Transform wildlife film industry to combat climate change impact
Maasai morans track lions through a scrub at the Selenkay community conservancy in 2016. Some warriors abandoned their ancestral lion hunting role to instead protect the big cat under a conservation scheme, “Lion Guardians”.
Film has potential to contribute to addressing these challenges, especially now that almost 80 per cent of people have access to mobile phones.
Dozens of iconic wildlife films are set in my country, Kenya, almost all made by crews from the United States and Europe flown in at huge cost in money and carbon emissions.
In his opening address to COP26, Sir David Attenborough reminded delegates that “ultimately the climate emergency comes down to single number: The concentration of carbon in the atmosphere”.
In an article in the Guardian, James Lovelock had a slightly different message for participants: “I don’t know if it is too late for humanity to avert climate catastrophe,” he wrote, “but I am sure there is no chance is we continue to treat global heating and the destruction of nature as separate problems.”
