Planet in Focus: Up in Smoke

By Matthew Higginson, LEAF
Read more reviews from the Planet in Focus film festival, sponsored by WWF.
Unless you’ve seen his film, Up in Smoke you may be a little lost. The tree I’m referring to is the inga, native to the Honduran rainforests and the possible solution to slash and burn agriculture by its people. The fast-growing tree is used in a technique referred to as “alley cropping,” a process that naturally feeds the land, suppresses weeds and can be a key towards sustainable agriculture in Central America.
[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/29369283[/vimeo]
But let’s back up for a second, can you imagine having to destroy part of a beautiful rain forest just to keep food on the table? Slash and burn agriculture, the process of clearing rich land for temporary cash crops is a reality faced by many in the developing world. After one season of growing, the land becomes infertile and the farmers move on to the next section of fresh forest. It was this reality that sparked something in Wakeling and throughout his meetings with tropical ecologist Mike Hands (the obsessive genius), alley crop farmer Faustino Reyes (the mountaintop philosopher) and slash-and-burn farmer Aladino Cabrera (the compassionate family man) – you start to see Wakeling’s interest shift into passion.
“I don’t want to use pesticides, I don’t want to burn the land, but what other choice do we have?” says Aladino shortly after he is introduced. Slash and burn agriculture is actually illegal in Honduras, but so many of its people engage in the practice because they cannot see another viable way to produce food. Beyond the laws, this method actually produces more carbon emissions annually than global aviation – a sobering thought and a bit of a wake-up call.
Shot entirely by Wakeling over a four-year period, Up in Smoke tracks Aladino’s journey as a farmer disenchanted with his region’s current methods of agriculture and Mike as he tries to gain traction bringing his discovery to new investors and farmers.
At one point Faustino, the first farmer to employ Mike’s method of alley cropping, riddles us, “what is the colour of luck?” The answer, there is no colour, because luck doesn’t exist. His philosophy is that our lives are determined by the choices we make. And it’s the honest moments like this that are so amazing. The level of trust Wakeling has developed with his subjects reads well on screen. He’s there when Aladino cracks an egg on his daughters forehead for her 18th birthday – “a tradition that only comes once in a lifetime.” These scenes lighten the heavy mood of the film – but it’s never far from mind that a huge shift needs to take place.
It’s almost heartbreaking to watch Mike struggle as he spends his life savings and 25 years pushing forward on what he knows is right. But that heartbreak turns hopeful as we watch the same man that set a mountain ablaze at the start of the film put his son up to climb in the inga trees he had grown himself. He’s ready, it seems, to forget about luck.
For more information on the work being done, or how you can help check out https://upinsmoke.tv.