international wildlife film festival

Climate Chaos: A Sea Change in the Film Industry?

By Seonaid B. Campbell, 5-23-07

The climate is changing. Not only is Earth’s atmosphere transforming, but the atmosphere among television broadcasters like the BBC, Animal Planet, and PBS is changing too. Slowly they are admitting the necessity of producing conservation films.

At this years International Wildlife Film Festival (IWFF), the topic of an environment in crisis dominated talk between filmmakers. Ten years ago, Festival delegates may have openly discussed their deep concern for nature, but the climate within the wildlife and science film industry was inhospitable to broadcasting stories with a conservation message. The tide has turned. This year, the IWFF celebrated its 30th year by choosing a BBC film about global warming, entitled Climate Chaos, as the best of festival winner. “I think the judges were sending a message,” said Climate Chaos producer Nicholas Brown.

	New West sat down with Nicholas Brown, the producer of Climate Chaos, during the 2007 International Wildlife Film Festival in Missoula. Click here to listen in.

In what became a weeklong clarion call to filmmakers to address the global environmental crisis, writer Eugene Linden gave a keynote speech at the Festival’s Tarkio Retreat. Linden spoke eloquently about his 35-year career as a journalist for TIME Magazine, and as author of eight books on climate change, animal intelligence, and economics.

The theme of Linden’s career has been the relationship between humans and animals. It’s a relationship that requires vigilance. “You really can’t save a species once,” Linden said in reference to his 1994 TIME Magazine cover story on the endangered Bengal tiger and the continuing need for media coverage of the animal’s plight. “You write about a species for one reason in the 70’s and then it’s in jeopardy for a whole different reason in the 90’s,” Linden reflected. “The first time it’s hunting, then it’s habitat destruction, and now it’s climate change.”

	Nicholas Brown

As a journalist, Linden believes that in recent years climate change skeptics have taken advantage of the media’s misplaced sense of fairness and balance. They have given too much credit to a misinformed minority. “Scientist are pushing back,” he says. “They are going public to disavow climate change naysayers.”

One such outspoken scientist is renowned ecologist and conservationist Dr. George Schaller. Schaller attended the eight-day Festival and was honored with a lifetime achievement award. He found himself constantly engaged in conversation with filmmakers, many of whom were also scientists.

For 55 years Dr. Schaller has championed imperiled species such as the mountain gorilla and snow leopard. He’s currently at work in Afghanistan and Pakistan in an attempt to save the endangered Marco Polo sheep. Schaller has witnessed first-hand the effects of global warming on the planet. In the 1950’s he helped Mardy and Olaus Murie protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Yet, within his lifetime, Schaller has observed the melt of permafrost, glaciers in retreat, and disruption of ancient caribou migration by oil and gas development. Even more threatening, he noted, is a government unwilling to keep it’s conservation promise.

	Dr. George Schaller

“We as conservationists have largely failed,” Schaller said during his awards ceremony speech, then added provocatively, “The media has failed.” In a presentation that included both digital projection and a slide show, Schaller sharply criticized scientist and the media for their failure to adequately communicate conservation messages to the public. “There can be no neutral films,” he said adamantly. He went on to deride the Bush administration’s “war on this land” as an “orgy of environmental vandalism.”

Filmmakers in the audience agreed with Schaller, but will they take action?

If the International Wildlife Film Festival is any example of the wildlife film industry at large, the tide has, indeed, turned. In response to now acknowledged facts such as rising global sea levels, commissioning channels like the BBC and PBS, who were once wary of environmental stories, are now programming films like Climate Chaos more frequently. But it is still a battle to get these films made.

In Climate Chaos we witness extraordinary events like the Amazon rainforest on fire, hurricane Katrina, and polar bears starving on melting Arctic ice. Film, unlike any other medium, can illustrate the gravity of scientific fact. Perhaps one climate change may beget another and the media will play a more positive role in educating the public about the issues facing our planet. In part I of the series, narrator David Attenborough says, “Now, we ourselves have become a force of nature. We are changing the climate. And what happens next really is up to us.”

New West sat down with Nicholas Brown, the producer of Climate Chaos, during the 2007 International Wildlife Film Festival in Missoula. Click here to listen in.

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