Over the last two challenging years, we have made remarkable progress on documentary project about Laguna San Ignacio, the last pristine gray whale breeding ground and nursery on the Pacific Coast of Baja California.  The laguna was the focus of an unprecedented successful international campaign to stop a proposed Mitsubishi- Mexican Government saltworks there a generation ago and continues to be site of innovative community-based sustainability efforts.  

Our director Franco Campos-Lopez and his film crew have now traveled to the laguna five times. They have filmed interviews with more than 70 people at the Laguna, and in Mexico City and the U.S.  Franco has gathered more than 150 hours of archival material from Japan and the U.S.  We have build a "Pod" of more than 150 family, friends, partners, advisors, and supporters -  who are critical to our work on a feature-length documentary for global commercial distribution, other video products, and impact campaigns.

We have just had two major breakthroughs with the project that will increase its visibility, reach, and impact.  We are pleased that accomplished international youth climate activist Xiye Bastida has joined our team and that we will be partnering with a prominent Mexican film production company El Corriente del Golfo founded by actors Gael Gabriel Bernal and Diego Luna.  

We will start the editing process in Fall 2022 with one final filming session next March at the Laguna.  We will capture Xiye's experience of the transformative "touch of whale" and her voice in connecting the saving of the whale lagoon a generation ago to the challenge of climate change facing this generation.

For more details about the Project, please contact Jacob Scherr, Producer, at [email protected]

The other Producer is Clate Korsant.  The Director is Francisco Campos-Lopez.  The Associate Producers are Raul Lopez and Valeria Gelman.  The International Fund for Animal Welfare is a partner of the Project.

The Ocean Foundation is the 501(c)3 host for our documentary project. The International Community Foundation is also a sponsor and handling charitable donations for our project.  Please contact Jacob Scherr at jacobscher@thewhalelagoon for information for donations by check, stocks or other means. 

We hope you can help us achieve our goal to capture on film the magic of the laguna and the connection between humans and gray whales, the drama of the global fight inspired by the local people against the saltworks, and the inspiration from this victory and the story of a new generation taking on the challenge of being the ones saving of "The Whale Lagoon."