Bhadra Tiger Reserve, Karnataka
Bird of the Day: Black-headed Ibis
Bhadra Tiger Reserve, Karnataka
National Park of the Week: Torres del Paine National Park, Chile
Source: parquetorresdelpaine.cl
For the type of jaw-dropping sights that Torres del Paine National Park in Chile has to offer, it is only fair to know a bit of geological history that formed these towering, sheer ridges and deep, mirrored lakes. Located in the southern tip of the Andes of South America, the landscape of the park is owed to earth movements which occurred 12 million years ago and the gradual glacial erosion thereafter, which formed the “torres” (towers) measuring more than 2,200 meters in altitude. The 2,422 square kilometer area was established as a park in 1959; since 1978 it has been part of UNESCO’s Biosphere Reserve system. Continue reading
How Cities Can Adapt to New High Temperatures
A community-gardening and forestry organization called Louisville Grows has planted city-hardy tree species on private land, churchyards, roadways, and curb strips to help the city cool its heat island. Photograph by Mark Peterson / Redux
We already know that climate change is no longer something to be concerned about for the future, but rather a very present danger. There are ways they can adapt, and part of that involves becoming more sustainable, as some are already doing. But one thing we hadn’t learned much about until now is the impact of increasing heat on the urban environment. Madeline Ostrander writes:
Katy Schneider, the former deputy mayor of Louisville, Kentucky, lives near Eastern Parkway, which forms one strand of her city’s necklace of green. Spending time on the leafy boulevard can make Louisville seem deceptively lush and shady, even when midsummer heat bakes the downtown. But about five years ago, Schneider was surprised to learn that the city had a shortage of trees. In the spring of 2011, students at the University of Louisville surveyed the local canopy and found that it had about thirteen per cent fewer trees than the average for metropolitan areas in the region.
Get Jolted By Understanding Fish Better
The morning walk’s provided a different sensation from the learning component of the morning walk a few days back, giving me a jolt of new appreciation for all that I have no clue about related to life underwater; the jolter was an ethologist, of all things:
…The knifefishes of South America and the elephant-nose fishes … [are] both electric-producing, so they have EODs, which are electric organ discharges, and they use those as communication signals, and they communicate in some pretty cool ways. They will change their own frequency if they’re swimming by another fish with a similar frequency, so they don’t jam and confuse each other. They also show deference by shutting off their EODs when they’re passing by a territory holder…
Biles On Belize
Benedict Kim for The New York Times
As newly self-appointed Belizophiles, we love what this superstar of gymnastics says about the country:
Why Simone Biles Loves Belize
By
…The world may beckon, but the athlete said that her favorite destination would always be Belize, a Central American nation, where she holds dual citizenship through her mother, Nellie Cayetano Biles.
The younger Ms. Biles spoke about her love for Belize while she was on her way to the airport in Los Angeles (she was in town to film the season premiere of “Ellen”) to head home to Houston for a few days before beginning her tour… Continue reading
Bird of the Day: White-necked Jacobin
Gallon Jug Estate, Belize
The Future Of Coffee Matters To Us For More Than One Reason
A farmer with coffee cherries from his latest crop, the seeds of which are roasted, ground and brewed to make coffee. Photograph: YT Haryono/Reuters
We work in several countries where coffee production is important to the national economy. We serve coffee in every property we have ever managed. Many of us working in La Paz Group are coffee junkies.
But more than that, as I have mentioned at least once in these pages, we care extra deeply about the future of coffee because on one of the properties we manage, some excellent arabica estate coffee is growing in the shade of a rainforest canopy. I owe you more on that topic. For now, what has my attention is ensuring the long run sustainability of this organic coffee production.
So you can be sure of where some of our team members will be next Tuesday. Join us if you can:
Climate change is threatening the world’s coffee supplies: what can we do? – live chat
Join us on this page on Tuesday 20 September, 2-3pm (BST), to debate the future of coffee, and the millions who depend on it, in the face of climate change
What we’ll be discussing Continue reading
Seagrass In The Food Chain
Harvard University Post-Doctoral Fellow in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Barnabas Daru, researches seagrasses of the world. He is at Carson Beach in South Boston, where he found no seagrasses. Rose Lincoln/Harvard Staff Photographer
Postdoctoral researchers contribute to scientific knowledge akin, perhaps, to the way seagrass contributes to the robustness of a marine ecosystem’s biodiversity:
Strong case for seagrass
Researcher behind biodiversity analysis cites key role in food chain
By Alvin Powell, Harvard Staff Writer
A new analysis of a key contributor to the marine food web has turned up a surprising twist: more unique species in cooler waters than in the tropics, a reversal of the situation on land.
The findings highlight the need to direct limited conservation dollars according to science, with a focus on places where biodiversity is most at risk, said Barnabas Daru, Harvard Herbaria Postdoctoral Fellow in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, who performed the analysis on the world’s 70 species of seagrass.
Daru acknowledged that seagrass isn’t as exciting as sharks or tuna, or as marine mammals such as seals, dolphins, and manatees. But for anyone who cares about the health of marine animals, he said, the role of humble seagrass at the beginning of the marine food chain is key. Continue reading
Light Dance
Light, Darkness. Movement, Stillness. Sound, Silence. The contrast and flow of these opposites make the heart race.
White Canvas is only one of the innovative projects created by the interdisciplinary artistic team that makes up COCOLAB. Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Bald Eagle
photo credit: Stephen Crafts
Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge, Sanibel Island, Florida
Thoughts on Bison Farming
Source: Modern Farmer
Bison meat is not the typical protein one finds on the dinner plate every night (especially not in my vegetarian household), but it is a meat product that is known for being healthier than beef and – possibly – more environmentally friendly. “How so?” you might wonder. According to Modern Farmer there are several components to bison farming that give it a “greener edge.”
It’s believed that bison cause less trampling and erosion damage to the plains than cattle, that their diet is higher in grasses and thus less damaging to the long-term chances of the plains environment, and that bison poop functions as a natural fertilizer to their habitats.
This all mostly stems from a general idea that bison, being not domesticated and technically, even when ranched, a wild animal, are more in tune with nature, more balanced in their impact than cattle. They are also native to North America, unlike cattle, which were domesticated from Old World animals. “Because bison are a natural part of the North American ecosystem, bison ranching can be a beneficial to the natural environment,” writes the National Bison Association, a promotional group, on its site.
Cost of Wind Energy to Decrease
Photo via Pinterest
With Deepwater Wind’s Block Island energy farm in Rhode Island completed – all five turbines of it – it’s not surprising to learn that the cost of wind power, just like that of solar, is going to decline in coming years, according to industry experts. Prachi Patel reports for Conservation Magazine:
Wind energy is soaring around the world thanks to technology advances and energy policies that have reduced its cost. And things are only going to get better with prices dropping substantially by mid-century, according to a survey of 163 of the world’s leading wind energy experts. The results, published in the journal Nature Energy, suggest that the cost of electricity from wind could drop by 24–30 percent by 2030 relative to 2014 prices, and by 35–41 percent by 2050.
The key driver of this price drop? Bigger, more efficient turbines, according to the experts. Taller turbines with larger rotors make it possible for turbines to better harness stronger winds, generating more power.
A Different Type of Hero
The Veerni Institute now makes it possible for 75 girls to continue their education. But the group has to turn away nearly 300 applicants each year for lack of funding.
Poulomi Basu for NPR
“It all began with a shawl…” seems like the stuff of fairy tales, but the combined attraction to a handmade textile and the desire to help the woman weaving it proved a pathway to Jacqueline de Chollet’s life work. Over 20 years ago while traveling in a dusty village of India she saw a woman weaving the shawl in her home.
“She had three or four children including a baby she was nursing in her arms,” de Chollet recalls. “And she looked way older than her age.”
Hoping to provide a little help, de Chollet offered to buy the shawl. “And as soon as I gave her the money a man walked in and took the money away from her.”
De Chollet was outraged. “I felt, this woman — nobody cares about her. She’s off the map. She has no rights.”
Although de Chollet came from far different circumstances as this woman, growing up in the 1950s she felt that society dictated her position as a wife and mother. She wanted to make a difference in the world, and felt that addressing the issue of the rights of women and girls in India was an important first step. Continue reading
Using Those Final Months Well
President Barack Obama on Midway Atoll in the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, earlier this month with Marine National Monuments Superintendent Matt Brown. Obama expanded the monument using his authority under the 1906 Antiquities Act. Carolyn Kaster/AP
We are happy to see the Antiquities Act again proving so useful, so soon (the clock is ticking):
Obama To Designate First Marine National Monument In The Atlantic Ocean
During the Our Ocean conference later this morning in Washington, D.C., President Obama will establish the first national marine monument in the Atlantic Ocean.
The area of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument is the size of Connecticut and has been called an “underwater Yellowstone” and “a deep sea Serengeti.” Continue reading
2016 Cornell Council for the Arts Biennial: Abject/Object Empathies
With fewer than 90 days to go until the 3rd edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale we admittedly have biennales on our mind. We thank one of our 2012 design interns, Chi-Chi Lin, for bringing this one to our attention.
The Cornell Council for the Arts (CCA) is a campus wide organization that promotes collaboration and artistic experimentation to inspire innovative and challenging projects by students, faculty, departments and programs from all disciplines. The focus of the 2016 CCA Biennial
is on the cultural production of empathy. The upcoming biennial will address the ways in which feeling is form and explore how the objects, buildings, clothing, machines, languages, and images we construct are shaped by our intentional or implicit emotional, interdependent relationship to others. Whether by framing a connection that already exists or by providing the condition for new connections, what we create can either merely extend our own personal desires, goals, and directives, or can alternatively function as a bridge between who I am and who you are so that aesthetic experiences are interdependent, collaboratively generated and inherently reciprocal. Continue reading
Beware The Compost
Image credit: US Department of Agriculture via Flickr
Thanks to Conservation for their tireless effort to review important science and summarize it for we, the less scientifically-trained folk:
HOME-GROWN VEGGIES CAN FIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE—BUT BEWARE THE COMPOST PILE
Vegetables grown in home gardens are associated with lower greenhouse gas emissions than vegetables bought at the store, according to a study by researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Home gardening reduces emissions by about 2 kilograms for every kilogram of produce, they report in the journal Landscape and Urban Planning.
The study is the first to show that gardening could make a meaningful contribution to helping cities and states meet their emissions reductions targets. Continue reading
If You Happen To Be In Oxford (MS, USA)
Paul Freedman in conversation with John T. Edge
If we could, we would be there to hear this conversation; no less a part of the attraction is to do so at an institution worthy of everyone’s book orders:
Monday, September 26, 2016 – 5:00pm
Square Books
129 Courthouse Sq
Oxford, MS 38655
Whether charting the rise of our love affair with Chinese food through San Francisco’s fabled The Mandarin, evoking the richness of Italian food through Mamma Leone’s, or chronicling the rise and fall of French haute cuisine through Henri Soule’s Le Pavillon, food historian Paul Freedman uses each restaurant to tell a wider story of race and class, immigration and assimilation. Freedman also treats us to a scintillating history of the then-revolutionary Schrafft’s, a chain of convivial lunch spots that catered to women, and that bygone favorite, Howard Johnson’s, which pioneered midcentury, on-the-road dining, only to be swept aside by McDonald’s. Lavishly designed with more than 100 photographs and images, including original menus, Ten Restaurants That Changed America is a significant and highly entertaining social history.
In case you missed it, a review of this book is finally available from one of the great food writers of our time:
Bird of the Day: Common Kingfishers
Kadamakudy Backwaters, Kerala
Renaissance & Other Possible Interpretations Of Our Times
During my morning walk today, while taking in the Onam visuals, I was at the same time absorbing sound, in the form of conversation, from the same phone that was snapping pictures. I use the time of my walks to listen to podcasts, one of the easiest ways for me to stay attuned to happenings and ideas from the USA, my onetime home, and home to many of the people who visit properties we manage.
The central idea of today’s podcast, at once frank about the perils of the “Age” we are in now but also optimistic about how to harness modern tools to navigate these times, took me by surprise:
New Maps, New Media and a New Human Condition
Some 500 years ago, Johannes Gutenberg, Nicolaus Copernicus, Michelangelo and others were part of the Renaissance, a time of significant cultural change. Now, authors Ian Goldin and Chris Kutarna say we are in the midst of a second Renaissance.
Onam, Kerala, 2016
Yesterday, the midday meal was a traditional one for this time of year. We have written about Onam festivities each of the years that we have been based in Kerala, since 2010. Now, during our seventh such celebration, we finally hosted an Onam feast in our own home. In order to be sure that the guests at our table would have the best of the traditional foods of the season we made the only sensible decision: we ordered the feast from a local kitchen we favor.
These dishes, which we have written about in previous years, tasted as if they were the best we have yet had. Maybe because it was all so easy and pleasant. Our guests, anyway, we knew to be not high maintenance. It was a cross section, functionally speaking, of La Paz Group’s Kerala team, including (from left going around the table in the picture below) engineering, finance, revenue management, reservations, sales, design, me, and front right is the man in charge of it all, who was also the photographer. Continue reading
Organikos 