Part 4 of Ocean Frontiers follows the fishing community of Port Orford, which is taking control of their destiny, by conducting their own brand of conservation. They are protecting ocean habitat and conducting local science projects to sustain their fishing quotas, as well as protecting upstream forests to save their salmon—a farsighted perspective that considers their links to the land and sea, for their economic well-being.

A new way of thinking, a new way of living, in concert with the sea, in celebration of those yet to come. Ocean Frontierstakes us on an inspiring voyage to seaports and watersheds across the country to meet unlikely allies, of industrial shippers and whale biologists, pig farmers and wetland ecologists, sport fishers and reef snorkelers and many more, all are embarking on a new course of collaboration, in defense of the seas that sustain us.

This trailer is about Bobby McMullen but not from the actual short film Look to the Ground.

Look to the Ground is a snapshot of the inspiring story of Bobby McMullen, an extreme athlete who is legally blind, and who has worked against the odds to become a top mountain bike downhiller. Imagine riding your mountain bike at full speed down a steep serpentine trail at night while looking with one eye through a rolled up piece of paper with wax paper over the end. The other eye is closed. Just such a scenario describes much of Bobby McMullen’s life: He is a blind mountain biker. Look to the Ground is his story.

A Skier’s Journey EP3 is a road trip through some of Argentina’s lesser known ski locations, covering nearly 4000km down the windswept spine of the seemingly endless Andes mountain range. Chad Sayers, joined in part by local skier Maximilliano Artoni, explores desert and pampas, Cohiue and Auracaria, pumice and ash, cardboard and blower, sunshine and wind, granite spire and some bubbling agua termale. Powder Magazine

High in the Canadian Arctic, five friends venture to the frozen fjords of Northwest Baffin Island during spring time. Ancient and colossal, these branching hallways of rock are the domain of seals and polar bears, and relied upon by local Inuit hunters. For visiting skiers, the fjords are nothing short of a dream. In every direction, giant couloirs ascend thousands of feet above the sea ice, weaving in between some of the tallest and cliffs on the planet. Baffin Island: A Skier’s Journey EP2 is a step through these magical spaces. Powder Magazine

If your beloved ski hill ran out of money and had no choice but to close, what would you do? With time running out for majestic Shames Mountain in Northern BC, local skiers from Terrace, Prince Rupert, and Kitimat have decided to take matters into their own hands and buy the ski hill as a community co-operative.
Friends of Shames: A Skier’s Journey EP1 is a look into what’s at stake for the people who call Shames home, and sheds light onto a different way of owning & operating a ski hill. And of course, there are plenty of deep turns and stunning terrain along the way. SkiMag.com

January 13^th, 2012

Dear SYRCL,

Thank you for letting us watch the short films from the Wild and Scenic Film Festival. Monster Fish was one of my favorites by far. My favorite was the giant stingray and her offspring. Zeb showed stewardship and compassion by letting them go.

The film about the White Salmon River was inspirational. I’ve always wanted to go kayaking over waterfalls. They showed a lot of stewardship in trying to have the dam taken down. Plastic Art was really creative. Not only did they clean up the beach, but they made it into art for the community. That showed compassion for the earth and for doing what they love. Invasion of the Alien Fish showed a lot of stewardship and responsibility. It took responsibility because the people who released the lionfish had to be responsible for what bad they had done and they helped take care of the problem. The Majestic Plastic Bag was the funniest. The little plastic bag had to show some courage to face the dangerous journey to the Garbage Patch. It was inspirational,  TO RECYCLE MORE!

Thanks again,

Lila

5^th Grade

Grass Valley Charter School

January 13^th, 2012

Dear SYRCL,

Thank you for putting on the Wild and Scenic Film Festival for schools. I think the people from “The Invasion of Alien Fish” showed stewardship for the Atlantic coral reefs by trying to take the lionfish out of that area. I wish I could travel across the state to help them.

But out of all the films, my favorite one was “The majestic Plastic Bag.” It was SO funny! My favorite part was when the guy said, “One of nature’s most deadliest killers: the Yorkie. It fastens its jaws around its victim…” That was hilarious!

I think it was a good idea to make a funny short and get people aware of that plastic island and how plastic bags are dangerous to the environment.

I loved your film festival.

From,

Alyse

Salmon Parade

January 13^th, 2012

Dear SYRCL,

Thank you for letting us go to the Wild and Scenic Film Festival! My two favorite were “Gloop” and “The Majestic Plastic Bag.” “Gloop” was extremely creepy and the “Majestic Plastic Bag” was over the top funny.

I didn’t know that a plastic bag was so unique in it’s own way and how it traveled to the ocean.

It was funny seeing a plastic bag family reunion! It was cool seeing the guy from a show I watch. I am really looking forward to seeing the film festival on the weekend!

From,

Devin

Salmon Parade

January 13^th, 2012

Dear SYRCL,

Thank you for letting me go to the Wild and Scenic Film Festival. Some of the videos were funny and some inspired me. In “Monster Fish,” I learned to be careful and aware of fish. I now realize that when a big cool fish that I like gets extinct it is partly my fault. My favorite big fish was the one that has been alive since the dinosaurs were romping on earth. I also am fascinated in the lionfish one. It helped me learn a lot.

I am defiantly going to study big fish and help. I already started an Save the Earth club and Save the Fish.

Sincerely your big fan,

Sammy

John Trudell

After the whirlwind of producing the 2012 Wild & Scenic Film Festival, we are adjusting to the relative calm in the SYRCL office, catching up on sleep, and basking in the memories of the weekend. We are honored and humbled by the countless influential filmmakers, activists, adventurers, celebrities and politicians’ enthusiasm and praise. We are grateful for their participation in Wild & Scenic and for their tireless work. Thanks to our experienced and dedicated jury’s deliberation, we are excited to honor the filmmakers who create our award winning films.

Thank you to our many hosts who welcomed our filmmakers and guests with open arms. Your warm hospitality makes Wild & Scenic a favorite with filmmakers. From your home, guests see Nevada City as the generous community it is.

Peaceful Uprising Climate Trial

Thank you to over 650 volunteers who gave your time, experience and patience to truly make the Wild & Scenic Film Festival a community event. From making popcorn in Miners Foundry, to entering information into endless spreadsheets, to overseeing entire film venues as Venue Coordinators, to loading recycling and compost, our volunteers were cheerful and excited to take part in the largest film festival of its kind. Volunteer involvement not only makes the festival possible, but also many of the movements addressed in the films. Thank you to our many sponsors. Without your generous support the festival would not be possible.

Thank you to everyone who attended the festival. We appreciate your patience while waiting in lines to enter popular venues. Your questions for speakers reflected your involvement in environmental campaigns and your in depth understanding of the most important issues of our time. Over and over filmmakers have told us that your questions were the best they have ever gotten. Your positive presence reminds us that no matter how daunting the issues in the films are, our unity and inspiration is a powerful motivation to create lasting change.

More than ever, the Wild & Scenic Film Festival reflected the South Yuba River Citizens League’s mission and vision. Flo swam through the streets raising awareness of the plight of California Chinook salmon and Steelhead Trout. The Dam Removal Celebration featuring the world premiere of Andy Maser’s The Craziest Idea was overflowing with members of our audience who pledged to work toward dam removals. At the end of the weekend our petition to Save our Yuba State Parks had 9,000 signatures. We hope the Wild & Scenic Film Festival inspired activism, not only worldwide but also in our community and SYRCL itself.

With many of our film sessions sold out, with a festive, positive environment throughout the weekend, we consider our 2012 Wild & Scenic Film Festival a success. Thank you for your involvement.

Grassroots organizations host the festival to educate, entertain and motivate audiences. The tour raises funds for the host organization, encourages membership for the local organization and gains exposure for environmental issues. These hosting organizations choose three hours of the best films featured in the home festival. Given the large range of films in our festival, local organizations can motivate their audience with films that motivate action for issues of local importance.

On January 27, Montezuma Land Conservancy will host Wild & Scenic on Tour in Dolores, Colorado. The Montezuma Land Conserancy (MLC) is a non-profit that works cooperatively with willing landowners who choose to restrict development on their private property. Through this private land conservation, landowners protect productive soil, water, wildlife habitat and the area’s scenic beauty. The next night, Wild & Scenic on Tour will screen in Silver City, New Mexico hosted by the Gila Conservation Coalition, who protect the free flow of the Gila and San Francisco Rivers as well as the Gila and Aldo Leopold Wilderness areas. The Gila Conservation Coalition is a partnership of local environmental and conservation groups who promote conservation of the Upper Gila River Basin, and stopped Dam proposals in the late 1980s. Soon after, the Missouri River Relief hosts the festival in Columbia, Missouri. The Missouri River Relief (MRR) is a grassroots organization dedicated to reconnecting people to the Missouri River through river clean ups and education events. Currently MRR has hosted 68 Missouri River clean ups, gathering 14,208 volunteers to clean 592 tons of trash from 667 miles of the Missouri river in six states.

The Wild & Scenic Film Festival is produced by the South Yuba River Citizen’s League, a non-profit which exists to protect and restore the Yuba River and the Greater Yuba Watershed. Therefore, it is fitting that many similar organizations host the Wild & Scenic Film Festival on tour. Interested in hosting the festival? Contact our tour manager for more information. Without the support of our national partners, Wild & Scenic on Tour would not be possible. Thank you to Patagonia, Osprey, CLIF Bar, Sierra Nevada Brewery, AJA Video Systems and Mother Jones for your generous support.

Lindsey Bontecou of Mendocino won our Find Flo competition, logging in the most accurate Flo sightings during the festival. She won a free weekend pass to next year’s Wild & Scenic home festival. Congratulations Lindsey!

Flo hopes that her constant presence during the weekend reminded festival goers that the Wild & Scenic Film Festival is produced by the South Yuba River Citizens League, (SYRCL) a non-profit which exists to protect and restore the Yuba River and the Greater Yuba Watershed. SYRCL’s vision is for a free-flowing Yuba River which supports wild salmon, trout and other native fish in their ancestral waters. Flo is SYRCL’s mascot and we hope everyone who sees Flo is reminded of dams, global warming, pollution, reduced stream flow, deforestation and many other factors that increasingly threaten California’s Chinook salmon and Steelhead trout.

Kim helps Flo with the radio

Flo and Anthony Baxter, filmmaker of award winning You've Been Trumped

Stay tuned for more on Flo throughout the Yuba Watershed. Have you seen a fish ski? Check back soon to see if Flo hits the slopes.

On the opening night of Wild and Scenic, John Trudell addressed a packed house at the Nevada Theatre. I’ve heard him speak before, even spoken with him. His words are so potent, his message so rich, it’s difficult to paraphrase, or even absorb it in one pass. Twice during the festival people quoted him from that night, but those particular points had washed over me as I absorbed the one that came before. (If anyone has an audio recording or a transcript of his talk that night, please let me know!)

That night, Trudell spoke about systems. Systems that are in place in our society that serve to imprison and control us. Two examples he used were the military system and the system of organized religion. When someone asked him about the Occupy movement, he was openly ambivalent. First he said, we need to be careful that our actions of protest do not feed those systems. When cops are called to police a riot, for instance, the protestors are actually feeding the system by requiring the need for the cops. He pointed out that this last Black Friday, Americans spent more money than ever. This feeds the system of corporate commercialism, and goes against the very essence of Occupy. He asked us to think about this, and to embrace change in a way that starved the system. “If the 99% all agreed to not buy anything for one whole day…” he mused. With him, we imagined that, and imagined creating new systems, and what they might look like.

John Trudell talks about systems at opening night of Wild and Scenic. 

The next day at Wild and Scenic, Occupy Nevada County hosted a street fair on Commercial Street, right by the parklet. Street theatre and a puppet show were the highlights of the afternoon. As I wandered through their displays and watched the entertainment, I thought about Trudell’s comments and the general criticism that Occupy lacks focus and commitment–on a national level at least. But that day, at that protest, I saw loads of both. Maybe that’s why our little town’s Occupy movement has made national news. It was focus that got that attention, focus on the epidemic of foreclosures in our community.

The focus that landed Occupy Nevada County on The Rachel Maddow Show 

Occupy Nevada County’s Puppet Show: The Three Pigs … 

…and the loan wolf. 

I had a great dinner with friends and chosen family that night, took a breath from festival life. We talked for awhile about democracy: when it worked and when it didn’t, agreeing that it works okay when the system is small, intimate even, and when the parties involved deeply care about and need one another. Once people can be objectified and made dispensable, democracy quickly evaporates. I fell asleep thinking about Trudell’s words and about systems old and yet uninvented.

The next morning I headed to City Hall to see Jason Rainey, Derek Hitchcock, and Mark Dubois give a talk about a new watershed governance system. Rainey, former executive director of SYRCL, has relocated to the Bay Area to work at International Rivers in the same capacity. He asked us to suspend our judgement and skepticism a moment, and imagine a whole new system, a system that “honored the blue lines on the map” for once. Derek Hitchcock, mentioned off the top that Trudell’s talk had greatly impacted him. Mark Dubois called upon us to be compassionate and inclusive rather than catty and judgmental (always a trick for humans). Here is Hitchcock’s proposal for a new system, a grass-roots, built from the bottom way to manage our watersheds and ourselves in the process.

Level One: Tributary Watershed Guilds. Every creek and stream would be stewarded by those around it, who would meet biweekly or monthly to discuss hazards and opportunities for the watershed that they called home. We see these types of guilds here in our community: Friends of Deer Creek, Wolf Creek Alliance, and the newly formed group trying to work out differences along Rush Creek.

Level Two: Each tributary guild would send a representative to a Sub Basin Guild. For us, this would encompass the South Yuba River basin.

Level Three: Each Level Two group would send a representative to the Yuba Watershed/Bear Watershed Guild. Groups like SYRCL and Yuba Watershed Institute are the nearest organizations we have to this type of guild, they just aren’t inherently built from the bottom up as Hitchcock proposes.

Level Four: This guild would get its representation the same way, from the level below it, and would encompass the foothills, mountains, central valley, and delta.

Level Five: The San Francisco Watershed Guild.

It’s somewhat stupefying to imagine a system that doesn’t exist. In the moments before the Q and A, I found myself growing excited. I began to think about the watershed up at the farm, which sits atop the San Juan Ridge. Our actions there affect two separate watersheds: runoff from the front half of the property goes to the South Fork of the Yuba, runoff from the back heads down to the Middle Fork. I began to scan my mind for the nearest creek to the farm: Bloody Run Creek. “What can you do?” Mark Dubois was asking us. “Walk your tributary. Get to know it. Talk to your neighbors.” I felt a flash of light and recognition in my brain. I don’t know how to snap my fingers and make Hitchcock’s system appear, but I know how to walk along Bloody Run Creek, and I know how to talk to my neighbors. Neither of those feeds the systems that I am finding problematic.

The Q and A quickly disintegrated, however, into a broad, theoretical conversation whose participants were hung up on verbiage and biases. “Focus! Focus!” the panelists encouraged the audience, and I thought again of Occupy.

A couple weeks ago I listened to an old recording of Utah Phillips talking about why the Progressives succeeded in the earlier part of the 20th century. “We put our differences aside,” he said simply. If we can learn to do that, and be tolerant and compassionate with one another, perhaps we can create an effective system that honors the blue lines in the map and allows creatures of all kinds to thrive.

from left to right: Mark DuBois, Derek Hitchcock, and Jason Rainey

Jason Rainey says that rivers are magical to us, in part, because of the power a confluence brings to any situation. A confluence is literally powerful, and metaphorically as well: ideas and attitudes come together with force, with volition. Compromise is essential, and the power of the river grows from the bottom up.

I have a lot to learn about Bloody Run Creek.