Films with: McLeod, Christopher

In the light of reverence

Across the USA, Native Americans are struggling to protect their sacred places. Religious freedom, so valued in America, is not guaranteed to those who practice land-based religions. This film discusses the struggles of three indigenous communities to protect their sacred sites from rock climbers, tourists, strip-mining, development and New Age religious practitioners.

DVD 7157

Standing on sacred ground

Documents how indigenous peoples stand up for their traditional sacred lands in defense of cultural survival, human rights and the environment. Volume 1: Pilgrims and tourists: "Around the world, indigenous communities stand in the way of government megaprojects. In the Russian republic of Altai, people create their own mountain parks to rein in tourism and resist a gas pipeline that would cut through a World Heritage Site. In Northern California, Winnemem Wintu girls grind herbs on a sacred rock, as elders protest government plans to enlarge one of the West's biggest dams and forever submerge this touchstone of a tribe." Volume 2: Profit and loss: From Papua New Guinea rainforests to Canada's tar sands, Profit and Loss exposes industrial threats to native peoples' health, livelihood and cultural survival. In Papua New Guinea, a Chinese government owned nickel mine has violently relocated villagers to a taboo sacred mountain, built a new pipeline and refinery on contested clan land, and is dumping mining waste into the sea. In Alberta, Canada, First nations people are facing rare cancers as their hunting grounds are stripmined. Volume 3: Fire and ice: : "From Ethiopia to Peru, indigenous customs protect biodiversity on sacred lands under pressure from religious conflicts and climate change. In the Gamo Highlands of Ethiopia, scientists confirm the benefits of traditional stewardship/indigenous customs that protect biodiversity, even as elders witness the decline of spiritual practices that have long protected trees, meadows and mountains. Tensions with evangelical Christians over a sacred meadow erupt into a riot. In the Peruvian Andes, the Q'eros, on a pilgrimage to a revered glacier, are driven from their ritual site by intolerant Catholics. Q'eros potato farmers face a more ominous foe: global warming is melting glaciers, their water source. Andes farmers, scientists and visiting Ethiopians struggle to adapt indigenous agriculture to the changing climate." Volume 4: Islands of sanctuary: "Native Hawaiians and Aboriginal Australians resist threats to their sacred places in a growing international movement to defend human rights and protect the environment. In Australia's Northern Territory, Aboriginal clans maintain Indigenous Protected Areas and resist the temptation and destructive effects of a mining boom. In Hawaii, indigenous ecological and spiritual practices are used to restore the sacred island of Kahoolawe after 50 years of military use as a bombing range." http://standingonsacredground.org/learn-more/synopses

DVD 12577