GEO Reports

Considered lucky in Thailand, elephants are an integral part of Thai culture. In the north of the country, the only elephant hospital in the world has existed for over twenty years.

For the past fourteen years, Brice has taken his herd of cows to graze in vast pastures in the mountains, five months out of the year. He loves to run to the point of exhaustion in the Pyrenees, across the steep slopes, ridges and rocks at 3000 metres above sea level. It's a spartan, lonely existence, but for Brice, it is the definition of happiness.

Infamous drug baron Pablo Escobar had four hippos flown over from Africa to populate his very own zoo on his private estate in Columbia. After his death in 1993, the hippos escaped and have been colonising local waterways ever since. Conservationists are now waging a war against this invasive species which is harmful to the local ecosystem and highly dangerous to humans.

When Massimo Vacchetta discovered little Ninna, he immediately adopted her and saved her from certain death. The veterinarian, whose specialty was caring for cattle, had found his vocation: he opened a hedgehog refuge, now a local institution partly run by volunteers.

Far away from the South Korean capital of Seoul is the Buddhist Gameunsa Temple. Three nuns live, pray and cook together here as they preserve the knowledge of centuries-old temple cuisine. The abbess of this small monastery is the charismatic Wookwan Sunim, revered in Asia as one of the best cooks in the world.

Rural regions of the Amazon basin in Brazil are very hard to reach and lack infrastructure and public services. To bring law and justice to remote areas, a floating courthouse takes to the waterways for six weeks a year.