Refuge at Risk

About the film

As visually stimulating as it is informative, Refuge at Risk utilizes two powerful, artistic projects as visual accompaniments to the story of Arctic wilderness.

The first is a photographic expedition of the region, Seasons of Life and Land by Subhankar Banerjee, an award-winning photographer who devoted two years of his life to documenting the Arctic Refuge’s land, wild species, and its Native peoples. The book provides us with exquisite photographs that make the case for leaving the area intact in all its beauty and importance to the survival of its unique ecosystem. So compelling are these photographs that Senator Barbara Boxer of California displayed Banjeree’s book on the Senate floor as she rallied opposition to a vote to open the refuge to oil exploration.

A second key visual component of Refuge at Risk comes from its collaborating producers, Dale Djerassi and Bo Boudart, who provide clips from their work in progress. Their documentary, Oil on Ice, is an intimate portrayal of the native Gwich’in Indians taking on powerful global energy interests to prevent invasive oil operations threatening the Refuge’s fragile caribou calving grounds on which the Native people’s subsistence has always depended. Compelling and thought-provoking, this struggle over the sacred land that the Gwich’in call “the place where life begins” vividly brings home how our energy decisions—both individually and as a society — critically impact the future of our global economy, wildlife, and the environment as well as the survival of an extraordinary traditional culture. Oil and Ice is a multi-faceted media project that consists of a one-hour documentary for broadcast, a Web DVD for home distribution, a website www.oilonice.org and an outreach campaign.

Joining the host in the first segment of the show are: Carl Pope, Executive Director of the Sierra Club; Adeline Peter Raboff, writer and activist, a Neets’aii Gwich’in Indian from the Arctic Village and Subhankar Banerjee. Guests in the second half of the program are Severin Borenstein, Public Policy and Director of the Energy Institute at UC Berkeley; and electric car enthusiast and technology reporter, Richard Hart.

Photo licensed to Sierra Club by Subhankar Banerjee; used with permission.