Films

The dramatic sanding-over of arable land caused by climate change now threatens the very survival of many ancestral Dogon communities along the magestic Bandiagara Cliffs in Mali. The Dogon people originally emigrated to this geographically isolated region, fleeing Islamic persecution in the 13th century. But in recent decades, numerous families have been forced to abandon their ancestral villages and way of life in search of arable land on the Seno Plain bordering Burkina Faso. In the face of increasing inter-ethnic conflict and the threat of terrorism, many Dogon men who used to make a living from tourism and crafts are now leaving women and children behind in search of work. Those families who remain struggle to reclaim farmland and water reserves from the advancing dunes in order to continue to practice subsistence agriculture with crops of millet and onions. Homegrown solutions are provided by a local NGO whose knowledge of the culture, language and terrain are essential to insure collaboration from the population.