Land Body Ecologies Podcast is a series of six stand-alone episodes sharing stories of solastalgia from land-dependent and Indigenous communities affected by environmental change. In Episode 5, Born From Here, we travel to the edges of the Bwindi Impenetrable Forests in Kanungu district in Southwestern Uganda. Looking to the dense green hills that hold fields of sunflowers and ridges overlooking sacred trees, listeners hear stories of the ancestral land of the Batwa community.

Clouds constantly rise and fall in the hills of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. This is known as Muntaba and is a place the Batwa would not visit as it is meant to be spiritual and sited with gold. The Batwa were once forest dwellers who used to live in Ekyuya, Semuliki, Bwindi, and Mgahinga, their ancestral lands in Uganda. In the early 1990s, government authorities evicted the Batwa from the forest and their home in the name of free land for wildlife and forest conservation. The evictions left the Batwa struggling to survive and facing extreme discrimination on the margins of their former home. These forests lie within the biodiversity-rich Albertine Rift eco-region and are sites of global biodiversity importance, famously home to half of the world’s population of endangered mountain gorillas.

In Born From Here, we hear the lasting impacts on their health, culture, and livelihoods 30 years on from evictions. The episode features Batwa herbalists, artists, and rare insights from elders on their experiences of living in and out of the forest.

Land Body Ecologies Podcast is produced by Invisible Flock and this episode, Born from Here, is also produced with Action for Batwa Empowerment Group.

The Crying Place shares a story of the Pgak’yau (Karen) community from the hilly regions of Ban Nong Tao, held at the base of rocky mountain faces and green forests. In this episode, listeners are invited to experience the harvest season of the Pgak’yau (Karen) community and encouraged to slow down for the earth.In Pgak’yau, Haku (ฮากุ) means the crying place. That is what we call the earth. In all important moments, we cry. When we are born we cry, when we feel happy we cry, and we cry because we suffer. Pgak’yau philosophy expresses the need to slow down for the earth, and the need to take care and take accountability for our world. This episode is narrated by legendary activist and campaigner Joni Odochao and his son Siwakorn Odochao on the ongoing land rights of the Pgak’yau community and their advocacy for traditional rotational farming. Both land rights and advocacy are realised “heu”, meaning little by little, step by step.The Crying Place is produced by Invisible Flock with Joni Odochao, Siwakorn Odochao, Jennifer Katanyoutanant and Land Body Ecologies. For further details, transcript and images from the process please visit the show notes. The B-side of this podcast is also available. To listen to this, please find it on our podcast page.

Learn more: https://www.landbodyecologies.com/podcast

The End of This World, journeys through Sápmi, from Jåhkåmåhkke to Vájsáluokta to tell a story of a reindeer corral carried out on top of a mountain featuring a journey of several losses: of beings, of entire landscapes, and of cultural practices.

On Sámi territories, past, present and future converge: historical and present-day colonial forces in place are highlighted as the environmental loss and trauma that inflicts their land is addressed. Expanding hydropower, aggressive forestry, temperature rises, glacier retreat, and neo-colonial initiatives continue to impact the cultural, economic, spiritual, mental and physical health of Sámi reindeer herders and their wider community. By questioning what we should take with us to the next world, The End of this World suggests the importance of collective grieving: the need to come together in order to elaborate and process experiences of collective trauma and loss.

For further details, transcript and images from the process please visit the show notes. The B-side of this podcast is also available. To listen to this, please find it on our podcast page.

This episode is produced by Invisible Flock with Jenni Laiti, Carl-Johan Utsi and Land Body Ecologies.