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Notre Dame is Back; School Children Saving Britain`s Eels; Collector Eats World-Famous $6.2M Banana. Aired 4-4:10a ET
Aired December 02, 2024 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
COY WIRE, CNN 10 ANCHOR: Hello everyone, hope you had a wonderful holiday week, had some good fun, good food, and friends and family time. I am
pumped to be back with you. It`s Monday, December 2nd.
Welcome to CNN 10, where I tell you the what, letting you decide what to think. Let`s get to your news. Our 10 minutes has begun.
We start in Paris, where we are getting our first glimpses at the historic renovation of the Notre Dame Cathedral, five years after a devastating fire
collapsed its roof, an iconic spire. The fire happened on an April evening in 2019. The cause is still unknown, though authorities believe it was
accidental.
Thousands of onlookers gathered in Paris and watched around the world for hours as firefighters worked to put out the blaze raging in the UNESCO
World Heritage Site. At the time, French President Emmanuel Macron vowed that that beloved landmark would be rebuilt, and he set an ambitious plan
to do it in five years.
Now, just a week before its grand reopening on December 7th, President Macron toured the Cathedral praising everyone involved for participating in
what he calls the construction project of the century.
Restoring this massive monument was no small task. The organization responsible for the work estimates the cost of the renovation at around 700
million euros or 737 million dollars, all of it raised in donations from around the world.
Before Macron`s last site visit, few had seen the meticulous work of architects, artisans, scaffolders, roofers, sculptors, painters, and master
craftspeople who carefully brought the Cathedral back to life.
CNN`s Saskya Vandoorne gives us a at the Cathedral`s storied history, including the fire that reshaped its future.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SASKYA VANDOORNE, CNN SENIOR PRODUCER (voice-over): Notre Dame de Paris, meaning Our Lady of Paris, known simply as Notre Dame, is a medieval
cathedral built in honor of the Virgin Mary. It stood for over 860 years through revolutions, the fall of empires, and world wars at the physical
and spiritual heart of France`s capital.
EMMANUEL MACRON, FRENCH PRESIDENT (through translation): Notre Dame de Paris is our history, our literature, our imagination, the place where we
have lived all our great moment.
VANDOORNE: Around 13 million people visited each year before the blaze, drawn by its exquisite works of art and priceless religious artifacts. A
masterful example of Gothic architecture, the project began under King Louis VII and took around 200 years to complete. A site for religion, state
occasion, and at one point monarchy, Henry VI of England was crowned King of France there in 1431.
It was plundered and partly destroyed during the French Revolution, renamed briefly as the Temple of Reason. It even set the stage for the coronation
of Napoleon as emperor in 1804, a scene recorded in one of the Louvre`s most celebrated paintings, one of countless works it`s inspired, including
literature like the Hunchback of Notre-Dame, which helped motivate extensive renovations that added everything from the chimeras seen today to
the spire that fell in 2019. Luckily, many of Notre-Dame`s treasures survived the fire. Its bells were restored and recently rang again.
A crown of thorns said to have been worn by Jesus was saved. Even the rooster, a French national symbol, which sat atop the spire containing
sacred relics was rescued. Although now a re-imagined bird inspired by a phoenix rising from the ashes sits fittingly in its place.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WIRE: Ten-second trivia. Unlike most fish, most eels are catadromous, meaning they spend most of their lives in freshwater rivers to return where
to reproduce?
Lakes, oceans, tributaries, or estuaries?
The answer is oceans, where catadromous eels migrate to spawn.
Britain has a history with eels that stretches back to the 11th Century. But in recent decades, overfishing and blockages in the water have seen the
number of eels returning to British rivers fall by 95%. This week on Call to Earth, we join a school in Somerset at the forefront of the grassroots
movement to protect the eel`s future.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HANNAH STRODE, PROJECT COORDINATOR, EELS IN THE CLASSROOM: Can you see all where the orange and the yellow is, is where there`s eels. So there`s lots
and lots and lots of eels a few hundred years ago. And then this is a picture of today. And the blue means that there`s no eels.
RUPORT FOOTE, YEAR 3 ST. BENEDICT`S JUNIOR SCHOOL: Some of them are dying easily.
STRODE: Why might they have died? Go on.
ERIS COLLINS DIAZ, YEAR 3 ST. BENEDICT`S JUNIOR SCHOOL: I think because people keep putting like these barriers in the water and then the eels
can`t get to where they want to go.
ANDREW KERR, CHAIRMAN SUSTAINABLE EEL GROUP: In the story of Britain, William the Conqueror in 1086 started to collect taxes in eels. That`s how
significant it was. Everybody was eating it.
Eel was so close to humankind. And really, we`ve gradually lost that relationship where all this sort of engineering has strangled the life out
of eel, not just in Britain, across the whole of Europe and North Africa. And now it`s critically endangered.
FOOTE: There`s like barriers that the eels can`t get through and they can`t get to eat their food and stuff so they can`t grow as big and they
could die.
DIAZ: There`s not that many of them left and they`re close to being extinct.
STRODE: Where we live in Somerset, that used to basically be a bog. But humans have done something very clever, which is to help us to live on it
by draining it. But if you`re a tiny little baby eel, you need to swim past all of these barriers. Well, lots of eels can`t get over these barriers in
the water. So that is why we have got them in your classroom.
FOOTE: We`ve had 20 elves and we`ve been feeding them to keep them healthy. At the start, they kept hiding in the filter machine and under the
pots and in the pots so we couldn`t really see them. And over time, they started adapting to the tank and we like to see them and they like to see
us too.
STRODE: Young people have a really beautiful aura. A natural wonder for the world.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I love them.
STRODE: The children might never have encountered an eel before, unlike some other sort of more charismatic big species that you see a lot of. I
think there`s something really special about them having that actual personal interaction with the eels.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God, it`s looking at me.
STRODE: It`s all part of a bigger restocking project. You`ve been amazing eel parents and I really appreciate you looking after them for a little
while.
DIAZ: They`re going to go back to the river it`s set over one of the barriers so they can get to where they want to be.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I`m going to be happy when they`re gone because they`re going to be out in this wild.
KERR: The eels are a key component in that fresh water. Everything eats eel. It`s the basis of the food chain.
STRODE: You can see this one`s heart beating. Hopefully, I`m inspiring some children to be conservationists in the future. Wouldn`t that be
amazing? They can then go on and spread the word and we can really get a community movement going on.
Well, it`s time for these guys to go back into the river. I think if you want to engage a community, a really good place to start is with the young
people.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, that`s so wriggling!
KERR: We`ve already started to turn the corner and we`re making a difference. So eel is a story of hope. If enough of us want to make a
difference, we can band together and make positive change happen.
DIAZ: Well, now that I know more about European eels, I actually really want to help them.
FOOTE: If I see other eels getting stuck behind barriers, I`ll go help them.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WIRE: Today`s story getting a 10 out of 10 is bananas. Well, one banana and a very expensive one. After a $6.2 million winning auction bid, some
might wonder what a person would do with an art piece that`s just a banana duct taped to a wall. Well, answer is eat it. The art, actually titled
Comedian, has been drawing attention since it debuted in 2019. And while the piece might not be appealing to everyone, this cryptocurrency
entrepreneur is the latest in a line of art buyers to pay up for the rights to own the work and eat the famous banana. No, thank you.
All right, superstars, it`s about time for me to banana split. But before I do, my favorite part of the day, you. We are sending a shout out on over to
Ashtabula, Ohio, to send some love to the dragons at Lakeside High School.
Rise up. Thank you for spending part of your day with us. We`ll see you right back here again tomorrow on CNN 10.
END
