Land Body Ecologies

In Episode 2: Honey, we explore the Mau Forest in the Rift Valley, Kenya, where the population of honeybees have declined in recent decades due to deforestation, forest encroachment and logging. Bees are central to the identity of the Ogiek, an indigenous community that calls the Mau Forest home despite decades of continuous experiences of eviction in the name of conservation. The bees buzzing sounds from the high-swinging hives of Mau Forest are a voice in the community’s story. For the Ogiek, honey is food, it is medicine, it is front and centre in both celebration and healing. Since time immemorial, the Ogiek have cared for the Mau forest, living symbiotically with the bees, indigenous flowers and trees. In Honey, LBE member Daniel Kobei and bee keepers of the Ogiek community reflect on this special connection, detailing how bees transition between physical and spiritual territories of the Ogiek.

Each episode of storytelling is paired with another side of the same story – a B-side like classic recording, where the landscape speaks for itself. The B-side of Honey features the Mau Forest at dawn, with the wind blowing through leaves and hyraxes scurrying through the trees. If you listen deeply, they too are telling the Ogiek story.

Land Body Ecologies is produced by Invisible Flock and this episode is made with the Ogiek Peoples’ Development Program.

This is the Finnish language version of the first Episode of the Land Body Ecologies podcast, for the fully dubbed English version please download episode labelled as English Language.

The Free River tells the story of Kemijoki, Finland’s longest river that cuts across the country’s northern region. As the first hydroelectric power station was constructed on the river between 1945–1949, the damming of the river Kemi represented a death blow for a salmon-fishing culture that was centuries old, and changed forever the course and balance of this powerful thriving river and ecosystem. The story is grounded in the experiences of two sisters. A generation apart from each other, they both reflect on how the damming shaped their work and lives. In the episode, they journey through the land as they strive to understand the lasting suffering caused when the hydro dam was constructed across their family home and silenced their river.

For further details, transcript and images from the process please visit the show notes.

The Free River tells the story of Kemijoki, Finland’s longest river that cuts across the country’s northern region. As the first hydroelectric power station was constructed on the river between 1945–1949, the damming of the river Kemi represented a death blow for a salmon-fishing culture that was centuries old, and changed forever the course and balance of this powerful thriving river and ecosystem. The story is grounded in the experiences of two sisters. A generation apart from each other, they both reflect on how the damming shaped their work and lives. In the episode, they journey through the land as they strive to understand the lasting suffering caused when the hydro dam was constructed across their family home and silenced their river.

For further details, transcript and images from the process please visit the show notes.

This episode is also available without the dubbing, to listen to this please find the Finnish Language Version on our podcast page.

This B-side episode of The Free River is a wordless sound journey through the landscapes explored in the first episode of the Land Body Ecologies Podcast..

Beginning on the River Kemi upstream of the Valajaskoski hydro dam. Moving from the surface to below the ice the sound follows the journey of the river as it transitions from seemingly still quiet body of water to the furious sounds of the turbines, only audible beneath the surface. Its journey continues through the turbines and explores the sounds of the structure of the dam. Finally the river emerges out the other side. We end with the sound of the last remaining free river in Finland that has no dam from source to sea.

To listen to the full episode please find Episode 1 - The Free River on our podcast page.