Volcano Sandboarding Update: Part 2
Well, it looks like we didn’t get any video, but Pierre just sent me some superb photos of us sledding down Cerro Negro.
Bird Of The Day: Orange-Headed Thrush (Thekkady, India)
Wordsmithing: Valorize
The transitive form of this amazing, rarely used verb is defined in the OED:
To raise or stabilize the value of (a commodity, etc.) by a centrally organized scheme; generally to evaluate, to make valid.
In the work space of entrepreneurial conservation no single word captures more effectively what we are trying to accomplish with regard to natural and cultural heritage. Oddly, the etymology OED provides for the word is stuck in the 20th Century. Its roots extend back at least to the 19th Century (let’s see who knows their political theory), and the new branches of its meaning, for illustrative purposes, can be found on these pages.
Remembering Culture Shock
- Lago Deseado
It’s been almost 2 years since I first moved to South America, and as its winter here right now, the grey weather and cold temperatures have fostered a more contemplative lifestyle in me, and has often made me think about my first experiences in southern Chile. When I arrived in Punta Arenas it was not only the first time in Chile for me, but also the first time in a Spanish speaking part of South America (I had visited Brazil the year prior). I remember being apprehensive about my virtually non-existent Spanish speaking skills, and thinking that with French and German already in my arsenal, I perhaps will be a faster learner, and therefore, “it won’t be so bad.” Then came the connecting flight in Santiago…I was in the airport and every word being spoken around me seemed utterly foreign. Luckily I began to understand relatively quickly and became accustomed to the barrier.
Thinking about this made me check some old emails I had written to friends back home when I first arrived in Patagonia. Below I’ve posted an email that garnered a lot of attention, due to its comedic nature. I’ve also included some photos I took while in Patagonia, which I have recently been revisiting because I find them peaceful, tranquil, and in accordance with my recent moods. Continue reading
Backwater Visions: Part 1
Two Kerala cloud fronts prepare to collide over a strip of land bearing a bounty of coconuts in the Backwaters district of Alappuzha.
Bird Of The Day: White-Bellied Tree Pie (Thekkady, India)
Foraging for Plenty
When I lived in either tropical or Mediterranean environments it was never surprising (but always exciting) to see trees and bushes laden with fruit in their season; mangoes, citrus, and papaya in Costa Rica, or figs, pomegranates and lemons on a Croatian island. But when we temporarily relocated to Atlanta I was happy to discover similar levels of abundance in both urban and suburban environments. In some cases there were trees that looked like they had outlived what some in the neighborhood are wont to call “the war of northern aggression”, such as the pear trees owned by the Dunwoody Preservation Trust, while in others it was a fresh commitment to collective action like the Dunwoody Community Garden where food pantry harvesters pick, wash and bag lbs of produce from donation plots to distribute to a local food bank. (Current estimates for these initiatives are over 1,500 lbs of produce plus 567 lbs of pears to be exact!)
In a time of disparity between the amounts of fresh food produced in the world and the number of people who go without it, I am happy to participate in and proselytize about programs that help alleviate this imbalance. In the United States Community gardens are springing up around the country on both public and private land, in likely places such as empty lots, school yards and church yards, as well as surprise locations like urban rooftops. And while those gardens are used by individuals to allow food security for their families, a large portion of them also plant with surplus in mind in order to donate to local food banks. Continue reading
From The Galapagos Islands
I am joining Raxa Collective from the Galapagos Islands with the objective of sharing my daily life, project initiatives and global perspectives from this small piece of land that happens to be one of the few places on Earth where sustainable development is still a feasible concept to implement.
But how did I arrive to the Evolution Paradise where Charles Darwin spent important days during his voyage of the Beagle? After getting my B.Sc. in Ecology and Natural Resources Management from Universidad San Francisco de Quito I decided to take a sabbatical year from university studies and became a naturalist guide in the Galapagos. Islanders say that when you drink water from Pelican Bay (a small Bay in Santa Cruz Islands), you will never leave the Islands again. And guess what?….. It happened to me with the exception that I left the Islands for several years before deciding that this is the place where I want to spend the rest of my life. I am lucky enough to be one of the Ecuadorians that have legal permanent residency in the Islands so I was able to act on that decision. But that is a completely different topic that will be the subject of one of my next dispatches. Continue reading
Volcano Sandboarding Update: Part 1
As promised, I have more photos of Volcán Cerro Negro (I’m still looking for some video). The photo below shows the variety of rock size on the hike up the volcano, as well as the underside of the sleds.
Unfortunately, Pierre and I didn’t take many pictures of the actual descent, since we were preparing ourselves and didn’t think we’d be able to safely use our cameras while sledding. What we did photograph was the natural beauty of the volcano and its surroundings.
Here’s a more full explanation of how the sledding ended: The transition from the slope to level ground wasn’t as jolting as I’d feared, and I skidded to a stop just a meter or two from the slope without wiping out. Standing up, I shook the gravel out of my shorts and shirt, looking around for Pierre, who was pouring stones out of his shoes nearby. As long as you can sit straight in the middle of a sled, it seems that you can slide down the volcano with only basic protection and get away with only having to wash up afterwards.
Geologists In Sacred Places
We appreciate the brave young scholars who choose to be geology majors in college. Especially those who do so without Exxon-Mobil in mind as a career track. Parents probably do not make a choice like this easy, any more than they encourage their kids to major in English (the major of some of our Contributors).
This Note From The Field by a Professor at Oberlin College gives plenty of reason to think that being a geology major could not only be interesting, but meaningful on other levels.
Bird Of The Day: Crimson Backed Sunbird (Gavi, India)
A Splashy Finish
Devas Chundan wins Nehru trophy boat race
“Alappuzha, Sunday, August 14, 2011: In a photo finish, snake boat Devas Chundan powered by oarsmen of Jesus Boat Club lifted the coveted silver trophy in the annual Nehru Trophy Boat Race, billed as the country’s biggest water sporting event, at Punnamada Lake here on Saturday.
Devas whizzed past Karichal Chundan of Freedom Boat Club and Muttel Kainakari of United Boat Club in a thrilling race….”
* * *
Here’s how Sung saw it:
Volcano Sandboarding
Note: More photos of the experience are in my first and second updates to this post.
Volcán Cerro Negro, the youngest volcano in Central America, last erupted in 1999. Less than twenty miles from León, a city that I will be posting about soon, the volcano’s main attraction isn’t the crater itself, although the powerful opening to the center of the Earth–which in the past three decades has spewed columns of ash and gas up to 24,000 feet high–is not unimpressive. Instead, most people climb Cerro Negro just to descend it. Why? Because its steep slopes, almost 2,400 feet high, consist of black volcanic stones, which are finer than normal gravel and heavily mixed with ash and dust. How do visitors get from top to bottom? Many locals do it by foot, running down in great leaps. Most tourists rent a wooden board with a metal underside: either a snowboard or sled design depending on their experience and daring.
The volcano and its surroundings, together known as the Reserva Natural Complejo Volcánico Pilas El Hoyo, amount to a protected area of 2,140 hectares that includes at least five different types of ecosystem. Entrance fees, as well as the rental of sleds and protective gear, somewhat help incentivize the conservation of the volcanic complex by surrounding communities, mostly farmers (cattle, peanuts, eucalyptus, corn, etc.).
Having only snowboarded once before, I opted for the sled, and Pierre did the same. We hiked up the volcano on the larger rocks (fist-sized to full boulders) for maybe fifty minutes, pausing to take photos of the beautiful hills that starkly contrasted with Continue reading
Bird Of The Day: Yellow-Browed Bul-Bul (Gavi, India)
On Urban Farming
Hydroponic gardening isn’t for everyone: the handiwork, plant nutritional knowledge, and electrical setup can be daunting to beginners. When I set out to create my very first hydroponic setup, I had essentially zero knowledge in any of those fields. Nonetheless, with a very small budget, I was able to establish a functioning hydroponic garden within a few days.
Daily Thanksgiving Banquet
In 1621, Plymouth colonists and Native Americans gathered for an autumn harvest feast that set the precedent for today’s American Thanksgiving holiday. Thanksgiving traditionally brings families together (in-laws and all) to give thanks to the various aspects of their lives. Many memories are created and a cornucopia of food is shared. In my family, the holiday lingers until only the turkey carcass remains and the stuffing is amply stuffed into our bellies…a week later. See, we tend to err on the side of caution and over-prepare for the rare event that an extra ten people arrive to celebrate.
In one sense, Thanksgiving occurs every day in many restaurants—they over-prepare; however, restaurants are without the willing and unashamed stomachs of my family to eat their daily surpluses of food. As I mentioned in my previous post, much of this perfectly edible food goes to a landfill. Yet, food shelters are often unable to match their supply with their ever-increasing demand.
Increasingly, restaurants are 
turning to local Harvest Programs to provide an alternative to discarding surplus food. With food donation programs, restaurants and other food service businesses have the opportunity to reach more than just their customers. Programs provide social, environmental, and economic benefits to businesses.
Donating helps disadvantaged members of any community. A Hunger in America study shows that one in eight American families rely on donated food. This outreach helps employees contribute to a greater good knowing that they are helping members of their community. It also helps food pantries better match their supply and demand so restaurants can serve more than just the traditional customer. Continue reading
A Round Of Races
About one year ago today Crist, Milo and I fairly stumbled out of the Cochin Airport after traveling from Ithaca, New York*** and were whisked to view one of Kerala’s endemic sporting events, the snake boat races. Backwaters villages compete with one another in what traditionally commemorated the carrying of idols to the state’s many magnificent temples.
We had missed the fabled Nehru Trophy Race last year by a few days, but had arrived in time to see one of the other many races that occur every year around the Kerala harvest festival of Onam. The snake boats vary in size but the largest are over 50 meters long and slightly more than 1 meter wide with a high curved stern that represents the raised hood of a snake. It isn’t only the length and shape of the boat itself that is impressive. These races are almost certainly (someone please correct me if I am wrong) the sporting event with the largest number of members in a single team: manned (or “womanned”, as the case may be) by over a 100 oarsmen who row in unison to the fast rhythm of `vanchipattu’ or boatmen’s song. The boats are decorated for the races with flower garlands, adding an air of festivity to the shouts, songs and splashes.
Yesterday (as you can see in the photo above) we had seating in a covered pavilion Continue reading
Seaweed Sunset
A couple days ago the tides at Morgan’s Rock had shifted a couple hours apart, so that during the sunset, which is normally at full high tide, the waves were absent, leaving a surprising amount of the sand and rocks bare.
This cloud, backlit by the setting sun, offers itself up to the traveler’s imagination
These rocks, which I’d noticed from Sunset Hill before, were now accessible by foot, so instead of hiking to the summit, which I had done several times, I climbed over the rocks until I had a good angle of the sunset as well as waves crashing violently into the rocks (video to come). Since they are so often under water, these formations are covered in sheets of seaweed and house sea urchins. This makes the surface of the rocks look like a fluffy duvet and the tidal pools a bed of nails.
To Morgan’s Rock guests: When the tides are right and you have strong shoes, Continue reading
Big Ideas Elusive?
Taking an early look at an item in tomorrow’s NY Times, we are led to wonder whether the premise, especially including this interesting empirical observation, is a statement of fact, or not:
The post-idea world has been a long time coming, and many factors have contributed to it. There is the retreat in universities from the real world, and an encouragement of and reward for the narrowest specialization rather than for daring — for tending potted plants rather than planting forests.
How will we investigate? One place to start is looking within universities, and for this many of our contributors are uniquely suited to take the challenge and seek out evidence pro and con. The gauntlet is in motion.
Organikos 