Traveller’s Teacup

Writing from a hotel room in Stockholm… the film festival was a success, lots of people, lots of discussions, and much opportunity to further tour the stories within international festivals, human rights events, community centres, museums, universities etc…more later but in the short term just wanted to share with you the blog and photo posted on the UNU’s website.

Generally as you may already know, we are all felling sad with how things have stagnated at the climate negotiations currently.. I hope this week, the real leaders in the room will stand up and be a wise global council for the people of the world!… and…. decide to reevaluate the pile of “not negotiable” market agendas that were decided weeks before this event.

If only plants and animals could lobby!

Below is a mobile phone photo i took when Tuvalu’s negotiator Ian Fry (Australian) voiced his concern for the negotiations direction. He was immediately backed by PNG and also China asked for further considerations. You can just make out the COP15 Chairperson Honorable Connie Hedegaard talking (off-microphone) with UNFCCC colleagues. If you have time, please watch the link to Ian Fry’s later speech on youtube  below. I have also pasted the UNU Carterets video if you are interested at seeing the current situation first hand.

After a year of intensive global film-making (8 short films in 13 months!), our little UNU media caravan is trundling out for Copenhagen. This week Megumi and I are heading off to the COP15 to present the “Indigenous Voices of Climate Change” film festival. The festival being MCed by Marilyn Wallace, will be screening over 5 days at National Museum of Denmark 9-13th, Dec 4-6pm.

The festival is a 4 hour program of videos from communities, friends, and colleagues in Australia, Africa, South America, Arctic circle, Central Asia, Iran, PNG… (basically across the globe) presenting community stories that climate change is happening and hurting now. These assessment case studies provide the Conference of the parties evidence, references, but most importantly amplified voices demanding changes to behavioural responsibility. Sadly, this voice is almost missing from the official governmental delegation lists and from the rather stale scientific tit-for tat being splattered across the newspapers of late.

If you are in Copnehagen, please come down to the museum to be a part of this extraordinary global movement. Admission is Free! In particular, don’t miss Indigenous Day on 12th December which promises to be a full day of exhibits, films, panel discussions, dancing, music and other creative outpourings. A full list of the films and screening program can be downloaded here: www.ourworld.unu.edu/COP15_filmfestival

With a UN delegate passes and small HDV camera in hand, Megumi and I also hope report a little from inside the Bella Centre too. Stay tuned to our twitter feed for updates: @cittw, @luvmegumi, @ourworld20

Greetings from Irkutsk, Russia. Waiting in transit before heading into Mongolia.

For your viewing pleasure, here’s the first of the three Central Asian Indigenous Perspectives of Climate Change videos. Might still have a few errors here and there, but should all be fixed before the video festival in Copenhagen in December. Feedback is welcome!

Here’s a picture from near Ziddi, a mountain community north of Dushanbe, Tajikistan. I am sharing the day with some of the beautiful local girls and my project’s video collaborator Professor Abdussator Saidov (Director, Institute of Zoology and Parasitology, Academy of Sciences, Tajikistan). We are interviewing some of the local elders about changes they have seen in the valley due to climate change. In the coming 30 years, all of the snow on the mountain behind, will be gone.

i am here working on 3 stories about glacial and permafrost melt in Central Asia. A video in Tajikstan, then Kyrgyzstan and then Altai Republic. It is not a good outlook. On Thursday, i interviewed two top Tajikistan Climate experts.  It seems the Tajikistan glaciers here are melting just as fast as Antarctica, Greenland, and the Alps. They supply 60% of all Central Asia’s water! The local people are experiencing new weather systems (different from their traditional calendars), food security issues and later they will have issues with water supply. Along with this some local mountain fauna and flora will become extinct and human health issues will follow: TB, cardiovascular, fertility issues and malaria from Afghanistan plains now moving further in to the warmer mountain territories.

i have brought with me Russian filmmaker Ivan Golovnev (director Old man Peter) and we are collaborating with local NGO partners (Tajikistan Academy of Sciences) and community storytellers (like before in OZ, Borneo and Indonesia).

we have with us a little data projector, and whilst making the videos, we are holding small film festivals to share with local people some of the other global video stories of climate change community adaptation. hopefully through discussion, other UN agencies and local NGO partners we can plant some “adaptation” seeds with them.

it was my 33rd birthday yesterday and we went out to dinner to a Ukrainian restaurant. it’s nice to be back in Central Asia and using my basic russian. I got sick last week from a typical regional meal (chunks of BBQ meat and potatoes), but am getting better and now conditioning my iron stomach for the next three months of this kitchen. internet is not so great outside of dushanbe, but i will try to keep you updated and send video links where i can.   poka!!