Abstract:

This program featuring sociocultural anthropologist James Eder—author of On the Road to Tribal Extinction—travels to the island of Palawan in the Philippines archipelago to document the Batak tribe’s eco-friendly hunter/gatherer way of life. Repeatedly displaced by immigrants and increasingly driven to take part in the island’s growing cash economy, the tenacious Batak struggle to maintain their cultural and spiritual identity while attempting to adapt to the modern world. Can conservationists, who approve of their sustainable methods of harvesting, help to secure the tribe’s ancestral forest before it is all lost? Contains nudity. (48 minutes, color)