Gillian Moore

For the last two years, Sus­tain T&T has sen­si­tised lo­cal au­di­ences to en­vi­ron­men­tal and sus­tain­abil­i­ty is­sues through its film se­ries, Green Screen.Now, the non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion–ded­i­cat­ed to ed­u­ca­tion, in­for­ma­tion ex­change and pro­mo­tion of sus­tain­able liv­ing and in­dus­try–is get­ting in­to the pro­duc­tion of its own con­tent in a very mean­ing­ful way.Since No­vem­ber 2012, the group has been work­ing on a cli­mate change film. The work­ing ti­tle of the film is A Sea Change. The project, fund­ed by the UNDP's Glob­al En­vi­ron­ment Fund, fo­cus­es on cli­mate change is­sues in Diego Mar­tin/Pe­tit Val­ley, Ma­yaro and To­co.

Carv­er Bac­chus, di­rec­tor at Sus­tain T&T, is the pro­duc­er of the doc­u­men­tary, as well as its con­tent man­ag­er and in­ter­view­er. He ex­plains the ra­tio­nale be­hind the project:"T&T is feel­ing the ef­fects of cli­mate change, whether we are ready to ad­mit it or not."Some com­mu­ni­ties, by their ge­o­graph­ic lo­ca­tion or main sources of in­come, are more sus­cep­ti­ble to those ef­fects.

"We want­ed to hear from peo­ple in these com­mu­ni­ties who are en­gaged in sus­tain­able ac­tiv­i­ty; av­er­age peo­ple who are af­fect­ed by cli­mate change, such as fish­er­men, farm­ers, eco-tourism op­er­a­tors, school chil­dren, res­i­dents and mem­bers of NGOs."For ex­am­ple, Ma­yaro is unique­ly po­si­tioned. It is still rur­al but al­so a cen­tre of in­dus­tri­al ac­tiv­i­ty vis-�-vis oil and gas op­er­a­tions. As we all now know, the burn­ing of fos­sil fu­els af­fects the glob­al cli­mate bal­ance. Long term, these com­mu­ni­ties and Trinidad and To­ba­go at large will have to ex­plore oth­er op­tions for in­come gen­er­a­tion."

Bac­chus said the Diego Mar­tin, Mar­aval and Pe­tit Val­ley ar­eas were cho­sen af­ter res­i­dents there were hard-hit by flood­ing last year. The "freak event" typ­i­fies the un­ex­pect­ed cli­mate-re­lat­ed in­ci­dents that oc­cur when unchecked hu­man ac­tiv­i­ty, like lit­ter­ing and un­reg­u­lat­ed hill­side con­struc­tion com­bine with nat­ur­al forces."We want­ed to doc­u­ment peo­ple's ex­pe­ri­ences and find out what they are do­ing to be­come more re­silient in fu­ture against events like that."He said To­co, an­oth­er fish­ing vil­lage, has been ex­pe­ri­enc­ing de­plet­ed fish stock and bleach­ing of reefs in a trend that could see an end to their tra­di­tion­al way of life with­in a gen­er­a­tion. The film project will sug­gest some ways that they can adapt.

Bac­chus says work­ing on the Sea Change project is a nat­ur­al pro­gres­sion: "Sus­tain T&T has al­ways had an in­ter­est in pro­duc­ing com­mu­ni­ty com­mu­ni­ca­tion ve­hi­cles and, just as with Green Screen, we see film as an in­no­v­a­tive way to reach com­mu­ni­ties through edu­tain­ment."He notes that last year's film se­ries fea­tured an­i­mat­ed shorts pro­duced by the group about cli­mate change is­sues, with a lo­cal voice."Now, we're get­ting in­to more sub­stan­tive con­tent."Sus­tain T&T Board mem­ber Dawn Cum­ber­batch, of Doux Doux Dar­ling Pro­duc­tions, is the di­rec­tor of the film, while Michele Matthews, who worked on Green Screen last year, is project co­or­di­na­tor.

The ul­ti­mate aims of the project, Bac­chus says, go be­yond just mak­ing the movie. We want to even­tu­al­ly ex­hib­it the en­vi­ron­men­tal con­tent we cre­ate and use it to de­vel­op and ex­e­cute be­hav­iour change, through com­mu­ni­ty cam­paigns re­lat­ed to sus­tain­abil­i­ty and en­vi­ron­men­tal is­sues.With this in mind, the project has en­tailed go­ing in­to the com­mu­ni­ties, con­duct­ing the in­ter­views, look­ing at lo­cal re­al­i­ties, and sug­gest­ing some ame­lio­ra­tive tech­niques with the guid­ance of en­vi­ron­men­tal spe­cial­ists.Sus­tain T&T will en­gage in com­mu­ni­ty train­ing on cli­mate change is­sues, us­ing the film as a teach­ing tool. "We hope to trans­form par­tic­i­pants in­to am­bas­sadors of cli­mate change aware­ness, lo­cal ex­perts in their com­mu­ni­ties."Par­tic­i­pants will al­so gain the ben­e­fit of train­ing in the area of film pro­duc­tion, so they can go on to tell their own en­vi­ron­men­tal sto­ries through the medi­um of doc­u­men­taries."We will en­cour­age them to use the Green Screen plat­form, to sub­mit those works and be part of our se­ries."

The project is in post-pro­duc­tion and is ex­pect­ed be com­plet­ed next month. A Sea Change will be screened at Green Screen, a se­ries of com­mu­ni­ty out­reach screen­ings and at the launch of the UNDP's Knowl­edge Fair in June.Bac­chus says sup­port from com­mu­ni­ties has been good, but notes: "one of the more alarm­ing things is that peo­ple in gen­er­al don't un­der­stand the con­cept of cli­mate change. They see the neg­a­tive ef­fects but are not able to make the con­nec­tion to cli­mate change, and as a re­sult they feel quite pow­er­less."Cit­ing the ex­am­ple of the Diego Mar­tin floods, he says: "None of it is rock­et sci­ence. Unchecked de­vel­op­ment on hill­sides, slash and burn de­for­esta­tion, im­prop­er waste dis­pos­al–hese things have an im­pact. Cou­pled with un­usu­al con­cen­trat­ed and sus­tained rain­fall, well, we saw the re­sult.

"There are big is­sues that need to be tack­led at the pol­i­cy lev­el," he adds. "In Ma­yaro and To­co, it's clear that the lo­cal economies need to be di­ver­si­fied; com­mu­ni­ties can't de­pend on fish­ing alone any­more. Res­i­dents are re­al­is­ing it but haven't got­ten sup­port to forge a new di­rec­tion.""Hope­ful­ly, armed with the in­for­ma­tion from the film and the train­ing, they may feel a bit more em­pow­ered to do some­thing to en­sure the vi­a­bil­i­ty of these im­por­tant com­mu­ni­ties in the fu­ture."