Paul Watson, Back Out There

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Photograph, from 2007, by James Nachtwey/VII.

We have followed his story and linked to it on several occasions during the past year. Why? Like others, we find his mission important and his means worthy of discussion. We are most gratified by Raffi Khatchadourian’s persistence in keeping up with the life and times of this man who is not so easy to track down:

Fans of Animal Planet’s “Whale Wars,” a reality show that documents members of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society battling Japanese whalers every winter in the Southern Ocean, will have to wait several months longer than usual for the show’s new season to première. The airdate for “Whale Wars,” usually slated for June, has been pushed back, possibly to the fall, or even to 2014. In the past year, Sea Shepherd has become mired in litigation, diplomatic pressure, I.R.S. audits, and Interpol notices, and Animal Planet decided that, instead of placing its own crew on Sea Shepherd ships, it would stitch together episodes from footage that the activists shot of themselves. This may be a first for a reality show—certainly one this popular—but if Animal Planet is able to pull together a season that has integrity, the sixth installment of “Whale Wars” promises to be the show’s most entertaining and provocative. Continue reading →

Artisanal Toys

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Anker index1.jpg

Box Set of Anchor Stone Blocks

In The New Yorker‘s book review last week, Alexandra Lange discussed Amy F. Ogata’s new book “Designing the Creative Child: Playthings and Places in Midcentury America,” focusing on the diverse materials and malleability of toy design over the past several decades.

With increasingly commercialized handmade, all-natural toys on the market, Lange asks, “Do toys need to be as artisanal as our food?”

Nearly two years ago now, Meg wrote about Tegu, wooden magnetic building blocks that support conservation and Hondurans in poverty. Tegu blocks seem to be a perfect blend of the artisanal qualities that wood bring to a toy, while the magnets inside add the opportunity for creativity that simple wooden rectangles and squares might not (unless they have the Lego-like studs that Mokulock does).

anker-1.jpgWhat about stone toys?

You don’t hear much about those, it seems to me. Heavy to carry around, more dangerous as projectiles, and requiring more machinery to produce, playthings built from stone might seem even more cumbersome and antiquated than wooden toys to a child brought up on shiny plastics and polymers. But the stone Anker/Anchor blocks (a box cover of which is pictured at the top of this post, and one of my own creations from these blocks is here to the right) made from quartz sand, chalk, linseed oil, and color pigment, are still able to merit $200+ asking prices on eBay, although part of their appeal comes from their relative–or perceived–antiqueness. Continue reading →

WED 2013 : Avoiding waste. Outsider art. Donation meals… World Environment Day is on its way!

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WED 2013 - Raxa Collective

On June 5, we’ll celebrate World Environment Day. This year UNEP focuses on the theme Food waste/Food Loss. At Raxa Collective we’ll be carrying out actions and sharing experience and ideas. Come and join us with your ideas and tips to preserve foods, preserve resources and preserve our planet.

Installation by Chandran at the Kumily Akasha Parava credit Ea Marzarte - Raxa Collective

Tomorrow we’ll be celebrating World Environment Day at the Kumily Sneshashram, a long-term shelter for homeless, disabled and elderly people. Locals call this place run by Franciscan sisters, “Akasha parava”: birds in the sky. We’ll be bringing a special meal and one of the people we will be working with is Chandran, the artist behind this brilliant installation made of coffee tins, religious artefacts, procession lights and flowers. Meet Chandran… Continue reading →

WED 2013: Food for Thought

/ Martin Bawden / 2 Comments

WED 2013 - Raxa Collective

On June 5, we’ll celebrate World Environment Day. This year UNEP focuses on the theme Food waste/Food Loss. At Raxa Collective we’ll be carrying out actions and sharing experience and ideas. Come and join us with your ideas and tips to preserve foods, preserve resources and preserve our planet.

From left: Allegra Marzarte, Lu Li, Martin Bawden, Raphaëlle De Gagné, Ashley Ostridge

From left: Allegra Marzarte, Lu Li, Martin Bawden, Raphaëlle De Gagné, Ashley Ostridge

Tomorrow is World Environment Day. A United Nations Environmental Programme initiative, WED is annually celebrated on June 5th in an effort to increase environmental awareness and positive environmental action. This year the theme is food wastage, with the motto: Think, Eat, Save. A recent report by the UNEP  concluded that every year, roughly one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption — approximately 1.3 billion tonnes — never makes it to from farm to table.

While one may imagine that most food wasted is a result of the actions of individuals in developed countries, this is not the case. Many developing countries, including India, also have an enormous food waste crisis. Specifically, while India is 2nd in the world in food production, as much as 20 to 40 percent of the food grown spoils before reaching consumers.

Here at Raxa Collective we have several initiatives to both alleviate food wastage and help both the local community and the environment. Continue reading →

Hill Palace Museum – Tripunithura

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Now the largest archaelogical museum in Kerala, the Hill Palace was the official residence of the Kochi Royal family. The 20,000 sq ft palace was built in 1865 in the traditional architectural style of of the state, and includes beautifully landscaped gardens, a deer park and facilities for horse riding. Continue reading →

Healthcare in the Tibetan Exile Community

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Guest Author: Hannah Miller

Last January I arrived in Dharamsala, a small city in India’s northwest state of Himachal Pradesh. Along with fifteen other American students I was there to study Tibetan culture, history, language and Buddhism. We spent the semester studying these subjects at two Tibetan colleges in Dharamsala, while living with Tibetan roommates and host families. At the end of the semester, we were given three weeks to conduct an independent research project of our choice. At my college in the United States I am majoring in Global Health, so I wanted to pursue a project related to public health in the Tibetan exile community in India.

Prior to 2012, there was almost no use of health insurance in the Tibetan exile community. The Tibetan government in exile provided reimbursement for healthcare costs on a case-by-case basis to Tibetans living in India, but could not afford to provide coverage for all who needed it.

The Department of Health in Dharamsala, India

The Department of Health in Dharamsala, India

In 2012, the Tibetan exile government introduced the Tibetan Medicare System (TMS), which began providing coverage for inpatient expenses to Tibetan families and individuals. The system was developed through a partnership between the Central Tibetan Administration’s Department of Health and the Micro Insurance Academy (MIA), an NGO based in New Delhi, India. The program is open to any Tibetan individuals and families living in India. For an individual, it costs 950 INR per year to enroll, and 3565 INR per year for a family of two to five people. The insurance can be used at an extensive list of hospitals to cover inpatient expenses up to 50,000 INR or 100,000 INR per year for individuals and families, respectively. Continue reading →

Arrival at Cardamom County

/ Martin Bawden / 1 Comment

30 hours after leaving JFK International Airport in New York, I have finally arrived at Cardamom County.  Here are a few first impressions of Kerala:

1. Scanning the other passengers arriving into Cochin, because of my white-ish skin, it was evident that I was the minority. Moreover, for the first time in my life, people stared at me as if I was different.  They looked at my U.S passport as if only a few existed in the world, and tried to engage in conversation with me, eager to try out their English.  It is a very weird feeling going from a place where it is so easy to fit in, to a place where you can only stand out.  It will be interesting to see how this feeling progresses over the next 2 months.

2. Driving in India is different to say the least! Continue reading →

WED 2013: Get A Grip

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WED 2013 - Raxa Collective

On June 5, we’ll celebrate World Environment Day. This year UNEP focuses on the theme Food waste/Food Loss. At Raxa Collective we’ll be carrying out actions and sharing experience and ideas. Come and join us with your ideas and tips to preserve foods, preserve resources and preserve our planet.

‘According to the WWF as many as 90% of all large fish have been fished out.’ Photograph: allOver photography/Alamy

We puzzle daily over how to source sustainable, high quality food. Establishing an aquaculture program in Kerala’s backwaters to supply our resorts, we find the environmental/economic tradeoffs require the wisdom of Solomon.  The Guardian‘s  Matthew Herbert has a clever turn of phrase in the opening line of an article covering this very topic (click the image on the right to go to the article):

We are living through a delicious disaster. Continue reading →

More love for the cicadas

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After our post yesterday on the 17-year emergence of periodical cicadas, here is a fantastic body of work on  one of nature’s most intriguing creatures by Samuel Orr. A natural history filmmaker and time-lapse photographer he has been following and filming the various broods of periodical cicadas since 2007 (multiple broods that come out in different years across the eastern part of the United States). After filming some  200 hours of footage, and he is now working towards an hour documentary that focuses on the 17-year periodical cicadas for which he just started a Kickstarter campaign. Continue reading →

First Week Of Shade Coffee Research, Ecuador

/ Evan Barrientos / 4 Comments
Typical landscape mosaic of Barrio Nuevo

Typical landscape mosaic of Barrio Nuevo

Isabel and I arrived safe and sound to Barrio Nuevo, Pichincha, Ecuador (0.224063°, -78.559691°) on May 21 to begin our study on a shade coffee agroforestry initiated seven years ago (see my blog for background info). We moved into the home of Juan Guevara, the local coffee promoter, and his family. It’s a simple concrete house with a kitchen and three bedrooms.After settling in, we spent a day with Juan going to the homes of various farmers growing coffee to introduce ourselves.

We spent the next three days conducting surveys with the coffee producers as well as visiting, evaluating, and mapping their coffee plots. As I expected, we quickly learned a lot about the problems with the shade coffee project that was implemented about seven years ago. Continue reading →

Woven Nests

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Below is a slideshow of birds and their woven nests, which I spoke about in my previous post.

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Here you can see the diversity of nesting materials and supporting structures, the state of the strands of vegetation upon building (fresh and green or dry and brown), and the overall craftsbirdship exhibited by these master weavers!

Nature, Culture And The Challenges Of History

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Tupilaq figures, Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories, Canada. Photo by Lowell Georgia/Corbis

Tupilaq figures, Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories, Canada. Photo by Lowell Georgia/Corbis

We have found another keeper in this magazine which we have linked to several times in the past, this time with a conservation theme at the intersection of natural and cultural heritage (click the image above to go to the source):

I’ve been nursing a gentle obsession with a quartet of bone-white, thumb-sized figurines. I first saw them, lined up in a row, on the cover of Miguel Tamen’s book Friends of Interpretable Objects (2001). They rested in a pair of open hands, looking toothy, and vital, exuding a cool glimmer, while evoking the long Arctic night and the estranging cold. And yet they’re also tiny and personable, these figurines. Their smooth features beckon you to enfold them in the palm of your hand. Their heads are cocked at mad angles, and their leering eyes and rabid smiles bespeak a secret, conspiratorial sociability. Continue reading →

Chitradurga Fort – Karnataka

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Photo credits : Dileep

Photo credits: Dileep

Chitradurga Fort is located near Bangalore in the Chitradurga district of the south indian state of Karnataka. Begun in the 10th century, the fort was built and expanded by different rulers such as Chalukyas, Hoysalas and Rashratrakutas, but its golden era was between the 14th and 18th centuries. During this period the fort was controlled by the Nayaks. Continue reading →

WED 2013 : Taste the waste… of water

/ Allegra / 1 Comment

WED 2013 - Raxa Collective

On June 5, we’ll celebrate World Environment Day. This year UNEP focuses on the theme Food waste/Food Loss. At Raxa Collective we’ll be carrying out actions and sharing experience and ideas. Come and join us with your ideas and tips to preserve foods, preserve resources and preserve our planet.

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 Most part of the world water consumption depends on food production. Every year 30% of it is wasted. We can reduce the wastage of water reducing the food waste. The Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) has released a short documentary titled ‘Taste the Waste of Water’ Continue reading →

WED 2013: Megawasted Opportunity?

/ Milo Inman / 4 Comments

WED 2013 - Raxa Collective

On June 5, we’ll celebrate World Environment Day. This year UNEP focuses on the theme Food waste/Food Loss. At Raxa Collective we’ll be carrying out actions and sharing experience and ideas. Come and join us with your ideas and tips to preserve foods, preserve resources and preserve our planet.

When I tell people that it’s possible to grow highly nutritional food on agricultural waste products with almost zero technology, I usually get a blank look. On a good day, someone will demand an explanation. Why would such a process, if existent, be so obscure if it could help solve malnutrition in underdeveloped communities? While I’m sure there is a logical explanation for this, it remains a mystery to me at present.

Continue reading →

Communities’ Cycling Commitments

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New York this week became the latest major city to launch a bike-share program. Craig Ruttle/AP

New York this week became the latest major city to launch a bike-share program. Craig Ruttle/AP

Cyclists in the USA have much to cheer in this week’s community-centric news (thanks, NPR) about several new bike-sharing programs which all use check-in, check-out systems:

…with automated stations spread throughout a city, designed for point-to-point trips. “We try to encourage people to use it … almost like a taxi,” says Gabe Klein, commissioner of the Chicago Department of Transportation.

Continue reading →

Cicadas In Love

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First Cicadas Arrive As U.S. East Coast Braces For Billions MoreOur attention to entomological wonders dropped off, sadly, when Milo (whose interests and talents happily extend beyond bugs) left India last year.  To keep bug love alive, we posted recently about a current entomophenomenon linking to a blog post on the New Yorker’s website; now note that another of their writers has treated it, crafting words so we might have thought of it this way ourselves (if only):

It is the nature of youth to make a racket. This happens reliably in New York City every weekday between two and three in the afternoon, when school lets out. Teen-agers spill onto the sidewalks and descend below ground into the subway, where, having loosened their uniforms and shed decorum, they occupy the airwaves—shouting, flirting, arguing, cajoling, checking in, checking out. They sing the song of themselves, loudly, jubilantly, to a rhythm that only they can hear. Continue reading →