‘Thank you so much for your fantastic videos. They are deeply moving in their simplicity. The videos are very moving, – a very clear way of communicating this huge catastrophe on an intimate scale.‘ Kevin Buckland, Art Ambassador, 350.org 2010.

Short film essay consisting of memories of a place threatened by climate change / rising seas that with visual/sound edit connects global ecological concerns to local land remediation actions. Again, rather than presenting facts, a poetic style and sensations of these environments are employed rather than scientific fact to engage viewers.

Film notes

Rising sea levels, birds and forests on the other side of the world – all our actions are connected.

This 2009 film incorporates old footage I took on a biodiversity research trip to Suwarrow; a remote, un-peopled atoll in the Cook Islands, South Pacific, in 2000.

Suwarrow is an important breeding place for seabirds of all types including the rare and very large Masked Booby; her and fellow scientist Dr. Rhys Jones collected data was later published in the NZ Forest and Bird Journal 2001 and the project was a jointly sponsored UN and Cook Island project. While the trip may look idyllic, Cathy almost drowned when the yacht she and her colleague hitched a lift with was hit by a freak wave. Her new digital camcorder was destroyed but her old Hi8 survived to take this footage.

An article about this trip is here

**Thanks to Dan Berridge/Broadway Project for the use of his music in this film.

Film history:

2011 Roger Malina, editor of Leonardo http://malina.diatrope.com/2011/02/25/once-i-counted-birds/#comments
10.10.10 Submitted to the global day of climate action at http://www.350.org
2010 entered into the Darklight /EU Commission My Film My Environment 1 min film festival
2010 3rd Malaysian EcoFilm Festival
2010 Shown at the Shankhill International Arts Festival, Kilkenny
2010 Selected for Wylie OHagan Online festival
2010 Selected for Carlow Eigse Film Programme in the Carlow Omniplex Cinema
2009 Screened at FutureProof Kilkenny Green Screen
2009 entered the International Guardian sponsored 1minutetosavetheworld Climate Change Film Festival

Related articles

• burning bright (ecoartfilm.wordpress.com)