Suriname wildlife tally

April 26, 2011 · Filed under Uncategorized

I always seem to see the best wildlife whenever my camera is lost, broken or out of batteries.  So when I realized that I left my cameria in DC and was going into Brownsberg Nature Park in Suriname with only my camera phone, I had a good feeling about the day.  And after the phone battery quickly died, it was all uphill from there, as far as the wildlife goes.  The final tally, from this Guiana Shield rainforest during the dry season:

-three DayGlo yellow and black Three-Striped Poison Dart Frogs

-some other little brown frog

-an awesome Crimson-Crested Woodpecker

-an agouti (far cuter than it’s English name of “bushrat” suggests)

-a DayGlo green and brown lizard

-an orange crab, underneath a 30 foot waterfall (very refreshing swim after sweating through the bush)

-a squirrel monkey

-bats

-a morpho and some other great butterflies

-these big black and white ground birds called kami kami?

-parades of leaf-cutter ants

-a monkey and a toucan, couldn’t tell what type.

Not a bad day.

-

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Fun facts about Norway

April 14, 2011 · Filed under Uncategorized

1. Whale meat is on the menu.  But they call it “whale ham” or “roast beef of whale.”  ?

2. I’ve never been anywhere where the American Dollar is quite so impotent.  Postcard = $3.  Hotel room = $250.  Taxi from the airport = $180.  Fish dinner entree = $50.

3. We had our meeting in the King’s former stables.  These days redone in wood-and-wrought iron Scandinavian Design style.  Way to recycle, Ministry of Environment.

4. It’s barely above freezing, but the skystays light until 9:30 pm.  Winter or summer, you be the judge.

5. You know that credit card commercial where the American guys go to Norway to rediscover their roots, then figure out they are actually from Sweden?  It’s filmed in the Oslo harbor.  I think.

6. Oslo Fjord, while technically still a fjord, has no steep sloping walls or waterfalls.  The lady at the cruise office assures me that tours of such fjord are “boring” while Oslo Fjord is “full of life.”  I’ll find out Saturday.

7.  The people of Norway are heroes, absolute heroes, for their work on climate change.  Their government has provided over $3 billion in the last few years to stop tropical deforestation.

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When you play at this level, it’s no ordinary venue

December 10, 2008 · Filed under Climate Change, Poznan

In one year’s time, the world will meet in Copenhagen to decide the fate of our climate.  Leading up to this event are a series of high profile meetings and negotiations—Tokyo, Bali, and this place.  The UNFCCC COP 14 negotiations take place in a vast fairground in chilly Poznan, Poland.  Delegates and observers from every continent stride the heated walkways that connect the various large buildings.  A building for international negotiations; a building for NGOs; a building for the European Delegation.  Along the way are booths and displays for solar companies, energy ministries, and environmental organizations.  Children’s paintings, photo exhibitions, and giant banners remind us of the urgency of the crisis and the height of the stakes—“Europe, it’s time to lead.” “The world is watching.”  “A hard rain’s a gonna fall.”  A dying polar bear, looking all too human, holds a styrofoam cup and a cardboard sign—“No coins please, it’s change I need.”

This is the environmental Olympic Games—impeccably organized but inherently unpredictable.  In the negotiation hall, nations do battle over every word, of every sentence, of every paragraph, of every draft text which rolls the train of international climate negotiations a little further down the track.  At nearby side events, scientists, activists, and politicians present their latest findings, projects, and programs to the world.  And informally, thousands of conferees of all backgrounds rub shoulders, share intelligence, forge alliances, exchange factsheets, type blackberry messages and press releases, and make friends over Polish canapés and wine.  Can this crew of conferees negotiate an agreement on climate in Poznan, and then in Copenhagen?  For the sake of the dying bear, we had better.

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Poznan

December 10, 2008 · Filed under Poznan, Travel

Poznan was the original capital of Poland from the 11th to 13th centuries.  The first prince of Poland was baptized in a brick cathedral on an island in the river.  Ten centuries later Pope John Paul II was invested in the same cathedral.  This cathedral of two-toned brick and two towers still stands today, and was the setting for a moving Christmas Chorale performed by the children of Poznan for the climate conferees.  At the center of Poznan is a decorative town hall.  At twelve noon every Sunday, two goats emerge from the clock tower of the hall and butt heads twelve times.  In December the square around the hall is adorned by ice sculptures, a manger, a Christmas market, colorful Old European buildings, restaurants and cafes, and crowds of fashionable and festive Poles.  The whole scene is as priceless as a visa commercial, right down to the old woman who pinches my side and commands me to eat more.

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My job: Chile

September 8, 2008 · Filed under Chile, My job

Santa Rita Vineyard

Santa Rita Vineyard

Climate change is affecting the cost of conservation not only in Madagascar, but around the world.  Teams of scientists from Chile, South Africa, California, and Madagascar spent this summer trying to estimate the cost burden of climate change on conservation.  We all met in the Chilean wine country with a science communications expert to hone and harmonize our messages for an hour-long presentation to the World Conservation Congress in October in Barcelona.  The setting for our workshop was a beautiful vineyard dating back to 1880, with hills, birds, cacti, fountains, gardens, and lots of grapes.  The Madagascar message sounds something like this:  “Protecting Madagascar’s unique plants and animals from climate change requires not only protect existing rainforests, but also planting new rainforests.  And that becomes expensive.”

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Camera, I hardly knew ye.

August 31, 2008 · Filed under Crime, South Africa, Travel

After 60 hours of air travel, stumbling out of the Santiago airport and into a clear blue sky and the snow-capped peaks of the Andes was quite literally a breath of fresh air.  A quick van ride later and I was in the heart of the Maipa Valley—Chile’s wine country.  When I unpacked by suitcase, I realized my brand new camera had disappeared.  Now, bad things happen all over the world, and it’s conceivable that the camera could have jumped out of the suitcase during layovers in Paris, DC, or Atlanta.  But, I doubt the camera ever left Johannesburg.  First, Johannesburg airport is notorious for theft: see here and here.  Second, on other travels through JNB I have personally experienced extortion (“give me something to make sure your luggage arrives”) and a set up for a robbery (Me: “could you tell me how to get to the domestic terminal?” Him: “follow me up these stairs.”  Stairs: “Proceed beyond this point at your own risk.”)  And third, one current scare story of crime and corruption in South Africa is of customs officials coordinating with local gangs to tail and attack arriving passengers who declare large amounts of currency (I dodged a bullet by comparison).

 

So I learned a lesson today: don’t pack small valuable items in your checked baggage.  Especially in Johannesburg.  I don’t miss the camera as such.  I just would have liked to have been able to upload my hundreds of Madagascar photos.

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Soweto

August 31, 2008 · Filed under South Africa, Travel

The South West Townships

The South West Townships

During my twelve hour layover in Johannesburg, I took a tour of Soweto. Johannesburg’s sprawling South West Townships are home to mile after mile of squatter settlements, interspersed with bleak former all-male mine workers’ hostels from which families were forbidden, new government-constructed houses, and the occasional middle class neighborhood. We visited one neighborhood with shabby tin-roofed shacks stretching along a dusty one lane road as far as the eye could see. In the road a dead rat was covered in flies. The guide showed us inside one of the one-room shacks. The tiny space contained a stove, a countertop, a dresser, a bed, and enough floor space for a small mattress. The woman of the house said she shared the house with her four grand daughters. She said she had been living in the house for thirteen years. Every year the government tells her she will be able to move into one of the millions of new government houses being built, and every year she continues to wait.

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New Zealand vs. Madagascar

August 25, 2008 · Filed under History, Madagascar, Nature, New Zealand

Nature's dumbest?

The weka: Nature's dumbest?

New Zealand

and Madagascar are similar in many respects.  Both are large island nations in the southern hemisphere.  Both split off from their respective mainlands tens of millions of years ago, and are populated with a fascinating variety of plants and animals found nowhere else on earth.  In both places, the survival of these native plants and animals is threatened by species introduced by humans, who arrived only within the last two thousand years.  And both islands are far colder during the winter months than any civilized place has a right to be.  But there is an intriguing difference between New Zealand and Madagascar—in New Zealand, the birds became mammals, while in Madagascar, the mammals became birds.

 

 

 

 

In New Zealand, with the exception of two bats, there were never any land mammals.  The role of grazing and ground foraging was taken over by birds.  Because these birds were not troubled by predators, many became flightless and dimwitted, like the weka.  In Madagascar on the other hand, though there are plenty of birds, the task of dispersing the seeds of rainforest plants has largely been taken over by lemurs!  And since lemurs are far more hesitant than birds to stray far from their rainforest surroundings, this means that a patch of land in Madagascar must be very near existing rainforest to regenerate rainforest “naturally.”

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Four continents in three days

August 23, 2008 · Filed under Chile, Madagascar, Travel

Three days from now, I leave Antananarivo, Madagascar, for Santiago Chile, via Johannesburg, Paris, Washington, DC, and Atlanta.  From aiport to airport, I’ll be travelling for 60 hours.  This is the time it takes to fly from New York City to Tokyo and back again, twice.  I’ll have been both north and south of the equator, and both east and west of the prime meridian, in less than three days.

Indiana Jones Map

Indiana Jones Map

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Top ten menu items at my hotel

August 22, 2008 · Filed under Humor, Madagascar · Tagged ,

My hotel has grown on me over the last six weeks.  Sure the lighting is dim, the carpet and drapes are The Shining red and the plumbing is off-and-on, but the staff are friendly, I occasionally get set up in the penthouse suite at no extra cost, and there is free wireless.  But the best thing about my hotel is the menu:

 

10. Velvety of French beau [green beans]

9. Shrimp jumped in the vegetables [I eat this one regularly]

8. Duck breast wipes in sweet wine of the country

7. Flackes of zebu

6. Pavement of chocolate in vanilla perfume [fudge in chantilly]

5. Duet of shrimp and squid oyster wipes

4. Has supper half moon [yeah, no idea]

3. Crudeness of garden

2. Toffly [for dessert]

 

and…

 

1. Chicken breast wipes/forestiere/basque woman

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