2: 6. The Cormorant and the Guano Trade: Wealth, Exploitation, and Intensive Farming AUTHOR: Stephen Moss BOOK TITLE: 10 Birds That Changed the World This section covers Cormorant guano, a highly prized fertilizer known to the Incas. In the 19th century, shi
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John Batchelor
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🗓️ 13 October 2025
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Summary
6. The Cormorant and the Guano Trade: Wealth, Exploitation, and Intensive Farming
BOOK TITLE: 10 Birds That Changed the World
This section covers Cormorant guano, a highly prized fertilizer known to the Incas. In the 19th century, shipping guano from arid Peruvian islands made British businessman William Gibbs the wealthiest commoner in England. Tragically, this wealth was built upon the exploitation and deaths of Chinese indentured laborers. The guano boom (1840-1870) ended, leading to the invention of synthetic fertilizers (Haber-Bosch process), which enabled intensive farming that caused wildlife decline in Britain and North America.
1838
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| 0:28.9 | I'm John Bachel with the author and producer Stephen Moss, his new book, |
| 0:35.0 | Ten Birds that Change the World. Peru, the cormorant, the cormorant's droppings, |
| 0:37.5 | turn into guano. And this story is so strange, I go immediately to Stephen Moss to help me tell it. |
| 0:42.9 | The discovery of the guano on these islands, the arid islands 50 meters deep, I put that |
| 0:51.1 | all together with who had the breakthrough? who did who had the breakthrough when did they had the |
| 0:57.2 | breakthrough that it was fertilizer Stephen well actually the Inca's so over a thousand |
| 1:02.8 | years ago the Inca civilization in South America knew about guano guano is very like |
| 1:08.0 | all see-bird who basically droppings. |
| 1:11.6 | It is very rich in phosphates and nitrates and it's very, very good fertilizer. |
| 1:16.6 | But of course that had been forgotten with the end of the Inca civilization. |
| 1:20.6 | And then in the 19th century, a British businessman called William Gibbs, |
| 1:25.6 | based near where I live, actually, in Bristol, |
| 1:28.7 | he and his partners went over to Peru and harvested this guano. |
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