On June 13 the Federal Court in Darwin, Australia delivered a blow to the spirits of the Gudanji, Yanyuwa, Garrawa and Mara peoples. As many of you know, we have been following the events surrounding the zinc mine expansion and diversion of the McArthur River in the Northern Territory since last year. Now, in a decision that has been awaited since last August, the Court upheld the government’s decision to allow Swiss-based Xstrata Corporation to pursue a $110 million mine expansion project at the McArthur. This expansion plan includes a 5.5 kilometer diversion of the river which would allow Xstrata to tap a large deposit of zinc, a mineral which is skyrocketing in value on the world market, in great part due to Chinese demand. Since July 2007 the mining company has been forging ahead with the construction of the diversion canal anticipating this decision. Opponents of the diversion plan continue to charge that the diversion of the river will destroy sacred sites and have deleterious environmental effects on the fisheries and mangroves downstream.

The Gudanji and Yanyuwa people of Borroloola, with whom we filmed last August, have been persistent in their opposition to the diversion as moving the river would cut their rainbow serpent and turtle dreamings (see our site report on the McArthur River) and forever damage the community spirit of the people. They also fear that Xstrata’s subsidiary, McArthur River Mining (MRM) has dug up burial grounds and removed bones from the site.

The traditional owners, as Aboriginal peoples are known in Australia, and the Northern Land Council – an agency that was set up to administer land rights claims for Aboriginal peoples in the Northern Territory – had sued the former federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell a year ago, charging that he had not followed correct procedure or analysis when he issued a permit for the mine’s expansion plan. This lawsuit followed a back-and-forth series of politically and culturally charged events, including the a decision by the NT Supreme Court halting the river diversion in April 2007 and the Northern Territory government’s highly contentious passage in May 2007 of last-minute legislation to allow for the diversion to begin.

In response to the litigation and publicity, MRM had refused to allow the traditional owners onto the property to conduct ceremonies. Last month, led by our friend Jacky Green, the Gudanji formed a roadblock at the mine entrance in protest. Xstrata issued several trespass notices to the protesters and police stepped in on behalf of the mining company.

After the June 13th decision, the Gudanji again gathered at the mine entrance with about 80 people, including Yanyuwa, Garrawa and Mara people, asking to be permitted onto the site to perform a farewell ceremony to the sacred sites. MRM refused and accused the Northern Land Council of staging a media stunt. The council fired back, charging that MRM was in violation of Australia’s Sacred Sites Act by refusing permission to the people to access their sites and perform ceremony. On June 19th, the police once again cleared off the protesters.

The Northern Land Council will now press its case with the new Environment Minister Peter Garrett. They hope he will agree to conduct a federal environmental impact assessment and halt the mining company’s river diversion work. We’ll keep tabs on news from the McArthur River and let you know how you might be of help!

To read the national press coverage, check out the recent articles in the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age (Melbourne) and The Northern Territory News (Darwin). To find out what actions may be taken in Australia in the coming months, check out the Environment Centre of the Northern Territory’s page and their McArthur River blog.

This afternoon we took a break from filming Anton took the men out to fish around the other side of the island. While they were hunting barracuda by boat, Steve’s daughters took me fishing for barracuda by hand. Juanita (15) managed to keep an eye on her little sisters Shanny (9) and Harriet (3) as they clambered over the sun-baked rocks and searched for bait among the tide pools.

Then, having stabbed bits of hermit crab onto mid-size hooks, they wrapped one end of the clear filament around their left hand and swung the fishing line lasso-style out onto the fiercely shimmering sea.

I stood on the rocks peering into the bristling blue waters seeing only the reflection of the sun and clouds, my eyes watering at the intensity of light and color. I asked if there were many fish in this area. Juanita looked at me confused. You don’t see them? she smiled. See the fish? I was perplexed. What fish? At that moment, Harriet, who was perched on a rock twenty feet away, snapped her elbow back and brought up a sizable barra, turning around to hold it up for Juanita to gauge its worth and for me to admire. Juanita nodded and turned back to me. There are scores just there, she pointed a few yards out, they are all around us. Big, too! I narrowed my eyes. But where? I couldn’t see a thing. She nodded and laughed. My dad says we all have bush eyes. You see that boat? she pointed at the empty horizon. I rubbed my eyes, straining. Ten minutes later the fishing boat roared into my view.

Steve Johnston and his son Anton came into King Ash Bay on the McArthur River to take us out to Vanderlin Island, their home and one of the Sir Edward Pellew Islands in the Gulf of Carpinteria. The islands sit at the mouth of the McArthur, and the Johnstons have reported that the oysters, turtles and fish in the gulf have been poisoned by the heavy metals running down the McArthur from the mine site near Borroloola.We boarded their fishing boats and headed out. Dave, Charles and I climbing in with Anton and Will, Dave W. and Toby filming with Steve in his boat.

As Anton steered us out the mouth of the river towards Vanderlin, he pointed out viscous sand clouds appearing just under the surface of the waves. These are the trails of the dugong, an endangered mammal related to the manatee or sea cow and now endangered due to polluted waters and commercial fishing in the gulf. Anton knows these waters well and, although there were no obvious markers to my eyes, he located a spot that he indicated was a dugong dreaming, a place known to his people for all of known history. We circled around and within minutes there were dozens of these elusive creatures surfacing and schooling nearby.

Charles shouted with surprise. He’d been studying and researching the McArthur River and the Gulf area for many years, and had become familiar with the plight of the dugong, but he’d never seen one in person. We followed their lines and suddenly saw a mother surface with her calf right at the bow of the light boat.

I stood on the bow, perched to photograph them, catching the shot just before they plunged beneath the waves, their presence erased in the churn of our wake.

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 geared up to film with Danil, driving the wazi (Russian army van) up the road as far as we could go and then stumbling through the falling snow to a precipice. We filmed Danil in a short interview (see our Pilgrimage to a Sacred Site video) as long as we all could take it and then retreated to the warm and dry cabins.

Once the storm blew through, we sat down with Sergei and Danil to talk about what brought us to the Ukok Plateau. Gas. And, more specifically, Gazprom’s plans to build a natural gas pipeline through this majestic, biodiverse plateau to China.Local Altaians are up in arms over this plan. While Gazprom has made promises to protect the environment and landscape and bring energy to the local district, people do not believe it. The Ukok is where the Ice Princess was unearthed from her grave and where many other burial sites have been disturbed.

Many Altaians believe the Russian federal authorities are in a rush to exploit the country’s natural resources for profit and may destroy the land and culture of the Altai to accomplish their goals. During the interview Sergei brought out his map to show Danil the planned path of the pipeline.

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 through the precipitous heights of the Golden Mountains of Altai. We pass goats, pigs, men on horseback and logging trucks on our long ascent before we are passed up by some flash vehicles bearing Moscow license plates. The Altai is now a tourist destination for many affluent Russians eager to hunt, fish, climb, ski and lounge on the sunny banks of the marvelous Katun River which winds its way down from sacred Mt. Belukha in the far southwest of the country.

But, today, we’ve gone the opposite direction. We head to Kosh-Agach, the easternmost town in the Altai. It sits on the near-barren high steppe, cowering under the snowy peaks that stand as sentinels marking the entrance to the Ukok Pass. Tomorrow we will head out early to drive up the pass and camp on the edge of the Ukok Plateau. But, today, we discover the town of Kosh-Agach, a dusty and ragged place that can hardly be called a city but which has more sprawl than a town could justify. The frigid vast blue sky above our heads, the unpaved streets riddled with potholes and wheel tracks and the bleak wooden storefronts lend this place the air of a squatter town in the old American West. The few people lingering on the streets hardly look at us, although we Patagonia-clad crew of Americans with film gear tumbling out the back of late model vehicles must be an odd sight. Soon, the man we came to meet, Sergei Orchurdaipov — Director of the Ukok Nature Park and representative to the Altai Assembly for Kosh-Agach Rayon — shows up. He’s a hefty man in Russian camo fatigues with a buzz cut, fashionable sunglasses and a booming laugh. He’s nothing like Danil, but these two men know each other well and clasp hands, smiling and nodding while certainly exchanging at little joke in Altai about these strange Americans.

…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 wildnerness to Ooch Enmek mountain with Danil (a phenomenal guide who manages to maintain his humor while we interview him in the sleeting rain and bitter cold and, later, takes pity on the shivering Americans and builds the perfect fire to dry us out). He never shows signs of fatigue, even though he took a collective 50 pounds or so of equipment off our backs and carried it on his pack for our trek down the mountain.Back on the sunny Karakol valley floor, our film team has met up with our friends from the US, Jennifer Castner and Alyson Ewald, who run the Altai Project, an NGO that works with Altai communities on sustainable energy and economic development. Here we stand AFTER a nap and banya (hot steambath) but before the night’s shashlik (grilled lamb) and vodka. We owe a lot to Jennifer and Alyson (standing on the left) and the tight-knit group of people working on cultural, economic and environmental issues in this beautiful place. The Altai is not a place one Googles easily to find accurate and abundant information. We took time to talk to as many people as possible in the U.S. who know the country well and they introduced us to the most perspicacious and generous people in the Altai. This includes Danil (pictured center) and our friend Chagat Almashev, who runs the Fund for the Sustainable Development of the Altai, and Joanna Dobson, our wonderful translator and a British expat who has lived in Ongudai for many years (standing far right).

After three days and two nights of slogging through rain, mud and sleet — Danil our infatigable guide and inspiration — we emerge from the Siberian forest and toe-step up the slick moraine to where Danil will give his offering to the mountain.And this is the moment just before the clouds descended upon us and, in a matter of twenty seconds, slid across the distant comb-like peak thwartingour efforts to film the mountain and reminding us of man’s necessary humility when in the realm of the natural.

We arrived last night to the cozy campground at Ooch 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 the numerous kurgans or stone burial mounds) and center of steppe culture where petroglyphs and standing stones are signs of the continuous cycle of life in this valley.This morning, our guide Chagat and our translator Joanna brought us a visitor. Someone who, undoubtedly, will change everything we’ve planned for these three weeks and take us off in some wonderful new direction. For months we’ve been told by our local contacts that we must meet the elusive Danil Mamyev, that he knows everything about the Altai, that he has the most profound spiritual gravity, that he is the guide in this country. I was thus surprised when the stocky fiftyish man with unusually (for a contemporary Altaian) long gray hair and a bright red Gore-Tex jacket strode into camp. With a vise-like handshake that would put John Wayne to shame, Danil greeted us with a suspicious look in his inscrutable black eyes and then asked us to come with him to sit in the shade.As he sat with the grace of a bodhisattva under the broad canopy of a plane tree, he listened to us describe our project with no reaction. After Toby delicately inquired whether Danil would be interested in speaking with us on camera, in describing his work as Director of the Nature Park and his own personal connection to the land, I guessed we were certain to be disappointed. Danil, however, gave a quick satisfied nod and finally smiled. Would we be interested in going up to his sacred mountain Ooch Enmek? he queried. He was going up there anyway on a pilgrimage and he would be happy to have us along.Needless to say, we got our things together immediately.

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 city streets (if one averts the eyes from the Brutalist-style of ubiquitous concrete architecture).We got our bearings and slept off a little of the jet lag and then got down to business, interviewing the Director of the National Museum, Rima Yerkinova, and finally meeting all the people we’ve only talked with by phone or heard about for all these months of planning.We left Gorno late last night and arrived in Erdogan, a rugged hamlet that appeared ghostly at night, its tumble-down barns and fences ethereally lit by our vans’ headlights. But, waking this morning, we discovered we’d arrived to a neat little village lying in the lap of voluptuous hills that would laugh the green off the Irish countryside.This preternaturally quiet valley is where the powerful Katun River broadens after it drops several thousand feet from the eastern Altai mountains. For 30 years the Russian government has wanted to put a massive hydroelectric dam on this site, ostensibly to power local industry and homes, but the plans have so far be shown to be economically unviable, not to mention environmentally horrific. However, the Katun Dam project is still high on many officials’ lists, so locals brought us out here to remind the world that the river and valley remain at risk.

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 formed The Fund for the 21st Century Altai, an NGO that works to educate Russians and the international community about the unique culture and environment of the Altai.Speaking of the rapid development going on in Altai — including the proposed natural gas pipeline that Russia is building to China through the Ukok Plateau — Mikhail struck a somber but rational note:”It seems to me that we’ve reached a point in Altai when we need to balance everything very carefully. We can either have a world where everything is homogenously globalized, where pipelines are everywhere, roads are everywhere, and people move freely, OR we can set aside certain places, places that preserve culture and spirituality, places where water remains and where enormous glaciers are reservoirs for all humanity. The taiga is here, where the air is regenerated and we receive oxygen – perhaps this is more important?”

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 sprint to see the sights) in Moscow, we will take a red-eye flight and arrive in the Soviet-era city of Barnaul (Altaisky Krai province) around 6 am. That will make it around a 36-hour sprint to the other side of the world! Thankfully we’re coming back to Moscow at the end of this trip, so this won’t be all you see of this fascinating city of politics, churches, shopping and traffic.