Bear-faced Chic

THE 'ART' OF NATURE: FILMS TO FUND SURVIVAL OF ITALY'S MARSICAN BROWN BEAR

On 18th October 2022 at Ham Yard, Soho, The European Nature Trust, in conjunction with the Italian Chamber of Commerce and the Italian Tourism Board, will be hosting 'Wild Abruzzo: The Spirit of Untamed Italy' a premiere film screening event, to raise funds and awareness for the conservation of the world's most endangered bear.

Once widespread throughout the Central Appenines, the Marsican brown bear is one of the rarest and most endangered bears in the world. Living less than 90 miles from Rome, few know of the crucial role this animal plays in the ecosystem or the fragility of the population. A cousin of North America's grizzly, it is a unique subspecies that became geographically isolated from other brown bears in Europe. With a population of about 60 remaining individuals the species is at extremely high risk of extinction and is listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List. In 2015, the last population census revealed just 13 reproductively active females in the population and today the remaining Marsican brown bears are concentrated inside the Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise National Park - an area in Italy spanning just 190 square miles. Struggling to support more than 60 individual bears; territorial, the bears' future depends on the population's ability to expand beyond the confines of the park, and for new breeding populations to establish in a broader range of Italy's protected areas.

Salviamo l'Orso (SLO), a volunteer-led organisation, in collaboration with Rewilding Apennines, is already working to encourage bears to safely disperse, and having identified five key areas that are crucial to connect the protected areas they are working to build 'corridors', which bears are able to use to move between them and increase the population's genetic health. 100% of ticket sales will go to this organisation to help them with their important work. This includes the removal of threats to their migration such as barbed wire, poaching activities, traffic collisions and emerging diseases being spread by local dogs. SLO have also established educational programmes in local schools, and work with young volunteers to support conservation efforts in the field. They are working to promote awareness and co-existence with communities, improving habitats and food sources in corridor areas and are also undertaking bear monitoring and research through long-distance wildlife observation and identification of animal tracks and signs. In some areas local people have already embraced the bear as part of Italy's natural heritage. But as the ENT says, "Conserving the Marsican brown bear - as a large-bodied and wide-ranging mammal - would enable the protection of all the biodiversity it shares the ecosystem with. We must come together and protect the Spirit of Untamed Italy."

Two films will be screened on the evening:

1) A new film, 'Path of the bear', from acclaimed ecologist, presenter and filmmaker Chris Morgan, has been heralded as a "passionate portrayal of the role the bear plays in not only the Abruzzi ecosystem, but in the hearts and minds of the communities with which it coexists".Chris travels to the heart of Italy to meet the people who have been fighting for the conservation of the Marsican brown bear.

2) Mattia Ciaolni's 'My Neighbour is a Bear' follows the arrival of a mother bear - Amarena - with her four cubs, as she journeys down from the mountains of Abruzzo to the sun-strewn and cobbled streets of Villalago, a nearby village. The film is a cinematic portrait of a species, and how its future is entwined with our own and has been selected for the Florida Environmental Film Festival, Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's Capital and the International Wildlife Film Festival. Below is a little taster:-

If you'd like to attend the evening, which will also include panel questions after the screenings, an auction, food, drinks and networking, click here for more information and tickets which are priced at £200.