Conversations with the Earth

Conversations with the Earth (CWE) is a unique partnership between indigenous communities, harnessing the power of images and stories to amplify their own voices on global climate change, and creating the space to listen to traditional custodians of the world’s biocultural diversity in order to formulate viable global responses to environmental challenges.

As a founding partner of CWE, InsightShare led the development of a groundbreaking network of indigenous community media hubs. The participating communities from eight countries, across five continents, produced over forty videos on subjects ranging from traditional culture and languages through to local pollution and global climate change.

“Participatory Video seems to have been designed for Indigenous People. It helped me comprehend the impact of climate change on our culture and knowledge systems”

Maria Anabela Carlón Flores (Community Leader, Sonora)

The community videos have been shown all over the world to a variety of audiences; from large local community gatherings to groups of decision makers. They have featured in the acclaimed CWE exhibition at leading museums including Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) and the historic National Museum of Denmark. These unique Participatory Videos have been screened at major film festivals around the world, winning a number of awards, as well as the United Nations Climate Change Conferences in Copenhagen, Cancun and Durban.

“The Participatory Video process enables Indigenous Peoples to assert their rights on the international stage.”

Terence Hay-Edie, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

For more information about Conversations With the Earth and the impact of our Participatory Video projects, take a look at the CWE Media Hubs IMPACT Report. For details of all the videos produced by the eight indigenous communities engaged with the programme, download the CWE Video Catalogue.

An indigenous Yaqui woman shows a group of children the Participatory Video she made on the camera's screen

An Ethiopian elder from the Gamo Highlands uses a video camera to record local children gathered around him

Hands are drawing a 'River of Life' during a Participatory Video exercise in Mexico

A Baka community in Cameroon watch their participatory video together

Yaqui and Comaac activists watch their Participatory Video together on a camera screen

The media hubs network includes representatives from the following communities:

Baka from Mayos, Cameroon
Comca’ac and Yaqui from Punta Chueca, Desemboque and Vicam in Sonora, Mexico
Gamo from Doko, Zozo and Ezo in the Gamo Highlands, Ethiopia
Igorot from Ifugao and Benguet in the Cordillera Region, Philippines
Inuit from Cambridge Bay in Nunavut, Canada
Kuna from Ustupu in the Kuna Yala Territory, Panama
Maasai from Oltepesi in the Rift Valley, Kenya
Quechua and Aymara from Puno, Cusco, Ayacucho, Junin, Cochas Grande, Lircay and Huancavelica, Peru

About Conversations With the Earth

CWE is a collaboration between 17 indigenous communities in 15 countries and InsightShare, Land is Life, and award-winning photographer and specialist in maintaining oral traditions Nicolas Villaume.

Conversations With the Earth was funded by The Christensen Fund with additional funding support from The Staples Trust, Artists Project Earth (APE), and The Lia Fund.

You can watch many of the videos and explore the photographs and stories by visiting the CWE website.

If you would like to learn more about this project you can contact us directly.