Conserving the Human: Nature Documentaries and their Relationship with Colonialism
By Science and Environment Editor Leah Moynihan
As the image on the screen moves from the epic intro to the opening scene, your senses are immediately flooded. It feels like you are there, soaring through the treetops of some faraway jungle. The crystal-clear sound of birds chirping and leaves crunching, fills your ears. You gaze as epic battles unfold, and you experience true tales of survival. You feel a million miles away from your cosy living room. This colourful kingdom seems untouched, full of life. It is a form of therapy, as you are transported away from your problems to another world.
Yet have you ever seen humans in the background of these beautiful shots?
There is a fear that people would simply turn off their TVs if documentaries showed villages beside these breathtaking habitats. Ratings and timeframes can be a powerful driving force towards film makers warping reality on our screens. Human connections with these wild creatures and their environment are often overlooked, and the use of the natural landscape by local people is rarely featured. Film makers create their documentaries with the belief that viewers do not want their image of true wilderness tarnished. We are only shown what we want to see. As Professor Julia Jones explains “one could argue that by using camera angles to avoid showing any sign of people, nature film makers are being disingenuous, and even actively misleading audiences”. There are rarely any “problematic” humans on screen to ruin our quiet hour of escapism. The most breathtaking shots are selected, and the local people are often excluded or edited out of the images. The nature you see in most documentaries is as beautiful as it is false.
The popular documentary Africa has been critiqued by Cambridge conservationists as they pointed out that a major aspect of the region has been completely disregarded, saying “The BBC has edited out the people of an entire continent”. When watching the documentary, you cannot help but wonder at the lengths the film makers must have gone to exclude humans from their shots. The image of vast empty spaces with no humans is rare nowadays, however nature is presented as untouched when many cultures live in harmony with their landscape. Tourists who travel to places like Africa expect to see the untouched nature of their screens, and the tourism industry must oblige. Instead of seeing a busy continent of 1.4 billion people, tourists receive a false image of reality with no settlements, roads, or farms in sight. The incredible people that live in these regions are not shown, leaving viewers see themselves as separate from nature. When the truth is hidden, it can have devastating consequences for wildlife.
This “wilderness myth” that is portrayed is factually inaccurate, and it is dangerous for conservation. Human influence is seen as only negative, and local people are evicted from land that has been in their family for generations. We would rather believe that the wild is wild. This form of management gives us “little hope of discovering what an ethical, sustainable, honourable, human place in nature might actually look like”, the historian Conan advises. This view of the wild without humans that is prompted by nature documentaries, brings about a lot of anti-human sentiment in conservation. They defined our concept of “nature” as pristine and untouched by humans when untouched nature has not existed for thousands of years. Since European settlers set foot in America, walling nature off and excluding people has become the gold standard for conservation in the western world.
However, there cannot be successful conservation without involving the people who live and interact with these habitats. Most areas are only protected because of the people that live there, such as in the Amazon rainforest. We must look at indigenous history and listen to the cultures who have lived sustainably for generations. A re-assessment of how we view “wilderness” is needed. Wildlife and ecosystems should never be seen as separate from humans. We should appreciate the rich human relationships that exist with these environments, instead of keeping them out of the frame.
Nature documentaries have the power to elicit real global change. They define the meaning of nature for thousands of people globally. One vital message that these documentaries must include, is that to save nature we must also save people. By bringing individuals out of poverty, we are allowing them to move away from harmful practices that endanger our environment. Through education and creating jobs, we can change lives as well as change the way we treat nature. Many studies have demonstrated that nature documentaries influence behavioural changes among their viewers. Film makers must become aware of the impact that their work has, and that it could save lives. They can increase support for conservation and perhaps will one day even change the anti-human sentiment. This can even bring about major policy changes. The colonial idea of untouched land must be reimagined to protect the spectacular landscapes that we see on our screens. Nature documentaries should give us a taste of the real world.
