The mere mention of nature documentaries causes people to scoff and snicker because they think they don’t have to care about the ecosystem. To an extent, they are correct. Capitalism and industrialization have destroyed the planet’s environment to such a dizzying extent that using metal straws and switching off all electrical appliances for an hour just won’t cut it anymore. The change needs to happen at the top, and the way industries and companies work has to be altered so that their practices can be more pro-environment. For that, pro-environment laws need to be drafted and implemented. For pro-environment laws to be brought into effect, we need to elect politicians and policymakers who give a damn about the planet. In order to make an informed decision about who is pro-environment and who is not, we need to be empathetic towards the flora and fauna that make our planet livable. And the easiest way to do that is via nature documentaries. So, stop scoffing and snickering at them, and allow me to talk about And Still the Seed.
Llaima Suwani’s And Still the Seed (or Todavia la Semilla) opens with Leidy and Gabriela handling plants like pitanga, desert cassia, courbaril, roughbark, and more. Their job is to protect the genetic history of Puerto Rican trees. The scene then shifts to that of a Guyacan tree (with the narrator speaking from the tree’s perspective) who has been around for more than 600 years and has watched civilizations evolve. The species that she belongs to is spread throughout the Antilles and the northern areas of South America. The spot where she has grown up was, I guess, randomly decided by a bird. Her sap has medicinal properties, but that’s mostly ignored by humans because her strong wood and sweet aroma are far more lucrative in nature. That’s why her species is going extinct. Then the focus shifts to the creation of Puerto Rico, its soil and its beaches. As per the Spanish conquistadors, the forests of the nation were filled with cedar, mahogany, gregorywood, bulletwood, cobano, laurel, elm, bumelia pallidum, angelin, oak, fustic, tabonuco, roman cassie, muskwood, and maga trees. And the destruction of the ecosystem that began back then continues to this day.
Within a matter of 14 minutes, And Still the Seed manages to illustrate the fact that it takes a little care and attention to allow plants to grow. Once they mature, they have so much to give and, in return, they just want a little bit of love; that’s it. Yet we fail to provide that. I don’t know if it is the short film, but the juxtaposition of the images of industrialization and the building of cities, along with Leidy and Gabriela helping these endangered plants thrive, shows that all these insanely wealthy CEOs, COOs, and politicians need to part with just a miniscule amount of their money to allow environmentalists to make this planet livable again. It won’t hurt their coffers. It won’t destroy the luxurious future of their kids, grandkids, or great-grandkids. And it’ll secure the futures of so many other people who can’t afford to survive the heat by living in an air-conditioned environment or have exotic foods hand-delivered to them whenever they are hungry. However, the greed of the affluent has become so corrosive that they can’t even dream of doing something that’ll make the planet they are living on sustainable.
Again, probably not the point of And Still the Seed, but the media (which is controlled by the people who are destroying the environment) always portrays pro-environment activists as these maniacal and diabolical spawns of evil because they are destroying art with soup. Ask yourselves this the next time you see a media personality lambasting an environmental activist: How are you going to appreciate any kind of art if the planet is not livable? Is art more important than the environment? What should we prioritize when our lives are on the line? I have seen more floods, earthquakes, and hurricanes in my lifetime than my grandparents or parents ever did. So, no matter what anti-environmental policy makers say, things are getting bad at a rapid rate. We’ve gone past the point of no return. But that doesn’t mean we should simply give up. We should hold the people accountable for making our home a living hell and pressure them till they are embarrassed to do better. I mean, that’s the least that we can do at this point. Or else, what are we going to tell the next generations when they ask us what we did when we saw the writing on the wall?
There’s a point in And Still the Seed where the narrator mentions sugarcane, tobacco, coffee, grapefruit, pineapple, cotton, and acerola to show how the basic ingredients of our diet can become “rare” if we think that buildings made of stones and steel are way more important for the development of humanity than plants. Yet our curricula at schools and colleges teach the opposite. Or even if they do teach kids to do the right thing, it’s only performative and not something that’s seared into our brains as definitively as the need for highways, flyovers, bullet trains, and other so-called advancements in technology. Artificial intelligence is the latest thing that folks are obsessed with, even though there are several reports that prove how harmful it is to the environment. Then there’s all the warmongering, which is reaching new levels of hype every day despite its impact on humanity and the environment. And it seems like our governments will direct the country’s resources towards every anti-environment practice and completely ignore anything that’s synonymous with the protection of wildlife and forests. That’s because even they’ve been taught, from a young age, to not care about the environment. So, if we need to create a new generation of pro-environment policymakers, maybe we need to educate them when they’re young by showing short films like And Still the Seed.
With the exclusion of the upper class, everyone has been thrown into the vicious cycle of running for food and voting during election season. And this routine is so exhausting that it doesn’t leave room for critical thinking. But we need to change that so that people like Leidy and Gabriela can make our planet whole again. They have the skills to do it. They just need the means and the time. Llaima Suwani has clearly done her part by making this small documentary about how, against all odds, these two women are nurturing endangered species of plants. In doing so, they are honoring the roots (quite literally) of Puerto Rico because these plants made their country. That is more applause-worthy than what some self-proclaimed patriots have done for the nation. I’m sure there are many more like Leidy and Gabriela all over the world, and they should get the support they need to do the pro-environment work that they’re doing. If you can back them on your own, do it. If you can’t, then elect policymakers who are willing to heal the planet. The time is now.
