Viewed through the lens of a still camera – clicking off one shot after another – there are a host of discrete events worthy of attention in the week just past and the weeks ahead. Earth Day in the United States is around the corner on April 22. And World Water Day was on March 22. The cornerstones of World Environment Day on June 5 are Rwanda -- and Pittsburgh. Rwanda, of course, is home to the famed and rare mountain gorilla, while Pittsburgh is a mere 135 mile from Cleveland, where the Cuyahoga River was once so polluted that it actually caught fire in June 22, 1969, igniting the American environmental movement.
And 2010 has been declared by the United Nations as the year of biodiversity. Amidst this fanfare for environmental protection and celebration, there is also news that the International Whaling Commission is considering once again sanctioning the hunting of whales. As a few species may no longer be on the brink of extinction, so goes the strange logic, why actually let them flourish when they can be pushed back to the brink so easily? So too, there is something especially troubling in the announcement this week that British Petroleum is not only closing its solar panel manufacturing plant outside of Washington, DC. While moving an operation overseas to lower costs is a familiar enough tale, the twist here is that having no buyers for the facility, BP actually plans to tear down the plant – as China surges ahead to dominant positions in manufacturing both solar panels and wind power turbines.
It is thus a good thing that the preferred medium for communications at EEMP is not the still camera but rather a movie camera that whirs calmly as its open lens captures an unfolding story. At EEMP we see not so many discrete or isolated events, but rather a panoply of activities – a fabric of interwoven threads that come together in the wonder of fully functioning ecosystems. We thus have ambitious plans for new documentary work across parts of east Africa – Rwanda, Ethiopia and Tanzania. And as one can see from the new maps recently loaded to our website, 71 organizations in 29 countries have now screened “Hope in a Changing Climate” and engaged local stakeholders in discussions around the themes of the film.
And the film, initially aired by BBC World (average weekly audience of 74 million people), has now also been accepted to several major international film festivals, from Sisak, Croatia, to Missoula, Montana, USA.
The story we are telling seems to play well around the world, whether along the headwaters of the White Nile or the Yellow River, in Pittsburgh or Cleveland, in Croatia and Argentina. 2010 looks like it will be quite a momentous year. Stay tuned.
- Jonathan J. Halperin?????