WEBVTT

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You'll be wondering,
"Why is this madman dressed like this?"

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Am I right?

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No, I wasn't running late
and grabbed the first clothes I saw.

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No!

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This outfit is going to play

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a significant role
in reviving natural habitats.

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This outfit is going to give
nature back its color.

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But when we speak about
the color of nature,

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we do so with great feeling,

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feelings of joy, peace, happiness!

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But we can also interpret it with

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sadness, melancholy, disappointment.

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This last case is what I experienced.

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I'm going to talk about an area of
natural habitat called El Cascajo wetland.

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El Cascajo is 1.5 hours north of Lima.

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I spent some of the greatest
moments of my childhood there.

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The family memories and amazing
adventures with my father.

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But for some reason,
we stopped going there.

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And time went on,

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and I headed to Japan

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to start my post-graduate studies,
my master's, my PhD.

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I'm currently working as a researcher
and lecturer in science at the university.

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And when I was there, in Japan,

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I got a strange call from my father,

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"Do you remember El Cascajo"? he asked.

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"Of course I do," I say.

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"You won't believe it,
but they're filling it in."

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"What? What are you talking about?"

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"It's so polluted it's completed ruined."

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I was left wondering
about this for some time.

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And then, having
some holiday, I went to Peru.

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And I say to my father,
"Dad, take me to El Casajo."

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"OK."

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And I was faced with this surprise:
the wetlands were green.

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It was completely covered
by aquatic plants, algae.

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And I asked my father,
"Are you sure this is El Cascajo"?

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"Yes."

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"Come on, no way!" I say.

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"This is El Cascajo, and we're losing it,
or we already have," he says.

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I was quite upset.

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When I got to the edge 
of the water, I got on my knees,

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and I apologized for not having
taken care of the habitat.

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I gathered up the water plants,
and I was faced with another surprise.

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The water was brown, stinking,
and full of floating objects.

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Just don't ask me what those objects were!

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(Laughter)

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And I said to myself,
"Well, I didn't study for nothing, did I?"

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Am I right?

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So, let's do something!

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I asked so many people
for help but was refused.

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They said, "But why? What's in it for us?"

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"Well, never mind."

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So, let's do something more simple.

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Let's do this. Take the first step.

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But how?

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OK, I went back to Japan.

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I went to the bank
and withdrew all my savings.

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I went to other banks and took out loans.

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And I went back to Peru.

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But, since this project was about
reviving natural habitats,

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before doing anything, we had
to monitor and observe the area.

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While this was going on,

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let me share with you a small anecdote.

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When I returned to the wetlands,
which were obviously green.

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But, I could also see some floating noses.

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"Hippopotamus!" I cried out.

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But no, they belonged
to the pigs swimming there.

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(Laughter)

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There were farms surrounding
the outside of the wetlands.

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There was also 
an illegal rubbish dump there

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for more than 20 years!

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But the saddest thing
is that the birds,

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- many of them scavenger carrion birds -

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were feeding directly from there.

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Another thing is that local drains
emptied directly into the wetlands,

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and many of them directly into the sea!

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And what did this cause?

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The proliferation of invasive species

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like 'Pistia stratiotes' or water lettuce.

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And as a result, the surrounding
land was contaminated.

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OK?, So, first of all, we had

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to get rid of the outer waste.

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So, these water lettuces.

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But how?

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I designed a system
to divide up the wetlands,

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to divide it into 8 parts.

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From A1 to A2, and D1 to D2.

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But why?

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To have an organized
and controlled cleaning system

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for achieving something 
that resembles a body of water.

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I started with sections A1 and A2.

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But how to separate the zones?

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Using the materials around us.

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We used Guadua angustifolia or bamboo.

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And we got into the water
to put these natural barriers in place.

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Once again I said, "OK let's start!"

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"But who's getting in the water
to get rid of the lettuces?!"

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And as a gentleman, it had to be me.

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(Laughter)

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But I had a plan in mind.

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I got in the water everyday
for a week from 7am until 8pm,

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just removing the water lettuces.

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But whilst I was doing this,

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I could see how many people
passed by everyday.

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Between 70 and 100 people everyday.

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These people passed me by
and did a double-take!

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And they said, "Hey, you're crazy."
"You'll get ill, my son did."

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And engaging them in
conversation was exactly my idea.

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I got out of the water and I explained,

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"No, its real color is not
the one you're seeing now."

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"The true color 
of the wetlands is fabulous!"

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I told them about how it used to be,
how it can be enjoyed once again,

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and how a natural habitat like this
should be sustainable.

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And something happened.

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We removed the Pistia stratiotes by hand.

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Starting with section A1.

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You see this small boat, or 'punt'
as they sometimes call it?

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Those lettuces weighed around 150 kilos.

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And we carried on cleaning,

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and slowly, the group got bigger.

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One day, I got up late 
and arrived at the wetlands at 8am.

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And I was faced with this surprise:

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more than 100 people were
working on the wetlands!

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They shouted out, "We're with you,
let's save El Cascajo!"

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I felt like a politician
greeting everyone there.

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(Laughter)

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It was a moment of immense joy,

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seeing these people, unprotected,
in the water dredging up lettuces.

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"We're going to save El Cascajo."

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"Yes, together we will."

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Well then, great!

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We ended up removing 70 tons
of water lettuces from A1 alone.

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But what did we do with them?

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Compost, organic fertilizer.

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And why? For use on dry and barren areas
to make them green and fertile.

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And we had great results,

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- thanks to a local government program -

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which, I should mention,
helped us from the start.

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And so, we went on
to clean up A2 and then B1 etc,

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And now for the next step:
a water treatment system.

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How did we do this?

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We used nanotechnology.

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Within the field of nanotechnology
there are two systems we could implement.

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One is micro-nano bubbles,
the other biofilters.

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What are micro-nano bubbles?

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I'll explain.

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OK, imagine the bubbles from fizzy drinks.

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Nano bubbles are 10,000 times smaller.

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So, very hard to see 
with these tiny eyes of mine.

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(Laughter)

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The difference is that bubbles
from fizzy drinks disappear very quickly.

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Whereas nano bubbles
remain in the liquid for 5-8 hours.

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But why for so long?

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They are active in the liquid.

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Nano bubbles are surrounded
by positive and negative ions.

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In other words, they have
a high concentration of energy,

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or what is known 
as an electrostatic charge.

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I'm sure you used to play with
the plastic covers of books,

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rubbing your hair with it 
and it stands on end?

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This is the same! The same!

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So, what's going to happen?

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The nano bubble
will become coated with particles.

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For example with viruses.

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Viruses move towards
the electrostatic current,

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and get stuck to the bubbles.

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But what happens then?

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When the bubble pops,
it'll release all those ions,

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and it will generate free radicals.

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In other words, we have
created a type of mini-bomb

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that destroys and kills bacteria.

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How did we install it?

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Again, with the materials around us.

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As you can see here,

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a water pump, an oxygen pump,

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a generator, and a PVC pipe.

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You can see here, it looks 
as if it's being cleaned with a detergent.

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The micro-nano bubbles are up and running.

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Graphically, it looks like this.

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There is the PVC pipe.

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But how do you generate nano bubbles?

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By using the interaction
between air and water,

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and a device which I designed in the lab
at the University of Tsukuba, Japan.

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The device transformed the interactions

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occurring at the interface
of the nano bubbles.

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And, little by little, the pollutants
in the wetland were eliminated.

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After installing the nano bubbles,
we moved on to biofilters.

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Filters, as we all know, act to absorb.

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But why?
To reduce the pool of contaminants.

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but we add the word 'bio';
because it's in fashion.

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And that's how we did it.

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We again used the materials around us.

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I used clay and ceramic to build
the biofilters in a natural way.

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Like before, the filters acted
to absorb bacteria and viruses,

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or other contaminants
- organic or inorganic compounds.

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Everything was absorbed
and passed through this biofilter.

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And they are still in the water today.

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But they can be reused
when they no longer work.

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What did I do with them?

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I ground them up and turned them
into ceramic floor tiles.

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Do you remember the color
of the water at the beginning?

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OK, well it soon turned
into this. Fantastic.

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(Applause)

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Thank you! But hold your horses!
Don't get excited yet!

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OK? Now for the surprise.

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Soon after, migratory birds appeared.

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More than 77 species!

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It was amazing! And do you know what?

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Something unusual happened
to me in January 2013.

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I was in the lab at the university,

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glued to my experiments, geeky as I am ...

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(Laughter)

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And I get another phone call

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- not from my father,
but from someone else -

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who says, "Hey, you remember
that the wetlands were green?"

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"Yes," I reply.
"Well, the water's now clear."

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"Oh, good God,
they put in a load of bleach," I said.

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But no ladies and gentlemen.
This happened.

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Yes, the wetlands did become clear,
and became full of migratory birds.

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They're birds not bats by the way!

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(Laughter)

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I was a bit stressed at that time
- what with my debts with the banks -

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(Laughter)

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but seeing the beautiful sight
of those birds,

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the first thing I thought, well felt,
was that they were like my children.

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(Laughter)

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But do you know
what the greatest thing was?

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I looked up at the birds,
and all the debt just disappeared.

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and I said to them, "Thank you,
all that stress has gone."

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El Cascajo wetlands,
you'll remember, were green.

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When I had finished it looked like this.
Now for the applause please.

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)

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But to maintain the area we needed a team.

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The first to join were children.

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Before their mums wouldn't let them near
the water as they'd come out all mangy,

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but now the children play there.

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They're playing
and throwing stones at the animals,

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and I shout, "Stop throwing stones!"

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(Laughter)

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But seeing these children I said,
"I have returned to my childhood."

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It's really something special.

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El Cascajo wetlands now has a big family.

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It's called Cascajo Team.

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And anyone can join this family.

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But, to maintain the water,
we have clean-up campaigns,

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with more than 150 volunteers
from all over Peru.

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We're starting a clean-up
tomorrow if you're interested.

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(Laughter)

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But first and foremost do you know what?

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Someone very special to me said,

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"Why don't you do this all over Peru?"

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(Laughter)

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She's the culprit. My sister Marian.

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She said to me,
"It'd be great wouldn't it?"

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Well, yes. Let's do this! And so,
I'm going back to Peru next year.

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I'm starting with Lake Titicaca,
the Chira river, and the Paca lagoon.

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And I hope to cover
many more natural habitats.

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There's already a waiting list.

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(Laughter) (Applause)

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She shared some words with me
which I'd like to share with you,

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and I'd like you to share them, too.

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"May the colors of the heart
of the natural world reach

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the hearts of mankind."

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Thank you very much.

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(Applause)