Production Log #3 Kogi @ COP28 and the missing trees of Dubai

“Lucas, where are the trees?“ Arregoces asks. „I can’t see a single tree here, why are there no trees Lucas?“. Growing up as a Kogi inevitably made Arregocess and his Daughter Ana Maria extremely sensitive to any change in their environment. But dubai turns out to weigh harder on them than expected. Before flying to Dubai they had a stopover in Frankfurt where Arregoces and his daughter Ana witnessed snow for the first time in their life. Their mood was dynamic and cheerful. However, the moment we arrived in Dubai it was like a thick concrete blanket was weighing over their heart. Half a day after our arrival we ended up taking a one hour trip to the mangroves outside of of the city, as all mangroves of the whole beachfront of Dubai have been wiped out during the construction rush of this city. The Kogi taught us, that mangroves are one of the most if not the most important facilitators in maintaining a perpetually functioning ecosystem all the way to the inner regions of the of a country with a coastline. Once we reached the coastlines outside of dubai, the biodiversity hit all our senses. Fresh air, for the first time after we landed. Crickets were singing outside the city and a light breeze streamed westwards, from the ocean through the green crowns of the mangrove forest. Everyone immediately took of their shoes and went for a little hike through the endlessly shallow waters which ground was covered with little shells with almost every single one of them inhabited by a Hermit Crab. After a few hours and a lovely sunset, both Ana and Arregoces were almost unrecognisable! The life has literally returned to their eyes as if they just came out of their village. It didn‘t need much words, everyone was smiling and we knew we found the right place to charge our batteries, before returning to the colossal corporate engine, Dubai. The constant underestimation of a hyper-accelerated, air-polluted, and flora-disrupting lifestyle of a city like Dubai - does not only have a hight toll on Indigenous peoples but also our children as they havent grown numb yet. The ‚modern’ lifestyle is a key contributor to the perpetuation of heavy disruptions in an ecosystem that is millions of years old. Sensitivity is not learned, it is instead carefully carried through life and passed on to the next generation.