In this video the Comcaac explain how Western companies came to their communities -- promising lots of money -- but causing climate change, contamination and depletion of their natural resources. The Comcaac are proud of their wisdoms on how to conserve nature and feel responsible to leave a healthy and alive Earth behind for the coming generations.
In August InsightShare’s Latin America Director Maja and Raymundo from the Asociacion Qolla Aymara (in Puno, Peru) travelled to northern Mexico to facilitate a PV training in Vicam, Sonora with the participation of representatives of the indigenous Yaqui and Seri communities. Despite the intense heat the participants created three beautiful videos.
Children of the Comcaac community of Punta Chueca plant mangroves to fight the erosion of the beaches near their community. As a result of climate change mangrove swamps have dried up and the Infiernillo channel is becoming wider. The children explain that from now on they will do their best to take good care of the mangroves to protect their land.
During a participatory video project, a group of Yaqui consulted their community elders to document how their local climate has changed and discovered that "water calls water": after a dam was build in the mountains, the Yaqui river dried up and rains stopped coming. As a result, the Yaqui are suffering from very long and severe droughts making it impossible for them to cultivate their fields with their native crops.
In this article Nick Lunch (InsightShare Co-Founder & Co-Director) describes how the Biocultural Portal (currently working under the project name 'Conversations with the Earth), functions as a web based resource for Indigenous Peoples and other stewards of biocultural diversity to share participatory video promoting local solutions to preserve the worlds biocultural diversity. He argues how the project - as a process at grassroots level - challenges power inequality but is simultaneously empowering for government officials, UN officers, civil servants, donors, NGOs, activists and communities alike.
