Ripples of Change: A Global Odyssey for Our Blue World

In March 2023 the Brave Blue World Foundation team journeyed to New York for the UN 2023 Water Conference, the first of it’s kind in 50 years! The meeting was a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create a water action agenda to better protect the lifeblood of our planet.  The team were honoured to share an exclusive preview of ‘Our Blue World’ at the inaugural World Water Film Festival, held at Columbia University.  

The team shared exclusive footage from the Amunas water stories in Peru, where ancient Pre-Inca water canals are being restored in the Andes Mountains to help slow the water down and allow it to replenish underground aquifers that feed the rivers downstream many of which help provide modern day megacity of Lima, the worlds driest capital city. We then hosted a Q&A panel with our film partners, where everyone shared their own personal water stories, and we discussed the power of communicating water.  

As part of the UN 2023 Water Conference, a key protagonist from ‘Our Blue World’, Li An Phoa, guided attendees along a beautiful spring river walk. The river walk started at the famous Bethesda Fountain in Central Park and meandered through Riverside Park and along the Hudson River. 

Vancouver: Thirst for Change - Li An Phoa's Journey along the Rupert River

Following the UN 2023 Water Conference, the team flew to Canada with Li An Phoa to capture her origin story, and film her along the first river she fell in love with, the Rupert River, where the concept of the Drinkable Rivers movement originated.  

In 2005, Li An canoed the full length of a river in Canada, the Rupert. All along the way, she could drink water straight from the river. Three years later, Li An came back and she could not drink from the Rupert anymore. The river was polluted as a result of dams and mining. Fish died, people got ill. The delicate balance in the ecosystem was destroyed

Li An realised that drinkable rivers are an indicator of healthy living. Indeed, when we can drink from our rivers, it means that a whole ecosystem is healthy and in balance. Rivers can only be drinkable when all actions and relations in an entire watershed contribute. 

Cambodia: Splash of Tradition - Revelry and Blessings in the Water Festival

In April 2023, the film crew ventured to Cambodia to capture the Khmer Solar New Year Celebrations at Siem Reap and Ankor Wat. The celebrations are marked by a three day water festival, which signifies the end of the harvest season, and is a time to celebrate the wonders of the new monsoon season. Upon arrival in Siem Reap, there is pure joy along the streets, as adults and children arrive armed with water guns and hose pipes, drenching one another with water!

One element of these sacred celebrations is a Buddhist blessing ceremony, where the villagers use water to wash the statues of the Buddha. Once the statues have been washed, the local villager's line up and wait to be blessed by having water poured over them to wash away all the bad omens from last year and allow them to start over and get a blessing for the year ahead. 

The blessing ceremony quickly and unexpectedly, turned into an outdoor rave at the Buddhist monastery. The music was blasting through the speakers and the local villagers were dancing and throwing buckets of water upon each other, it was an incredible scene to be a part of, and of course the Brave Blue World team got stuck in! 
 

The team then travelled by boat to the nested Islands that sit beautifully in the center of the massive Barays, the huge reservoirs, (each 8km by 2km), that flank the north, south, east and west of Ankor Wat. The largest historic man-made water engineering structures visible from outer space. 

These hydraulic systems were what enabled a prehistoric civilization of up to a million people to flourish in a punishingly hot climate where they have no water for six months of the year and more than they need the other six months. 
 

New Zealand: Personhood of the River - Embracing the Sacred Flow of Whanganui 

From Cambodia, the team journeyed to New Zealand to capture the Whanganui River. In 2017, New Zealand passed a groundbreaking law granting personhood status to the Whanganui River. The law declares that the river is a living whole, from the mountains to the sea, incorporating all its physical and metaphysical elements.

The Māori tribes that live along the Whanganui have always seen the river as sacred – its waters have nourished and blessed the people throughout the 700 years they have lived beside it. The law set in motion new intentions to uphold the mana (prestige) and mauri (life force) of the river.  

Whanganui Māori have a saying: Ko au te awa, ko te awa ko au: I am the river, and the river is me. 
 
There is an origin story in Maori mythology, that the earth mother, Papatuanuku and the sky father, Ranginui, were pushed part and separated from one another. Such was the grief of Ranginui that he cries down his tears as rain that fall back to earth. These stories encapsulate the ideas that the earth and water are connected. Children here know these stories and they help bridge and communicate universal ideas in ways that are impactful. 

China: Professor Kongjian Yu and the Sponge City Revolution 

For the final leg of the filming tour, the team landed in China, to film Professor Kongjian Yu, the man with the vision that sparked the Sponge City Movement. 

Professor Kongjian Yu, told the team his story of how he spent years trying to persuade people that there was a better alternative to grey infrastructure and over several years he presented to 600 Mayors all over China and sent them each of copy of his book, Letters to the Leaders. He was a lone voice in the wilderness at that time. Nobody was listening, people said he was backward, some even labelled him as an American Spy.

But one of those 600 Mayors who had heard his talk, later on went on to become a Minister for the Environment in China and became first Early Adopter and helped create the first Sponge City in China. 

Today there are over 500 sponge city projects in 200 cities and that wave is spreading over the world.

This system takes stormwater run-off, treats it, purifies it and stores it. It creates a living oasis. There were mango trees and other fruit trees, the team enjoyed the fresh produce straight from the trees as we walked around!