"The Pen is mi$htier than the sword, but a picture is worth a thousand words' ' Vind'eb.ank' FCC rnember' Andry Peace o¡rna ,:n, Wilhinson Sword' Millenníum Trophy Io' 'h', Sword #lB8I as the Perpet'ual seueruL Awards' Year the of FCC Photographer debarcd' its POYA Committee members
when
'*rr*rr"**ss'
Dong Ting Lahe whichfocuses on a'World Mldlife Fund (WWF) project to restore the wetlands along the Yangtze in China's Hunan province, was one of three films made for the WWE, says FCC Member and APV co-founder, Mark Erder' The latest award, in the category of 'Environment & Ecology', was received on the 15th of January from The New York Festivals Television Programming and Promotion
POYA motto BuJ as the adapted
bitt well
sword' fits ùe øboue demonstates' t'he certain FCC tongue-r'n' and, ß ín keeping with a cheeh sauoir
Competition.
cinematography from
faire'
of a lími;ted' The troPhY is one
ed,ition
sLart
and a Highly Commended Best Direction Award in the Asian Television Creative
sculp'tor'
that
in
talent'" I
its projects all over the to do several documentaries in the region -- this one on China, one in Vietnam and another in the Philippines. It made an interesting change from our usual
Three Graces, in the cel
race'
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'tl)olh'Ú hasn'L qwte White the peace aspecl
there
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,*ri,,, r,rrrn*, the sword is best peace and pu*oæ ol promoting world'
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for poets, painters and writers.". The lake area has been encroached upon for 50 years by farmers reclaiming the wetlands for agriculture' By the 1990s, that reclamation was proving disastrous -- the river
FCC and' d'ebate of the euen amid, the t'urnLoiL
Main Bar.
-
in the field carrying out their work. And
dedication is breathtaking," Erder said. The local hero in Dong Ting Lahe is Dr Lei Guangchu, who grew up in the area. He narrates the film and recalls a time when "you could swim in the lake and simply catch fish in your hands -- there were so many."' Lei wants to see the lake restoled to its former glory, when it "was the inspiration
lefL to iß intended
flooded again and again, the remaining waters became
TerrY Duckham THE CORRESPONDENT APRIL/MAY
2OO3
The initiative, "PartnershiP for a Living Yangtze," aims to restore 15 per cent of the original wetlands and to develop new land-use and flood plain management approaches to replace the failed polder
Adrian Brown and Mark Erder with the Dalai Lama
annuøI award are in P Sorne wags arottnil
ß
damage
caused by Yangtze flooding and the reduction of natural wetlands around the lake.
news-oriented work," said Erder, who is APV's Managing Director and Direclor of Operations The documentary which was shot by Jamie Hamill and produced by Michael Barrett, was filmed in just seven days' "The WWF specify exactly what they want, in terms of they want a certain project covered and one ofwhat they call their local heroes narrating' These local heroes are the people out
hangs on the facíng entrance. While that suggeslion
18
help reverse the
word *oh:-: out so far this century' the ,"and' also seru-es,t'n trophy perpeLual hondroi" Critchon ;r;;r; o¡'ondr'' father' Percr Sw-ord's were w¡na"íoni. hther Miltenniurn leo'ilers aniJ lurninart'es' or"r"n eO to world' of the P}YA inclurling BiIl Clinton, so winners
that a notice reading, " glo,ss", should, acco
bird
population. Lei now leads the WWF pilot project designed to
world. They approached us
of the Greco-Roman
hurnan
the once huge
Y/WF commissions short films of
d'ecorated'
and Asíanfi,gures
population and driving awaY
"The
rhe sword"s b,l.a'd'e 200 Languages along with a mod'ern rend'ition
on¿ rlt, hitt ß
polluted dwindling the fish
and Technical Awards.
word' "Peac1'-' 7 of the 2lst Cenlury' The
etched'
about the FCC aired bY the BBC, has been horuoured for its documentary Dong Ting Lake, Teri Fitz ell reports.
rth
Cinemal-ographers SocietY
Wilkiwon Suords d'esigned bY Peter designer and hístoriøn'
iot"ur, ond celebrated' international to wøs forged' Ronald, Cømeron' The series brotherhood' at celebrate world' peace anil 'the
for
the
all the Gin Joints, the fly-on-the-wall
Australian
of 2,000 lllillenniurn
Sword"s resid,ent
Last yeat, it won a Gold Príze
Asia Pacific Vision (APV), best knoun utithin the Club for shooting Of
THE CORRESPONDENT APRIL/MAY
2OO3
(reclaimed land) system. Two years after those projects started and already things have improved at Dong Ting. Says Lei: "We counted 34 species of migrating birds on the restored wetlands'" And, since the film was made, the bird population has increased so
much that the local authorities have just hosted the first national China birdwatching competition on the lake'
Erder and Adrian Brown, who was then Asia correspondent for TV-AM, founded APV in |991' The company acts as Australia's Channel Nine bureau for Asia, and in recent years, Brown's news coverage has included the war in Afghanistan, the birth of democracy and independence
in East Timor and the Bali bombings. Major projects have included The Last Gouernor -- APV followed Chris Patten around for five years for Jonathan Dimbleby's series aired by the BBC -- and of course, Of All the Gin loints' Tapes are available at the FCC front
office.
I 19