ArBolivia  – A tale of climate change and unlikely villains turned heroes

A new documentary, ArBolivia, vividly tells the story of continuing deforestation in the Bolivian Amazon and the hope of a solution through a small but truly pioneering social enterprise called ArBolivia.

Beautifully filmed, this 15 minute documentary tells a story of climate change and the impact that this is having on a people that are feeling its bite.  Driven by poverty and an increasingly arid environment, people from the Bolivian Highlands have migrated to the fringes of the Amazon rainforest.  There, they see out a new life but fail to escape the grinding poverty, locked into a cycle of slash and burn subsistence farming.  The tragedy is that these farmers are so desperately poor and lacking in land management skills that they are forced to destroy the natural resources whose true value cannot be unlocked.

This much is a well rehearsed and somewhat depressing story.  But this is where the story really starts.  Interviewing these migrant farmers and indigenous communities, ArBolivia reveals how the social enterprise of the same name is providing a scale-able, sustainable solution that tackles the poverty that is at the very heart of deforestation in the region.

Perhaps the most telling part of the film comes from the lips of Norman, a guide from the Madidi Jungle Tours Ecolodge.  To paraphrase Norman; “If we have 1,000 social enterprises like ArBolivia   then the planet will have more chance, and it’s the best way.”

To view the film and other short films about ArBolivia go to http://www.arbolivia.org.uk/media/

ArBolivia is a www.noroutesfound.com production.

For more information visit www.arbolivia.org.uk