Directed by Chris Malloy

Running Time: 87 minutes

180 Degrees South is a powerful documentary that forces its audience to consider the impact of humankind's relentless quest for progress. The film follows Jeff Johnson, a charismatic adventurer as he retraces the footsteps of his heroes, Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins (founders of Patagonia and The North Face adventure wear companies, respectively) on a mission to climb Cerro Corcovado in Patagonia. His quest takes him along the Pan American highway, over the Pacific Ocean, and (due to nautical mishap) to Easter Island before reaching his final destination.

The focus shifts when Johnson reaches Easter Island and takes on a more contemplative tone as he learns the story of Easter Island's moai, the monolithic stone head statues that dot the island's coastline. Construction of these moai from volcanic stone was a colossal undertaking. To produce, transport and erect these statues demanded widespread deforestation and to enable this, the island's natural resources were ravaged. As a result, 18 different plant species were extinct, and the tiny island struggled to provide for its inhabitants. A striking parallel is drawn between the demise of Easter Island and the dam construction planned along the Aysen waterways of Patagonia to fuel the growing demand for energy from Santiago and Chile's ever-hungry mining sector. The cinematography here is striking as the frame shifts from the reflective, almost regretful faces of the moai to the bustling city of Santiago.

Find out what inspires Dr Peter Tait, a general practitioner based in Alice Springs, at the Central Austrailan Aboriginal Congress. Peter has managed to maintain diverse interests, and has been an Australian leader in peace activism, environmental health, and public health. He is a strong advocate to improve the health of Indigenous Australians and speaks three local languages – Warlpiri, Arrnete and Pitjantjatjara. 

GHG: Tell us about yourself. Where did you grow up? How did you choose your career?
PT: I’m a father of two children (now grown up) who are out in the world ‘on their own’, based in Sydney, which is also where I did high school and university, and where most of my own family lives. My primary school years were spent in Brisbane.  I went into medicine perhaps because my mother had wanted to do medicine but in ‘those days’ women didn’t do medicine (according to her father, who had to pay for it) so she had to settle for dietetics. However, when I wanted to be an engineer, my father told me I didn’t have the math for that, and my mother pointed me toward medicine. I guess they gave expert career advice because it has worked out. 

The path to rural general practice was sown at a Scout Jamboree in the early 1970s where I volunteered to help out at the medical tent; Michael Grounds from Traralgon was the supervisor and that placement lead to an elective placement in his practice the following year. That sold me on rural practice.  

The path to a political ecology of health: from exposure to Paul Ehrlich’s Population Bomb in first year medical biology, and Tony McMichael’s book Planetary Overload a few years later.

GHG: Tell us about your work and study in Environmental Health? What inspired you to undertake study in this field?
PT: The logical progression ‘up-stream’ of the primary health care message is: if healthy people are grown in health societies, then healthy societies are founded in a health physical environment, and are dependent totally on a functioning ecosystem. The ‘fountain of health’ is a healthy ecosystem; all else is down stream.