Enjoying Outside, Inside: Conservation Documentaries
Eliana Thompson • September 24, 2021
March 29, 2021
After learning about the great conservation success story of Tule Elk from the recent Tuleyome Nature & You Lecture with Dr. Tom Batter, I had an exciting renewal of hope. In the face of what some call “The Sixth Extinction” , and a news feed full of floods, storms, fires, and droughts, it can be easy to feel pessimistic about the future. However, to inspire the action necessary to protect our planet, it’s important to hear about environmental victories and stories of real change. These 7 documentaries (and one movie) tell stories of the people behind conservation movements. They emphasize the importance of preserving the amazing biodiversity of our planet, inspiring action as well as hope.
- Undamaged: This Slovenian film explores the measures being taken to protect some of the world’s last remaining wild rivers in Europe’s Balkan countries. It follows a crew of kayakers as they embark on a voyage from Slovenia to Albania, fighting to preserve the pristine and life supporting waterways from the threat of almost 3000 dams.
- A Life on Our Planet: This powerful film serves as Davis Attenborough’s witness statement for the natural world. Attenborough has spent his 94 years documenting the living world in all its variety and wonder. For the first time in his years of narration, he reflects upon both the defining moments of his lifetime as a naturalist and the devastating changes he has seen. Urgent, honest, and ultimately hopeful, this film is a must watch for all.
- The Ivory Game is an investigation into the Ivory trade, from the poaching of elephants in the national parks of Africa, to the black markets of Hong Kong. This film explores how the fate of the largest land mammal is intimately tied to the survival and development of local people.
- Virunga: This film follows a group of park rangers fighting to preserve the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Virunga National Park. One of the world’s most biodiverse places and home to the Earth’s remaining mountain gorillas, this World Heritage Site faces threats by poachers, armed militia and companies exploiting its natural resources.
- The lost film of Dian Fossey. Another film about the conservation of gorillas, this one telling the story of modern legend Dian Fossey, who devoted much of her life to study gorillas in the mountainous rainforest of Volcanoes National Park.
- Mission Blue: This documentary tells the story of world-renowned oceanographer, marine biologist and environmentalist Sylvia Earle who began the Mission Blue campaign to inspire exploration and protection of the ocean.
- Cities: Nature's New Wild: This three-part series narrated by Daniel Kaluuya explores the extraordinary wildlife living in the fastest changing habitat on the planet – our cities.
- The Lorax: While not a documentary, this Dr. Suess classic is an all time favorite that’s great for young and old, and a fun way to inspire the next generation of conservationists. The animated movie is based on the book published in 1971, chronicling the plight of the environment and the Lorax, who "speaks for the trees" and confronts the Once-ler, who causes environmental destruction.
-Eliana Thompson; ethompson@tuleyome.org
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We extend our thanks and gratitude to Stephen McCord as he ends his tenure on the Tuleyome Board of Directors. Stephen has applied his energy and expertise to fulfilling Tuleyome’s mission for many years. In 2016 he managed the first Tuleyome mercury mine remediation project at the Corona/Twin Peaks Mine. He followed that with work on Tuleyome trail projects in the Knoxville Off-Highway Vehicle Area, riding all the trails on his own adventure motorcycle. As a Tuleyome representative, he’s taken many community members on hikes in Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument and the surrounding areas. Stephen has over 20 years of environmental engineering experience, in California and worldwide. He has overseen extensive projects in water quality field work, management and cleanup, and has applied his knowledge to policy development, analysis and technical support. In short, Stephen is a consummate environmental and water engineer, and he brought his expertise to Tuleyome’s many projects. In 2023 Stephen joined the Board of Directors and agreed to serve as President. He applied his supreme organizational skills to managing board duties and activities. He also brought an optimism to the board about what can be accomplished with foresight, good planning and collaboration. Stephen has been a tireless advocate for Tuleyome, keeping the board on task even while handling numerous other professional responsibilities. Fortunately, although he is stepping down from the board, he will continue to support Tuleyome’s mission in many other ways. -Kim Longworth, Lyndsay Dawkins and Bill Grabert Volunteer Tuleyome Board members
A river otter making its way up the slide. Looking to take a break with some cute video content? This month we placed game cameras looking into an otter slide at Conaway Ranch. Otter slides are paths worn into riverbanks by repeated use by otters and other animals. The slides at Conaway are quite active, so we’ve been able to get some great footage, including otters, beavers, racoons, snakes, and more!
Since April 2024, America's public lands had something they'd never had before: a rule that treated conservation as equal to all other land uses. The Public Lands Rule , introduced by the Biden Administration, formally recognized conservation as a legitimate practice of multiple use, putting conservation on equal footing with recreation, grazing, and resource extraction. Built on decades of management experience and guided by science, data, and Indigenous knowledge, it gives land managers tools to maintain healthy ecosystems while supporting all the diverse ways we depend on public lands. It acknowledges a simple truth: conservation must be valued equally to all other land uses. Now there is growing pressure to rescind it. Why This Matters The environment around us is free-flowing, it's not confined to state borders or county lines. When mining operations contaminate watersheds in Northern California, it impacts the local businesses who depend on healthy rivers downstream, the agricultural communities that rely on clean water, and the families who've been camping along those waterways for generations. The Public Lands Rule recognized this interconnected reality and gave land managers agency to address problems before they spread across California's diverse landscapes, protecting the long-term viability of grazing allotments, recreation areas, and rural livelihoods that all depend on healthy public lands. This interconnected reality is exactly why the Public Lands Rule matters. The Rule is designed to ensure that the places we depend on, whether for weekend camping trips, or cattle grazing, stay healthy enough to support these uses long-term. When an area becomes overgrazed and doesn't recover, access to those grazing allotments is permanently lost, reducing ranchers' ability to maintain their livelihoods and harming local food production. Poor use or overuse of our public lands creates ripples of negative impact that hurt all communities. The Rule's main objective is simple but revolutionary: make sure our public lands stay productive for everyone who depends on them, rather than degrade them. The Rule created practical tools that built in accountability and prioritized future generations' access to healthy public lands. Restoration Leases : 10-year agreements allowing a variety of entities such as, conservation groups, tribes, and nonprofits to restore damaged landscapes—fires restoration, restoring wildlife habitats and cleaning up abandoned mining sites that currently scar some of our most beautiful public lands. Mitigation Leases : A tool that allows land users or other entities to offset impacts from their activities over specified time periods, creating partnerships between different land users and conservation groups to address environmental impacts on public lands. Strengthened Protection for Critical Areas : Clearer guidelines for protecting Areas of Critical Environmental Concern—the most special and fragile places that often provide the best wildlife viewing, the cleanest water sources, the most pristine camping experiences and the richest biodiversity. The False Dichotomy: Multiple Use vs. Conservation The main argument being used to encourage the rollback of the Public Lands Rule is " multiple use ", the legal principle requiring Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands to serve many different purposes. The current Administration claims the Public Lands Rule hinders multiple uses of public lands. Why? The Rule calls for restoring degraded areas and making science based decisions. Contrary to their actual meaning, the current Administration interprets "restoring" and "science based decisions" as "locking up land". Land locking, where access gets completely cut off, is a real concern in some areas—it prevents both recreation and grazing. However, land locking is not what the Public Lands Rule promotes. In reality, it is promoting land healing. Take grazing for example. The Rule empowers BLM to use restoration leases in conjunction with existing grazing permittees to restore degraded rangeland. Monitoring who is grazing where and the number of permits issued for specific areas is a means to ensure sustainable grazing and prevent overuse. Many ranchers and land managers supported the Rule because they understand that healthy land is productive land. Overgrazing and environmental damage hurt their livelihoods too. The same principle applies to fire recovery. When public lands are damaged by sweeping wildfires, there is a need for active restoration: replanting native vegetation, stabilizing soils, removing hazardous debris. Restoration has to take place before safe recreation, grazing and other uses can resume. At times, restoration requires temporarily limiting access to burned areas as they recover. The goal is to allow for our lands to recover and heal before we start depending on them again with our multiple uses. Land restoration is not just limited to grazing or extraction; it is essential for recovering from wildfires. Whether it's grazing, recreation, or extraction, the Public Lands Rule isn't about stopping these uses, it's about understanding that healthy ecosystems are prerequisites for multiple use, not obstacles to it. You can't have sustainable grazing on degraded rangeland, quality recreation in fire damaged landscapes, or responsible extraction without considering long-term impacts We Are Public Stewards The Public Lands Rule represents a historic shift in how we value conservation, its potential rollback is a setback. But the vision it represents, conservation as a form of legitimate multiple use, remains essential and is not gone. As stewards of these 245 million acres, we have the power to practice conservation in our own actions and advocacy. Every time we practice Leave No Trace, support local businesses that operate responsibly on public lands, and make our voices heard in land management decisions, we're building the foundation for balanced stewardship that benefits everyone. Our public lands belong to all of us, which means we each have the power, and responsibility, to be good stewards of the lands we love. -Bryan Pride ( bpride@tuleyome.org ) Certified California Naturalist Policy Director