FILMMAKERS URGED TO CONNECT WITH NATURE

Gland, Switzerland: 20th June 2011 – Creative filmmakers are being urged to use their talent to help WWF celebrate its 50th anniversary by making the connection with nature.

A new short film competition – Life. Nature. You. Make the Connection – launches today [20.06.11] with WWF offering commissions to the best directors and the chance to pick up their award at one of Asia’s top film festivals.

“Film and video are increasingly important to reach mass audiences and inspire people to love nature,” said Martin Atkin, WWF International’s Media Director. “We want the cream of the filmmaking world to help us celebrate 50 years of conservation by producing engaging, innovative and creative short films which make the connection between people and the natural world.”

The competition – which runs until October – is aimed at both emerging talent and established names. “Anyone can enter and the rules are very simple. Films must be completely original, can be up to two minutes long and use any medium – live action, animation, fiction or documentary. It’s a great opportunity for filmmakers to use their imagination and skill to get people back in touch with the environment,” said Atkin.

Two prizes are on offer – one decided by WWF and the other chosen by popular vote. Each winner will be commissioned by WWF to make a short film with a minimum budget of 10,000 USD. In addition, the two winners will be invited to the prestigious CMS Vatavaran film festival in New Delhi, India, in December to receive their awards and present their films. A selection of the best films will also be showcased at the festival.

Life. Nature. You. Make the Connection is being hosted on Vimeo and is run in association with CMS Vatavaran. For more details on how to enter see http://panda.org/videocomp.

ENDS

For further information:

Martin Atkin, Media Director, WWF International. matkin@wwf.panda.org +41 796982985
About WWF
WWF was founded in 1961 by a group of concerned naturalists and conservationists. Since then WWF has grown into one of the world’s largest and most respected independent conservation organisations, with more than 5 million supporters and a global network active in over 100 countries.

WWF’s mission is to stop the degradation of the earth’s natural environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature, by conserving the world’s biological diversity, ensuring that the use of renewable natural resources is sustainable, and promoting the reduction of pollution and wasteful consumption.

www.panda.org/videocomp

Kevin was working with a Serbian colleague, Srdjan Papic, on a story about genetically-modified crops when word came through that Ratko Mladic – a Serbian general accused of the murder of thousands in the war with Bosnia – had been arrested in a village nearby.

Kevin, Srdjan and Srdjan’s wife Maria hotfooted it to the village, Lazarevo, where they found villagers demonstrating in support of General Mladic. Before long, Kevin – who is a former BBC reporter – found himself broadcasting live from his mobile phone on the BBC News Channel.

This didn’t go down too well with many of the locals, who urged Kevin to go home and leave them alone. They hung a giant flag across the street to prevent reporters from seeing the house where General Mladic had hidden away.

As Kevin took photos of a protest march – which was led by a priest swigging from a can of beer – a policeman grabbed his camera and started to delete photos he didn’t like. The situation was disarmed by the off-duty chief of police, and Kevin continued to take pictures (http://www.flickr.com/photos/kgbbristol/sets/72157626813832796/) and video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2gwyHAEiTY).

When the Guardian learnt that Kevin was the first and only international journalist on the scene, they asked him to write his impressions from the scene. The story was published immediately on the Guardian’s web site (http://gu.com/p/2pcg2 ) and the next day in the paper.

Kevin was also interviewed by BBC Radio Cumbria, the station where he began his broadcasting career 22 years ago.

So how did he feel about being back on the news beat again?

“I felt a bit rusty,” he told us. But no one could have prepared for this story – not even Gen. Mladic himself! I just slipped into auto-pilot. But it was very exciting to be at the heart of an international story – and to be live on a world news channel and on the front page of a national paper was an added bonus!”

The next day, Kevin was back on schedule, this time reporting on the European roller, a brilliant blue bird that is being rescued from extinction in the plains either side of the River Danube.

And what about the run-in with the policeman?

“Tensions subsided pretty quickly. I was soon being asked about my favourite football team. Funnily enough, Srdjan and I were in a neighbouring town the next day when the difficult policeman passed us in the street. ‘Hello, lads,’ he said.”

Green Talk

Thinking green is part of our day-to-day business at Back To The Planet and that’s one of the reasons why we’ve been chosen to provide live film and online event support to Green Talk.

Green Talk is part of Bristol’s Good Living Week which is aiming to raise Bristol’s aspirations as a European Green Capital. It will take place at the Arnolfini, here in good ole Bristol on Tuesday 14th June 2011, 1830h-2045h.

Green Talk will be stuffed full of some of the most influential speakers to air our feelings and latest thoughts on climate, environment, energy security and impacts on society on our doorsteps and further a field.

Tickets will sell out quickly so make sure you get hold of yours at

http://www.climate-works.co.uk/projects-clients/green-talk/

Our team are really pleased to have been chosen to take part in this call to action for a greener Bristol and look forward to seeing you there!

At lunchtime today Second Step had a launch party for their Moving Ahead project which included a DVD produced by Back To The Planet productions. The project was created to inspire temporary supported housing providers and service users in Bristol and to promote hope and belief in moving onto greater independence.

This was the first showing of the DVD and I’m happy to say that it went down very well. We even got a WOW from the audience at the end of the film!

After watching Sir David laugh out loud while watching our film about ‘Wild play’, featuring children from Herefordshire, we filmed a short interview. Sir David Attenborough was as you’d imagine, completely charming, professional and a pleasure to have worked with. We are all feeling very honoured!

We’d also like to thank Big Bang Post Productions for hosting us and for being so friendly and accommodating on the day. With our deadline fast approaching we hope to have the film finished by the end of January leaving an additional interview with Kate Humble to filmed in early February.

After arriving in Ashgabat and meeting the Minister of Culture and other members of the British Embassy Simon Williams, an experienced self-shooting director and Gavin Thurston, a BAFTA and EMMY award winning cameraman,  flew straight to Turkmenabat on the South-Eastern side of Turkmenistan.  With no time to recover from their flights they got straight into exploring the kugitang Nature Reserve with it’s ancient Crystal caves and Dinosaur plateau.

After driving for hours on single track ‘roads’, in the Kugitang Nature Reserve, they faced an exhausting and tricky hike up to the entrance of the Crystal Caves. With High Definition cameras and motion time-lapse equipment, including curved and straight track, it proved to be more than just a stomp. Only to find that the motion control equipment wouldn’t fit through the narrow entrance  into the labyrinth of the crystal caves. Fortunately Simon, Gavin and their guide could squeeze their slender frames through, by scrabbling and crawling on all-fours, what a pretty sight that must have been! Carrying with them enough equipment to film the amazing calcarious stalactite and stalagmite structures that criss-crossed the ceilings and floors of the ancient cave system.

Despite the caves remote location it is one of the few systems mentioned in classic literature being described as early as 49 B.C.  However, knowledge of the caves were lost for many centuries until the 1950′s when Russian geologists started mining for it’s onyx, before being stopped by scientists and is now protected by it’s national park status. Dating back to the Jurassic age these magnificent caves are comparative in it’s beauty to the more well know Lechuguilla caves and, if not, even more spectacular than it’s American counterpart!

Leaving the crystal caves behind, the team drove on to the Dinosaur plateau in search of the 150 million year old footprints. Turkmenosaurus, is a name suggested by scientists for the dinosaur that left many hundreds of footprints, with local legends stating that the prints were left by elephants used by the armies of Alexander the Great. However, scientists have confirmed that the prints were left during the Jurassic period by a species called Megalosauripus.

Turkmenosaurus Rex is still my favourite!

It’s thought that theses tracks were left in shallow lake that dried up and baked in the hot sun before being covered and sealed by lava after a volcanic eruption. There are about 400 prints visible around Kugitang, with the largest having a diameter of 80cm, but with more than 2500 being found in total. Rumours of tigers roaming in this region have been confirmed by the rangers stating that they have recently seen tiger footprints. This has yet to be confirmed by our research but we are ever hopeful!

Next, the team travelled to the ancient city of  Merv. Once a metropolis, being on the silk route and a great centre of Islam, its importance cannot be underestimated. The sons of Jenghiz Khan brought the final demise of the city and slaughtered its population leaving scattered ruins all over. Now a Unesco World Heritage site Merv is beholden to centuries of fascinating, if not often brutal, stories of  religious differences, powerful disputes and legendary deception.

This led Simon and Gavin to the stunning nature reserve of Badghyz. A protected region consisting of vast areas of steppes and hilly plateaus dominated by beautiful wild pistachios trees that’s situated next to craggy, mountainous terrain, littered with caves and full of undiscovered wildlife. With the limited timescale of this recce we were fairly certain that to film any of the larger predators would be impossible and, in fact, to even find them in short a short space of time, would probably not happen. However, they were extremely fortunate. After hearing of, only rumours, of tigers in the Eastern regions of Turkmenistan, Badghyz was to unveil some of it’s mysteries. The team spotted Hyenas and tracked them to their den, watched Kulan, Geran, Arkhar and wild Boar, found wolf tracks and even prints of the illusive Persian Leopard. Slowly but surely Badghyz is revealing its heart and sole. Wildlife that is so secretive it will take time and expertise to track them and capture the stunning images needed for this wildlife documentary. It’s a good job we have two of the finest people out there in Simon and Gavin!

Their journey continues as they explore the western regions of Turkmenbashy on the Caspian Sea. With sights of Flamingoes and Caspian seals we are still wondering what other secrets this endearing and fascinating country will provide.

To be continued…

This coming November Gavin Thurston, an award winning natural history cameraman, is travelling with Simon Williams, producer/director, to this largely unknown territory in Central Asia. For years Turkmenistan has been ruled as a dictatorship and shut off to the western world, however Back To The Planet, in conjunction with the BBC World Service Trust, have been invited to develop a mentoring scheme with the Turkmenistan media.

Turkmenistan is a land of extremes. It is officially the hottest country in the world, but turns bitterly cold in winter. Some areas get only 9-inches of rain a year, yet produce a dazzling rainbow of flowers that cover the sprawling steppes. This region was once ruled by dinosaurs which have left their legacy in thousands of fossilised footprints, the trails of which are longer then anywhere else on earth. From remote rocky mountains to the baking deserts of the Karakum and the rich shores of the Caspian Sea Turkmenistan is a land of extraordinary riches and unique landscapes. It’s stunning vistas and wildlife reflect the unique position it holds as a crossroads between Asia, Europe and Africa.

This is a land where leopards and hyenas hunt the Zebra like Kulan  and where wolves and bears roam in search of the Arkhar – a mountain sheep with scimitar like horns. The Turkmen people themselves are as colourful as the landscape itself.  Their nomadic lives revolve around horses and spectacular horse displays are a way of life for them. Cut off from the Western World for years Back To The Planet have now been given unique access to the country to film its secret wonders.

After years of study and development the Severn barrage

tidal energy scheme was scrapped by Chris Huhne, the Energy Secretary.

Apparently the study clearly highlighted that, at present, there is no reason to use public funding on a scheme to create energy in the Severn estuary.  ”Other low carbon options represent a better deal for taxpayers and consumers.” said Huhne.  However, Huhne did not rule out the possibility of revisiting the project in the future if and when the recession passes.  To read the full article go the the BBC website or click on this link.

And if you want to read an article from research scientist, Dr. Rob Kirby, who has been working on the Severn estuary for the past 40 years and is regretful that the scheme has not gone through, click on this BBC link.

So far the hunters have been out on a numerous of occasions herding back several dolphins that are now left in man-made sea pens within the cove.   To the fishermen of Taiji, the dolphins and small whales are merely big fish to be captured, sold and forced into an unnatural life in dolphin shows and aquariums for the amusement of humans — or slaughtered inhumanely for their significantly lesser value as meat. These animals are laden with toxic chemicals including PCB’s and methyl-mercury that have permeated the oceanic food chain since the start of the industrial revolution.

Despite scientific evidence highlighting levels of contaminants in the meat that exceed the recommended levels safe for human consumption, it is still sold in supermarkets and served in school lunches. Local Taiji townspeople, and those of neighbouring areas, are being exposed to chemicals that were linked to catastrophic neurological problems (known as Minamata disease) endured by people in Minamata as mercury from industrial waste contaminated their drinking water with poison.

The mayor of Taiji has commented publicly that as long as he holds office the killing of dolphins and other cetaceans will continue. He argues that tradition and custom warrant the continuation of the dolphin drives and refuses to acknowledge that profiteering from these mammals in the name of human entertainment is only a recent phenomenon.

In Futo, further up the Japanese coastline, dolphin species were also slaughtered like dolphins in Taiji up until 2003.  Mr. Izumi Ishii was once one of the most outspoken advocates of the capture and killing of dolphins, but Mr. Ishii had changed.  “I heard the sound of the dolphins crying as they were killed.  I could not bear it,” he said in describing his reasons for converting from dolphin killing to dolphin watching, “The value I now see in dolphins is not the value of their meat but of the wonder they incite in us.”

Most Japanese citizens are as horrified by the killing of these dolphins as any Westerner.  Taiji is not representative of the views of most japanese people.  Taiji is a town that is slowly dying and is not prospering from these unnecessary, inhumane acts.

A few days ago a group from the Sea Shephard Conservation Society caught the trainers and fishermen loading two dolphins into crates and onto a truck.  Almost 300km later they were seen delivering the two dolphins to the Suma Aqualife Park in Kobe, Japan.  Sea Shephard now have proof that dolphin shows are tied to the slaughter in Taiji and there are at least two more dolphins remaining in the pens in Taiji harbour.  What awaits their destiny is yet to be seen.

Extracts have been taken from the Sea Shephard Conservation Society’s report from Taiji.