Photo credits: Ramesh Kidangoor
Murinjapuzha is a beautiful waterfall located 40 km from Thekkady en route to Cochin. The area is at its best soon after the monsoon when the Western Ghats are at their greenest and the rushing water draws visitors to stop at the local tea shops to take in the views. Continue reading
We have recommended more conversation, and we mean all kinds, including the occasional heated debate. When it comes to the subject of climate change, we do not feel obliged to air the views of big-moneyed propagators of denial. When it comes to potential solutions to slow the acceleration of climate change, or mitigate its impact, or such reasonable areas of debate, the doors are wide open, topically speaking.
We hope to learn from citizen scientists, research scientists and practitioners alike so we can become better informed and make better judgements on this complex topic. Take a look at the wording of this memo from the “Sierra Club Grazing Core Team” to Sierra Club staff and volunteers “(particularly those involved with sustainable-energy/climate-change campaigns, and commercial grazing on public lands)” before watching the TED talk above:
Summary
Recent widespread interest in Holistic Management (HM), primarily stemming from Allan Savory’s presentation at the February 2013 Long Beach, CA, TED conference, makes it important that Club members and staff be consistent in their response to calls for application of HM. Savory has received considerable attention for his claim that application of HM to husbandry of ungulate livestock (typically cattle) in the world’s grasslands could sequester sufficient atmospheric carbon to reduce atmospheric carbon concentrations to pre-industrial levels. The Sierra Club’s Grazing Core Team urges the Sierra Club to reject HM as a tactic to reverse climate change for the following reasons: Continue reading
Thattakad, Kerala
circa 1923: American author Willa (Sibert) Cather (1873 – 1947) uses a ledge while writing outdoors during a vacation in New Hampshire. (Photo by New York Times Co./Getty Images)
Writing in the New Yorker‘s website section titled Page-Turner, Joan Acocella posted recently about the tendency of women writers, historically, to begin their writing careers later than their male counterparts. She uses Willa Cather’s case as an example and draws a conclusion that could as easily be applied to entrepreneurship (bold added below to highlight the conclusion):
…By her thirties, she had acquired a very good job, as the managing editor of McClure’s, an important New York magazine. She got to go to Europe and meet famous writers. But secretly she herself wanted to be a writer. She was sure she could not be. The most honored novelist of that time, the nineteen-tens, was Henry James: refined, complicated, urban. Cather, meanwhile, was still kicking the dust of Red Cloud off her shoes. Finally, at thirty-seven, in what must have been a wrenching act Continue reading
Photo credits: Ramesh Kidangoor
Kerala has a rich mural heritage dating back to the 7th and 8th century. These early wall paintings were characterized by their elaborateness, symbolic coloration and ornamentation, and ability to display emotion. The murals were painted using natural dyes extracted from plants. Continue reading
This pygmy chameleon is one of many such unique and new species discovered in the Mount Mabu forest of Mozambique. Photograph: Kew Gardens/Julian Bayliss
Bob Dylan, in 1976, released a song called Mozambique. It does not mention biodiversity as one of the reasons to visit the country, but it is better written than the following headline (something has happened to the Guardian‘s Environment section in recent months):
Protect the Mozambique forest found on Google Earth, scientists say
Mount Mabu rainforest teeming with new and unique species including pygmy chameleons and bronze-colour snakes
Cardamom County, by Maxine Relton
Every year right about now, a group of painters arrives to Kerala from England. They are led by a professional artist who also teaches, and during their several days’ stay at Cardamom County we enjoy watching their sketch books fill up. The watercolor above is an example of what we have seen in the past, and we are looking forward to this year’s new collection.
It is not only the colors and impressionistic views of our property we enjoy seeing, but the learning process itself. Each of the last few years, as Raxa Collective has expanded the number of properties in its portfolio, Cardamom County’s unique value as a learning laboratory has become more and more clear. Interns, trainees, and most of all guests–many of whom, while still at Cardamom County or after returning home, choose to share news about their experience with us, or on the themes of community and/or collaboration and/or conservation from around the world) are all essential components of the learning laboratory’s chemistry.
Today, we welcome a group of nearly one dozen new employees to Raxa Collective. Continue reading
Photo credits: Ramesh Kidngoor
Badami, situated in modern Karnataka, was once the majestic capital of the royal Chalukyas between the 4th and 8th century — now it is a rural town famous for the monuments and remnants that remain. Continue reading
If we do have more conversation in 2014 and beyond, it will definitely be improved with the science writers we have been following the last few years, and the successors who follow in their footsteps. For example, we appreciate Virginia Hughes and the kind of writing that she publishes all over the place, and which National Geographic‘s Phenomena website collects under the name Only Human, with this most recent example here:An Old and Optimistic Take On Old Age
I’ve been reading and thinking a lot lately about the process of aging. Many scientists who study it argue — quite convincingly — that it’s the most important scientific topic of our time. In his 1997 bestseller Time of Our Lives, biological gerontologist Tom Kirkwood writes that the science of human aging is “one of the last great mysteries Continue reading
Bharatpur, Rajasthan
Photo credit: Praveen Bhaskaran
Vagamon is a land with undisturbed forests, exotic flora and fauna — green glades and verdant meadows interspersed with shola forest combine to create a picturesque landscape. 1200 metres above sea level, Vagamon is located approximately 45 km from Thekkady; a true paradise for hikers and trekkers. Continue reading
A White-necked Stork carrying nest material to a large tree.
A few days ago we went for a two or three hour hike in the Periyar Tiger Reserve and saw a multitude of avian species that make Kerala a great place for both the amateur and ardent birder. I was also able to see very tangible examples of two related concepts that I’d learnt in my ecology and ornithology classes at Cornell: mixed-species foraging flocks and the ecological niche.
The American ecologist Robert MacArthur, in his seminal dissertation on five insectivorous species of warbler, noticed that Continue reading
Penguin Books India recently published this book about the Mahatma’s earlier years, which is reviewed here and publisher’s blurb provided below:
Gandhi Before India
In 1893, when Mohandas Gandhi set sail for South Africa, he was a 23-year-old briefless lawyer who had failed to establish himself in India. The two decades that he spent in South Africa were to be the making of the Mahatma. Continue reading
At the Smithsonian, there is an exhibit specially made for the yoga aficionados of the modern world, with just a few weeks more to go:
Yoga: The Art of Transformation
October 19, 2013–January 26, 2014
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
Yoga is a global phenomenon practiced by millions of people seeking spiritual insight and better health. Few, however, are aware of yoga’s dynamic history. Opening this fall at the Smithsonian’s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery isYoga: The Art of Transformation, the world’s first exhibition of yogic art. Temple sculptures, devotional icons, vibrant manuscripts, and court paintings created in India over 2,000 years—as well as early modern photographs, books, and films—reveal yoga’s mysteries and illuminate its profound meanings. Continue reading
Ek Balam, Mexico
Photo credits:Ramesh Kidngoor
Periyar Lake comprises about 26 square kilometers within the Periyar Tiger Reserve, a sanctuary for wildlife next to Cardamom County. Periyar River, which flows from Periyar Lake, is not only the lifeline of the Periyar Tiger Reserve, but also of central Kerala. It originates in the Sivagiri peaks in the Western Ghats, 1830 meters above sea level, across the border into the neighboring state of Tamil Nadu. Continue reading
Courtesy of K.D. Singh. K.D. Singh, left, and Kuldeep Shankar, right, owners of “The Steakhouse,” with their mutual friend Anil Arora at the store in New Delhi in the 1960s.
Thanks to India Ink for this article on the evolution and sometimes radical change in food shopping and consumption patterns in India. For those of us from foreign countries working, interning, volunteering with, or visiting as guests of Raxa Collective in India, this news can be put in perspective only relative to the time since 2010, when excellent ice cream became available in Kerala on a regular basis; then, excellent gelato; and more recently otherworldly staples such as good olive oil have found their way onto the shelves of certain grocers.
That may matter to some of us non-Indians more than to our Indian colleagues and friends. Suppliers to our lodging properties continue to supply the high quality domestic inputs we need to produce top quality south Indian cuisine–no change sought on that front until now, as we prepare to open 51, our new restaurant in Mattanchery which will highlight some of the eastern Mediterranean influences on Malabar cuisine, more on which another time. For now, just a shout out of this story:
These days, it’s easy to find once-exotic foods like spaghetti and Parmesan cheese at grocery stores in India. Continue reading
Next to my Celebrate Urban Birds student work-desk at the Lab of Ornithology, team members of the inquiry-based science program called BirdSleuth are always busy developing new curriculum plans in avian education for K-12 students and instructors to learn more about birds and the local environment through citizen science and discovery driven by curiosity.
Photo © Shailee Shah / Lab of Ornithology
Originally called “Classroom BirdWatch,” the program provides training, kits, and other resources to encourage investigation and data collection among youth. Although it started in 2004 under a National Science Foundation grant in the US, about five years ago Continue reading
“It’s on the left,” he says. “No, it’s southeast of here,” she says. iStockphoto
If we are going to engage in more conversation in 2014 and beyond, we all would do well to do so with as much perspective as possible, wherever we are. This reporting on scientific findings about bilingualism is particularly interesting for those of us in India, where most of our colleagues speak a minimum of two but often three or four distinct languages:
Lera Boroditsky once did a simple experiment: She asked people to close their eyes and point southeast. A room of distinguished professors in the U.S. pointed in almost every possible direction, whereas 5-year-old Australian aboriginal girls always got it right.
She says the difference lies in language. Boroditsky, an associate professor of cognitive science at the University of California, San Diego, says the Australian aboriginal language doesn’t use words like left or right. It uses compass points, so they say things like “that girl to the east of you is my sister.” Continue reading
