Circle of Voices - Immersive audio documentaries & ecological sound art – Details, episodes & analysis

The latest United Nations Ocean Conference, UNOC3 just ended in Nice. Among the 15,000 delegates - and 100,000 visitors - I share with you 30 Ocean voices. Young activists, artists, scientists, campaigners: they are all Ocean lovers and defenders. I am Louise Romain, sound artist, documentarist, anthropologist, and the podcast producer of Circle of Voices, for this episode I created a patchwork of voice notes received via Signal, Telegram and Whatsapp.

This is a three part series. In Part 1, these 10 Ocean voices address deep sea mining, the high-seas treaty or BBNJ, plastic pollution, mangrove and coral reef restoration, the ocean-climate-biodiversity nexus, youth leadership and fair inclusion, rights of nature and specifically Antarctic, acoustics, machine learning and AI, community rights and ocean justice, the blue economy, direct funding and debt restructuring, and more...!

If you enjoy what you hear, support Circle of Voices via my Patreon and become a monthly sponsor to contribute to my production and creative work into this world: https://www.patreon.com/c/CircleofVoices. Single direct donations are also possible here: https://buy.stripe.com/aFa4gB5zWbYzdDzc48fbq00. And share the episode with a friend you think might find this valuable.

This episode features:

*Mark Haver - North America Representation for Sustainable Ocean Alliance (SOA), USA

*Bruna Martins - Cuíra Collective, Coalition of guardians of Amazonian mangroves, Brasil

*Isla Keesje Davidson - WOPAM, World Ocean Passive Acoustic Monitoring, Cornell University, USA

*Roberta Bosu -  Global Campaign Lead for Antarctic Rights, Italy/Netherlands

*Ines Costa - Love the Oceans operating in Mozambique, Spain

*Kevin Lunzalu - Marine Project Officer East African Wildlife Society, Kenya

*Marie Claire Graf -  Co-founder of the Youth Negotiators Academy &  counselor at the World Future Council, Switzerland

*Pooja Tilvawala - Founder and Exec. Director of the Youth Climate Collaborative, India

*Ismaela Magliotto - Co-founder and Manager-Director of NGO Uno Punto Cinco, Chile

*Christian Jake Tabara - SOA Fellow and Youth Campaign Officer for Alyansa Tigil Mina, Philippines

//Credits// Music by Shame Mckenna 'Surfacing' via Uppbeat. Sounds: Whales in the Rain by listeningtowhales -- https://freesound.org/s/322539/; Dolphin in Caribbean Sea (Mexico) by felix.blume -- https://freesound.org/s/161691/; and various phone ring tones by sapatac, genviou, and Aldergrove Studios.

Circle of Voices is a podcast produced by Louise Romain. Find out more about her work: https://tuneintotheworld.com/

This audio documentary is a love story with the Ocean, the reef and its guardians. An invitation to travel to Caribbean shores to immerse yourself in the lived experiences of coastal communities, and in the sounds of the local ecosystems: the coral reefs and the mangroves.

You will hear stories from Raizal fishermen, turning their ignorance for corals into love, respect and admiration, and learn about the work of the female marine biologists of the Blue Indigo Foundation to restore and heal corals.

Together, they share about their dreams for the future of the reef, the challenges they face with global warming, climate change and extreme weather events, and the hopes of marine and coastal ecosystem regeneration after the recent hurricanes.

Take a moment to relax, remember that every other breath you take comes from the ocean, and enjoy the ride. Best enjoyed on headphones, or loud speakers with a quiet environment - and ideally, with others as a collective listening journey.

The sounds and interviews were recorded in the Archipelago of San Andres, Providence and Santa Catalina in November 2024. With deep thanks to the Blue Indigo Foundation team and to my interviewees: Pedro, Laura, Yanelis, Ruben, Camilo, Casimiro and Josselyn. The recordings of the reefs and the mangroves were taken with the Aquarian audio hydrophone.

Original music composition by Marc Blandel. Sound effects from freesound archive.

Recording, narration and production by sound artist, documentarist and anthropologist Louise Romain. This production was entirely self-funded. To support Louise's work, join her on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/CircleofVoices/membership

This piece was created as a commission for an event for climate activists in London. I called it an interspecies song as it weaves together the beauty of bird song, flowing river and human voices...

The birds recordings come from London (UK), Tumbira (Brasilian Amazon) and Felidia (Valle del Cauca, Colombia). The river being is the Athabasca that runs through Alberta, Canada.

🎶 The songs and harmonies were recorded during a water ceremony in January 2024, held at a well that goes under the Royal Court of Justice in London. Activists and water protectors gathered as the court case around the Stonehenge extension road and tunnel was about to start (for the second time), threatening the sacred spring of Blickmead. This was convened by Charlotte Pulver and Sam Lee.

🐦 Key birds identified thanks to the app Merlin Bird ID (developed by Cornell Lab):
- Eurasian Wren, European Robbin, Great Tit, Eurasian Blackbird (UK)
- Great Kiskadee, Yellow-rumped Cacique (Brasil and Colombia)
- Tropical Kingbird, Palm Tanager, Roadside Hawk, Yellow-Headed Caraca, Clay-colored Thrush (Colombia)

Sound recording, editing and production: Louise Romain

Tune in for this short story celebrating the resilience of wild river beings and the power of Indigenous frontline defence.

Danielle Frank comes from the Hupa and Yurok Tribes, commonly known as Northern California. She attended various UN Conventions over the years, but she came to the Biodiversity COP16 in Cali, Colombia, with a particular story to share: the restoration process of the Klamath river through the largest dam removal in world history.

After generations of advocacy by local Indigenous Nations, including her family members, the river now runs free and the salmon are returning home for the first time in over a century. Tune in for this short story celebrating the resilience of Indigenous frontline defence.

I also ask Danielle about what the finds most challenging attending COP (Conference of the Parties) as an Indigenous youth, and her thoughts on solidarity and allyship.

"The solution is going back to the sacred, going back to the lands that provide for everybody, to communities that provide for all, not this one percent that controls our entire planet. [...] The goal is community and investment in each other."

Interview, sound design and production: Louise Romain.

About Ríos to Rivers: https://www.riostorivers.org/

In the summer of 2022, I travelled across Canada on a quest to gather sounds and stories of resilience and resistance, as we journey through times of collapse and crisis.

I met Tamara Archie in Tk'emlúps (Kamloops) in the semi-arid part of British Columbia, Western Canada. She works for Qwelmínte Secwépemc and shares here some of her wisdom about being in right relation to the land.

Qwelmínte Secwépemc is a collective of leadership from eight Secwépemc communities working together with the B.C. Government to move forward via the Qwelmínte Secwépemc Government to Government table. Find out more: www.qwelminte.ca/about-us

Interview, atmospheric recordings and production: Louise Romain.

Other credits: Holizna CO (Dreams) from the Free Music Archive and Heartbeat Fast Tempo by CTCollab -freesound.org/s/223614/ - License: Attribution 3.0.

Visit www.tuneintotheworld.com to learn more about my work.

When ambient electronic music meets spoken word...
I wrote this poem while attending the international symposium on soundscape in Lugano, Switzerland, in October 2023. The theme was looking at how sound creations and listening practices can help us shape better futures for human and more-than-human life.The musical accompaniment was a spontaneous creation offered by my friend Andy Squiff -photographer, graphic designer and sound producer.

Lyrics: Ascoltaci (Listen to us)

Lisssstening... with our hearts wide open.
We are here to dream of sonic futures with a reverence for life.
We are here to re-imagine the rewilding of our ears.
We are here to get lost soundscapes yet to find each other.

Streaming from different localities, we embarked on a quest seeking the humming of the land, the hissing of the skies and the clicking in the waters.
In our rush for birdsongs going extinct, so much quicker than we can grasp, we hush.
Trying to make sense of the evermore silence of our biosphere while our everyday seems to get louder and louder.

The storms we play on tape echo the cataclysmic challenges of our times.
Meanwhile our clever machines try to capture what defies our hearing range: the ultra, the infra, the invisible, the beyond, the below and the between.
We have even designed artificial intelligences that are starting to decode the languages of bees and bats.

Our cables plugged into secretive mycelium and our hydrophones intruding rock pools and ponds,
We are the gifted curators of the polyphony of our Mother.
Yet, as a species, we have created so much noise that we can't seem to truly listen when her children cry and scream and die.

But some of us do.
Those who haven't let go of a sense of wonder for this beautiful and complex world.
Those of us who pay attention to frequencies and vibrations.
Those of us who attempt to make the planet’s gentlest voices heard despite our physical limitations.

And so our dreams grow bigger and our acoustic calls reach further: we listen, we listen, we listen.

What do you hear, child of the Earth?

One year ago, a historic agreement was adopted by 196 countries at COP15: the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). What was so special about it? And what happened since then?

In this second episode, I invite you to lend an ear to Indigenous leaders, to the finance sector and businesses present at the conference. I also share some insights on the (slow) progress and some of the positive developments since the adoption of the GBF. Listen here for part 1: At the heart of COP15 - Part 1.

Voices featured in this episode:

* Viviana Figueroa / Omaguaca-Kolla, Argentina / international public lawyer, Associate Programme Officer for the Convention on Biological Diversity (2009 - 2018)

* Jennifer Tauli Corpuz / Kankana-ey Igorot, Philippines / Senior Global Policy and Advocacy Lead, Nia Tero

* Ramson Karmushu / Maasai, Kenya / Field and Logistics Officer, Indigenous Movement for Peace Advancement and Conflict Transformation (IMPACT)

* Joji Cariño / Ibaloi-Igorot, Philippines / Senior Policy Advisor, Forest Peoples Programme

* A representative from the Finance for Biodiversity Foundation

* Eva Zabey, CEO of Business for Nature

🎵 Live music from a COP15 concert with original songs by Kellylee Evans 'Everything', 'Greenlight' and 'Feel my love' and musicians Steeve Boudreau, Ed Lister and Chris Palm.

Others songs by Holizna Co (Ugly Truth, Foggy Headed, Old Age, Chills) and Wax Lyricist (Indulgence) from the Free Music Archive.

Recordings, script and production by Louise Romain.

Visit www.tuneintotheworld.com to learn more about my work.

Sources:

- International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity: https://iifb-indigenous.org/2023/11/13/agenda-item-7-joint-programme-of-work-on-the-links-between-biological-and-culturaldiversity-review-and-update-of-the-four-adopted-traditional-knowledge-indicators/

- Finance for Biodiversity Foundation: https://www.financeforbiodiversity.org/celebrating-10-new-finance-for-biodiversity-pledge-signatories-on-the-one-year-anniversary-of-the-gbf/

https://www.financeforbiodiversity.org/ffb-foundation-launched-the-nature-target-setting-framework-for-asset-managers-and-asset-owners/

- UNEP report: https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/global-annual-finance-flows-7-trillion-fueling-climate-biodiversity

- 2023 report, World Benchmarking Alliance: https://www.worldbenchmarkingalliance.org/publication/nature/

To go deeper:

- About the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF): https://www.cbd.int/gbf/

- One year anniversary KMGBF: https://www.cbd.int/article/one-year-kmgbf

- Taskforce on Nature-Related Financial Disclosures: https://tnfd.global/

In 2022, I traveled to Brazil at the time of the national elections. I went with the intention to record sounds and stories of resistance and resilience, in times of collapse and crisis. I created this sound journey to bring you on the road with me...

I will guide you through some of the country's most iconic landscapes, from the Coast of Bahia to the heart of the Amazon, sharing songs and prayers from the Pataxó people, bringing you the entrancing chant of the Yoruba ocean goddess Yemanja, and even get you involved into Brasilian politics.

This sound journey was originally created for a performance at the event Sing for Earth Day on April 22nd 2023 in Stroud, UK. It features songs from the Pataxó communities of Barra Velha and Porto do Boi (in Bahia) and a displaced community in Paraty. The song 'Yemanja' was recorded in Salvador, as part of the Balé Folclórico da Bahia.

Recordings, script and composition: Louise Romain / Sound editing: Rory Thomas Lawton.

In this special episode created for the podcast show RAVEN Debriefs⁠, I bring together recordings from the Athabasca river with voices from Indigenous land & water protectors and members of the Canadian organisation 'Keepers of the Water'. After decades of extracting bitumen (a thicky form of crude oil) in Northern Alberta, the toxic wastewater from the mining activities is starting to become a problem... 

But the federal and provincial governments of Canada, together with industry, have a solution: they want to change domestic law to legalize the release of the tailings ponds (the residual wastewater from the mining operations) into the Athabasca river. This river directly feeds into the Mackenzie River Basin, which is known as the Amazon of the North: the largest watershed in Canada and the most intact large scale ecosystem on the continent.

🎤 Hear from Melody Lepine, Tori Cress, Daniel T’seleie and Paul Belanger, as they all shared their concerns as part of a press conference at the latest UN biodiversity conference -COP15- last December in Tio'tià:ke, Montreal. The press conference organised by Environmental Defence Canada and Keepers of the Water.

🐦 The more-than-human voices are the Athabasca river* and various animals recordings provided by the sound library of the Yellowstone National Park, as many species are also endemic to the Wood Buffalo National Park, of which: red-winged blackbird, Wilson's snipe, warbling vireo, bald eagle, western meadow lark, common loon, savannah sparrow, sandhill crane, bison and wolves. https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/photosmultimedia/soundlibrary.htm

What can you do to support?

1. https://www.keepersofthewater.ca/tar-sands-tailings-ponds

2. https://act.environmentaldefence.ca/page/122490/action/1

Music credits by Holizna CC0, Soft and Furious, and Loyalty Freak through the Free Music Archive.

*Recorded in August and December 2022, produced in March 2023 by Louise Romain.

/Additional info about organisations involved/

- The Canadian organisation ⁠RAVENTrust⁠ raises funds for Indigenous People's access to justice. - Environmental Defence is a leading Canadian environmental advocacy organization that works with government, industry and individuals to defend clean water, a safe climate and healthy communities.