Breakthroughs In Nutrition Via Entrepreneurial Conservation

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Exo's peanut butter-and-jelly bar contains about 40 ground-up crickets and has a familiar nutty, sweet flavor. Meredith Rizzo/NPR

Exo’s peanut butter-and-jelly bar contains about 40 ground-up crickets and has a familiar nutty, sweet flavor. Meredith Rizzo/NPR

Thanks to National Public Radio (USA)’s food-focused program, The Salt, for another story on unexpected breakthroughs in nutrition:

…”Insects are probably the most sustainable form of protein we have on Earth,” Bitty Foods founder Megan Miller, who spoke passionately about eating bugs at a TEDx Manhattan event earlier this year, tells The Salt. “The only real barrier to Americans eating insects is a cultural taboo.” Continue reading →

Bring On The Night

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Dan Duriscoe works at a special computer-controlled camera used to photograph the night sky at Dantes View in Death Valley National Park in California. John Locher/AP

Dan Duriscoe works at a special computer-controlled camera used to photograph the night sky at Dantes View in Death Valley National Park in California. John Locher/AP

Supporting an activity that depends on the mitigation, if not reduction, of light pollution? We are all for it:

When was the last time you looked at the Milky Way? Or saw the shape of Cassiopeia? If you live in a city, you might not even remember. In the world’s most populated areas, air and light pollution obscure the sight of thousands of stars once visible to the naked eye. Continue reading →

Indian Independence Day at Spice Harbour

/ Kayleigh Levitt / 1 Comment

10355655_10201665725084704_4823049703076743324_oYesterday at Spice Harbour I got to participate for the first time in an Independence Day flag raising ceremony.

It’s a good time to tip our hats to history. On August 15, 1947, after centuries of British imperialism, India gained independence. I am no expert on the Indian Independence movement so I won’t speak to it too much, but I know there were many political organizations and philosophies behind it that were united by their desire to end British rule. Mohandas Gandhi’s nonviolent philosophy and civil disobedience is what led the final parts of the struggle for independence that prompted the eventual withdrawal of the British. Since we’re talking about colonial India, we can put Kerala and Spice Harbour into historical context. Continue reading →

Say It Ain’t So, Ferran!

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Ferran Adrià, of the award-winning restaurant elBulli. Photograph: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images

Ferran Adrià, of the award-winning restaurant elBulli. Photograph: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images

The quote from a group supporting the development of a museum on a protected coastal ecosystem–“We understand that it’s very easy to raise the populist flag in defence of the environment and that this always manages to attract a good number of supporters,”–says all you need to know to understand how important this issue is. In fact, it is not so easy. It is not easy at all to protect the last remaining unspoiled beaches in the world. We are sure that with a bit of publicity, the right outcome will prevail in this case:

When Ferran Adrià shut the doors of his elBulli restaurant in 2011, he quickly reassured gastronomes that it was not closing for good, just for a revamp. ElBulli would become a cultural foundation , complete with museum and visitor centre called elBulli 1846, all to reopen on an expanded plot in 2015.

Foodies may have been reassured, but not so environmentalists, who are furious that the expanded elBulli will eat up more space on the Cala Montjoi, one of Spain‘s few protected Mediterranean beaches. Continue reading →

Our Gang, Thevara, On Independence Day

/ Crist Inman / 1 Comment

It has been a while since so much of the gang was gathered in one place at one moment. If you look back through the Our Gang, Thevara series over the life of this blog, you will find these, our usual suspects, all represented one time or another. Today, Independence Day 2014, they wanted their voices heard and faces seen again!

From the Flora-Files, Part 1

/ James Zainaldin / 1 Comment

Right of the reception

Although, as I detailed in my last post, my internship at Xandari is over, I still have a great backlog of images that I never had a chance to upload while there. (My computer broke.) I’d like to share the better of those photos with everyone here. I’ve named this post “flora-files” because I think the title sort of punny: “files” in the sense of records on Xandari’s flora; and “file” in the sense of the Greek φίλoς (philos), “love,” the same one that shows up in “Philadelphia” or “audiophile.” Look out for more from the flora-files… I’ll detail where I find these flowers around Xandari in the caption, so that if you’re lucky enough to be here while they’re in bloom, you can go seek them out.

Garden paths

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Bioluminescent Wonders

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Stefan Siebert

Stefan Siebert. A young colony of Pyrosoma atlanticum.

Sure, science can explain alot of things. And yes, we definitely want to understand. But the wonder can remain a wonder even after we read about the technical details. Bioluminescence is one of those wonders. Better in person, of course, to see and experience the wonder. But for now, written explanation of this photographed wonder will have to do. We will likely never tire of the sightings, in the Times Science section or wherever, no matter how many times, of these creatures:

Continue reading →

Sacred Music, Desert Edition

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The Monastery of Christ in the Desert in northern New Mexico inspired Robert Kyr to compose the music on his new album of choral works. Karen Kuehn for NPR

The Monastery of Christ in the Desert in northern New Mexico inspired Robert Kyr to compose the music on his new album of choral works. Karen Kuehn for NPR

We all need to escape the madding crowd from time to time. Where and how? Plenty of choices. Desert. Sacred, devotional acts. Music. As you choose. Or all of the above. Thanks to National Public Radio (USA) for the reminder of such places and activities:

Inspiration can come from unlikely places. For composer Robert Kyr, the silence of a desert monastery is key to the radiant music on his new disc of recent choral works performed by the vocal ensemble Conspirare and its director Craig Hella Johnson. Continue reading →

Seed Vault, Conservation For The Long Run

/ Crist Inman / 2 Comments
Travels to the seed vault on top of the world

Travels to the seed vault on top of the world

In advance of a story of our own, albeit set in the tropics at our upcoming beach resort, on this same topic, we thank Conservation for the story  they offered in an earlier issue of their magazine about this seed vault way way north:

…One day in Svalbard lasts four months, and the sun never sets; one night lasts four months, and the sun never rises. The other four months consist mainly of either long days with short nights or long nights with short days. Here the equinoxes—the two days annually with 12 hours each of daylight and darkness—really mean something. But what does “a day” mean here, and how many are there in a year? Continue reading →

Monkey Business in Dehli

/ Kayleigh Levitt / 1 Comment
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New Dehli has tried numerous schemes to control its monkey population. Photo Credit: Sajjad Hussain

We’ve had our fair share of monkey business as a garden challenge in Cardamom County. In Dehli, they’re looking for ways to monkey proof their city.

Reporting monkey raids, Sharma says, residents complain that ” ‘they’ve just taken away my clothes,’ or … ‘they have opened the fridge’ … and ‘they’ve taken out the food.’ “

The monkeys have also been known to intimidate fruit vendors and get intoxicated on stolen whiskey. Sharma says when they fail to find food, they can raise a rumpus.

You can read more in depth at the original article here. Initially, there were people who were hired to train Langurs because they were able to frighten off the smaller Rhesus monkeys. That practice was recently banned due to animal rights concerns. Now, there are 40 men hired to mimic the calls of the Langurs to scare them away. Continue reading →

Tea and Conversation

/ Kayleigh Levitt / 1 Comment

Credit: Ea Marzarte

As I wrote about in my last post, my current project is documenting the conservation story of RAXA Collective. Yesterday we were driving up to the Cardamom County property in Thekkady from Spice Harbor in Cochin. I’m used to the busy main “highway” but this time we took a different route. It was through Vagamon, which is this lush, green landscape with waterfalls and not many cars on the road. We drove through tea plantations. Driving through the tea plantations with all the greenery and fog kind of enchanted me into this quiet, contemplative space.

In order to document the conservation story, I have been asking Crist questions whenever we have time to sit down about the business model of projects they’ve worked on. While driving through the tea, we had plenty of time for this conversation.

The landscape and the conservation seemed to pull me within, pointing out the shape and feeling of an idea. I don’t know what it will end up being, but I can feel the progress and formation of something. This shape seems to be magnetizing key words and planting them like seeds. I am inspired by the idea of creating a business model that funds environmental and cultural conservation.  Continue reading →

Winged Wildlife at Carara National Park (Part 2)

/ Seth Inman / 1 Comment

White Ibis on the banks of a river.

As I hinted in Part 1, Carara National Park is great for experiencing much of Costa Rica’s famous biodiversity. Monkeys, iguanas, poison dart frogs, and insects, together in a rich rainforest replete with all sorts of weird fungi that can look tasty and cute. Upon entering the park, James and I were greeted with the laughing calls of Black-hooded Antshrikes, birds that enjoy the columns of marching insects that commonly go by the name of “army ants.” Plenty of other birds with the word “ant” in their names made themselves known with their songs or movements in the undergrowth: male and female Dot-winged Antwrens, a Dusky Antbird, several Chestnut-backed Antbirds and Black-faced Antthrushes, and even a Streak-chested Antpitta heard from afar.

Apart from birds, we also saw several species of butterfly, including this one with the classic owl-eye pattern on its wings to startle potential predators. We also saw cicadas, but several times they had fallen prey to skillful salliers from silent perches. This female White-whiskered Puffbird, as well as this woodcreeper (Long-tailed, perhaps?), both emerged from their hidden leafy blinds to land somewhere with a juicy, shiny cicada in their beaks. There were several other woodcreepers doing their job–creeping along tree trunks–like a Streaked Woodcreeper with its powerful bill, and in general James and I struggled to Continue reading →

Documenting the Conservation Story

/ Kayleigh Levitt / 3 Comments
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This is a wall from the Spice Harbor property. A lot of the conservation story can be told in the design. The way they built this property is an example of historical/cultural conservation. The restaurant building was a “go down”, or waterfront warehouse, that used to store spices. They didn’t knock down the old building, they actually just built around it and framed pieces of the old wall to display it as art. This design concept has been passed on by word of mouth-taught to the workers here, but it hasn’t been documented yet.

I felt that this blog could better serve its purpose if the conservation story was told in one place. The stated purpose of the RAXA Collective site is to provide a space for people to learn about entrepreneurial conversation. It seems to me that highlighting the details of the property is less meaningful without context of the concept and history behind them.

The summarized version as stated in the RAXA Collective “About section” is to have a business whose profits are invested in conservation of natural and cultural patrimony. However, as I’ve been learning, the way this model manifests itself depends on the situation. Each story is pretty radically different than the next. So, we have a very general description (About section) and very specific descriptions (every day posts), but we don’t have the overall narrative of each property to show how “it depends” shows up differently in the field of entrepreneurial conservation.

I resonate with the initially stated goal in the About section about having this site provide a space for university students to learn about alternatives to mainstream occupations and career paths. As a university student myself, that is really what I am here as an intern to learn. I have been able to offer my skills and passions for organic agriculture and gain more practice in that field as an intern here. However, that is a skill I have picked up along my studies, which are driven by the bigger goals of conservation and environmental business models.

Continue reading →