My name’s Ollie and I’ve been working as an intern these past few months here at One Planet Pictures. So far it has been a rewarding but very busy experience! One of my research tasks has been to look for newstories for the Nature Inc series.
Here at One Planet Pictures we work hard to produce programmes that create platforms to publicise the efforts of individuals and groups that work towards innovative approaches to the problems of today, often under the most difficult conditions possible. Our series, such as the ‘On the Frontline’ programmes or the World Challenge awards, have been acknowledging the hard work and sacrifices of ordinary people around the world for many years. We hope that Nature Inc can add to these achievements by helping to chronicle the rising wave of ecosystems economics and play a role in communicating the diversity and complexity of the issues involved to a hungry global audience in a way that highlights the innovative efforts being made by the people on the ground that are directly taking control of our shared future.
After the success of the last series of Nature Inc we are currently working with our partners, such as the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), to produce up to 13 new episodes to go out over the next year or so through to 2010 – the international year of biodiversity. As part of this process (and hopefully beyond!) we will be creating this multiple user blog to keep you informed about what we’re up to along the way. We hope to give you updates from the executive producer Robert Lamb, managing director of One Planet Pictures, along with reports from the field as our individual producers work on stories all around the world.
Additionally you’ll get to hear about my ongoing struggles wading through the rapidly growing field of the economics of ecosystems and biodiversity as I help to research the new programmes.
Next week we’ll be going to the IUCN World Conservation Congress, something I’ve taken to referring to as the ‘World Cup’ because it comes along once every 4 years and involves over 8,000 delegates from all over the world. Robert will be chairing an event on ecosystems economics as well as the Com+ environmental media awards. We hope to bring you news of our ongoing work on the Nature Inc series from within the Congress so watch this space!
As a life-long green and a graduate from the left-wing university SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) I went into the project with many reservations – I worried that efforts to put financial values on nature had the possibility to lead to corporate capture of what are in essence priceless ecosystems. My degree was in Economics and Social Anthropology and I was very conscious of the friction between the cold logic of the capitalist market and the very real and pertinent complexities of the ‘social’ that this market has attempted to ignore for the last 200 years.
But having really had a chance to look at the fast evolving field of ecosystems economics up close over the past few months much of my cynicism has been replaced by cautious but deeply held optimism that the twin ideals of economic development and environmental conservation can be achieved together. In fact, I now believe that the only path to continued global growth and newer more equitable economic systems lies in learning to adapt back into the global ecosystems we have been diverging from since the industrial revolution and before.
