Comoros Islands - Unknown Africa
 
SERIES PREMIERE 10 March 2008 at 8 pm, BBC 2 We’re on top of Mt. Karthala - an active volcano dominating the largest island in the Comoros archipelago - filming Unknown Africa for the BBC. It’s a long hike to get to the top but once you’re at the summit a sensational view spreads out across the islands and into the volatile depths of what is the largest live caldera in Africa. We spent the night up in the crater, huddled close to the rim to shield us from plummeting temperatures and wind chill, but it was still bitingly cold and none of us slept a wink. Early the next morning an explosion shook the ground beneath us and the crater floor was filled with snakes of cooling lava. I’ve come here to find out what animals live on these little known tropical islands - strung halfway between the African continent and the island of Madagascar - like a necklace of jewels gracing the neck of the Mozambique channel.  The most famous of creatures found in the Comoros is the coelacanth, presumed to have gone extinct 70 million years ago. It was re-discovered in 1938 by Marjorie Latimer off the coast of Mozambique and identified as a coelacanth in a “remarkable feat of mental agility” by J.L.B. Smith. This extraordinary living fossil makes it’s home in the Comoros, lives at depth and is very sensitive to light and pressure sleeping in black volcanic caves 200m below the surface by day. One of the great delights of the Comoros are the people. Despite the islands being described as “trés tendus” (very tense), I spent wonderful time with a group of women who taught me how to use a paste of coral and sandalwood as a face mask to protect skin from the sun.  Altho’ the islands are geologically quite new, they’ve been colonised by a fair variety of different animal species, one of which comes to nest on it’s beaches. Green turtles spend most of their life at sea, but return to the beaches of Moheli, the smallest of the Comoros islands, in spectacular numbers.  At night with a silvery lit ocean and arcing star-scape, turtles drag themselves above the high tide mark and dig deep nests to lay 100 - 200 eggs. Hearing the sound of scores of turtles on the beach exhaling in rasping bursts as if they were still in the ocean was magical.  I loved being surrounded by these ancient creatures, knowing the thousands of aching kilometres they'd swum to return to the very same beach on which they were born.    Our interest in the pterodactyl-like Livingstone's flying fox (fruit bats) that live in the highest parts of the montane forest, and local conservation NGO, Action Comoros, intrigued local media to invite us onto a TV chat show on Anjouan. They were delighted by our close up footage of the bats and broadcast a half hour special. Led by X Mutui, Action Comoros are doing sterling work to protect the remaining pockets of primary forest, the last refuge for the bat roosts. Deforestation on the island has led to the loss of most of its rivers, serious erosion, sedimentation of coral reefs, and loss of biodiversity. Action Comoros explain that the Livingstone bat is a flagship species whose fate reflects the eventual fate of the islands and their inhabitants. The end of each day in the Comoros is a gentle wildlife spectacle. As the sun sets across the sea, Comorian fruit bats dip their chests into the surface of the waves to lick saltwater from their fur. It’s a daily ritual as integral to the island as the Islamic call to prayer. COMING SOON!!! 10 March 2008, 8 pm, BBC 2   Photographs by Frank Pope
July 2007
JOURNAL