Violinist Pekka Kuusisto performs in a forest that's been destroyed for Greenpeace's latest campaign
7 November 2018, 11:57
The Finnish violinist performs a heart-breaking piece by Thomas Tallis in an area of land that was very recently part of the Great Northern Forest to highlight Greenpeace's latest campaign
The Great Northern Forest stretches from Alaska and Canada to Scandinavia and Siberia. But large swathes of the forest have been destroyed by deforestation and forest fires.
To highlight the issue Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto appears in Greenpeace's new video and performs Thomas Tallis' haunting piece 'Third Tune for Archbishop Parker's Psalter' in an area of the Great Northern Forest that has been destroyed.
The video, which has the title 'The Elegy of the Forest', was filmed in Orivesi in Finland, in an area of forest that was recently cleared.
In a statement Pekka said: “Forests have always been a source of inspiration in art, but nowadays they are becoming more and more a source of worry and sadness too, as we see that they are not treated with the respect and safeguarding they deserve. I hope that this film can help the ongoing preservation of our forests around the globe.”
Greenpeace Nordic's forest campaigner Ethan Gilbert said: “The boreal forests around the world play a vital role in the global fight against the dangers of climate change. We need to act now if we are to save these forests from deforestation and our planet from becoming even more unstable and unsafe in the future.”
It's not the first time Greenpeace has used a classical musician in their campaigns – in 2015 composer and pianist Ludovico Einaudi performed on an iceberg in one of the organisation's videos.
