In a documentary film, an Arte team sheds light on the background to droughts in Europe – and looks for prospects for the future.
As part of the program series “World Climate Conference – The Big Challenge”, Arte will deal with extreme weather phenomena in a theme evening on Tuesday (October 19, 2021). The documentary “Drought in Europe” by Jens Niehuss and Marcel Martschoke takes on a problem that has become more and more apparent in recent years and sets out to search for the causes of the drought.
The focus of the film is on the consequences for agriculture and forestry, which the filmmakers in Romania, Spain, France and Germany are tracking down: Forest fires spreading ever further; parched lakes, the exposed soils of which are blown as sand onto the surrounding arable land; Dwindling groundwater supplies and widespread tree death are – as it is clear – above all home-made problems.
Documentation on Arte: Man-made climate catastrophe: arable land emaciated
In Romania, for example, under the Ceaușescu government and also in the GDR, the practice of draining lakes in order to create additional arable land. However, these initiatives to strengthen agricultural yield only had a short lifespan, as the mineral-rich sludge was drained within a very short time and desert-like landscapes remained, which are the starting points for sandstorms in the regions to this day.
The documentation also shows that hardly anything has changed in the methods of land use since then and, in particular, cultivation in monocultures and the irresponsible use of resources are driving the desolation of land. The most impressive scenes of the film depict the situation in Almería, Spain, where fruits and vegetables for the European market are grown under kilometers of plastic sheeting.
Arte-Doku: From depleted water supplies to dead vegetation
The plastic is supposed to protect against moisture loss, nonetheless, huge amounts of water are used here for artificial irrigation. This leads to the depletion of the area’s natural water resources, which causes vegetation to die off and desertification to progress. Apart from the large greenhouses, there is hardly any water today, which makes life in the area increasingly difficult. The result will be ghost towns located in a desert area.
In interviews with climate scientists, molecular biologists, environmental activists, forest scientists and environmental engineers, it also becomes clear that, despite the European Green Deal , the European Union is doing too little to promote truly sustainable measures. Célia Nyssens from the European Environment Bureau says that three quarters of EU funds will continue to support traditional agriculture and that the remaining quarter will probably not be able to bring about any significant changes.
To the broadcast
“Drought in Europe – the catastrophe is homemade”, 53 minutes, on October 19, 2021 at 8:15 pm on Arte or already in the media library.
Documentation on Arte about drought in Europe shows perspectives for dealing with the climate crisis
As informative as the individual contributions of the documentation are, their weakness is evident in the sometimes incomprehensible assembly. Again and again there is a jump between the topics, interlocutors and countries, only to return a little later and to resume storylines that were believed to be completed. It is thanks to the insistent positions of the interview partners that, in the end, a comprehensible picture of the various causes of the European drought emerges and perspectives for dealing with the crisis become clear.
Sustainable cultivation methods that give up agricultural land in order to plant protective trees; the abandonment of monocultures in favor of diverse ecosystems; “Green genetic engineering”, which improves the heat resistance of plants and compliance with climate targets, are approaches that mean turning away from conventional economic ideas. Instead, as one organic farmer says at the end of the documentation, we have to “focus on the soil” again. (Jendrik Walendy)
