Film Review: Public Trust
© Public Trust, (2019) Dir. David Garret Byars.
This ravishingly beautiful film about our 640 million acres of sublimely gorgeous public lands spread mostly across the western one third of the US, traces the origins of the system which is a uniquely American construct. It passionately makes the case for its importance to the people, wildlife and the environment and why it should be protected. Most alarmingly, it shines a light on the serious threats from overwhelming big money interests which only sees what is unseen, the vast riches which lie below, just waiting to be extracted regardless of the damage and degradation to the land and to the people whose livelihoods are threatened. This, to enrich the captains of industry in the polluting fossil fuel and mining industries. This is OUR land.
I don’t believe I have ever seen more gorgeous cinematography even in a big budget feature film. The drone footage swoons over some of the most strange and wonderful monumental rock formations, some with extraordinary ancient pictographs, mountains, rivers and streams. It swoops and soars above massive animal migrations and glides across open plains as well as aerial views of massive environmental damage. These images are as dramatic as the work of Edward Burtynski.
Theodore Roosevelt signed the Antiquities Act in 1906 to preserve large tracts of land for use by the public and not to be sold or privately developed. Although much of the land was co-opted from native American populations, it was open to use by ranchers and indigenous people. Gradually land was periodically turned over to the states by the Federal government, which meant that the states, in order to pay for its maintenance, began leasing parts of the underground natural resources to oil and gas drilling and mining companies. Big business has historically and voraciously pursued extractive practices all over the world and left behind vast damage when they are finished, for which there is seldom reparation.
Interviews with Hal Herring, investigative journalist, Edward Brinkley, environmental journalist, Angelo Baca a Navajo filmmaker, Bernadette Demientieff, an Indian organizer fighting to protect the Arctic Wildlife Refuge and Spencer Shaver, a defender of the Boundary Waters Wilderness, as well as government whistleblowers and local activists, ranchers, and native people tell their stories. The film focuses on three major recent battles, Bears Ears in Utah on Navajo territory, the Boundary Waters Wilderness in Minnesota vs. Twin Mining Company (Chilean), Arctic Wildlife Refuge in Alaska vs. Indigenous people. Many familiar faces from government, including Presidents Reagan, Nixon, Obama and Trump appear along with legislators, governors and cabinet members in contexts which sometimes appear duplicitous, insensitive or positively corrupt. What becomes abundantly clear is that the battle to save and protect this land from rampant exploitation and destruction is being lost at increasingly greater speed even as it is undeniable that this is the opposite direction in which we should be going to save and protect what is left of our air, land, water and wildlife. This passionate infuriating cri de coeur paints an alarming, eye-opening picture of where we are. It should inspire many new activists to embrace the idea of shared stewardship over rapacious greed. Mandatory viewing.
Available on YouTube starting on 9/25.
