Amazon Tribe go behind the camera for new documentary

UN resuming talks on high-seas treaty amid growing concerns

After four inconclusive sessions, UN member states resume talks aimed at finally completing a treaty to protect the world’s high seas, a vital yet fragile resource that covers nearly half the planet.

A host of NGOs and affected countries say the pact is urgently needed to improve environmental stewardship over the vast, yet largely unregulated, area as it faces growing challenges.

But the Covid-19 pandemic slowed negotiations for two years, and a session in March that was supposed to have been conclusive made progress but ran out of time.

The new round of talks ran through August 26 at United Nations headquarters in New York.Whether it will really be the last round remains uncertain, according to those close to the talks.

Negotiators are “cautiously optimistic,” said a source with the High Ambition Coalition, which groups some 50 countries led by the European Union.

The source told AFP that participants need to find a compromise between two “grand ideas”: protecting the environment and regulating human activities on the one hand, while also guarding freedoms on the high seas.

The high seas begin at the border of nations’ exclusive economic zones (EEZs), which by international law reach no more than 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) from each country’s coast, and are under no state’s jurisdiction.

Even if the high seas represent more than 60 percent of the oceans — and nearly half the planet — they have long been largely ignored in favor of coastal zones, with protections extended only to a few vulnerable species. Only one percent of the high seas enjoys legal protection. Yet, scientists have proved the importance of protecting oceanic ecosystems in their entirety. They produce half the oxygen humans breathe and help limit global warming by absorbing much of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activity. They are seriously at risk, however, from the continuing rise in levels of carbon dioxide (which

intensifies warming and makes ocean waters more acid), pollution and overfishing.That adds to the urgency of finally completing the global pact on the “Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction,” say NGOs and the High Ambition Coalition.

“This treaty is of major importance,” said Julien Rochette, a researcher with the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI), “because it is going to provide a framework — a compass — for the principles and rules guiding the entire international community in managing this common space.” But the latest treaty draft still fails to resolve several thorny issues or to choose among diverse and contending options, such as the conditions for creating so-called Marine Protected Areas. To James Hanson of Greenpeace, the future Conference of Parties (or COP, a decision-making body which includes all signatory states) must have the power to “create these Marine Protected Areas without having to defer to the existing bodies.”

Yet questions about cooperation with regional maritime organizations (such as over fishing rights) must yet be decided. Also unresolved, Rochette told AFP, is whether the COP could ban certain activities on the high seas if a mandated environmentalimpact study proves unfavorable, or whether a state could simply go ahead.

Another sensitive issue involves the allocation of potential profits from developing genetic resources in the high seas, where pharmaceutical, chemical and cosmetic companies hope to find miracle drugs, products or cures.

Such costly research at sea is largely the prerogative of the rich, but developing countries do not want to be left out of potential windfall profits drawn from marine resources that belong to no one.

It remains unclear whether there has been substantial movement by key parties since the last round of talks, said Rochette.

He said those pressing hardest for agreement on this issue include the European Union, Australia, New Zealand and developing countries, while the strongest opposition comes from Russia and from countries concerned about fishing rights, including Iceland and Japan.

Amazon Tribe go behind the camera for new documentary

When Covid-19 reached Brazil’s Amazon, and an indigenous tribe sealed off its borders, director Alex Pritz found an innovative way to finish his documentary — he handed the cameras over to the Uru-eu-wau-wau themselves.

“The Territory,” to be released by National Geographic on follows the plight of some 200 huntergatherers who live in a protected area of rainforest, surrounded and encroached upon by aggressive and illegal settlers, farmers and loggers.While shown in the movie dressed in traditional garb and honouring ancient customs, the Uru-euwau-wau and their young leader Bitate — the film’s main subject — were more than happy to use modern technology to fight back.

“When Covid happened, Bitate made the bold decision to say ‘Okay, no more journalists coming into our territory, no more filmmakers, no more Alex, no more documentary crew, nobody,'” said Pritz.

“We had to have a conversation with him like, ‘Okay, are we done with the film? Do we have everything we need? Is there more? Should we start editing?’

“Bitate was clear: ‘No, we’re not done. We still have a lot left to do. You guys weren’t done before; why should you be done now?

“‘Just send us better cameras, send us audio equipment, and we’ll shoot and produce the last part of the movie.'”

The result was a “co-production model” in which an Uru-euwau-wau filmmaker is credited as cinematographer, and the community more broadly acted as producers with a share of profits and a say in business decisions about the film’s distribution.

Besides enabling filming to continue into the pandemic, Pritz believes the decision to provide equipment and training directly to the Uru-eu-wau-wau benefited the film by adding a “firsthand perspective” on the group’s activities, which include patrolling the land to arrest interlopers.

“I shot a bunch of surveillance missions myself. None of them made the cut!” said Pritz.

“Not because we wanted to transfer the filmmaking… it was more raw, it was more urgent.”

Even before Pritz’s crew arrived, the Uru-eu-wau-wau had become adept at using the

power of modern technology and media to champion their cause, positioning themselves on the global stage as guardians of a forest whose survival is bound up in issues of climate change and biodiversity.

“Bitate and this younger generation within the Uru-euwau-wau are digital children. He was born in the late 90s. He’s on Instagram. And that’s part of how he engages with the world,” said Pritz. When drones capturing stunning and harrowing footage of vast deforestation appear early in the documentary, many audiences assume they belong to the filmmakers, said Pritz. But in fact, the flying cameras were bought and are operated by the Uru-eu-wau-wau themselves. “Whereas it would have taken four days to walk over a mountain range of thick, dense, old-growth rainforest… with the drone, you’re there in 30 minutes, you have images tagged with metadata,” said Pritz.

“People can’t argue with that.”

It is a stark contrast to the farmers and settlers, who are also central subjects of the film.In astonishing footage, the documentary follows one group as they brazenly chainsaw and set ablaze protected forest, illegally clearing space for roads to territory they one day wish to settle and claim as their own. Access was possible because many settlers see themselves as heroic pioneers, speaking in interviews to Pritz about opening up the rainforest for the good of their nation — a heady mix of “Wild West” cowboy culture borrowed from American movies, and nationalist propaganda stoked by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.

“The settlers were these naive people who had no understanding of the historical context of their actions, the ecological consequences, what they were doing for the rest of the planet,” said Pritz. For the settlers, many of whom lack education or any other economic opportunities, “it was just about ‘me and mine,’ ‘just this one little plot,’ ‘if only I can get this.'”

“Whereas Bitate has this expansive outlook. He’s thinking about climate change. He’s thinking about the planet. He’s politically savvy, media-oriented.”

Spain firefighters battle to control massive Valencia wildfire

Some 300 firefighters spent a problematic night battling a massive wildfire in southeastern Spain that has burnt through nearly 10,000 hectares in an area notoriously difficult to access, officials said. The fire began when lightning hit the Vall de Ebo area in the province of Alicante late and has since spread rapidly, fuelled by strong winds, forcing the evacuation of more than 1,000 people, Valencia’s regional government said.

“At the moment, we are talking about more than 9,500 hectares (235,000 acres) burnt with a perimeter of 65 kilometres (40 miles),” regional president Ximo Puig said describing the blaze as “absolutely huge”.

“It’s a very complicated situation… The fire creates enormous difficulties that are impossible to tackle with the speed we would like.”

Regional interior minister Gabriela Bravo told Antena 3 television some 300 firefighters were battling the flames, backed by 24 planes and helicopters.

Officials said that firefighters elsewhere in the region were also battling two other wildfires north of Valencia city, with hundreds of firefighters and at least 10 firefighting planes engaged in the operation. Further north, firefighters in the Aragon region were battling another major blaze that broke out and burnt over 6,000 hectares of land, forcing at least 1,500 people from their homes.

Worse than 2021

Meanwhile, a massive wildfire in central Portugal that raged for a week in a UNESCOdesignated natural park and was finally brought under control night flared up again the civil protection authority said.More than 1,200 firefighters had been

drafted to tackle the blaze, which had already consumed some 15,000 hectares and was “burning fiercely” with the flames whipped up by strong winds.

So far this year, Spain has suffered 391 wildfires, fuelled by scorching temperatures and drought conditions, which have destroyed a total of 271,020 hectares of land, according to the latest figures from the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS). This year’s fires in Spain have been particularly devastating, destroying more than three times the area consumed by wildfires in 2021, which amounted to 84,827 hectares, the figures show. Portugal has suffered 195 wildfires so far this year, which have ravaged 84,717 hectares of land, EFFIS figures show.

Scientists say human-induced climate change makes extreme weather events, including heatwaves and droughts, more frequent and intense. They, in turn, increase the risk of fires, which emit climate-heating greenhouse gases. Fires have blazed across Europe, particularly in France, Greece and Portugal, making 2022 a record year for wildfires on the continent. The blaze in Portugal’s Serra da Estrela natural park started on August 6 outside the central town of Covilha and authorities have deployed 373 fire engines and 12 planes and helicopters to bolster firefighters’ attempts to tame it.Portugal’s civil protection agency head Andre Fernandes warned of the probability the fire would spread and said attempts to stabilise it was liable to be hampered by the wind.