Witness the betrayal suffered by villagers in Papua New Guinea when their initial hopes are dashed by a Chinese government-owned mining company that doesn’t raise their standard of living but violently relocates them to a taboo sacred mountain. One young mother states her willingness to die with her children rather than move.
This scene comes from the Profit and Loss episode of the four-part series, Standing on Sacred Ground. The episode also tells of the First Nations people of Alberta, Canada, who suffer from rare cancers as their traditional hunting grounds are strip mined to unearth tar sands—the world’s third-largest oil reserve.
Standing on Sacred Ground chronicles indigenous people in eight communities around the world standing up for their traditional sacred lands in defense of cultural survival, human rights and the environment. Watch them stand against industrial mega-projects, consumer culture, resource extraction, competing religions, tourists and climate change.
Standing on Sacred Ground was produced by the Sacred Land Film Project, https://sacredland.org, a project of Earth Island Institute. To deepen public understanding of sacred places, indigenous cultures and environmental justice, the Film Project produces a variety of media and educational materials—films, videos, DVDs, articles, photographs, school curricula and other materials. The Sacred Land Film Project uses journalism, organizing and activism to rekindle reverence for land, increase respect for cultural diversity, stimulate dialogue about connections between nature and culture, and protect sacred lands and diverse spiritual practices.
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