The Documentary Podcast Folgen

What is the future for Africa's rapidly swelling cities? The stretch of nearly 1,000 km between Abidjan and Lagos, is by 2100 projected to be the largest zone of continuous, dense habitation on earth - and home to about half a billion people. In Ghana alone, the population which was around six million at the time of independence could exceed 50 million by 2050. There has been unprecedented migration into Accra and other cities from rural areas, straining the city’s ability to provide basic housing and services to people, and exacerbating existing inequalities. Presenter Mike Wooldridge and Ghanaian architect Ruth-Anne Richardson report on the opportunities and challenges this rapid urbanisation brings in West Africa.

The term “narwhal” derives from the old Nordic for “nár + hvalr”, meaning corpse + whale, which, for these animals, is quickly becoming prophetic. Climate change, with its accompanying increase in human marine activity, has led to the Arctic Ocean becoming noisier. As narwhal rely on sound to communicate and navigate their surroundings, this could result in the extinction of populations like East Greenland's narwhal by as soon as 2025. Mary-Ann Ochota investigates how this issue is at once political, cultural, and environmental and speaks to the scientists, traditional hunters, and activists, who are seeking a solution.

After its award winning premier in 2020, a new production of The Visitors by Indigenous playwright Jane Harrison sees us on the eve of colonisation. The first fleet sailed into Sydney Harbour on the 26 January 1788 bringing with them convicts, disease and violence. The play asks, what if we saw this moment from the Aboriginal perspective? What if they could decide whether or not to let the fleet land? As seven tribal elders watch the fleet arrive they must decide whether to stop them, or welcome them. Regina Botros follows the director Wesley Enoch, the writer Jane Harrison and the cast through the challenges of the play as it reflects, quite poignantly, the current political climate in Australia.