A visit to a dying reef system

EILAT, ISRAEL–When I first visited the Underwater Observatory Marine Park outside Eilat on the Red Sea coast near the Egyptian border, I was enchanted. An elegant steel and glass tower was built into a reef so that you can descend … Continue reading
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A rare late May rain in the Negev

MITZPE RAMON, ISRAEL–The only other time I’ve seen rain in southern Israel was with Elyssa Krivicich on our March 2008 trip. By May the rains are done in this part of the world. Nevertheless, it rained last night and then … Continue reading
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GSE 2011 is off and running

By Erika Takeo After two days of lovely exploring in Bangalore (veg food, salwar kamiz, monsoon, cockroach, autorickshaw, etc), we began our two days of orientation for GSE. We met with representatives and/or visited the following organizations, discussing how each … Continue reading
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What we are capable of

From China, where I’m looking into ways to promote animal conservation:  I visited a site today that left me stunned.  AnimalsAsia is primarily dedicated to rescuing bears that are being “farmed” for their bile, an important part of traditional Chinese … Continue reading
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Two Sites: Sian Ka’an and Cancun

We pulled up in our boat from the lagoon to the beach at Sian Ka’an.  In a roped off area, flocks of terns were nesting.  Their busy chatter filled the air.  Our guide, Aldo, pointed to a pelican flying over … Continue reading
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How Green Is The Yucatan? Concluding Thoughts

I have a few final thoughts on the Yucatan’s “eco” status that will best be articulated by answering some of the questions I asked in my first post.  I should say quickly that the Yucatan promotional literature does not necessarily … Continue reading
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Some Observations on Agriculture in the Northern Yucatan

1.  My observations of the countryside, which are, granted, confined almost entirely to what I could see from the car window (and a good swathe from the plane window on the way in), did not reveal much agriculture to begin … Continue reading
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Should Mexico Pave This Road?

Our last day proved to be one of our most memorable, taking us 15 kilometers south of Tulum along the coastline and into one of Mexico’s twelve UNESCO-sanctioned “biosphere reserves” (the most stringent category of land protection in the country, … Continue reading
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Birds (and the occasional reptile) of the Sian Ka’an Biosphere

                                                                             
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Cobbling together a Late Cretaceous story

MITZPE RAMON, ISRAEL–This morning Will and I finished our work with the Zihor/Menuha boundary cobbles. We drove to the southern side of Makhtesh Ramon (pictured above) to see the same units we examined 25 kilometers to the north in Wadi … Continue reading
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