Circle of Voices - Immersive audio documentaries & ecological sound art

In light of my latest series on the UN Ocean Conference, I am sharing here big positive news that flooded my feed in September. First, the High Seas Treaty, also known as BBNJ: the Treaty for the Protection and Sustainable Use of Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction. This international agreement that aims to better protect the ocean that is outside of national boundaries, (2/3rd of the Ocean)...

This is the final episode of my series '30 voices from the UN Ocean Conference'. Part 1 centred on the voices of youth engaged in the ocean space, while part 2 was all about women. This final episode cuts across the board. The people you will hear care deeply about the Ocean. But also about human rights, peace, climate justice, and solidarity with living beings, whether they are humans or...

 The voices in this episode are women who took part in the latest United Nations Ocean Conference. They are involved in law, insurance, policy, science, sustainability, and the arts.  They founded and run organisations, sit and advise on boards (or even paddle on them) and have dedicated their lives to the Ocean. A major gender gap persists in ocean governance and finance:  women-led organisations...

The latest United Nations Ocean Conference, UNOC3 just ended in Nice. Among the 15,000 delegates - and 100,000 visitors - I share with you 30 Ocean voices. Young activists, artists, scientists, campaigners: they are all Ocean lovers and defenders. I am Louise Romain, sound artist, documentarist, anthropologist, and the podcast producer of Circle of Voices, for this episode I created a patchwork of...

This audio documentary is a love story with the Ocean, the reef and its guardians. An invitation to travel to Caribbean shores to immerse yourself in the lived experiences of coastal communities, and in the sounds of the local ecosystems: the coral reefs and the mangroves. You will hear stories from Raizal fishermen, turning their ignorance for corals into love, respect and admiration, and learn a...

This piece was created as a commission for an event for climate activists in London. I called it an interspecies song as it weaves together the beauty of bird song, flowing river and human voices... The birds recordings come from London (UK), Tumbira (Brasilian Amazon) and Felidia (Valle del Cauca, Colombia). The river being is the Athabasca that runs through Alberta, Canada. 🎶 The songs and harm...

Tune in for this short story celebrating the resilience of wild river beings and the power of Indigenous frontline defence. Danielle Frank comes from the Hupa and Yurok Tribes, commonly known as Northern California. She attended various UN Conventions over the years, but she came to the Biodiversity COP16 in Cali, Colombia, with a particular story to share: the restoration process of the Klamath r...

In the summer of 2022, I travelled across Canada on a quest to gather sounds and stories of resilience and resistance, as we journey through times of collapse and crisis. I met Tamara Archie in Tk'emlúps (Kamloops) in the semi-arid part of British Columbia, Western Canada. She works for Qwelmínte Secwépemc and shares here some of her wisdom about being in right relation to the land. Qwelmínte Secw...

When ambient electronic music meets spoken word... I wrote this poem while attending the international symposium on soundscape in Lugano, Switzerland, in October 2023. The theme was looking at how sound creations and listening practices can help us shape better futures for human and more-than-human life. The musical accompaniment was a spontaneous creation offered by my friend Andy Squiff -photogr...

One year ago, a historic agreement was adopted by 196 countries at COP15: the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). What was so special about it? And what happened since then? In this second episode, I invite you to lend an ear to Indigenous leaders, to the finance sector and businesses present at the conference. I also share some insights on the (slow) progress and some of the pos...

In 2022, I traveled to Brazil at the time of the national elections. I went with the intention to record sounds and stories of resistance and resilience, in times of collapse and crisis. I created this sound journey to bring you on the road with me... I will guide you through some of the country's most iconic landscapes, from the Coast of Bahia to the heart of the Amazon, sharing songs and prayers...

In this special episode created for the podcast show RAVEN Debriefs⁠ , I bring together recordings from the Athabasca river with voices from Indigenous land & water protectors and members of the Canadian organisation 'Keepers of the Water'. After decades of extracting bitumen (a thicky form of crude oil) in Northern Alberta, the toxic wastewater from the mining activities is starting to become...

In this episode, I bring you behind the walls of the Palais des Congrès in Tio'tià:ke (Montréal) where the 15th Conference of the Parties #COP15 of the Convention on Biological Diversity took place. For two weeks, representatives from civil society, business, finance and politicians from 196 countries gathered to agree on a global biodiversity framework: a strategic plan to halt and reverse biodiv...

A Friday afternoon, I drove out of Edmonton / Amiskwaciwâskahikan with Will Cardinal, a fierce and kind Metis man I had met a few days prior, to Whitecourt. The Athabasca river crosses widely there and I wanted to meet and witness her. We walked past a golf course and found a way to get close to the river... which happened to be at the site of a pipeline crossing.