19. Not In The Brief

I have been itching to write this piece for weeks now, but have been fighting an internal battle between my conscience and my fear of the repercussions. I attribute my sudden courage to write it to my lecturer and the Annie Dillard article he gave us to read.

Dillard’s advice was, “Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting of solely terminal patients. That is, after all, the case….what could you say to a dying person that would not enrage by its triviality”.

So, determined not to be anything less than utterly vital I am compelled to write.

I write this not to be deliberately controversial or to raise hackles unnecessarily, but because it is my passion. You do not leave your friends, family and comfortable home just because you think that natural history documentary tickles your fancy. You do it because it stirs you.

My dilemma this that I have to choose between refraining from criticism of the organisation supporting my course and speaking out on behalf of the planet. I have chosen the greater cause.

We were given a lecture by an award winning natural history documentary film-maker, from Natural History New Zealand (NHNZ), who gave us great insight into the making of their latest award winning documentary.

Insights like the “truck loads” of materials that were used for reconstructing entire aquatic scenes in order to capture, literally, 7 minutes of never-before-seen footage of a never-before-seen animal, were astounding. When you see the footage you know the loads of trucks were worth it.

The documentary was about life at the equator. The footage breath-taking. The story incredible. Plants and animals that survive freezing nights and scorching days high up in the Andes. Each with a unique set of remarkable adaptations to survive life at the extreme. They only manage to survive however, because the temperature never drops below or sores above certain limits and thus, the difference between survival and death is a fine, very fine, line.

As incredible as this story of survival was, the burning question on my mind was how will global warming affect the fine balance of this Andean ecosystem? The answer was devastating to say the least: the glaciers are already disappearing and will probably be gone in 20 years.

For me, the hopelessness of this thought is overwhelming. Having just seen some of the most spectacular footage of animals never filmed before, the idea of it all disappearing was difficult to contemplate. The next question on my lips (and for at least one other in the audience) was'do you say as much in the film'?

The answer to this question, I must confess, was almost as unbelievable as the idea of the disappearance of an entire ecosystem in the space 20 years. ‘The effect of global warming was out side the brief of this film’.

Out side the brief? I was dumb struck. Exxon Mobil also has a brief that does not include environmental issues. An omission which has, and rightly so, meant they have come under serious pressure to include it. Does an industry whose livelihood is based on the continuation of the planet’s natural history also have a brief which excludes environmental issues? I am a little confused.

On second thoughts it starts to make sense. News Corp are the proud owners of NHNZ. I know little of the media in New Zealand, but Australia’s I know well. In Australia News Corp (or Murdoch, shall we say, since he is the proprietor and wields the power), has a 60 to 70 per cent market share in the print media. He is openly and proudly pro war in Iraq and thus, all his newspapers tow this editorial line.

It is no secret that Murdoch flouts the ‘editorial independence’ of his newspapers. It is unlikely he has any reservation about interfering with the independence of any other of his media outlets. What’s more, News Corp's own ‘Standards of Business Conduct’ and their ‘Statement of Corporate Governance’ make no mention of any environmental corporate responsibility so why would any of the subsidiary companies include environmental issues or responsibility in their brief.

But never mind the industry and its owners. When, as individual documentary makers, who are in a highly privileged position to get out our message to huge audiences, when do we decided to take responsibility for our own tiny, yet critical, contribution to the survival of the planet’s natural history?

In the case of this particular documentary (which I gather is up for an award and rightly so), I am left wondering what its purpose was if the environmental issues facing the ecosystem weren’t included?

Was it merely to get rare footage of a rare beast? To win prizes for such footage? Or should the purpose of Natural History documentary be to enable those less fortunate to get a glimpse of the breath-taking beauty of the natural world, in ways that educate, stimulate and inspire them to want to preserve it for generations to come?

If that is not our ultimate goal I can only hope that it will become so.

What’s more, as I understand it, documentary is all about ‘telling it like it is’. Surely the omission of such critical information is, in some way, a distortion of the facts?

As one of the next generation of natural history documenters I have to point out that if the current generation continues to take the stance “it wasn’t in their brief,” my generation will not have a brief.

If we, the natural history documenters, do not make it our mission, no matter the vested interests, ‘to put it in the brief’, then who on Earth will?