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Speaker 1: Seven oh two Weekend Breakfast the Nature Diary with Tim Neary.

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Speaker 2: It's twenty two minutes before seven o'clock. Welcome back to

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Speaker 2: seven oh two Weekend of Breakfast. It's a Sunday morning,

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Speaker 2: which means we spend some time in nature, and this

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Speaker 2: morning we are in the Great Rift Valley and I'm

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Speaker 2: thrilled because we are speaking about a beautiful coffee table

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Speaker 2: book called The Rift Scar of Africa. It's by Shem Compion.

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Speaker 2: And in a moment we will join. They will join

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Speaker 2: us on the show as always, joining us in studio

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Speaker 2: as our residency and need to conservation us. Tim Neary,

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Speaker 2: mister Neary, good morning.

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Speaker 1: Good morning, and how are you. We are within reason?

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Speaker 1: That's we'll take that.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, that's it. That's a good Innes's pretty good.

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Speaker 3: I'm on a mission. I want to borrow Cyril for

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Speaker 3: a couple of days and you can come driving with me, okay,

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Speaker 3: and then miss Creasey, I'd like you to come driving

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Speaker 3: with me so you can see what the roads are

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Speaker 3: like and what the people and what the driving is like.

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Speaker 3: Right yeah, and then maybe we'll get hold of that

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Speaker 3: gent in the our tan so you can just have

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Speaker 3: a look as you even go from one province to

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Speaker 3: the other, and as you enter car teen. Yeah, there's

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Speaker 3: a there's a serious difference. As you enter carting, you

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Speaker 3: can now hide interlinks in the potholes, you know, interlinks.

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Speaker 3: Is that truck that's got two trailers behind it? Yeah,

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Speaker 3: but man, the roads are busy, they're crazy. Yeah, and

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Speaker 3: I reckon there must be two trucks for every car.

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Speaker 3: It's just ridiculous. I don't know at which points some

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Speaker 3: muppet gets this. The railway is working and doing it properly,

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Speaker 3: but it's crazy, and you've got all these these large

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Speaker 3: earth moving This time there was a lot of earth

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Speaker 3: moving equipment, and interesting enough, when you look at it,

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Speaker 3: none of it's your traditional earth moving equipment. I don't

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Speaker 3: know how many pieces there were, but there was one

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Speaker 3: Volver front end loader. A Volver have always made good products.

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Speaker 3: But for the rest of it, it was swing dong wing,

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Speaker 3: hang pong, et cetera, trotting down the road on the

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Speaker 3: back up a little bit. And the whole earth moving

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Speaker 3: industry has changed to Chinese Chinese view Chinese Chinese type vehicles, right,

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Speaker 3: and you know it's it must be eating into caterpillar

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Speaker 3: and Kamatsu and there are the other originals. Must be

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Speaker 3: eating them badly, right, But yeah, and weather was weather

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Speaker 3: was quite quite fun.

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Speaker 2: Rain.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, the drive back, I think I.

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Speaker 3: Used my windscreen wipers for about five hundred and ninety

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Speaker 3: of the six hundred and forty kilometers.

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Speaker 1: Wind and wind was incredible. Really.

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Speaker 3: No, No, people don't believe in the radio must be joking,

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Speaker 3: you know, No, it's true.

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Speaker 1: No.

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Speaker 2: Actually, when it's raining, which is when you should be busy, No.

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Speaker 3: The rain means that you put your foot down further,

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Speaker 3: you know, and then then you wonder why you sort

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Speaker 3: of stuck in a ditch you up and embankment with

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Speaker 3: somebody with flashing lights trying to extract you.

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Speaker 1: No, really, you've been silly, right, But yeah, it was.

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Speaker 3: It was interesting working with traditional healers and I'm fascinated

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Speaker 3: how different they are in different regions. Yes, you know,

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Speaker 3: and that's that I'm certain to see a lot of

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Speaker 3: differences because obviously one's expanding now and you're going into

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Speaker 3: into a vast number of areas, and really it's a

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Speaker 3: it's a different world.

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Speaker 2: It is different. There are different groups of healers. They

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Speaker 2: work in different ways.

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Speaker 1: Very different and what does fascinate me. Though.

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Speaker 3: When you go to the meeting and you know now

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Speaker 3: it's the meeting is set on Tuesday, sorry, Wednesday, you

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Speaker 3: discover that there were one or two there on Tuesday,

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Speaker 3: just scouting. And whenever you arrive at these meetings there's

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Speaker 3: one traditional healer or one person and you think, oh no,

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Speaker 3: this is a utter failure. And then I think they

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Speaker 3: tap the top of their heads out the door and

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Speaker 3: that's the signal to the next one on top of

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Speaker 3: the hillside. And then they start to descend and three

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Speaker 3: hours later arriving.

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Speaker 1: This is awesome.

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Speaker 3: And then the goats try to get into the lunch,

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Speaker 3: which was also the goats smelled the apples that the.

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Speaker 1: Lunchtime. Lunchtime. Yeah, I thought we're having stewed goat at

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Speaker 1: the same time.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so this morning we're talking books.

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Speaker 1: We're talking books, and book an enormous book. It's about

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Speaker 1: the size of the riff belly.

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Speaker 3: Yes, it is incredible though, And you know, Shem has

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Speaker 3: taken photographs and books that I've reviewed for many years,

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Speaker 3: and I don't know what he does to his photography,

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Speaker 3: but it gets better and better and more and more

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Speaker 3: and more interesting. But this is not a photography book.

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Speaker 3: This is a book. This is he's become a storyteller.

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Speaker 3: You know, so often people tell stories through their photographs,

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Speaker 3: but when you look at a book like this, Shem

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Speaker 3: is involved into a higher form of storyteller. And I'm

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Speaker 3: finding this incredibly interesting. The book is the content of

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Speaker 3: the book is just mind blowing. Okay, and I think

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Speaker 3: you know now to discover who it's aimed at, who

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Speaker 3: you're going to hit with it. And the one thing,

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Speaker 3: I'm not trying to be funny, guys, but it is true.

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Speaker 3: They always say, if you've got a ganglion on your hand,

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Speaker 3: you hit it with the family Bible. Let me tell you,

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Speaker 3: don't hit with this book because you're going to smash

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Speaker 3: your hand. Yeah, but it's awesome, you know, don't worry

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Speaker 3: about the size of it. It's it's the content of

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Speaker 3: this book is going to be mind blowing.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: And so joining us on the line, we're joined by

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Speaker 2: author of the Rift Scar of Africa, Shem Compion. It

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Speaker 2: joins us this morning, Shem A very good morning to you.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to the Nature Diary on weekend Breakfast.

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Speaker 4: Thank you very much here, it's great to be here.

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Speaker 4: And yes, the book is designed I think as a

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Speaker 4: homage to half significant the risk is. It's a weighty

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Speaker 4: piece for material, can also be as a bookstop. It's

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Speaker 4: very much a significant piece of work simply because has

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Speaker 4: so much pafer.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and so why the great Rift Valley for you?

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Speaker 2: Why did you want to photograph that particular I mean,

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Speaker 2: it's an incredible part of not just the continent but

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Speaker 2: the world. But what for you was you know, the

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Speaker 2: I guess the impetus of the inspiration to do this

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Speaker 2: particular book, Well, it.

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Speaker 4: Came down to a day in August twenty twenty one

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Speaker 4: when I realized that over the last twenty three years

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Speaker 4: I had been photographing and had covered most of the

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Speaker 4: Rift Valley.

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Speaker 1: So it was a.

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Speaker 4: Logical reason that once I delved into it, I realized

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Speaker 4: that the risk is so significant in all our lives.

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Speaker 4: It connects so many people in Africa. It's the largest

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Speaker 4: geological formation on the planet. And the more I dug

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Speaker 4: into the Rift Valley itself, you realize that you know,

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Speaker 4: it provides fifty percent of Kenya's powers to geosmal activity.

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Speaker 4: It underpins the whole tourism industry of East Africa because

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Speaker 4: the ash from the volcanos all on the out of

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Speaker 4: the rift instluens and saw the planes that were serengation

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Speaker 4: in the Marsai Mara those and that ash nourished those planes,

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Speaker 4: of which today tourism is a major contributor to those economies.

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Speaker 4: There's multiple others like that. I mean, the volcanoes with

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Speaker 4: all the good of chimps on the west and southerner

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Speaker 4: in Rift, those all predicated on the Rift valley and

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Speaker 4: the formation of the rift. It's something that effects and

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Speaker 4: it influences billions of people on any given days. And

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Speaker 4: I realize in significance of that. I was like, this

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Speaker 4: is a really need to be told, and so, like

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Speaker 4: some says, storytelling became a big part of it. Who

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Speaker 4: wanted to clearly lay out the emphasis of what the

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Speaker 4: risk has on an everyday basis. It's not just a

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Speaker 4: piece of geography. It's the multiple connections of these intangibles,

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Speaker 4: you know, geology, culture, ecology, biodiversity, and of course they're

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Speaker 4: just this normal geography itself.

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Speaker 3: Shim just saying with that word geography the riff, could

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Speaker 3: you say that it almost starts done in Botswana and

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Speaker 3: stretches from there right across.

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Speaker 4: And it's It's starts in me Lembique and then words

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Speaker 4: is way pretty much northwards up to Ethiopia. All the

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Speaker 4: way up to Ethiopia. However, it's multiple sort of offshoots

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Speaker 4: that effect it effects. So one of those ashes goes

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Speaker 4: down from south dow Angla and Zambia down to Victoria

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Speaker 4: Falls and then effects the Okarango delta in Botswana, and

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Speaker 4: then even it affects Johannesburg in some parts or format

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Speaker 4: where it creates a big watershed. So it's tectonic plates

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Speaker 4: are all connected. And these tectonic plates, the main ones

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Speaker 4: are the ones in the physical rift itself, but they's

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Speaker 4: a little branches that move across to other parts of Africa.

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Speaker 4: And so one of them comes down right to Brixton

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Speaker 4: in Johannesburg where it separates the watershed or water falling

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Speaker 4: on the northern slopes of the Brixton Hill will go

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Speaker 4: down into the Indian Ocean and on the southern side

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Speaker 4: we'll go west. So yeah, it has ten drils that

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Speaker 4: reach forear and wide across the continent.

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Speaker 3: When I look at a book like this, though, shem

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Speaker 3: to me, this is a PhD waiting to happen and effectively.

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Speaker 3: I mean, for any university student to latch onto the

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Speaker 3: content of this book when they're studying is, you know,

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Speaker 3: studying the right subjects obviously is incredible. Him who the

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Speaker 3: do you aim the book at? You know, where do

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Speaker 3: you feel that it fits in the world besides being

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Speaker 3: this incredible reference book?

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Speaker 4: No thanks. It's interesting because internationally it's been picked up

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Speaker 4: by Yale and Berkeley to fit into their libraries. They

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Speaker 4: have libraries on African study, so it has been picked

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Speaker 4: up by academia. However, it was always aims at anybody

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Speaker 4: who's got a connection to Africa or have traveled in

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Speaker 4: the rift. And I think, what I want to try

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Speaker 4: and the message I want to try and get across

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Speaker 4: is that people travel to Africa, or people might live

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Speaker 4: in Africa and they come here for a specific reason.

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Speaker 4: It might be Safari, what they're coming for to see

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Speaker 4: lions and elephants, or they're coming for some work, and

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Speaker 4: they don't appreciate the length and the breadth of what

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Speaker 4: the rist is. And once you open up the book

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Speaker 4: you realize, oh wow, I'm just a small part of

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Speaker 4: something that's way larger, and the story that of this

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Speaker 4: place that is way larger is very compelling, and it

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Speaker 4: shows how everything in the risk value is connected. And

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Speaker 4: so that's who's really aimed at is anybody who's had

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Speaker 4: an association with the RIST at any given moment in

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Speaker 4: time can go, oh, you know I was there in

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Speaker 4: that part of the risk. Wow. It's actually is this

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Speaker 4: connection of volcanoes all the way down all the way

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Speaker 4: from Rosambat, Gore and Goza. You could be living in

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Speaker 4: go and Goza would know that there's a connection all

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Speaker 4: the way up to the where go and goes as

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Speaker 4: the wildlife area. But you can know, oh wow, but

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Speaker 4: the serenates in Mars and Mara sincely when we're minor.

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Speaker 1: Pools lower than Busy.

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Speaker 4: All these places are similar wildlife areas, all formed by

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Speaker 4: the RIST bandy and I'm one of them. I think

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Speaker 4: that's something to celebrate. You know, we did a launch

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Speaker 4: there and there's how everyone's eyes looks happen, and then

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Speaker 4: a volcanoes and then there was like there tourism industry,

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Speaker 4: the guerrillas and the trims and they were like, ah,

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Speaker 4: so we are such a big part of it. But

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Speaker 4: yet also Kenya and our cousins rule the border and

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Speaker 4: all these other countries and were like, so the rift

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Speaker 4: actually connects us, we're not competitors or part system. That

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Speaker 4: was really nice to see. That's the risty named that

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Speaker 4: is that people who have any connection with traveling in

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Speaker 4: Africa coming to visit Africa. That is something larger than with.

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Speaker 1: Shame.

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Speaker 3: I think you're going to have to move yourself about

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Speaker 3: three degrees to the left because you're I think, what

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Speaker 3: is what, what's coming? What comes at you? So incredibly

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Speaker 3: as well, Googs is that there are no borders, right,

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Speaker 3: so you can you can have country borders, but nature

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Speaker 3: and geology and the planet don't care, really doesn't care

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Speaker 3: about that rubbish.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so that's true.

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Speaker 3: You know, it's a case of here's the roof, there's

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Speaker 3: the valley, all right, and you think of a valley,

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Speaker 3: so you kind of look out and you think of oh,

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Speaker 3: maybe the the the valley of a thousand hills or whatever. No, mate,

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Speaker 3: that sort of likes more change. Now you're looking at

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Speaker 3: something that's this incredible geological formation and how it fits in.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Sam, I see quite a big part of this book,

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Speaker 2: and what you've captured as well is of course the biodiversity.

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Speaker 2: So you know in the animals and the plants. But

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Speaker 2: a big part of this is the people, and particularly

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Speaker 2: people for whom the Rift valley is such an intrinsic

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Speaker 2: or central part of either cultural or spiritual practice. Tell

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Speaker 2: us about why that was also so important that not

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Speaker 2: only are you talking about kind of the natural wonder

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Speaker 2: that is the rift, the animals, how it connects, for instance,

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Speaker 2: even connects to Johannesburg, but the people as well of

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Speaker 2: the rift.

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Speaker 1: Sure.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, And I've just come back from a week expedition

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Speaker 4: down Amo River in Ethiopia. I got back a couple

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Speaker 4: of days ago, and I was once again reminded of

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Speaker 4: the how pioneering you have to be lived there and

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Speaker 4: exists there. And I spent a lot of time with

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Speaker 4: various tribal groups across Africa, especially in northern Kenya and

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Speaker 4: Ethiopia in very very tough oan some mistake, The Riff

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Speaker 4: is no biblic or Eden, the giving place where a

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Speaker 4: calamity is pretty much failed range in a way, and

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Speaker 4: so survival for people that live in these areas in

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Speaker 4: very tough in conditions is contingent on knowledge and mobility,

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Speaker 4: and that also requires some creativity. They've got to be

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Speaker 4: very creative in the ways that they survived. We as Westerners,

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Speaker 4: would not be able to live in those areas, and

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Speaker 4: that's why cities have not developed their tough, unforgiving conditions.

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Speaker 4: And when I spent time with these people in these

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Speaker 4: tough areas, I realized, you know, that their creativity, their resilience,

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Speaker 4: and their plan making of not really just surviving but

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Speaker 4: thriving was very humbling to see. And ultimately that was

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Speaker 4: for me. I wanted to share their story. You know,

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Speaker 4: they exquisitely beautiful. Their adornment isn't incredible. Their ethnography goes

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Speaker 4: back far, far back into the time, and so parted

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Speaker 4: very important to showcase that within the rest of that

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Speaker 4: there are these groups of people who are able to survive,

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Speaker 4: sometimes very close to Western cities. Yet they're independent and

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Speaker 4: their independent shines and they are very proud of who

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Speaker 4: they are. They don't want to assimilate into Western society.

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Speaker 4: They quite content being who they are. And so that's

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Speaker 4: pride was what I wanted to showcase, and and that

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Speaker 4: resilience and count you mentioned the rest has got no

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Speaker 4: borders because we were just in It is on the

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Speaker 4: border of Kenya and on the border of South Sudan

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Speaker 4: and just like you said, there are no borders there

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Speaker 4: that people are doing back and forth sent each of

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Speaker 4: those countries because they are masters of their own land there.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, And of course, I mean some of those borders

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Speaker 3: actually split families and split communities and you know, as

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Speaker 3: they were created. And I'm going to echo what Shem

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Speaker 3: is saying there because the time that I spent in

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Speaker 3: two thousand and seven with friends of ours in Ethiopia,

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Speaker 3: that was the most incredible time of seeing people that

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Speaker 3: are actually comfortable in what they're doing, what they have

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Speaker 3: and how they work around the planet. And whereas we've

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Speaker 3: got that very eurocentric idea of conservation, you have a

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Speaker 3: very large smack on the back of the head with

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Speaker 3: a book of the size waking up to what it

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Speaker 3: all is about, you know, and it's about biodiversity, it's

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Speaker 3: about living together, it's about survival, about thriving and not

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Speaker 3: with all the modern cons that we've all the mod

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Speaker 3: cons that we've got.

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Speaker 2: And Shem, how long does a project like this, a

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Speaker 2: book of this nature take you? It feels like the

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Speaker 2: work of many, many years.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, there's a four years in physical production. The

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Speaker 4: once I stood on the bank of the river Zambizi

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Speaker 4: River in Barnopools. It was August twenty twenty one and

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Speaker 4: I was like, Oh, this is this is a project

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Speaker 4: I want to do because I have to physically see

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Speaker 4: there the Restaba round north south, coming down and from

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Speaker 4: south of Anga and then it hits the Zambizi which

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Speaker 4: eventually runs east west, and I was looking at how

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Speaker 4: the risk chains it hits that take twenty plates on

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Speaker 4: the Zambizi and I was like, Ah, this is this

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Speaker 4: is a project I'd like to do. And of course

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Speaker 4: I never realized it would be such a large body

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Speaker 4: of work. Yet I'm very content that Aberhart came out hopefully,

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Speaker 4: as I said, again, you don't it doesn't work out

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Speaker 4: as a coffee table book can be used as a

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Speaker 4: doorstop at a later stage. But however, the first photographs

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Speaker 4: I've taken in the book of from two thousand and eight,

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Speaker 4: so I think photographing on the continents since the early

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Speaker 4: two thousands, and the first images in the book are

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Speaker 4: from two thousand and eight, so it's seventeen years worth

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Speaker 4: of work that went into the actual content of the

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Speaker 4: book itself. So that was very satisfying to be able

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Speaker 4: to use all the travels that I've done across Africa

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Speaker 4: in this volume.

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Speaker 1: Shim, you're too young to have done a book like this.

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Speaker 1: What's next?

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Speaker 3: I mean, this is normally a book that somebody in

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Speaker 3: their seventies brings out. You set yourself one hell of

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Speaker 3: a benchmarking man. How are you going to how are

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Speaker 3: you going to put this one into bed and then

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Speaker 3: come up with something better? I mean, now there's the

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Speaker 3: challenge for you. Live on a come on tell us.

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Speaker 4: No, I'll tend to working and traveling in Africa keeps

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Speaker 4: you young, So that's really good. At a photograph in

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Speaker 4: Africa keeps you young. But this it is quite a

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Speaker 4: large volume. When of the launched as throughout Kenya a

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Speaker 4: couple of launches, but one of the launches they did

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Speaker 4: was aim specifically at youth. And of course n Arobi

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Speaker 4: is perched on the edge of the Risk discarpment and

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Speaker 4: it's pretty much we would say, the home in the

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Speaker 4: center of the Risk varley anyway, and so we did

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Speaker 4: with sif a youse all from all around Nairobi. Three

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Speaker 4: different groups and musicians and one of them is called

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Speaker 4: the Ghettu Lasters and one of human trafficking children groups

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Speaker 4: that brought their children in the youth not children, and

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Speaker 4: we did an interactive discussion about what the risk that is,

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Speaker 4: how important it is for the economy of Kenya, and

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Speaker 4: to see their eyes light that that these young children

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Speaker 4: between ten and eighteen years old and appreciating something as

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Speaker 4: special as the risks. And then we asked them to

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Speaker 4: go away for ten minutes and come back into a

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Speaker 4: ninety second this talk. It could be a poem, it

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Speaker 4: could be it could be a dance, it could be

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Speaker 4: a show, it could be anything. They would even free

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Speaker 4: reign and what they did and they selected some photographs

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Speaker 4: from actual presentation and they spoke about that and they

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Speaker 4: came back in the poems and the talk has reflected

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Speaker 4: on that they don't want to be the reflection of Africa.

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Speaker 4: They want to be the narrative. They want to be

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Speaker 4: the main subject. It was very touching too. It wasn't

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Speaker 4: very touching. It was incredibly touching and very inspiring to

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Speaker 4: see how the use attached to the significance of the

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Speaker 4: word the risk value is because they are the one

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Speaker 4: side is My book is about celebration, but there's the

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Speaker 4: anthropoesy infection which talks about you know the future and

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Speaker 4: an environmental risk. Lake levels arising, fish stocks are dwindling,

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Speaker 4: there's deserts to take multiple multiple environmental challenges that we

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Speaker 4: all know about these and it's and the story. What

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Speaker 4: we want to try and is saybled to the use.

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Speaker 4: You know here, here is the problem here. But you

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Speaker 4: guys are going to inherit this problem, or you might

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Speaker 4: inherit a solution, but let's see how we can do

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Speaker 4: it together. So the next version of this project is

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Speaker 4: to create a book that is aimed at the younger generation,

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Speaker 4: a smaller, much more tangible brochure size book that can

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Speaker 4: be used for educating and just saying, hey, this is

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Speaker 4: going to help you the next generation navigate the way forward,

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Speaker 4: because then there is three hundred million people to move

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Speaker 4: in and out of the risk every single day. We're

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Speaker 4: the ones that are going to inherit the lake house

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Speaker 4: and your fish sham.

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Speaker 1: We do need to leave it at that.

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Speaker 2: We are unfortunately out of time, and I must thank

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Speaker 2: you so much for joining us this morning.

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Speaker 1: It's been great having you on the show. Thank you

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Speaker 1: very much, Thank you so so much.

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Speaker 2: That is author of the Ripped a Shame Companion, Tim

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Speaker 2: is always a great pleasure having you in.

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Speaker 1: Studio as well. Thank you very much. I'm buzzing off.

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Speaker 1: Let's now seven o'clock. I'm fairly to Sie Whness News