Earlier this week, while out on my morning bird-watching walk, I was lucky enough to watch this female Canivet’s Emerald (a small hummingbird that you don’t see every day here) stay at the same perch for over a minute.
Bird of the Day: Malabar Trogon
Photo credit: Pallavi Kaiwar
Female – Someshwara Wildlife Sanctuary, Karnataka
To Keep The Mountain Gorillas Alive
In November 2008, conservation authorities in the DRC had their first sighting of a mountain gorilla in more than 15 months. Because of the commitment and bravery of its rangers, the gorilla population is now estimated to be 880. PHOTO: BRENT STIRTON, GETTY
The Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the world’s deadliest parks. It’s also home to some 300 mountain gorillas—more than a quarter of those that remain on the planet. Beneath Virunga’s surface lies a wealth of minerals and oil, coveted by multinational companies. Deadliest park because since 1996, more than 150 Virunga rangers have been killed in the line of duty. Emmanuel de Merode, director of Virunga National Park and a National Geographic Society Explorer of the Year, was nearly killed in 2014 for protecting the park and its mountain gorillas.
An NBA Star and a Campaign to Protect Sharks
Yao Ming has teamed up with the conservation nonprofit WildAid to spread the word that shark fin soup bears bad news. PHOTO: Toshifumi Kitamura/AFP/Getty
Yao Ming may now be a retired professional basketball player but him making it to the All-NBA Team five times is not a forgotten feat. That and the fact that at the time of his final season, he was the tallest active player in the NBA, at 2.29 m (7 ft 6 in). Ming, who was born in Shanghai, China, started playing for the Shanghai Sharks as a teenager. Now, miles away from the court, his life is still closely linked to the sharks – the animal kind. Ming is a strong advocate on protecting sharks and is pushing for a ban on shark fin soup, a delicacy that significantly contributes to the estimate of 1 in 4 sharks now being endangered.
The number of sharks in our seas has been steadily decreasing for decades. About 100 million sharks a year are killed — 73% of those are targeted for their fins, which are usually cut off before the shark is left to die.
Bird of the Day: Black-capped Kingfisher
photo credit: Pallavi Kaiwar
Bhitarkanika National Park, Orissa
The Greenest Island in the World?
The smallest and most isolated of the Canary Islands, El Hierro, has a way of combining hydro and wind power that may allow it, one day, to get all its energy from renewable sources. PHOTO: BBC
The question is not about who has the densest forests or flora resources showing up high estimates in green. It is one of keeping up a sustained model of efficient use of alternative and natural sources of energy. And on that front, El Hierro seems like it’s well on its way to self-sufficiency on the energy front.
For more than 30 years, El Hierro has been dreaming of becoming self-sufficient. And this year it took a big step forward. At the end of June its new hydro-wind facility, Gorona del Viento, came fully on stream and in July and August it provided roughly half of the island’s energy needs.That means the island’s 10,000 inhabitants are suddenly less reliant on supplies of diesel arriving over unpredictable seas from Tenerife, 200km away. In July, Gorona del Viento saved 300 tonnes of fossil fuels, but that is predicted to rise to 500 tonnes per month before long – the equivalent of saving 40,000 barrels of oil and 19,000 tonnes of emitted CO2 per year.
A Bird Prized for its Ivory
The illegal trade in elephant tusks is well reported, but there’s a type of “ivory” that’s even more valuable. It comes from the helmeted hornbill – a bird that lives in the rainforests of East Asia and is now under threat. PHOTO: Science Photo Library
Throughout history, the human desire for ivory—used in products from jewelry to piano keys to priceless religious art objects—has far outmatched efforts to stop the killing of elephants for their tusks. A smaller, feathered species, too, feels threatened thanks to the ‘prized’ casque it wears on its head: the Helmeted Hornbill.
Helmeted hornbills live in Malaysia and Indonesia. On the islands of Sumatra and Borneo their maniacal calls and hoots resonate through the rainforest. They have a reputation for being secretive and wary, though, and you’re more likely to hear them than see them.They have good reason to be shy – thousands are killed each year for their casques, shot by hunters who sell the heads to China. Between 2012 and 2014, 1,111 were confiscated from smugglers in Indonesia’s West Kalimantan province alone. Hornbill researcher, Yokyok Hadiprakarsa, estimates that about 6,000 of the birds are killed each year in East Asia.The casque, for which hunters are willing to risk arrest and imprisonment, is sometimes referred to as “ivory”. It’s a beautiful material to carve, smooth and silky to the touch, with a golden-yellow hue, coloured by secretions from the preen gland – most birds use their heads to rub protective oils from this gland over their feathers, legs and feet.
Bird of the Day: Malabar Whistling Thrush
Valparai, Tamil Nadu
The Game of Demolishing History
The entrance to the main building of Japan’s iconic Hotel Okura in Tokyo. An outcry from architectural preservationists couldn’t stop the demolition to make way for a high-rise tower. PHOTO: Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP/Getty Images
What’s the prize you pay to host the most prestigious event in sporting history? If your answer is breakneck development that is low on sustainability, spares not a thought on protecting what’s natural/native to the land – then you score points in Tokyo. Workers have started tearing down a Japanese landmark — the Hotel Okura. The Okura is a treasure of 1960s modernist design and has hosted every American president since Richard Nixon, Hollywood royalty and actual royalty.
Washing Hands to a Cleaner World
When Dr. Pawan found out about the unhygienic living conditions in Gadchiroli, Maharasthra, India, he created a hand-washing device in just Rs.35 (50 cents) that has been saving the lives of the villagers. – PHOTO: Better India
Clean care is safe care, says the World Health Organisation and follows it with a campaign on washing hands towards cleaner living and working conditions across the globe. And Dr. Pawan did his part too. By creating a hand-washing device that costs less than 50 cents, roping in children to keep the initiative going, and relying on elders for the device to adapted and adopted into the community.
In 2008, Dr. Pawan was one of the seven students selected for a two-year fellowship programme at Nirman’s SEARCH (Society for Education, Action and Research in Community Health), in Gadchiroli district, Maharashtra, India. The programme encourages students to work in areas affecting rural communities like water management and NRGA schemes, and being a physician, Dr. Pawan chose to work in the health sector. Living in the community, he realised that there were several diseases persisting in the village, those that could be prevented by merely drinking clean water or paying more attention to cleanliness. He promptly did a study that revealed that of the 64 families living in the village, only six families used soap for washing hands.
Bird of the Day: Swallow-tailed Gulls
adults – South Plaza Island, Galapagos
Mark Your Calendar for Steve McCurry
Boy in mid-flight, Jodhpur, Rajasthan. (Photo: © Steve McCurry)
Tailor carries his sewing machine through monsoon waters, Porbandar, Gujarat. (Photo: © Steve McCurry)
Woman and child on the Howrah Mail train en-route to Kolkata, West Bengal. (Photo: © Steve McCurry)
Young Rinpoche, Bylakuppe, Karnataka. (Photo: © Steve McCurry)
Dust storm, Rajasthan. (Photo: © Steve McCurry)
Rabari tribal elder, Rajasthan. (Photo: © Steve McCurry)
Do you remember the image of the Afhan girl that made the cover of the June 1985 issue of National Geographic? It is regarded as one of the world’s most recognizable photographs. And the man behind it is Steve McCurry. Since then, McCurry has traveled extensively, later returning to India to create the series’ “Monsoon” and “India by Rail.” Photographs from these collections, including some that have never been seen before, will be showcased in a new exhibition by the International Center of Photography and the Rubin Museum of Art that opens on November 18th.
Her Job is To Keep Mars Clean
Catharine A. Conley, a NASA planetary protection officer. PHOTO: Paul E. Alers/NASA
You’ve heard of a myriad job profiles, but what do you think are the responsibilities of a planetary protection officer? This officer knows, and all her efforts are now focused on keeping micro-organisms and spores from Earth away from Mars.
At the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Catharine A. Conley has a lofty job title: planetary protection officer. But with no extraterrestrial invasions on the horizon, Dr. Conley’s job is not so much protecting Earth from aliens as protecting other planets from Earth. Mars, in particular. “If we’re going to look for life on Mars, it would be really kind of lame to bring Earth life and find that instead,” Dr. Conley said.
Bird of the Day: Tree Swallow
male, leucistic – Ithaca, New York
Museum in Your Pocket
Archaeologists will turn Victoria Cave and its ancient bone collection into a digital museum. PHOTO: BBC
Victoria Cave was discovered by chance in 1837 and since then has been completely excavated. Within the cave’s thick clay deposits, scientists found an amazing record of climate change in the Dales over thousands of years. Excavators were particularly fascinated by ‘bone caves’ where there might be a possibility of finding evidence for the earliest humans along with long extinct animals. And now the cave and its bone treasures are being digitized.
A Library at the Police Station
Over 5,000 books make up the library at the local police station in Tirupur, a small town in Tamil Nadu state of India. PHOTO: BetterIndia
Can libraries be taken out of the four walls of an educational institution? Can it find a place in the midst of communities, accessible not only for children but for all who seek better understanding, greater learning? Like these 5,000 books that traveled from the US to a tiny police station in Tamil Nadu, India.
Bird of the Day: Rufous Sibia
Bhimtal, Uttarakhand
Ancient Knowledge and a Nobel
In giving Youyou Tu the prize, the Nobel Prize committee has recognized the role ancient knowledge can play in the modern world. PHOTO: New Scientist
Traditional Chinese medicine has found its Nobel Prize moment. A cure for malaria. And its origin is marked by war, military, learning, and more.
The Quartz reports:
In the war, the North Vietnamese were not just fighting American-supported forces but also failing to fight malaria. The parasite that caused the disease had developed resistance against chloroquine, which was commonly used as treatment. So, in desperation, they turned to China’s leader, Mao Zedong, for help. Mao’s answer was to make searching for a new malaria drug a military project.
As Wild As It Gets
Greg Carr says Gorongosa is a “human development and conservation project”. PHOTO: BBC
What does it take to restore a wildlife hotspot? To put some animals back in, develop and sustain the environment so more animals return, and hold up the model as a means to uplift communities, and thereby the nation? The answer is Gorongosa National Park – a Mozambican safari paradise.
In 1962, six-year-old Vasco Galante was treated to his first cinema trip – to see Charlton Heston in the Hollywood epic, The Ten Commandments. But despite the blockbuster’s eye-popping sequences, the images that most impressed young Vasco came from a short advert shown before the film, which showcased the elephants, lions and buffalo in the verdant floodplains of Gorongosa National Park – a Mozambican safari paradise once marketed as “the place where Noah left his Ark”.
As he left the Lisbon picture house, young Vasco vowed to visit the park one day, and more than 40 years later, he finally got the chance. But the park he encountered was a far cry from the Gorongosa of ’60s showreels that once attracted the likes of John Wayne, Joan Crawford and Gregory Peck. A brutal 15-year civil war in the aftermath of Mozambique’s independence from Portugal in 1975 had devastated much of the province, and Gorongosa, one of its key battle grounds, was almost destroyed.
Bird of the Day: White-faced Whistling Ducks
Photo credit: Andrew Murphy
Mole National Park, Ghana
Organikos 