WATER WAR IN COCHABAMBA &
FUTURE SCENARIOS

Blue Gold – World Water Wars, USA
1975, 4 min 51 sec

A fragment of this great documentary on the available 3% freshwater worldwide and all problems associated with the use and abuse connected to this resource. This part shows what happened in Cochabamba, Bolivia, when the government gave up the water resources to a corporation who tried to force people to pay 33% of their salary just for access to drinking water. This decision was not accepted and the people rose to resistance and won.

COLORES ACEQUIA

New Mexico PBS USA
2009, 25 min 57 sec

For centuries, Native Americans of the arid Southwest used a system of ponds and gravity-fed ditches (acequias) to grow crops with the little water they had. When the Spanish arrived in 1598, they were quick to adopt this system, establishing a unique tradition of irrigation and agriculture.

HOW RAINWATER HARVESTING CREATED A RIVER

Philadelphia, USA
1975, 2 min

The Alwar district of Rajasthan had become a desolate scene in the mid-1980s. A “dark zone”. And sand had replaced water and trees. Then a group of volunteers led by Rajendra Singh took the cue from an old man. They started making johads, earthen dams that impound rainwater. By the hundreds. The result was a miracle, a river, the Arvari. Today, the sands are clothed by wealth, water and trees. Rajendra Singh won the 2001 Magsaysay Award in recognition of his community leadership. See and experience this miracle in the video Arvari: A late twentieth century folk tale, produced by the Centre for Science and Environment.

HOW TO GROW YOUR OWN FRESH AIR

Kamal Meattle, TEDtalksDirector Long Beach, USA
2009, 3 min 50 sec

Researcher Kamal Meattle shows how an arrangement of three common houseplants, used in specific spots in a home or office building, can result in measurably cleaner indoor air. With its air-filtering plants and sustainable architecture, Kamal Meattle’s office park in New Delhi is a model of green business.

Kamal Meattle has a vision to reshape commercial buildings in India using principles of green architecture and sustainable upkeep (including an air-cleaning system that involves massive banks of plants instead of massive banks of HVAC equipment). He started the Paharpur Business Centre and Software Technology Incubator Park (PBC-STIP), in New Delhi, in 1990 to provide ‘instant office’ space to technology companies. PBC-STIP’s website publishes its air quality index every day, and tracks its compliance to the 10 principles of the UN Global Compact, a corporate-citizenship initiative.

YOGI LIVES WITHOUT FOOD AND WATER

Reuters Video, India
1975, 1 min 08 sec

Prahlad Jani claimed he was surviving without food and water for the last 70 years. The Defense Institute of Physiology and Allied Sciences kept him under surveillance to conduct a study in order to expose the phenomenon behind his claim, concluding Jani was truthful. Neurophysician Sudhir Shah stated Jani’s survival was miraculous. Initial test reports confirmed Jani’s body had undergone a biological transformation due to yoga exercises. Doctors state there were no signs of fatigue or other symptoms of medical health problems. Not much was known about Jani’s background, since he left home at the age of seven and has been wandering through jungles ever since. The studying of Jani and the corresponding results led to a medical highlight in the world of science.

INUIT KNOWLEDGE AND CLIMATE CHANGE

Zacharias Kunuk and DR. Ian Mauro
2011, 3 min 45 sec

Nunavut-based director Zacharias Kunuk (Atanarjuat The Fast Runner) and researcher and filmmaker Dr. Ian Mauro (Seeds of Change) have teamed up with Inuit communities to document their knowledge and experience regarding climate change. This new documentary, the world’s first Inuktitut language film on the topic, takes the viewer ‘on the land’ with elders and hunters to explore the social and ecological impacts of a climate change on the Arctic. This unforgettable film helps us to appreciate Inuit culture and expertise regarding environmental change and indigenous ways of adapting to it.

Exploring centuries of Inuit knowledge, allowing the viewer to learn about climate change first-hand from Arctic residents themselves, the film portrays Inuit as experts regarding their land and wildlife and makes it clear that climate change is a human rights issue affecting this ingenious Indigenous culture.