Foot and Mouth - The Killing Fields in Wales

Taal: NL
Categorie: reportage

Exactly 20 years ago Wales was emerging from an epidemic that lasted 6 months and saw over 6 million animals killed across the UK. The impact of Foot and Mouth disease was felt in every corner of Wales. Major events like rugby internationals were cancelled, access to the countryside banned and schools closed.in rural areas. Farmers were forced to isolate at home and tourism was struggling. It was one of the first major challenges for the newly devolved Welsh administration with a young Carwyn Jones finding himself at the eye of the storm as the minister responsible for agriculture. Many people most closely involved - the farmers, the vets; the people who slaughtered the animals - have never spoken before about the lasting effect the epidemic had on them. It's clear the emotion and the trauma they experienced is still raw 20 years on. This film looks back at what happened. There were desperate attempts to contain the epidemic, controversy over how to deal with a rapidly spreading disease and hard decisions were made to cull hundreds of thousands of healthy animals in a bid to stop the infection. Events reached a climax with the controversial decision to bury carcasses at the Epynt - an upland area used as a military range near Sennybridge. Locals blocked roads and Carwyn Jones faced his biggest challenge yet.