Thanks for choosing to listen to assignment on the documentary podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Peter Hadfield and I'm reporting from the French Territory of New Caledonia in the Pacific Ocean,

where there are tensions over the way the islands will be run in the future.

Mercy Buka.

So we're sitting in Ent Vama's garden under the shade of an umbrella and we're surrounded

with some beautiful fruit trees. These are, you say, it's trine, here?

Yes, yes? Yes, we? trees. It's it's not really here.

It's really.

Lemon, Mandarin, Avocado, banana, papaya fruit, says André.

With the tropical sea a stone's throw away, it looks like Paradise. I'm Peter Hadfield. Welcome to the documentary

from the BBC World Service. And for this week's assignment, I'm in New Caledonia, an archipelago in the South Pacific,

more than a thousand kilometers east of Australia.

It's dominated by one large mountainous island, a rugged terrain of forests and bushland, around which

is a scattering of smaller coral islands.

In the southeast corner of the main island is where I found André Vama, a fisherman who belongs to the Goro tribe.

So many flowers.

It's very good the latter the latter, you see.

Yeah, so I'm so, but how much more

lots of rain?

Under the fruit trees and coconut palms, he shows me around his garden,

adorned with tribal carvings and old fishing nets.

Ah, this is the main house, okay.

...