I am thrilled to have Charlie Ottley as a guest blogger to share his thoughts on filming “Wild Carpathia” and on discovering the fragile beauty of Romanian landscape. Before its European premiere tomorrow, here’s a glimpse at the second episode “From the Mountains to the Sea”.
While Wild Carpathia 2 is screening in Romania and across the world this week I will be holed up in an edit suite in Spain editing episode 3. When my co-producer and cameraman Alasdair Grant and I first started this series 3 years ago, with the help of Paul Lister and The European Nature Trust, it was only supposed to be a one-off. To be honest we weren’t really sure how it would be received because while there are lots of food and travel shows, there are no real environmental travel programmes. We were creating a new genre. That now feels like a lifetime ago and Wild Carpathia, largely thanks to the kind participation of His Royal Highness Prince Charles, has since become an international phenomenon and the most watched programme Travel Channel has screened in its 26 years of broadcasting.
What we set out to do was showcase the beauty of the Carpathians, the forests, mountains and wildlife and on the way point out some of the issues facing this region: Firstly the frenzy of illegal logging and clear felling that is rendering whole mountainsides barren. Secondly the dereliction or reckless development of stunning medieval landscapes that, if left unchecked will prevent tourism becoming one of Romania’s biggest sources of revenue.
The impact of the programme was far greater than we could have ever envisaged. And it rapidly became clear that there was more to do. There were other landscapes under threat and other stunning areas that needed to be shown to the world. So for the second episode we chose to focus on Baile Herculane, a geo-thermal spa-resort town that was once the grandest in Europe, and could with the right investment become so again. We also decided to feature the Danube Delta, Europe’s largest wetland and a preternaturally beautiful maze of reeds, lakes, marshes, waterways, wildlife and rare birds. To connect this with the Wild Carpathia concept we used the waterways and river systems that start high in the mountains and flow down into the Danube.
The film took a huge amount of time editing and re-editing to capture the right balance between a serious environmental message and a portrait aimed at inspiring people to visit these beautiful and fragile landscapes, as well as to emotionally invest in their continued wellbeing. You can now see whether we have succeeded or not, as the film starts to air this week. I anticipate there will be a mixed response. Some people will claim (and already have) that we focus too much on negative issues, as once more we touch on deforestation and insensitive development. But you cannot, in my view make an honest film about a country you love, without being upset by those who are, for their own selfish ends busily ruining it. And the only way we are going to be able to tackle these problems is if people are aware of them.
Romania is a wonderful and fascinating country. Its people are warm, friendly, hardworking and proud. But the exploitation of their natural resources by large, western companies that provide financial incentives to ruin pastoral landscapes with intensive farming and virgin wilderness by rabid deforestation, has got to stop. The greatest commodity Romania has is not the wood – It is the forest. It’s not the ability to modernise, but the ability and willingness to preserve its rural heritage that will sustain and generate the most income for the future.