It occurred to me, as I was writing my personal Wilderness Diary blog, how easy it is to enjoy the pretty pictures of all the incredible wildlife that surrounds the AEFF headquarters, and our home, here in the Tsavo region of Kenya. It struck me that it might be easy to forget sometimes that our work here has a very serious and critical mission, for the natural wonders which surround us are every day are being threatened across the continent – indeed across the world. Everything we enjoy today, could be gone tomorrow…

For example, while the river below our house is a daily delight to behold with all its wildlife dramas unfolding before our eyes (and yours if you follow my blog), take a look at these images taken from AEFF’s films which show what is happening to the environment not so far away from here, and in many other parts of Africa...

This is why AEFF makes films: to show people what is happening to their environment (both positively and negatively) and, through showing successful working examples and highlighting role models in the environmental field, illustrating how people really can improve their livelihoods by adopting environmentally sustainable ventures.

And does education through film really work?

To answer that question, I’d like to quote from a report sent to us by one of our key distribution partners, Amara Conservation (a US non profit working alongside AEFF in Kenya, who using their mobile cinemas show our films to over 100,000 children and adults each year). It’s quite a long account, but please do read it if you can, for I think it clearly demonstrates the very real effects our films are having in the rural areas of East Africa, as well as highlighting the important role played by our distribution partners in disseminating our films far and wide:

“…We have shown films all over Kenya but mostly focused our work on the borders of the Tsavo National Parks. We focus here for several reasons including the remoteness of the populated areas and therefore the need for the information, the significance of the habitat for wildlife, and the infrastructure that is in place in the communities whereby most people belong to groups of various kinds and therefore have the ability to come together to institute changes. These changes can only occur if people want to make them, and through your educational films, we have clearly seen changes in the minds of many.

These are manifested in many different ways. Indeed, if we didn’t see these changes occurring, we would not show the films!

What has happened in our areas of key focus in the Taita Hills region (an area of highest human wildlife conflict in Kenya according to the Kenya Wildlife Service) is that people are now asking to be helped to make the changes that they now see as important. They are living rather marginal lives eking a living growing traditional crops of maize, cowpeas and holding minimal livestock, mostly goats and sheep. The area is very arid and the soil is not conducive to farming – the people have only moved into the area in the last 60 years due to population growth. They are now seeing that the agricultural practices they are maintaining are actually causing damage to the land, that the bushmeat they consume is destructive and not sustainable, and they want to make changes.

This has come to be because we have shown films repeatedly, in several communities/schools/churches/market centres around the area. Over time, people have come to know that when the Amara Land Rover arrives it means “CINEMA” and they all come. They are taking in the information in the films in a very real way.

In some key areas, specifically the Group Ranches of Mbulia, Kishushe, Maungu, Sagalla, and Mugeno – the people are now looking to form wildlife sanctuaries on their land. For Mbulia and Kishushe this is very critical – as each ranch is in a key elephant migration route/seasonal feeding ground, and outsiders before have approached each to lease land and make sanctuaries/put up camps or lodges - yet they have always refused. NOW, they are actively seeking to make these sanctuaries a reality as they know the benefits to them in terms of financial gain and more importantly – they now want to stop the destructive practices they have been engaging in for years.

The fact that these communities who live on the border of the biggest Park in East Africa, with the highest level of human elephant conflict – have formed committees, lobbied amongst their members, made trips to view their areas for tourism, attended workshops to learn about running sustainable group projects – this has come to be because of what was learned in the AEFF films, combined with the meetings and discussions that we have held in conjunction with those films.

There are innumerable instances when I have seen eyes wide opened, people from 5 to 80 years of age really beginning to understand the role that humans play in the larger environment, even beyond the village boundaries where they may not ever have traveled, and the evidence of which can only be shown through the medium of film. Once they learn about how the animals live, how the trees and water are intertwined, once they SEE THIS – it’s not just ‘film’, but the AEFF films in particular…”

Lori Bergemann
Executive Director - Amara Conservation

The Amara Conservation mobile cinema screen is erected on the side of their specially adapted Land Rover, ready for the screening of one of AEFF's educational films.

You can read more Testimonials attesting to the importance of AEFF's films as teaching tools here. From these testimonials you can see how AEFF's films are having a positive effect both at a local level and at a national level.

Thank you.

As you know from previous updates, “Kuruwitu: Between a Rock and a Hard Place” is one of the films we are currently producing under the Inspiration series. (If you would like to refresh your memory about this project, you can read our earlier posts about this film's progress here and here.)

To follow is Simon Trevor’s latest field report, describing progress on the Kuruwitu project (don’t miss the photo-story which follows his account, showing the extraordinary success of the No Fishing Zone in rehabilitating Kuruwitu’s marine environment):

Our film work at Kuruwitu could go on forever, for there are so many exciting changes taking place, and I have no doubt this will carry on for years. However, we shall obviously have to close the first chapter of this story soon. We can’t go on forever - even if we would like to!

Lesley Hannah, cold and exhausted after another successful dive. Lesley is holding one of AEFF's cameras in a special underwater housing which has enabled her to get such amazing footage of the changes taking place beneath the waves at Kuruwitu.

So it looks like AEFF shall have a camera team on the coast for a long time (as long as we can raise enough funding to make all these films!) What is interesting to note is that this need for films on the coast is repeated time and time again across the country, and indeed across the region. I have been struck many times by how many parallels there are between the forests and savannas and the marine environment. Now there’s another idea for a film…

You'll remember that in my previous post about progress on this film, I had promised to post some images...so here we have it: The Kuruwitu story in pictures…

BEFORE THE NO FISHING ZONE WAS FORMED AT KURUWITU:

This is Kuruwitu in 2006, but it resembles much of Kenya’s underwater landscape beyond the Marine Parks these days. Huge areas have been denuded by irresponsible tourism (people breaking the coral heads with their feet while snorkeling), by over-utilization of fish and all other marine life has removed the creatures which keep the sea urchins in check, and by the effects of El Nino over ten years ago.

This was a typical sight before Kuruwitu was formed. Sea Urchins have completely destroyed this coral head, which has probably been living here for four hundred years. This area used to be one of the finest coral gardens on the East African coast but it was decimated by people’s feet trampling the coral while snorkeling and by the rough waters stirred up by the El Nino weather system in 2006. Most of the fish were caught and taken away for the aquarium trade. Some of the coral would also have been sold as living specimens across the world.

A new emerging coral head is fed upon by a sea urchin. “Urchin” is an old word for a spiny hedgehog. The urchins feed on the algae, which coat the coral and, as they do this, they undermine the coral heads, which then collapse. As a result of the removal of the creatures which feed on urchins, their numbers had risen so that new coral like this one could never grow to maturity.

Sea Urchins have completely devastated this area – scientists now term it “urchin barren”.

This man is searching for “the last” baby octopus. Local traditional fishermen have seen their stocks of fish plummet as more and more people arrive at the coast to concentrate on removing anything edible from the shallow waters along the reefs. Additionally more efficient fishing nets, scuba diving equipment, and motorized boats have increased the catches to such an extent that today, there is hardly anything left. So now there is little hope for a better life from fishing for most of the population along the coast, and other alternatives need to be found.

Tidal pools like this one are completely devoid of fish and no longer hold breeding fish stocks at low tide. These pools have been denuded of all life by over-exploitation, including by the international aquarium trade.

These coral reef fish represent the desperation that coastal people now face in their struggle for survival, for these are not traditional food species. Due to over-exploitation of fish all along Kenya’s 500km coastline, there are no larger fish here any more. These reef fish have far more value attracting tourists who will pay time and time again to come and see them, but faced with hunger and no other options, people have no choice but to eat them.

AFTER THE NO FISHING ZONE WAS FORMED AT KURUWITU:

These men are members of the Kuruwitu Conservation and Welfare Association. They are not wealthy in material terms but they have the most extraordinary asset right on their doorstep. The No Fishing Zone that they have voluntarily created is recovering and will soon provide the foundation for a better standard of living for this coastal community. Supported now by the Kenya Government and with funding from a European Union/Kenya Government financial grant, the local people will have the means to conduct snorkeling and glass bottom boat tours to their coral gardens. They now have the opportunity to change their way of life from fishing to tourism. This is only possible because of the astonishing recovery of the Kuruwitu area, for which they must take much of the credit.

There are thousands of different types of coral across the world. You may find this hard to believe but a coral is an animal. Thousands of free-swimming larvae drift across the oceans before attaching themselves to rocks where they develop into billions of living polyps, which secrete calcium carbonate skeletons. Over thousands of years whole reefs are formed in this way. People benefit from healthy reefs in many diverse ways.
The protection of this reef by the Kuruwitu Conservation and Welfare Association is probably one of the most far reaching and important events in Kenya’s recent marine history.
After seeing our film there is no telling how many more communities will also see the wisdom of their actions and emulate the model in their own areas, in order to secure healthy fish stocks for themselves and for future generations.

Prior to the formation of the No Fishing Zone by the Conservation Association, the aquarium trade had removed nearly all the fish but here is living proof of the Association’s success and their determination and courage in the face of opposition from many sides. They have to contend not only with the professional aquarium traders in Kenya, who remove an uncontrolled number of fish and even living coral (on which fish rely for safe refuges and breeding places), but also with some other local fishing communities alongside the Kuruwitu area who have yet to see the benefits to all brought about by a No Fishing Zone and say they have sold the sea.

Here’s another urchin killer. This large ferocious Black Barred or Picasso Trigger fish is responsible for keeping those coral wreckers in check. But this fish is in great demand as an aquarium fish. It was aquarium suppliers who denuded the original Kuruwitu coral gardens and if it were not for the Conservation Association members, they would still be carrying out their destructive trade.

A QUESTION FOR US ALL…

Beautiful Helmet Shells like this one have been removed from the coastal waters in their hundreds of thousands to sell to tourists. These creatures feed on sea urchins, and so the end result is that sea urchins proliferate uncontrollably. They are not the only creatures that kills urchins and keeps their population in check but their almost total removal from the underwater environment has had a significant effect.

It has been calculated that the international seashell trade removes 2,200 tons of shells per year from the ocean. Why is it that we humans must remove everything we can from our environment when it looks so much more beautiful and natural in its rightful place? How many parents still encourage their children to collect shells during a stroll along the beach? In today’s world, there are just not enough shells left for that luxury.

Would you buy one of these cowrie shell necklaces after learning and seeing the effect of removing marine creatures from their natural home on Kenya’s coral reefs?

Please help us complete this educational film!

AEFF requires a further $5,000 to complete the filming and postproduction work on this film. This will cover the cost of the editing, the writing, translating and recording of the narration (in English and Kiswahili, and hopefully in Giriama too - the tribal language of this coastal area) and all other finishing costs.

In addition, we need to raise $3,750 to produce 500 multi-language DVD copies of the film for free distribution across Africa via our network of distribution partners including mobile cinemas, conservation organizations, educational institutions, terrestrial and satellite TV. This includes the cost of creating a DVD master, producing the covers, replicating the DVDs, packaging each DVD into a cover, freight of the DVDs from UK to Kenya (there are no reliable replication facilities in East Africa at present) and the significant cost of distributing each DVD to remote places across the continent.

Once completed, this film will be seen by millions of people in its first year alone, and will forever endure as an important educational and historical document, charting the progress at Kuruwitu, and setting an example for others to follow in order to create a better life for themselves, without destroying the environment. Please help if you can:

Thank you.

Catch up on previous tales of Kuruwitu through our earlier posts:
17th March 2008: Leaking Canoes but no dampening of spirits...
13th March 2008: Filming and Progress Report on two marine film projects...