In May, SLFP screened segments of the forthcoming Standing on Sacred Ground film series at the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York and the annual conference and film festival of the International Funders for Indigenous Peoples.

Nearly two years after the Dongria Kondh tribe in the Indian state of Orissa won a historic victory to halt an open-pit bauxite mining project on its sacred lands, both tribe and land are facing renewed threats.

In the face of threats and violence from a Chinese mining company and local authorities, a small village’s year-long effort to stop a gold mining project on the slopes of one of Tibet’s holiest mountains finally paid off, perhaps with a little help from the mountain.

About 15 percent of the world’s surface, much of it forest, is “sacred land,” according to a team of Oxford University scientists working on a project to scientifically measure the coverage of religious and sacred land around the globe and assess its biodiversity and land-use values.

When we filmed in the spectacular Altai Republic of Russia in 2007, U.K. native Joanna Dobson kindly helped us with translation. Joanna is fluent in Russian and has moved to the Altai to work on various projects to help preserve traditional culture and protect sacred sites. Joanna reports on her work via a great website [...]

A community of the Penan people, a seminomadic group in the rainforests of Borneo who have been struggling for decades to save their lands and livelihood from timber harvesting and other incursions, have recently brought their fight to a Malaysian court.

In a major victory for indigenous land rights, India’s environment minster on Aug. 24 struck down a controversial mining project in eastern Orissa state that would have threatened the survival of the 8,000-member Dongria Kondh tribe.

Chinese police in Markham County in eastern Tibet have reportedly cracked down on protesters attempting to block the resumption of mining operations on their sacred mountains.

A major new assessment of the current state of biodiversity warns that unless urgent action is taken, the natural systems that support humankind are at risk of collapse.

In January, the U.N. released its first-ever report on the “State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples,” which presents a global view of the current situation of indigenous peoples, examining poverty and well-being, culture, education, health, human rights, environment and emerging issues.

Monks in China and Mongolia are taking a spritual approach in confronting modern threats to Buddhist and Daoist sacred mountains, while in Malaysian Borneo, one of the world’s last nomadic tribes fights to save its traditional rainforest lands from logging, hydropower and oil palm plantations.

In July, we traveled for the second time to Russia’s Altai Republic, this time to film a meeting of 25 sacred site guardians from all over Central Asia who gathered to discuss strategies for protecting cultural and biological diversity locally and globally. At the invitation of the Foundation for Sustainable Development of Altai (FSDA), delegations [...]

Over the past month we published one new and three fully updated sacred site reports—featuring locations in the Himalaya, California and Nevada—which we invite you read

In June and July, we published one updated and two new sacred site reports—featuring locations in Malaysia, Bulgaria and Arizona—which we invite you read

A protest in Tibet that has been sustained for several months has ended with a Chinese firm agreeing not to develop a gold mine at a sacred site. The protest was sparked when local authorities approved plans by Chinese mining and lumbering firm Zhongkai Co. to excavate the area. Hundreds of Tibetans protested the mine’s [...]

Over the past month, we’ve published three new sacred site reports—featuring locations in Japan, Colombia and Afghanistan—which we invite you read

After several years of negotiations, Russia and China have reportedly agreed to postpone a deal on the Altai pipeline until 2030. The proposed pipeline would have delivered natural gas from western Siberia to northern China and traversed the Ukok Plateau in the Golden Mountains of Altai, one of Russia’s UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The Sacred [...]

For twenty-three days I saw no newspapers, no clocks, no calendars, no mirrors. Time and identity melted into the landscape of the Altai: racing clouds and falling rain, a new and growing moon, shamans’ fires sputtering under spoonfuls of cow’s milk and crackling to devour dry cedar. I was transfixed by the rippling green mountains [...]

Maya Erlenbaeva is mapping sacred sites for the Foundation for Sustainable Development of Altai. She has spent the last two years meeting with elders and visiting sacred places around Kosh Agach and recording detailed information and locations on maps. Maya’s colleague, Chagat Almashev, explained: “Russians don’t recognize spiritual places, they’re intangible. So our strategy is [...]

When we met the shaman Maria Amanchina in Kosh Agach she asked us about our dreams. She wanted to know where we had been and what we had felt as we traveled through the Altai. I told her that I had two dreams while camping on Uch Enmek. In one dream, I saw a bird [...]

There is a big international black market for rock art – petroglyphs and cliff paintings – ancient sacred images that depict traditional knowledge rooted in the landscape. In southern Utah, people are using battery-powered saws to cut sandstone slabs off cliffs, which end up hanging in living rooms in New York and Tokyo. I’ve been [...]

We made it out of Kosh-Agach and up to the Ukok Nature Park’s camp at the sacred radon springs, cold water baths that Maria told us would reinvigorate us (if not make us glow a bit for the next 200 years!)  As soon as we arrived a massive snow storm headed our way. We quickly [...]

Two days ago we repacked all our gear and selves back into our two minivans and made our way along the Chuisky Tract (the only “highway” through the Altai). This two-lane road was once a part of the Silk Road and still functions as the main conduit for anything moving from Russia, China and Mongolia [...]

…to our incredible crew!  After days of rain, Will and Andy — ever the über-professionals — take a break from their “rest” day to dry out the equipment .

We’re a week into our shoot and are exhausted but elated. We are back in residence at the Uch Enmek Nature Park yurts having just returned from three days climbing through the wet alpine wilderness to Uch Enmek Mountain with Danil (a phenomenal guide who manages to maintain his humor while we interview him in [...]

After three days and two nights of slogging through rain, mud and sleet with Danil Mamyev, our indefatigable guide and inspiration, we emerge from the Siberian forest and toe-step up the slick moraine to where Danil has lit a fire and begun to make his offering to the mountain. Though we are soaked to the [...]

We arrived last night to the cozy campground at Uch Enmek Nature Park, a serene round of traditional gers (a type of large yurt) at the edge of the sacred Karakol Valley. We are here to find out how Altaians protect this landscape, which has been an important burial ground for millenia (as evidenced by [...]

Two days ago we left the grim streets of industrial Barnaul for Gorno-Altaisk, the capital city of the Altai Republic. Arriving after a five hour drive in a speeding minivan, our beleaguered bodies crammed in among the sharp corners of our equipment, our eyes delighted at the sight of Gorno’s verdant hills and (almost) quaint [...]

We met today with Rima Yerkinova, the director of the Altai Museum, and interviewed her (for four hours!) about the 1993 unearthing of a 2,500 year-old burial on the Ukok Plateau by Russian archaeologists. A young woman’s body, frozen in permafrost, was removed from an elaborate grave and some Altaian people still feel that the [...]

Today, we finally put to use the 700 lbs. of equipment that we’ve hauled halfway around the world. Our first interview of Losing Sacred Ground was with Mikhail Shishin, a pensive professor of cultural anthropology and philosophy in Barnaul. He also is the committed leader of a determined group of Russians and Altaians that have [...]

Here’s the Sacred Land Film Project crew, looking jet-lagged yet spry, in Moscow’s Red Square. From left to right, we are Will Parrinello (camera), Toby McLeod (director/producer), Andy Black (sound and camera) and Ashley Tindall (associate producer). After a 14 hour flight from San Francisco through Atlanta and what will be a 12-hour layover (and [...]