From Poaching to Plowshares

Short Synopsis

Hammer Simwinga of Zambia, and his American counterparts, Mark and Delia Owens, have devoted their lives to saving the endangered elephant herds in Northern Zambia by converting poachers to respectable trades like sustainable farming, beekeeping, fish farming and cornmilling. This is their story.

Description/Treatment

From Poaching to Plowshares

This is an hour long documentary aimed at a PBS or Discovery Channel audience.

Background

In the early nineties,environmentalists Mark and Delia Owens made the shocking discovery that theelephant population of the North Luangwa Valley in Zambia had decreased fromover 100,000 to a meager 1300. The couple set out to reverse the annihilationof the endangered species. They formed the North Luangwa Conservation Projectand began teaching villagers, who had little recourse other than participatingin the poaching trade, about the benefits and practices of sustainableagriculture, beekeeping, fish farming and small scale businesses like sunfloweroil processing and corn milling. Thanks to their massive efforts over the pasttwenty two years, poaching is almost entirely a thing of the past in NorthLuangwa National Park and the Owens Foundation project now involves 35,000people in 65 villages. Ten years ago, when the Owenses were visiting theirfamilies and their Owens Foundation headquarters in Georgia, corrupt forceswithin the Zambia National Parks and Wildlife Department shut down the NLCPoperation in Zambia. Mark and Delia were warned by the US Embassy not toreturn. Hammer Simwinga, who had been mentored by Mark and Delia, proceeded, athis own personal risk, to single-handedly resuscitate the program. He traveledfor hundreds of miles a week either on foot or by bicycle to remote villages todeliver supplies and facilitate workshops. His monumental achievements wererecently honored by National Geographic and also by the Goldman EnvironmentalPrize but nowhere is he more respected and revered than in North Luangwa.Former poachers and their families, as well as park rangers andconservationists credit Hammer, Mark and Delia with turning around the attitudesand practices of the entire region. And, of course, there are also theirvoiceless admirers - the 1500 elephants that now roam freely over the oncelethal savanna of North Luangwa Valley. All of Hammer’s achievements arepossible, because of Mark and Delia’s continued support through their OwensFoundation in Georgia and the support of other foundations worldwide. The Owensinextricable bond with Hammer was forged in the remote villages of NorthLuangwa and has been held together against all odds over the improbabledistance of thousands of miles. Their dedication and foresight is beyondcomparison, considering a life-threatening hostile takeover and the subsequent non-existentlines of communication.

Endangered species are at thecore of the issues that most developing nations face. Making the transitionfrom unbridled exploitation of wildlife to regarding them as a preciousresource is essential to their survival and to the balance of nature. Thesuccess of The Owens Foundation project can serve as an inspiration and a modelfor anyone who has a concern about wildlife conservation in any part of theglobe.

I was fortunate to produce ashort film about Hammer when he was selected for the Goldman EnvironmentalPrize in 2007. Of all the many profiles of environmental activists around theglobe, his story struck me as worthy of a feature length treatment. His winningpersonality and dedication to this work and the arch of the story thatstretches over 20 years, beginning with the Owens’ project will make for acompelling story. Additionally, there is a great backlog of footage from thoseearly days that was shot by National Geographic and other broadcast entities.

I have had the experience ofhaving worked with Hammer and the Owenses on this short segment about theirwork and so am familiar with the lay of the land and have their support inproducing a longer form film about them. The struggle to save the elephants andother species isn’t over. Although the trend is reversed in North Luangwa, thepolitical climate in many African countries is such that government policiescan inexplicably change without warning. NLCP’s education and outreach programis constantly growing and expanding to new villages and more remote regionswhere the attitudes towards and awareness about conservation are nearlynonexistent. Park Rangers are still risking their lives in these remoteregions, where poachers don’t value human lives any more than they valueelephants’ lives. So there is still plenty of drama to be captured in thisstory.

The Film

This documentary will begin withMark and Delia Owens’ wildlife research and conservation efforts in Zambia inthe eighties using archival footage. Their approach to monitoring elephantherds was unique because Mark was an experienced bush pilot and they weregranted funds from a European foundation for a small plane and helicopter.Their extensive reconnaissance missions over the vast Luangwa Valley affordedthem the opportunity to record the fragile state of the vanishing herds at thattime. Delia was responsible for the meticulous work of measuring elephantprints to identify and track individual members of the herd. Once they had agrasp of the dire circumstances, they took a twofold approach to solving theendemic problem. They assisted the North Luangwa Park’s meager ranger forces toround up as many of the poachers as they could, offering their aerialcapabilities to do reconnaissance. When the authorities captured poachers theyoffered them, with the Owens’ help, alternatives to poaching such as cornmilling or sunflower seed pressing. The poachers, by and large, were more thanhappy to abandon their grim and very dangerous trade. The Owens enlisted HammerSimwinga, who began training villagers to contribute by growing sunflowers orcorn and any other number of sustainable crops. After 10 years of exhaustivefield work, when their North Luangwa Wildlife Conservation Program was at itspeak, the Owens found that their lives were endangered by outside commercial poachersand corrupt government officials who were profiting from the unbridled sale ofelephant tusk ivory and bush meat. During their annual trip back to the UnitedStates, they were warned by the US Embassy in Lusaka that it wasn’t safe toreturn to Zambia. At great risk and without resources of any kind, Simwingastepped in and took over the community development side of the program. He hasworked at it tirelessly since the Owens left, while also earning an advanceddegree in Tropical Agriculture.

We traveled to Zambialast year to capture Hammer Simwinga’s remarkable efforts. We have 8 hours ofHigh Definition footage of the participants in his program, many of themex-poachers, utilizing the sustainable skills that they’ve learned from theOwens’ programs. We also acquired HD shots of the burgeoning elephant herds andother wildlife in the park. We videotaped extensive interviews with Mark andDelia in San Francisco when they both traveled here to celebrate Hammer’srecognition from the Goldman Environmental Prize. We also have access to awealth of professional quality film archival material capturing the Owens’African adventures over the years. If their schedules allow, we hope that thefinal act of the film will be Mark and Delia’s return to Zambia and their reunionthere.

We plan to travel to the Owens’current home in Idaho to shoot their work there to help protect the Grizzlypopulation. They have not returned to their home in North Luangwa for over 10years. Their return will be a powerful part of the story as they come fullcircle to see the results of all their pioneering efforts and Hammer Simwinga’ssubsequent achievements. This will be a bittersweet climax to the documentary.Mark recently was thrown from a horse and sustained serious spinal injuries fromwhich he is still recovering. So his desire to return to Zambia has become morepressing since his physical capabilities were diminished. If he and Deliafinally make the journey, Hammer will accompany them to their former haunts.They’ll visit people, places, and creatures that once were so central to theirlives that are still emotionally vivid but have been geographically distant forall these years. The experience will be brimming with a broad range of highlycharged emotions. They will rekindle relationships and reminisce about theirmany triumphs and their tragic losses as they travel. They will get to reunitewith many of their old acquaintances in the elephant herds and be introduced totheir offspring. Most importantly, they will do so, with the visceral knowledgethat without them, and their dear friend Hammer Simwinga, those encounters wouldhave been highly unlikely, if not, completely impossible.

Project Status:

We completedour first round of shooting in 2007 and completed the short segment which hasshown at festivals worldwide and been broadcast on PBS and Sundance Channel.We have a $25,000 challenge grant from the GOldman Environmental Prize. With a matching $25,000 grant, we will be able to return to Africa in July and tocomplete shooting for the project. This will be the ideal time frame as we willhave ready access to film the elephant herds in the wild during the dry season.When we shot there the last time it was the rainy season and access wasseverely limited.

Once we complete production, we will begin cataloguing and digitizing the material and will continue our fundraising efforts for the post production phase. We are just completing an hour long program on Sam Cooke for the PBS American Masters series with funding from ITVS and NBPC. We will be submitting this program to those sources immediately after we turn in the completed Cooke program.