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In living memory, thousands of residents in the town of Matera were so poor they lived in damp, dark caves. And people were living in the caves here until the 1950s when the Italian Prime Minister declared this poverty a national scandal and everybody was moved out, forcibly moved out of the caves into public housing. And so a whole way of life ended. Matera is now turning its once shameful caves into an asset. Many of them are being refashioned as holiday homes and fancy hotels. Marco? Yeah, it's me. This is your cave? This is my Look at this. It's astonishing. This was a home. Family? Share the house with donkeys, cow, big animals.
People lived with their animals inside the cave. Flapping. I sense that you're turning this from something that is shameful or embarrassing or people feel that way about it into something to be incredibly proud of. Exactly. We start to understand that there is a way to live again. We need to be proud of this. Isn't it totally spectacular? Something and somewhere I won't ever forget. I'll enjoy a good night's sleep tonight, I think.
Wow. Look at this. This is almost biblical. Matera isn't following the script of Southern Italy's decline. Fantastic. What a completely splendid sight. Any wedding, anything like this, it represents rejuvenation, regeneration. So good to see because too many towns and villages in Southern Italy have been completely depopulated in recent generations. But here, this is this has got a future. Aw. It's beautiful. So we were in the toe of Italy. Now we're in the arch. And we're heading for the heel. And Italy's heel belongs to the region of Puglia, one of the country's most picturesque and productive farming areas.
Oh, wow. Out there, this is the Adriatic bit of the Mediterranean. Pretty spectacular, eh? Goodness. So these are all olive trees down here. Thousands and thousands of them. Puglia is the absolute heart of Italy's olive oil industry, Producing more than 50% of the country's entire output. I met up with a plant pathologist called Margarita D'Amico, who's in love with the olive tree. Margarita, how old do you think this one would be?
2,000 years old. Do you ever just give them a hug? What about a little cuddle? But the soul of the people of Puglia is threatened. Olive trees here are facing a catastrophe. The region is ground zero for a deadly disease called Xylella. Next day, Margarita took me to the front line. These trees, what's happening to them?
It's completely dry and dead. This is so serious, some call the disease the olive tree Ebola. To stop it spreading, authorities advise farmers to set up containment zones. This is horrific. This is hundreds of trees that have been chopped down. Government scientists say all the trees in a 100-m radius of those affected need to be removed. It could mean a million or more of Puglia's olive trees are destroyed. Olive trees in production around much of the Mediterranean is now threatened.
Many locals here vehemently disagree with the containment policy. Margarita is among the respected scientists who think it's a mistake. My guide in Tunisia, Shelby Ben Brahim, was taking me to a slightly more familiar corner of the country. This is Luke Skywalker's home. Yeah. This is one of the Star Wars sites. Hollywood's finest set dressing here. There's something a little bit sad about this place, actually.
I would have thought this was a sacred place of pilgrimage for Star Wars fans, hundreds of millions of them that there are. But visitor numbers to Tunisia have plummeted since two deadly terror attacks in 2015, in which 59 tourists were killed. A human tragedy that also had a huge economic impact. Apparently, they used to get 250, 300 visitors for lunch alone every day here. Now, it's only just a few Tunisians who come here. It's hard for tourist sites in this country to survive without people coming from abroad. It's a long way from Hollywood, but the Star Wars set designers didn't have to do a lot of work to create Luke Skywalker's home. They use centuries-old
cave dwellings belonging to one of North Africa's ancient cultures. Flipping heck. This village is unbelievable. I was arriving in an ancient settlement called Chenini. The Amazigh, better known as the Berbers, became a minority when Arabs from the Middle East spread out across Mediterranean North Africa, but there's still some who carve out a traditional Berber livelihood. It's a giant hamster on a wheel, isn't it? Oh, you poor thing. The camel does get released and rested, but it's still horrific work.
I'm almost there. We're still crushing olives into a paste using the same method as his ancestors. Goodness me. So, what are you doing? So, it squishes down the paste under here. And then what comes out? Oh, is it? Look at that. And that is a pure traditional olive oil. Do you know how long your ancestors have been doing it this way? Are all of the buildings dilapidated or are people still living in them? The Berbers consider themselves an oppressed minority across North Africa. And many of their villages are struggling to survive. Amor has a plan for Chenini. He wants to attract more
visitors to this beautiful village. They could stay in some of the traditional Berber homes he's building by hand. Which is yours here? Flipping heck. Have you cut into the [clears throat] rock here by hand? You've carved and hacked your way in here. So, you're going to take out all this bedrock here? Do you think it's in your blood that you know how to work the rock here? THERE'S A CRACK. LIFE AROUND THE MEDITERRANEAN was proving much more extreme than I'd ever expected. As I neared the end of the first part of my journey, I headed back towards
Albania's coast. Albania has perhaps the greatest system of wetlands in the entire Mediterranean. It's an absolutely crucial rest stop for birds that are crossing the Mediterranean Sea. The largest and most important of these coastal lagoons is Karavasta National Park. Look at this. It is completely enormous. A critical habitat for an incredible 250 species of birds, many of them threatened by hunting around the Mediterranean. I met up with a heroic conservationist called Ardian Koci, the park's director. pelicans? You have pelicans in the park? To see something that large in flight is a real treasure.
Oh my goodness. It's a whole island of pelicans. Brilliant. What do you love about them? They're really crammed onto their little islands there, but they seem to get on okay. They share parental responsibility. Around the Mediterranean, pelican incoming. Tens, possibly hundreds of millions of birds are hunted every year. In Egypt and Lebanon, birds are slaughtered in their millions. Even inside the European Union, when nature laws should protect vulnerable species, it's a scandal. Italy is one of the worst offenders. In Albania, guns are in plentiful supply and hunting was a huge threat. But then in 2014,
the government here set an example to the rest of the Mediterranean and banned outright all hunting. What was life like here before the hunting ban? Dark. Very And that's what it takes. What's the reason for putting the boys out? So we are protecting the pelicans. The biggest battle to safeguard these wetlands may still lie ahead. Albania, naturally enough, wants a slice of the med's massive tourist industry with all the investment and jobs that go with it.
There is a plan for a colossal resort to be built here on a scale rarely seen around the Mediterranean. It would start roughly 10 miles in that direction. And it would completely transform the national park. The future of Karavasta National Park is still to be decided. But there is hope. With its hunting ban, Albania has already shown it can take tough decisions to protect the environment and the wonder of the Mediterranean.
