Chile.
The government has declared
a state of emergency in this region.
It was upsetting to hear from those
who've lost livelihoods and farms
to the direct action.
And when you remember what happened
to indigenous people here
after Europeans arrived,
and how they've been oppressed
and marginalised,
even over the last century,
it's also hard not to feel
sympathy for the Mapuche.
The bloody door is broken.
HE GRUNTS
OK.
Over the top.
HE GROANS
And this...is where we're staying.
Oh, look.
"Stop the repression
of the Mapuche people."
This is a gorgeous area
of the country,
but they don't get
as many tourists here,
in part because of the...
I was going to say problems,
but it's a conflict, really.
And, my goodness, it is heating up.
I'd arranged to meet up
with one Mapuche group.
Early start,
and we're heading up a mountain
for a Mapuche New Year ceremony.
It was the middle of winter
in the southern hemisphere -
winter solstice,
the shortest day of the year.
The Mapuche celebrate
the imminent return of the sun.
Elders tell stories
and make offerings to the Earth.
Local Mapuche leader,
Alberto Curamil,
was in charge of
the New Year ceremony.
Alberto, what's happening today?
HORNS PLAY
The Mapuche have a grand
but tragic history.
Renowned as fierce warriors,
they were never actually conquered
or colonised by the Spanish,
but were forcibly incorporated
into the Chilean state
in the late 1800s.
During the brutal dictatorship
of General Pinochet,
which started in 1973,
many Mapuche leaders were murdered,
imprisoned or exiled.
Vast areas of Mapuche territory
was then handed to rich,
connected families
during the 1970s and '80s.
Loggers and miners moved in,
and anger and resentment
still runs deep here.
We've been asked to keep
a bit of a distance...
..which is understandable.
This is a...
These are a traumatised people,
in many ways,
and they don't trust outsiders
entirely,
and they certainly don't trust
people with cameras.
Chile has long lagged behind
other South American countries
in terms of recognition
and protection
of its indigenous peoples.
Many of the Mapuche feel left behind
by the economic growth
this country has experienced
and by what they feel is
discrimination against them.
After Chile returned to
being a democracy in the 1990s,
the government said it would
give land back to the Mapuche,
but progress has
generally been very slow,
and a lot of the Mapuche are saying
they've just really had enough.
Mapuche ancestral territory
covered a vast area of
Southern Chile and Argentina,
stretching from the Pacific
to the Atlantic.
Many now talk of taking it back
and forming their own nation,
which they call Wallmapu.
What tactics are acceptable,
do you believe,
for the Mapuche to reclaim
what you believe is yours?
Alberto is an award-winning champion
of the environment
and indigenous rights.
Like many, he supports
the campaign of sabotage
and he's completely committed.
He's been shot, arrested and jailed
in pursuit of the Mapuche cause.
I was getting closer
to the end of my journey
down through the continent.
From the Amazon to
Bolivia and Paraguay,
I'd met with indigenous groups,
and I'd heard and seen
how they're still struggling.
Many believe the
Mapuche insurrection
is a warning that other
countries in the region
need to address the marginalisation
of their First People.
I think what I've seen here
is actually one of
the most important issues
I've encountered on my journey
down through South America,
on my journey down through
all of the Americas, actually.
How can the millions
of indigenous people
reclaim more of their rights
and their wealth
after hundreds of years of
discrimination and exclusion?
I headed towards
the Pacific coast of Chile,
where I had a ferry to catch.
I'm leaving the mainland now
and I'm heading for
the first of two islands
that I'm visiting on this
final leg of my journey.
This island we're heading to now
is called Chiloe.
The island of Chiloe
is one of hundreds
that pepper the Pacific coast
all the way down to
Tierra del Fuego,
my final destination.
Islanders here have
always relied on fish.
Trawlers would head out
into the ocean,
often for days on end,
to bring back their main catch
of anchovies, mackerel, hake,
as well as shellfish,
like crabs and mussels.
But in the last few decades,
there's been
something of a revolution
in Chile's fishing industry,
and the affects have rippled out
across the ocean
and around the world.
Chilean conservationist
Liesbeth van der Meer
is one of the leaders of Oceana,
a global campaign group
focused on ocean conservation.
She took me to
the local fish market.
So, this is the fish market in...
..for the island, for the town?
Yeah, for the whole island.
So, right here, you have...
This is hake, salmon.
Salmon and...?
Merluza.
Before, we used to have
over ten species here -
native species -
but now you can see
all we get is hake and salmon,
and you can see this in
every single stand repeating itself.
These markets used to be filled
with native fish.
These are giants!
HE SPEAKS SPANISH
He's going to weigh that salmon. OK.
Flippin' heck!
Pesa siete kilos. Seven kilos.
Where would this have come from?
Artisanal fishermen
fished it. Right.
This comes from escaped salmon.
Escaped salmon?
And how can you be so sure
that it's escaped?
Because it's Atlantic salmon.
And we are not by the Atlantic.
Exactly.
Fish farms are the revolution here.
Hundreds of thousands
of Atlantic salmon
have escaped from
farms off the coast
and become an invasive
species in the Pacific.
With few natural predators,
they've caused havoc
in the ecosystem,
and native fish have
taken a hammering.
Fish farming is booming globally,
and Chile's a major player,
second only to Norway as the world's
largest producer of salmon.
About a third of the world's
farmed salmon comes from here,
comes from Chile.
It's an enormous industry.
It supports more than 60,000 jobs.
And I'm hoping that one
of these fishing boats,
if we can just arrange it with them,
is going to take us out
to see where all the
fish are coming from.
Right, success.
I can remember when
salmon was a luxury
we ate at Christmas
as a special treat.
Now, around the planet, we consume
more than 4 million tonnes a year.
That massive change,
for better or worse,
is the result of fish farming.
We can see them jumping, can't we?
Yeah, those are the salmon.
Is there an average for
the amount that's in there?
What are we talking?
This whole facility
probably has around...
..100,000 salmon in there.
100,000 salmon.
Because what you see here,
it's only, you know,
one-tenth of what is actually
underneath the water.
It's almost 40m down,
so 20 floors of a building,
filled with fish.
These fish are very confined.
I mean, you can see them
jumping here. Yeah.
They're extremely confined.
This is why they also get sick,
and they have sea lice.
Sea lice? Ugh!
They... That's a creature
that almost eats away
at their bodies, isn't it?
Exactly, and so we have to use
anti-parasites on them.
These are like insecticides.
And because they're
so close together,
this has become a plague.
So, imagine... A plague? Yes.
Is that what you said? A plague?
Yes. This is exactly like...
Wow. ..in humans, you know,
when their immune system is down,
they're sick, they need antibiotics.
They're crammed into
these small spaces -
relatively small spaces, arguably -
so it's easier for
parasites and disease
to transfer from one to the other.
Exactly.
So, we use 2,500 more
times antibiotics
than Norway does to produce
the same amount of salmon.
Oh, my God!
In Chile, Liesbeth's group, Oceana,
warns that excessive use of drugs
could result in the emergence
of antibiotic-resistant bacteria -
a potential threat to human health.
Oceana also accuses salmon farms of
polluting the sea with pesticides,
salmon faeces and uneaten food.
That, in turn, spurs
the growth of algae,
which starves parts
of the ocean of oxygen.
The fish are moving away.
The oxygen that we used to have here
is not the same quality,
so now there are less fish,
they have to go further,
and maybe the most that
they can find is salmon.
The salmon industry says
it's trying to reduce
the use of antibiotics,
and the Chilean government's trying
to curb the environmental impact
of salmon farming under
pressure from conservationists
and local fishermen
who say they've lost out
because of the
industrial fish farms.
You can see it in
these people. Yeah.
These people are now fishing crab,
but, before, this used to be
very productive waters
with a lot of valuable fish,
and now we're down to
only a few species.
You will see it in the markets,
you will see it in the water,
and that is worrying.
What are you fishing for here?
Right, it's got to be
bigger than that. OK.
How has the salmon farming
affected your fishing?
Chile's fish farm industry
says farmed salmon is actually
one of the most sustainable ways
of creating animal protein.
The aquaculture industry,
as it's known,
says it's one of the best ways
of feeding our burgeoning
human population.
That may well be true,
but hopefully not at the
expense of local fishermen,
the ocean or other fish.
Back on the road, I travelled south
through the forests of Patagonia.
This was the final stretch
of my journey,
as I headed right down
to the bottom of South America.
It's isolated down here,
but on a continent of more
than 400 million people,
it's not empty.
Hola, buen dia.
Hola, buenos dias, caballero.
This ferry is going to take me
to the end of the world -
el fin del mundo.
It's nearly 20 past nine
in the morning,
but I'm so far south
and it's winter,
so the sun's only just coming up.
I was on my way to South
America's biggest island,
which forms the toe
of the continent.
When the explorer Ferdinand Magellan
came this way in the early 1500s,
he saw so many fires
along the beaches
lit by indigenous people
that he named this area
the Land of Smoke.
The Spanish King decided
that was not catchy enough,
and he renamed it the Land of Fire.
This is Tierra del Fuego.
Tierra del Fuego is an archipelago
and the most southerly land on
the planet outside of Antarctica.
It's split between Chile
and Argentina.
It's remote, windswept and
jaw-droppingly beautiful.
This landscape is
absolutely breathtaking.
We've got to stop here, haven't we?
All right, let's go
and have a quick look.
This is the end of the Andes
in South America.
The mountain range really
ends completely in Antarctica,
a few hundred kilometres
to the south,
but, here, this is where it ends
in Argentina and Chile.
You've got the mountains bathed in
this almost candy-floss colour.
I'd seen so much destruction
travelling down
through the Americas,
but also so much beauty,
so much diversity,
so much that is still
left to conserve.
Marcelo Noria is a mountaineer
and my guide through this
majestic and faraway land.
Look at this place. Mm.
You know, all over the world,
there's a lot of people,
they're running all the time.
But here, we have peace.
These trees are very special -
the most southerly forest
on planet Earth.
It is the sub-Antarctic forest.
We are the nearest point
to Antarctica.
Australia is 2,000km more north
than the point we are now.
That is amazing.
I'd travelled 4,000 miles
through a continent stuffed
with spectacular landscapes,
but the end of my journey
really was in sight now.
So, we're now arriving into
the most southerly city
on planet Earth. This is Ushuaia.
The city of Ushuaia is the gateway
to the famous Beagle Channel,
a 150-mile, east-to-west waterway
which links the Atlantic
with the Pacific.
One final treat.
The channel was named after the
ship Charles Darwin sailed on
when he came here
on his famous voyage.
What he found was natural
wonder teeming with life.
"No-one can stand in
these solitudes unmoved,"
he wrote, and he was right.
In the middle of the Beagle Channel
is Sea Lion Island.
SEA LIONS GRUNT
Look at them all!
They're so bloody noisy!
It's brilliant!
The males can actually grow
to almost three metres long.
They can weigh a third of a tonne.
And this whole area's a really
important breeding site for them.
A thriving sea lion colony
needs abundant fish stocks
and a healthy marine environment,
but plans were recently put forward
to introduce salmon farming
in the Beagle Channel.
The farms would bring some jobs
and economic development,
but the people of Tierra del Fuego
worried they would lose out
in other ways.
The people from Argentine
and the Chilean side,
they kayaked in together
and they stayed in the middle
of the Beagle Channel
and held up banners to say,
"No to the salmon. Out, please."
And after that,
the authorities heard the people
and said, "No salmon industry
in the Beagle Channel."
So, the salmon farming was stopped?
People power worked?
The government listened?
Yes, it's true.
I'd already learned salmon farming
can affect biodiversity in the sea.
People here were worried
salmon farms could impact
their tourism industry
and also Mother Nature.
Even down here at the
bottom of the continent,
people are facing
one of the great issues
challenging the rest of
South America and all of us -
how to build an economic future
without destroying the environment.
There is hope.
Vast areas of land across
the south of this continent
have been turned into national
parks and protected areas.
We used to hunt sea lions
in huge numbers.
Now their numbers,
I'm pleased to say,
are pretty stable.
They're fairly protected.
We can protect them,
we can protect this
and we can protect more.
Throughout my journey
through South America,
and down through the Americas,
I'd been awed by the wildlife,
but I'd been left marvelling
at the sheer wonder of humanity,
and I'd been overwhelmed
by a desperate hope
that we will get better at
looking after our only home.
I'm really coming to the end now.
I feel very emotional.
These have been the greatest
journeys of my life.
I've travelled the length of the
two continents that, together,
form more than a quarter
of Earth's land surface.
It's been such an honour,
such a privilege.
Thank you so much to
everybody I've met
and all those who've
joined me on this journey.
It's been amazing...
..but this is the end.