Resurgence Research

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European bison (Bison bonasus) Bialowieza forest, Poland, Poland

European bison (Bison bonasus) Bialowieza forest, Poland, Poland

I am just now downloading the study (link is below), so have not read it in detail yet; but it looks promising:

Wildlife Comeback in Europe study released

The Eurasian beaver, European bison and White-tailed eagle have all been highlighted as species that have made a remarkable comeback in Europe over the past 50 years, according to a first ever in-depth report released today (26 September).

Scientists from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), BirdLife International and the European Bird Census Council (EBCC) worked with experts from across Europe to gather relevant data about the distribution and abundance of selected species. The resulting report, ‘Wildlife Comeback in Europe’, describes how, why and where 37 mammal and bird species have recovered over the past 50 years, providing important lessons for the conservation of these and other species.

Professor Jonathan Baillie, ZSL’s Director of Conservation says: “It is essential that we both celebrate and learn from major successes in conservation.  This study helps us understand the interventions and conditions necessary for a broad range of species to experience similar recoveries.” Continue reading →

Chimmini Lake – Thrissur

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Photo credits : Ion Appan

Photo credit: Ion Appan

Located near Thrissur, Chimmini is only a two hours drive from Cochin. The huge lake is surrounded by Chimmini Wild life Sanctuary, established in 1984. The 10 sq kilometer lake spreads across the middle of the sanctuary, surrounded by dense forests. Continue reading →

Cats And Dogs And The Golden Rule

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When we posted about a unusual collaboration between cheetahs and shepherd dogs, we started watching for more news on the same.  This website tells a different story about feline-canine common interests, with a clear reminder about the human interest in behaving more empathetically toward our neighbors:

CHEETAH AND AFRICAN WILD DOGS NEED LOTS OF SPACE: Of all the large carnivores of Africa cheetahs and wild dogs need lots of space. Recognition of this led to the RANGE WIDE CONSERVATION PLANNING PROCESS bringing together all sectors of society to develop frameworks under which all stakeholders – government, community and private – can work together to ensure the survival of these iconic species. Use this website to learn more about this innovative approach, the distribution of the two species, who is working to help them and what is being done on the ground. Continue reading →

Hoteliers, Collective Action, And Outcomes As Yet Unwritten

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CheHotelUnion

Raxa Collective has a commitment to the locations in which we operate our hotels, resorts and houseboats: we strongly prefer to hire, train and employ local community members.  Recently this sign has been visible in Thekkady, near Cardamom County.  It is meant to attract hotel workers to join the union representing the hospitality labor force across the state, and hangs in front of one of that union’s offices.  Without any irony or sarcasm, this photo was snapped by one of our contributors to stimulate conversation among several other contributors. Continue reading →

Flavours Of Kerala – Dum Biryani

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Dum biryani

Dum biryani

Dum biryani is a baked rice dish layered with meat (chicken, mutton or beef ) that first originated in the Mugal cuisine of the 16 th -19 th centuries. It was a festive dish, costly to prepare and eaten mainly in the royal courts. Traditionally the biryani pots were sealed with dough before baking then cracked open at the table in a technique called Dum. Continue reading →

Popularity Contests Some Will Never Win

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05SharksPeople@Thomas P. Peschak

Whale shark. (Thomas Peschak / University of Chicago Press)

We note from time to time the tallies of our most popular posts and writers. Seth still has the record for “most instantaneously viral” with Volcano Sandboarding (3,000+ views in the first couple days after it was posted); Tim’s Carbon Emissions Series: Vacationers’ Diets is by far the most viewed with nearly 9,000 readers to date; Salim is by far the most widely read of our contributors, just having passed the 50,000 mark for views of his daily series on the natural and cultural heritage of south India (Thiruvathira Kali (Traditional dance of Kerala) being the most popular with nearly 3,000 views).

Phil’s most recent post has been a runaway hit, and rapidly approaching 1,000 views within a couple weeks it is on pace to put him in the ranks of our most popular contributors.  So when we saw the photo above, we thought of Phil’s series with the hope he contributes another post soon. Dr. Tenner’s book review, from which that photo comes, provides an essential reminder of facts, as well as visual testament to the beauties and tragedies associated with sharks, to counter whatever perverse attention those Shark Week shows purvey:

…Thomas Peschak makes an eloquent visual case for the sublimity of sharks—and also for their conservation. He notes that the media still devotes far more attention to rare shark attacks than to the urgent need to protect them from human depredation, especially the shark fin trade. He might have noted that Peter Benchley, who became wealthy through the 1970s novel and film Jaws, regretted the fear he had sown and became a shark advocate. In the long run, though, China’s removal of Mao Tse-Tung’s ban on shark fin soup as bourgeois decadence in 1987 may have resulted in more shark slaughter than all the horror books, films, and news items together. Great conservation photography like Peschak’s, one must hope, will have the power to change attitudes globally…

Continue reading →

Localism, Activism And The Future Of Retail In The Bay Area

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San Francisco, California, USA --- A view of the city lights of San Francisco, just after dusk, from Yerba Buena Island. --- Image by © Ed Darack/Science Faction/Corbis

San Francisco, California, USA — A view of the city lights of San Francisco, just after dusk, from Yerba Buena Island. — Image by © Ed Darack/Science Faction/Corbis

An important word on localism and activism, combined, in a post on the New Yorker‘s website about a San Francisco effort to support local retailers and resist formula retailers:

Jefferson McCarley, a forty-two-year-old San Francisco resident, used to work at Gap’s headquarters, coördinating the logistics of moving merchandise to the shelves of Gap and Old Navy stores. Like the city itself, he has a knack for reinvention. He told me that when Gap laid him off during the recession, he became the general manager of a sleek independent bike shop in the city’s Mission District. Soon, he was voted vice-president of the local merchants association, and joined a group of mom-and-pop-business owners called Keep Valencia Local, which works to stop chain stores from opening locations on the street of that name. Back in 2009, merchants on Valencia Street had helped to kill American Apparel’s bid to move in. Continue reading →

Eravikulam National Park – Rajamala, Munnar

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Photo credits: Nobi Paul

Eravikulam National Park stretches over 97 kilometers in the tea growing region of Munnar between the picturesque Kannan Devan Hills and  Anamudi. The park covers virgin grasslands and wooded valleys that include the spectacular flower called Neelakurinji, which blooms only once every 12 years. Continue reading →

Education, Social Entrepreneurship, And The Next Wave Of Innovation

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Entrepreneur Offers India’s Aboriginal Children Opportunity to Attend School

From the transcript of a segment on a PBS (USA public television) program some months back (click above to go to the video) that gets us thinking about our outreach programs in south India:

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Here, education begins with meeting the most basic needs on an industrial scale and free of charge to the students.

ACHYUTA SAMANTA: Now they’re going for lunch.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: How many students?

ACHYUTA SAMANTA: It is approximately now 8,000-plus are going for lunch. Continue reading →

Red Bead Tree Seed – Adenanthera pavonina

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Adenanthera pavonina seeds

Adenanthera pavonina seeds

Red bead seeds have been a symbol of love for centuries. Asian goldsmiths use these bright red seeds for making jewelry as well as a standard for weighting precious metals and diamonds. Continue reading →

Farm Fresh From Ghana

/ Kendra Barnett / 1 Comment
Accra Green Market Photo Courtesy of The Guardian

Accra Green Market
Photo Courtesy of The Guardian

Recently Ghana had its first ever farmer’s market in its capital of Accra, featuring locally grown, sustainable, and organic produce. This is a big step for the organic farmers in the area to expose their products to the local people. According to an article in The Guardian,

The only space we (the farmers) usually get to market our products are at the bazaars of international schools, where we sell to a lot of expats, but we need more markets like this – the best feedback we have had for our products is from Ghanaians.

Continue reading →

A Hero’s Welcome On Familiar Ground

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Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer. “My goal is to bring at least some of you out of retirement and into a life of climate-change activism,” said Bill McKibben, who delivered the annual Robert C. Cobb Sr. Memorial Lecture, sponsored by the Harvard Institute for Learning in Retirement.

This article, about one of the activists we have favored in past posts more than once, is worth a spark to the imagination about the power that could be unleashed if he has captured the attention of his fellow alumni:

If you Google “Bill,” the first hit you get is the phrase “Bill me later.” It’s an accidental tribute to the writer-turned-activist whom everyone calls by his first name: Bill McKibben ’82, who spoke at Harvard Tuesday.

McKibben’s message for years has been that oil-based economies shelve the issue of the environmental costs of fossil fuels. When it comes to the natural systems that support humanity — clean air, fresh water, and pristine seas — the message from developing countries has been: Bill me later.

Well, the bill is due, McKibben said, and it may be too late to pay. Seas are rising, temperatures climbing, storms intensifying, and floods and droughts worsening because of fossil fuel emissions, a statement with a 95 percent chance of certainty, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, up from 66 percent in 2001. Continue reading →

Blackbucks Back

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The blackbuck was made the flagship species on the IIT-M campus. Photo: K.V. Srinivasan. The Hindu

We commend the work of IIT-M, and thank the Hindu for its occasional coverage of conservation’s small but important victories:

…R.J. Ranjit Daniels of Chennai-based CareEarth, a biodiversity research organisation, said during 2006 there were reports of dwindling blackbuck population on the IIT-M campus. At that time, the population was recorded to be 12. Following this, the IIT authorities entrusted the work of documenting the biodiversity on the premises to CareEarth.

A team of trained biologists was roped in for the work and it identified the precise number of blackbucks, both male and female. The team also mapped the critical blackbuck habitat on the premises. Continue reading →

Gavi – Thekkady

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Visitors can enjoy the pleasure of boating in Gavi lake through row boats.

Visitors can enjoy the pleasure of boating in Gavi lake even during monsoon weather

Gavi is one place in the world where with every turn visitors have an encounter with nature. It boasts unadulterated views of tropical forest, hills, valleys, cascading waterfalls, sprawling grasslands and cardamom plantations. Continue reading →

Hermes Circa 1983

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Blacksmithing and Greek language, two ambitions placed in my path by the trickster god of transitions, two ambitions that strengthened my arms and tongue and confidence that looking backward was not my future, were both important deviations. There had been no plan or map but both of these deviations helped ensure that my path would not be too straight or narrow. A couple years later I was preparing for another deviation. On September 23, 1983 I would get on an airplane and make another pilgrimage to Vourthonia. Continue reading →

Journey to the Center of the Earth, Via Iceland

/ Seth Inman / 4 Comments

Snæfellsjökull, Iceland. Photo © Mariusz Kluzniak

When I explain my honors thesis subject to those who ask about it, not a few of them ask if I plan on looking at Jules Verne’s classic science fiction novel, since the volcanic entrance to the cavernous depths of the world in his story is ‘Snäfell,’ in western Iceland. For some , Journey to the Center of the Earth might be their only popular source of information on the country, since it is perceived as so remote, and, in many American minds at least, the Nordic countries can all get mixed up in a Scandinavian mélange of fjörds and vikings and skyr.

Snæfellsjökull, Iceland. Photo © Manny on BiteMyTrip.com

To Verne’s credit, therefore, he has put Iceland on the map for many people over the past century and a half (his book was first published in France in 1864, and was translated by 1871). To his discredit, however, he never visited Iceland himself, and instead relied primarily on two French works on Iceland written about scientific expeditions made there in the late 1830s. Continue reading →