Director/Producer/Cinematographer/Editor: Daniel Green
The Yaaku People have spent 300-years using their knowledge of beekeeping to care for and grow the Mukogodo Forest. The forest is Kenya's largest dry-forest and only reserve managed solely by an indigenous people.
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Our time in the Mukogodo Forest was steeped in whimsy, but beyond tales of giant snakes that guarded springs bubbling chrome lakes of naturally-occurring liquid mercury lay a far less mystical beast. Climate change. We spoke to countless elders, each recounting how the past 20-years had been dryer than anything they'd know before. Gesturing toward Mt. Kenya, they would distress that the historically snow-capped mountain now peaked snowless. The forest was deathly dry. The third year of East-African drought. Cattle carcasses buzzed with flies frequently, emaciated goats chewed at sand. Our dust-clad Maruti Gypsy often got stopped by groups whom, with hands on the bonnet, despaired that we spare them any food, water, medicine. Seeing the struggle for life in the forest took a toll, especially knowing that things don't look to be getting easier.
