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#conservation

ramil_rodaje@diasp.org
ramil rodaje**

https://vimeo.com/655144047

putm

Pushed Up the Mountain

Pushed Up the Mountain is a poetic and emotionally intimate film about #plants and the #people who care for them. Through the tale of the migrating rhododendron, now endangered in its native #China, the film reveals how high the stakes are for all living organisms in this time of unprecedented destruction of the natural world.

Beginning in my godfather’s garden in the Scottish Highlands, the film travels between conservationists in #Scotland and China who devote their lives to the rhododendron’s survival. Patiently observed footage of conservationists at work combines with centuries-old landscape paintings and my speculative voice to create a thought-provoking film about human efforts to protect nature for and from ourselves.

Director’s Statement

The inspiration for this film began in my godfather’s rhododendron garden in Scotland. I was there filming a short piece about a group of rhododendron enthusiasts gathered to work on a conservation project. What I learned was that most of these plants were originally from China, brought during the height of the British Empire, and that some were now endangered in their native habitat. In fact, some plants had even been reintroduced from the UK to augment threatened populations in China. The idea of this plant leaving and then returning home intrigued me. At first glance, it looked like an example of global cooperation to protect biodiversity against human caused threats. But what did it look like in reality given the legacy of colonialism at its core? Could this showy garden shrub reveal something about our entangled relationship with nature?

In 2015, I set out to answer some of those questions. Over the next four years, I and the film’s co-producer Mengqi Jiang filmed throughout China’s mountainous southwest and in its urban centers to the east. This combined with filming in Taiwan and more location shooting in Scotland. We interviewed nature conservationists, environmental historians, and philosophers, art historians, literary scholars, and horticulturalists. All people who cared deeply about nature but thought about it from different perspectives.

The result is Pushed Up the Mountain, a film that I hope will encourage people in countries around the world to think more deeply about the plants all around them and ultimately work to protect them. The coronavirus has powerfully demonstrated how interconnected we all are. The rhododendron gives us one more example of how we must come together across national divides to address the existential threats facing our species and our planet.

#PushedUpTheMountain #documentary #film #nature #environment #biodiversity #endangered-species #conservation #protection #preservation #GengYuying #DavidChamberlain #FangZhendong #SunWeibang #IanSinclair #LiuHuajie #HouShen #PanFujun #ZhangChao #MengqiJiang #JuliaHaslett #GOODDOCS #docu-films

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ramil_rodaje@diasp.org
ramil rodaje**

https://vimeo.com/708871732

delikado

DELIKADO

Defending paradise has never been so dangerous

#Palawan appears to be an idyllic tropical island. Its powder-white beaches and lush forests have made it one of Asia’s hottest new tourist destinations. But for a tiny network of environmental crusaders and vigilantes trying to protect its spectacular natural resources, it is more akin to a battlefield.

DELIKADO follows Bobby, Tata and Nieves, three magnetic leaders of this network, as they risk their lives in David versus Goliath-style struggles trying to stop politicians and businessmen from destroying the Philippines’ “last ecological frontier”.

It is a timely film emblematic of the struggles globally for land defenders as they are being killed in record numbers trying to save natural resources from being plundered by corporations and governments. As the world faces its sixth-mass extinction and the climate emergency worsens,

It is also a unique expose of President Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs’ in the Philippines, which has claimed thousands of lives and the International Criminal Court of Justice has said may amount to a crime against humanity. DELIKADO shows the drug war is used as a tool for politicians to control the levers of economic and political power.

DELIKADO offers a story of courage and resilience to inspire others into action.

The battles being led by Bobby, Tata and Nieves in DELIKADO are the same as those being fought by local communities in #Brazil, #Cambodia, the Democratic Republic of #Congo and elsewhere around the world where #corporations and #governments are seeking to plunder increasingly valuable natural resources.

They are being killed for trying to stop #mining, #agribusiness and #logging. Many of the deaths occur in remote villages or rainforests. The victims are often from indigenous communities and the killers are rarely caught. The powerful masterminds behind the murders virtually never. All these factors are in play in Palawan.

The film has a special relevance and urgency in highlighting the perilous fate of Palawan, the most biodiverse part of the Philippines and home to two UNESCO World Heritage-listed natural wonders.

Palawan, due to its remoteness, had long avoided the corrupt development seen around the rest of the Philippines over recent decades as the country’s population has boomed. Palawan’s rainforests are among the biggest, oldest and most diverse in Asia. They are home to thousands of animal and plant species.

But few people know it is on the path to environmental destruction. Politicians and businessmen are destroying Palawan at an unprecedented rate to extract its forests, minerals and fish. #Urbanisation and #tourism are other pressures leading to the depletion of Palawan’s natural resources.

Once the last of Palawan’s majestic #Apitong, #Kamagong, #Ipil and other endangered trees are cut down, these species will be forever lost. With the demise of these #forests will come the loss of Palawan’s incredibly diverse range of endemic animal species. Some of the world’s largest butterflies - bigger than an outspread human hand - can only be found in Palawan’s rainforests. They are also home to seven-foot monitor lizards, turquoise and violet-winged peacocks, giant grey bear cats, bulging-eyed geckos as long as an adult’s arm, flying squirrels and dirt-brown “horned” frogs.

Centuries-old #traditions and #customs for the tribal people still living in the forests will also disappear if the forests are destroyed. Other communities living in towns and villages outside of the forests will face floods and droughts when the forests are gone.

#Delikado #DelikadoFilm #documentary #film #nature #environment #activism #advocacy #Indigenous #Peoples #land-defenders #natural-resources #conservation #protection #preservation #Philippines #KarlMalakunas #ThoughtfulRobot #NarraviFilms #docu-films

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ramil_rodaje@diasp.org
ramil rodaje**

Landmark Ruling Blocks Mining in Ecuadorian Forest, Citing Rights of Nature

https://e360.yale.edu/digest/landmark-ruling-blocks-mining-in-ecuadorian-forest-citing-rights-of-nature

In its decision, the high court said that the government did not provide the “scientific evidence necessary to avoid and mitigate serious and irreversible damage to species and ecosystems, and therefore, to the rights of nature, to the water and a healthy and balanced environment.” The ruling effectively cancels all mining concessions and environmental and water permits.

#nature #environment #protection #conservation #preservation #rights-of-nature #rights-for-nature #Ecuador #e360

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