Culture and Coexistence into the Great Unknown
The Sacred Land Film Project captured a revival of a canoe ceremony with feasting, dancing and carving, honoring their sacred Ramu River. The region is part of the third largest intact rainforest ecosystem left on earth, where sustainable agriculture and forestry practices have allowed societies to thrive for thousands of years, now threatened by multinational logging interests and corrupt governmental entities.
The Kallawaya cosmovision is based upon thousands of years of experiential knowledge about their environment and shared among many other communities across the High Andes. At the center of the cosmovision is the notion that humanity must live in harmony with the environment. Illness is the result of a spiritual dissonance caused by some sort disconnect between a person and his or her environment. One of the main tenets of the Kallawaya cosmovision is an ethic of reciprocity that is applied equally to people, communities, and the environment.
A short film follows artist Chris Jordan to investigate the thousands of albatrosses dying from ingestion of plastic from the Pacific Garbage Patch. The Albatross journey across the sea takes them over the world’s largest dump: slowly rotating masses of partially-submerged trash between San Francisco and Hawai’i.
In Dhaka, climate change refugees are moving from the countryside and into squalid slums due to repeated monsoonal floods that have rendered traditional farmland unusable. A new documentary by Ami Vitale from the Knight Center for International Media wades through the floods, looking for solutions.
Free marketeers and Libertarians advocate for the world’s first Charter City, with authoritarian governance, facilitated by a military coup, coordinated using political sway with business partners, using public funds from the IDB for infrastructure plans, and built on land “purchased” from indigenous communities, small farmers and the state of Honduras.
The documentary “Heart of Sky, Heart of Earth” presents an alternative worldview to industrial capitalism consuming the earth, following six young Maya into their daily and ceremonial life, revealing their determination to resist the destruction of their culture and environment.
Ecuador abandons a plan to preserve the most biodiverse region on Earth from oil exploitation, putting Yasuni national park at the frontline of a global battle between living systems and fossil fuels. Unable to raise sufficient financing, President Correa plans to move forward with oil drilling in this wild Amazonian region, putting wildlife and willfully uncontacted tribes at risk.