Directed by Christopher McLeod • Documentary • 2014 • 57 minutes
From Ethiopia to Peru, indigenous customs protect biodiversity on sacred lands under pressure from religious conflicts and climate change. In the Gamo Highlands of Ethiopia, scientists confirm the benefits of traditional stewardship even as elders witness the decline of spiritual practices that have long protected trees, meadows and mountains. Tensions with evangelical Christians over a sacred meadow erupt into a riot. In the Peruvian Andes, the Q'eros, on a pilgrimage to a revered glacier, are driven from their ritual site by intolerant Catholics. Q'eros potato farmers face a more ominous foe: global warming is melting glaciers, their water source. Andes farmers, scientists and visiting Ethiopians struggle to adapt indigenous agriculture to the changing climate.
FIRE AND ICE is one part of the 4-part Standing on Sacred Ground series, in which indigenous people from eight different cultures stand up for their traditional sacred lands in defense of cultural survival, human rights and the environment.
Directed by Christopher McLeod • Documentary • 2014 • 57 minutes
Native Hawaiians and Aboriginal Australians resist threats to their sacred places in a growing international movement to defend human rights and protect the environment. In Australia's Northern Territory, Aboriginal clans maintain ...
Directed by Christopher McLeod • Documentary • 2014 • 57 minutes
From New Guinean rainforests to Canada's tar sands, PROFIT AND LOSS exposes industrial threats to native peoples' health, livelihood and cultural survival. In Papua New Guinea, a Chinese-government owned nickel mine has violently r...
Directed by Christopher McLeod • Documentary • 2014 • 57 minutes
In the Russian Republic of Altai, traditional native people create their own mountain parks, to rein in tourism and resist a gas pipeline that would cut through a World Heritage Site. In northern California, Winnemem Wintu girls gr...
