What does conservation mean to you? Does it mean taking action to save an endangered species? Protecting a threatened environment? Recycling? Visiting a local National Park to learn about your environment? Turning off the water while you brush your teeth? It can mean all of these things, and the Miami Science Museum’s “Wild Evening” was held to open people’s eyes to amazing people and programs with the goal of conservation.
The evening kicked off with Wild Carpathia, a documentary about Romania’s Carpathian Mountains, home to Europe’s largest area of pristine forests and largest populations of brown bears, lynxes, and wolves. Sadly, the region is currently under threat of developers and other destructive factors. So documentarian Paul Lister set about making the film to “put the record straight about Romania and to show the world something that needs to be protected.” Paul is the founder of The European Nature Trust (TENT), which funded the film, and also helps protect and restore wilderness areas all throughout Europe, in part by working with rural communities to promote youth education, tourism and local industry. You can “visit” Wild Carpathia too by watching the documentary here:
Another film highlighted at the Museum’s “Wild Evening” event was an upcoming feature-length film called BEARTREK, produced by Wildlife Media and ecologist Chris Morgan. Chris is no stranger to adventure. Over the last 20 years, he has worked as a wildlife researcher specializing in bears, a wilderness guide, a television host for PBS Nature, National Geographic, and the BBC, an also as an environmental educator on every continent where bears exist. His mantra? “What’s good for bears is good for people.” The BEARTREK film and campaign follows Chris’s global adventure to fund and film critical bear conservation projects in Alaska, Peru, Borneo and the Arctic. Chris’s personal mission is to make conservation a part of everyday life for all individuals by inspiring people to appreciate wildlife and wild places, and creating solutions that intertwine human welfare with the health of our planet. He says: “We’re all in this together. If we can’t get it right, we’re in trouble.” You can follow the BEARTREK and see an exclusive clip of the film here:
Paul and Chris are working hard to raise awareness all over the world about nature and wildlife conservation. Now you are aware too! We can all do our part, and a little drop of help from each of us can create an ocean of difference for the Earth.