The Documentary Podcast Folgen

Ninety year old Galina is one of the last witnesses to the wild natural world that preceded the Chernobyl zone in southern Belarus. 'We lived with wolves' she says 'and moose, and elk and wild boars.' Soviet development destroyed that ecosystem. Forests and marshland were tamed and laid to farmland and industrial use. But when the Chernobyl reactor exploded in 1986, the human population was evacuated; their villages were buried beneath the earth as though they had never existed. A generation on, it seems that the animals Galina knew are returning. But how are they are affected by their radioactive environment? And what can we infer about the state of the land? Monica Whitlock visits the strange new wilderness emerging in the heart of Europe. Producer/presenter: Monica Whitlock Editor: Bridget Harney (Photo: Galina at the door to her cottage. Credit: Monica Whitlock/BBC)

In Japan to change gender, people must be sterilised, have gender reassignment surgery, not have any children under the age of 20 and must be single. The government further state you cannot have gender reassignment surgery if you are on any type of hormone replacement - and you must accept the psychiatric diagnosis of "gender identity disorder". Mariko Oi investigates The controversial laws over how people can change gender in Japan.

For more than a century, the world has revolved around fossil fuels. Wars have been fought over them. The nations that had oil and gas had power. They controlled the price, they controlled the supply and could tell their customers what to do. What will happen as countries around world develop enough renewable energy to end their dependence on hydrocarbons?