Documentary film – Page 20

Grow, grow, grow your reef…

Coral reefs are sometimes called the rainforests of the sea. They are biologically rich and diverse.

But all over the tropical seas, coral reefs are under many pressures – from bad fishing practices to naturally occurring phenomena like the El Nino. Reefs are being damaged and destroyed faster than their natural recovery rate.

Unless a helping hand can be given, many coral reefs would soon be lost forever.

Giving Nature a helping hand is just what a Sri Lankan group of divers have been doing at the Rumassala coral reef on the island’s south coast.

TVE Asia Pacific’s international TV series, The Greenbelt Reports, has featured this effort in one episode. Watch it on TVEAP channel on YouTube

Read the story on TVEAP website: Regeneration – a new chance for coral reefs?

Photos courtesy TVE Asia Pacific, from The Greenbelt Reports TV series

Pacific ‘Voices from the Waves’ on climate change

Some of you have asked to share more information on Truth Talking: Voices from the Waves, the half-hour documentary on climate change and its impact on the South Pacific people that we produced in 2002.

It was the first-ever documentary on climate change and the South Pacific, made by a native Pacific islander (all films till then had been made by visiting foreign film crews). Directed and produced by Bernadette Masianini of Fiji (photo on extreme right below), its story was based on the experience and impressions of two teenagers growing up on two islands, a girl and boy, both facing uncertain futures.

Here’s what I wrote for the Truth Talking book that accompanied the film series.

Dilagi loves her village. Her parents and grandparents, and generations before them, were born and raised in this village. Her family has lived here for centuries, but by the time Dilagi has children of her own, her village might no longer exist.

In Fiji, where Dilagi lives, traditions and cultures are rooted in the home; the village is an integral part of a person’s identity. Like most of the eight million people who live in the Pacific island states, Dilagi’s village is located close to the sea. The bounty of the ocean has long sustained the islanders, but now the same waters have begun to threaten their future. Every year, the shoreline seems to move a little inland, and the beach gets a bit smaller. Before the current century ends, according to scientific projections, many low-lying Pacific islands will go under the rising seas either in part or full – and their histories, traditions and unique cultures will be lost forever.

Dilagi is somewhat aware of this perilous future, but can do nothing about it. The changes in global climate that are causing sea levels to rise and triggering severe storms and cyclones are the result of pollution and environmental degradation generated thousands of miles away in the industrialised world. Says Dilagi: “The villagers cannot understand why the waves are coming on to shore. They think these are signs that the end of the world is near.”

The Pacific contains 22 states, made up of thousands of small islands, with a multitude of cultures and traditions. Diverse as they are, they all share Dilagi and her neighbours’ concerns about the future.

Two thousand and five hundred kilometres north-east of Fiji, sitting on the island of Kiribati, Bernard stares at the same ocean that seems to be lashing out at his tiny island nation with increasing force every year. One of the lowest lying islands in the world, no place on Kiribati is higher than four metres (13 feet).

Building sea walls has provided only a temporary respite against the waves. Not even the grave yards or tombstones are spared. Bernard visits Mrs Saipolua’s house, which she has had to move twice to escape from rising seas. In her backyard, the gravestones of ancestors are being constantly battered by the waves. “Even the final resting places of our loved ones are not spared…the sea action had cracked the gravestones,” she says.

“With our islands being so small, the sea is our biggest resource,” says Bernard. “Over the years, the generations have perfected the ways to use the oceans respectfully for our survival. Ironically, it is the very ocean on which we depend that now threatens us.”

All Pacific islands – including Kiribati and Fiji — have their own unique culture and traditions. They may share the world’s largest ocean and sometimes common ethnicity, but no two island cultures are the same. From the way they collect their food to how they celebrate festivals, their traditions revolve around the geography and natural resources of the islands and the sea.

In this intricate tapestry weaving islands with humans, everything has a place and purpose. For example, the traditional dances entertain and also record the people’s history. Costumes for these dances are produced from plants unique to the Pacific and decorative garlands are made from the brightly coloured flowers. Extreme weather events and climate anomalies that now threaten the environment of these islands may soon drive many plants and animals into extinction. As Bernard asks, “If changes to the climate affect our environment, how long will these aspects of our culture survive?”

For a majority of Pacific island people, climate change is a very real concern that is already impacting them; it’s not a doomsday scenario sometime in the future. Closely linked as they are to their islands and the sea, they just cannot accept relocation in a far away land as a survival option.

“Everything I need in my life is here on this island — my elders, my parents, my friends,” says Bernard. “I cannot imagine life anywhere else, and I cannot imagine that I might have to go and live in another country if my islands are no longer habitable….”

From across the sea, Dilagi agrees: “Our villagers have lived here for hundreds of years. Their traditions and cultures are rooted in this area. They cannot imagine life anywhere else.”

Order this film on DVD or VHS from TVEAP e-shop

Wanted – Human face of climate change!

Now that scientists have spoken, loud and clear, things are beginning to happen on climate change — and not a moment too soon.

Venture capitalists, policy wonks, technology geeks, security analysts and social activists are all joining the conversation — thanks largely to the media’s increased coverage of the issue.

The threat of climate change is being taken seriously. The past few weeks have seen evidence of this. For example:

– The latest report from the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, released on April 6, said greenhouse gas emissions are at least partly responsible for the warmer climate, which will pose a host of environmental and health challenges, ranging from more diseases to floods and droughts.

– In March 2007, an international panel of scientists presented the United Nations with a sweeping, detailed plan to combat climate change, warning that failure would produce a turbulent 21st century of weather extremes, spreading drought and disease, expanding oceans and displacing coastal populations.

And for the first time ever, the U.N. Security Council will discuss potential threats to international security from climate change.

These conversations will be richer and more meaningful if the ordinary people — who are most at direct risk from climate change’s multiple impacts — were heard in the corridors of power, money and deal-making.

We in the media must see beyond the important scientific projections, policy debates and UN talks — we must look for the human faces, voices and dimensions of climate change.

That’s the point I made in a recent essay published on TVE Asia Pacific website a few weeks ago. Here’s an extract:

A healthy mix of rational thinking and emotional appeal will stand a better chance of moving people to kick their addition to oil.

Allowing real people to tell their own personal experiences can also be very effective. I realised this five years ago, when we commissioned the first-ever documentary on climate change and the South Pacific, made by a native Pacific islander. Voices from the Waves, directed and produced by Bernadette Masianini of Fiji, was narrated by two teenagers growing up on two islands, each facing an uncertain future.

At one point we meet Mrs Saipolua, an ordinary woman who lives on the island of Kiribati, where no place is higher than a few feet above the sea. She is distressed having had to move her home twice in a past decade due to the receding shoreline.
For Kiribati’s 82,000 inhabitants, climate change is not theory; it’s already lashing on their beaches.

“Our house used to be in that spot,” Mrs Saipolua points to a place that’s now permanently submerged. “This is where we relocated to the second time.”

She points to several tombstones that are on the verge of being washed away. “Even the final resting places of our loved ones are not spared…..The sea action had cracked the gravestones.”

I’ve covered climate change for years as a science writer. But it was Mrs Saipolua who made me realise the impact climate change is having on millions of ordinary people who have never heard that term.

Fossil fuels and fossil fools in India

‘‘People in India, unlike the West, don’t understand the seriousness of climate change….They think global warming is a fantasy. Indians are using fossil fuel like never before. We have constructed oven-like buildings and spend enormous energy cooling them.’’

I came across these words by the well known Indian environmental film-maker Mike Pandey in an article in NewIndPress that surveyed how Indian documentary film-makers are rising to the challenge of communicating climate change.

The article, ‘Meltdown on Film’ published on 15 March 2007 highlights the formidable task of raising awareness in India, now one of the fastest growing economies in the world, consuming larger volumes of fossil fuels every year.

Mike knows what he’s talking about: his film Global Warming went largely unnoticed when it was released in India three years ago.

And he is one of India’s top notch film makers on environment, wildlife and natural history. He has won three Panda Awards — also known as the ‘Green Oscar’ — at the Wildscreen Film Festival held every other year in Bristol, UK — and considered to be the most important festival of its kind in the world. (Modest cough: I was on the jury of Wildscreen 2000, when we gave Mike one of his three Green Oscars.)

Viewer apathy is not the only problem that India’s environmental film-makers have to contend with. Here’s an extract from the article:

Like any environmentalist, our documentary filmmakers are “concerned” about issues like global warming. But the lacklustre reactions of research agencies (who ‘‘support” the cause but don’t really come forward to fund documentaries), zero interest from broadcasters who, according to one filmmaker, prefer ‘‘sexy environmental stories’’, together with viewer apathy, are the reasons why the few impressive documentary films on climate change vanish after a few screenings at festivals. Take the Public Service Broadcast Trust’s (PSBT) Open Frame, for instance, the annual documentary film festival held in Delhi. Or the roving environmental and wildlife film festival CMS Vatavaran, where open discussions are held after every screening. Barely a couple of films are chosen by the public broadcaster Doordarshan after they are screened at these two festivals, which is why most of the documentaries don’t ever reach the masses.

‘‘Public interest stories and documentaries are the last thing broadcasters want to show,’’ quips Pandey. ‘‘People like me are lucky to have found space on DD. Value-based programmes are nudged out so easily by broadcasters these days.”

The article continues:

A few years ago, when Mike Pandey returned to his favourite spot in Austria to capture a snowcap for one of his films, he was shocked to see it had melted. He says, ‘‘I had seen the ice cap the previous year. I had to go deeper into the area to get my shots. It’s common in Austria to see ice caps vanishing. You see blossoms and splendid crops in many areas.’’ After Earth Matters, which is being shown on Doordarshan, Pandey is coming up with a series of six films on global warming, which will talk about ‘‘using alternative energy for the future.’’

Whenever out for shoots at Lakshwadeep, Kochi and Gujarat, Mike has been noticing ‘‘visible changes’’ in ‘‘ocean ferocity’’ and where the sea neighbours the land. ‘‘The water has come in a bit more into the land over the years,’’ he observes.

‘‘You don’t have to be a scientist to notice these changes; you can see it all happening now. Unfortunately, people living along the Indian coastline will be the first ones to face any kind of major impact,’’ he adds.

On my visit to Hyderabad last week, I was told that there are now close to 50 TV channels that cover news and current affairs on a 24/7 basis (in English and other Indian languages). Yet this kind of news hardly seems to make the headlines….it’s probably moving too slowly.

Mike Pandey and other environmental film-makers have their work cut out for them.

“If (Indian cricketer) Sachin Tendulkar or (Bollywood star) Shah Rukh Khan loses his cell phone, the news will reach every nook and corner of the country, but the fact that iodine is essential for the human body is still not known widely,” Mike told India’s Frontline news magazine in 2004. Read full article: Nature’s film-maker in Frontline of 18-31 Dec 2004

Read TVE Asia Pacific website feature on Mike Pandey’s 2003 film on the whale shark in India

Long live MediaChannel.org!

I have never peddled a fund raising appeal through my blog…until now.

Earlier today, I received my daily email from MediaChannel.org, a website that critiques the media — ‘As the media watch the world, we watch the media’

According to their website: MediaChannel is concerned with the political, cultural and social impacts of the media, large and small. MediaChannel exists to provide information and diverse perspectives and inspire debate, collaboration, action and citizen engagement.

And like many of us who mix media and social activism, they are facing a crisis. Today’s email said:

After seven years and a new website redesign, MediaChannel.org may have to cease operations because of a financial emergency. As most of you have already noticed, we have started to run advertising on the website in an effort to deal with our funding challenge.

To put it bluntly, the future of MediaChannel is in question. Please consider making a tax deductible donation online through PayPal or send a check made out to: The Global Center, 575 8th Avenue, Suite 2200, New York, New York, 10018.

MediaChannel is headed by Danny Schechter, the Emmy-award winning TV journalist and film-maker.

I met Danny in the Fall of 1995, when I spent a few weeks in New York on a fellowship to study the United Nations. Danny was one of the more colourful people we met (besides lots of men in suits from the UN, only a few of whom I can now recall by name). Danny introduced himself as a (TV) ‘network refugee’ — and gave a workshop on television journalism in defence of the public interest and human rights that had a lasting influence on myself.

Besides running MediaChannel.org, Danny writes the well-informed, incisive NewsDissector blog

Since then, we’ve been in contact occasionally. And here’s my declaration of interest: MediaChannel.org has published my media related op ed essays, though I never get paid and never expect any payment.

As Walter Cronkite says: “MediaChannel is undoubtedly worth taking part in. So many leading groups and individuals around the whole world have come together.”

And MediaChannel.org is undoubtedly worth supporting.

Read my last op ed on MediaChannel:
Ethical news-gathering: Al Jazeer’s biggest challenge

Anita Roddick, Angkor Wat and ‘development pill’

Dame Anita Roddick would have been proud of her mastery of Khmer.

There she was on a large screen, speaking in fluent Khmer, watched by over a thousand Cambodians women, children and men.

Time: One evening in December 2005
Place: A village temple close to the historic city of Siem Reap, Cambodia

There we were, practically in the shadow of the massive Angkor Wat temple complex, and trying to reach out to rural Cambodians on practical ways to live more sustainable lives.

The event was an evening of variety entertainment laced with some information and education. Colleagues at Action IEC, our Cambodian partner, knew exactly how to get this mix right. Amidst songs, drama, comedy and live competitions, they screened Hands On video films versioned into Khmer.

As the loudspeakers boomed and (Hands On host) Anita Roddick appeared on screen speaking in a strange tongue, I watched the audience closely. They were spell-bound: especially the children belied a sense of wonder.

But sustaining their attention is a big challenge. That evening’s 4-hr programme was the result of over a dozen Cambodian colleagues planning and working for days. It was part of the public outreach activity for Hands On films that we versioned into Khmer under a 4-country, Asian project called Localising Hands On in Asia.

The young and not-so-young in our audience that evening were there mainly for the fun and games. Rolling out Anita and Hands On was a clever ploy by Kosal, Cedric and other Cambodian colleagues. Call it ‘sugar-coating’ the development pill.

Oh yes, we also had the Khmer versioned programmes broadcast on Cambodia’s most popular TV channel (CTN). That engaged a different kind of audience. A passive broadcast can never really produce the kind of audience engagement we saw that evening.

In our efforts to engage Asia’s eyeballs and minds, we’ve made modest progress by proceeding parallely on broadcast and narrowcast fronts — but there is a great deal of unfinished business.

For details, visit Localising Hands On in Asia website

Added on 11 Sep 2007: Anita Roddick:We shall always remember you

Digits4Change: Do ICTs make a difference?

When it comes to bridging the Digital Divide, there’s so much hype, rhetoric and confusion. For many in the UN system, it’s just another development issue to be bandied about at endless meetings and conferences, and to be reflected upon from 30,000 feet above the ground where they find themselves most of the time.

Yet, at the ground level, individuals and communities are adapting various ICTs to meet their practical needs and solve real world problems. I sometimes feel that whatever bridging of the Digital Divide will happen in spite of, and not because of, the UN agencies and other development players debating issues to exhaustion.

In 2005-2006, we at TVE Asia Pacific documented some of these efforts in different parts of Asia. We looked at a variety of technologies solving a range of problems. This became Digits4Change.

Here’s our series intrdocution:

There are more poor people in the Asia Pacific than in all other regions combined. At the same time, some Asian countries have achieved the most advanced economies in the world. Their prosperity is partly due to how they have developed or adopted information and communication technologies — or ICTs.

How can the developing countries of Asia use these digital tools to help generate wealth, create more jobs and improve living conditions of people? Governments, private sector, civil society and researchers have been trying out various approaches for years. The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in 2003 – 2005 took stock of what has been accomplished, and what remains to be done.

TVE Asia Pacific – a regional leader in using audio-visual media to cover development issues – embarked on documenting examples where ICTs have made a change in people’s lives in the world’s largest region. We investigated stories on distance learning, business process outsourcing, tele-health and rural connectivity.

The result is a new video series: Digits4Change.

Watch Digits4Change stories on TVEAP’s channel on YouTube

Read my views on the newly launched UN Global Alliance on ICTs for Development , published on SciDev.Net

Caught between mines and starvation

Today, April 4, is being observed worldwide as Mine Action Day.

The UN General Assembly declared the International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action, which was first observed in 2006.

Mine Action says on its website:“Landmines and explosive remnants of war continue to kill or injure as many as 15,000 people a year. The overwhelming majority are civilians who trigger these devices years or even decades after a conflict ends. In some countries, such as Afghanistan, the majority of victims are under the age of 18.

Some progress has been made. Mine action programmes and the anti-personnel mine-ban treaty or “Ottawa Convention,” have contributed to a reduction in the annual number of casualties from an estimated 26,000 10 years ago to between 15,000 and 20,000 today.

But not nearly enough. I remember a short video film I watched during my first visit to Cambodia in mid 1996. After 30 years of civil war, Cambodia was left with a deadly legacy of between 4 and 6 million landmines – nobody knows quite how many. And progress has been slow to detect, deactivate and remove these millions of death-traps lying all around in this one of the poorest countries in Asia.

Our friends at the Women’s Media Centre of Cambodia, a media advocacy group run by women, showed me a campaign video they had made advocating mine action. Used for screenings at key UN meetings in Geneva and New York, it showed the plight of poor Cambodians, especially women and children, who have no choice but to live and work with landmine hazards.

Sorry, a decade later I can’t recall the title of this film. A Google search didn’t bring up any links either. But there was a sequence that I remember well.

In rural Cambodia, some women spoke their mind about the many hazards that surround them, small arms and landmines being just two of them.

What’s our choice here, one woman asked. “Everytime we step out of our homes and go to the fields, we can get blown up by a landmine. Yet if we stay at home, we will starve to death.”

She’s not alone. Millions of people – women, children and men – across the global South face this reality everyday. The men in suits in Geneva and New York, who issue lofty statements on mine action from the safety of their glasshouses, need to be aware of this stark choice.

Note: Women’s Media Centre in Cambodia does some good work. At the time we worked with them, they were running an FM radio station, producing lots of videos, and training Cambodian women to use media to support development and personal advancement.

Changing climate and moving images

Climate change is suddenly popping out of everywhere. Media outlets that couldn’t discern climate from weather not too long ago are covering the politics, technology, economics — and sometimes, science — of climate change.

We have to thank Al Gore and his Oscar-award winning film, An Inconvenient Truth, for helping climate change to reach that tipping point. For sure, it has been building up for years, but it took moving images to really push it up the agenda.

While the political stature of its ‘star’ — and now, the Oscar – takes this film to a league of its own, it’s not the only global documentary about this important topic. In recent years, a number of factual and make-belief films have been made with climate change as their principal theme.

No wonder Hollywood is attracted to this subject – it offers the ultimate planetary disaster, even if it unfolds slowly over decades. That’s not a major constraint in the land of make-belief: in The Day After Tomorrow (2004), director Roland Emmerich just accelerated natural climatic processes to happen within weeks – with dramatic results for his story (and box office).

It may be convenient to take such liberties with the truth in fiction, but delivering factual and credible content involves bigger challenges. That requires balancing facts, opinions and interpretations while engaging today’s easily distracted audiences. The task becomes harder when the subject is as technical as climate change.

I recently wrote a review of two major climate change documentaries, both released last year: An Inconvenient Truth, and The Great Warming.

Read the full review on TVE Asia Pacific website

One Planet’s Climate Challenge on BBC World

Climate Challenge is a new, weekly, 6-part series coproduced by our Geneva-based partner
dev.tv and UK partner, One Planet Pictures. It begins broadcasting on BBC World from Wednesday, 4 April 2007.

The series goes local and global to find here-and-now answers to climate change. It makes the point: in the fight against global warming, developed and developing countries must work hand-in-hand to find viable solutions for all.

Here’s the blurb from One Planet Pictures website:

So it’s official. Even President Bush in his latest State of the Union Report has acknowledged that global warming is happening. The scientists of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change say that only swingeing cuts in the release of greenhouse gases can save our planet from becoming a Venusian hothouse.

But how can that be achieved when even the modest Kyoto targets are not being met by most rich countries? And when the world’s most populous countries are expanding their energy requirements at an unprecedented rate? What can be done to head off a catastrophe?

In Climate Challenge, One Planet Pictures’ film-makers focus on some of the most promising approaches to turning down the global thermostat. Climate Challenge goes local and global in search for solutions that won’t put a break on economic growth

The series will be distributed by TVE Asia Pacific after its initial run on BBC World.

For broadcast times, see dev.tv website or checkout BBC World programme schedule

BBC World is the commercially-operated international broadcasting arm of the BBC.