Welcome to The Swell
Swell Connections began as a vision to connect humanity with nature, community, and spirit around a common cause. Today, the Swell can provide you with videography, photography, producing, directing, logistics and connect you with some of the most talented people working together to protect our planet. Creative ConsultingThe Swell is aimed at providing creative consulting that brings together people, projects, ideas, fundraising, and spirit around a common cause. Our team will align you or your organization with a mission towards a sustainable future.
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Film & Photography
Storytelling is our passion. We want to create a specialized message for your mission that will inspire, educate and raise awareness.
Recent Assignments
With diverse, global collections and research in art, culture, and natural history, the Royal Ontario Museum is ideally positioned to help address humanity's urgent, multidimensional environmental challenges, such as climate change and biodiversity loss. ROM contributes, in part, by facilitating transdisciplinary collaborations between artists and scientists. The 'Art of the Expedition' illustrates such a collaboration, in which ROM's Curator of Fishes Dr. Nathan Lujan work's closely with New York-based artist David Brooks to bring their respective expertise to bear on the issues of species discovery, classification, and loss in Peru's western headwaters of the Amazon Basin, Earth's most biodiverse freshwater ecosystem. Throughout Nathan's career, he has discovered and described as new to science over three dozen fish species and has worked to understand the ecological and evolutionary relationships among Amazonian fishes more broadly. David Brooks is a recent Rome Prize recipient whose work explores the interaction between humans and their natural and synthetic environments. Several of his works have been influenced or inspired by his participation in scientific expeditions led by Nathan, this being the sixth that they have conducted together. Environmental Filmmaker Ivy Yin is a third collaborator who has now joined Nathan and David on two expeditions to the Amazon Basin.
Imagine a meter-long catfish with a large mouth like a suction cup, and a body covered in bony plates like an armadillo and spines like a cactus – a fish so rare that even life-long indigenous inhabitants of the Amazon have never seen one. This was one of several landmark discoveries recently documented for the first time in Ecuador by an international team of biologists from Ecuador’s University of the Americas and Canada’s Royal Ontario Museum. For this expedition, the Our Children’s Earth Foundation provided a filmmaker, Ivy Yin, to document the ongoing research efforts being conducted by this team.
The biodiversity within the Ecuadorian Amazon is immense, yet scientific research on the region’s rivers and fishes is immensely scarce. So much so that discoveries of species unknown to science are still quite common. Dr. Luján needs more time to examine the specimens the team collected, but he’s confident that at least four of the fish species they collected are new to science.
The biodiversity within the Ecuadorian Amazon is immense, yet scientific research on the region’s rivers and fishes is immensely scarce. So much so that discoveries of species unknown to science are still quite common. Dr. Luján needs more time to examine the specimens the team collected, but he’s confident that at least four of the fish species they collected are new to science.
Founder of Akashinga, military-trained sniper Damien Mander lives on a vegan diet along with all of his female rangers. Mander first turned to veganism when he felt the "hypocrisy" of protecting one group of animals and coming home and eating another. The team members have embraced the change. Field rangers say, "It's great... we don't miss meat at all and we're mentally and physically stronger by choosing to adopt this diet". A nutritious diet is vital for the work being done, as training for Akashinga is modeled around strenuous special-forces training. While working with rather than against the local population, the aim is to protect wildlife and their habitat. The project provides an alternative to poaching and at the same time, empowers women and supports local communities.
Mamta Verma lost her leg a year ago after being hit by a truck in Rajasthan India. The accident did minor damage to her foot but when her husband refused to get her medical care her entire leg became infected and it had to be amputated. Mamta now works for Dhonk, a socially responsible enterprise aimed at creating sustainable job opportunities for local villagers through art and crafts. “I feel empowered, I’m now financially independent and can make my own decisions”. Manta now has a bank account and is working towards a new prosthetic leg. Dhonk is an open door for any villager who wants to learn and earn. When I visited Mamta today, she was working with sustainably sourced fabric and natural dyes to make clothing and textiles for homes. Dhonk has trained more than 150 villagers, has created a medical policy which would assist the team members in times of crisis, and continues to support the daughters of all team members in getting an education. Since Dhonk is located on the boundary of Ranthambore National Park (home to some of the few remaining Endangered Bengal Tigers), they also provide an alternative livelihood that helps in decreasing the villagers dependence on wood and cattle grazing on the forest and its resources. Dhonk is the only organization that is working with the ex-poachers families belonging to the semi-nomatic Mogya and Bawariya tribes.
A marine conservation model that is working. Rangers patrol day and night protecting the 300,000 acres/1220 sq km Misool Marine Reserve and ensure it remains a balanced and healthy NO-TAKE Zone. Rampant shark finning and unchecked destructive fishing were destroying some of the most important and bio-diverse reefs on earth. In 2005, a powerful partnership between local communities and the @misoolfoundation resulted in the creation of the region's first No-Take Zone. A scientific survey analyzed fish biomass at several sites within the Misool Marine Reserve, comparing data from 2007 and 2013. On average, the biomass increased by 250% over just 6 years. On some key sites, recovery surpassed 600% while Oceanic Manta sightings also increased 25-fold between 2010 and 2016. A separate 2012 study established that there are 25 times more sharks inside the Misool Marine Reserve than directly outside of it.
Weaving her way through the patterns of the human condition, The Catskill Kiwi illustrates
the entanglements that make up our lives. Her quiet meditation on the vicissitudes of life
allow us to contemplate our experience as witness rather than judge.
the entanglements that make up our lives. Her quiet meditation on the vicissitudes of life
allow us to contemplate our experience as witness rather than judge.
Travel PlanningSwell Connections can provide travel consulting and bookings as well as provide specialized itinerary's to enhance your journey and connection with nature.
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YogaThe first step is to withdraw from the world outside, from everything external, and come into rest.
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DivingAs a certified Dive Master, Ivy Yin can lead expeditions, teach underwater photography, videography, and assist with introducing new divers in exploring the underwater world through a Discover Scuba Diving course.
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