The Documentary Podcast Folgen

Musambwa Island in Lake Victoria, Uganda, is a five-acre rocky outcrop of land five miles from the mainland and is the biggest breeding ground in the world for grey gulls and home to hundreds of other bird species and cobra. Amid the birds, snakes and lizards lives a male only community of fisherman who live by a code of cultural and spiritual practices. Reporter Zawadi Mudibo travels to live among the men of Musambwa to explore their sacred relationship with nature. Although the men have lived this way for generations there is the creeping influence of modernity. Through personal stories and reflections, the deep-seated beliefs that shape the lives of the island's inhabitants are revealed.

During the 1970s and '80s, thousands of Chilean babies were illegally kidnapped, trafficked and adopted. The practice was widespread during the rule of General Augusto Pinochet, who encouraged overseas adoptions to reduce poverty. A network of adoption brokers, hospital staff, social workers, judges, priests and nuns facilitated this trafficking. Today many of Chile’s ‘stolen children’ are trying to trace their birth families and their mothers are also looking for them. A small Santiago-based NGO called Nos Buscamos has helped hundreds of them reunite with their families using DNA testing kits, and a range of other techniques and technologies. We meet Constanza del Rio, the founder of the project and hear from the families they have helped to bring back together.

Being a farmer in Brazil has never been cooler - at least, that is the impression you might get from social media. Music videos featuring cowboy hat wearing farmers, driving tractors and boasting about their wealth, have garnered millions of views online. Meanwhile, farmers turned influencers offer a window into rural life, insisting Brazil is not just a country of football and Carnival, but of farming. Critics say social media has become the latest battleground in a long-running effort by Brazil’s powerful agribusiness industry to improve the way it is perceived. They say posts and videos like these are “propaganda” meant to distract from the sector’s poor environmental track record. But farmers argue their livelihoods are being targeted by “ideologues” and “activists”, who fail to grasp where their food really comes from. And, as Brazil prepares to host COP30, how does this idealised image of agribusiness fit into a world facing climate change?