Events

Founded in the wake of war, the East Nimba Nature Reserve shelters some of West Africa’s most endangered species. With exclusive, on-the-ground access, OVERBURDEN follows rangers, scientists, and forest defenders, including ranger Moses Darpey, biologist Grace Kotee Zansi, chief park warden Catherine Kuku Dolo, and community leaders Saye Thompson and Dada Konkah, who tend the land, protecting endangered species and sustaining livelihoods as a billion-dollar company falls short of promised support. They are joined by Shadrach Kerwillain, a Liberian conservation biologist and Mnqobi Mamba, a bat scientist from Eswatini, who navigate the tangled frontier where mining meets conservation and where memory, science, and power collide.

The film captures their intimate encounters with the mountain’s extraordinary inhabitants, from the only true viviparous toad found nowhere else on Earth to resilient cave-dwelling bats and adaptive chimpanzees. Grace works to reconcile clashing farmers and chimpanzees through coexistence strategies. Moses searches for the rare Nimba toad on high peaks, while Mnqobi revisits a cave to see if the bats he helped relocate as part of the company’s biodiversity offset program are still there.

Seminar on Environmental and Agricultural History (SEAH), is proud to screen the movie OVERBURDEN, which tells a powerful story of resilience and transformation in a landscape shaped by industry yet alive with possibility. Through vivid cinematography and deeply rooted storytelling, the film follows communities and nature enduring and adapting in the face of relentless global forces. OVERBURDEN celebrates the power of mutual aid, showing how people and ecosystems persist, rebuild, and thrive against overwhelming odds.

The movie will be opened by Greg Mitmann (Creative Producer), who is an award-winning author, filmmaker, and teacher, whose books, essays, and films explore the historical intersections between science, medicine, and the environment. Since 2012, he has pursued research and built partnerships in Liberia that led to the making of two films, In the Shadow of Ebola (2015) and The Land Beneath Our Feet (2016), and a book, Empire of Rubber: Firestone’s Scramble for Land and Power in Liberia (2021). His current research project, Fragments of the Forest, of which Overburden is a part, investigates the convergences between resource extraction, biodiversity conservation, and emerging infectious disease threats in the Upper Guinean Forest of West Africa. His research is funded by the European Research Council.

Join us on September 24th in the MIT Welcome Center from 4-8 pm to view this exciting film!