World

When Covid-19 reached Brazil’s Amazon, and an indigenous tribe sealed off its borders, director Alex Pritz found an innovative way to finish his documentary — he handed the cameras over to the Uru-eu-wau-wau themselves.

“The Territory,” to be released by National Geographic on Friday, follows the plight of some 200 hunter-gatherers who live in a protected area of rainforest, surrounded and encroached upon by aggressive and illegal settlers, farmers and loggers.

While shown in the movie dressed in traditional garb and honoring ancient customs, the Uru-eu-wau-wau and their young leader Bitate — the film’s main subject — were more than happy to use modern technology to fight back.

“When Covid happened, Bitate made the really bold decision to say ‘Okay, no more journalists coming into our territory, no more filmmakers, no more Alex, no more documentary crew, nobody,'” said Pritz.

“We had to have a conversation with him like, ‘Okay, are we done with the film? Do we have everything we need? Is there more? Should we start editing?’

“Bitate was really clear: ‘No, we’re not done. We still have a lot left to do. You guys weren’t done before, why should you be done now?

“‘Just send us better cameras, send us audio equipment, and we’ll shoot and produce the last part of the movie.'”

The result was a “co-production model” in which an Uru-eu-wau-wau filmmaker is credited as cinematographer, and the community more broadly acted as producers with a share of profits and a say in business decisions about the film’s distribution.

Besides enabling filming to continue into the pandemic, Pritz believes the decision to provide equipment and training directly to the Uru-eu-wau-wau benefited the film by adding a “firsthand perspective” on the group’s activities, which include patrolling the land to arrest interlopers.

“I shot a bunch of surveillance missions myself. None of them made the cut!” said Pritz.

“Not because we wanted to transfer the filmmaking… it was more raw, it was more urgent.”

– ‘Digital children’ –

Even before Pritz’s crew arrived, the Uru-eu-wau-wau had become adept at using the power of modern technology and media to champion their cause, positioning themselves on the global stage as guardians of a forest whose survival is bound up in issues of climate change and biodiversity.

“Bitate and this younger generation within the Uru-eu-wau-wau are digital children. He’s born in the late 90s. He’s on Instagram. And that’s part of how he engages with the world,” said Pritz.

When drones capturing stunning and harrowing footage of vast deforestation appear early in the documentary, many audiences assume they belong to the filmmakers, said Pritz. 

But in fact, the flying cameras were bought and are operated by the Uru-eu-wau-wau themselves.

“Whereas it would have taken four days to walk over a mountain range of thick, dense, old-growth rainforest… with the drone, you’re there in 30 minutes, you have images tagged with metadata,” said Pritz.

“People can’t argue with that.”

It is a stark contrast to the farmers and settlers, who are also central subjects of the film.

In astonishing footage, the documentary follows one group as they brazenly chainsaw and set ablaze protected forest, illegally clearing space for roads to territory they one day wish to settle and claim as their own.

Access was possible because many settlers see themselves as heroic pioneers, speaking in interviews to Pritz about opening up the rainforest for the good of their nation — a heady mix of “Wild West” cowboy culture borrowed from American movies, and nationalist propaganda stoked by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.

“The settlers were these naive people who had no understanding of the historical context of their actions, the ecological consequences, what they were doing for the rest of the planet,” said Pritz.

For the settlers, many of whom lack education or any other economic opportunities, “it was just about ‘me and mine,’ ‘just this one little plot,’ ‘if only I can get this.'”

“Whereas Bitate has this expansive outlook. He’s thinking about climate change. He’s thinking about the planet. He’s politically savvy, media-oriented.”

Water supplies to some US states and Mexico will be cut to avoid “catastrophic collapse” of the Colorado River, Washington officials said Tuesday, as a historic drought bites.

More than two decades of well below average rainfall have left the river — the lifeblood of the western United States — at critical levels, as human-caused climate change worsens the natural drought cycle.

Despite years of warnings and a deadline imposed by Washington, states that depend on the river have not managed to agree on a plan to cut their usage, and on Tuesday, the federal government said it was stepping in.

“In order to avoid a catastrophic collapse of the Colorado River System and a future of uncertainty and conflict, water use in the Basin must be reduced,” said Tanya Trujillo, assistant secretary for water and science at the US Interior Department.

Arizona’s allocation from the river will fall by 21 percent in 2023, while Nevada will get eight percent less. Mexico’s allotment will drop by seven percent.

California, the biggest user of the river’s water and the most populous of the western states, will not be affected next year.

The Colorado River rises in the Rocky Mountains and snakes its way through Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, California and northern Mexico, where it empties into the Gulf of California.

It is fed chiefly by snowpack at high altitudes, which melts slowly throughout the warmer months.

But reduced precipitation and the higher temperatures caused by humanity’s unchecked burning of fossil fuels means less snow is falling, and what snow exists, is melting faster.

As a consequence, there is not as much water in the river that supplies tens of millions of people and countless acres of farmland.

The states that use the water have been locked in negotiations over how to slash usage, but missed a Monday deadline to cut a deal, so Washington stepped in.

Officials in upstream states hit out Tuesday at what they saw as an unfair settlement, with California exempted from any cuts.

“It is unacceptable for Arizona to continue to carry a disproportionate burden of reductions for the benefit of others who have not contributed,” said a statement by Tom Buschatzke, director of the state’s Department of Water Resources and Ted Cooke, general manager of the Central Arizona Project. 

– Climate change –

Deputy Interior Secretary Tommy Beaudreau said his department — which oversees US water supplies — was “using every resource available to conserve water and ensure that irrigators, Tribes and adjoining communities receive adequate assistance.”

“The worsening drought crisis impacting the Colorado River Basin is driven by the effects of climate change, including extreme heat and low precipitation,” he said.

“In turn, severe drought conditions exacerbate wildfire risk and ecosystems disruption, increasing the stress on communities and our landscapes.”

The western United States is suffering under a drought that is now in its 23rd year, the worst episode in more than 1,000 years.

That drought has left swathes of the country dry and vulnerable to hotter, faster and more destructive wildfires.

Communities served by the Colorado River, including Los Angeles, have been ordered to save water, with unpopular restrictions in place on outdoor watering.

Those restrictions are unevenly adhered to, with some lawns — especially in the plushest parts of Los Angeles and its surroundings — still remarkably green.

A 10-year-old boy had part of his leg amputated after being bitten by a shark while snorkeling on vacation in the Florida Keys, his family has said.

Jameson Reeder Jr. was attacked on Saturday at Looe Key Reef, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said in a statement.

A Facebook post by his uncle Joshua Reeder said Jameson had gone on a boat trip with his parents and three other siblings and was snorkeling in a shallow reef when he “took a crushing blow below his knee,” by what they believed was an eight-foot-long bull shark.

Jameson was able to hold on to a noodle float and was rescued by his father, who applied a tourniquet to the leg and flagged down another, faster boat that raced the family ashore. 

The boy was then airlifted to the Miami Children’s Hospital where a medical team saved his life but was forced to amputate the leg below the knee.

“He is now out of surgery and resting,” wrote Joshua Reeder, crediting Jameson’s strong religious faith for helping him to survive the ordeal.

A GiveSendGo appeal by the family for financial assistance had surpassed its target of $50,000 as of Tuesday afternoon.

While a higher than normal number of shark encounters off the coast of New York this summer have attracted attention, the overall risk of being bitten by a shark remains low.

Global trends are now roughly stable after rising slightly over the past 30 years, partly due to increased recreational activity by humans, and recovery of vulnerable shark populations.  

Last year, there were 73 unprovoked attacks globally, according to the Florida Museum. Nearly every attack is a result of mistaken identity as sharks do not intentionally target humans.

Most attacks in the United States occur off the Atlantic coast of Florida, home to choppy waters and bait fish that several shark species feed on.

Polish firefighters said Tuesday they had recovered 100 tonnes of dead fish from the Oder river running through Germany and Poland, deepening concerns of an environmental disaster.

“We’d never had an operation of this scope on a river before,” said Monika Nowakowska-Drynda from the national firefighter press office.

She confirmed that around 100 tonnes (220,500 pounds) of dead fish had been recovered since Friday. 

The cause of death is uncertain, though officials believe the fish are likely to have been poisoned. 

“Probably enormous quantities of chemical waste was dumped into the river in full knowledge of the risk and consequences,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said last week.

But Climate and Environment Minister Anna Moskwa said on Tuesday that “none of the samples tested so far has shown the presence of toxic substances”.

She said the government was also looking into possible natural causes and in particular higher concentrations of pollutants and salinity as a result of lower water levels and high temperatures.

A third hypothesis being examined is that industrial waste water with a high chlorine content was poured into the river, she said.

Water samples have also been sent to laboratories in the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Britain in the hopes of finding the cause.

The first reports of mass fish deaths were made by Polish locals and anglers as early as July 28.

German officials have accused Polish authorities of failing to inform them about the deaths, and were taken by surprise when the wave of lifeless fish came floating into view.

In Poland, the government has also come under heavy criticism for failing to take swift action.

The Oder has over the last years been known as a relatively clean river, and 40 domestic species of fish are found in the waterway.

But now, dead fish — some reaching up to 40 centimetres (16 inches) — can be seen across the river.

Nowakowska-Drynda said more than 500 firefighters have been recovering the dead fish in Poland with the help of dams, boats, quad bikes and even a drone.