A young Nepalese man struggles to protect the wildlife and natural habitat of his country.
This is the first short documentary film in an anticipated series featuring idealists in action.
This documentary follows Manoj Gautam, a 26 year old Nepalese man on a passionate quest to protect animals and wildlife from cruelty and extinction. As a child he was inspired by the work of Jane Goodall, and has since become her close friend and protégé. He founded Nepal’s first wildlife rescue and rehabilitation center and Roots & Shoots branch. With minimal resources and no formal training he’s creating a network of allies across the country, busting smugglers, protecting fragile eco systems, and rescuing abused animals.
For 11 days filmmaker Gabriel Diamond followed Manoj as he traversed the country, monitoring the training and abuse of baby elephants for PETA in Chitwan National Forest, tracking down owl, eagle, and leopard smugglers, evading their death threats, rescuing cobras from snake charmers, confronting abusive zookeepers, creating a vulture eco tourism reserve, planning a massive alien plant species eradication effort, freeing pythons, teaching Tibetan refugees, and continually finding new ways to improve conditions for plants, animals, and people in his lawless and poverty stricken country.