Africa's Climate Conflicts: New Video by Yale Environment 360 and MediaStorm

MediaStorm scores again, with a multimedia project produced for Yale Environment 360, a publication of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.

It's called "When The Water Ends: Africa’s Climate Conflicts."

The 16-minute video is about nomadic herdsmen in Kenya and Ethiopia who, because of climate changes that have depleted water supplies, now battle and kill each other over water and grass.

It's "a tale that many climate scientists say will be increasingly common in the 21st century and beyond — how worsening drought in parts of Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere will pit group against group, nation against nation."

But the story recounted in “When the Water Ends” is also about how deforestation and land degradation — due in large part to population pressures — are exacting a toll on impoverished farmers and nomads as the earth grows ever more barren...

The herdsmen who speak in this video are caught up in forces over which they have no real control. Although they have done almost nothing to generate the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, they may already be among its first casualties.

According to MediaStorm's site:

Photojournalist Evan Abramson, 32, spent two months traveling and living among these tribal communities. "When the Water Ends" is Abramson's first multimedia piece, and he captured several voices and communities during his reporting. He shot over 10,000 photographs and interviewed several tribesmen and leaders from local NGOs. Yale Environment 360 commissioned the project and asked MediaStorm to produce a video that also included interviews from the scientific community.

Watch it here.

*****
Want to learn how to produce multimedia the MediaStorm way? Enroll in one of their 2011 New York workshops.

* March 5-11, 2011 (application deadline January 7, 2011)
* July 23-29, 2011 (application deadline May 27, 2011)
* November 12-18, 2011 (application deadline September 16, 2011)

Over the course of a week, participants will work in three-person teams, reporting and editing in collaboration with a seasoned multimedia professional to produce a multimedia project for distribution across multiple platforms. Each team will produce a professional-quality, ready-for-publication multimedia story.

Go here for more info.