The podcast follows the residents of Culatra, a small fishing island in southern Portugal, as they fight to protect both their community and the unique ecosystem they depend on. Through the stories of community leader Silvia Padinha and marine biologist Valentina Muñoz, it explores decades of resistance against government demolition plans, the island's eventual legal recognition, and its transformation into a model of community-led conservation. As climate change and tourism put increasing pressure on the Ria Formosa lagoon, Culatra's story becomes one of resilience, cooperation, and the search for a sustainable future.

Sea Change / WWNO / PRX (35 min)
August 2026

Emma from South Sudan is the protagonist of my short audio documentary Echoes of a Fragile Peace (5 min). In it, he reflects on how, alongside displaced people, wildlife also gradually returned to his country after years of conflict. The documentary won the Hear Say Heard Award in Ireland in May 2026 and was selected for broadcast by Radiophrenia (Scotland).

HearSay / Radiophrenia (5 min)

Collectief Walden is working on an exciting plan: they want to do something never done before—create a monument for a disaster that hasn’t happened yet. They asked me to help present this to the public through an audiotour at Over het IJ Festival 2023. In it, we pitch the construction plans to listeners and take them through the design process and soil research Collectief Walden conducted at Tolhuistuin in Amsterdam-Noord.

I was given access to their archive with hours of audio material—interviews with experts and field recordings. I also interviewed all the members about the project. From this, I created 7 short documentaries and 1 audio story, narrated by actor Rick Paul van Mulligen.

NRC: "It sounds almost upbeat—and it’s precisely that tone that makes Gedenk te overstromen so successful. It’s a sympathetic project that tells a substantive story and brings global warming close to home." ★★★★☆

Over 't ij festival (7 x 5 min)

Geert and Sophie were once housemates. They miss their old conversations, ranging from daily hassles to life's big (philosophical) questions and everything in between. In this podcast, they continue those conversations.

Finally, my own podcast series! I'd been wanting to do this for a while, but it only took off when my former housemate and friend Sophie van Roessel said she wanted to make a podcast with me. It's a lot more work than I expected, of course, but also way more fun. I'm really happy we did this a year long. Learned me a lot of things about having a chatcast.

Self published (28 x 45 min)

Amsterdam Canal Cruise: The World's Most Beautiful Trip

Last year, 5.6 million people bought a ticket for an Amsterdam canal cruise—more than the annual number of visitors to the Grand Canyon. Tripadvisor even named a cruise through Amsterdam's canals the world's best travel experience. It's no surprise that canal cruises have become the Netherlands' most visited tourist attraction. But with the canals busier than ever, audio documentary maker Geert Vlieger wonders: can the city still cope with this growing tide of tourism?

Over the course of one summer, Geert immerses himself in Amsterdam's canal belt and soon discovers a conflict unfolding on the water. Sometimes it's between skippers and cruise operators, but more often it's between the municipality and the canal cruise industry. For more than a decade, the city has tried to curb the growth of canal cruises, with only limited success. In 2013, around 300 licensed cruise boats operated on the canals; by the summer of 2024, that number had risen to 550.

Geert joins skipper Leendert on a canal cruise to experience the city through the eyes of tourists, and speaks with architectural historian Sophie van Ginneken about the enduring appeal of Amsterdam's canal belt. He also interviews cruise company owners, who argue that there is still plenty of room on the water. Houseboat residents and recreational boaters, however, paint a very different picture.

DOCS / NTR (45 min)

A life without Spotify or any other music streaming platform is barely imaginable for music lovers. And all those streams are also crucial for the music industry: the more streams an artist gets, the more popular they become.

But are all those streams actually earned fairly? Or are there ways to manipulate or even buy them? Bianca Schrijver and Geert Vlieger created a Goed Verhaal about music streams and didn’t hesitate for a second to dive into the dark side of streaming success.

Podimo / Goed Verhaal (45 min)

Ko en de Boomgaard was my debut documentary. I developed much of it during the Oorzaken Podcast Academy in 2022. I was fascinated by Ko and the relationship he had with his daughter Jannemarein. Over the course of six months, I regularly visited him in the care home and, using the archive photographs he had taken himself, explored his past with him.

Description:
Ko is an 88-year-old man whose life changed dramatically two years ago. From his retirement until the age of 86, Ko lived on an orchard - a life behind a high enclosure of trees, surrounded by untamed nature.

Ko lived largely isolated from the world around him. A life that also remained partly hidden from his only child, his daughter Jannemarein. That changed when Ko moved into a care home for health reasons and asked his daughter to secure the laptop that had been left behind in his small house on the orchard.

The information stored on the laptop gave Jannemarein a completely different view of her father. She came to know him all over again, at precisely the moment when he was diagnosed with dementia.

VPRO / DOCS (49 min)

Podcast maker Geert Vlieger used to dismiss community centers as places full of bingo games and billiards - mainly meant for lonely older people. That changed when Zorg+Welzijn asked him to make a podcast series about them.

What he discovered surprised him: millions of people from all walks of life rely on their local community center. At a time when municipalities are preparing for deep cuts to social services, these accessible, neighborhood-based spaces - run with and by local residents - are proving to be invaluable. Not only in tackling loneliness, but also in making neighborhoods safer and more resilient.

In this series, Geert explores the changing role of the community center in an era of growing uncertainty. Who comes through its doors? Who keeps it running? And how does a place like this survive when nothing is guaranteed?

Zorg + Welzijn Magazine (5 x 15)

For the two-part podcast Kunstenaar op Zaal, I composed and produced all the music. In addition to the opening track, each of the three main characters - Mirre, Kevin and Marcel - had their own song, and I used music to accentuate specific scenes.

About Kunstenaar op Zaal:
What happens when you take three artists out of their studios and place them in one of the Netherlands’ most renowned museums for two months? Artists Marcel van den Berg, Kevin Osepa and Mirre Yayla Séur take on the experiment at the invitation of Buro Stedelijk, sharing their vulnerable creative process with the public.

Audio documentary maker Geert Vlieger follows the trio throughout this period and observes how they challenge and redefine the traditional boundaries of exhibiting, interaction and museum practices.

6 music tracks