Environmental Education Media Project

(52 min) Covering an area that is the size of France, the Loess Plateau is home to more than 50 million very poor farmers who have suffered centuries of severe soil erosion, leading to massive environmental degradation and poverty.

The film documents a remarkable paradigm shift: the rebirth of a self-sustaining ecosystem in the dry and remote Loess Plateau region of China, and identifies why and how a World Bank/government joint project has completely changed the landscape of the region.

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(15 min) Changes in biodiversity have been greater in the last 50 years than at any point of human history. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Report is the first comprehensive investigation on the status of all terrestrial and ocean ecosystems on a global scale -- and the results are alarming. Wealth could be achieved for more human beings than ever, but at the same time all natural systems have been negatively affected and altered. Ecosystems are under stress and the life-support functions of our planet at risk. Scientific reports can help to ensure that the best possible decisions are made based upon valid analysis but ultimately the survival of ecosystems will be determined by society as a whole. And it is only an informed public that can wisely decide.

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(6 min) Leaf cutter ants march to the sounds of Vivaldi through the untouched tropical underbrush, themselves like notes on a sheet of music following a rigid order to compose rhythmical succession. They carry their self-carved leaf cuttings over collapsed "tree giants" and across cliff-like gaps in the red tropical soil. The camera seems to be carried along by their constant movement, and yet despite the harmony we cannot ignore the impacts humans are having on such increasingly rare and fragile global ecosystems.

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