Brendan Grimshaw's Life and Philosophy

As you set out for Ithaca, hope your road is a long one, full of adventure, full of discovery. Cyclops and angry Poseidon, don't be afraid of them. You'll never find things like that on your way as long as you keep your thoughts raised high. As long as a rare excitement stirs your spirit and your body. Hope your road is a long one. May there be many summer mornings when with pleasure, what joy, you enter harbours you're seeing for the first time. Keep Ithaca always in your mind. Arriving there is what you're destined for. But don't hurry. The journey at all. Better if it takes for years. So you're old by the time you reach the island. Wealthy with all you've gained on the way. And not expecting Ithaca to make you rich. Ithaca gave you the marvelous journey. Without her, you wouldn't have set out. She has nothing left to give you now. And if you find her poor, Ithaca won't have fooled you. Wise as you will have become... So full of experience, you will have understood by then what these Ithacas mean. You're right about five minutes. Two minutes to go. Well, Brent, I think I'm going to hit you with a big question. That's the first question. Well. I know it's a difficult one to respond to because I guess it's kind of vague. But I'd really like to hear it from you because I'm sure you've had a lot of time to think about this. So who is Brendan Grimshaw? Other people would put it more simply, they would say I was a rebel. I don't agree I'm a rebel at all. I think I just followed what my mind told me. Alright, follow my instinct here, we'll go back to the instinct again. But I just did what I wanted to do. I consider myself very ordinary. I was just a boy. And at 15 I'd had enough. I didn't want any more school. I was not interested in mathematics. I was not interested in mechanics. very interested in physics, but I was very interested in writing. My mother was very intelligent, and she knew that the headmaster of the school, his son, worked on a local newspaper. So she was the one who got me an interview with the editor of the paper. And the editor asked me, did I want to be a reporter or a newspaper man? And I remember not waffling, I said, well, what was the difference? And he looked at the kid, I suppose, and he said, well, a reporter knows how to report. A newspaper man knows all about newspapers. Well, I wasn't all that grim. I said, oh, I want to know all about newspapers. He said, you start tomorrow. Brendan was 15 when he quit school. He would go on to become the youngest newspaper editor in England. But Brendan had other dreams, and he followed his heart into Africa. He would establish himself as editor to newspapers in both Kenya and Tanzania. I did well in my job. And I became editor of the two main newspapers in the country. I was friend of everybody from not only the office boy but to the president. And I had access to everybody. There's an element not only of doing a job that I like to do, but of course there was an element of... Well, the job being something... that was useful, and useful with a sense of power. I don't mean sort of power to hammer and tell people to do this and do that. I mean power in the way that you could actually really do good. You could see things going wrong, and you could, as a person, put them right. But Africa was changing. And a growing resentment against colonial occupation was slowly becoming organized, as ideas of freedom and stories of successful rebellion abroad spread to people surrounded by poverty and white dominion. I know Brendan to be beyond politics. He sees people as equals, and could not help but sympathize with the desire of freedom that surrounded him. I had a very good friend, for example, He was called Edouard Oumandran. He would have made a very good president of Mozambique. He loved books and he had a little house, a little cottage on the beach in Tanzania. And in between going into Mozambique, he was a freedom fighter or a terrorist, whichever way you want to look at it these days. He... He used to have lots of books sent to him. And one day, this man who I used to swim with and joke with, say I was a Portuguese submarine and bang bang, when we were swimming off the... ...Costans in Tanzania. He opened his... and he was blown to pieces. I went to his funeral and... But I say, yes, it's a cruel world. I mean, he was a good man. I know his whole thinking, his whole idea was to do good for his people, to do good for Mozambique. And I'm sure he would have made a very, very good president. But somebody decided otherwise. These were very difficult times for anyone with human concerns. And Brendan understood his time in Africa was coming to an end. This is the man he would hand over his job to. But luckily for him, a new dream would begin to take shape. Um... Two of my friends had married Seychelles. They told me how beautiful the islands were. And so I caught a boat from Mombasa and I came to Seychelles. But after I'd been... I'd been in the islands for about a week. I suddenly realized that this is what I wanted. That I wanted a place in the Seychelles. I spent three weeks looking. and I didn't find anything. Came the end of my holiday, the last day, I went to visit a lawyer in his office. Living, his office was a, oh, very dry, a barren sort of office. It's stacked with tint boxes of deeds, all with pink ribbons on them, I remember. And he was a very nice guy. Raoul and we're sitting talking and his telephone rang. Now I tell youngsters it always pays to be polite because if I hadn't been polite on this particular day I wouldn't be sitting on the island as I am now. I got up and went to look out of the window so I was away from the telephone conversation and I looked down into the street and along was coming a guy, 18 year old guy, and he looked up and said hey you want to buy an island? But anyway... He came up, the boy said to me, I've got a boat, would you like me to take you over? And I said, yes, very much. So we came across, and I always remember coming across the bay, there are some rocks just off Round Island, and they look very dangerous. And this boy with a fast speedboat went zoom, straight through them, and I sort of held on as a yick. But he got me to Moyen quite safely. And I stepped ashore for the first time. And it was totally different. It was a special feeling. This was a feeling that, oh yes, this is what I want. This is the place. This is the place that I really feel, felt, what I've been looking for. And I came up onto the plateau here, where the house is. And there was an old, old, broken, anteaten building, which I suppose had been used for picnics. No one had lived on the island since 1915. A long, long time. That was Miss Bess. Well, it all came crashing down around my ears because when we found the man who owned the island, he said, oh, I don't want to sell. You know, you can't... When you've built yourself up, you've found something, you know what you want, this is it. What happens when the guy who owns it says, I don't want to sell? I said, I suppose the only thing I could say, I said, well, what was he doing that night? And he said, nothing particular. I said, well, why don't you and your wife come and have dinner with me at the hotel? Yes, he'd like to do that. It was a lovely starlight night, big moon, stars under the palm trees. just what you'd expect a tropical night to be. It was about 11 o'clock at night when, it's called Philip, the owner, said to me, you're not such a bad guy. And I said, aren't I? Thank you. And he said to me, no, I inherited the island from my godfather and I wouldn't want... to sell it to anyone who wouldn't look after it. And he said, I have a feeling that you would look after the island. So I said, does that mean that you might think of selling it to me? And he said, it could be. It was... Four minutes to midnight on the very last day of my holiday, I shook hands with the band and the island became mine. Brendan bought Moyen Island in 1962 and has been living on it for the past 34 years. In that time, he and his good friend René La Fortune planted every tree you see on the island, built every path you walk, and brought every giant tortoise you encounter. The challenge is to cut a manageable path around this island. It's quite a challenge, and particularly for somebody who doesn't know anything about it. I mean, let's face it, I came here, I didn't know anything about island life, I didn't know what. I do know that in a matter of weeks I'd lost some stone in weight, two or three stones in weight. I went to see the doctor, I was so worried, I said, well you know what... And he said, yes, you look like a man who's losing weight. And he checked and he said, you know, you're very fit. If I were you, I would continue having your mangoes. I would continue eating your fish. I would continue working hard on the island. And you'll be a fit, much fitter man than you were sitting behind your desk as an editor. He was right, of course. I was able, when I came here, to quite literally put everything behind me. All the things that I'd done as an editor, all the things I'd done in a civilized... society. Okay, all these things I had done and to be quite honest I didn't need to do them again. So now I had a different challenge with my colleague. This I have not really mentioned enough, to be honest. A guy called René La Fortune, who was the son of the fisherman, who was the guardian of the island before I came here, he started to work with me when he was 19. And what I didn't do, he did, or what he didn't do, I did. And so it worked very well. And now there's only me, and it becomes a little bit difficult. And in fact, it's the two of us who have, in fact, cut the paths. He's often started from one end and I started the other and we met in the middle. In many ways also the island... It rather tells you what needs to be done next. And so you know first of all that you must put a path around the island so that you can see what the island looks like. And that was great fun because... I had no idea what I was going to find as we cut through the bush and we found the site of the first house We found two pirate graves. We found all sorts of things and We realized that it was too much bush In fact, we realized it was nearly all bush. And so we decided, well, better to start putting in some trees and making the island not only look good, but be useful. And so we started. And today, right, 16,000 trees and palms and shrubs are well established on the island. It looks a totally different island. So when you ask me what What, you know, how did we start to work? It all sort of evolved to its own accord. It's just a question that we had to have a house to live in, we had to have paths to cut, and then the birds came, and then we had to have more trees. And then we realized how beautiful the island could be. There you are. Oh! Oh! It's lovely, isn't it? Oh! And it's flat underneath, it's a little girl. Oh! Has a small tail. And it's dove-shaped. Oh! And this is the kindergarten. And then over there are the teenagers. But it is possibly the only place where you can come ashore and as you walk around the island you bump into and meet tortoises, giant tortoises, ambling along, happy and free, living their lives, having their babies. This is something really very special. I mean, I don't say that... Cutting the hillside, even though it might be a bit barren and rough, to build a house is going to beautify the hillside. Maybe it would be better to plant a few trees, but at least you have to have somewhere to live. And so, OK, we realised, let's do it our own way. And over the years one question being asked by time, why didn't you get people to come and help you? Come and help us. We would have to do work just as hard bringing the people. them here and taking them back and looking after them, it is much, much better for us to do the job. It's fine to drop by just for a day and see the beauty of the place, but then you've got to keep the place clean. You have 2,000 coconut trees and every month they drop at least two big palm fronds. Now if you leave them lying around, the place will look a mess in no time at all. And this is only a minor job that nobody ever even thinks about. about. It's not for everyone and bear in mind for example had I been married it would have been a little bit difficult because the wife would have been wanting to shop around the corner. She would not have liked the idea of no electricity, no piped water. So many people come to the island even even today I have some people came to the island and it's always wonderful you have a wonderful this is a wonderful life it's like Eden it's paradise this is what we would like to do. What did you think of the island? Would they like to do it? I'm not so sure. Because I look at them, they're in their very nice clothes and their dresses and the rest of it, and they're sitting and they're having their beers at the bar. They're used to a different way of life, just as I was used to a different way of life. Well, OK, I managed to change. When I lay in my bed in the house where we lived when I was a boy, I was coming back a bit, and looked out through the window, there were some beautiful trees. And of course, unlike in Seychelles here, the trees lost all their leaves in wintertime. And I used to lie back and I used to look at the trees and would make all sorts of stories out of them, and think, and pictures, and faces of people, and things like this. That's a millionaire's palm tree. That's the one that if they cut that down, it gives you the millionaire's salad. Oh, yeah? The millionaire's salad? It is also endemic. Oh, it's also... Endemic. Endemic. And that one is also endemic. That is... Oh. And this one has fallen down. I was eating some of that at lunchtime. Cashew nuts. Cashew nuts? I wasn't actually eating that, but I was eating some. The island gradually taught you what to do. You understand? As you went along, you thought to do things, but then you looked at the island and you realised, no, no, this island is an island. It knows itself what it wants to do. It knows, and you know, because when you look at it, you realise, OK, we plant something here, it's not going to survive, because simply it's not the place for this particular sort of vegetation to grow. And along these lines, for example, there was an area where we wanted to take out the bush, and we realised that there was available mahogany. And... And we brought over 50 just to see how they would go. And they loved the island. So the next year we brought over another 150. So that made it 200. These particular mahogany, you can see on the island today, they're 60, 70 feet high. They're doing very well. I'm going to the bathroom. I'm going to the bathroom. I'm going to the bathroom. I'm going to the bathroom. I'm going to the bathroom. I'm going to the bathroom. I'm going to the bathroom. I'm going to the bathroom. I'm going to the bathroom. I'm going to the bathroom. I'm going to the bathroom. I'm going to the bathroom. I'm going to the bathroom. I'm going to the bathroom. And so we have actually planted 700 mahogany trees on the island. But you see, the first thing that people say when you talk about, or they see the mahogany is, oh, they make beautiful furniture. They see them as... a source of wood for, oh, you name it, boats, housing, furniture or anything. They don't see it as a tree. And this is, I see it as a tree. I don't want to get it down. I didn't plant it to cut it down. I planted it because I wanted it to be there You know me now Yes, nice little bird, yes. Oh yes. Broke his leg. Broke his leg but now he's feeling a bit better. Okay. Good little bird. Come on, put you down. Come on down. Steady, steady, steady, steady. Oh, going to be a big, big bird. Look at this big wigspan. Look, oh, very big bird he's going to be. Thing which, when you talked about dreams. There was one dream which used to come up, and I've never forgotten it. And that was, if ever there was a steamroller, I'm talking about... It's not all that stupid. There was a steamroller in the dream. It was bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. I was to keep away from steamrollers because steamrollers meant the destruction of nature. All right? And in a way, if you want to come full circle, I would not want to see a steamroller on this island. Captions by Red Bee Media Copyright Australian Broadcasting Corporation Ecology and economics comes from the same root. They're to do with our house, which is the natural environment. And basically we have to marry the two, if the two have not been married already. And it's funny because it seems like there are these two forces, opposing forces, Yes. you know, that are colliding right here on this island. Yes, they are. There's no doubt about it. Here we are in the heart of a marine national park. We're one of... five islands in the Marine National Park. The other four islands have all got hotels or about to have hotels, some very big hotels on them. Environment is very important for the Seychelles because basically we live off the environment. The whole economy is based on the environment. We earn our living from tourism and from fisheries and everything else, every other activity which brings in a revenue for the different households and livelihood is directly or intrinsically linked to the environment. So I've already been approached. People want to buy the island and my first question is what do you want it for? They don't say oh I want it because I want to come and live here it's so beautiful and I won't mind people coming and seeing the island. No no no. They say oh we want it because it's ideal for like the other islands building a hotel. So what do you do for future generations of young Seychelles? What are they going to do? How much did they offer you for the island? It was a lot of money. More or less? Well, it was something like 24 million. Pounds? Pounds. I tell my friend that keep on doing, do not sell his island or the people will destroy the animal and destroy the environment. Don't let the friends take away your land. the island because it is our heritage. So I will tell him to keep on doing the same work and advise his son or his daughter to do it. The problem is he doesn't have any children. That's why the island is in danger. No wife. No wife and no children. So, when Brendan dies, no one knows what is going to happen to the island. And many people want to take the island and build big hotels on it. Because you have to accept that there's got to be development. I'm not saying you can't have development. Of course you have to have development, otherwise the future generations won't be around. You've got to balance it, you've got to be sensible about it. You've got to say, OK, four of the islands have gone, now let's keep this one. At least at the moment I can say, yes, we keep it, because that's what I want. But what will happen when I'm not here anymore, a coconut hits me on the head, something like this, OK, so I've set up the Moyne Island Foundation. We've created a foundation which is a... self-perpetuating foundation. The objects of the foundation are very simple, that it's got to leave Mayan as is. Yes, it can earn certain income, it needs income, but to maintain the island in its present state. Or the government here decides that it's in its interest to build a hotel on it. But we will have to cross those bridges when we reach there. I think the foundation has very clear and definitive aims. More understanding between members. of the foundation themselves as to what could happen negative, what could happen positive, and how to bring about the positive to make sure that what he would like to happen really happens, rather than it being suddenly taken over for a hotel development or something, you know, which would be a whole lifetime's work almost, kind of suddenly negated, which would be extraordinarily sad. So I... I just hope that we can push things in the right direction. But on many of the other islands, they've come up with a different kind of formula, an economic formula, where the five-star hotel pays for the conservation of the islands. What do you think about this formula that's being used here? Well... We think it's a good idea simply because we started that idea. BirdLife International started that with Frigate Island about 20 years ago. And Nature Seychelles then came and continued the work of BirdLife International. And we've been able to develop these private partnerships with hotels like Frigate Island, Cuisine Island, which is the neighbor to Cousin, with Bird Island, with Dennis Island, where we have five-star resorts. And this is a formula that's working. It's working because other organizations have also adopted this kind of formula. So what do we do? We just write it off. We say, oh, forget what we did. And the three roaming tortoises. or let them all be packed up and sent somewhere. The birds, oh, we don't need to feed those. Leave the 2,000 birds that we've encouraged to come here. And all these very nice endemic plants, trees, palms that are found only in Seychelles, nowhere else in the world, and we have most of them growing on this island, we let them be cut down so that the villas and things can be built. Of course you don't do this. If you have any... If you have any real thought or any thinking of the future... I think leadership is very, very important because without the political will, you cannot have good environmental protection and sustainable development. And that political will must not only be nationally but also globally. And in Seychelles, for example, from the very beginning, when we achieved independence, we placed environmental protection... environmental management at the forefront of all our development. Hello, my name is Joel Morgan and I'm the Minister responsible for Environment, Natural Resources and Transport. It's not about being rich, it's about what we've done for our country. It's about what we have believed in and what we have invested in over so many years for people who 30 years ago were living in huts, in small shacks, and are today enjoying a standard of living that perhaps is unmatched in the entire region. region. We have a lot of investment already in country and we have a lot of investment that is planned in the very near future in the next two to three four years. We have a number of islands in the marine park which could lend themselves well to tourism development so why not allow that but at the same time ensure that you have very very strict environmental parameters and environmental guidelines that they operate under. Here we're talking agro-friendly, we're talking of things that basically would allow the economy to benefit. My name is Rolf Payet from the Seychelles. I'm the Special Advisor to the President. I think there is money to be made, there is more money to be made in this new era of a carbon-free society. A society which actually respects the environment, which can actually... We've shown that in Seychelles. We've shown that in Seychelles that if you make an investment in tourism, you make a similar investment in conservation. You make a similar investment in rehabilitation. Your tourism product attracts more value, generates more... revenue in the long term they would have just come in today using a traditional tourism model break everything cut everything down modify the entire environment and present the tourists with a cosmetic cosmeticized tourism experience many of these islands are really out of the reach of the normal seychelles or the normal citizen of the world the point is that we are using the money of rich people to conserved biodiversity that could have been lost if that money had not been accessed. So I think that's the point we have to make. If there are people with money and they want to take this money and give it to conservation, let's do it. It saddens me that we can sit here. And wonder about the future of Moay Nien when it seems like there could only be one future for Moay Nien. And it's the one we're sitting in right now. And I just don't understand. how there can even be an issue regarding that. Well, I think I've said, if you look around, you have five islands and four of them have got big hotels. The fifth island is sitting there and the people who control things... I'm not being political or anything like this. But people who are interested and greedy... Grief is a good word. It is grief. Have another one. They use another word to... They say development. They get away with a lot of bad things by using the word development. MUSIC I'm going to do a background shot, like this, I was thinking about the day when the market... I was thinking about the day when the market... I was thinking about the day when the market... I was thinking about the day when the market... I was thinking about the day when the market... I was thinking about the day when the market... I was thinking about the day when the market... I was thinking about the day when the market... I was thinking about the day when the market... I was thinking about the day when the market... I was thinking about the day when the market... I was thinking about the day when the market... I was thinking about the day when the market... I was thinking about the day when the market... I was thinking about the day when the market... I was thinking about the day when the market... I was thinking about the day when the market... We must never forget that Seychelles was populated only in 1770. Man came here and man is the greatest predator in the world. And greatest destroyer, they try to destroy a lot, but fortunately we started become very conscious before the impact of tourism. Imagine you had an island. You owned it. And along came a rich, rich person and offered you 34 million euros for the island. Would you sell the island? No. Why not? Because they lie to you, they say they're going to take care of it, but they don't. But if somehow the cost of running Moyen becomes prohibitive, and you have to get loans or whatever, then I think the more rational members of the foundation will argue that we would have to cave into the economic pressure. But one thing I would like to add also is that in session, We have almost 50% of our land territory as natural reserves. We have also national parks, we have a number of protected areas both in the sea and... and on land, we spend a lot of money to manage and protect the environment. The pressure has been intense. And as you say, there's been a lot of international pressure in relation to our current rate of development and our current standard of living of our country. There's been pressure to devalue the currency. There's been all kinds of other economic pressures brought about by all the players in the international market. It's the responsibility of government to negotiate properly with the foreign investor and it's the responsibility of the investor also to be careful of the social people. You cannot just come here and get money. You have to care for the local. We are the people of the land. You are just a foreign... investment is good but you have to think about us here people will suffer here nowadays we don't have a lot of things because we don't have foreign currency most of the sting here we imported what we want is stronger partnership with the various actors in the economy. And our fear is that some of the very strong actors that are coming in are foreign companies based elsewhere, with which we don't have strong links, and who may be very large multinationals, for which Seychelles is only a very small part of their business. That is the fear that we have. If you build a lot of five stars, It's not worth for the locals, it's beneficial for the investors. Because most of them are not living here in the mecs, they are pulling out their money. It's been a test of strength and a test of determination when it comes to... Can we maintain and can we continue to have the Seychelles that we have always known? There's been tremendous pressure on us to change things. For example, to liberalize rapidly. Slowly, the rights and privileges of the society will be encroached upon. And as you know, in every country in the world, money works. Unfortunately. But there are ways of developing without having to... to damage the environment. Seychelles is one case in point, and I think there are others that can do that. So if we have such models, if there's enough people of goodwill and people are aware of the issues, people start engaging themselves in making... The next few changes in their lifestyle, then we will eventually get there. I'm personally optimistic. I mean, it's a question of whether you believe in it or you don't. I console myself that when you have something like tourism, It's cyclical. The cycle seems to be you have somewhere totally unknown, then somebody knows about it and they open it and then only the very wealthy can get to it and then they move on. somewhere else then it becomes more sort of down market then you get mass tourism and then it's destroyed and they move on somehow in Seychelles this cycle hasn't quite happened yet it's been dragging on and on but the signs are that we will make the same mistakes As you know, I've created the Moyne Island Foundation and I want the island to stay as it is. I don't want to see it being turned into a five-star hotel, no way. A man doesn't spend 34 years of his life so far trying to create something a little bit special, something that's natural, like, in fact, creating a nature reserve and want it to just be chucked away and made a retreat for some wealthy people to come here and have a nice holiday and go away and then go to the Caribbean. or go somewhere else and rest to it. No. I say, over here is a five-star hotel, over there is one, on there there's a new one being built here. We're surrounded by people who are wanting to build hotels, people who want to make money, because that's all really what all they want to do. I understand the need for development, but at the same time, there has to be some sense in it. And... The sense in here is that, goodness, enough. Hotel, hotel, hotel, hotel. This is the only one with nothing here. Oh, for goodness sake, let it be. I don't want to see, I would not like to see myself being buried on the island and being viewed only by wealthy tourists. Here I am, with all those gadgets, and with the product of all that development, asking whether we should cut down. Or I guess I'd be the first that would have to cut down. So there's a certain degree of hypocrisy, just like I think there's a certain degree of hypocrisy. of hypocrisy of us as representatives of the West coming down to a developing nation like the Seychelles and feeling that we have any right to even ask them. ...to develop in a very specific way. You're not telling the seishoah they mustn't do this and they mustn't do that. All you're suggesting is they should come to realize... that they have some very wonderful things in Seychelles and they must maintain them and not lose them. If you were to talk about what's really important, why are people paying so much money to come here, to see our way of life, and we're trying so hard to become like they are, rat race, you want more material things. So the irony I find really sad. What we see in big cities consumes the varieties being having all sort of stuff thrown at you. you know, from the TV, from the newspaper, from everywhere you look. You go into the supermarket, there's 110 different items on the shelves, and you've got a problem to choose what you need to consume. But on a small island, if you go to a shop, then... You know exactly what you need because there's so few on there, you know, and you just grab it. You don't even think about it. I've been living on the island for 34 years. I could, coming back to the island and with the prices increasing as they have, that the island is worth several million pounds, I could say, well, what's the point of my... Cutting bush and doing all the jobs I do day after day. Sell the island, there's plenty of people who want to buy it to build a hotel. And then I've got enough money to live the life of Riley, as they say, live a wonderful life. Cruise around the world, I like cruise ships, but cruise around the world and spend a wonderful time seeing the world and enjoying myself. Although people think that this is the perception of happiness, it's not. It's really the simplicity of living on an island, which is the quality of life. And the high quality of life is your happiness, really. I can do it if I sold the island. But, but, but, but... I don't want to. I'm happier to get my hands dirty. I'm happier to not be greedy for a wonderful life. Because I enjoy what I do, I enjoy being with nature, and I also appreciate the fact that what I'm doing is useful. And I think living on a small island, you realize how close human beings are to the environment. But you also realize, I think, how dangerous it is if the environment turns against you. And this is what we are seeing on many, many small islands around the world. I like the concept of the miners and Aries. You know, in the old days, when the miners went digging for coal or whatever. Mines, poisonous gas was a big problem and they used to take a cage with a canary in there and they would know that something was up wrong if the canary stopped singing. And I think islands are a little bit like that. Because they are smaller, things happen faster and so it's a little bit like an alarm system. What happens in Ireland will sooner or later happen elsewhere. It's difficult, it's not a one-man band, is it? I mean, what I would like to do, yes, I would like... some very firm action to be taken along many lines to stop the... Pollution. I mean that's the most urgent thing at the moment to stop the pollution. To really go to town on it. But it needs more than one man on an island. one man can do things on an island, yes, because he's got the say, and also it's very small, and he can actually physically do it. And I wish them for size here, poverty is very much... link to the environment. If you don't solve the politicians, you don't solve poverty, you won't be able to solve the environmental problem. And on the other hand as well, among the developed countries, if you don't solve the consumerism, you don't solve the awareness issue, you won't be able to solve and address the environmental issues, you see? So there are all these links, inherent links, with the way politics is run at the global level. But I think the world, the rich world, the industrialized world, is not doing enough. You can leave the sessions. Little Seychelles with limited resources. We spend so much to try to preserve the environment and retain the Seychelles as one of the last paradise spots on Earth. Not only for us, but for people of the world to come and enjoy it and live it because they have destroyed their parts in other parts of the world. And they should help us to sustain it, to develop it. and to maintain that last piece of paradise that we still have on Earth. But, as you know, money is spent in different ways, destroying, destruction, killings, and so on, wars. And I think there should be more a global conscience. Brendan, you have a great relationship with your instinct. Yeah. And I'm going to ask you a difficult question because the answer... No, this one is difficult for what it implies. Yes, okay. What do you really think is going to happen to my onion? Oh dear. Yes, that is difficult. Um, I don't know. I know what I would like, I already said, I would like to see Moyenne continue to be a welcoming place for future Yung Seh Shoa, for visitors from all over the world. That's what I would like to see. But I'm not foolish to say, well, everybody's going to be in agreement with my ideas. Obviously the trend and the feeling is development and development means money and people like money and I'm afraid there are more people who like the idea of having more money than having a place like Moen preserved for future generations. Two minutes to go. Well, Brent, I think I'm going to hit you with a big question. That's the first question. Well. I know it's a difficult one to respond to because I guess it's kind of vague. But I really... like to hear it from you because I'm sure you've had a lot of time to think about this. So who is Brendan Grimshaw? Who? Me? Just a guy. A very ordinary guy. A guy who people People say, ooh, you own an island. It's the guy who says, no, I don't own an island. Tomorrow, coconut falls down, knocks me on the head. I don't own an island. I say, I'm like the guardian. I look after it. God owns it. I look after it. And I'm just a guy. I'm just a guardian. In this set, I used to be a newspaper editor. Then I was a newspaper editor. I was a schoolboy once, a long, long time ago, yes. But... I ran away from school. I didn't like that when I was 15. Okay, so I was a schoolboy and I was a soldier. I was a soldier for three years. It didn't make me a soldier. So what sort of guy am I? I'm a very ordinary guy. I'm the sort of guy I hope you would like to meet. This journey began with a question. What kind of world is this that would destroy the work of men like Brendan Grimshaw and Rene LaFortune? I don't know that I've provided the answer. What seems clear to me is that we've created a monster that assigns an economic value, a number, to trees, islands, and even people. The natural resources and heritage of some have become the commodities and wealth of others. But we as individuals are both part of the problem and the solution. And the work of a few can become the inspiration of many. Moayan Island was declared a national park in 2008, thanks to those of us who came together and believed that it does matter, that we can make a difference, and that everything is not simply a number. One year after the state of a special reserve, the government now declares the average as a national park. We hadn't done it with any intention of setting up a national park. We hadn't done it with any aims of, oh we need to do this, we need to do that. No, no, it was just a natural course of events. Thank you for what we signed a little while ago and I do from my heart say you're doing a wonderful thing.

May there be many summer mornings when with pleasure, what joy, you enter harbours you're seeing for the first time. Keep Ithaca always in your mind. Arriving there is what you're destined for. But don't hurry.

The journey at all. Better if it takes for years. So you're old by the time you reach the island.

Wealthy with all you've gained on the way. And not expecting Ithaca to make you rich. Ithaca gave you the marvelous journey. Without her, you wouldn't have set out. She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca won't have fooled you. Wise as you will have become... So full of experience, you will have understood by then what these Ithacas mean.

You're right about five minutes. Two minutes to go. Well, Brent, I think I'm going to hit you with a big question. That's the first question. Well.

I know it's a difficult one to respond to because I guess it's kind of vague. But I'd really like to hear it from you because I'm sure you've had a lot of time to think about this. So who is Brendan Grimshaw? Other people would put it more simply, they would say I was a rebel.

I don't agree I'm a rebel at all. I think I just followed what my mind told me. Alright, follow my instinct here, we'll go back to the instinct again. But I just did what I wanted to do. I consider myself very ordinary.

I was just a boy. And at 15 I'd had enough. I didn't want any more school. I was not interested in mathematics. I was not interested in mechanics.

very interested in physics, but I was very interested in writing. My mother was very intelligent, and she knew that the headmaster of the school, his son, worked on a local newspaper. So she was the one who got me an interview with the editor of the paper.

And the editor asked me, did I want to be a reporter or a newspaper man? And I remember not waffling, I said, well, what was the difference? And he looked at the kid, I suppose, and he said, well, a reporter knows how to report.

A newspaper man knows all about newspapers. Well, I wasn't all that grim. I said, oh, I want to know all about newspapers.

He said, you start tomorrow. Brendan was 15 when he quit school. He would go on to become the youngest newspaper editor in England. But Brendan had other dreams, and he followed his heart into Africa. He would establish himself as editor to newspapers in both Kenya and Tanzania.

I did well in my job. And I became editor of the two main newspapers in the country. I was friend of everybody from not only the office boy but to the president.

And I had access to everybody. There's an element not only of doing a job that I like to do, but of course there was an element of... Well, the job being something...

that was useful, and useful with a sense of power. I don't mean sort of power to hammer and tell people to do this and do that. I mean power in the way that you could actually really do good. You could see things going wrong, and you could, as a person, put them right.

But Africa was changing. And a growing resentment against colonial occupation was slowly becoming organized, as ideas of freedom and stories of successful rebellion abroad spread to people surrounded by poverty and white dominion. I know Brendan to be beyond politics.

He sees people as equals, and could not help but sympathize with the desire of freedom that surrounded him. I had a very good friend, for example, He was called Edouard Oumandran. He would have made a very good president of Mozambique. He loved books and he had a little house, a little cottage on the beach in Tanzania.

And in between going into Mozambique, he was a freedom fighter or a terrorist, whichever way you want to look at it these days. He... He used to have lots of books sent to him. And one day, this man who I used to swim with and joke with, say I was a Portuguese submarine and bang bang, when we were swimming off the...

...Costans in Tanzania. He opened his... and he was blown to pieces. I went to his funeral and...

But I say, yes, it's a cruel world. I mean, he was a good man. I know his whole thinking, his whole idea was to do good for his people, to do good for Mozambique. And I'm sure he would have made a very, very good president. But somebody decided otherwise.

These were very difficult times for anyone with human concerns. And Brendan understood his time in Africa was coming to an end. This is the man he would hand over his job to.

But luckily for him, a new dream would begin to take shape. Um... Two of my friends had married Seychelles. They told me how beautiful the islands were.

And so I caught a boat from Mombasa and I came to Seychelles. But after I'd been... I'd been in the islands for about a week. I suddenly realized that this is what I wanted. That I wanted a place in the Seychelles.

I spent three weeks looking. and I didn't find anything. Came the end of my holiday, the last day, I went to visit a lawyer in his office.

Living, his office was a, oh, very dry, a barren sort of office. It's stacked with tint boxes of deeds, all with pink ribbons on them, I remember. And he was a very nice guy. Raoul and we're sitting talking and his telephone rang. Now I tell youngsters it always pays to be polite because if I hadn't been polite on this particular day I wouldn't be sitting on the island as I am now.

I got up and went to look out of the window so I was away from the telephone conversation and I looked down into the street and along was coming a guy, 18 year old guy, and he looked up and said hey you want to buy an island? But anyway... He came up, the boy said to me, I've got a boat, would you like me to take you over?

And I said, yes, very much. So we came across, and I always remember coming across the bay, there are some rocks just off Round Island, and they look very dangerous. And this boy with a fast speedboat went zoom, straight through them, and I sort of held on as a yick. But he got me to Moyen quite safely. And I stepped ashore for the first time.

And it was totally different. It was a special feeling. This was a feeling that, oh yes, this is what I want. This is the place.

This is the place that I really feel, felt, what I've been looking for. And I came up onto the plateau here, where the house is. And there was an old, old, broken, anteaten building, which I suppose had been used for picnics. No one had lived on the island since 1915. A long, long time.

That was Miss Bess. Well, it all came crashing down around my ears because when we found the man who owned the island, he said, oh, I don't want to sell. You know, you can't... When you've built yourself up, you've found something, you know what you want, this is it.

What happens when the guy who owns it says, I don't want to sell? I said, I suppose the only thing I could say, I said, well, what was he doing that night? And he said, nothing particular. I said, well, why don't you and your wife come and have dinner with me at the hotel?

Yes, he'd like to do that. It was a lovely starlight night, big moon, stars under the palm trees. just what you'd expect a tropical night to be.

It was about 11 o'clock at night when, it's called Philip, the owner, said to me, you're not such a bad guy. And I said, aren't I? Thank you. And he said to me, no, I inherited the island from my godfather and I wouldn't want... to sell it to anyone who wouldn't look after it.

And he said, I have a feeling that you would look after the island. So I said, does that mean that you might think of selling it to me? And he said, it could be. It was... Four minutes to midnight on the very last day of my holiday, I shook hands with the band and the island became mine.

Brendan bought Moyen Island in 1962 and has been living on it for the past 34 years. In that time, he and his good friend René La Fortune planted every tree you see on the island, built every path you walk, and brought every giant tortoise you encounter. The challenge is to cut a manageable path around this island.

It's quite a challenge, and particularly for somebody who doesn't know anything about it. I mean, let's face it, I came here, I didn't know anything about island life, I didn't know what. I do know that in a matter of weeks I'd lost some stone in weight, two or three stones in weight. I went to see the doctor, I was so worried, I said, well you know what... And he said, yes, you look like a man who's losing weight.

And he checked and he said, you know, you're very fit. If I were you, I would continue having your mangoes. I would continue eating your fish. I would continue working hard on the island.

And you'll be a fit, much fitter man than you were sitting behind your desk as an editor. He was right, of course. I was able, when I came here, to quite literally put everything behind me. All the things that I'd done as an editor, all the things I'd done in a civilized... society.

Okay, all these things I had done and to be quite honest I didn't need to do them again. So now I had a different challenge with my colleague. This I have not really mentioned enough, to be honest.

A guy called René La Fortune, who was the son of the fisherman, who was the guardian of the island before I came here, he started to work with me when he was 19. And what I didn't do, he did, or what he didn't do, I did. And so it worked very well. And now there's only me, and it becomes a little bit difficult.

And in fact, it's the two of us who have, in fact, cut the paths. He's often started from one end and I started the other and we met in the middle. In many ways also the island... It rather tells you what needs to be done next. And so you know first of all that you must put a path around the island so that you can see what the island looks like.

And that was great fun because... I had no idea what I was going to find as we cut through the bush and we found the site of the first house We found two pirate graves. We found all sorts of things and We realized that it was too much bush In fact, we realized it was nearly all bush.

And so we decided, well, better to start putting in some trees and making the island not only look good, but be useful. And so we started. And today, right, 16,000 trees and palms and shrubs are well established on the island. It looks a totally different island. So when you ask me what What, you know, how did we start to work?

It all sort of evolved to its own accord. It's just a question that we had to have a house to live in, we had to have paths to cut, and then the birds came, and then we had to have more trees. And then we realized how beautiful the island could be.

There you are. Oh! Oh! It's lovely, isn't it? Oh!

And it's flat underneath, it's a little girl. Oh! Has a small tail.

And it's dove-shaped. Oh! And this is the kindergarten.

And then over there are the teenagers. But it is possibly the only place where you can come ashore and as you walk around the island you bump into and meet tortoises, giant tortoises, ambling along, happy and free, living their lives, having their babies. This is something really very special. I mean, I don't say that... Cutting the hillside, even though it might be a bit barren and rough, to build a house is going to beautify the hillside.

Maybe it would be better to plant a few trees, but at least you have to have somewhere to live. And so, OK, we realised, let's do it our own way. And over the years one question being asked by time, why didn't you get people to come and help you? Come and help us.

We would have to do work just as hard bringing the people. them here and taking them back and looking after them, it is much, much better for us to do the job. It's fine to drop by just for a day and see the beauty of the place, but then you've got to keep the place clean.

You have 2,000 coconut trees and every month they drop at least two big palm fronds. Now if you leave them lying around, the place will look a mess in no time at all. And this is only a minor job that nobody ever even thinks about. about. It's not for everyone and bear in mind for example had I been married it would have been a little bit difficult because the wife would have been wanting to shop around the corner.

She would not have liked the idea of no electricity, no piped water. So many people come to the island even even today I have some people came to the island and it's always wonderful you have a wonderful this is a wonderful life it's like Eden it's paradise this is what we would like to do. What did you think of the island? Would they like to do it? I'm not so sure.

Because I look at them, they're in their very nice clothes and their dresses and the rest of it, and they're sitting and they're having their beers at the bar. They're used to a different way of life, just as I was used to a different way of life. Well, OK, I managed to change. When I lay in my bed in the house where we lived when I was a boy, I was coming back a bit, and looked out through the window, there were some beautiful trees. And of course, unlike in Seychelles here, the trees lost all their leaves in wintertime.

And I used to lie back and I used to look at the trees and would make all sorts of stories out of them, and think, and pictures, and faces of people, and things like this. That's a millionaire's palm tree. That's the one that if they cut that down, it gives you the millionaire's salad.

Oh, yeah? The millionaire's salad? It is also endemic.

Oh, it's also... Endemic. Endemic. And that one is also endemic. That is...

Oh. And this one has fallen down. I was eating some of that at lunchtime.

Cashew nuts. Cashew nuts? I wasn't actually eating that, but I was eating some.

The island gradually taught you what to do. You understand? As you went along, you thought to do things, but then you looked at the island and you realised, no, no, this island is an island. It knows itself what it wants to do. It knows, and you know, because when you look at it, you realise, OK, we plant something here, it's not going to survive, because simply it's not the place for this particular sort of vegetation to grow.

And along these lines, for example, there was an area where we wanted to take out the bush, and we realised that there was available mahogany. And... And we brought over 50 just to see how they would go.

And they loved the island. So the next year we brought over another 150. So that made it 200. These particular mahogany, you can see on the island today, they're 60, 70 feet high. They're doing very well. I'm going to the bathroom. I'm going to the bathroom.

I'm going to the bathroom. I'm going to the bathroom. I'm going to the bathroom.

I'm going to the bathroom. I'm going to the bathroom. I'm going to the bathroom. I'm going to the bathroom.

I'm going to the bathroom. I'm going to the bathroom. And so we have actually planted 700 mahogany trees on the island. But you see, the first thing that people say when you talk about, or they see the mahogany is, oh, they make beautiful furniture. They see them as...

a source of wood for, oh, you name it, boats, housing, furniture or anything. They don't see it as a tree. And this is, I see it as a tree.

I don't want to get it down. I didn't plant it to cut it down. I planted it because I wanted it to be there You know me now Yes, nice little bird, yes. Oh yes.

Broke his leg. Broke his leg but now he's feeling a bit better. Okay. Good little bird. Come on, put you down.

Come on down. Steady, steady, steady, steady. Oh, going to be a big, big bird. Look at this big wigspan.

Look, oh, very big bird he's going to be. Thing which, when you talked about dreams. There was one dream which used to come up, and I've never forgotten it.

And that was, if ever there was a steamroller, I'm talking about... It's not all that stupid. There was a steamroller in the dream. It was bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. I was to keep away from steamrollers because steamrollers meant the destruction of nature.

All right? And in a way, if you want to come full circle, I would not want to see a steamroller on this island. Captions by Red Bee Media Copyright Australian Broadcasting Corporation Ecology and economics comes from the same root. They're to do with our house, which is the natural environment.

And basically we have to marry the two, if the two have not been married already. And it's funny because it seems like there are these two forces, opposing forces, Yes. you know, that are colliding right here on this island. Yes, they are.

There's no doubt about it. Here we are in the heart of a marine national park. We're one of... five islands in the Marine National Park. The other four islands have all got hotels or about to have hotels, some very big hotels on them.

Environment is very important for the Seychelles because basically we live off the environment. The whole economy is based on the environment. We earn our living from tourism and from fisheries and everything else, every other activity which brings in a revenue for the different households and livelihood is directly or intrinsically linked to the environment. So I've already been approached. People want to buy the island and my first question is what do you want it for?

They don't say oh I want it because I want to come and live here it's so beautiful and I won't mind people coming and seeing the island. No no no. They say oh we want it because it's ideal for like the other islands building a hotel.

So what do you do for future generations of young Seychelles? What are they going to do? How much did they offer you for the island?

It was a lot of money. More or less? Well, it was something like 24 million.

Pounds? Pounds. I tell my friend that keep on doing, do not sell his island or the people will destroy the animal and destroy the environment.

Don't let the friends take away your land. the island because it is our heritage. So I will tell him to keep on doing the same work and advise his son or his daughter to do it.

The problem is he doesn't have any children. That's why the island is in danger. No wife. No wife and no children.

So, when Brendan dies, no one knows what is going to happen to the island. And many people want to take the island and build big hotels on it. Because you have to accept that there's got to be development. I'm not saying you can't have development.

Of course you have to have development, otherwise the future generations won't be around. You've got to balance it, you've got to be sensible about it. You've got to say, OK, four of the islands have gone, now let's keep this one.

At least at the moment I can say, yes, we keep it, because that's what I want. But what will happen when I'm not here anymore, a coconut hits me on the head, something like this, OK, so I've set up the Moyne Island Foundation. We've created a foundation which is a...

self-perpetuating foundation. The objects of the foundation are very simple, that it's got to leave Mayan as is. Yes, it can earn certain income, it needs income, but to maintain the island in its present state.

Or the government here decides that it's in its interest to build a hotel on it. But we will have to cross those bridges when we reach there. I think the foundation has very clear and definitive aims. More understanding between members. of the foundation themselves as to what could happen negative, what could happen positive, and how to bring about the positive to make sure that what he would like to happen really happens, rather than it being suddenly taken over for a hotel development or something, you know, which would be a whole lifetime's work almost, kind of suddenly negated, which would be extraordinarily sad.

So I... I just hope that we can push things in the right direction. But on many of the other islands, they've come up with a different kind of formula, an economic formula, where the five-star hotel pays for the conservation of the islands. What do you think about this formula that's being used here? Well...

We think it's a good idea simply because we started that idea. BirdLife International started that with Frigate Island about 20 years ago. And Nature Seychelles then came and continued the work of BirdLife International.

And we've been able to develop these private partnerships with hotels like Frigate Island, Cuisine Island, which is the neighbor to Cousin, with Bird Island, with Dennis Island, where we have five-star resorts. And this is a formula that's working. It's working because other organizations have also adopted this kind of formula.

So what do we do? We just write it off. We say, oh, forget what we did. And the three roaming tortoises. or let them all be packed up and sent somewhere.

The birds, oh, we don't need to feed those. Leave the 2,000 birds that we've encouraged to come here. And all these very nice endemic plants, trees, palms that are found only in Seychelles, nowhere else in the world, and we have most of them growing on this island, we let them be cut down so that the villas and things can be built.

Of course you don't do this. If you have any... If you have any real thought or any thinking of the future...

I think leadership is very, very important because without the political will, you cannot have good environmental protection and sustainable development. And that political will must not only be nationally but also globally. And in Seychelles, for example, from the very beginning, when we achieved independence, we placed environmental protection...

environmental management at the forefront of all our development. Hello, my name is Joel Morgan and I'm the Minister responsible for Environment, Natural Resources and Transport. It's not about being rich, it's about what we've done for our country.

It's about what we have believed in and what we have invested in over so many years for people who 30 years ago were living in huts, in small shacks, and are today enjoying a standard of living that perhaps is unmatched in the entire region. region. We have a lot of investment already in country and we have a lot of investment that is planned in the very near future in the next two to three four years.

We have a number of islands in the marine park which could lend themselves well to tourism development so why not allow that but at the same time ensure that you have very very strict environmental parameters and environmental guidelines that they operate under. Here we're talking agro-friendly, we're talking of things that basically would allow the economy to benefit. My name is Rolf Payet from the Seychelles.

I'm the Special Advisor to the President. I think there is money to be made, there is more money to be made in this new era of a carbon-free society. A society which actually respects the environment, which can actually... We've shown that in Seychelles. We've shown that in Seychelles that if you make an investment in tourism, you make a similar investment in conservation.

You make a similar investment in rehabilitation. Your tourism product attracts more value, generates more... revenue in the long term they would have just come in today using a traditional tourism model break everything cut everything down modify the entire environment and present the tourists with a cosmetic cosmeticized tourism experience many of these islands are really out of the reach of the normal seychelles or the normal citizen of the world the point is that we are using the money of rich people to conserved biodiversity that could have been lost if that money had not been accessed. So I think that's the point we have to make. If there are people with money and they want to take this money and give it to conservation, let's do it.

It saddens me that we can sit here. And wonder about the future of Moay Nien when it seems like there could only be one future for Moay Nien. And it's the one we're sitting in right now.

And I just don't understand. how there can even be an issue regarding that. Well, I think I've said, if you look around, you have five islands and four of them have got big hotels.

The fifth island is sitting there and the people who control things... I'm not being political or anything like this. But people who are interested and greedy... Grief is a good word. It is grief.

Have another one. They use another word to... They say development. They get away with a lot of bad things by using the word development. MUSIC I'm going to do a background shot, like this, I was thinking about the day when the market...

I was thinking about the day when the market... I was thinking about the day when the market... I was thinking about the day when the market...

I was thinking about the day when the market... I was thinking about the day when the market... I was thinking about the day when the market... I was thinking about the day when the market... I was thinking about the day when the market...

I was thinking about the day when the market... I was thinking about the day when the market... I was thinking about the day when the market... We must never forget that Seychelles was populated only in 1770. Man came here and man is the greatest predator in the world.

And greatest destroyer, they try to destroy a lot, but fortunately we started become very conscious before the impact of tourism. Imagine you had an island. You owned it. And along came a rich, rich person and offered you 34 million euros for the island. Would you sell the island?

No. Why not? Because they lie to you, they say they're going to take care of it, but they don't.

But if somehow the cost of running Moyen becomes prohibitive, and you have to get loans or whatever, then I think the more rational members of the foundation will argue that we would have to cave into the economic pressure. But one thing I would like to add also is that in session, We have almost 50% of our land territory as natural reserves. We have also national parks, we have a number of protected areas both in the sea and...

and on land, we spend a lot of money to manage and protect the environment. The pressure has been intense. And as you say, there's been a lot of international pressure in relation to our current rate of development and our current standard of living of our country. There's been pressure to devalue the currency.

There's been all kinds of other economic pressures brought about by all the players in the international market. It's the responsibility of government to negotiate properly with the foreign investor and it's the responsibility of the investor also to be careful of the social people. You cannot just come here and get money. You have to care for the local.

We are the people of the land. You are just a foreign... investment is good but you have to think about us here people will suffer here nowadays we don't have a lot of things because we don't have foreign currency most of the sting here we imported what we want is stronger partnership with the various actors in the economy. And our fear is that some of the very strong actors that are coming in are foreign companies based elsewhere, with which we don't have strong links, and who may be very large multinationals, for which Seychelles is only a very small part of their business. That is the fear that we have.

If you build a lot of five stars, It's not worth for the locals, it's beneficial for the investors. Because most of them are not living here in the mecs, they are pulling out their money. It's been a test of strength and a test of determination when it comes to... Can we maintain and can we continue to have the Seychelles that we have always known?

There's been tremendous pressure on us to change things. For example, to liberalize rapidly. Slowly, the rights and privileges of the society will be encroached upon.

And as you know, in every country in the world, money works. Unfortunately. But there are ways of developing without having to... to damage the environment.

Seychelles is one case in point, and I think there are others that can do that. So if we have such models, if there's enough people of goodwill and people are aware of the issues, people start engaging themselves in making... The next few changes in their lifestyle, then we will eventually get there.

I'm personally optimistic. I mean, it's a question of whether you believe in it or you don't. I console myself that when you have something like tourism, It's cyclical.

The cycle seems to be you have somewhere totally unknown, then somebody knows about it and they open it and then only the very wealthy can get to it and then they move on. somewhere else then it becomes more sort of down market then you get mass tourism and then it's destroyed and they move on somehow in Seychelles this cycle hasn't quite happened yet it's been dragging on and on but the signs are that we will make the same mistakes As you know, I've created the Moyne Island Foundation and I want the island to stay as it is. I don't want to see it being turned into a five-star hotel, no way. A man doesn't spend 34 years of his life so far trying to create something a little bit special, something that's natural, like, in fact, creating a nature reserve and want it to just be chucked away and made a retreat for some wealthy people to come here and have a nice holiday and go away and then go to the Caribbean. or go somewhere else and rest to it.

No. I say, over here is a five-star hotel, over there is one, on there there's a new one being built here. We're surrounded by people who are wanting to build hotels, people who want to make money, because that's all really what all they want to do. I understand the need for development, but at the same time, there has to be some sense in it.

And... The sense in here is that, goodness, enough. Hotel, hotel, hotel, hotel. This is the only one with nothing here. Oh, for goodness sake, let it be.

I don't want to see, I would not like to see myself being buried on the island and being viewed only by wealthy tourists. Here I am, with all those gadgets, and with the product of all that development, asking whether we should cut down. Or I guess I'd be the first that would have to cut down. So there's a certain degree of hypocrisy, just like I think there's a certain degree of hypocrisy.

of hypocrisy of us as representatives of the West coming down to a developing nation like the Seychelles and feeling that we have any right to even ask them. ...to develop in a very specific way. You're not telling the seishoah they mustn't do this and they mustn't do that. All you're suggesting is they should come to realize... that they have some very wonderful things in Seychelles and they must maintain them and not lose them.

If you were to talk about what's really important, why are people paying so much money to come here, to see our way of life, and we're trying so hard to become like they are, rat race, you want more material things. So the irony I find really sad. What we see in big cities consumes the varieties being having all sort of stuff thrown at you.

you know, from the TV, from the newspaper, from everywhere you look. You go into the supermarket, there's 110 different items on the shelves, and you've got a problem to choose what you need to consume. But on a small island, if you go to a shop, then... You know exactly what you need because there's so few on there, you know, and you just grab it.

You don't even think about it. I've been living on the island for 34 years. I could, coming back to the island and with the prices increasing as they have, that the island is worth several million pounds, I could say, well, what's the point of my... Cutting bush and doing all the jobs I do day after day.

Sell the island, there's plenty of people who want to buy it to build a hotel. And then I've got enough money to live the life of Riley, as they say, live a wonderful life. Cruise around the world, I like cruise ships, but cruise around the world and spend a wonderful time seeing the world and enjoying myself.

Although people think that this is the perception of happiness, it's not. It's really the simplicity of living on an island, which is the quality of life. And the high quality of life is your happiness, really. I can do it if I sold the island. But, but, but, but...

I don't want to. I'm happier to get my hands dirty. I'm happier to not be greedy for a wonderful life.

Because I enjoy what I do, I enjoy being with nature, and I also appreciate the fact that what I'm doing is useful. And I think living on a small island, you realize how close human beings are to the environment. But you also realize, I think, how dangerous it is if the environment turns against you.

And this is what we are seeing on many, many small islands around the world. I like the concept of the miners and Aries. You know, in the old days, when the miners went digging for coal or whatever. Mines, poisonous gas was a big problem and they used to take a cage with a canary in there and they would know that something was up wrong if the canary stopped singing.

And I think islands are a little bit like that. Because they are smaller, things happen faster and so it's a little bit like an alarm system. What happens in Ireland will sooner or later happen elsewhere. It's difficult, it's not a one-man band, is it?

I mean, what I would like to do, yes, I would like... some very firm action to be taken along many lines to stop the... Pollution.

I mean that's the most urgent thing at the moment to stop the pollution. To really go to town on it. But it needs more than one man on an island.

one man can do things on an island, yes, because he's got the say, and also it's very small, and he can actually physically do it. And I wish them for size here, poverty is very much... link to the environment.

If you don't solve the politicians, you don't solve poverty, you won't be able to solve the environmental problem. And on the other hand as well, among the developed countries, if you don't solve the consumerism, you don't solve the awareness issue, you won't be able to solve and address the environmental issues, you see? So there are all these links, inherent links, with the way politics is run at the global level.

But I think the world, the rich world, the industrialized world, is not doing enough. You can leave the sessions. Little Seychelles with limited resources.

We spend so much to try to preserve the environment and retain the Seychelles as one of the last paradise spots on Earth. Not only for us, but for people of the world to come and enjoy it and live it because they have destroyed their parts in other parts of the world. And they should help us to sustain it, to develop it.

and to maintain that last piece of paradise that we still have on Earth. But, as you know, money is spent in different ways, destroying, destruction, killings, and so on, wars. And I think there should be more a global conscience. Brendan, you have a great relationship with your instinct.

Yeah. And I'm going to ask you a difficult question because the answer... No, this one is difficult for what it implies. Yes, okay.

What do you really think is going to happen to my onion? Oh dear. Yes, that is difficult. Um, I don't know.

I know what I would like, I already said, I would like to see Moyenne continue to be a welcoming place for future Yung Seh Shoa, for visitors from all over the world. That's what I would like to see. But I'm not foolish to say, well, everybody's going to be in agreement with my ideas.

Obviously the trend and the feeling is development and development means money and people like money and I'm afraid there are more people who like the idea of having more money than having a place like Moen preserved for future generations. Two minutes to go. Well, Brent, I think I'm going to hit you with a big question.

That's the first question. Well. I know it's a difficult one to respond to because I guess it's kind of vague. But I really...

like to hear it from you because I'm sure you've had a lot of time to think about this. So who is Brendan Grimshaw? Who? Me? Just a guy.

A very ordinary guy. A guy who people People say, ooh, you own an island. It's the guy who says, no, I don't own an island.

Tomorrow, coconut falls down, knocks me on the head. I don't own an island. I say, I'm like the guardian.

I look after it. God owns it. I look after it. And I'm just a guy.

I'm just a guardian. In this set, I used to be a newspaper editor. Then I was a newspaper editor. I was a schoolboy once, a long, long time ago, yes.

But... I ran away from school. I didn't like that when I was 15. Okay, so I was a schoolboy and I was a soldier. I was a soldier for three years. It didn't make me a soldier.

So what sort of guy am I? I'm a very ordinary guy. I'm the sort of guy I hope you would like to meet. This journey began with a question.

What kind of world is this that would destroy the work of men like Brendan Grimshaw and Rene LaFortune? I don't know that I've provided the answer. What seems clear to me is that we've created a monster that assigns an economic value, a number, to trees, islands, and even people.

The natural resources and heritage of some have become the commodities and wealth of others. But we as individuals are both part of the problem and the solution. And the work of a few can become the inspiration of many. Moayan Island was declared a national park in 2008, thanks to those of us who came together and believed that it does matter, that we can make a difference, and that everything is not simply a number.

One year after the state of a special reserve, the government now declares the average as a national park. We hadn't done it with any intention of setting up a national park. We hadn't done it with any aims of, oh we need to do this, we need to do that. No, no, it was just a natural course of events. Thank you for what we signed a little while ago and I do from my heart say you're doing a wonderful thing.

Transcript for:Brendan Grimshaw's Life and Philosophy

Transcript for:
Brendan Grimshaw's Life and Philosophy