Noah’s Ark “Low Tech” for Biodiversity

ARTE.TV – ON DEMAND – DOCUMENTARY SERIES

“Low technology”? “It’s simple, it’s the opposite of high-tech.”, explains “Coco”, Corentin de Chatelperron, with a surprisingly youthful voice for his 38 years. Curly hair of medium length, XL T-shirt, thongs and shorts, his teenage look contrasts with his CV (engineer, founder of Low-tech Lab), but fits perfectly with the alternative life that he has forged.

The Nomad of the sea, his catamaran transformed into an experimental laboratory, began a trip around the world in 2016 in search of the most promising “low-tech” innovations, which, “If they were better known, they could change the world”. Objective: transform the ship into an autonomous ecosystem in water, energy, food, etc.

From Concarneau (Finisterre) to Singapore, from Nicaragua to Madagascar, the sailboat has made a stop in seventeen countries. It brought a documentary series of two seasons and twenty-five episodes, now visible on all screens, Arte.tv having obtained since the beginning of April a channel (77) on TNT. Knowledge, practices, lifestyles are revealed And even currents of thought, which integrate technology according to three fundamental principles: useful, accessible and sustainable “, drawn from one of the fifty “low-tech” listed in the four corners of the world, and shipped immediately.

Cricket and fly larvae

Half disaster, half Noah’s ark, the Nomad of the sea it houses some “useful, accessible and sustainable” finds, therefore. In bulk: edible plants grown in hydroponics (without soil and bathed in nutrient-rich water); a 10 euro computer hacked in Malaysia; a rusty bicycle wheel that allows you to operate a blender, a grinder, a sewing machine …

The sequences dedicated to meals are the most confusing… On board there are very worried guests: Gwendoline, composting specialist; Coline, expert in organic waste; Claire, expatriate in Taiwan, specializing in bacteria and yeasts … Corentin, a vegetarian, dreams of kouign-amann, but mainly eats plants, semolina and finds his daily dose of protein in a spirulina plaster (from Madagascar), grown in the cottage, or worse, in plump larvae of Thai crickets.

Même Canard, une magnifique canne embarked in Malaysia, rechigne devant sa gamelle grouillante de larvae from “Black Soldier” on a large scale). “Come on focus, duck, fondly encourages Corentin, it is the mind. ”