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Go. UK. I'm John Bachelor with the author and producer Stephen Moss his new book

Ten Birds that Change the World Peru. The Comerant's droppings turn into Guano. And this story is so

strange I go immediately to Stephen Moss to help me tell it. The discovery of the Guano on these islands, the

arid islands 50 meters deep. I put that all together with who did who had the breakthrough when did they have the

breakthrough that it was fertilizer Stephen well actually the Incas so over a thousand years ago the Incas, so over a thousand years ago, the Inca civilization in South America

knew about Guana. Guana is very like Orsi but, um, who basically droppings, it is very rich in phosphates and nitrates and it's very very good fertilizer

but of course that had been forgotten with the end of the Inca civilization

and then in the 19th century a British businessman called William Gibbs based

near where I live actually in Bristol he and his partners went over to Peru and harvested this guano.

Now the important thing here is that you mention the fact that these are very arid islands.

Ceba's living colonies around the world, they live off North America, they live off Europe in

colonies, but it rains in those places and so the guano washes away. There's some left, but broadly it washes

away. That didn't happen. So there were vast amounts of this guano there. He entered into a contract with the Peruvian government that he would pay them a fee.

He would ship this horrible, malodorous, rather dangerous subject, to Britain and then he sold it to farmers and he became

the richest commoner in England, the richest non-aristic rat in England. He became, I compare him to someone like Bill Gates because

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