A new model of conservation is emerging. It is one that values the role of local communities and reconciles protecting biodiversity with the use and management of resources. In the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in Michoacán, communities play a vital role in conservation efforts and several ...

Every year hundreds of cheetah cubs are stolen from the wild, decimating the dwindling population of Africa's most endangered big cat. For every 5 cubs that are taken, only 1 survives. Smuggled into the Middle East to be sold as exotic pets. Investigating this illegal trade and the role social me...

While industrial resource developments continue to put at risk our natural and cultural significance, people across Australia are standing their ground for nature. This is the story of five everyday Australians who are working with their communities to minimize the impacts of climate change on th...

Narrated by Robert Redford, Mother of All Rivers illustrates how one person can effect extraordinary change. In a country with growing socioeconomic inequality and human rights violations, Berta Cáceres rallied her indigenous Lenca people, waging a grassroots campaign to successfully pressure the...

The community of Lago do Mainá have lived with the forest and the river, nature for them is the most fundamental thing they have. However a military training base and increasing incursions by soldiers created tension between the community and the army. Through the use of social mapping the people...

As Singapore dredges sand out from beneath Cambodia’s mangrove forests, an ecosystem, a communal way of life, and one woman’s relationship to her beloved home are faced with the threat of erasure. For over a decade, the government of Cambodia has granted several private companies concessions to m...

A story about a bus that delivers legal remedies to women in rural Kyrgyzstan.

Director: Shanshan Chen, (Reporter) Adela Suliman
Producers: Shanshan Chen
4 min | Kyrgyzstan
Languages: Russian
Subtitles: English

FILMMAKER Q&A:
https://simaacademy.com/filmmaker-qa/justice-on-wheels/

This short film offers a portrait of the Isle de Jean Charles, a tiny island deep in the bayou’s of Southern Louisiana. The film explores the changes taking place on the island through the lives of two residents whose families are facing a future where rising seas, coastal erosion and storms are ...

As the global demand for the super food avocados has soared, Chile has become the world’s third largest exporter of avocados. But the community of Petorca, in northern Chile say drought and the insatiable appetite for avocados has brought desperate water shortages.

This film explores the quiet...

Brazil’s African slave descendants, the Quilombola, have fought a long and hard struggle for recognition. After the abolition of the slave trade they were left abandoned and ostracised, devoid of rights and outside of Brazilian mainstream society. But things are slowly changing amongst rural comm...

Targeted at students and teachers, this is a playful film that looks at education beyond the confines of a classroom. Children engage with the environment and have fun doing activities like composting, planting trees, recycling paper, learning about sustainable agriculture and water harvesting.
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The humble babassu palm provides a livelihood for communities of women across North Eastern Brazil. Bread, charcoal, oil and soap are produced from the nut and husk; the surplus is sold on. But production has not always been so peaceful. Babassu: Brazil’s Warrior Women tells the story of the hard...

Big Damage reveals the human face of logging in Papua New Guinea. It is a tale of exploitation and broken promises, where local people are treated as second-rate citizens in their own country by Malaysian logging companies and corrupt politicians.

Director: David Fedele
2011 | 23 min
Papua New ...

UN Special Rapporteur of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples meets the Standing Rock Sioux leadership and community in March 2017 after months of protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline.

On the 10th anniversary of the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the campaign has come to repr...

A Thousand Suns tells the story of the Gamo Highlands of the African Rift Valley and the unique worldview held by the people of the region. This isolated area has remained remarkably intact both biologically and culturally. It is one of the most densely populated rural regions of Africa yet its p...

Known to grow to the size of a small dog and live to 40 years old, the giant Tasmanian freshwater lobster is the largest of its kind in the entire world, but its home is being destroyed by sediment runoff from logging. However, there is hope – Todd Walsh the lobster man has grown up with this cr...