Original subtitles

'I was just off the coast of the beautiful island of Barbados,

'at the eastern edge of the Caribbean.

'With glorious beaches and fabulous villas,

'it's the Caribbean of the rich and the famous.

'But they still let me visit.'

Flipping heck!

That's what you call super-yachts.

But think of the upkeep.

Think of all the cleaning.

'The island is one of the jewels of the Caribbean,

'a proper bit of paradise.'

Goodness me!

Welcome to Barbados.

'Barbados is a major fly and flop destination for wealthy sun-seekers.

'Tourism's the main money-earner here,

'and has made the 285,000 Bajans

'among the richest people in the region.

'But an influx of oligarchs

'and movie stars buying homes has caused friction.

'On the best beaches, locals are now almost invisible.

'Many say they've been pushed out by property developers.

'I went to meet one man who's holding out

'against the tide of gentrification.'

All right. Hello, sir.

Simon Reeve, BBC.

Pleased to meet you. Lovely to meet you too, sir.

Yeah, come right in.

Neville Ifill lives in a house his grandparents bought.

DOG BARKS

You're going to show us the beach. OK, after you.

Mr Ifill, this is very nice.

A cool spot.

Can I ask, do you know how much money your grandma paid

for this plot of land, for the house originally?

$24?

...four dollars.

And was this a less fashionable...

A cheaper place to buy then?

Yeah. Yeah.

In the past, much of this area was swampy mangroves

and only the poorest folk lived by the beach.

Now, this is one of the most expensive,

valuable bits of land on planet Earth.

Ironically, when slavery ended here black Bajans could only

afford homes along what's become the Platinum Coast.

Now, villas are replacing traditional homes.

Paths giving beach access to all are disappearing.

Some locals complain they've been purged from the landscape.

Is that how it feels?

Have people come to you and said, "Sell us your home"?

$8 million?

US.

Why didn't you want to take such a large sum?

Yeah, everybody always says, "Oh, every man has their price"...

Right... but it sounds like you haven't got one.

You're not selling for anything!

With crazy sums on offer, it's not surprising many Bajans have

sold their simple beach houses and moved inland.

But it was inspiring to see Neville's dogged refusal

to take the cash.

Money's not everything, after all.

So a lot of people might think it's completely mad to

turn down a multimillion pound offer for what is a fairly

small patch of land, but if you're in love with

a piece of paradise like this,

you can't really put a price on it.

Look at that!

'Of course, the seas around the Caribbean

'offer much more than just a lovely view.

'Beneath the waves, the coral reef off Barbados

'is a haven of bio-diversity.

'Like coral reef around the world, it's critical to life in our oceans.

'I went to meet Andre Miller, a local marine biologist.'

Permission to come aboard.

- - Come aboard. - Andre. - Simon.

Hello. Simon Reeve. Hello. Nice to meet you, brother.

Nice to meet you too. Thank you for having us.

'We headed out towards some of the most beautiful

'dive sites on the planet.'

'Coral reefs cover much less than 1% of the ocean floor,

'but support more than a quarter of all marine life.

'They act as nurseries for bigger fish

'and feeding ground for the larger species,

'so damage to a reef is a huge threat to life in our oceans.

'But now, more than three-quarters of the world's reefs are at risk

'of severe decline, threatened by pollution and our changing climate.

'Here in the Caribbean there's an additional villain.

'It's called the lionfish.

'It's a stunning creature with an array of venomous spines.

'Lionfish shouldn't be here. Their natural home is the Indo-Pacific.

'Scientists think they first got here in the ballast tanks of ships

'or after being released from aquariums.

'The trouble is, lionfish have a voracious appetite for the

'young of almost every other fish, and virtually nothing eats them.'

They have, when grown, no natural predators.

Every single day, they can eat half their body weight.

They can clean up a reef and remove all of the natural fish.

When we dissect these fish we find every species of

reef fish inside their stomachs.

Are you really quite worried, then, about what they're going to do here?

We are extremely worried.

If we don't do something now, in a few years

we might just be diving and looking at lionfish.

'A few years ago I saw lionfish far to the north in the Bahamas,

'while I was travelling around the Tropic of Cancer.

'Since then, their numbers have exploded

'and they've spread across the Caribbean.

'They pose such a threat to reefs that Andre and other

'scientists have decided the only way to stop them is to kill them.'

'He gave me a bit of training and asked me to help.

'Conservationists don't enjoy taking life,

'but as we've introduced lionfish to the Caribbean,

'many argue it's our responsibility

'to stop them destroying this fragile ecosystem.'

Good job, first I must say.

Well, thank you.

You filled up a container. Good job.

'I continued my journey around the Caribbean Sea,

'heading to the nearby island of St Vincent.

'It's part of a chain of islands

'with a population of around a 100,000,

'which have only been an independent nation since 1979.'

So we've managed to get the only trolley

in St Vincent Airport, luckily.

Who's this gentleman?

- Hello. - Hey.

- Are you Tari? - Yes, I'm Tari.

Hello, Tari. Simon Reeve. Nice to meet you.

Oh, Tari, yeah.

We're going to be together for a few days, Tari.

OK, that's great. I'm looking forward to that.

'The island is rugged and beautiful,

'with an active volcano to the north that Tari took me to see.

'St Vincent was a British colony on and off for more than 200 years.

'We filled it with slaves and plantations.

'St Vincent is poorer than Barbados, with average incomes of less

'than £100 a week, and it gets a lot less tourism.'

So this sand isn't the traditional golden sand

that many tourists expect when they're on holiday.

It's not so fantastic for the tourism industry here,

but the volcano

is certainly very good at pumping out nutrients.

I mean, the soil here is very rich, very fertile.

'That fertile volcanic soil provides the island with

'most of its earnings.

'For decades, bananas were St Vincent's single biggest export,

'but not any more.'

Oh...

So now we start to climb the volcano.

'But we weren't going up to peer in to a crater.

'With the help of the volcanic soil,

'many farmers in this area are turning to a more illicit crop -

'marijuana.'

'The US government says St Vincent is the source

'of the majority of cannabis in the Caribbean

'and we were heading to the secret farms where it's grown.'

It's a hell of an effort to get to these plantations.

We don't know what sort of reception we're going to receive

when we get there.

'As in most of the Caribbean,

'growing or using the drug is illegal here.'

Somebody's helpfully left a rope here.

'The US military has backed raids on farms here

'and the destruction of crops.

'As I discovered,

'the marijuana plantations aren't exactly hard to find.'

Look, I can see a hut just ahead.

And those bushes there.

I think we've reached the plantations.

This is where they're growing marijuana.

I can see more acres over there.

There's a shack with more marijuana up there in the distance,

up here on the hill, down below over there.

It's quite an extraordinary sight.

It's a sort of hidden, semi-secret marijuana valley.

'As we got close to another farm, Tari told us to stay back

'and keep our camera hidden.'

There's a farmer just up ahead with a field,

and we're hoping we can go and speak to him

but, not surprisingly,

he's not entirely keen that a TV crew turn up.

Tari's just going to have a chat with him, try and negotiate.

- - Oh. - Simon. - Yeah?

Let's go, let's go. OK.

That's Simon.

Hello, sir. Simon. Very nice to meet you.

That's Craig with the camera.

Safe, safe. You're safe, means it's OK.

'They were a bit camera shy to begin with, but it wasn't long

'before the farmers produced some weed, and they all began to relax.'

'Even farmers coming from other fields didn't seem to

'mind our presence.'

Are you all right there, sir? Good afternoon to you.

Good afternoon.

Completely different to the reaction we would get

if we tried to go to marijuana plantations in Central America,

for example, where we would be quite likely to encounter guards

with assault rifles, and possibly would have been shot

twice in the head and dumped by the side of the road.

There's none of that here.

This is not marijuana being grown by organised crime,

it's marijuana being grown by farmers.

'After we'd hung out with them for a while,

'one of the farmers agreed to talk.'

Do you make a lot of money from growing marijuana?

Come on, come on. We want to know whether you're a rich man.

This is a T-shirt that's seen better days,

but you might have your Armani suit back at your home.

When you say "a lot of money" how are you...?

- How are you defining that? - Yeah.

Yeah, fair point, fair point.

I'm presuming you make a lot more money growing marijuana than

you do growing bananas?

- Obviously. - Right.

But nobody's bought a yacht or a Bentley?

The way you're saying that it's as if it's just another crop.

A green gold.

It is. It is.

'There are thought to be up to 3,000 cannabis farmers on the island.

'Many are hoping their trade in green gold will soon be legal.

'There's a global trend towards decriminalising the growing

'and use of marijuana.

'Farmers here think they're well placed to export to the US

'and the rest of the world.'

'It's a key issue across the Caribbean region.'

If it's legalised, you'll be allowed to legally export it

from St Vincent. You could make a lot of money from that.

How?

'Think of the Caribbean and you think of islands,

'but my journey was taking me around the Caribbean Sea,

'and its waters also lap the beaches of South and Central America.

'My next stop was Venezuela.'

Ah!

So we've arrived in Venezuela.

You might be wondering why I'm here.

It's not traditionally thought of as being a Caribbean country,

but it is. And, in fact,

it's got the longest Caribbean Sea coastline of any nation.

So we're in the car, we're heading in to Caracas, the capital.

We've got Virginia, who is going to be guiding us around Venezuela.

Hi.

Did you just say "hi" in a sort of shy, camera way?

Sort of. I'll get better.

Look at that. You suddenly emerge into the city.

'Venezuela should be one of the richest countries on Earth.

'It has the largest proven oil reserves in the world and has

'earned more than a trillion dollars from oil in the past 20 years.

'Until a few years ago it was led by the charismatic left-wing

'firebrand, Hugo Chavez.

'He'd been elected partly as a reaction against America's

'meddling in South and Central America.

'Chavez used some of the oil money to reduce extreme poverty

'and said he'd create a socialist utopia.

'There is government funded housing for some,

'yet because of gobsmacking economic mismanagement

'one in three people in oil-rich Venezuela are poor.

'Since Chavez died in 2013, things have gone from bad to worse.

'Venezuela's now a country in turmoil.'

We need to be a little bit careful filming out on the street,

I think I'm right in saying. Don't we, Virginia?

Yes. The first time I came here, neighbours kept on telling me

to put my camera away because I was going to be shot from...

You know, by people from above.

- Shot? - Shot.

Bloody hell.

'Caracas is one of the most dangerous cities in the world.

'We were heading into a notorious building called the Tower of David.'

What's with the motorbikes?

They're going to drive us

up to the 7th or 8th floor just to sort of make the hike shorter.

OK.

This is a sort of unfinished car park by the look of it,

multistorey car park.

And this is where we get out.

Virginia, what is this place?

Well, it was originally meant to be a bank,

one of the leading sort of banking institutions of the country,

but after it went broke it was abandoned and then taken over by...

I don't know, close to 200 people that turned it in to their homes.

So it's an abandoned skyscraper?

It's a squatters' skyscraper, yes.

'Driven by poverty and a lack of proper housing,

'the number of squatters here quickly grew.'

Oh, my God, look at that!

'Almost 3,000 people have been living here.

'Families have raised children in the tower,

'carrying everything for their flats up by hand.'

That's astonishing!

'The tower has had a fearsome reputation.

'Violent drug and kidnap gangs operated from here.'

My God, look at this.

'And there are stories of people being pushed to their deaths

'tens of storeys below.'

Imagine bringing children up right next to this.

I think it shows the level of desperation, really.

That families have been prepared to do this.

This is not, by a long stretch, a safe environment

to raise your youngsters in the sense that, you know,

they could fall down the stairs,

they could fall off the edge of the building!

Look, just over here, they could fall through a gap.

Look.

This is not good.

And yet, for the people who live here

it was better than life outside.

Safer here in this shanty town in the sky

than out there in the city.

'I found the tower astonishing.

'In the absence of government help, people got on with organising

'things themselves, even opening businesses.'

There's a little shop there.

'From barbers' shops to nurseries,

'the tower was like a vertical high street.'

What's going on here?

People are making cookie cutters.

That's a whole production line.

Making cookie cutters!

Goodness me.

'Despite an intermittent supply of electricity and water,

'there's even industry in the tower.'

Wow.

You've got a whole factory going on in here.

We've interrupted you during lunch. I'm very sorry.

It looks as though you're doing pretty well.

How many cookie cutters are you making?

25,000 a week!

That's...

His fingers went... Thumbs went up like that.

Could you have achieved this if you hadn't been living in the tower?

Look. Wilmer here has just given us business cards.

He's such a businessman.

I think he's thinking about exporting to the European Union.

We might be able to go in to business together importing

cookie cutters into the UK, maybe.

'People are currently being rehoused out of the tower, but residents

'have taken an enormous pride in the place,

'creating order out of chaos...

There's a beauty parlour on this floor.

'They have committees to keep charge of cleaning and security,

'a real community.'

It's truly inspiring that they were able to build not only,

you know, houses out of bricks, but also build a sort of strong

community with a strong sense of solidarity among them.

You know, they really do look other each other's neighbours.

In a way, this speaks of a more successful

system of organising than most Venezuelans have outside.

'Next day, we left Caracas and headed towards the Colombian border,

'in Venezuela's Wild West.

'We were heading in to a tricky area, so we'd swapped hire cars

'for more discreet local wheels,

'complete with a shag pile dashboard.'

We're going to hop out. Honestly, this is quite interesting.

But he does it right to the top, doesn't he?

OK, so he's put 68 litres in.

How much is that costing you?

It cost 6 Ps to fill up the tank right now,

so that close to a US dollar.

One US dollar? To fill up a 60 litre tank, yes.

'And many well-connected people here can fill a tank even cheaper.'

What you pay for a litre is what I pay a whole year to fill

up my tank once or twice a month.

An entire year?

Yeah.

My yearly budget for petrol is what you spend in one litre.

This is extra, extra, extra bonkers, isn't it?

'Petrol here is the cheapest in the world

'and is sold for far less than it costs to produce,

'thanks to a government subsidy introduced decades ago.'

'The cost of subsidising fuel is gradually bankrupting

'the country, but no government has been brave enough

'to raise prices, even though the subsidy benefits the rich,

'who have more cars, rather than the poor.'

Look. There's a nodding donkey just here in this suburban neighbourhood.

There's a gentleman just over there. Could we just ask him

how often, does it pump all the time?

Do you see the benefits from it?

I don't understand where the money's gone.

This has been pumping for years.

Venezuela, it's the biggest...

One of the biggest oil producers in the world.

Where does it go? Where does the money go?

'It's extraordinary. Venezuela and Venezuelans should be rich.

'It's unclear where the country's oil wealth has gone.

'Much has been stolen or lost through inefficiency and rampant

'corruption, and vast sums have been siphoned off when petrol is

'smuggled across the border to Colombia, where I was headed next.'

What's going on here?

Well, basically, the kids are bringing over gas

and they're going to do a quick refill for this guy.

'Because of Venezuelan subsidies, petrol costs a hundred times

'more across the border in Colombia,

'so profits for smuggling are huge.

'There are supposed to be controls and restrictions on petrol sales

'near the border, but we saw countless drivers filling

'huge tanks they would take to Colombia and sell.

'Our route to the border was a smugglers' highway.'

Look, they're turning off.

They're just going to go down...

Well, a little track down to the side...

...which probably means there's a checkpoint just up ahead.

Yeah, I can even see it!

'We went through numerous checkpoints

'on the way to the border,

'but they were clearly not much of a deterrent.'

They've obviously just gone round the checkpoint to get away

with whatever it is they're smuggling.

'Guns, drugs and food, as well as petrol, are smuggled here.

'Huge profits are at stake

'and the border region has become extremely dangerous.'

Oh, it's, like, an army convoy.

It was a contingent of the National Guard.

I just heard there was actually a violent confrontation yesterday,

and a shoot-out between smugglers and the National Guard.

'Gangs, the police and politicians are all said

'to be involved with the smuggling.

'As we got closer to the border, it seemed everyone was at it.'

And all those there!

Amazing! We're just off the main road away from the checkpoint

and this is all completely illegal here.

It's like a square mile of black market illegal madness.

Everybody is trading fuel here.

'It's been officially estimated that roughly £30 million worth

'of fuel is smuggled out of Venezuela every single week.

'But the government here has been a bit hopeless at preventing

'the national coffers being bled dry.'

We were spotted by one of the guys, so we can't do a drive around again.

OK, the locks just went down, is that because he's worried for us?

Yes. It might get a bit aggressive.

We were spotted as foreigners or as TV people?

TV people.

OK, not good.

'The fuel subsidy here costs more than government spending

'on education and health care combined.

'As we headed towards the border, our driver admitted

'he was also a smuggler,

'and even he was angry and worried about the state of the country.'

So how often will you do a run across?

TRANSLATION: Once or twice a day.

And how much money can a person make with a car like this?

It's very lucrative for doing almost nothing.

And it's easy money.

Normally, I can sit here driving for two or three hours

and I can make as much as a professional in this country

makes in a month.

Where do you think this country will be in five years' time?

Every day, I think about what this country used to be like

and what it's like now.

From top to bottom, everything is bad.

It's difficult to see a future for Venezuela.

We're getting close to the border with Colombia now

and I'm coming to the conclusion that Venezuela is

one of the worst-managed countries that I have ever visited.

I've been in poorer places and I've been in war-torn countries,

but I don't think I've been in one which has got quite this much

natural wealth, and yet is being so badly run.

What a completely lawless situation.

Right at the V that marks the end of Venezuela.

'It's a beautiful country with so much going for it.

'But, to be honest, the muppetry of the government here meant

'I wasn't sad to move on.'

Here we go, Colombian immigration right here.

There's a cop here smoking a fag.

Virginia, thank you so much. May we have a little...?

Of course. Good luck.

'We headed west, along Colombia's Caribbean coast,

'towards an area officially called "the Banana Zone".'

Look at all of them!

'Bananas are one of the five most important crops in the world.'

We've arrived.

'In the UK we eat an astonishing 5 billion bananas a year.

'A quarter come from Colombia.'

Mathilde, what's with the blue bags?

TRANSLATION: There's a pesticide which protects the bananas,

so we can produce perfect bananas.

'Around 80% of people in this part of Colombia are involved

'in the banana trade.'

OK, thank you, Mathilde. A very sharp knife.

'Time for me to join them.'

- Take the leaves off first? - Yeah.

Sorry.

'Much of the industry here has signed up to the Fair Trade scheme.'

Bueno?

Now hang on, that's got the bananas on.

'It ensures workers receive better wages

'and improved working conditions.'

Ah!

Bloody hell, that's heavy!

This bloke's a train engine. Bueno.

'Some of the farm workers here, including Mathilde Castro,

'used to be farmers themselves.

'They were part of a co-operative that owned

'and ran its own banana plantation.

'But they were sucked in to the violence of Colombia's civil

'conflict, when guerrilla groups fought

'against the national government

'and the country descended into near-chaos.

'The conflict tore their lives apart.'

TRANSLATION: Some men came and killed my partner

and his two brothers.

We were threatened and told if we stayed we'd be killed,

so we had to leave.

Who did this?

The paramilitaries.

So these are the right-wing paramilitaries who were often

started by corporations, I think, weren't they?

And they came and murdered your husband and stole your land?

Some of them have admitted to the crimes they committed.

Why did they do it? For the land, that's why.

'During the worst years of fighting here, corporations

'and businesses often connived with or even established violent

'paramilitary groups to protect their interests

'and even kill their enemies and claim more land.

Some of the banana corporations who've been operating here

have got questions to answer about their role in

what's afflicted this country.

One of the big banana multi-nationals, Chiquita,

they were fined and given a multimillion pound fine just

a few years ago because they confessed

they had been supporting, funding paramilitary groups here

that were targeting banana farm workers and trade unionists.

'Colombia's violent reputation continues to put off foreign

'visitors, but it's a stunning country.

'I headed along the coast towards the last destination on this

'part of my journey around the Caribbean.

'My route was taking me in to the Sierra Nevada Mountains,

'the highest coastal mountain range in the world.

'It's home to an ancient people.'

We're heading in to the land of the Kogi people.

Now, the Kogi are the most intact surviving civilisation

from the time before Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas.

'When the Spanish invaders first arrived here, most of the indigenous

'people of the Americas were wiped out, often by the gun or the sword.

'But tens of millions died from diseases they had no immunity to.

'But the Kogi retreated high in to the Sierra Nevada, which is

'where they've remained.'

Look at this.

We're arriving on the edge of a community, a village, it looks like.

'There are roughly 20,000 Kogi people in these mountains.

'They hunt and gather,

'but they're also a settled community,

'who have farmed here for centuries.

'Unlike many indigenous communities around the world, the Kogi

'are choosing to remain largely isolated from the modern world.

'There wasn't even a football T-shirt in sight.

'It's extremely rare for the Kogi to allow a TV crew into their world.

'They let me visit for a simple reason - to show us

'how they live and to warn that their way of life

'is now being threatened.'

This is right up there with the most incredible places I've ever been.

'The Kogi wanted to show me what was at stake, so they took me into

'their back garden - the pristine forests of the Sierra Nevada.

'These misty mountains are home to extraordinary bio-diversity,

'including the most important concentration of threatened

'mammals, amphibians and birds on Earth.'

TRANSLATION: We don't damage the hills, the caves or the trees,

because they give us life.

These are the laws that Mother Nature has given us.

'The Kogi believe the Sierra Nevada is the heart of the world.'

Look at this!

Absolutely spectacular.

OK. Ooh.

So it turns out that the village we were in is more of a gathering

place for farmers to assemble, farmers from the community.

So each of the people we've met has a little farm like this,

but they go to meet outsiders down in the village.

This is a job made for me. OK.

Which one?

Ah.

Ooh. Flipping heck.

Have you little ones seen tall foreigners before?

Lemonade, Kogi style.

Wow, it smells incredible.

Mmm.

I don't think it's alcoholic.

- Any alcohol? - No.

I know I mustn't drink it all, but it is very good.

So this is home tonight, the village school.

We've got inflatable mattresses inside and mosquito nets to keep

out the buzzing mozzies, but also we're going to tuck them underneath

the mattresses and hopefully that will keep out the snakes, as well.

THUNDER RUMBLES

COCKEREL CROWS

It wasn't a horrific night but things -

COCKEREL CROWS

cockerels started crowing next to our heads

at about quarter past three.

I hate cockerels.

'The Kogi call the rest of us their younger brother,

'and they believe we're threatening their very existence.

'I went to talk with Mamo Luntana, a Kogi elder.'

What I want to know is how younger brother expects us

all to live when you come from the other side of the world

and destroy Mother Earth so that multi-national companies can profit.

Younger brother has caused so much damage.

River levels have fallen, the rains don't come when they should.

Crop seasons are changing.

Only when younger brother stops can this life carry on as normal.

'We're used to being warned about our changing climate by scientists,

'but it's shocking to hear this first-hand

'evidence of profound change already happening from the leader

'of a remote people in a remote part of the planet.'

'And this is something I'm hearing more

'and more of on my travels around the world.'

I'm nearly at the end of my journey,

but we're heading back down to the coast to the sea.

It's not far, well, not that far anyway as the crow flies.

It takes a bit of time on these roads. Ah-ah.

And we've got a vehicle behind that's bringing

some of the Kogi with us.

'The Kogi have a series of sacred sites around the area

'connected by what they call the black line.

'It's part of their belief system.

'Many of their sacred sites have been damaged by development.

'They've now launched a desperate campaign to protect what's left.

'They took me down to the beach and back to the Caribbean Sea.'

When you see this power station, what do you think as a people?

You live in the mountains,

but I sense the sea is very important to you.

'The Kogi believe our natural world is being destroyed by us.'

Do you think younger brother will ever listen?

'There's a desperation in their plea.

'The Kogi have noticed our world is changing, not by measuring it,

'but by living in it.'

It's been an incredible journey,

from the beaches of Barbados to the mountains of the Sierra Nevada.

But this is the end of this leg.

On the next leg, my final leg,

I'll be travelling up the Caribbean coast of Central America

and finishing my journey around the Caribbean Sea in Jamaica.