A production of the Alder Institute, Tors Cove, Newfoundland,
A0A 4A0
http://alderinstitute.ca
2002
made with the support of the Government of Canada through the
Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).
Episode 1
Teaching the Coast: Canadians
and Cubans Teaching Coastal Zone Management in Cuba
Duration: 28:50
Voices: Canadians: Aldo Chircop, Bob McCalla, Pat Rodee, Tony
Charles and Cubans: Jorge Angulo Valdes, Clarita Miranda, Dictinio
Diaz and Maria Helena Castellanos. These voices are mixed with a sample of commercially
available cuban music performed by Compay Segundo.
Summary: This piece is a collage of interview extracts mixed
with cuban music to give it some pep. The main thrust of the project profiled
here is capacity building in human resources. While talking about coastal zone
management and how to design and offer a Masters program in it, participants
reflect on the international nature of the environment and its link to development,
the human qualities of the interaction and commonalities between Cuba and Canada.
Episode 2
Joanna Monk: A Canadian
Forestry Graduate in Belize
Duration: 26:50
Voice: Joanna Monk, a young Canadian volunteer working in Belize
Background Sounds: rain falling in a forest outside Punta Gorda
and the ambient sounds of birds present
Summary: An interview with Joanna Monk, a recent graduate in
forestry from Ontario. Joanna went to Belize as a volunteer to gain experience
in tropical forestry. In this interview we learn something about her experience
and the context of forestry in Belize.
Episode 3
After Iris
Duration: 27:00
Voices: Victor Cal, with ambient recordings of a group of men
talking at a meeting conducted by Victor Cal
Summary: Victor Cal works for the Belize Indigenous Training
Institute (BITI). BITI is an artifact of previous involvement by Canadian Inuit
in Belize. In the earlier CIDA funded project the Inuit Circumpolar Conference
helped establish BITI in Belize. In the fall of 2001 Hurricane Iris swept through
an area of southern Belize where BITI had established a traditional medicine
garden and where many of its members live. Trees and habitat were devastated.
In this program we spend a day with Victor Cal traveling to Mayan communities
in the hills of Toledo District to organize a salvage operation of trees downed
by the hurricane. We link potential increases in hurricane strength and frequency
with ideas about global climate change.
Episode 4
Land
Use Mapping: from the North to the South
Duration: 29:10
Voices: Valentino Shal, Kevin Knight and Peter Vanderwoude
Summary: Peter Vanderwoude is the GIS specialist hired by the
Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC) to train two Mayan Belizeans in the Toledo
District in land use mapping. Valentino Shal is the Director in Belize of the
CIDA funded Co-management Project between the ICC and the Maya Leaders Alliance
and Kevin Knight is the Project Manager based in Canada. In this piece we learn
about the Co-management project and how land use mapping and governance development
are shared needs between indigenous people of northern Canada and those of southern
Belize.
Episode 5
Keeping
the Beat: the Garifuna of Belize Part I
Duration: 27:31
Voices: Augustin Flores, Reverend Jerris Valentine, Austin
Rodriguez, HowNow, Bird
Music: two professional drummers illustrating several key rhythms
and a group playing at an all night traditional mourning event in which the
playing of drums occupies a central place.
Summary: The Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC) in an earlier
CIDA funded project helped to establish the Belize Indigenous Training Institute
(BITI). In this group the Maya and Garifuna peoples of Belize collaborated for
the first time. One consequence of this collaboration with the Canadians was
the installation of a community radio station facility in Dangriga for the Garifuna
community. The Garifuna community plans to use the station to represent their
culture in the hopes that this will assist in the conservation of their traditional
practices. One of the defining features of the Garifuna culture is the use of
drumming. This piece provides a showcase for this tradition through visits to
a drum maker, some drummers and a mourning celebration in which the drums play
a prominent role. An interview with Augustin Flores providing background on
the Garifuna culture and ICC connection forms the backbone of the piece. The
piece ends with excerpts from an interview with Rev. Diamond explaining the
cultural ceremony from which the ending audio recording comes.
Episode 6
Keeping
the Beat, the Garifuna of Belize, Part II
Duration: 28:48
Voices: Augustin Flores, Austin Rodriguez, kids drumming at
the drum makers
Music: Live field recordings of young kids playing the drums
at a drum makers workshop
Summary: A continuation of Episode 5 material.
Episode 7
From Toronto to Havana:
Bicycles Crossing Borders
Duration: 29:57
Voices: Nani Reddy, Eusebio Leal Spengler, several men and
women being trained at the Havana workshop
Music: bicycle sounds
Summary: Script and clip Documentary style background to the
CIDA funded project, Bicycles Crossing Borders from the man who spear headed
the project (Nani Reddy), cuban project trainees in bike mechanics and the cuban
partner the Office of the Historian of Havana (Eusebio Leal).
Episode 8
On
a Bicycle Built for Two: an Audio Tour of Havana
Duration: 28:36
Voices: Nani Reddy, Greg Furlong, Linda Nauman,
Music: Greg Furlong playing the melody of the song, A Bicycle
Built for Two on first the trombone and then the accordeon, recorded live
at the Project Workshop in Old Havana
And background sounds of bikes themselves, eg. spinning freewheel, changing
gears,
Summary: This piece weaves 3 threads of tape together in a
collage
a) Greg Furlong talking about bicycle mechanics and bicycle activism
b) Nani Reddy interviewed in a Toronto bike repair space recommending me a bicycle
route to follow on a bike ride around Havana, him remembering things about it
from when he was there
c) Myself and Linda Naumann riding a bicycle built for two around Havana following
the route recomended by Nani in b).
Episode 9
World Wildlife Fund Canada
in Cuba
Duration: 29:38
Voices: Julia Langer, Tony Perera, Hiram Gonzalez Alonzo
Background Sounds: commercially available bird recordings of
Bicknell’s Thrush (Bird Sounds of Canada by Monty Brigham in co-operation
with Canadian Museum of Nature).
Summary: World Wildlife Fund Canada project has been working
together with the National Centre of Protected Areas in Cuba to manage the natural
diversity and protect species in Cuba's Zapata wetland region. We find out something
about how and why this collaboration came about and how it has worked. We also
meet the Bicknell’s Thrush, a Canadian migratory bird that winters in
Cuba.
Episode 10
Sharing Habitat:
Endemics and Migrants, Cubans and Canadians
Duration: 29:35
Background Sounds: field recordings of our own plus commercially
available bird recordings from Bird Sounds of Canada by Monty Brigham in co-operation
with Canadian Museum of Nature.
Voices: Tony Perera, Hiram Gonzalez and Alejandro Llanes Sosa
Summary: We hear in more detail from World Wildlife Fund Canada’s
Cuban partner about the biological significance of the Zapata Swamp. We visit
the swamp with two cuban ornithologists and collect the first recording of an
endemic Zapata Wren chick in the wild. We also meet the voices of several Canadian
song birds that winter in Cuba.