Youth4Truth: Enabling Voices of the Amazon

featured_youth_filmThe Youth4Truth campaign is all about bringing video cameras, independent media training and editing computers to indigenous Amazon communities involved in the current mobilizations against their government's attempts to sell out their community lands to the multinational extractive industries.

Cameras are distributed to indigenous youth activists, community leaders and communities living in conflict areas where oil, gas, lumber and mining projects threaten their people's health, land and survival.

Having used my own resources to buy and bring 56 video cameras to Peru in June, I now count on all my friends to help support the cause by making a small donation. Your donation of even just 10 or 20 bucks can really add up!

I am planing to bring 50 more cameras, and am in the final stages of organizing two workshops in August with a focus on video activism.

In this day and age of film, technology and independent media--using websites like Blogger, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and Myspace--indigenous peoples of the Amazon embrace not only the opportunity to share their stories and messages with the world, but have learned  to use the power of film in their quest for justice and truth, using cameras as a strong defense against human rights abuses, environmental destruction, oppression and lies.

Comments

3
posted on Sep 20, 2009
Dolphins and whales are sentient creatures. They are self aware. Slaughtering them is a bestial action merely because we are greedy for their fish.
posted on Aug 16, 2009
The Japanese should be ashamed for prostituting themselves to third world countries like St. Kitts for a few bucks to gain their favor on the Int'l Whaling Commission. These poor blokes have no idea what's behind the Japanese slaughter of dolpins and whales. And so many people pretend to be religious. They care more about the almighty buck than about anything else.
posted on Aug 1, 2009
What Mr. O’Barry didn’t say on Fresh Air is that the marine mammal community around the world condemns the Japanese drive fisheries. I am a proud member of that community and have dedicated the last 22 years of my life working to educate the public about marine mammals. We work every day in rescue and rehabilitation, research, health assessments of wild animals and yes, public display. People don’t care about what they don’t know or experience. I’m willing to bet that everyone on this post can trace their care for dolphins back to first hand exposure. No doubt some of you have had the privilege to witness dolphins in the wild. That is not possible for the majority of the public, nor is it advisable. Imagine the over five million people a year that visit just Sea World in Florida going out on boats and crowding the waterways each year. The Alliance of Marine Mammal Parks and Aquariums (Alliance), the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA), the World Association for Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA), and the European Association for Aquatic Mammals (EAAM) are international organizations that have policies criticizing the drives. To quote a recent statement by the Alliance, “Not one of the almost 600 bottlenose dolphins in Alliance parks worldwide is from the drive fisheries.” These organizations represent the majority of zoological institutions that care for dolphins in public display facilities throughout the world. They do not condone or support the Taiji drive in any way shape or form. In fact, any US citizen participating in the drive is subject to the US Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Animal Welfare Act. Mr. O’barry’s statements are bold lies. The Taiji drive and resulting slaughter of dolphins is deeply disturbing. I witnessed gruesome footage of this practice many years ago and cannot bring myself to watch again. This movie is reportedly aimed at stopping this horrible slaughter, yet Fresh Air posed numbers of questions about zoos and aquariums with the implication that they are the culprits in this saga. Not once while on the program did O’Barry tell the public to express their outrage to the government of Japan or recommend any other action to stop the drives. His agenda, with the complicity of Fresh Air, was to demean zoos and aquariums. No one with any decency can defend or support the slaughter in Taiji. But Mr. O’barry isn’t trying to stop the slaughter, he’s using the “shock and awe” of Taiji in an attempt to associate this brutal and vile practice with the public display community. Our society today cares because they’ve enjoyed this exposure in zoological facilities for generations…it is the very reason that the footage in “The Cove” is so immensely disturbing. It is nothing short of outrage and insult to the thousands of dedicated professionals that O’barry claims the Taiji drive has anything at all to do with zoological professionals. The public display community is approximately 58 years old. The Taiji drive dates back more than 400 years.