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.

Here are some recent snaps from my filming mission in the Gobi desert, Mongolia. As mentioned, have been shooting a small UNU story about the disastrous desertification of the Gobi. The story will focus on the efforts of a small Gobi/Japanese research project.

Technical word of advice: if you are taking camera equipment into the desert…. make sure you take aerosol of canned air, a self-pumping air brush in your pocket and an air-proof camera bag (eg pelican case). Even with all this, absolutely everything was caked in dust… every evening!

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!

As some of your know, Luis Patron (my UNU producing colleague) and I have recently returned from filming on the Carteret Islands in PNG. The situation there is terrible. The media has started picking up on the relocation efforts but the islanders still need financial support of about US$2 million to relocate the 125 families. The videobrief we made in collaboration with Nicholas and Tulele Peisa (headed by Ursula Rakmova) has already been viewed by over 48,000 online viewers.

The video got a plug in this treehugger article:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/05/indigenous-communities-carteret-islands-use-film.php

Ursula from Tulele Peisa recently writes:
“…I was in Tinputz on Wednesday to welcome the first 5 fathers when they arrived from Carterets. I went there again on Sunday last week and they seemed really happy and have been hard at work, cleaning the place and cutting down some more bushes. They are now feeling at home. Their wives and children will come on June 5, 2009 to join them. The governor on Sunday went to present to them a chainsaw which is now helping them to build the houses that are yet to be put up…

For those of you interested here’s the video again:

Have been working in Australia of late, on the makings of a global portfolio of “Indigenous perspectives of Climate Change” for UNU. Its a cracker of a project, actually quite confronting.

Far from the city’s supermarkets,  many of the world’s Indigenous peoples live land to mouth, relying on their traditional knowledge – particularly  seasonal animal migrations, weather systems and pollination cycles to put food in their children’s mouths.  Furthermore, many spiritual practices that anchor culture and identity are party to these systems.

Today’s disconnected industrial appetite, subsequent climate predictions, and first world “no consultation” mitigation strategies are already having a disastrous effect on our world’s Indigenous peoples and their rights and responsibilities. We need to be very, very sensitive and respectful to what’s really going on.

This first video below was recorded in the wet tropics “Kuku Ngungkal” country (near the Daintree) with Traditional Owner, Marilyn Wallace. She shows Paul Bell (camera/editor) and I how Climate change is being experienced by her mob.

Although not explicit, the learning I received came from a little word called “bubu”. Whilst doing the translations, Marilyn explained to me the word bubu means – my home country, the land, the soil beneath, the ecosystems (all plants/animals), the biosphere above and beyond,  and my identity and responsibility.  Its a profound and spiritual paradigm shift.

I really don’t care for arguing with people whether climate change is happening or not anymore. Sorry, but its a shortsighted argument. What I hope to share is unsustainable development IS happening and its visible everywhere all around us. And if our timely “climate change” paradigm shifts can steers us sharply away from this cliff, then call it climate change and get in tune with your bubu’s needs, baby.