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00:00Do you trust me?
00:01Do you trust me?
00:02And we're off.
00:03Imagine starting your life all over again.
00:07Where is Ben?
00:08I'm needed.
00:08Ben, you're needed.
00:10Leaving behind everything you know.
00:12Just a bicycle, suitcase, no money.
00:15That's all I had.
00:16For something completely different.
00:18Number nine, let me take this off.
00:20Number nine, number nine, number nine.
00:22I'm Ben Fogel, and over the next few weeks,
00:25I'm going to live with the incredible people who've done just that.
00:29I'm a born fighter, and that's what I do get a kick out of.
00:33For a long time, I thought I was stupid.
00:36But I'm a good salesperson, and I'm still on this mountain hard.
00:40In some of the most remote places on Earth.
00:43There is no restaurants, there is no bars, there is no nothing.
00:47You know, we didn't think that we were going to come up here
00:49and not see humans for three to four months at a time.
00:52And see what it takes to live a new life in the wild.
00:57That is a quick way to take down a tree.
01:08This week, I'm in Uganda,
01:10where my host Ali has swapped a career reporting from the front lines
01:14for a remote island in Lake Victoria.
01:17Oh, look at this.
01:19I'll discover why she settled in a country
01:21where she experienced the brutality of conflict up close.
01:25I've always been driven by that need to tell a story
01:28that nobody else wants to tell.
01:30Because if it's not told, it stays silent.
01:32Nobody will help.
01:33And despite nearly losing it all...
01:35The lodge was mostly knocked down, all the buildings we'd built.
01:39I mean, I was so broken by it.
01:41Hang on a minute.
01:42How her extraordinary relationship with the place and the people
01:47has given her the fight to start a new battle.
01:51If I give up, then everybody loses their livelihoods.
01:57My journey takes me over 3,500 miles to Entebbe, Uganda.
02:03It's then one hour by water taxi across the famed Lake Victoria.
02:07It's incredible to think this is not an ocean.
02:14Second biggest lake in the world.
02:16Biggest tropical lake in the world.
02:18And it is immense.
02:20So this part's Uganda, but you've got Kenya just over there
02:23and Tanzania all the way along the other side.
02:28I've actually met Ali fleetingly while I was passing through
02:31a couple of years ago.
02:33I know she was a war correspondent,
02:34but I don't really know how she ended up here
02:38in the middle of Lake Victoria.
02:40She intrigued me enough to bring me all the way back.
02:47Thank you so much.
02:49Come on, dogs.
02:50Let's go meet Ben.
02:52Come on.
02:54Hello.
02:55Hello, everyone.
02:56Hey, Ali.
02:57Hi.
02:57Hello, dear.
02:58Welcome to a one-minute south of the equator.
03:01We've just passed it.
03:03One mile.
03:03This place is magical.
03:05Look at your beach.
03:05In a landlocked country.
03:07Nice.
03:07Come on in.
03:08Thank you so much.
03:10Born in 1959,
03:12Alison was a rebellious child who never settled in school,
03:16but buckled down to earn a degree in media studies,
03:19where she picked up a camera for the first time.
03:22A life-changing offer took her to the front lines in Afghanistan,
03:26launching her career as a buccaneering war camerawoman,
03:29taking her to some of the most brutal conflicts of the late 20th century.
03:34And in 1985, she was part of the only team to film Uganda's bushwalk.
03:41Ali and her partner then raised two children in the English countryside,
03:45in between her trips to war zones.
03:47But by the mid-90s, disillusioned with work in the UK,
03:52she returned to Uganda.
03:54And a few years later, at the end of her relationship,
03:58she moved to a remote island as a newly single parent.
04:03Oh, look at this.
04:04Oh, my goodness.
04:05This is amazing.
04:07So was this here when you came?
04:08So when I first came here, nearly 30 years ago,
04:11there was absolutely nothing.
04:12It was bush, bush, bush everywhere.
04:14But stuff like the bricks, all the materials,
04:18where did you get all these from?
04:20Did you have to ship them in?
04:21These bricks are made out of termite mounds.
04:25No way.
04:25And we made the blocks for the main building
04:27with the sand down there, with those block machines.
04:31It was a slow process.
04:32So we only had to bring in the cement.
04:35We have the water, the aggregate.
04:36And then we got the wood from the forest
04:41when the trees fell down.
04:42So clever.
04:43Utilising everything you have here on the island.
04:46Presumably, you're not short of fresh water.
04:48We have a well that's about 30 feet deep,
04:50dug by hand, of course.
04:52We filter the water.
04:53Presumably, there's no mains electricity.
04:55No, we are off the grid.
04:58So we have solar power.
05:00Most important question, Ali,
05:01do I get to sleep in this amazing house?
05:03Oh, thank you.
05:04Please come this way.
05:07I thought you were going to say,
05:07no, you're out in a tent.
05:09Oh, my goodness.
05:11Oh, I love this in the view of the lake.
05:14Ali raised her children on the island,
05:16in between their time away at school.
05:19The family began collecting a menagerie of animals.
05:21So now that the kids are adults and work overseas,
05:24Ali is not short of company.
05:27Who is making that noise?
05:30This donkey.
05:32This is a horse.
05:33She's called too funny.
05:34Does she come in the house?
05:35No, she stops at the threshold.
05:37She stops at the threshold.
05:38And hello.
05:39You made quite a noise there.
05:41What were you saying?
05:42You're going to make me feel at home here.
05:44Oh, she's beautiful.
05:47They are camels.
05:49Is that a baby?
05:50Yes, a little baby.
05:52And goats.
05:52Have I come to an animal sanctuary here?
05:54A little bit.
05:55Can I go and see the camels?
05:56Totally.
05:57Yeah, absolutely.
05:58Hello, camels.
06:00Are they friendly?
06:01Not the male.
06:01What's he going to do to me?
06:03Just avoid him.
06:03I'm not coming near.
06:08No.
06:09No.
06:10Enough.
06:12No.
06:14I'm a camel wrangler.
06:15You're a camel man.
06:17Yay.
06:17Hello.
06:18After losing a horse to colic, Ali's brought in new companions for Tufani, animals with digestive
06:24systems better suited to island life.
06:27So you've got four dogs right now.
06:28If you have too many, they become a pack.
06:30And then they go and chase crocodiles and snakes and things.
06:34We lost Jack Russell, called Feather, to a crocodile.
06:38Most recently, I lost Max's three children.
06:43They discovered a forest cobra.
06:46And they were all attacking it.
06:49So I thought, I mean, I didn't think.
06:51I call it unconditional stupidity.
06:53I picked up a snake.
06:56And it's a big one.
06:57He was that fat.
06:59And I threw it into the lake.
07:01But the two hunting dogs, they went straight into the lake to get it again.
07:06And I lost all three of them in an hour.
07:09Each one in my arms.
07:11It was a terrible loss.
07:13So there we are.
07:14So sorry.
07:15Yeah.
07:16And this happened like six weeks ago now.
07:18That's a brutal reality, I suppose, of where you've chosen to live.
07:22It's paradise.
07:23Paradise, but with paradise.
07:24Paradise has a bite.
07:25Or three bites.
07:27You have to learn to live with the wild.
07:29You can't fight it.
07:31I've only just arrived.
07:33And it's been quite the introduction to a surreal mix of animals, some of them deadly.
07:38To find an English woman from West Sussex living on an island in the middle of Uganda, in the middle of Lake Victoria is weird enough.
07:47To hear stories of dogs lost to crocodiles, the snake attack.
07:52She's had some pretty close encounters and lost her best friends.
07:56Had she been bitten by a poisonous snake, she nearly could have died.
08:00I have no idea how easy it would have been to get her to a hospital.
08:04Not only is she cut off from medical care, but life on a remote island with water access only means everything must be shipped in at a cost.
08:13You can keep an eye out for snakes.
08:15For anything wild.
08:16Yes.
08:17Monitor lizards.
08:18Yeah.
08:19Crocodiles.
08:20So Ali relies on homegrown.
08:23Ooh, veg patch.
08:24We've got quite a lot going on here.
08:25But out here, growing veg is a battle against bugs and her own menagerie.
08:31So I'm being put to work on her latest invention to protect her garden.
08:36So here we're going to try raised beds.
08:38So these are boats that we're recycling, putting them on tires to raise them up to keep them away from a multitude of insects.
08:46Mainly termites, um, actually I know everything, ants, everybody's eating this.
08:51So many of my books have disappeared to dust.
08:54I'm wondering how self-sufficient you are.
08:56Like, does this supply all the food you need?
08:59I'd love to say yes, but with the camels and the animals, although we have a fence around us, they're always getting in and trampling all of everything.
09:10You could get rid of the animals.
09:11No.
09:13I suspected that would be your answer.
09:15Well, I need to earn my keep, so I'm very happy to help out.
09:18First we want the nets.
09:19Yeah, okay.
09:20Then we'll put sand on, and then we'll put soil on.
09:22Do you just want them kind of laid out?
09:24Yeah, we'll just try and just make a base for all the sand to go on to.
09:28I suppose when you live on an island, you need to be resourceful to use everything you have.
09:35Next up, sand.
09:36To get it up here from the beach, we need Ali's old trike, if it starts.
09:41Let's have a look first here.
09:43Here, into forward.
09:47I don't know if there is a handbrake on.
09:50Oh, yeah, it'll be good.
09:53And we're on.
09:55This is Ali's lifeline for hauling materials.
09:57Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
09:59Come on.
10:03That often works, doesn't it?
10:05That's, we've arrived.
10:10Okay.
10:11I think you can drop into two, don't you?
10:12There we go.
10:13That's a bit better.
10:16And follow that goose.
10:17You're down here?
10:18yeah
10:23splendid i'll be your chauffeur any time i might need to sort my clutch gear control out a little
10:32bit so this is actually where the camels do their rolling this is a camel bath then
10:36so they prepared it for us nicely that's very nice
10:38okay how did you actually find this island in the first place so back in the end of the 90s
10:53i was working for museveni the president you were working for the president advising him
11:00on media and pr having met him back in the 80s when i covered the bush war in uganda
11:09it was a very very difficult job not being ugandan and after three years i decided
11:15i really couldn't do any more so i came out on a friend's little sailing boat
11:22and landed on this beach and started having a picnic i thought well i wonder if you could just
11:28get a few acres and then i got 500 acres we bought a lease for 49 years how much for sixteen thousand
11:37dollars wow where did you live if there was nothing here was nothing we got some who's we
11:42so i was working then with the reporter from in the bush war we need to start building we'd got a
11:49we got a loan so we got these old british army tents and set up a nice bed chest of drawers inside the
11:56tent i lived in my tent for about three years i think um with my children you were there with your
12:02children yeah so this has been a labor of love all of this all a labor of love yeah speak of labor
12:07of love should i pop this one in there yes let me get this over my shoulder one two three
12:15i'm not gonna get it over my shoulder
12:20while living in tents ali and her reporter colleague turned business partner took a bank loan and ali sold
12:26her house in the uk their vision to create a beach resort with a lodge for the 350 000 pounds they raised
12:34i'll get the sand oh i think i'm leaking a bit oh you are oh that looks good
12:45okay right so where are we bringing the soil from so we'll start digging from over here because then we
12:50can just throw it straight into the boat you don't shy away from manual work here obviously no
12:57because that's the way to keep fit gotta try and keep strong while you're getting older
13:04oh you're good with that
13:08i'm wondering about your biggest expenses you don't pay for water you've got your electricity with the
13:14solar where do the biggest expenses come and what are they so living on an island in the middle of
13:19africa it's the weather and the maintenance of the buildings that really just keeps wear and tear
13:26eating yeah eating your money up the way to to pay for it having built this house as a family house
13:32i had to turn it into a guest house if it's not too nosy how would you describe your financial situation
13:38asset rich cash poor it's probably the easiest way to explain it because on the face of it you know
13:45this island the house and everything it looks but that doesn't produce actually money to see and there
13:53might be lean times where you're relying on the garden but then um something will happen and and
13:59suddenly money comes in again but then it all goes out again so i think we can plant okay so we've got
14:06tomatoes and spinach yeah and then we've got yellow and red peppers nice can i just go for it i think we
14:13just go for it i love planting and doing this i tell you it comes with age before my 50s couldn't
14:22have cared less and then suddenly i woke up one day i was like must plant if we may have to actually
14:30move a dog that looks pretty good are you happy i think this looks perfect have i earned myself a
14:36cuppa cuppa or a glass of wine oh yeah much more important very good
14:46we're on the equator it's a place of extremes it's clear it's taken its toll physically and
14:52financially on ali so i'm still curious to understand why she would settle here
15:06it's my first evening in uganda oh that water feels nice after all that hot sweaty work so time
15:13to enjoy the sunset across lake victoria it's absolutely spectacular here and asked my host ali how
15:20she went from a two-decade career in media to bringing up two children on a wild african island
15:26after university a bunch of friends we got a land rover and we drove it through algiers down to nigeria
15:35across central to kenya and it took six months to drive but eventually we got to uganda and it was
15:44during the end of iddy's time the famous dictator dictator we crossed uganda from west to east in 24
15:55hours non-stop because it was so dangerous because if if you slowed down for a roadblock they shoot at
16:01you so the relationship obviously with uganda has endured though because you you came
16:05back as a correspondent yes in 1985 because we'd been told that there was a silent genocide happening
16:14in uganda and my job was to report on unreported stories so i was the only western correspondent to
16:25ever go into the bush war and be embedded i was a reporter and myself we were a two-man team
16:32we were known as bonnie and clyde in those days so they called us back for liberation and i wanted
16:37to finish the story i had to i had to know what happened the station that was i was working for
16:42wouldn't insure me because i was pregnant so you came anyway i came anyway i think i've always been
16:48driven by that need to tell a story that nobody else wants to tell because if it's not told
16:54it stays silent nobody will help we were supposed to be doing a story on irian jaya and the british
17:03government supporting her with weapons and that got spiked for princess diana when she spoke of her
17:12marriage the story just got pulled so yeah never saw the light of day never in the end i just couldn't
17:16stay in in england i couldn't carry on in current affairs because there was no point
17:21i understand why ali turned her back on sections of the uk media prevented from doing what she was
17:27so passionate about and despite covering a brutal conflict here in the 80s it was uganda she returned
17:34to again and again still have so many questions to ask but i think at the heart of it she fell in love
17:43with uganda when she first came here and there have been many different stories that have kept her here
17:50and now i think it's the island
17:56it's my first morning on the equator each day begins with letting the animals loose
18:01and with such big beasts ali's training them for more control when they roam free
18:06would you like to have a go at making a camel sit down yeah of course so hold it holding her down
18:11pulling her down number nine
18:15good girl good girl very good girl
18:19how did i do i think very well are you getting up now i think we will let her go now okay uh number
18:25nine let me take this off number nine number nine number nine there's no tonnage okay
18:30well i think the training went pretty well first go admittedly number nine has gone off with uh
18:38collar and lead but we'll get her back as we head back into the shade i'm keen to find out how a young
18:44englishwoman built a career in places few dare to go look at this table what what is that that is a
18:51russian bomb of course it's a russian bomb from afghanistan when i was actually in bin laden's hideout
18:59okay there's so much to unpick here i'd love to know a bit about your background tell me about
19:05your childhood so i was the last of the litter of five children wow my dad was always away as a
19:12soldier so as army brat i was kicked off to boarding school aged six and a half which was
19:21which was devastating for me because all i wanted to be was at home with my mum and my dogs that was
19:27my life that was my world and it was all taken away from me and it was i never understood it um
19:34and i was exceedingly unhappy at school always working out a way to escape i didn't think there
19:40was a day that went past where i wasn't beaten they did beating in those days it was terrible
19:46so my parents well they must have known i wasn't a very happy child but they weren't a very happy families
19:53and then my mum she got cancer when i was nine one of my main runaway times did you actually run away
19:59i ran away yeah i i was always revolting against school and i never actually knew why i was there
20:08and somebody told me that we've got these these public exams that you've got to get them
20:13and i'd spent my whole school life out of the classroom i was always being thrown out
20:18for being naughty so i suddenly buckled down and realized that this is the way forward i finished my
20:26a levels when i was 17 so i did a media studies bachelor of arts and picked up camera and decided
20:37yeah filming is what i want to do an old friend of mine had just got back from afghanistan and he said
20:44do you want to do you want to be my cell man and i i just grabbed it and what were you doing in
20:50afghanistan then we visited the russian prisoners kept by the mujahideen there was an agreement of
20:58prisoner exchange so i was i was following that which put me into bin laden's secret hideaway
21:06where this bomb landed landed quite near me and i decided i ain't gonna take this bomb home with me
21:16you carry on or checked i checked it in wrapped up in a blanket that is amazing you must have seen
21:25unimaginable things i compartmentalize um i put i put the worst ones deep in my brain and as you get
21:34stronger and more confident with who you are and what you are i think i let them out yeah that's
21:39probably why i i am so happy here when i i feel stronger and i can head back on the public boat and
21:47knowing that i can come back and escape
21:51she has been able to get through experiences that most of us can't even imagine that would have landed
22:00most of us in hospital with ptsd but her grit and passion since she was a young child have driven ali
22:07to fight for what she deems important even if it means going against the grain
22:16nearly 1 000 islands dot the surface of the lake and my hosts belongs to the kume archipelago
22:23it sits at over 1 000 meters above sea level tempering the equatorial climate and covering the
22:29island in dense tropical forest this is magical here isn't it incredible oh a slight respite from
22:36the heat all the other islands they've just been deforested for charcoal and for smoking the fish
22:43illegal fishermen are doing a lot of tree cutting although she's retired from reporting on the front
22:50lines i'm beginning to sense that ali's taken on a new battle here on her island oh wow
22:59oh look at this top of the world we are on a mountain in the middle of lake victoria
23:06i can see the whole island now and i i'm surprised to see some other properties
23:10yes there are not many um i thought you were here alone yeah i started here alone um and then building
23:15the lodge and my house i needed money so the best way to make it work i felt was to sell plots of land to
23:24like-minded people for them to like-minded people for them to build houses and it has worked because
23:28now as you can see we have a conserved island while the rest of the islands around us they're all naked
23:35deforested i'm beginning to understand ali's mission here and i don't think it's just about needing money
23:42she's protecting her island home and its entire ecosystem
23:47so as well as a few subleased plots i'm surprised to find there's a village on the far side of the
23:52island where we're off on a food run so where are we actually heading now so we're now heading for
23:58kaunguli village what began as a handful of temporary fishing shacks has expanded into a village of over
24:05a hundred during allison's decades on the island she's a strong supporter of their right to fish these
24:12waters and they stay rent-free this is a hub of activity isn't it yes love this good morning guys
24:19morning morning margaret morning jimmy the shop how are you doing i'm ben i'm good i'm nice to meet you
24:27yeah you've got everything here yeah i have it so what are we after do you have any bananas the one i
24:32have wood is too raw but i do know whether you can buy it and then we'll ripen them up keep it for
24:38that one's stenica yeah 10 000 there we go thank you so much for these jimmy you're welcome thank you
24:44thank you oh it's so pretty here oh look all of these are little shops there's a chemist along here
24:53a pharmacy so much going on morning so enjoyable seeing this thriving side of island life just seeing
25:02her walk through the village she's forged really strong ties i wasn't expecting to find a whole
25:09community here i now feel ali hasn't come to this island to cut herself off but with a whole community
25:15here i'm wondering how she keeps people and nature in harmony and the island as unspoiled as it is today
25:21i'm on lake victoria where my host has spent nearly 30 years protecting her island home ingeniously
25:36funding its preservation by subleasing a few plots we're visiting the island's only village where there's
25:43someone ali's especially keen for me to meet who shares her passion to conserve this unique corner of
25:49uganda and ben how are you i'm good nice to meet you nice to meet you too what are you doing godfrey
25:55i'm flipping the hooks i want to go and fish can i give you a hand you get a hook like this one
26:00you get a fishing string you tie it in yeah then you press it here you get them in the line so when
26:08you are fishing you throw one by one they should be well organized you're putting a lot of trust in me
26:13godfrey yeah i trust you you try so how do you guys know each other it was 2005 i came here looking
26:20for a job so you started in the lodge didn't you and now you also do the maintenance of the island i'm
26:25the person in charge of keeping the environment of the island no one is cutting the trees all the
26:33passes are clean godfrey it's immaculate from zero to someone because god gave me a chance i found the
26:40second mom on the island is this your second mom yeah i have the biological but this one she's also
26:46my mom you get to me yeah my work mostly i'm the chairman of the fishing cooperative so i think what
26:53we should we should explain to ben is when i first got here to belago the state of the lakes fishing was
27:01non-ex almost non-existent fish was almost finished in the lake 20 30 years ago we we did some research
27:09if there was any chance of having fish in the lake we had to protect a specific area i worked
27:17with the government to gazette an area that's 250 square kilometers around belago so no commercial
27:26fishing is officially allowed we got together with some like-minded fishermen godfrey led this cooperative
27:34and its main job was by collecting the data and seeing that you're getting more fish and bigger
27:40fish presumably a lot of people have to fish here for sustenance to feed their families so how do you
27:45strike that balance between those that need and those that overfish that's why we created a cooperative
27:52whereby you have to work together so that you can save and help each other and this i mean just looking
27:58at all the fishermen here they're all working together heaving the boats in and out of the water
28:03it's been a good fruitful friendship partnership unlike my hooks here don't look
28:10the tangled mess you think you're great yeah i'm so inspired by teaming up with the subsistence
28:16fishermen to maintain fish stocks ali's creating a community with a shared purpose to conserve this
28:23island wilderness i love the fact that they're working on this sort of protectorate area because
28:29it goes without saying a lake surrounded by so many nations there's a lot of fishing going on here
28:35by working with someone like godfrey who you know he he knows this area he's working with the local
28:43community he understands the nuances that perhaps would be slightly harder for someone like
28:50allison to fully understand having ruined godfrey's chances of a catch we spot a boat coming in that
28:59can hopefully supply the rest of our dinner oh they're big fish uh this one is like 20 kilograms
29:05nile perch that is the nile perch wow only data collection boats marked with the same logo and paint
29:14are allowed to fish so what happens to these now where do they go they do the measuring so you are fully
29:19to take your fish of stuff which one would you like i have a big appetite not the big one maybe a a
29:26smallish size thanks godfrey you're welcome there you go dinner is that everything one more thing if
29:33you're happy luckily for ali in the community the government helps enforce the protected area
29:39and seas then burn illegal boats to prevent the commercial fishermen sneaking them back out
29:44but ali has a more creative solution we're going to recycle this one and make it into shelves of course
29:50you are oh like at what upright yeah how many boats like this might they confiscate in the old days it
29:55was it was 20 50 a week wow i'm i'm intrigued to know how we're going to get this on there up yeah
30:02can you imagine trying to take that on your vehicle on the on the a3 onto this one yeah thank you so much guys
30:16nice
30:26in safeguarding her island sanctuary ali's leaving a lasting legacy but she's also hinted it's a refuge
30:35so i'm hoping she'll open up on why she sometimes needs that barrier to the outside world
30:41what else would you like so we should do a little repotting let's pop them on the table
30:47these are little baby baobabs but with those amazing trunks upside down trees
30:53for about 10 years all these pots were empty why was that i was too busy i wish i could say that it was
31:01more everything went very wrong oh it's nearly 15 years ago now the partnership that i i had
31:11for 30 40 years went sour business partnership or personal partnership partnership um everything
31:18hit rock bottom and my island and lodge and everything i nearly lost it all ali's business
31:28partner made decisions without her and ultimately the lodge was sold without her consent you actually
31:34lost as in you couldn't be here there was a court order against me going to the lodge so i had to
31:39rent out this house and i had to live in kampala in a one bedroom house or a little
31:46hut really i started teaching it to try and pay the rent um yeah it was it was hard to take
31:54especially as i was so alone there was actually very little i could do because i had no money
32:00because i'd spent it all on on developing the island and their plan was to destroy everything we'd built
32:06are you are you talking literally so the lodge was was mostly knocked down all the buildings we'd built
32:13i mean i was so broken by it
32:17now i'm getting emotional to get get through this ridiculous life of being away from here and um
32:26um hang on a minute it's funny how these things when you talk about them they come back to you
32:33don't they it's a big wound i'm sorry but it needs to be said it needs to be said um
32:37i lost my faith and trust in mankind and i i think i haven't recovered it fully which is why i love
32:46it out here the pots are full and and i wake up with a smile i wake up feeling happy and you can
32:52watch these baobab trees grow exactly magnificent exactly wow well thank you for doing that no don't
32:59worry you you had me captivated i i actually had to stop it took ali years of legal battles to win back
33:06her island home she nearly lost all of this she had to leave the island and she stood to lose
33:14everything and it obviously left a deep scar it wasn't the wars that she witnessed that have
33:21left the scars and the trauma and i now know what she means and i think it it has given me a little
33:28window into what this island is to her so much more than just a home so much more than just a
33:34a passion project this is her place of security
33:49i've realized how much my host ali has fought for her island home on lake victoria building it back up
33:56after nearly losing it all but it takes a beating from the equatorial weather and with termites in the
34:02mix the repairs never stop you're doing a similar thing to this exactly shelves so this morning
34:08we're repairing her beach bar and godfrey's here to help
34:12so now we've reached the point the saw won't go any further so let me see what i can do
34:29so these are shelves from the old boats that rotted away nice one
34:42so this is the hole we need to make a little bit bigger for that boat to fit i'm now aware how much
34:50is on ali's shoulders and wondering if she'll ever step back from the front line of this fight
34:56and let someone else leave the charge it can grow after me but if i if i don't make it happen it won't
35:03happen if i give up then we lose the fish everybody loses their their livelihoods what i really want
35:11to do we've shown this protected area works you take the next step and get the government to turn
35:18it into uganda east africa's first national marine park like their game parks but they're protecting the
35:25fish the forests the islands within it what's your uncle you have marine tourism you have a beautiful
35:34bar made out of boats every tourist that comes will will provide money to keep protecting the fish
35:40that's my plan what i like about this as well is that you're obviously looking way into the future
35:47beyond your lifetime the ambitions to expand this marine protected area will naturally come into
35:55conflict with some people what they what we're doing is protecting it from the commercial fishermen
36:01the resistance is enormous is there wider community support not just on the island but beyond
36:07of the the these visions these ideas yeah they do it helps everyone but at least 70 percent are buying my
36:16our ideas yeah i love that you've been like the dynamo to get this going exactly you guys but ultimately
36:22it's over to the rest of the community the rest of uganda exactly this is a little microcosm of of
36:29success come on to work how much deeper do you want this gofree yeah make like two feet two feet
36:36yeah so far you are one and a half you can add on okay you're almost there
36:44i probably need to get some of this out yeah just work together
36:49i think i can let go of it now should we uh step back and have a look
37:20what do you think very nice well done in bare feet if it falls it's godfrey's fault no it's always nice
37:32to leave a legacy from my visit it's very nearly a squashed person on the face of it ali has come here
37:40to leave behind the chaos of war and the difficulties of her past and yet she has started
37:50a fight by her own admission it is a fight and if ecotourism can help finance all of that then i
37:57think she's on to a winner but she's she's got the gloves on i think she quite enjoys a fight
38:03it's my last evening with the bar repaired it's time to enjoy some of the fish that flourish here
38:09due to my host's efforts ah you've got the drinks we go and sit in the new boat bar let's
38:19that's really good
38:22understandably all those wars that you've covered over the years particularly the one here
38:26are such a part of your dna and who you are do you do you miss the thrill of covering those wars
38:33this this is a war in another way rather than filming someone's war um i'm now i'm now living my my battle
38:43to conserve the island and the lake yeah i think i'm a i'm a born fighter um and that's what i do
38:52get a kick out of making things work that seem impossible everything i wanted to do i've done in the
38:59last 30 years i built a house i built a lodge i built a fish reserve once it's recognized as a marine
39:06park then i will i will retire from that perhaps and i think to feed my soul i'm going to start
39:15writing do you worry about or have you ever been lonely no but would you like i'm wondering on a
39:21romantic side would would you if whoever your perfect person oh if he worked up but i've had some
39:28wonderful people that i've loved in my life so maybe just maybe another one will come my way
39:36keep watching that horizon you never know what boats are going to come over there here's to you
39:40here's to the island as well and to the future of the conservation i've no doubt it's it will happen
39:47before i leave ali's keen to show me some of her work and i'm keen to visualize how her deep
39:52relationship with this country began if you have got the government which has closed off all other
39:58channels of peaceful change what else would we do except to surrender to resign ourselves to slavery
40:05and we couldn't do that
40:17wow
40:24wow that was you that photo at the end as a 26 year old for six weeks we were moving with the mobile
40:32brigade kind of ragtag army looking at those images there were child soldiers there many many many
40:38i've never seen such a an incredible people's army you saw mass graves so many and you'd be walking
40:47along at night and you'd be walking over over bodies you'd see a hand you'd see a foot and there was a
40:53price on her head dead or alive they were looking for us quite quite hard so we had to to disguise
41:00ourselves as africans we had to walk out without the footage which was terrifying and then we just
41:06had to wait and wait and wait and wait and this lovely man called moses uh he came with the with
41:12the tapes and then we went back to london and edited the uk establishment had had looked at the footage
41:21and it gave them the opportunity to see who was in the bush they weren't just a bunch of bandits
41:29so the british government they began to turn their loyalty from a booty to the 70. that's extraordinary
41:37you enacted proper change in foreign policy exactly it was it was the most wonderful outcome of
41:44a long fight for me and for them this year was the 36th hero heroes day at the 70. he gave me a medal
41:54i would love to see that oh that is so special
42:03the fact that you're being thanked all these years later you really you have this extraordinary
42:09relationship with uganda i now feel they've accepted me as a ugandan and thanking me for what i've done for
42:16the country and it's not just what she achieved for uganda's silent voices during war
42:23it's her ongoing battle protecting this island and this majestic body of water
42:29perhaps her successes might inspire other island communities to fight back too
42:35it's the people that have kept her here the people that have rooted
42:39her here and the people that she is continuing to champion and and fight for
42:45it's my final day on lake victoria so i'm helping my host prepare for her next guests before i go
42:59they don't make them like ali anymore
43:02she really is completely unique and if you look at her life it's almost been a series of battles she
43:10likes fighting for the underdogs she's fought for the silent voices of those caught up in conflict
43:18she's fought for the trees and the fishes and the wildlife here in uganda
43:29creating a a lasting legacy and at the heart of that this island
43:34has been a therapist and a refuge
43:42so that everyone's coming down just to say goodbye yeah
43:46ali give me a hug
43:52oh that was such a lovely time it's been an incredible week will you write that book i will
43:57promise me i promise you have an extraordinary story to tell stories more animals definitely zebra
44:05zebra zebra next time
44:19next time i'm in the forests of norway
44:22staying with artists who are determined to keep their off-grid life
44:26and i like to hug them
44:30all sorts of thoughts going on in my brain right now
44:33despite serious health issues i'm having lebanese sweets and dialysis
44:40i love the way you put it in that order
45:03you
45:12you
45:12you
45:12you
45:13you
45:13you
45:13you
45:13you
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