Standing on Sacred Ground: Profit and Loss

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From New Guinean rainforests to Canada's tar sands, PROFIT AND LOSS exposes industrial threats to native peoples' health, livelihood and cultural survival. In Papua New Guinea, a Chinese-government owned nickel mine has violently relocated villagers to a taboo sacred mountain, built a new pipeline and refinery on contested clan land, and is dumping mining waste into the sea. In Alberta, First Nations people suffer from rare cancers as their traditional hunting grounds are stripmined to unearth the world's third-largest oil reserve. Indigenous people tell their own stories-and confront us with the ethical consequences of our culture of consumption.

Featuring Winona LaDuke (Anishinaabe), Oren Lyons (Onondaga), Satish Kumar and activist Clayton Thomas-Muller (Cree).

136-page Teacher's Guide (PDF) for the Standing on Sacred Ground series

'The striking parallels between the Chinese metallurgical development of Papua New Guinea and the Canadian self-destruction involved in the oil sands project are brought out well and poignantly in this film. Indigenous voices include workers on both projects, and multiple points of view are represented as communities struggle with the tensions between 'trickle down wealth' and environmental destruction.' Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer, Research Professor, Center for Eurasian, Russian and Eastern European Studies, Department of Anthropology, Georgetown University, Author of Shamanic Worlds, Editor of Anthropology and Archeology of Eurasia

'This monumental film series is superb. For many indigenous cultures throughout the world, sacred places are arenas of peace, power, and reverence. Standing On Sacred Ground sheds light on cases where religion and identity are under attack, where sacred places are being recklessly transformed into a focus of conflict, power struggles, desecration, and the violation of human rights. The films will prove to be of special interest to a wide range of scientific and academic disciplines, government and NGO personnel, and the general public. They will be most relevant for university, college, and high school classrooms covering subjects in anthropology, ecology, economic development, environmental studies, globalization, government, history, human rights, indigenous studies, law, social justice, sociology, political science, and religion.' Dr. Leslie E. Sponsel, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Author, Spiritual Ecology: A Quiet Revolution

'Standing on Sacred Ground is a tour de force! This is one of the most powerful documentary series ever made on indigenous peoples and their resistance to environmental exploitation. Toby McLeod has woven stories of first nations peoples resilience amidst images of searing beauty and unimagined destruction. An awakening call indeed that should be heard around the world.' Mary Evelyn Tucker, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, Co-author, Ecology and Religion

'Nothing like this riveting series of four desperately-urgent films about the fate of our planet has ever been seen...Patiently, lucidly and devastatingly, director Toby McLeod and his team have traveled the globe and painstakingly tracked eight stories of struggles by indigenous peoples to save the ancestral landscapes that have given them sustenance and spiritual anchoring for thousands of years. Standing on Sacred Ground is a magnificent, one-of-a-kind achievement...Containing face-offs at strategic sites, incontrovertible visual documentation of environmental wastelands, poignant voices of clarity and appeal that speak with the grave, quiet wisdom of cultures that have survived centuries of crusades to convert, exterminate, or assimilate them - these four dramatic films keep us on the edge of our seat and at the edge of tears. They absolutely must be seen by every citizen on earth.' Peter Nabokov, Anthropologist, Professor of World Arts and Cultures, University of California - Los Angeles

'An extraordinary film series highlighting the struggles, losses, and strengths of indigenous peoples working today to protect their sacred places in an industrialized world. Through beautifully filmed case studies where indigenous leaders speak for themselves, this series illustrates how history, law, science, and religion converge in the indigenous world and how critical these struggles are for the well-being of the planet as a whole.' Dr. Melissa K. Nelson, (Turtle Mountain Chippewa), Associate Professor of American Indian Studies at San Francisco State University, President of The Cultural Conservancy, Author of Original Instructions: Indigenous Teachings for a Sustainable Future

'From the local to the global, from the ancient world to the modern world, from developers to ecological preservationists, from indigenous peoples to outsiders, Standing on Sacred Ground explores the many sides of resource development on indigenous lands...The series provides considerable insight into the issues Indigenous Peoples face, and shows how and why they are fighting to preserve their sacred lands, their traditions, their life-ways, and their cultures. No study of contemporary ecological issues would be complete without hearing and seeing this aspect of ecology and development controversies.' Thomas D. Hall, Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Anthropology, DePauw University, Co-author, Indigenous Peoples and Globalization: Resistance and Revitalization

'Standing on Sacred Ground is one of the most powerful educational films, reminding us that Indigenous peoples are the true guardians of Mother Earth and their wisdom needs to be heeded - our future depends on it. Beautifully produced. Outstanding Indigenous commentary on the sacredness of Mother Earth and how we need to stop the plunder before we all vanish.' Dr. Julian Kunnie, Professor of Religious Studies/Classics, University of Arizona, Author, Indigenous Wisdom and Power: Affirming our Knowledge Through Narratives

'This important educational documentary demonstrates the unsustainable cost of rampant resource extraction and development and the devastating impacts on those who hold sacred the duty to protect the earth, Indigenous peoples. In documenting cases from the Pacific to the remote mountains of Altai and across the Americas, it demonstrates the vital importance of traditional Indigenous knowledge in the preservation of biodiversity and shows that, far from being a primitive relic from the past, Indigenous knowledge is vital to the recovery of the biosphere and to our collective future existence. This is a well-executed documentary, suitable for post-secondary educational programs.' Makere Stewart-Harawira, Associate Professor of Theoretical, Cultural and International Studies in Education, University of Alberta, Author, The New Imperial Order: Indigenous Responses to Globalization

'Beautifully illuminates indigenous peoples' resistance to environmental devastation and their determination to protect our common future.' Robert Redford

'Words that seem most appropriate in characterizing this documentary include awesome, beautiful, ugly, dramatic, revealing, disturbing, heroic, moving, and inspiring...A unique and historic achievement...The film exposes contemporary cultural, ecological, religious, and political realities, transcending the usual 'just-so-stories' of the ethnographic present dominating many textbooks. The film both tests anthropological viewers' adherence to cultural relativism and challenges any scientism because for indigenes nature is alive and spiritual with its sacred foci of power, reverence, and healing...This educational film series is most relevant for instructors and students in universities, colleges, and high schools for a wide variety of disciplines, topics, and courses. The four DVDs will allow instructors to easily use any of the individual eight cases, each 25 minutes long, making the series ideal for classroom use, or for students to pursue their individual interests.' Anthropology News (April 2014)

'Standing on Sacred Ground does well to not only allow the voices and experiences of actual Indigenous peoples, scholars, and activists shine throughout the films, but also calls out to viewers asking them what they can do for the land so 'the land can love them back.' This film series is thorough, critically engaging, inclusive, and very well produced. The eight case studies of Indigenous communities around the world offer the viewer a glimpse into the everyday lives of these people and can therefore be an excellent educational tool for students and activists of most ages. I highly recommend this film series for anyone who wants to learn about Indigenous cultures across the globe, as well as anyone who wants to fully understand how and why the earth is slowly being destroyed by the efforts of 'progress,' along with what they can do to help reverse the process of ecological destruction.' Jennifer Loft, University at Buffalo, Educational Media Reviews Online

Citation

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Main credits

McLeod, Christopher (film director)
McLeod, Christopher (film producer)
Huang, Jennifer (film producer)
Huang, Jennifer (screenwriter)
Greene, Graham (narrator)

Other credits

Edited by Marta Wohl; director of photography, Andrew Black; composer, Jon Herbst.

MARC Record See Worldcat record

Keywords

Papua New Guinea, Alberta tar sands, loss of land, loss of water, loss of health, mining, oil industry, Canada, industrial threats, native peoples' health, livelihood, cultural survival, Chinese nickel mine, relocating villagers, taboo sacred mountain, pipeline, refinery, dumping mine waste in sea, rare cancers, stripmining traditional hunting grounds, oil reserves, culture of consumption, Winona LaDuke, Oren Lyons, Satish Kumar, Clayton Thomas-Muller; "Profit and Loss"; Bullfrog Films,doc,env; science; sociss

Standing on Sacred Ground — Series Episode 2
Profit and Loss
Broadcast Transcript

Video and lower thirds	Name of speaker	Audio and subtitles	Timecode
Montage of sacred sites visited throughout the series.		music	00:00:01
Scenics of sacred sites in Peru, Australia, Ethiopia, Mt. Shasta and Alberta.	Narrator Graham Greene	You know them when you see them. Places on the earth that are set apart. Places that transform us. Sacred places.	00:00:13
Hunter doing animal call in the woods.		(Animal call)	00:00:29
On-camera interview with Mike. Man paddling canoe in Papua New Guinea (PNG).	Mike Mercredi	When you're connected to the land and everything that's out here then you know. Y’know you don't own it, it owns you.	00:00:33
Montage of mines, pipelines and refineries in both PNG and Alberta cut with men paddling in PNG.	Narrator Graham Greene	But now, the relentless drive to exploit all of the earth’s riches has thrust people across the globe into a struggle between ancient beliefs and industrial demand.	00:00:41
On-camera interview with Winona LaDuke. Aerial shots of mining.	Winona LaDuke	Indigenous people are faced with the largest mining corporations in the world – have been for years.	00:00:54
Aerial scenics of PNG and pipeline.	Narrator Graham Greene	In Papua New Guinea, villagers resist forced relocation and destruction of sacred sites.	00:01:02
Sama Mellombo arguing with security guard.	Sama Mellombo	This is my land. I’m standing on my land, you have no right!	00:01:07
Aerial scenics of Alberta. Ida Stepanowich working at Suncor. Footage of threatened rivers. Cherie Wanderingspirit playing with her children at playground.	Narrator Graham Greene	And in northern Canada, First Nations people are divided over the oil sands industry that provides jobs, but threatens rivers, forests, and their lives.	00:01:11
Shot of fish with large tumor. On-camera interview with Cherie Wanderingspirit.	Cherie Wanderingspirit	What am I supposed to do? Be scared to eat the fish when that’s all I know?	00:01:24
Shot of man cleansing a line of young boys by canoe. On-camera interview with Clayton Thomas-Muller. Roy Ladouceur smudging in the woods. Sequence from canoe ceremony.	Clayton Thomas-Muller	Native people have a sacred relationship with the earth.	00:01:31
On-camera interview with Winona LaDuke. Men chanting around fire in PNG.	Winona LaDuke	We must keep restoring that relationship and that power of place.	00:01:36
TITLE: STANDING ON SACRED GROUND Thousand points of light map. Lights dwindle to eight locations in series.			00:01:52
TITLE: CPB A private corporation funded by the American people CPB.ORG		Funding for the Standing on Sacred Ground series has been provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.	00:02:00
TITLE: PROFIT AND LOSS			00:02:16
Scenics from Bosmun. LOWER THIRD: Bosmun, Papua New Guinea Approaching Bosmun, passing Bosmun from water. Kids running alongside, people waving. Houses and boats. Children play.			00:02:24
Shots of daily life in Bosmun. Children and adults eating. Man exiting boat.	Melchior Ware	We’ve been here in this village settlement for six and a half thousand years.	00:02:44
LOWER THIRD: Melchior Ware Bosmun Village Leader On-camera interview with Melchior Ware cutaway to woman performing cleansing ritual.	Melchior Ware	The river and the environment and the biodiversity provides for us and sustains our life. We, in return, regard the land, the environment, and the river as sacred.	00:02:53
People on river, in canoes, fishing.	Melchior Ware	The canoe has a big significance, being river people.	00:03:07
On-camera interview with Melchior Ware.	Melchior Ware	We use normal canoes for fishing and farming, then we have ceremonial canoes.	00:03:14
People shaping canoe with axes and chanting.	Melchior Ware	Making and launching of a ceremonial canoe is a very big communal practice.	00:03:23
Villagers making, decorating, blessing and launching ceremonial canoe.	Melchior Ware	The chanting signifies the development of this ceremonial canoe and we have blessings during the initial maiden voyages.	00:03:43
Canoe launching ceremony.	Narrator Graham Greene	Bosmun villagers have been preparing for the canoe's maiden voyage for two months.	00:04:06
Villagers throw fruit at warriors in canoe.	Narrator Graham Greene	Traditionally the villagers would throw spears to prepare the men for war. Today, the barrage of fruit is a celebration of the bounty of the land and a reminder to the warriors to continue defending the river.	00:04:47
World map zooms in to Papua New Guinea	Narrator Graham Greene	Just north of Australia lies the country of Papua New Guinea, until recently – one of the world’s last unexplored regions. With more than 800 languages, PNG is a place of stunning cultural diversity.	00:05:08
Montage of the flora, fauna and native dress of Papua New Guinea. Archival footage and photos of first contact and colonial period.	Narrator Graham Greene	Its many islands were colonized--and Christianized – by Germany, Britain and Australia. But first contact with the West didn’t come to some regions until the 1930's.	00:05:31
Archival footage of Michael Somare. LOWER THIRD: Michael Somare First Prime Minister Archival footage of independence celebrations and rallies.	Narrator Graham Greene	When the country gained independence in 1975, it took a radical step: it recognized the land rights of its indigenous people in its new constitution, and pledged to protect the environment for future generations.	00:05:50
On-camera interview with John Chitoa. LOWER THIRD: John Chitoa Bismarck Ramu Group Villagers work the land.	John Chitoa	There is a lot of connection that we Papua New Guineans, as indigenous people, have with our land. That’s where our culture is based. Land is equivalent to money in Western societies. It is our life support system. Without land, we are nonexistent.	00:06:05
On-camera interview with Rosa Koian. LOWER THIRD: Rosa Koian Bismarck Ramu Group Villagers work the land.	Rosa Koian	Land is something that people talk to. A Papua New Guinean doesn't just drop a seed in the garden. He's uttering some words. He's praying to the spirits.	00:06:22
On-camera interview with Powes Parkop. LOWER THIRD: Powes Parkop Governor, Port Moresby Footage of villages.	Powes Parkop	We believe that our spirit lives on with us where we are on the land and in our villages, in the caves and the trees and in the seas. And because of that, we protect our land and our environment, and it is sacred to us.	00:06:33
Shots of land and people working the land. Woman cleanses young boy in village.	Narrator Graham Greene	Like the villagers in Bosmun, 85 percent of Papua New Guineans still live off the land.	00:06:53
Women cook, children eat. Women paint children's feet.	Melchior Ware	In our culture food is the center of life. All rituals are developed from food.	00:07:20
Men put food in canoe. Footage from travelling down the river. On-camera interview with Melchior Ware with cutaways of boy drinking from the river and villagers cleaning fish and preparing food.	Melchior Ware	We farm largely on the banks of the Ramu River. Ramu becomes the center for us, in our language we say, “It’s our mother’s breast.” We are able to drink from it freely. We are able to fish. We are able to feast. We are able to produce new life because of Ramu.	00:07:33
Boys play in the village.	Narrator Graham Greene	But many people want to leave this life behind.	00:07:58
On-camera interview with David Tigavu. Woman smokes on homestead. Man opens fruit with stick.	David Tigavu	(subtitled) People are just living like our forefathers – no change in their lives. Government services have not reached them. Medicines, schools, hospitals, infrastructure – nothing. They want to develop like other people. They want to come out of the bush.	00:08:02
Aerial shots of jungle and Ramu NiCo nickel mine.	Narrator Graham Greene	Now, the promise of infrastructure that has been elusive in the jungles and highlands is coming from an unexpected source. China Metallurgical Group, or MCC, broke ground on a nickel mine above the Ramu River in 2008 naming it Ramu NiCo.	00:08:19
On-camera interview with David Tigavu. LOWER THIRD: David Tigavu President, Kurumbukari Landowners Assn. Bus drives by people walking on the roadside.	David Tigavu	A mining project with an expenditure of billions is going to bring in everything – (subtitled) all the education that we need, all the health services. This generation of people may have never gone to a supermarket to buy food. Tomorrow I want them to go to the supermarket. Tomorrow I want them to have an education.	00:08:39
Map showing Madang, Ramu region. Fade on Kurumbukari/Vienivi, pipeline, Basamuk. Footage of village life: men walking, children playing.	Narrator Graham Greene	MCC’s mine site lies 75 kilometers southwest of the provincial capital of Madang, on a highland plateau called Kurumbukari. About a thousand villagers’ homes and gardens were on top of one of the richest mineral deposits in the country.	00:08:57
Peter Kepma cuts wood in village, greets elder. On-camera interview with Peter Kepma. LOWER THIRD: Peter Kepma Kurumbukari	Peter Kepma	(subtitled) Being cut off from the rest of the world and from basic services we saw the company’s coming in as a good thing, that all our hopes will be realized after all. However the first thing they did was to order us to move out.	00:09:18
John Nimambo speaking in village. LOWER THIRD: John Nimambo Kurumbukari Cutaways to "out" written on walls.	John Nimambo	(subtitled) The police said, “We're giving you seven days. You go now! Out! Out!" They wrote everywhere – in our gardens, on our beds. Inside, outside, they wrote the word: “Out”. We're afraid of being killed by the police. We're afraid of going to jail. So we ran away into the bush.	00:09:46
Christina Kempa doing work around the house. On-camera interview with Christina Kempa. LOWER THIRD: Christina Kepma Kurumbukari	Christina Kempa	(subtitled) They supplied each family with $230 to go clear a site up there at Snake Mountain. My husband and I did not take their lousy payment.	00:10:09
Peter Kepma holding eviction notice.	Peter Kepma	(subtitled) This was the eighth eviction notice we were served.	00:10:19
Close-up of eviction notice. Christina and Peter with baby. Christina doing laundry. On-camera interview with Peter Kempa in front of house.	Peter Kepma	(subtitled) I refused to move and am still here now eighteen months after the rest of my village was forced out.	00:10:29
Close-up of "out" written on wall. On-camera interview with Christina Kempa.	Christina Kempa	(subtitled) I hate the police and I snap right back at them. I tell them straight out that I am not going to move out. I tell them that they can lock me inside my house and burn me with my children. I’m furious, really!	00:10:40
Aerial shots of Snake Mountain. Shots of pipelines. On-camera interview with Rosa Koian. LOWER THIRD: Rosa Koian Bismarck Ramu Group	Rosa Koian	They have ordered the villagers to move into their sacred mountain. And everyone has left except two brothers. All the people in the village know it’s a taboo area and a no-go zone. And so, the people didn't feel right to move to a land that they see as sacred.	00:10:58
John Nimambo looking over land. On-camera interview with John Nimambo. LOWER THIRD: John Nimambo Snake Mountain	John Nimambo	(subtitled) In days gone by, when our ancestors went hunting, they never came up Snake Mountain.	00:11:21
On-camera interview with Mama Lucy. LOWER THIRD: Mama Lucy Snake Mountain Footage of the misty mountain.	Mama Lucy	(subtitled) This is where wild nature spirits live. They can harm or even kill us.	00:11:35
Shot of door to home with Snake Mountain drawing reading "Snake Mounten The home of Snake!" Mama Lucy around her home. On-camera interview with Mama Lucy.	Mama Lucy	(subtitled) All our people who have moved up here are unhappy. We were basically abandoned no better than the wild pigs. Barely surviving.	00:11:48
Footage of people around Snake Mountain. Benny Mangua hugging man's chest. LOWER THIRD: Benny Mangua Kurumbukari	Benny Mangua	(subtitled) I’ve lost my home. I’ve lost my land. My son, Peter Kepma’s house is the only one standing. They've removed me. I’ve been treated like an animal. Now I'm a parasite. I have no home. I have no place to stay.	00:12:08
Group of people in traditional garb singing.		People singing	00:12:28
Singing continues. On-camera interview with Rosa Koian. Children playing on the ground.	Rosa Koian	If people are being asked to move away from their land, how do we talk about this? Because if our government is not going to uh, talk on our behalf, who do we talk with?	00:12:35
TITLE: Six months later…			00:12:56
On-camera interview with John Kepma. LOWER THIRD: John Kepma Kurumbukari Photo of police at homestead.	John Kepma	(subtitled) While I was sleeping they threw an iron bar into my house. It landed close to where my head was. When I looked out, I saw policemen.	00:13:00
On-camera interview with Peter Kepma. LOWER THIRD: Peter Kepma Kurumbukari	Peter Kepma	(Subtitled) Policemen said: "We’ve told you to go." "Now we’re here to pull your house down."	00:13:15
Photo of police pulling house down. On-camera interview with John Kepma.	John Kepma	(subtitled) When our elders protested he told them to shut their mouths. “Shut up!” he said.	00:13:23
Photos of demolished house.	John Kepma	(subtitled) We watched as they destroyed everything and left.	00:13:33
Footage of demolished area.	Peter Kepma	(subtitled) The company has demolished my future.	00:13:44
Peter Kepma crouched on the land, minerals in hand. On-camera interview with Peter Kepma. Peter Kepma and family walk into the woods.	Peter Kepma	(subtitled) When the company digs out these minerals they will become trillionaires and I will be left with peanuts.	00:13:51
On-camera interview with David Tigavu.	David Tigavu	(subtitled) I’m very happy. What’s everybody unhappy about? I’m very happy.	00:14:12
Footage of David Tigavu outside MCC meeting.	Narrator Graham Greene	David Tigavu signed the agreement leasing the Kurumbukari land to the nickel mine. He promised new houses would be built for the people on Snake Mountain.	00:14:17
On-camera interview with David Tigavu. Cutaway of photos he’s holding up of houses	David Tigavu	(subtitled) It’s got electricity, it’s got water, it’s got septic toilet, it’s a very good house, it’s like a hotel! For the people in this area, this project is a lifesaver. It’s a godsend.	00:14:27
Employees of Ramu NiCo block off an area. On-camera interview with John Chitoa. LOWER THIRD: John Chitoa Bismarck Ramu Group	John Chitoa	People have been colonized and one of the mindsets that people have is that – you know, they expect outsiders to come and deal with their problems, but this is not the case. Outsiders are coming and they are taking advantage of those people.	00:14:40
Group of people in Bismarck Ramu meeting.	Narrator Graham Greene	John Chitoa and Rosa Koian are leaders of the Bismarck Ramu group, a grassroots organization that works to educate communities about the issues surrounding development.	00:15:00
On-camera interview with Rosa Koian.	Rosa Koian	At Bismarck Ramu we try to make Papua New Guineans believe in themselves.	00:15:13
Bismarck Ramu meeting continues. On-camera interview with John Chitoa.	John Chitoa	So we have media, we have the court, we are also working with people on the ground.	00:15:18
Bismarck Ramu group doing mapping exercise. On-camera interview with John Chitoa.	John Chitoa	Our philosophy is that we want development that our indigenous people, our people in the country can take control.	00:15:24
Map of pipeline leading to Basamuk Bay. Aerials show coast and different refinery site.	Narrator Graham Greene	From Kurumbukari, the mined ore travels through a 135-kilometer pipeline to a new refinery at Basamuk bay. Here, along the Rai coast, Ramu NiCo encountered another dispute over a sacred site.	00:15:31
Sama Mellombo walking around refinery. LOWER THIRD: Sama Mellombo Mebu Clan Leader	Sama Mellombo	This has been our site where our cemetery has been. They have entered our country, Papua New Guinea, without respect for our environment, our cultural sites, which has been clearly marked and known to them before they set foot to this land. Look at what they’ve done to our land. We just can’t accept it.	00:15:52
Sama Mellombo speaking with Jason and security guards.	Narrator Graham Greene	While Mellombo was visiting the cemetery site, Ramu NiCo’s security ordered him to leave, saying he was trespassing.	00:16:14
	Sama Mellombo	I was here on the 12th of December last year, telling him not to remove the cemetery until we get to this. And the mineral resource authority wrote to him to say do not remove the cemetery.	00:16:21
	Sama Mellombo	Do you understand that?	00:16:32
On-camera interview with Tiffany Twivey. LOWER THIRD: Tiffany Twivey Attorney Sama Mellombo and Jason arguing.	Tiffany Twivey	The governor immediately wrote to the provincial administrator and directed him to speak to the Chinese and tell them that they couldn’t dig this up. That didn’t happen, the Chinese just went ahead and dug it up anyway.	00:16:34
	Sama Mellombo	This is my land, I’m standing on my land. You have no right. Go back to Mongolia! Go back to Mongolia!	00:16:45
	Jason	This is our mine site.	00:16:51
On-camera interview with Tiffany Twivey.	Tiffany Twivey	The permit actually says you can't disturb the sacred sites. But, there has been no consequences of this breach.	00:16:54
Confrontation between Jason and Sama Mellombo.	Jason	This is Papua New Guinea. I think so. This is your country. But here this is our working area.	00:17:02
	Sama Mellombo	But you have no right to remove my cemetery.	00:17:06
	Jason	It’s protected by the government.	00:17:08
	Sama Mellombo	No!	00:17:09
On-camera interview with Sama Mellombo. Confrontation with Jason.	Sama Mellombo	When the Chinese or the MCC came into Papua New Guinea, they thought that the land was owned by the government. 97 percent of the land in Papua New Guinea is owned by native people. Only 3 percent of that is owned by the government.	00:17:12
	Sama Mellombo	(nat sound) I shed tears for this cemetery.	00:17:24
	Sama Mellombo	So when they come in and establish the refinery, they can dig out anything under it, and think that nothing would happen. No, that's not the case, here.	00:17:26
	Sama Mellombo	(nat sound) So go talk to them, not me.	00:17:33
MCC businessmen leaving meeting with David Tigavu.	Narrator Graham Greene	But Sama Mellombo and MCC were fighting an even bigger battle – a lawsuit threatening to halt its operations entirely.	00:17:36
On-camera interview with Tiffany Twivey.	Tiffany Twivey	The Chinese want to dump five million tons of hot mine waste tailings into the sea at a depth of 150 meters and they call that deep sea tailings placement.	00:17:46
Underwater footage. Animation illustrates deep sea tailings disposal.	Narrator Graham Greene	MCC is the fourth mine in the country to direct its waste pipe into the sea, saying that gravity will pull the mining waste to the ocean floor.	00:18:01
Sama Mellombo speaking with Tiffany Twivey.	Narrator Graham Greene	With Bismarck Ramu Group’s support, Mellombo and later more than one thousand landowners, hired Tiffany Twivey to sue the mine.	00:18:12
On-camera interview with Tiffany Twivey. Images of deep sea tailings disposal.	Tiffany Twivey	It is likely that this deep sea tailings disposal of five million tons of hot tailings each year for a period of 20 years, will commit gross environmental harm.	00:18:21
Image of office complex through a fence. TEXT: MCC officials declined multiple requests for an interview.			00:18:32
Footage of coastal refinery off shoreline. Two young men float offshore in a canoe.	Narrator Graham Greene	First to be impacted by the tailings waste will be the village of Mindere, directly across the bay from the refinery.	00:18:38
On-camera interview with Bong Dampat. LOWER THIRD: Bong Dampat Mindere Shots of children and women in Mindere.	Bong Dampat	(subtitled) The government must take responsibility and the company must take responsibility. They can't ignore us. What kind of a future will our children have?	00:18:48
On-camera interview with John Chitoa. Shots of Mindere with refinery in background: fishing, boating.	John Chitoa	They’re very concerned because the sea is basically their life support system. They fish from the sea. They wash from the sea. Their daily lives entirely depend on the sea.	00:19:00
Underwater fish footage. On-camera interview with Sama Mellombo. Footage of people on the shores of Mindere.	Sama Mellombo	We catch fish down at 400 meters and the tailing will be dropped at about 150 meters. It will be disastrous for the people. We will lose the environment. We will lose the sea.	00:19:13
Footage of fish. On-camera interview with David Tigavu. Young boy sits on the shore of the village. Aerial shot of refinery.	David Tigavu	If ever fish die in the ocean,(subtitled) if ever somebody goes sick, project stops. And a full-scale investigation will be done as to what caused that.	00:19:27
On-camera interview with Tiffany Twivey. Young men in canoe in front of refinery. Aerial shot of coast.	Tiffany Twivey	Deep sea tailings disposal is used by mining companies because it's the cheapest method. Because, they can pump it into the sea and it's out of sight, out of mind. How on earth is it going to be contained once it's in the sea and sloshing around?	00:19:38
Bulldozer and image of Ok Tedi tailings dumping into river. Aerial footage of resulting environmental degradation.	Narrator Graham Greene	Critics of Ramu NiCo fear it will follow the historic precedent of Ok Tedi, a copper mine that’s been disposing its tailings directly in to a river for decades. It is considered one of the most destructive industrial sites in the world.	00:19:59
On-camera interview with Rosa Koian. Footage of Fly River.	Rosa Koian	I always look at the Fly River, which is Papua New Guinea's largest river. The Fly River is where the Ok Tedi Mine is. That river is dead.	00:20:17
MCC office buildings and businessmen.	Narrator Graham Greene	In 2011, PNG’s Supreme Court approved the Ramu mine’s plan to dispose its waste into the sea.	00:20:34
Women walking down city streets in PNG. On-camera interview with Powes Parkop. LOWER THIRD: Powes Parkop Governor, Port Moresby	Powes Parkop	We have not reaped the full benefit of all these mineral boom that are taking place in the country. And I don't think Ramu you know will make us any better.	00:20:44
People walking down the city streets. On-camera interview with Rosa Koian.	Rosa Koian	So where is all the money going? The money's certainly not coming to Papua New Guinea. And look at the state of the country. Just look at the state of the country.	00:20:53
Fauziah Ibrahim asking a question of Michael Somare in formal interview. LOWER THIRD: Al Jazeera Network	Fauziah Ibrahim	A majority of population is living in poverty. Surely you can see the frustration that Papua New Guineans feel.	00:21:03
Michael Somare answering question. LOWER THIRD: Sir Michael Somare Four-time Prime Minister	Michael Somare	We brought in the Chinese earlier on, for this Ramu NiCo, because that’s 800 million dollar US dollar development. No country can reject it. Particularly a developing country like ours.	00:21:10
	Fauziah Ibrahim	But that funding doesn’t seem to go down to the ground.	00:21:23
	Michael Somare	It doesn’t go to the ground. It’s not my job, as a politician, to hand them the money.	00:21:25
	Fauziah Ibrahim	Your job as Prime Minister is to ensure that your people are well looked after.	00:21:31
	Michael Somare	I know. In many other places they starve. They die on the streets. Papua New Guineans don’t die on the streets.	00:21:35
The National newspaper headline reads: "PM all set for battle." Footage of Somare walking to the car and walking around escorted by security.	Narrator Graham Greene	In 2011, Somare was found guilty of tax evasion. Since leaving office, he has come under investigation for misuse of public funds.	00:21:43
Businessmen toasting champagne while press take pictures.	Narrator Graham Greene	PNG's auditor has estimated that government officials steal 356 million dollars a year from state coffers.	00:21:55
On-camera interview with Rosa Koian. Cutaways of woman cooking food. Shots of daily life in the village.	Rosa Koian	Greed. Money is the biggest driving force. God put everything here and there's plenty for everyone. But one man wants it all for himself. And none of us can stand aside or stand up and say, "You've had enough." "You've got enough."	00:22:05
Group of people from Bismarck Ramu do mapping project.		Nat sound of Bismarck Ramu mapping project.	00:22:29
On-camera interview with John Chitoa.	John Chitoa	The Ramu NiCo operation is no longer a development issue, it's more a moral issue now. Because you are dealing with the lives of the people.	00:22:33
Group of people from Bismarck Ramu do mapping project. On-camera interview with Rosa Koian.	Rosa Koian	In Bismarck Ramu, we're using modern technology to tell the world, please don't take our land. This is our life.	00:22:40
Group of people from Bismarck Ramu do mapping project.	Narrator Graham Greene	Poin Caspar, a Bismarck Ramu organizer from Bosmun, is working with villagers to record information about their sacred site along the river, a taboo area no one is allowed to enter.	00:22:52
	Narrator Graham Greene	Scientists now see these forbidden places as sanctuaries, where traditional knowledge protects biodiversity and natural wealth.	00:23:07
On-camera interview with Poin Caspar. LOWER THIRD: Poin Caspar Bismarck Ramu Group Footage from river.	Poin Caspar	We have a process which is focused on people empowerment. When and if the people are in control of the land and resources, they can withstand those external threats that are coming in.	00:23:17
Map of Ramu River. On-camera interview with Poin Caspar.	Poin Caspar	Although Ramu NiCo won’t be dumping directly into the river, when they mine, when rain falls, all the chemicals which they used up there, it’s going to be washed into the tributaries. And from the tributaries it ends up in the Ramu River.	00:23:31
Woman walks along the banks of the river.	John Chitoa	About 100,000 to 200,000 people live along the Ramu River and they depend on it for their survival.	00:23:50
On-camera interview with Poin Caspar.	Poin Caspar	Ramu river, it’s our livelihood. Once it’s gone, that’s it.	00:23:57
Footage of murky river.	Narrator Graham Greene	MCC acknowledges that erosion is a major concern. The company says it is planting grasses to stabilize the soil and reduce runoff.	00:24:05
	Melchior Ware	They are actually trying to kill Ramu.	00:24:17
On-camera interview with Melchior Ware. Footage of sunlight through palms.	Melchior Ware	We have been told already there are contaminants already into the river. We are frightened.	00:24:20
On-camera interview with Powes Parkop. Cutaways of a Toyota truck loaded with people driving down the street and people on the street of the city.	Powes Parkop	(subtitled)The richness in PNG is like a curse. (not subtitled) The government must decide to what extent we sacrifice our land and our environment for the purpose of economic development. The way we're going, we're going to fail our responsibility to the next generation.	00:24:28
Footage of women with their children. On-camera interview with David Tigavu.	David Tigavu	(subtitled) We’re in despair, we're sinking. Nobody in the world was concerned about us, nobody. Maybe this project’s got its negatives, maybe it’s got some positives. But, very very important is something is happening.	00:24:46
Aerial footage of mine. On-camera interview with Rosa Koian. Footage of Papua New Guineans in the streets and the village.	Rosa Koian	These mines are not for Papua New Guinea. They are not serving Papua New Guinea's interests. And Papua New Guineans are not stupid anymore. Papua New Guineans know enough. And we know what is coming.	00:25:02
Men paddling in ceremonial canoe. On-camera interview with Melchior Ware. Villagers at the ceremonial canoe launch.	Melchior Ware	MCC is interfering with the Ramu and it's right to live and breathe. We’re fierce. And if you’re going to cut off the very source of life, we are most likely to fight and we will fight.	00:25:19
TEXT: Fisherman on the Ramu River report sediment has destroyed several traditional fishing grounds.			00:25:44
Footage from the ceremonial canoe launch.			00:25:51
TEXT: After the police destroyed his home, Peter Kepma and his family moved into tents on the edge of the nickel mine.			00:25:54
Photo of Peter Kepma and his family.			00:26:02
TEXT: Within a year, Peter Kepma passed away.			00:26:05
TEXT: Deep sea tailings disposal has begun.			00:26:10
TEXT: Bismarck Ramu Group continues to fight the mine.			00:26:13
Villagers slowly walk across the pipelines.			00:26:20
Young men paddling a canoe in PNG. On-camera interview with Winona LaDuke.	Winona LaDuke	I believe that people should not have to trade their ecosystem for running water, for electricity and a clinic.	00:26:26
On-camera interview with Melchior Ware. Footage from the streets of PNG.	Melchior Ware	What do we need development, for what, for whom? Is it going to contribute to us?	00:26:33
Aerial footage of Ramu NiCo mine to aerial footage of Canadian refinery.	Narrator Graham Greene	From Papua New Guinea to Northern Canada, foreign demand drives the industrialization of native lands.	00:26:40
Montage of mine footage and industry footage--factory machines, cell phones and jets.	Narrator Graham Greene	Nickel from the Ramu NiCo mine will become stainless steel appliances, cell phone batteries, and jet engines.	00:26:48
Ida Stepanowich walks through woods in Alberta. Roy Ladouceur gathers tea herbs. Fisherman drives boat down river. Casino exterior. Oil footage. Shots of freeway.	Narrator Graham Greene	A world away in Alberta, native people who have lived off the bounty of boreal forests and abundant rivers find themselves at the center of the global oil industry –– mining the tar sands to fuel American cars.	00:26:57
Aerial footage of refinery.	Winona LaDuke	We have run out of places to conquer, new places to mine, new places to dam.	00:27:15
On-camera interview with Winona LaDuke. LOWER THIRD: Winona LaDuke Anishinaabe Activist Mining footage from PNG and Alberta.	Winona LaDuke	The remaining oil resources are still there, but they are in places that it is untenable or difficult to get. They are now coming to those most remote places: the Ramu nickel mine, the tar sands of Alberta.	00:27:20
On-camera interview with Clayton Thomas-Muller. LOWER THIRD: Clayton Thomas-Muller Cree	Clayton Thomas-Muller	What we’re seeing happening is the largest development ever in the history of mankind. Tar sands is the civil rights issue of my generation.	00:27:34
Footage of refinery from the river. LOWER THIRD: Athabasca River, Canada			00:27:47
On-camera interview with Mike Mercredi. LOWER THIRD: Mike Mercredi Athabasca Chipewyan	Mike Mercredi	You know, right out of high school they start recruiting us to work in the tar sands. And growing up I never knew anything about the environmental effects.	00:27:49
Cutaways to Suncor footage, aerials of industry and tailings ponds.	Mike Mercredi	When you’re 16 and 17 and you're getting, you know, 15 to 2,000 bucks every two weeks it's like, "I know what I'm going to do," you know. You've got that taste for the money.	00:27:58
	Mike Mercredi	When I got in there I was amazed. You know mesmerized by, "Oh, look at this plant. Wow! It looks like a city."	00:28:07
Aerial footage of heavy haulers.	Mike Mercredi	I remember when I first got on a heavy hauler and this was the biggest truck in the world on the biggest construction project in history. I was just like, "My holy cow!" I'm way up there. And pickup trucks were like this big. Everything is tiny.	00:28:13
	Mike Mercredi	You know I was just like, "Wow! This is awesome," you know. Driving a huge – I like driving big trucks. I like driving trucks. I was just like, "Oh, man, I love my job. I'll come to work and do this every day." And then, then it started losing its thrill.	00:28:29
Map zooms to Canada, then down to Alberta, shows Ft. Chipewyan, Athabasca River and Lake.	Narrator Graham Greene	600 miles from the arctic circle in northern Canada, ancestors of the Athabasca Chipewyan, Mikisew Cree and Métis have lived for more than 10,000 years.	00:28:46
Aerial scenics of boreal forest.	Narrator Graham Greene	Their boreal forest and wetlands, a diverse and fragile ecosystem, store twice as much carbon as a tropical rainforest.	00:28:58
Archival photos of First Nations people on the land. Shots fisherman and hunter.	Narrator Graham Greene	For millennia, the First Nations people didn’t know that the land beneath their feet – where they fished, hunted, and buried their dead – would become a treasure coveted by people around the world.	00:29:07
Scenics of forest with refinery and sparse shoreline.	Narrator Graham Greene	And they didn’t anticipate the cost of unearthing that treasure – to their communities, their health, and the land they hold sacred.	00:29:22
On-camera interview with Mike Mercredi.	Mike Mercredi	Next thing you know I started hearing the calls from back home, "Oh this person's sick," and then "Oh this person, we just buried a person. Oh, this person's dead. Are you going to come to the funeral? Oh, you better come see your uncle he's on his deathbed." And I'm like, "What the hell is going on here?"	00:29:31
Footage of Fort Chipewyan and Fort McKay & Caribou Energy Industrial Parks signs.	Narrator Graham Greene	The First Nations communities of Fort Chipewyan and Fort McKay, once frontier trading posts for beaver fur and muskrat pelts, are now at the center of the third largest petroleum deposit on Earth.	00:29:49
Map showing Ft. Chipewyan, Oil Sands Deposit and Athabasca River with company logos overlay.	Narrator Graham Greene	Corporations from France, Norway, China, the United States and dozens of other countries have applied for licenses to extract the oil.	00:30:04
Footage of trucks and machines turning over the bitumen.	Narrator Graham Greene	The bitumen, mixed with the soil of ancient hunting grounds, is called “oil sands” or “tar sands.”	00:30:15
On-camera interview with Kim Nordbye. LOWER THIRD: Kim Nordbye Stakeholder Relations, Suncor	Kim Nordbye	Oil sands are basically in very simple terms, oil found in dirt, beneath the surface and, uh, we use different processes to remove the oil from the sand.	00:30:23
Industrial footage. On-camera interview with Preston McEachern. LOWER THIRD: Preston McEachern Alberta Environment	Preston McEachern	The potential is huge. What we talk about that’s recoverable is about 170 billion barrels.	00:30:33
Syncrude sign with smokestacks in the background. Footage of plant. On-camera interview with Don Thompson. LOWER THIRD: Don Thompson President, Oil Sands Developers Group	Don Thompson	Canada is right now, the largest supplier of oil and gas to the United States. And you know I mean I'm pretty proud of the fact that our industry provides the dignity and respect of a job to 456,000 people.	00:30:49
Aerial footage of refinery. On-camera interview with Mike Mercredi. Cutaways to refinery footage from shoreline. Footage of Suncor heavy haulers.	Mike Mercredi	I went to work and I looked around and I was just like, "Holy crap! There's no trees for miles." and I was just like, like this and thinking, "How did I get used to this smell? How did I get used to this smell?" And I thought, "I got to get out of here." You know it was just that overwhelming anxiety and I had to get out of here. And I left, and I put my badge down, and I said, "I quit."	00:30:54
Map of Oil Sands Deposit within Treaty 8 boundaries. Raymond Ladouceur sets beaver trap.	Narrator Graham Greene	The oil sands region is a territory the native people gave up in an 1899 peace agreement called Treaty 8. The Canadian Government promised each indigenous band would retain access to fishing and hunting on their traditional lands.	00:31:23
On-camera interview with Raymond Ladouceur. LOWER THIRD: Raymond Ladouceur Fisherman, Métis	Raymond Ladouceur	To me, what is sacred on Mother Earth is whatever we take off the land, the medicines and everything that the Mother Earth provide us, you know. The water is very sacred because we need that to survive. The air is sacred to me, you know, because we breathe in the air to live.	00:31:50
Roy Ladouceur smudging self, chanting, praying, sprinkling tobacco on earth. Mike Mercredi pointing out shoreline on computer map. Cutaways of beautiful land.	Mike Mercredi	Our elders are our traditional scientists. they consider everything sacred from the water, the air, the rocks, the plants, the trees. This is all sacred because everything there provides life. All this come from the land and this is what we’re protecting.	00:32:13
Mike Mercredi printing out maps.	Narrator Graham Greene	After quitting Syncrude, Mike Mercredi was hired by his band, the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation to make maps to protect sacred sites.	00:32:38
Lionel Lepine speaks in front of Athabasca Oil Sands Leases map. LOWER THIRD: Lionel Lepine Athabasca Chipewyan	Lionel Lepine	If we don’t do something about it now, this map is going to be totally different in about a hundred years. You know that lake will be smaller, that lake will probably disappear. That one will be totally gone.	00:32:49
Mike Mercredi points to map.	Mike Mercredi	Coming up the Athabasca River is the toxic sludge from the tar sands. All this goes to Lake Athabasca, right by Fort Chip. And where do we get our drinking water from? The lake.	00:32:58
Mike Mercredi and Lionel Lepine discuss in front of Athabasca Oil Sands Leases map.	Mike Mercredi	We can’t go to areas to hunt, we can’t do anything that’s going to allow us to practice our traditional rights. That’s infringement on our treaty. That’s breaking the treaty.	00:33:11
Roy Ladouceur and Mike Mercredi on ATVs. Roy Ladouceur points over forest. LOWER THIRD: Roy Ladouceur Métis	Roy Ladouceur	You can see the smoke coming out of the smokestacks. You can see it with the naked eye on a clear day.	00:33:30
Cutaways of boreal forest. Sites of Suncor or Syncrude	Mike Mercredi	For as far as my eyes can see there’s tar sands under all of that boreal forest. Just from looking at it, that’s about 80 kilometers. And a lot of it is for open pit. So that’s everything, all of this, gone. So whatever you see at Syncrude and Suncor, around the sites there, that’s how it’s going to look right here.	00:33:36
Footage from water going down river.	Narrator Graham Greene	Industry uses heated water from the Athabasca River to separate the oil from the sand.	00:34:02
Footage of oil and water outlet flow. Footage of Suncor: big plumes of smoke going into the air and excavator.	Narrator Graham Greene	Creating one barrel of oil takes four barrels of fresh water, two thousand cubic feet of natural gas, and two tons of oil sands. And industry’s need will only escalate as it is goes deeper into the earth.	00:34:09
Aerial footage of Suncor.	Kim Nordbye	The majority of the reserves are too far under the ground to develop through mining and as a result, we need to look to new technologies, such as in-situ or SAG-D	00:34:25
Animation illustrating SAG-D process. TITLE: Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage	Narrator Graham Greene	In the SAG-D process, steam liquefies the oil, which is then pumped to the surface.	00:34:35
On-camera interview with Kim Nordbye.	Kim Nordbye	So it has a lot less surface disturbance, and overall appears to be a lot less impact on the environment.	00:34:43
On-camera interview with Kevin Timoney. Cutaways to aerials of mining environment and wildlife. LOWER THIRD: Kevin Timoney Ecologist	Kevin Timoney	That's completely false. They get in there with high density seismic lines and they cut the place to shreds. So its function as a natural landscape, will be lost over a much greater area of land than the surface mining will ever be able to disturb.	00:34:51
Exterior of Fort Chipewyan Nursing Station. Dr. John O'Connor enters exam room.	Dr. John O’Connor	(nat sound) Hey, how are you doing?	00:35:12
Dr. John O'Connor and Mike Mercredi shake hands.	Mike Mercredi	(nat sound) How are you doing?
O’Connor in clinic with Janet Dashcavich.	Narrator Graham Greene	In 2001, Dr. John O’Connor took an assignment at the clinic in Fort Chipewyan.	00:35:15
	Janet Dashcavich	(nat sound) This is where it hurts, right there.	00:35:20
Dr. John O'Connor in clinic with Simon Waquan. On-camera interview with Dr. John O'Connor. LOWER THIRD: Dr. John O'Connor Family Physician Footage of hunter cooking meat, fisherman, Roy Ladouceur gathering herbs.	Dr. John O’Connor	As I got to know the community I began to find serious cancer cases some of which were occurring in numbers that were really alarming. Given the fact that it was a traditional community, where 80 percent of the people lived off the land, way off the beaten track, and its pristine location, it made no sense to me.	00:35:25
Scenic footage of river. Simon Waquan speaking in clinic. LOWER THIRD: Simon Waquan Mikisew Cree	Simon Waquan	We used to go anywhere out here in any of the rivers, any of the lakes and we could take water and make some tea and now we can’t do that. Even when you boil it you can’t drink it.	00:35:54
Scenic footage of river. On-camera interview with Jim Boucher. LOWER THIRD: Jim Boucher Chief, Fort McKay First Nation Cutaways to polluted river.	Jim Boucher	Once this river was characterized by the elders as a food basket and it was a river of plenty. Today the river has become barren in the minds of the people.	00:36:07
On-camera interview with Preston McEachern. Cutaways to Athabasca River.	Preston McEachern	We’ve always acknowledged that there are impacts. What we said is that most of it is natural. Downstream of the oil sands mines, you cannot measure that impact from those discharges when it gets to fully mixed conditions in a large river like the Athabasca River.	00:36:24
Aerial footage of waste dumping into water.	Kevin Timoney	Hundreds of tons of these toxic compounds are entering the system annually and these are not natural in origin.	00:36:39
Footage of Athabasca River.	Narrator Graham Greene	Scientists have found lead, mercury and other petroleum-based toxins at much higher levels than government and industry report.	00:36:52
On-camera interview with David Schindler. Cutaways to moose. LOWER THIRD: David Schindler Professor of Ecology, Univ. of Alberta	David Schindler	There’s a soup of toxic chemicals going up. If you think of that airborne pollution coating all the vegetation any animals that come in there to graze are going to be taking up more arsenic and any other pollutants.	00:37:02
Cutaways to wildlife and hunter.	Kevin Timoney	If you're getting a lot of your food from the moose, from fishes, from water fowl, this is a huge concern.	00:37:18
Roy Ladouceur walks through waist-high grass.	Roy Ladouceur	(nat sound) There’s plenty of tea mint around in this area here, which is good and this very good stuff.	00:37:31
Roy Ladouceur picking tea mint. LOWER THIRD: Roy Ladouceur Métis	Roy Ladouceur	(nat sound) You know as a trapper, I can dry this up, crush it up. I use this a lot in the sweat lodge too. The most natural, wild tea mint there is.	00:37:39
Roy Ladouceur makes tea. Roy, Mike and Lawrence drinking tea	Roy Ladouceur	First test drill hole we’ll be going up to is southeast of here.	00:37:57
Lawrence Courtoreille off-screen	Lawrence Courtoreille	Who’s drilling there?	00:38:02
	Roy Ladouceur	PetroCanada.	00:38:04
	Lawrence Courtoreille	That’s Suncor now.	00:38:05
	Mike Mercredi	Smells good.	00:38:07
Mike and Roy in the clearing with test hole.	Roy Ladouceur	See where they drilled the test hole here? And I trap here. So it's a big disturbance to animal life. Now they’re moving away because of the noisy activity and vehicles on the road.	00:38:15
Mike mapping hole.	Mike Mercredi	Okay, gonna get a way point .	00:38:28
Close-ups of mapping GPS and notebook.	Mike Mercredi	When I first started doing the sacred sites I was going to each area and GPSing it, taking pictures, writing a report. This information was put on maps, later it was kind of used for this is our protected sites that we need as a First Nation.	00:38:31
Mike and Roy mapping the clearing. Cutaways of cranberries and lichen.	Mike Mercredi	This is just how many feet away and this is just one little section. Right here, there’s two things that provide sustenance. Cranberries for human consumption, and the lichen for the woodland caribou that are in the area. Now, that whole area, no caribou, or nobody will ever go back in that area to use it again.	00:38:45
TITLE: About the Alberta Oil Sands Government of Alberta video		In order to make the bitumen come out of the oil…	00:39:05
Footage from About the Alberta Oil Sands video.	Narrator Graham Greene	For four decades, government has been industry’s most enthusiastic advocate, spending billions of taxpayer dollars on research and subsidies	00:39:07
On-camera interview with Preston McEachern. LOWER THIRD: Preston McEachern Section Head, Science Research and Innovation Government of Alberta	Preston McEachern	Heavy, heavy government funding on the front end to create the research to figure out how do we economically harvest this resource.	00:39:18
Video continues. TITLE: About the Alberta Oil Sands Government of Alberta video	Video narrator	It's the fuel that runs your car, bubblegum, toothpaste it all starts right here in the oil sands.	00:39:28
TITLE: Suncor Pond 1 Reclamation Ceremony Government of Alberta video	Narrator Graham Greene	To address mounting public concern, the Alberta government launched a 25 million dollar PR campaign targeting their biggest customer: the United States.	00:39:38
Split screen reads: A good neighbour lends you a cup of sugar. A great neighbour provides you with 1.4 million barrels of oil per day. And does it responsibly. Alberta, Canada.
LOWER THIRD: Lindsey Graham South Carolina Senator	Lindsay Graham	I’m very excited to know that our good friends in Canada here in Alberta have an oil supply that can help fuel America for years to come. Instead of having to buy more oil from Mideast regimes that don’t like us very much. Full speed ahead when it comes to oil sands development.	00:39:52
Ida Stepanowich walking into work at Suncor. Grabs lineup sheet. Walks through Suncor building.	Ida Stepanowich	In June of 2000, I was hired by Suncor as a heavy equipment operator. I've operated grader, a dozer, a shovel. For about six months now I've been in the drainage department. All I know is I take water samples and the water's good.	00:40:13
Ida Stepanowich exits Suncor. On-camera interview with Ida Stepanowich while driving. LOWER THIRD: Ida Stepanowich Métis Footage of refinery from the road.	Ida Stepanowich	The reason I chose to work out here, you know it's financial gain to begin with. I make excellent money. Nobody’s going to come out and hand me money to put my son through school.	00:40:37
On-camera interview with Jim Boucher. Cutaways to tracking shots of large homes. Truck pulls into Fort McKay General Contracting LP. LOWER THIRD: Jim Boucher Chief, Fort McKay First Nation	Jim Boucher	Our people need to make a living. We wanted to see our people benefit from what's going on in our backyard. Combined, including our joint ventures last year we did about half a billion dollars in business.	00:40:53
Tracking shot of Suncor. Ida Stepanowich driving and talking.	Ida Stepanowich	I chose to work here for my family to have a better way of life. And – and it’s – and Suncor has given me that.	00:41:09
Aerials of toxic sludge lakes. Footage of bird struggling in tailings ponds.	Narrator Graham Greene	One of the environmental costs that has come with that better way of life is the growth of large lakes of toxic sludge. Sprawling over 65 square miles, these tailings ponds are deadly to migrating birds and other wildlife.	00:41:19
More shots of tailings ponds.	Kevin Timoney	There are literally billions of liters of tailings produced annually.	00:41:37
On-camera interview with Kevin Timoney. LOWER THIRD: Kevin Timoney Ecologist Cutaways of shoreline and refinery.	Kevin Timoney	They're located along the Athabasca River. It's about the worst place in the world you could place uh a pond that contains a lot of toxins. It's a recipe for disaster.	00:41:43
Footage of pristine and polluted water. On-camera interview with Raymond Ladouceur.	Raymond Ladouceur	As the elders used to tell me, everything has life on this earth. Water has a spirit. And once we pollute that water so much we’re going to kill that spirit and there’s be no life. So while it’s alive, save it. Mother Earth is alive.	00:42:02
Raymond Ladouceur driving his boat on the river and fishing. On-camera interview with Raymond Ladouceur. LOWER THIRD: Raymond “Big Ray” Ladouceur Fisherman, Métis	Raymond Ladouceur	Well I started into the commercial fishing industry at very young age. Throughout the years we had very healthy fish in this Lake Athabasca. Today, we have deformed fish on the northern pike, the pickerel, even the white fish. So, you know, people are very afraid of, you know, to use those fish for a meal, you know, for human consumption.	00:42:25
Roseanna Radmanovich taking fish from freezer showing to David Schindler.	Roseanna Radmanovich	This is the one from December, from Big Ray Ladouceur.	00:42:56
	David Schindler	Uh-huh, boy, look at the tumor on that thing. It's uh, and that's the sort of thing that uh, people in Fort Chip have been complaining about for almost 20 years.	00:43:00
Cutaway close-ups of fish with tumor.	David Schindler	And you can imagine how people seeing a fish like that are going to react and basically they’re going to run to the store and buy a bag of chips rather than eat fish, which I think is tragic.	00:43:13
On-camera interview with Kevin Timoney.	Kevin Timoney	The jury is out on what's causing all of these deformities but certainly one of the very well known causes of deformities are contaminants in the water.	00:43:27
Cutaways of fish.	Kevin Timoney	It's been known for quite a while that you know in some cases the levels of mercury are ten times above fisher guidelines in the west end of Lake Athabasca.	00:43:37
Roy Ladouceur cutting up fish. On-camera interview with Roy Ladouceur.	Roy Ladouceur	You can taste the aftertaste of the oil, the mercury, stuff like that. So when they say they’re not polluting the water, how can you, how can you say that they’re not when the proof is all there?	00:43:52
Cherie Wanderingspirit playing with daughter at playground. On-camera interview with Cherie Wanderingspirit. LOWER THIRD: Cherie Wanderingspirit Mikisew Cree	Cherie Wanderingspirit	They ask pregnant women here not to eat more than a couple of fish while you’re pregnant. In my granny’s time, that is not heard of. No, because that’s all we lived off – she lived off. What am I supposed to do? Be scared to eat the fish when that’s all I know?	00:44:15
Footage of river. On-camera interview with Don Thompson. LOWER THIRD: Don Thompson President, Oil Sands Developers Group	Don Thompson	About four million dollars a year is spent in monitoring, the Athabasca River by the industry. In fact, the Province of Alberta continues to rate the water quality, uh, of the Athabasca River as good.	00:44:40
On-camera interview with Preston McEachern. LOWER THIRD: Preston McEachern Section Head, Science Research and Innovation Government of Alberta Cutaway to slowly flowing river.	Preston McEachern	Industrial activity emits compounds – contaminants, if you will – and we just have to make sure that it’s done in a managed way that’s safe.	00:44:53
Aerial of tar sands. On-camera interview with David Schindler. LOWER THIRD: David Schindler Professor of Ecology, Univ. of Alberta Aerial of Syncrude mine.	David Schindler	Industry has a big influence in Alberta. If industry wants water, government gives them water. It's just a joke. At the end the rubber stamp comes out and it's approved.	00:45:04
Exterior shots of Alberta Environment. Shots of refinery. On-camera interview with Jim Boucher. LOWER THIRD: Jim Boucher Chief, Fort McKay First Nation	Jim Boucher	The Alberta government hit the environment department and gutted the scientific personnel that were there to police the activities of the oil sands industry. So if they don't have people to police, what's going on out here? Then the laws and the regulations are meaningless.	00:45:21
On-camera interview with Kevin Timoney. LOWER THIRD: Kevin Timoney Ecologist Cutaways of tailing spills and billowing smokestacks.	Kevin Timoney	I did a recent study where we found over 6,000 incidents. Some of these were 10 million liter tailing spills or huge pipeline breaks. No evidence of enforcement. By knitting industry and government so closely together and shutting out the public, it's become a fundamentally undemocratic and dangerous system.	00:45:40
On-camera interview with Cherie Wanderingspirit. Scenic shot of town.	Cherie Wanderingspirit	They do all these tests and try to minimize it, but we’re not, we’re not stupid. We see. We see and we feel.	00:46:08
Exterior shot of nursing station. John O'Connor and Simon Waquan talking in exam room.	John O’Connor	You’ve been through quite a bit.	00:46:27
	Simon Waquan	Yes. In 1988 I’ve had uh, prostate cancer and colon cancer at the same time. Uh, The latest one I’ve been diagnosed with is hairy cell leukemia. It's cancer in the blood.	00:46:29
	John O’Connor	Yup.
	Simon Waquan	But the thing that puzzles me is the cancer that my wife had. My wife comes from a family of 14. And she’s the only one with cancer. And she’s the only one who lived in Fort Chip.	00:46:46
	John O’Connor	Oh so she had lymphoma?	00:46:57
	Simon Waquan	Yes
	John O’Connor	And did it spread?	00:47:00
	Simon Waquan	It spread like wildfire.
	John O’Connor	Did it?
	Simon Waquan	She didn’t last long.
	John O’Connor	Really? Right. That’s a shame.
	Simon Waquan	Yeah.
	John O’Connor	You must miss her.	00:47:08
	Simon Waquan	Yeah.
On-camera interview with John O'Connor. LOWER THIRD: Dr. John O'Connor Family Physician Cutaways to funeral procession.	John O’Connor	We have uncovered clusters of illness, fatal and non-fatal illness, that cannot be explained in any other way other than that they come from environmental changes that are happening upstream of the community.	00:47:12
On-camera interview with Mike Mercredi. Cutaway to photo of uncle. LOWER THIRD: Mike Mercredi Athabasca Chipewyan	Mike Mercredi	There’s no known sicknesses in either side of my family. Next thing you know, I see my uncle, and then the way he looked--frail, whereas the year before he was healthy. Then all of a sudden it came up that Doctor O’Connor said it was a rare cancer that's being found in the community.	00:47:29
Photos of residents with cancer.	Narrator Graham Greene	20 kinds of cancer have been found in this isolated bush town, including rare tumors linked to toxins in petroleum. But even though the Alberta cancer board found 30 percent more cancer than expected, the government says there is no proven link between the oil sands and these health problems.	00:47:43
Truck pulls up to clinic. On-camera interview with Kim Nordbye. LOWER THIRD: Kim Nordbye Stakeholder Relations, Suncor Cutaways to the streets of Fort Chipewyan.	Kim Nordbye	I think the modern world faces an increase in cancer in general and we live in a very different environment. We’re surrounded by development everywhere. And I think it's important that folks in Fort Chip and Fort McKay get all the answers that they need before they make a call on really what is happening in their community.	00:48:09
Cherie Wanderingspirit visits cemetery. Looks at graves, cleans, kneels, walks through.	Cherie Wanderingspirit	I don’t know, it's just overwhelming seeing my family members firsthand. Like year after year after year passing on from different illnesses. The natural part of death doesn’t seem natural anymore.	00:48:34
Cherie Wanderingspirit overlooking cemetery.	Cherie Wanderingspirit	(nat sound) This is all too much. Something’s not right.	00:48:54
Aerials of mines and refineries. Mike Mercredi and Lionel Lepine discuss in front of Oil Sands map. Cutaways to grave, casino and hotel.	Mike Mercredi	These guys are coming into our homeland, taking the resources. And now people are dying from it and the government’s allowing this to happen. That’s why we say it's a form of genocide. It's smallpox happening all over again. And they’re making money by doing it.	00:49:08
Lionel Lepine speaking in front of Oil Sands map. LOWER THIRD: Lionel Lepine Environmental Coordinator Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation	Lionel Lepine	Canada and the States are allowing this to happen because they want every single ounce of oil, uranium, gold, diamonds, anything that’s in that in that area. They want every ounce of it at the cost of our lives.	00:49:27
Footage of bird flying overhead. Scenic footage of environment. On-camera interview with Raymond Ladouceur.	Raymond Ladouceur	Wherever the oil companies went they destroyed the way of life of people. And that's what they're doing to us here too. They're going to leave us with nothing.	00:49:42
Tracking shots driving through town. On-camera interview with Kim Nordbye.	Kim Nordbye	Many people in the First Nations communities get discouraged and feel they’ve been let down, they feel they’ve been taken advantage of, and I guess I have a hard time understanding that because for me as an individual, I’m responsible for my life, and it's important that I take control and that I do what I need to do to make myself happy, and I don’t, I don’t know that they often feel they have that sense of ownership to their life to do that.	00:49:53
Map of existing pipelines. Keystone XL and Northern Gateway pipeline snake on, labeled.	Narrator Graham Greene	The United States imports almost two million barrels of crude oil from Canada every day. Oil sands producers plan to triple output by 2025, requiring the construction of controversial pipelines to meet growing demand in the US and Asia.	00:50:20
Footage of putting gas in a car. Mike Mercredi and Lionel Lepine talking in front of Oil Sands map. Cutaway to traffic.	Mike Mercredi	Where do they get their gas and oil from in the gas tanks and the gas stations in the cities? From here. For them to drive their car is going to be what killed them. What’s happening here is going to happen to the rest of the world. It’s just a matter of time.	00:50:39
On-camera interview with Preston McEachern. Cutaway to traffic.	Preston McEachern	It should be a challenge to every person on this planet to look towards reducing consumption. But that said, we’re going to need hydrocarbons for quite awhile. We can’t just go back to the stone age.	00:50:53
Photo of banner in water reading "Dying for climate leadership."	Activist	When I say stop the, you say, tar sands. Stop the:	00:51:08
Tar sands protest footage.	Crowd	Tar sands!
	Activist	Stop the!
	Crowd	Tar sands!
Large banner reads "TAR SANDS CLIMATE CRIME." Greenpeace protestors at construction site.	Green Peace person	We want them to say no to the tar sands. They emit more emissions than entire countries.	00:51:16
Tar sands protests from around the world.	Narrator Graham Greene	International protesters have brought the issues to the world stage, targeting investors, consumers and policy makers.	00:51:24
Lionel Lepine speaking at protest. LOWER THIRD: Lionel Lepine Athabasca Chipewyan Cutaways to protest.	Lionel Lepine	The message is to Fort Chipewyan, the community where I live right now, take a look around, we're not alone in this struggle.	00:51:38
Suncor building exterior. Ida Stepanowich getting into truck, driving off. LOWER THIRD: Ida Stepanowich Métis	Ida Stepanowich	I do live in two worlds. I work at Suncor for six days and I come home for six days. When I go to work at Suncor, that is just a tiny part of who I am, that’s not who I am.	00:51:51
Ida Stepanowich walking through woods.	Ida Stepanowich	To me, this is home. And I come home to rejuvenate myself, to rebalance myself, to come back to nature.	00:52:09
Ida Stepanowich picking berries.	Ida Stepanowich	We were raised off the land. We always made moose meat, and dry meat, and from when I was a little girl I learned to pick medicines with my kókom, which was my grandma. We always picked berries in the fall, that was basically our staple for the winter.	00:52:21
Sign reads: "Warning, natural gas pipeline." Ida Stepanowich walks around pipeline building. On-camera interview with Ida Stepanowich.	Ida Stepanowich	When I was in the mine and looking at the earth being torn up 'cause to us like the earth is- is our mother. I found it very difficult, you know, I would, I would question myself why I was there.	00:52:42
Cutaway to aerial footage of forest next to refinery.	Ida Stepanowich	I know that uh.. we’re doing damage to the earth. Lotta times I say prayers and- and I put tobacco down and I always ask for forgiveness about, you know, for- for what I am doing.	00:53:00
Landscape of shoreline. Mike Mercredi and Mark L'Hommecourt enter cemetery.	Mike Mercredi	I was originally asked to come to Fort Chip to do a sacred sites project.	00:53:22
Holding up picture of grandfather at grave.	Mark L’Hommecourt	Caddie (phonetic) L’Hommecourt. He was a good old man, aye.	00:53:29
Footage of cemetery.	Mike Mercredi	One of the things that I was told was that it was for future generations so that we have this information archived.	00:53:32
Mike Mercredi GPS’ing graves. On-camera interview with Mike Mercredi. Cutaways to refineries and tailings ponds.	Mike Mercredi	And that's when I put everything on a jump drive. And then I remember holding onto the – to the actual memory stick and thinking, this is what the future is going to have. Because there's going to be no more land left to go back to. And all we'd have of our culture would be on this jump drive for our children to – to view and see.	00:53:40
Cutaways to land and water.	Mike Mercredi	And that was where I knew from that point that it had to be protected, that land had to be more than just this little piece of plastic.	00:54:08
Cutaways to pipes and land.	Mike Mercredi	I thought this couldn’t be what was left of our future.	00:54:23
On-camera interview with Winona LaDuke. Cutaways to footage of environment. LOWER THIRD: Winona LaDuke Anishinaabe Activist Cutaway to Mike Mercredi and Mark L’Hommecourt walking past "INDIAN RESERVE, NO TRESPASSING" sign and through the woods.	Winona LaDuke	I believe that power that we have as people doesn’t come from us. It comes from the creator and from the sources of power that are there on the land. We may not have all the guns, y'know, we don’t have all the pens, we don’t have all the courts, but we have that power and that’s what keeps people able to battle for so long against such hard odds.	00:54:30
Lionel Lepine and Mike Mercredi talking in front of Oil Sands map. Cutaways to nature and industry.	Lionel Lepine	I want my kids, my grandchildren to come up here and tell a completely different story about this map. I want them to tell us yeah, industry, they were here at one time and now they’re out there cleaning up the mess that they made so far. I vow that my grandchildren will tell a total opposite story to what I’m telling right now.	00:54:58
Credit roll			00:55:33
	Narrator	Next time, on Standing on Sacred Ground: Ethiopians and Peruvians reveal how their traditional cultures protect biodiversity – and may hold the promise of their future survival. For more information please visit sacredland.org. For DVD's or Downloads of the Standing on Sacred Ground series call 800-543-3764.	00:55:51