Google Speech-to-Text API Automatic Transcription (Chirp). Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:00led him to this point is rooted in humble beginnings,
00:00:03growing
00:00:04of up along the foot hills
00:00:05of the Peruvian andees. this
00:00:09is the place where
00:00:11of i i grew up, i'm 60
00:00:14years old, i'm believeing
00:00:18nothing changed from 60 years again.
00:00:22this
00:00:23of is sitting is where my grandparent was sitting
00:00:26here, this door was the
00:00:28of same, this also. nothing
00:00:32changed because my grandparents like the
00:00:35inkas, they build things
00:00:37forever.
00:00:40Constantino, also known as Tino, has dedicated the
00:00:44last 30 years leading community-based efforts to
00:00:48of restore forests in South America. My
00:00:51grandparents, my parents gave me this
00:00:54mission, because coming from the inkal
00:00:57culture, they had been.
00:01:01a someday, a descendant of that family is going to do
00:01:05something for everybody. his grandparents were
00:01:09ketua farmers who raised him to respect and defend
00:01:13of pacha mama or mother earth, a goddess who is
00:01:17revered by the indigenous people
00:01:19of the Andes. they also taught him that the alka in
00:01:22his name means
00:01:26of of warrior. this was...
00:01:31For me, the university, my
00:01:35master class, my
00:01:37of PhD class, is where I started,
00:01:40where everything begins
00:01:44a and it's going to continue. It wasn't
00:01:47far from here, where as a biology student in the late 80s,
00:01:51that Tito's interest in conservation began to
00:01:55bloom. This place is called
00:01:58of laguna de Huaipo. "my parents
00:02:02uh, my
00:02:04in grandparents properties were behind this mountain, but
00:02:08for me when i started to study
00:02:13a biology, i come here to do some experiments about
00:02:16trout,
00:02:19of of this fish farms here, they ate
00:02:23the native
00:02:26of fish and was dangerous because we lost a lot of our..." or
00:02:31of biodiversity, of the local native fish disappear in
00:02:34of total. As his career took off, he would spend a
00:02:38couple of years in Europe working for various research
00:02:41institutions. Tino eventually returned
00:02:45of to Peru, where he studied birds and their
00:02:48ecosystems for the better part of
00:02:50decade. During that time other environmental
00:02:54issues began to catch his attention, in
00:02:57particular the decline
00:02:59of the pol I
00:03:03remember that uh my brother was my assistant and I tell
00:03:07him, I'm not going to come back only
00:03:09to try to continue doing research, I'm going to bring new plants and we
00:03:13started
00:03:14a of in on that moment on thinking on planting trees, real and concrete action on the
00:03:18ground. In 2000, Tino and
00:03:22a group of fellow biologists founded the Association of
00:03:26of Andayan ecosystems or ecoan.
00:03:30They worked closely with local communities, planting millions of
00:03:34trees and improving environmental management
00:03:37practices. To scale up their efforts, in
00:03:412018 they partnered with US non-profit
00:03:44in global forest generation, and Action and
00:03:48of Dina was born. According to Tino,
00:03:52they've since planted nearly 10 million trees across
00:03:56six countries with more
00:03:58of to come. Their... ultimate and ambitious goal is
00:04:02to restore 1 million hectares of high and day and
00:04:05forest by
00:04:07of 2045. of we want to
00:04:09plant 100 million
00:04:13trees, it's a lot, yeah,
00:04:17but it's not
00:04:20in impossible. a strong relationship with indigenous communities continues
00:04:24to be the key to the organization's success. they
00:04:28rely
00:04:29of on and compensate. locals to maintain nurseries across
00:04:32each
00:04:33of of the countries where they work, we are on the
00:04:36community of chupani, here we are
00:04:40producing the plants
00:04:41of the
00:04:42of seedless a meteorolic called
00:04:44of naked root, for the most part they use the
00:04:48method of propagation,
00:04:50a simple and cost effective process that creates new
00:04:54plants from parts of existing plants and
00:04:57of not from seeds,
00:05:00every year 3.5
00:05:02me million trees. In total, Tino says they have
00:05:0526 nurseries throughout the region, most are
00:05:09like
00:05:09of this one, what he calls rustic. but
00:05:13others are more sophisticated and can grow various species the
00:05:17polylepus a much larger scale.
00:05:21at the moment we are at the nursery the community of
00:05:24patakancha that is producing more than
00:05:287 trees of polylepis trees for the campaign that
00:05:32we are managing all on hands the
00:05:36local community, the entire production and the
00:05:40plant is on hands the locals. the only way conservation is
00:05:43going to be successful, because locals are going to receive
00:05:47the capacitation, the leadership, we are
00:05:51going to produce jobs to avoid the poverty and the
00:05:54best, this belongs to the community. on
00:05:58path to fulfilling the mission instilled in him decades
00:06:01ago, Tito knows that the only way to achieve his family's
00:06:05dream is to get his hands dirty. i said,
00:06:09i want to write my name in this story, but
00:06:13the history is going to remember only actions, no
00:06:16whispers, actions on the ground. that's what
00:06:20tomorrow is all about, the simple yet
00:06:23revolutionary act of planting one
00:06:26incredible and globally important
00:06:29tree.
00:06:40the kusco region of. is a breathtaking expanse
00:06:44of ice-capped peaks, steep mountainside slopes
00:06:48and sprawling green vallies,
00:06:52but the impacts of global warming and decades of
00:06:55deforestation have taken their toll as high altitude
00:06:59glaciers are rapidly retreating and forest
00:07:02cover has been greatly reduced.
00:07:06biologist constantino alkachutas grew up here,
00:07:10a proud descendant the inca, This kusco-based
00:07:13organization Action Andina is scaling up
00:07:16reforestation efforts in Peru and all across the
00:07:20Andies, their secret weapon, an
00:07:23old
00:07:24tree.
00:07:28The areas where we are working are the main water sheds
00:07:31the highlands, near to the
00:07:35glaciers, near to the tallest mountains
00:07:39with communities that are living between 3.
00:07:42meters to 5 meter sea level.
00:07:45This morning, Tino is headed back to the
00:07:49village of Chupani, about 100 kilometers north of
00:07:53Kusco for annual celebration that symbolizes both his
00:07:56and the people's determination to restore these
00:07:59habitats. Those mountains, those glaciers that is
00:08:03appearing in that direction, for
00:08:07me is the energy, is the
00:08:11meaning of why I'm doing.
00:08:25or the festival the polylepis tree, unofficially
00:08:29began in
00:08:292014.
00:08:34Inspired by the United Nations climate change conference taking place in
00:08:38Lima that year, Tino and his colleagues wanted to
00:08:41show that. than words
00:08:44speak louder after attending to one cough meeting in liv we didn't see
00:08:48any results we come back said okay let's send message and the
00:08:52message what was we planted 57
00:08:55polylip trees a single
00:08:59day fortino that day was an eye
00:09:02opener my dream was to plant million of trees
00:09:06and i'm not going to do it that
00:09:08along if i want to plant million trees need
00:09:13labor, people, and I started to think on the
00:09:16communities and also reviving one
00:09:19activity that is the communal work, minga, that
00:09:23was a common practice during the inkas
00:09:26time. Eini and
00:09:29Minka are two core values of indigenous communities
00:09:33across the Andies. Combined, they represent the
00:09:37idea of working together for the common good.
00:09:41It's how the Inkers were... able to complete such colossal
00:09:44tasks like constructing aquaducts, terraced farms and
00:09:48thousands of kilometers of roads, or in this
00:09:52case growing millions of polylepis trees and transplanting them
00:09:56on steep slopes the Andes, all the
00:10:00communities, local and native communities, they demand one
00:10:03main thing, respect, and the thing
00:10:06is you invited them to be part the
00:10:10solution, you invited them to be... of this
00:10:13family, for as a woman, this project
00:10:16is very special, because women in general have had
00:10:20a challenge and sometimes they had not had this
00:10:24opportunity. community to have a voice, to be part
00:10:27of everything, with our programs, we're trying to bring that
00:10:31to their communities, if you see our
00:10:34referestations, everybody works together, there is no difference
00:10:38between men and women, with everyone checked in and paid
00:10:41in advance for the days work, tino has some words of
00:10:45encouragement before they had further up the
00:10:48mountain,
00:10:52por favor
00:11:03We're doing all this to care for the forest and so that we
00:11:07don't have so many droughts, spread the word
00:11:10everyone. Every year the festival
00:11:14takes place during rainy season when the forecast is fairly
00:11:17predictable. Chupani isn't the only village that takes
00:11:21part each community has their own.
00:11:25arriving and each community is competitive, they
00:11:28compete who did the better payment to the mother earth, who
00:11:32is more colorful, who can play more
00:11:35music, that is good. the goal for
00:11:39today's 10th annual celebration is to plant
00:11:4225,00 polylepis trees. tino says the
00:11:46record is 100,00. the quantity of people for
00:11:50each kny r depends how many plants are you going to
00:11:54plant? if it's over
00:11:5650,000 you need over 600
00:11:59people, if it's 2000, probably
00:12:02300, but with its spongelike ability to
00:12:06capture and gradually release water throughout the year, every single
00:12:10polylepis counts, behind me,
00:12:14behind all that mist is nice
00:12:17glacier, of course the glacier generating all the
00:12:21water running down the valley, but if it's not... going
00:12:25to be vegetation trees, that water is going to go directly to the
00:12:29main violence, producing erosion, collapsing,
00:12:32everything, for that reason we must to plant more
00:12:35trees. simple yet forward
00:12:39thinking action rooted in the ancient wisdom that Tito
00:12:42believes should always be part the conversation.
00:12:46we think that with this new knowledge,
00:12:50the knowledge the city, the modern life is the main
00:12:54solution. for everything, no, I spent
00:12:58many times talking with the elders and chewing
00:13:02cocalips and learning more and more, they tell me stories about the
00:13:05mountains, about the rivers, about everything, all my
00:13:09background comes from all this, I highly
00:13:13recommend it, read about your history and be proud of your
00:13:17history, from local leader to
00:13:21renowned international conservationists, these days Constantino...
00:13:25spends the majority of his time on the road, but
00:13:28wherever he is, and whomever he's talking to, they all hear
00:13:32the story of a magical tree, a tree that
00:13:36provides hope for communities and the health of future
00:13:39generations, a tree that protects biodiversity
00:13:43and fights climate change, a tree that can heal
00:13:46patchamama, mother earth. all it
00:13:50takes is little iini and minka. are you
00:13:54seeing this? behind me, we can do
00:13:57it all together, working together, take
00:14:01action, conservation and the protection of
00:14:05this mother earth is responsibility for all of
00:14:08us,
00:14:35Moving mountains at the push of a
00:14:37button.
00:14:41It might sound like science fiction, but in the Swiss Alps, it may
00:14:44soon become reality. In the Gotard
00:14:48massive, researchers at the University of Zuric hope to trigger a
00:14:51small earthquake. If it works, could reveal
00:14:55more about how earthquakes start and whether they can be
00:14:59predicted.
00:15:03All this and more groundbreaking stories on DW's science
00:15:07show. Welcome to Tomorrow
00:15:09Today.
00:15:15The big moment is just days away. Researchers that ETH
00:15:19Zerk University are hoping to do something that's never been done in quite this
00:15:23way before. deliberately triggering a small
00:15:26earthquake, but first there's still
00:15:30plenty of work to do,
00:15:34narrow road leads two and a half kilometers deep into the...
00:15:39the bedreto tunnel underneath the mountain range is more than 50 years
00:15:43old and no longer in use, and now it's a perfect natural
00:15:47laboratory, here the team hopes to make ancient fault
00:15:50deep inside the rock slip ever so
00:15:53slightly. we're here because of this fault
00:15:56zone,
00:15:57you can see the boundary here clearly, a thin line, in the
00:16:01middle there's this very briddle material called fault
00:16:04gauge, that's evidence.
00:16:37how does the rupture propagate? why does it continue, and where
00:16:41and why does it stop? if we understand the underlying physics
00:16:45better, perhaps one day we'll be able to make better
00:16:47forecasts. men andrin maya
00:16:51and his 70 member team have been planning and building this experiment for
00:16:55five years. they've installed more than 200 sensors inside
00:16:59the mountain, hoping to capture every moment the earthquake as it
00:17:03unfolds. here's how...
00:17:07they plan to trigger it, the fault has slipped naturally before,
00:17:11producing tiny
00:17:12earthquakes.
00:17:17To reach it, the team has excavated new tunnel branching off from the
00:17:21bagetta lab. From
00:17:25here, they'll pump water through three bore holes directly into the
00:17:29fault. As water pressure
00:17:32increases, the rock begins to shift. The existing
00:17:36stresses in the rock. are released, triggering micro
00:17:39earthquake. Using
00:17:43six high pressure pumps, they'll inject around 2,0 cubic
00:17:47meters of water into the bore holes to bring the fault to the point where it
00:17:51slips. The pump system
00:17:54operates at pressures approaching 200 bar, demanding test
00:17:58for the equipment, and a potential hazard for anyone inside the
00:18:02tunnel. These are the
00:18:05anchoring systems. They're secured with chains and anchor
00:18:09pins in case the pressure becomes too high and part the pipew comes
00:18:13loose.
00:18:30The team checks every sensor and seismic instrument again and
00:18:34again.
00:18:38they want to make sure that all the data will stream live to the control room
00:18:42at eth where the experiment will be
00:18:45run. we're about to launch the
00:18:49first full-scale experiment
00:18:50exciting. two
00:18:54weeks later the control room in zuric. in just few
00:18:58minutes the test will
00:18:59begin.
00:19:04one last systems check at the badretto lab.
00:19:12It's been a busy night and morning, but everything looks good and we're ready to
00:19:15go. The researchers are
00:19:19optimistic, the pumps are ready and the safety systems are in
00:19:23place.
00:19:26So this is button is to manually stop the
00:19:29pump so we can press this button, once we have it pressed for
00:19:33about 8 seconds, the pumps in the tunnel will stop automatically and...
00:19:37is safety procedure that will allow to have a bit more
00:19:40control, the last members the team have just
00:19:44left the tunnel, this is steam to and that's pressure
00:19:47up by one megapascal, here we
00:19:50go,
00:19:57the pumps are starting up, forcing water deep into the bore
00:20:00holes,
00:20:04the data stream to zuric is running smoothly.
00:20:10just in
00:20:10case now comes the waiting game, watching the instruments and waiting for the
00:20:14fault to slip.
00:20:18pressure inside the fault continues to rise approaching 100
00:20:21bar. then
00:20:25suddenly a flood of new data
00:20:27appears. deep inside the mountain, something has begune
00:20:31to
00:20:31move.
00:20:35we've already detected and located.
00:20:51after 3 hours they triggered more than 30
00:20:54microquakes.
00:21:00looking at it from above,
00:21:01you can see that these earthquakes line up along a plane that's roughly parallel to the
00:21:05tunnel. that's
00:21:09exactly the geological structure we were hoping to
00:21:12activate. it's working amazingly
00:21:15well. now we just have to keep going and hope will eventually
00:21:19reach.
00:21:30are already providing valuable clues about how earthquakes
00:21:32begin, soon they'll try again,
00:21:36hoping to make one tiny part the Gottat Masif slip, just
00:21:40enough to trigger the mini earthquake they've been waiting
00:21:43for.
00:21:50Deep beneath the alps lies resource prized for thousands of
00:21:53years.
00:21:57Salt, it's mined by pumping water
00:22:00underground or cut directly from the rock. Often called
00:22:04white gold, it's story began earth's ancient
00:22:07oceans. The story
00:22:11of this salt began 250 million years
00:22:14ago. Today that salt lies deep
00:22:18underground. "and we rely
00:22:21on salt in more ways than ever before. The seemingly
00:22:25humble mineral is one the key raw materials of modern
00:22:28life. But table
00:22:32salt accounts for only tiny fraction of its use. Most
00:22:36salt doesn't land on our plates. It's
00:22:40found in products we use every day. Without sodium
00:22:44chloride, many aspects of modern life simply wouldn't
00:22:47work. So how does such a..." simple substance
00:22:50becomes so incredibly versatile, the key lies a
00:22:54chemical process that transforms it into three essential chemical
00:22:58building blocks. chlorine is used to make plastics like
00:23:02pvc, medications, a wide range of chemical
00:23:06products and to disinfect drinking
00:23:08water. costic soda is
00:23:12used to produce aluminum, paper and textiles and much
00:23:15more. hydrogen is a
00:23:19byproduct, used mainly in industry and increasingly as an
00:23:22energy
00:23:23carrier.
00:23:28One raw material, countless
00:23:30products.
00:23:34In Germany, salt is an important natural resource and the country
00:23:38produces average of 18 million tons of salt every
00:23:42year. Most of domestic demand is
00:23:46met from these deposits and large amounts of salt are exported.
00:23:50every
00:23:50year.
00:23:55Today's salt deposits formed many millions of years
00:23:58ago. Back then a shallow sea
00:24:02covered large parts of central
00:24:04Europe. Shifting
00:24:07tectonic plates created isolated seas and salt
00:24:10lakes. As the water evaporated into the hot
00:24:14arid climate, the dissolved salts
00:24:16crystallized. Eventually layers of salt. were buried
00:24:20under sediment and younger rock over and over
00:24:23again. Today salt deposits
00:24:27in the form of sodium chloride stretch beneath northern and central
00:24:30Germany. It's mined and then processed, but not
00:24:34all salt is the same. Sodium chloride is only part the
00:24:38story. There are also potassium rich salts, the most
00:24:42important raw material for potash fertilizer, but
00:24:46it's not pure. Much the ore consists of rock salt. and
00:24:50other minerals that must be processed and
00:24:52separated. these deposits
00:24:56are concentrated in central Germany.
00:25:00potassium is an essential nutrient for plants. that's why potash
00:25:04salts are used around the world to make
00:25:06fertilizers. potach salts
00:25:10dissolve a soil, releasing potassium that helps plants use
00:25:14water efficiently and also resist drott, frost
00:25:18and disease. and that in turn increases the
00:25:21quantity and quality the
00:25:23harvest.
00:25:28But potash mining also has a downside. Only part
00:25:32the ore is used, while huge quantities remain as solid and
00:25:36liquid residues. Over the
00:25:39decades, huge waste heaps have built up as some mining
00:25:42sites. The KNS mining
00:25:46company, for example, extracts up to 40 million tons. with potassium
00:25:50rich or year. After
00:25:54processing, that becomes just 9.5 million tons of
00:25:57marketable products. Most the mined material ends up
00:26:01as waste. At just one site in Central
00:26:05Germany, hundreds of millions of tons of residue are stored in
00:26:09towering heaps, with official approval.
00:26:13Rain washes salt from those heaps, creating waste water that's
00:26:16discharged into the verga river. Liquid processing
00:26:20residues also end up there.
00:26:24Salt is raw material essential to much of modern
00:26:27life. It helps power our world and reshape
00:26:30it. The...
00:26:32the question is, at what
00:26:34cost?
00:26:41this river has a problem, and you can measure
00:26:43it. biologist Andre
00:26:47Bush and his colleagues are searching for life in
00:26:50Nevaga. For
00:26:53decades, environmental authorities have been tracking salt levels here,
00:26:57and what they're doing to the plants and animals that depend on this
00:27:00river. Under the EU water framework
00:27:04directive, rivers are graded a five-point scale. Here at
00:27:08Gaustungen, the Vera is currently rated as being in poor environmental
00:27:12condition. One the
00:27:15biggest reasons is salt. For decades, potash mining has
00:27:19discharged sailing water into the river. The result is
00:27:23salt levels more than 20 times higher than in the healthy
00:27:26river. Many the species
00:27:30you'd expect to find in fresh water have.
00:28:02be different, under EU rules, rivers and lakes are supposed to
00:28:06be in good condition by 2027.
00:28:10That's essential for clean drinking water and healthy
00:28:13ecosystems.
00:28:20Further upstream, which isn't affected by the ceiling
00:28:23discharges, it's a different
00:28:24story. We found
00:28:28about 70 species here in the unpolluted section the Vera.
00:28:32including important ones like mayflies, catus flies and stone
00:28:36flies, which are key indicators for the EU
00:28:38guidelines. Their presence is a sign of healthy
00:28:42river. It's a glimpse of what the Vera could
00:28:45become if salt levels were much
00:28:47lower.
00:28:52Further downstream though, the discharges are set to
00:28:55continue. The KNS mining company has long faced
00:28:59criticism over the pollution, but says it's working to reduce. its
00:29:02environmental impact. One
00:29:06major project is a more environmentally friendly processing
00:29:10system designed to eliminate liquid production
00:29:12waste. KNS declined our request for an
00:29:16interview. In a written statement, the company
00:29:20said, "When disposing of solid residues,
00:29:24we are also continuously minimizing our environmental
00:29:27impact, and using State the Art
00:29:29Technology."
00:29:34The company's main solution is covering the waste heaps. Layers
00:29:38of plastic liner, soil and vegetation are designed to keep
00:29:42rainwater out, preventing salt from entering the
00:29:45river, but critics question whether it will work in
00:29:48the long run. Reducing
00:29:52the river salt pollution is technically difficult and
00:29:55expensive, and the company says the problem can't be eliminated
00:29:59completely. The authorities have repeated. renewed the
00:30:03discharge permits, although with progressively tighter
00:30:06limits. salt levels in the
00:30:10vera have fallen, but the river still has a long way to
00:30:14go.
00:30:18salt can also have healing properties. salt brine
00:30:22has been used in spars for
00:30:24centuries.
00:30:28now it's helping to grow sea lettuce, bringing a taste the
00:30:31sea.
00:31:15fresh water, they grow in sea water, or even here
00:31:18in brine, so they don't depend on our drinking
00:31:21water.
00:33:45often called the super food the future. It also contains
00:33:49iodine, a trace element our thyroid gland needs to
00:33:52function. But in Germany and many other countries, millions of
00:33:56people still don't get enough iodine, and here too, salt can be part
00:34:00the
00:34:00solution.
00:34:04Around one and three people in Germany may not be getting enough
00:34:08iodine, often without realizing it. Experts have been
00:34:11warning about the problem for years. is doctor
00:34:15who's campaigning to improve iodine intake in
00:34:18Germany. The situation has worsened because
00:34:22of lower iodi salt consumption. The main problem is the food
00:34:25industry, which still relies mostly on ordinary salt. As
00:34:29result, we're getting less iodine from our
00:34:31food. We've now reached the point where
00:34:35Germany once again meets the WHO criteria for iodine
00:34:39deficiency. Both west and east Germany
00:34:43began using iodine salt. much more widely in the
00:34:461980s, but then scientists already understood how
00:34:50important iodine is for health. iodine is a
00:34:53trace element we need to get from
00:34:55food. the thyroid gland uses it
00:34:59to produce the hormones t3 and t4, which act on
00:35:03almost every cell in the
00:35:04body.
00:35:10these hormones help regulate the cardiovascular system and blood
00:35:14pressure. and support cell growth and development.
00:35:18That's why they're important for healthy bones and for the development
00:35:22the brain and nervous system. They also help
00:35:25regulate metabolism, which influences body weight. To
00:35:29little iodine over time can lead to health problems.
00:35:33Radiologist Malva Abel often sees thyroid nodules in her
00:35:37patients. Long-term iodine deficiency can be one factor in
00:35:41their development. Da kann es passieren.