Claudia Leal, member of the research initiative “Sharing a Planet in Peril” (SAPP) teamed up with director Pablo Mejila Trujillo to tell the story of “studying the jungle in a country at war”:
In 2002, after the kidnapping of Akisato Nishimura, Japanese primatologists and Colombian biologists were forced to abandon one of Latin America’s most productive field stations for the research of rain forest ecology. Paradise Lost tells the story of how scientists and students were able for 16 years to keep a station (Centro de Investigaciones Ecológicas, Macarena) in the heart of the FARC guerrilla territory. Produced during the end of the peace process between the Colombian government and the FARC guerrilla, the documentary was intended to contribute to the reopening of the station. Continuing violence halted this dream and, along with deforestation, keeps challenging field research in this convoluted society.
