Climate change is affecting wildlife reserves all around the world. In Africa, nature parks, which are a huge biosphere reserve, are experiencing increasingly prolonged droughts. In Kenya, schoolchildren follow the example of Patrick Mwalua, a pioneering conservationist, and are incorporating the saving of water and energy into their schoolwork. This the story of the short film Environmentalists, shortlisted micro-documentary at the We Art Water Film Festival 5.

Once a tourist attraction, Lake Togo languishes surrounded by sewage outfalls and tons of waste. The short film Trash Lagoon, finalist at the We Art Water Film Festival 5, shows the damage caused by water pollution to fishermen. It is yet another example of how the loss of biodiversity throws a society off balance and how any solution against poverty requires the achievement of universal sanitation.

The lack of supply in some Tanzanian schools has forced students to bring their own water to class every day. If they don’t bring a full water drum, they must return home. The short Water is not Life, finalist at the We Art Water Film Festival 5, showcases the harsh consequences of water stress for schoolchildren in many East African schools that depend on rainwater to ensure hygiene and nutrition for their students and teachers.

The short film Lágrimas de la Tierra (Tears of the Earth) by the Mexican David Ballesteros won the audience award at the fifth edition of the We Art Water Film Festival. It is a document on the unspeakable human damage caused by toxic discharges into the water. Governments and companies are obliged to control them and citizens must denounce them and claim their rights. The awareness of young people is the great hope, in Mexico and all around the world.  

The destruction of the Tanjaro River ecosystem shows that all is lost when water is polluted. Its recovery is also becoming an example of the difficulties of governance in a country that has not recovered from several wars. The short film Tanjaro is Dying, finalist of the We Art Water Film Festival 5, shows the disastrous consequences of the uncontrolled growth of a city in a region that has almost no memory of peace.

Myanmar’s northern regions are subject to the climate variability that monsoon Asia is experiencing. Water stress increases, disrupting the supply in places that had never experienced any shortages. The short film Everyday Needs shows the solidarity of two water vendors that donate it to those most in need.

Africa’s largest island is facing a serious humanitarian emergency. Drought and sand storms have unleashed one of the worst food crises in the history of a country with endemic deficiencies in water infrastructures and with a governance that is incapable of adequately managing the territory. The short film Where to go?, finalist at the We Art Water Film Festival 5, provides direct evidence of a crisis that threatens to kill more than a million people.  

The last herders survive in Mongolia, victims of globalization and climate change. Most of them have migrated to the capital, taking their yurts, tarpaulin dwellings where they live without running water, electricity or sanitation. Water Trolley, the short film by Toguldur Chuluunbaatar, finalist of the micro-documentary category at the We Art Water Film Festival 5, shows us a child’s daily fight to provide his family with water in one of Ulan Bator’s marginal neighborhoods.