The Apus, or sacred mountains are the guardians of the climate and the source of all pure water and thus have the power to protect or devastate communities living on them. The clip was made as part of a campaign to resist evangelical authorities and this video has resulted in local people taking up again traditional practices to nurture Mother Earth.
Inuit elders and youth documented how they worked together on building a traditional sealskin kayak using traditional tools - the first traditional Copper Inuit kayak since 1950s. Beautifully shot and full of laughter and traditonal crafts and cooking this video is a fascinating document of a valuable community project.
'Growing Up in Cambridge Bay' charts the experiences and lives of local youth in Cambridge Bay in the Arctic Circle. They document traditional fishing, hunting, Arctic sports, local legends on the origin of death and musical traditions such as throat singing.
Forest dwellers feel the heat as traditional seasons fail. Fruits are rotting on the trees due to the excessive heat. Even the forest floor is drying up. ‘Facing Changes in African Forests’ was created by members of the Baka community in eastern Cameroon during a Participatory Video training in April 2009.
'Peru Conversations with Mother Earth' is a powerful film relating the Andean cosmovision. Quechua videographers documented seasonal changes, hail, melting glaciers, christian fundamentalism, and other threats to their culture, livelihoods and landscapes.
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.
The Voice of the Batwa PHOTOSTORY is a detailed description of the process through which a group of Batwa, from various squatter camps in Uganda, created a powerful film documenting the discrimination and marginalisation they face.
The Batwa are an indigenous people of the Great Lakes region of tropical Africa. Formerly hunter-gatherers, they were expelled from their ancestral forests to make way for conservation and tourism projects. They experience extreme racial discrimination from their neighbours, poverty, landlessness and unequal access to education and healthcare.
'Traditional Paddy To The Rescue' was made by Sri Lankan farmers in 2007 to document the re-introduction of traditional varieties of rice, which grow successfully in their heavily salinated soils.
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