Exercise #4: Documentary Reflection
Instructions
For your fourth Exercise assignment, you will make connections between the environmental movement in the recent past and today by considering what you are challenged to learn from documentarians of that movement.
- Find a current or recent report in the mainstream or alternative media of an environmental topic or issue in your local or wider region. As you read/ hear about the issue, consider where you stand on it. Identify your position and your thoughts.
- Use the documentaries in this course unit to reflect on the role that civil disobedience has played in the history of environmentalism, researching one other recent example to defend your answer to the question of whether it works to bring positive change.
Use your research in the mainstream and alternative media from Activity 1 of this unit for this exercise Post the media links and your analysis. Aim for a minimum of 300 words.
Please note, you should write and edit your submission in a separate file then copy and paste it into the submission box. Once submitted to the HIST 3991 trubox site, you will not be able to edit your post.
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Submissions
Documentary Reflection
July 15, 2025 By: LK
Anna Mehler Paperny, “Canada Approves Law to Fast-Track Resource Projects, Faces Indigenous Opposition,” Reuters, June 27, 2025, https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/canadian-senate-approves-law-fast-track-major-resource-projects-2025-06-26/?utm. Canada’s Senate approved a Bill on June 26, 2025, fast‑tracking “national interest” resource and infrastructure projects, like mines and pipelines, by granting the Cabinet “Henry VIII” powers to override existing environmental laws and limit Indigenous consultation. The move prompted immediate backlash from Indigenous leaders and environmental organizations. I, too, strongly oppose this Bill. The rush to expedite projects undermines Canada’s constitutional duty towards meaningful free, prior and informed consent practices, as well as core conservation principles. Sacrificing environmental assessments and community input for capitalist gain…
Direct Civil Resistance in BC
July 14, 2025 By: Robert Pritchard
Unit 4’s “How to Change the World: The Revolution will not be Organized” sent my mind down memory lane to my experiences in Fairy Creek. The Fairy Creek (Ada’itsx) old growth protests on Vancouver Island began in 2019, with the height of protestor/police clashes in 2020 and simmered out in 2021. There has since been a full-length independent documentary film created and at least a dozen mini-films and news specials. I was there on the front lines of this clash for most of the summer 2020, so my opinion of the movement is in heavy support. It was an astounding…
Documentary Reflection
June 22, 2025 By: Sunia Khan
A recent Reuters report describes the repeated A12 highway blockades in The Hague, where Extinction Rebellion (XR) protesters halt traffic to demand an end to the Netherlands’ multi-billion-euro fossil-fuel subsidies (Boztas, 2023). Seeing thousands of people voluntarily risk arrest made me think of the documentary If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front (Curry & Cullman, 2011), which we watched in Unit 4. That film traces how a small group of U.S. activists escalated from peaceful forest‐defence rallies to nighttime arson against lumber companies, and how the resulting “eco-terrorism” label ultimately eclipsed their message. XR’s Dutch activists…
Exercise #4
June 19, 2025 By: Shelsey Ambrosi
Global News shared an article highlighting the presence of extremely high levels of E. coli in British Columbia Middle Shuswap River, which were so high they could not even calculate it. These dangerous levels pose health risks to local ecosystems and swimmers. It is also said that the high levels of E. coli are likely linked to agricultural runoff and improper waste management. Bee SAFE and residents in the region call for stricter regulations on farming practices and to prevent further contamination, while many are concerned about access to drinking water and concern about the thousands of fish West Bank…
Documentary Reflection
June 18, 2025 By: Simran Kamboj
Conservation group buys out hunting rights in B.C. rainforest to protect wildlife According to this article, a conservation group in British Columbia states that to save wildlife, they have acquired the sole right to hunt in a quarter of the Great Bear Rainforest on the north and central coast of the province. According to the Raincoast Conservation Foundation, they had to raise $1.92 million over two years to purchase the 18,000-square-kilometer tenure from commercial hunters. According to Raincoast, it was said that with six tenures spanning more than 56,000 square kilometers, the acquisition places the environmental group as the largest…