Yanacocha Reserve, Ecuador
Bird of the Day: Sapphire-vented Puffleg Hummingbird
Yanacocha Reserve, Ecuador
April 23 : a night of celebrations in Thekkady
When I arrived at Cardamom County a month ago, I was welcomed by bright lights and loud music : April 23rd is Saint-Georges’s day…Saint-George is one of the most venerated figure in the Christian faith, and Saint-George Orthodox church happens to be a stone’s throw away.
Saint-George Orthodox church in Thekkady
Best of Salim E.I.: Signature Spider (Argiope anasuja)
Signature Spiders are commonly found in India, especially the Periyar Tiger Reserve. Their name comes from their distinctive zig-zag patterned X in the center of their webs.
Bird of the Day: Wilson’s Plover (Las Coloradas, Mexico)
Documentaries : Black Out by Eva Weber, children searching for the light
Short electricity cuts punctuate the day here in Kerala. As if to remind us, for a few seconds in our daily life, that the electricity fairy can play hard to get. Generators always kick in in an instant though, and that is it. Elsewhere, in Guinea for instance, generators are not there to save the day.
Only about a fifth of Guinea’s people have access to electricity. With few families able to afford generators, school children have had to get creative to find a place to read, do their homework and study for exams. So every day during exam season, as the sun sets over Conakry, hundreds of children begin a nightly pilgrimage to the G’bessia International Airport, to petrol stations and parks in wealthier areas of the city, searching for light.
Dispatch From Everest
India Ink has a story about a group of young Indians collaborating in the upper reaches of the region’s mountains, at a time when many are celebrating the six decades-old historic accomplishment in the same region:
KHUMBU GLACIER —It was nearly 60 years ago this month that Tenzing Norgay, the Sherpa guide, and Sir Edmund Hillary from New Zealand scaled the highest peak in the world, Mount Everest. Continue reading
Best of Salim E.I.: The Harvest Dance
In India Kerala is famous for its Tribal folk dances. There are more than fifty well-known popular folk dances in the state which are mostly performed for religious influences, during harvesting, sowing of seeds, festivals etc. Tribal dances are often accompanied by songs & instruments.
Bird of the Day – Changeable Hawk-Eagle (Tadoba Tiger Reserve, Maharashtra)
The logistics dilemma: double passenger scooter or double-decker lorry ?
My friends and I had been looking for one around town for an aftenoon, and finally I found it a week later driving away towards another town: a coir mat, the ideal support to make my salutations to the sun on. The small motorbike was actually part of a ‘caravan’ carrying people and mats from the neighboring state of Tamil Nadu. So loaded it was uncanny, this one had either the most efficient engine or the best pilot because it made it to the top of the hill first and stopped there to wait for the others. Continue reading
Barefoot College
This organization and its founder came to our attention recently in a by-now familiar manner: our go-to podcast for interesting and inspiring stories of entrepreneurs, From Scratch, featuring Bunker Roy. Read about Barefoot College here and then click through their site to see more about their accomplishments:
In the late 60’s, a very small group of determined individuals in India, coming out of a sound educational system, felt it necessary to look for alternative ways of living, thinking and looking for rural solutions. Continue reading
Best of Salim E.I.: Indian Cobra (Spectacled cobra)
India Cobras are common in both forests and cultivated areas in holes near streams and watersheds. They are strong swimmers and juveniles are more dangerous than adults.
Bird of the Day: Pied Kingfisher
Mole National Park, Ghana
Midway – a transmedia project by Chris Jordan
This morning’s post about the Smithsonian Ocean Portal featuring one of Chris Jordan‘s pictures from his exhibit Midway reminded me to check on his current work on the atoll. On one of the remotest islands on our planet, tens of thousands of albatrosses lie on the ground, their bodies filled with plastic from the Pacific Garbage Patch.
Returning to the island over several years, Chris Jordan and his team witness the cycles of life and death of these birds. He will release in late 2013, his first documentary feature Midway, message from the gyre.
See the trailer after the jump. Continue reading
Idukki Dam – Asia’s First Arch Dam
The Idukki Dam is the first arch dam built in India, as well as the country’s third tallest. Located in the Idukki district of Kerala, this 554 ft tall and 650 ft wide dam stands between the two mountains named Kuravanmala and Kuratimala, meaning Kuravan– A tribal, Kurati– His wife and Mala-mountain. It is nearly 50 km away from Thekkady.
Smithsonian In Deep Water
New (to us) thanks to the Smithsonian and its supporters:
The Ocean Portal is part of the Smithsonian Institution’s Ocean Initiative. Together with the National Museum of Natural History’s Sant Ocean Hall and the Sant Marine Science Chair, the Ocean Portal supports the Smithsonian’s mission to increase the public’s understanding and stewardship of the Ocean. Continue reading
Everything is good in a banana
Red banana
Screen printing
Banana fiber paper
Banana rasthali variety
Banana-fibre sarees
banana-fibre bag
My colleague Vinod is an expert on sustainable tourism in India, he has studied the alternatives to plastics. He explained to me that after Brazil, India is the largest producer of bananas in the world… Continue reading
7 Ways To Understand Man’s Impact On The Earth In Recent Decades
The news headlines started carrying this story more than a week ago, but it was not until now that we had the chance to understand it. Thanks to the Atlantic‘s coverage:
The project was built in conjunction with the U.S. Geological Survey, NASA, and TIME. The images come from the USGS-NASA’s satellite program LANDSAT, which were often stored on tapes like those in the thumbnail to the right. Google started sorting through a collection of 2,068,467 images back in 2009 — 909 terabytes of data, according to Google — finding the highest quality pixels (which is to say, shots not obscured by clouds), “for every years since 1984 and for every spot on Earth.” Continue reading
Oxen Horseshoes
Photo Credits: Ramesh Kidangoor
In most of the South Indian states villages are still using the bullock cart for transporting goods and people, mostly in farms and plantations. The oxen are fitted with horseshoes in order to protect their hooves from heat and uneven roads. Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Red-tailed Hawk
Tompkins County, NY
Community, Collaboration, Career
If you spend five minutes listening to Gerald Chertavian in the video above, and it resonates in any manner, then you should learn more about the organization he formed. It came to our attention, as many other great stories have recently, thanks to From Scratch, Jessica Harris’s radio show and podcast repository. Continue reading
Organikos 