Press Release -- African environmental video now available...
"Africa and Tanzania Features"
Africa Features:
*The Bazaruto Archipelago: Saving a Coastal Eden - 7 minutes
*Sweet Success: Beekeeping in Malawi - 7 minutes
*The Kayas: Kenya's Sacred Groves - 8 minutes
*Zambia's Kafue Flats - 8 minutes
*Malawi: Land of the Lake - 6 minutes
*Madagascar: Wild Drugstore - 5 minutes
Tanzania Features:
*Udzungwa Mountains - 7 minutes
*Mafia Island - 7 minutes
A series of short videos showing eight different
environmental projects in Africa.
Africa's wild lands, pristine coasts and coral islands can only be
preserved by Africans.
The video "Tanzanian Features," gives hope the continent's greatest
ecological treasures can be saved.
The video tells of the speed and magnitude of the destruction of the
continent's wild lands, which are often spiritual homelands to Africa's
people.
When wild lands were made into national parks, governments would
often forcibly remove whole villages from the newly created national park
lands, breeding bitterness and dispossessed poachers.
But the video tells of efforts by the World Wildlife Federation and
African governments to constructively involve the people in conservation and
profitable businesses based on renewable resources.
During the creation of Nyka National Park in Malawi, thousands of
indigenous people were forcible resettled. At first the only local people
who profited from the national park were poachers.
But bee-keeping had always been an important traditional economic
activity before the land was made into a national park. The WWF and the
Malawi government allowed people living around the park to re-establish
bee-keeping. With the introduction of appropriate very accessible technology
honey, and bee's wax has become cash crops which have produced
prosperity for many local people.
In Madagascar important life-saving medicines have been derived from
the land's abundant and diverse flora. But only the international
pharmaceutical companies have profited.
A WWF project is providing training in western pharmacology as well as
indigenous herbalogy. The intent of the project is to create a local
pharmacological industry, and to create a clinic where local herbalists and
western trained scientists will work together to develop drugs for
international markets.
The growing population of Africa continues to press on the continent's
last wild lands and pristine coastal resources. But the video shows that
these ecological treasures can be saved if Africans can use these
places' renewable resources and are able to once again find their
way to their spiritual homelands.
Available in English, VHS NTSC and PAL (US$19.95/$39.95)
Total running time 55 minutes.
Produced by World Wide Fund for Nature International (WWF).
Available from:
DSR, Inc.
9111 Guilford Road
Columbia, MD 21046, USA
dsr@us.net
phone: (301) 490-3500, (410) 792-4913
http://www.catalog.com/dsr
fax: (301) 490-4146
In-Reply-To: 199604191448.KAA18075@dag.XC.Org