In April, I went to New York’s American Museum of Natural History to show a work-in-progress film on Russia’s Altai Republic at a conference on cultural and biological diversity. I met Satish Kumar, who has edited the magazine, Resurgence, for 35 years. Satish said to me, “Please be careful with the subject of sacred sites. The Ganges is not sacred alone. The Ganges is considered sacred because all rivers, all water, is sacred. We designate certain places as sacred only to lead the limited human mind to grapple with the sacredness of all life, every place.” I asked if he would be in the San Francisco Bay Area any time soon so that we could interview him for Losing Sacred Ground. He said, “I’ll be there in May,” and we arranged an interview in the gardens of the Green Gulch Zen Center. There are rarely moments in the middle of a film interview when you start to wonder where you are going to cut because every word you are hearing has the ring of eloquent truth, but as the hour-long interview with Satish unfolded I could not help but think “this man does not waste a word.”

One of the true frustrations of documentary filmmaking is that an interview bite in the finished film cannot possibly run longer than 45 seconds. So what if a complex question like “How do we need to address global climate change?” takes 3 minutes, or 3 hours, to really answer.

I hope you enjoy and appreciate this three-minute, uncut clip from our interview with Satish Kumar, on the subject of the real cause of global warming and what we need to do to truly change the course of our society.

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.

Our three-week film shoot in Peru is drawing to a close as we head back to Cusco after two great days at Machu Picchu. Everyone on the crew — associate producer Ashley Tindall, cinematographer Vicente Franco, sound recordist Willy Elizarde, and fixer Vernonica Perez — is getting a little tired as we’ve had several 4 am calls, once to climb a glacier to film a Q’eros ceremony, once to film sunrise bringing light back to “The Lost City of the Incas” (no longer lost as evidenced by the swarms of tourists). Hiking many miles with gear and working in extreme cold at 15,000 feet definitely took a toll. But spirits are high as we enjoy the beauty of the Andes and the warmth and wisdom of the native people.

With the help of Q’eros community president Marianno Carmen Machacca and 23-year old videographer Fredy Machacca and his band of horsemen (Juan, Anselmo, Lorenzo, Gregorio and others) we had a remarkably adventurous and productive seven days with the Q’eros on their annual pilgrimage to Q’olloy riti and then back home to the village of Cochomoco. I recognize the arrogance of trying to access a community like the Q’eros with very little time invested in developing trust, but with the help of some truly generous people who have worked with the Q’eros for years it felt like we met with acceptance, approval and trust, and the footage we came away with will, I think, be deeply revealing of profound sacred places and people. The weather cooperated, snow-capped mountains (Apus) like sacred Mt. Ausangate revealed themselves, we lived to tell the tale of our 4 am ascent to the foot of the retreating glacier at Q’olloy riti, and even Benito the Q’eros shaman gave us an interview.

At a community meeting after filming a potato harvest, I agreed to help pay for the roof of a new and badly-needed school in Cochomoco and Fredy Machacca asked three of our film team to become godparents and participate in the ritual of cutting his one-year-old son Nicasio’s hair, which we accept as a responsibility for the future, as we look forward to years of collaboration and friendship with Fredy and the Q’eros people.