← From Our Own Correspondent
From Our Own Correspondent
Ghosts of Bush House
00:28:18
Natasha Breed on how the population of Kenya's expanding fast, urban areas are eating...
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This Download from the BBC is the
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very last Radio 4 from our own
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correspondent to be broadcast from Bush House in London. We're moving house and here to introduce this programme is Kate Ady.
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Today, the king of the jungle. Down and out as Kenya's towns and cities invade his territory. It's the fastest growing economy in Europe. We're in Latvia, finding out how they've made austerity cool. A fungus that attacks caterpillars is transforming fortunes in the high Himalayas. And the BBC World Service moves house and leaves a building filled with the ghosts and voices of the past. Driving into town from Nairobi Airport, you used to be able to see zebra, giraffe and wildebeest roaming free from your car window. And there was a sign at the side of the road saying, welcome to the green city in the sun. Well, these days the city stretches all the way to the airport. There are no longer any wild animals to be seen and there's no longer a green city. But much of what used to be parkland has been built over. And it's a similar story throughout Kenya. The populations exploded. Urban areas consume more and more countryside each year. And all this, Natasha Breed tells us, is disastrous for the wildlife.
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The sign at the entrance to my neighbourhood read, to all our dear residents, lion seen Macoma Road. The area borders Nairobi national park, and we're used to hearing lions calling at night, and sometimes leopard and hyena too. But the idea one might encounter a lion while opening the gate was rather thrilling. It felt a bit like 40 years ago when a cricket match at the local primary school had to be abandoned while the delighted children, my brother among them, watched from the safety of the classrooms as lions strolled across the pitch. However, I wasn't destined to have to complete the 100 meter sprint to outrun a lion to get to my front door as I had to go away. But when I returned six weeks later, there was a new sign. Be aware Lioness along Macoma Road, along with an emergency number to call. And evidently somebody called the number. As action was taken, one lioness was shot and another, together with four cubs, taken to the Nairobi animal orphanage until a decision could be reached about their future. And then newspaper headlines screamed in unison. Death of lions. A big loss. King of jungle. Down and out. Furious villagers slay six lions. Hasira Hasara. In one of the Kiswahili papers, meaning the damage of wrath. While each editorial differed slightly, the photos all told the same story. Grisly images of the limp bodies of lionesses being hefted into a park vehicle. By uniformed rangers while a spear wielding crowd looked on as well as lurid pictures of punctured blood stained animals being exhibited. Heads lifted by the ears, eyes staring unseeingly, tongues lolling from gaping mouths. Two of the lions were cubs. In the early hours of the morning, following an attack on a flock of sheep and goats, furious villagers, armed with traditional weapons and using vehicles to herd the marauding lions together, made a distressed call to Kenya Wildlife Service and then held the lions at bay until rangers arrived. The rangers tried to placate the angry men who demanded a veterinary officer be bought to sedate the animals and take them away. After an hour though, the villagers patience finally ran out and six lions were attacked and killed, all in the space of 10 minutes. According to the press, two others escaped. Historically, after rains, lions leave the park following herbivores which disperse into outlying areas. Not so many years ago, the migration of zebra and wildebeest between Nairobi and Amboseli national parks was second only to the Great Mara Serengeti migration. But whereas there used to be a wildlife corridor of land where both prey and predators could spread out, now human habitation blocks the animal's way. Inevitably, predators encounter livestock and subject heavy losses on pastoralists and farmers alike. There's no denying that to a stockman, the loss of any livestock is drastic. The danger of coming into contact with a predator while trying to protect one's herds considerable. Paula Kahumbu, chairperson of the Friends of Nairobi national park, makes regular visits to the adjoining community. She tells me the pastoralists have reported frequent attacks on their livestock in the past six months and have demanded compensation for the loss of their animals. While there is a government policy in place to pay compensation for loss of life or injury to humans caused by wildlife, none exist to replace lost livestock. This incident serves to highlight the challenges faced by lion and other wildlife in Africa today. Combined with the burgeoning human population, land use policies are changing. Space is precious. There are now thought to be only 20,000 lions in Africa. Like many wild animals, lions survive by moving. As zebras, wildebeests and antelopes follow the rain for fresh pasture, predators follow the herbivores. But in Kenya, with human habitation spreading out across the country, the animals habitats are becoming no more than islands in a sea of humanity. Is there really room for lion in developing Africa? Naturally, the welfare of humans takes precedence over that of wild animals. Yet in Kenya, tourism is one of the main sources of revenue, contributing significantly to the economy. And there's surely no beast more evocative of Africa than the majestic Lion. According to Maasai legend, when a lion roars in the darkness across the savannah, he is saying, whose land is this? Mine, Mine, Mine. But it isn't. Not anymore.
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Natasha breed in Nairobi. A substance some are calling Indian Viagra is starting to transform local economies in the Himalayas. Legend has it that that its properties were first identified by herders who noticed that after eating the stuff, their yaks and goats would run around noticeably friskier. It's found on meadows high in the mountains and is much sought after, particularly in China where it's long been a staple of traditional medicine. Today it's proving a valuable cash crop. But Craig Jeffrey's been learning that some mountain villagers are having to arm themselves. The so called Viagra is so much in demand.
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There's a fungus that attacks caterpillars in the Indian Himalayas. People in North India call it kira jali. In neighboring Tibet it's known as Yarsa gumba. The fungus mummifies its prey and then grows out of the top of the dead caterpillar's head. It appears above ground just as the snow melts in May or June. In China, kira jali is regarded as an aphrodisiac. Athletes have used it as a performance enhancing drug. For villagers in the Indian Himalayas, it's a source of income. During the last five years they've begun to collect the caterpillar fungus and sell it to local traders. These middlemen in turn sell the fungi to business people in Delhi and it travels on from there to Nepal and China. When sold in the village, a single fungus fetches 150indian rupees. That's about two pounds more than the daily wage of a manual laborer. Some people are able to collect 40 specimens in a single day. So the search for caterpillar fungus has come to resemble a type of Himalayan gold rush. I spent the last few months in the Indian Himalayas doing research on youth and social change. I lived in the village of Bemni, 3,000 meters up near the Indian border with Tibet. Much of my time was spent trying to understand the changing economy of the village. And Kira jally featured heavily in my interviews. Take Prem Singh, a 24 year old man in the village known for his restless energy and appetite for hard work. Prem spent the first two weeks of May in high altitude snow fields collecting kira jali. He went on his own, carrying rice, wheat and dal on his back, camping in a cave on the way and eventually pitching camp more than 5,000 meters up. He found nothing during the first three days. But then his luck Changed, he returned to bemni with 200 fungi stuffed into old sweet jars. He's using his earnings to construct a new house, an impressive two story structure built out of local stone. Kira jali and the money it earns is big news for Bemni. Young men have generally been looking outside the village for opportunities to make money in cities. Down in the plains, they've worked in hotels, in the army, and in some of the new service industries emerging in urban India. Kirajali is reversing this process somewhat. Since 2007, when villagers first learned about the fungus, vast numbers now head not to the big cities, but to the high altitude meadows. People joke that the meadows, formerly the preserve of intrepid goatherds, have become small towns of tents, stoves and clotheslines. As Prem told us. Why would I migrate to Delhi to work in a hotel when I can earn in two weeks what I'd make in Delhi in two years? But there's a dark side to fungus collection too. Some villagers return with nothing to show for their weeks in high altitude snow fields. Many fall ill. Searching for the fungus involves lying on your front, elbows dug into the scree and snow scouring the ground in front of you for nothing larger than the stalk of an apple. It's freezing cold, there's a howling wind and your lungs ache. People often return to the village with snow blindness, painful joints and problems breathing. One person died recently as a result of the altitude. Another man fell into an ice crevasse and was only rescued by villagers 13 days later. He'd lived on drips from the glacier. Apparently, he's back collecting kira jali this year. The fungus business is also generating rivalries. There are two villages that are at loggerheads over access to a high altitude meadow where Kidajali is especially abundant. They have to carry guns on their trips for the fungus. There are other risks too. It's legal to collect the fungus, but not legal to sell it. Two years ago, a confidence trickster arrived in Bemni and promised people he'd get a very good price for their crop. He disappeared with people's fungi and has never returned. Because Kirajali is part of the black market, the villagers couldn't complain. Last year, young men from the village tried to sell their fungi in a local town. Someone in the village tipped off the local police to who intercepted the young men on the road and seized their entire crop. Imagine the heartbreak as they trooped back to the villages. The men had nothing to show for weeks in the bitter cold. While the police no doubt profited from their booty. But people seem to take these risks in their stride. As Prem said to us, you've got your risky work and your safe work. Kidajali is the risk. Local manual labour is the safe option. For the time being, India's homegrown Viagra has become a decent gamble. And no, I haven't tried it.
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Craig Jeffrey in the Himalayas as global leaders argue over whether austerity measures will save or destroy the Eurozone's economy, one small northern European country believes it has the answer. Over the past few years, the Baltic state of Latvia has been pushing through some of the toughest austerity measures in the world. The policy has been controversial, but now Latvia has the fastest growing economy in Europe. Damian McGuinness in the capital Riga, has been finding out what lessons can be learned by the rest of the continent.
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Tucked away behind an old red brick warehouse, hundreds of hip creative types wearing red or purple jeans and chunky black spectacles swig Latvian made beer. A famous fashion blogger has just arrived on her bike, a sort of giant child scooter which she pushes along with transparent platform shoes. And behind the camera, the restaurant's owner, a well known celebrity TV chef, hands out bite sized organic beef burgers. I'm at the opening of Riga's latest hip venue. When I lived here a few years ago during the depths of the economic crisis, every week I'd see a shop or a restaurant pull down its shutters for good. Now every time I come back, another of those empty spaces has been filled by a new cafe or a bar. But the boom times Latvia enjoyed before the crisis have not exactly come back. Back then the cocktails were pricey and the bars glitzy. Today. Gone are the huge four wheel drives and BMWs with black tinted windows of those years. Instead, everyone here tonight arrives on second hand bikes and the new trendy restaurant being opened is nothing more than a tiny room above a bicycle repair shop. Loans may no longer be available, but rents have fallen since the crisis and as long as you can open your business cheaply, there's no shortage of spaces to rent. And lower wages mean now you can actually afford to hire someone. So if you want to see what economists mean when they talk about the competitive advantages of internal devaluation, you should hang out with Latvia's hard working young hipsters. Their new cool businesses double up as cafes, bookshops and second hand clothes stores, flogging whatever, whatever low cost luxuries Latvians can still afford. The best example is Perla, a bar, clothes shop, slash Whatever's trendy at the moment. It was opened by an MTV presenter after she lost her job in the crisis. The presenter is still well known and still sets the trends, but she's been doing that from behind the bar rather than on TV screens. In the evenings, the clothes racks are pulled up to the ceiling by a winch and everyone dances among the second hand books and record. This is what cool on a budget looks like. And among fans of austerity, Latvia has achieved pop star status. In June, IMF boss Christine Lagarde called the tough measures here an inspiration for struggling eurozone nations. And last week, Hillary Clinton praised the country's handling of the economic crisis. After the 2008 credit crunch, Latvia's economy shrank by a quarter, saved by an IMF led bailout. The embarked on the toughest austerity measures in Europe, with public sector wages across the board cut by 30%. Some teachers even saw their salaries reduced by 70% overnight. Critics called the measures suicidal, saying such draconian austerity would prevent any future growth by pushing up unemployment and killing consumption. The only solution, they said, was to abandon the currencies pegged to the euro and devalue to make it more competitive, something even some in the IMF recommended. The government refused, adamant that economic credibility was the key to future growth and that the only way to make Latvia more competitive long term was to cut wages and prices instead. The same debate that we're now seeing in the Eurozone. Since then, Latvia's government seems to have confounded its critics. The country is now the fastest growing economy in Europe, set to expand by 4% this year. Unemployment is falling and the mood is slowly improving. So is Christine Lagarde right that Latvia is an inspiration for Europe? Well, not necessarily. Poverty rates remain high, the old and the less skilled are struggling to find work, and many of those with the skills are emigrating. And when it comes to pushing through tough budget cuts, the Latvian government has a few advantages over Greece or Spain. Having virtually no effective trade unions helps. And a painful recent history of Soviet occupation means that voters can easily remember times when things were much, much worse. But is there anything the rest of Europe can learn from Latvia's experience? I put that question to the driving force behind Latvia's the country's rather robotic prime minister, Valdis Dombrovskis, a scientist with an economics degree who, like a mini Mrs. Merkel, inspires confidence by eschewing any attempt at charisma. He has not only managed to stay in power, but has even been re elected twice. You have to tell people how bad things are, was the answer, and then push through the cuts as quickly as possible so people know what they're dealing with and can plan for the future. Do it decisively, quickly and honestly seems to be the message now. That is something leaders in Europe could no doubt learn from Damian McGuinness in Riga.
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There's to be a big international meeting in London next week to discuss family planning and how women can access it freely and without discrimination. It has an ambitious to provide 120 million women and girls in the poorest countries of the world with, as it puts it, life saving contraceptive information and supplies by the year 2020. Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and its president, Goodluck Jonathan, recently declared his support for more birth control, saying his people were having too many children. But Jane Draper's been learning that providing family planning facilities in remote parts of this huge country isn't always straightforward.
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The newspaper seller at Kano Airport in northern Nigeria wasn't impressed. He waved the latest copy of the Daily Trust newspaper at me and pointed at the banner headline Row over Birth Control Plan. It's not a good idea, he declared. I have four wives and 19 children. We just don't need this. Christian and Muslim leaders were among many quick to decry President Goodluck Jonathan's remarks, which appeared to raise the possibility of a law to control Nigeria's burgeoning population. The softly spoken health minister I interviewed the following day, Mohammad Pate, insisted the president had been misquoted. But Mr. Pate, a doctor who's respected beyond Nigeria as a reformer, acknowledged there were complex problems that needed tackling. To understand the tradition of large families, you have to go to somewhere like Jigawa, farming country in the north, which produces crops of corn, millet and groundnut. Islam is the dominant religion here. The state has 5 million residents, many of them poor. So far, it's escaped the violence wreaked by the Boko Haram militant group in other parts of the north. Having around seven children is far from unusual in Jigawa. This was underlined firmly to me by Ferreira Abdullahi Baffa from the state government's Ministry of Women's affairs during a late night conversation at a guest house. Our religion and culture lead us to believe in having lots of children, she said. As Ferreira told me, even mentioning family planning can be difficult. Better to talk about child spacing and play up the idea of a pause of at least two years after each birth. It's a philosophy which suggests Nigerian families will continue to be bigger than Western ones for some years. Yet at the moment, only about 10% of Nigerian couples use contraception. Here in Jigawa, it's little more than 1%. Until recently, there was hardly any family planning advice available and very few contraceptives. These days there is some improvement, thanks in part to British foreign aid and expertise. But clearly there's still a long way to go. On dusty ground near a basic clinic of two adjoining huts in Kataka village, Zalia Alhassan, a mother of eight, quietly told me she was pleased to have received a contraceptive injection that will protect her from pregnancy for several months after her sixth child. She had two miscarriages. Later, through a translator, we talked. As I sat with her on the floor of her nearby mud built room. It occurred to me that while I might have sympathised with her plight, she probably pitied me, a 42 year old career woman without a husband or children. At another simple clinic, this time in Nasarawa in Southern Nigeria, about 40 women sat on chairs under the shade of orange trees and listened keenly to a talk by Zeynab, a midwife working with a British charity which provides reproductive health care. Different methods of contraception were explained and samples were passed around. The women were quick to ask for information about side effects. The female condom was greeted with gales of laughter. As with the women in the north, they preferred forms of contraception other than the daily pill. An injection or implant is more convenient. Their effects are longer lasting and the women are able to plan their families where necessary without their husband's knowledge. Justina Friday allowed me to watch as a small contraceptive implant, the size of a hair grip was inserted under the skin of her left arm. Baby Peter, who'd screamed relentlessly at the threat of being apart from his mother, lay alongside her throughout. The procedure took just a couple of minutes. It was performed hygienically and with deft efficiency. Justina was told to use the other arm while pounding her food during the next week. No doubt she's young enough at 27 to have more children if she wishes, but if she decides to keep the implant in place for a full three years, she'll have given herself the break from parenthood that she was hoping for when she came to the clinic. Planning the size of a family is mainly women's business here, but a few men attended the clinic in Nasarawa, and I met others who, whether doctors, trainee health workers or project leaders, were highly committed to improving Nigeria's services. Mike Egbo, who runs a health systems programme, had been described to me as a passionate advocate of better family planning. What drove him? Thank you for asking me this, Jane, he said, and went on to describe how his mother died in childbirth in her 40s. It was her 11th pregnancy. The child survived and is now in the US. Even now, said Mike, I still miss my mother. It's why I set out to do this work.
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Jane Draper in Nigeria. It's a historic occasion for us today. This is the last edition of from our own correspondent, or fuch, as we call it, to be broadcast from Bush House in the Strand by Waterloo Bridge in London. The next time you'll hear us, we'll be putting together the programme in a shiny new building a couple of miles away. Bush House is Bush. Bush is also closing its doors to the BBC World Service. Its multilingual staff will be joining us across town at New Broadcasting House by Oxford Circus. Anna Horst, reporter, has been talking to some of those who've worked here during the 71 years that Bush House has broadcast to the world.
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Since March, Bush House has gradually been emptying out region by region and floor by floor. The language services have been leaving. Now the move is almost complete and the building is silent and the lifts come unnervingly fast. The central newsroom is the last to leave, waiting until midday next Thursday when the final five minute bulletin will be read from Bush House and then the switch will be complete. I've been recording the memories of those who worked in Bush House. Many of the interviews have taken place in the bowels of the building, in the old underground drama studio which started life as a swimming pool when Busch first opened in 1925. One of the oldest memories came from Neonid Finkelstein, who worked in the Russian service for nearly 30 years. But he first heard the BBC in one of Stalin's labour camps in 1948. His fellow prisoner there was an engineer and managed to build a radio out of scraps of metal. One day he gave Leonid an earpiece and that is how I first learnt about the Chelsea Flower show in London. He said Yuri Goligorsky also listened secretly as a child in Moscow. Every morning his father would close the windows to avoid detection and turn on the radio for the daily 6:45am Russian service broadcast. Yuri told us how his family would analyse what they'd heard. He told me long conversation ensued after broadcast. Perhaps 15 minutes of programme and two hours discussion followed. Years later, when Yuri worked in Bush House, whenever he sat down at a microphone to broadcast, he said he only ever had one listener in mind. Always a picture of my dad. It was Urie who masterminded one of the landmark broadcasts from bush House. In 1988, he sent a letter to Downing street asking if Mrs. Thatcher would take part in a live phone into Russia. It was the first time anything like it had been attempted. There was no direct dial to the UK from Russia. Every international call had to be booked through an operator. Yuri's sleepless nights ended in triumph, however. They had over 800 calls from Russia, so many so that the telephone exchange in Covent Garden was overloaded. The Daily Mail ran a cartoon about it, showing two burly prison guards at a salt mine somewhere in Siberia, dangling a scrawny dissident between them. The caption read, was it you who booked a call to Mrs. Thatcher? Many of the stories told about Bush House centred on the canteen, the melting pot of the building. I remember it at lunch times as a kind of friendly but overwhelming babel. Each table occupied by a different language service, all competing to be heard in the cavernous underground room. At its peak, the World Service was broadcasting in 45 different languages from Bush House, which allowed for some fairly niche specialisms. A Welsh service transmitting to Patagonia and Portuguese for Jersey, targeting all the expat hotel staff who worked there. Graham Mitton, who is head of the Hauser Section, remembers receiving letters addressed to the Queen, care of Bush House. And once a sole envoy from Hadeja in northern Nigeria arrived at reception asking for the Hauser Service. He'd been sent by the emir to buy hospital equipment in the uk, and on landing at Heathrow, only knew one building in London to go to. Graham took him on to the Department of Trade. Now, as I get ready to leave Bush House myself, it's the sounds from the building which will stick in my memory. The female voice in the lifts announcing each floor in her peculiar but very familiar clipped tones. Lily Bolero. The World Service's signature tune, originally an Irish jig by Purcell, played so many times that it must be impregnated in the walls by now. And finally, the noises from the Strand, which so often came in through the windows as we worked. The traffic and sirens, but also the frequent demonstrations and noisy gatherings outside. Bush House is on one of the main arteries into Trafalgar Square, and we'd often stop work to peer down at the protesters marching past, shouting their slogans. After so many years and so many millions of spoken words broadcast from Bush House, now it waits in limbo for its new future, still filled with the ghosts and voices of the past.
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Anna Horsbrough, porter at Bush House, a building many are sad to leave. And that's it. We're back next Saturday after moving house. Do join us. Goodbye.