FILM
Synopsis
This feature documentary could have been called: “An Operation Manual for Planet Earth”, “EcoRevolution”, “The Great Hope” or “Problem Planet: Earthbound Solutions”. It’s called Earth Keepers. We meet the young Québécois activist Mikael Rioux who founded Échofête, Quebec’s first environmental festival; the iconic Christian de Laet, Ashok Khosla, the charismatic president of Development Alternatives, the largest alternative development NGO in the world; as well as Karl-Henrik Robèrt, the brilliant Swedish oncologist turned sustainable development guru.
We also get a chance to look at the innovative projects of John Todd, the ecological designer whom MIT hailed as one of the 35 most significant inventors of the 21st century. His companion, Nancy Jack Todd, talks about the origins of their avant-garde “New Alchemy” movement. We travel to Zurich, the heart of international finance, with the humanist economist Peter Koenig; we meet Marilyn Melhmann, the driving force behind the Global Action Plan; and we listen to a heart-to-heart conversation with Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of the Green Belt Movement.
Now available on DVD, Earth Keepers, with its eloquent imagery, evocative soundtrack and dynamic editing, conveys clear-minded hope and is a remarkable, inspiring survival guide for all those who refuse to give up, despite the enormity of our challenges.
Frightening rumours are spreading, the economy is faltering, pollution continues apace, children are going hungry, climate change is accelerating: our planet is in full-blown crisis. Slam poet Ivy proclaims: “Les carottes de la calotte polaire sont cuites!” (“The polar ice cap’s goose is cooked!”) The tone is set. The diagnosis has been made. Now is the time for action.
Earth Keepers traces the quest of Mikael Rioux, a young activist from Trois-Pistoles, Quebec, who first lobbied to save the river he loved as a child and has gone on to defend a plethora of environmental causes. Once an angry young man, now a young father, concerned about the legacy he will leave to his son, Mikael has shown courage and a will to learn, serving as a role model for all of us. “I finally got fed up with just raising issues,” he says. “I wanted to find answers and concrete solutions.” That credo drives his quest, and is also the common thread in this inspiring documentary that takes viewers along the road of his discoveries.
Mikael meets a mentor: 80-year-old Christian de Laet. In 1967, as secretary of the Canadian congress of ministers of natural resources, Laet led the first-ever nationwide conference on pollution. Five years later, he took part in the first large-scale, worldwide meeting on the environment, organized by the United Nations in Stockholm. In 1992 he was named one of the twelve “wisdom keepers” at the Rio Earth Summit. De Laet suggests that Mikael find out more about the work of some of the key visionaries behind innovative projects with promise for the future of society. When Mikael asks which is the most urgent of the changes we need to make, de Laet replies: “Citizens must reappropriate their own power. You can’t say, ‘It’s the mayor’s fault, for neglecting this or that.’ Those days are over! We have to spearhead change.”
De Laet sends Mikael to India to visit his friend Ashok Khosla. The newly elected president of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), co-president of the Club of Rome, the renowned international think tank, and a consultant to the United Nations Environment Programme, Koshla is a bona fide force of nature. The agency Development Alternatives, which he cofounded with de Laet en 1983, has developed practical, accessible and simple technologies for local communities, which are now an established model in developing countries everywhere.
Mikael also discovers the work of Canadian John Todd, named by MIT as one of the 35 most important inventors of the 20th century. This “eco-designer” recently won the Buckminster Fuller Award, and has received numerous other honours, including the Environmental Merit Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He teaches and practises “biomimetics,” which uses nature’s own recycling processes as a model for processing the waste produced by human activity. With his “living machines,” Todd has developed a highly effective method of waste water reclamation.
Mikael’s journey also takes him to Sweden, the most sustainable country on the planet, where he becomes acquainted with the remarkable work of Karl-Henrik Robèrt and The Natural Step (TSN), a model for teaching corporations (among them Ikea, Interface and McDonald’s) and municipalities how to integrate the cycles of nature into their management practices. The TNS method uses four situational analysis principles and suggests solutions based on a creative vision of the future. TNS is now established on five continents, and founder Robèrt has garnered prestigious accolades such as Mikhail Gorbachev’s Green Cross Millennium Award (1999) and the Blue Planet Award (2000).
Lastly, Mikael meets Wangari Maathai, founder of the Green Belt Movement and winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize. The GBM has planted 30 million trees in Kenya, despite harassment from politicians as well as the police, and the imprisonment of some of its members. Maathai’s key message is that Kenyan women have reclaimed the power to restore their environment. Her words are an inspiration to Mikael, who returns home driven by a new sense of urgency and confidence.
After meeting these realist visionaries, Mikael returns home pumped up, confident and driven by a sense of urgency. Therein lies the great strength of this documentary: this young man’s inquiry becomes our own, and a vibrant plea to end our lethargic ways.
Earth Keepers, with its eloquent imagery, evocative soundtrack and dynamic editing, conveys clear-minded hope and is a remarkable, inspiring survival guide for all those who refuse to give up, despite the enormity of the challenges they may face. The film teems with magnificent images, reminding us of the beauty of the planet we are called upon to save. The soundtrack borrows from a wealth of rhythms and evocative sounds. Enriched by words and pictures, it speaks to our senses, and invites both celebration and reflection.
Following earlier works in which she cast her careful, sensitive gaze on more intimate subjects, director Sylvie Van Brabant here tackles her biggest challenge: countering pessimistic observations about a world rushing headlong toward doom, and offering new avenues. When, at the end of the film, Ivy raps about “avoir l’audace de porter sur la grand’ place l’espoir du changement” (“daring to go public with hope for change”), he is also saluting Van Brabant’s efforts.
Earth Keepers is about clear-minded, active hope. It is a vital, inspiring plea to change our apathetic ways and bring about change.