In 2010 Australia was facing the worst drought on history, but the death of the Murray Darling River had been written much earlier in European management without regard for Australia’s realities.
Tired of watching his ancestral home the Coorong die Ngarrindjeri elder Major Sumner united a group of different aboriginal nations from along the river on a 2300 kilometre pilgrimage to sign the spirit back into the river and into themselves.
By the time they had finished the drought had broken and what followed was the wettest wet season in living memory with floods throughout the basin. In 2011 the Aboriginal families retraced their ritual pilgrimage down the rivers from Southern Queensland to South Australia, and around them the river and the floods had transformed land. But in their lives the same struggles continued, and in the news the rest of Australia had already forgotten how close we all came to killing the river, and running out of water.
This is the story of a group of aboriginal families living between two worlds, struggling to have the knowledge of the world’s oldest surviving cultures heard in the national debate over how to live along Australia’s greatest river. And it is the story of two very different aboriginal leaders, Major Sumner and Cheryl Buchanan, traditional owners from either end of the Murray Darling River, elders, veterans of the tent embassy. Bound together by the rivers, the stories and their work to sing the spirit back into the land, their people, and the lives of their grandchildren.
Seasonal rice harvests in the Mekong River Delta are threatened by the rise of sea tides due to climate change.
This film is part of the Mekong Diaries; Goodmorningbeautiful travelled the length of the Mekong, the world’s last wild great river, as the forces of development change it forever.
At the mouth of the river, climate change is affecting of the lives of both those who fish the river and those who fish in the sea.
This film is part of the Mekong Diaries series; Goodmorningbeautiful travelled the length of the Mekong, the world’s last wild great river, as the forces of development change it forever.
The Mekong Delta has traditionally served as a nexus of commerce to the people of South Vietnam, but now development is threatening the way of life for millions who call the Delta home.
This film is part of the Mekong Diaries series; Goodmorningbeautiful travelled the length of the Mekong, the world’s last wild great river, as the forces of development change it forever.
As Expedition Blue Planet explored the Colorado River’s headwaters, John Wesley Powell’s name came up again and again. In this short film Alexandra Cousteau, and the experts she interviewed, elaborate on the story of this remarkable man who rafted the Colorado’s uncharted waters in the late 1800s and foretold of its mismanagement long before it was tamed.
A behind the scenes video introducing the 2010 Expedition Blue Planet crew.
Alabama is home to the greatest wealth of freshwater and marine biodiversity in North America. As the BP oil spill continues to cast its shadow over the Gulf Coast, scientists keep a vigilant eye on frogs, sharks, and sperm whales–all indicator species and proxies for ecosystem effects caused by the oil spill and its clean-up efforts.
In July, Expedition Blue Planet explored the headwaters of the Colorado River to investigate how this mighty river is overallocated from the moment its waters touch the ground up in the Rocky Mountains, where the Continental Divide rises like a spine and demarcates the Mississippi watershed that lies to the East from the Colorado watershed that falls to the West. Today we find that this iconic river still means life for the 20 million people who live in its basin — just as it did for the Native Americans, just as it did for the settlers who drove West and claimed it as their own. But the truth is, the minute it touches the ground, we’ve allocated every drop and too often we’re not even judicious in how we use it. In this short film, we speak to key voices in the headwaters region and chart the path of the river’s flow to investigate water use and management issues in the American West. Here, it’s all about what’s downstream.
© Blue Legacy International
Hoover Dam is the heart of the American west’s water supply, a powerhouse for irrigation and farming in the region. But today a combination of drought and overuse have drained it half dry leaving a 135 foot high “bathtub ring” mark around Lake Mead. Will America’s largest reservoir ever fill up again as the water wars between cities, farmers and nature play out? Alexandra Cousteau’s Expedition Blue Planet investigates.
© Blue Legacy International
Expedition Blue Planet 2009 chronicled the interconnectivity of water. A key aspect of the project was its ability to show how individual stories are part of the larger, universal story of an interdependent, global water ecosystem. In this way, we created a new vision for what it means to live in a world where water is our most precious resource, and a plan for what we must do to protect it.
© Blue Legacy International
The Mekong River, a mother for millions in South East Asia now under threat by dams, development and climate change. Expedition travels to the heart of the river in Cambodia where locals fear for their future if large hydropower projects are built on their river.
© Blue Legacy International
Expedition: Blue Planet’s first stop in India is Varanasi, the most ancient and most holy place in India, a pilgrimage destination for millions of Hindus who gather to pay homage to a living goddess- the Ganges River.
On the banks of the Mekong in the capital of Laos in Vientiane, people lives are intimately connected to the river.
Washington DC casts a long shadow. Just a few miles from the Mall – famous for the White House, Lincoln Memorial, and Washington Monument – lies a troubled world that bears little resemblance to these iconic representations of democracy. No mobs of tourists throng the streets snapping photos there. Few world leaders ever visit.
Anacostia, in southeast Washington, D.C., is famous for entirely different reasons. It has one of the highest murder rates in the world. And its river is one of the most polluted in the country.
© Blue Legacy International
Anacostia, in southeast Washington, D.C., has one of the highest murder rates in the world. And its river is one of the most polluted in the country.
In this dark landscape, home to so much violence to nature and human beings alike, the Earth Conservation Corps shines a bright light. Part of AmeriCorps, a government-funded public service program, ECC’s mission for the past 17 years has been: “To empower our endangered youth to reclaim the Anacostia River, their communities, and their lives.”
Alexandra Cousteau interviews ECC President, Bob Nixon.
© Blue Legacy International
The longest river in the USA and third largest in the world, the Mississippi drains 40 percent of the country, including the majority of its farming heartland. At present, there are no federal laws governing pollution being dumped into the Mississippi River, and last year alone some 817,000 tons of nitrogen made its way into the Gulf of Mexico via the river. These agricultural chemicals have led to the largest ever ‘deadzone’ (an area so starved of oxygen that it cannot sustain life) in the history of the Gulf.
The Mississippi River is one of the largest rivers in the world and drains 40% of the USA. Chemical fertilizers from industrial agriculture and urban runoff are contributing to create one of the largest dead zones in the world in the Gulf of Mexico.
© Blue Legacy International
The longest river in the USA and third largest in the world, the Mississippi drains 40 percent of the country, including the majority of its farming heartland. At present, there are no federal laws governing pollution being dumped into the Mississippi River, and last year alone some 817,000 tons of nitrogen made its way into the Gulf of Mexico via the river. These agricultural chemicals have led to the largest ever ‘deadzone’ (an area so starved of oxygen that it cannot sustain life) in the history of the Gulf.
Farmers and fishermen share one thing in common: the Mississippi River watershed. In this video, the team compares how both impact and are impacted by degradation of the river and its natural systems.
© Blue Legacy International
Alexandra and the team spend their final days on the Mississippi River visiting again with the Cajun people living at the frayed edges of the bayou close to the Gulf of Mexico. Talk to any locals here and you’ll find that their biggest concern is land loss. Louisiana is disappearing into the Gulf of Mexico at the rate of 25 to 35 square miles of land a year, nearly a football field every hour.
© Blue Legacy International
Anacostia, in southeast Washington, D.C., has one of the highest murder rates in the world. And its river is one of the most polluted in the country.
In this dark landscape, home to so much violence to nature and human beings alike, the Earth Conservation Corps shines a bright light. Part of AmeriCorps, a government-funded public service program, ECC’s mission for the past 17 years has been: “To empower our endangered youth to reclaim the Anacostia River, their communities, and their lives.”
Alexandra Cousteau interviewed ECC volunteer, Patric Frazier.
© Blue Legacy International
Anacostia, in southeast Washington, D.C., has one of the highest murder rates in the world. And its river is one of the most polluted in the country.
In this dark landscape, home to so much violence to nature and human beings alike, the Earth Conservation Corps shines a bright light. Part of AmeriCorps, a government-funded public service program, ECC’s mission for the past 17 years has been: “To empower our endangered youth to reclaim the Anacostia River, their communities, and their lives.”
Alexandra Cousteau interviewed ECC eagle wrangler, Rodney Scott.
© Blue Legacy International
St. Louis marks a dividing line in the Mississippi River. To the north, in Minnesota, it is a national treasure attracting more people for recreation than Yellowstone National Park. To the south, it is hardly a river anymore. It more closely resembles a drainage pipe.
As it journeys through the middle of America, the Mississippi suffers the bombardments of human civilization, deteriorating with each mile. Several factors contribute to its degradation. For one, the river becomes more and more polluted with run-off from the whopping 40 percent of US land that it drains: chemical fertilizers from agriculture, industrial toxins, as well as sewage and waste. By the time it reaches Louisiana, the water is so filthy that the government advises against eating the fish or swimming in the river.
© Blue Legacy International
Alexandra Cousteau speaks with Louisiana native Tab Benoit, President of Voice of the Wetalnds. Benoit has watched the wetlands of Louisiana disappear over the years with his own eyes. He believes they can be saved by letting the Mississippi River run its natural course.
© Blue Legacy International
The Tonle Sap, the largest inland lake in South East Asia is geographically and culturally the centre of Kindgom of Cambodia. The flooded forests of this epic inland sea, are so rich in fishstocks that they provide nutrition for the entire nation.
© Blue Legacy International
Alexandra Cousteau interviews Carl Middleton from International Rivers on the Mekong River as it flows through Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
© Blue Legacy International
