Nature and the Environment
(P through Z)

The Road Stops Here: The Walbran Valley

Heather Frise/Velcrow Ripper/Barb Turner
30 min. 1991

This documentary looks at the Walbran Valley on southern Vancouver Island, home of one of British Columbia's last ancient temperate rain forests, and follows the actions of protesters who are fighting to save it from logging. Environmental activists, biologists, and ordinary citizens take a stand against chain saws, road graders, and grapple yarders. The film explores the biodiversity of the forest, the dedication of those who struggle to protect it, and the frustration of loggers who don't always agree with their employers' logging methods.

Subject(s): Environmental issues, Forestry

Run, Sockeye, Run (The Life Cycle of the Sockeye Salmon)

Maryvonne Micale/Kirk Shaw
Insight Film and Video Production
23 min. 1995

"Okay sockeye, listen up! The sooner we get started the sooner we'll be on our way..." In Run, Sockeye, Run, a computer animated salmon coaches a "team" of sockeye getting ready to embark on the arduous upstream journey to their spawning grounds. He prepares them for what lies ahead by detailing the amazing life cycle of the Adam's River sockeye. This informative video features spectacular footage of the salmon run up the Fraser river, underwater closeups of spawning activities including males battling for the opportunity to mate, and a birth sequence of mature salmon embryos.

Awards: Bronze Medal, Nature and Wildlife Category, New York Television and Film Festival; Award of Merit, Association for Media and Technology in Education in Canada

Subject(s): Animals, British Columbia, Life cycles, Science

Run, Sockeye, Run (The Life Cycle of the Sockeye Salmon) was highly recommended in CM Magazine

The Sharing Farm

Michael Gazetas/Keith Berhman/Mary Gazetas
14 min. 2007
Available on DVD and VHS

What began as a project to collect surplus fruit going to waste in Richmond, BC and distribute it to the poor has grown to an inspiring community movement that helps the poor and aids food security. Started by a small group of determined volunteers, the Richmond Fruit Tree Sharing Project has grown to include a community garden and greenhouse on some agricultural land that wasn’t being used. After its inception by a small group of grandmothers, it wasn’t long before the success of this project expanded to include other members in the community, including an agrologist and an elementary school teacher and his class. The Terra Nova School Yard project sees elementary school students working in this community garden and learning about nature, food and food security as well as nurturing the values of community service in these young citizens of the future.

Subject(s): Agriculture, Community dynamics, Environmental issues, Food, Sustainability

Slaves of the Harvest

Northern Lights Films
25 min. 1985

Slaves of the Harvest concerns the slaughter of Pacific fur seals on thePribilof Islands of Alaska. Each summer thousands of seals are harvested for their fur by the Aleut people, who were originally brought to the islands as slaves to harvest the seals. The film examines the cultural implications of the hunt in an effort to strike a balance between seal protection and the rights of indigenous peoples.

Subject(s): Environmental issues, Indigenous people–Aleut

Stewards of the Land

Bill Weaver/Rick Searle
Across Borders Media
24 min. 2003

"As a species, we really have only one asset. We might think it's our house or some material possession, but it's really the land that we live on, this planet that supports us."
– Lee McFadyen, organic farmer

Across Canada, unchecked development, farming and mining threaten to destroy landscapes that have taken eons to evolve. In British Columbia, private landowners hold the greatest potential for preserving critical wildlife habitat. Stewards of the Land takes a gentle journey across the province, revealing how several of these unsung heroes are sharing their land with the plants and animals that also call it home.

Meet a common-sense cattle rancher, a farsighted organic farmer, a 102-year-old guardian of a Garry Oak meadow, and a giant mining company willing to forego windfall profits. What motivates them to go the extra mile for the acreages they watch over? From rebuilding streamside habitat to placing conservation covenants on crucial ecosystems, their personal contributions add up to a healthier future for biological diversity. Stewards of the Land is an inspiration for landowners to make their land a better place for all living things.

Subject(s): Agriculture, British Columbia, Environmental issues, Mining

Tibetan Medicine
(A 2-part series)

Aerlyn Weissman/Tetsuya Itano
Harry Sutherland/Carrie Green/Ross D. Viner/Tetsuya Itano/Noriko Uchida
Producers on Davie/Long Tale Entertainment/MediAtelier
2006
Also available on DVD

The Journey of the Blue Buddha 47 min.

Twelve hundred years ago, the people of Tibet developed a comprehensive medical system whose practitioners understood how powerfully the mind affects the body. They made medicines from plants and minerals blessed in lengthy rituals. They encoded this knowledge in a series of elaborate paintings known as The Atlas of Tibetan Medicine.

At a time in Europe when doctors dissected corpses in secret and herbalists were being burned at the stake, Tibetan medicine flourished. Its monk doctors traveled throughout Central Asia taking both their spiritual and health practices with them. With the British invasion in 1904 and the Chinese invasion in 1959, vital texts and paintings—and with them, the primary means of teaching Tibetan medicine—survived only because they'd been smuggled into Russia. Unbeknownst to Stalin, the cloth panels of The Atlas had been secreted into museum archives in Siberia and quietly spared from his purges.

The Journey of the Blue Buddha surveys the evolving practice of Tibetan medicine in today's Chinese-controlled Tibet, as well as in the exile community of Dharamsala, India, the Russian republic of Buryatia and North America. With its message of natural healing, human connection and right living, Tibetan medicine is all the more precious for having nearly been lost.

The Blue Buddha in Russia 47 min. each

Tuvan Dorzhi Radnayevich is a doctor of Tibetan medicine in Ulan Ude, the capital city of Buryatia, a Russian republic in southern Siberia. Like other practitioners of this age-old system of medicine, Tuvan Dorzhi can now work freely in Russia. When he first started his practice, however, there were no young Tibetan physicians. Under Stalin, almost all high-ranking monks and monk doctors (emchi lamas) were killed and thousands of lower-ranking ones sent to labour camps. Today Tuvan Lama, as he is also known, is determined to revive Tibetan medicine in Buryatia.

The Blue Buddha in Russia follows Tuvan Lama as he makes house calls, receives visitors to his clinic, presides at a funeral, teaches at-risk youth the medicinal properties of plants, treks across the steppes in search of licorice root, and visits the Atsagatsky monastery where he hopes one day to open a medical centre. An examination of the history of Tibetan medicine in Russia, this documentary is also an illuminating look at one of its most devoted practitioners today.

Subject(s): Asian studies, Health, History, World cultures

U-Turn

Susanne Tabata
Tabata Productions Associates
22 min. 1995

Daily bombardments by the media urge us simultaneously to consume and conserve creating a mixed and confusing message. If we are to become better conservers it is important to address "why we consume" and not simply "how." U-Turn, with teenage host Severn Cullis-Suzuki, clearly illustrates for a young audience the environmental problems created by consumption. It offers practical solutions for reducing solid wastes, eliminating hazardous household products, improving air quality and conserving energy and water, while examining the underlying role that the media plays in shaping our values and how we live.

Subject(s): Consumerism, Environmental issues, Ethics, Media studies, Youth

Visions of Carmanah

Ian Herring
Omni Film Productions
20 min. 1992

In the spring of 1989, over one hundred of Canada's most gifted artists hiked into British Columbia's Carmanah Valley. As they wandered amidst the giant Sitka spruce, their common purpose was to experience and portray the magic and mystique of one of Canada's last remaining old growth forests. The best of the work was published in the book Carmanah: Artistic Visions of an Ancient Rainforest. A broad spectrum of Canadian artists speak about the importance of the wilderness not only as a source of artistic inspiration, but as a necessity for the health of the planet.

Subject(s): Environmental issues, Forestry

See also:: Nature and the Environment A through G; Nature and the Environment H through O

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Nature and the Environment(P through Z)