More Mugabe Madness

"(UK Prime Minister) Brown is a little tiny dot on this World" (Robert Mugabe, April 12th 2008).

Yes (ex Zimbabwe Executive President) Mugabe - but the dot is a Full Stop.

For a beloved country crying, it is the Full Stop underlying a global exclamation mark.

Curse of the cotton buds

Ah, the appeal of foaming brine. A lovely swim, secure in the knowledge that the salt content disinfects all the sanitary detritus and sewage?

The annual UK beach clean up organised by the Marine Conservation Society shows that cotton buds (minus the cotton - where has that ended up?) are an increasing proportion of the detritus washing up on our increasingly rubbished beaches. A mounting mix of "pick-a-sticks" for us to play with.

http://www.adoptabeach.org.uk/pages/press_releases.php

"Bin them", they say "so they are properly disposed of". Of course, but this increases landfill. Maybe, just maybe, we could do without them at all?

Cultural clashes, cool waters

Isn't it striking how the Free Tibet protests surrounding the Olympic torch as it sears a path to Beijing reflect the cultures in which they are occuring, not the cultural origin of the issue?

Who did not chuckle at the sight of bumbling bobbies on bicycles trying to cope with surging crowds as the olympic flame singed a path through London? (Well, maybe not the serious, cloned, chinese security cordon). Lets not dwell on the leather-jacketed heavies scrambling for structure as the torch scorched its way through Paris. Lets consider instead, how elegantly Californians have used both aesthetic and athletic abilities to produce a visually stunning protest strung up on the golden gate bridge. Ahhh .... cool water soothing a troubled image bank.

Reflect for a moment though on the strength of tribal territories. How much of the controversy in the world comes down to cultural conflict? And how much does culture cling to a certain area of land and decisions about how to manage it? Trade and economic development have driven an international agenda (and technological expansion), but how fragile is this? As constraints on food supply and other resources starts to bite, what units of operation and cohesion will we default to..... and how rapidly? A prediction - our Future Earth will be composed of "tribal" territories and inter-tribal conflict will increase. Discuss.

A Host of Frozen Daffodils.....

William Wordsworth's "... host of golden daffodils" were "fluttering and dancing" in the warmth of a Lake District Spring in 19th Century England.

These hopeful modern day derivatives were caught out this morning by April snow across southern England. Seasons out of sync with bio-cycles, both for the daffodils and those wishing to pick them.

Plastic in Paradise

Yet another load of non-degradable plastic makes its precarious way into the beautiful, diverse and disappearing forests of Indonesian Borneo.

At the end of this particular road, Arjay saw people finding the plastic paraphernalia very useful for their daily subsistence. Traffic in the other direction was of tapped, raw rubber and sweaty, rotting oil palm fruits ... both of which are converted into indispensable (?) trappings of life in more populous cities across land and sea.

But this is not entirely bad news. Both rubber and oil palm plantations in this area are small-scale local community lots used as cash crops in the local economies and the distant forest you see there is currently protected from the big commercial outfits. Why might this remain? Just look - along the many miles of this road runs a bright blue pipe, taking fresh mountain water to the people of the regional capital. How about that for a demonstrable ecosystem service?

Swiftlet soup for supper?

Rather an avian flavour to this blog recently so here’s one more post that takes that literally. Birds nest soup has been a menu option in China for over a thousand years, although it went out of f(l)avour politically for a while. Now the demand from the Chinese diaspora is huge, and over-exploitation of the traditional supply from caves across south-east Asia edged the nest building swiftlets onto the CITES menu a few years ago.

One of many memorable Attenborough moments – the sainted Sir Dave, feet traditionally planted in bat and bird guano, peering into the upper reaches of Malaysian caves as the local nest collectors risked life and limb to secure “white gold”, the set saliva of the male swiflets that is meant to protect the eggs and nestlings. The birds can produce three nests per breeding season so collecting only the first two can allow one brood to survive and sustain the supply.

Sadly though, the trade has become just too profitable. Where there’s muck (can’t get that image of the cave floor out of my mind!) there’s money … but where there’s money there’s muck too. Over-exploitation, trade rackets – demand exceeding supply leads to a $60 price tag on a single bowl of soup in Hong Kong. Its big business and people will kill to protect it.

Enter the entrepreneur. Colonies of twittering swiftlets that have set up in town houses are now managed for productivity; even though some of the techniques are mean (“Midnight Music” post – 20^th February), they are cosseted as valuable residents. Have a look at these photos though – new build along the coast of Borneo is all for the birds – the giveaway is the large flat sides with evenly spaced ventilation holes. Bordellos for working birds. Swiftlet Hiltons – except its build your own bed, at least twice. Populations are increasing though, so just who is exploiting who?

P.S. And why? Chinese scientists have recently determined that the active ingredient (thought to have a range of medicinal properties) is destroyed as the nests are prepared for consumption. Ah well.

P.P.S. There is a nasty sting in this tale however. The birds eat insects from their surroundings, and not surprisingly the most sought-after nests are ones where the foraging is from natural environments. Another ecosystem service at risk?

Albatross Anthem

IT IS a baby Albatross,
And he stoppeth one of three.
'By thy long great beak and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?

He holds him with his trusting stare,
'There was a ship,' quoth he.
‘It spewed out all this plastic stuff
Into the azure sea.

And now the storm-blast came, and it
Were tyrannous and strong:
The plastic lay above the beach
Where nesting birds belong.

The stuff was here, the stuff was there,
The stuff was all around:
We thought it looked like little fish
And scoffed all that we found.

We ate the food we ne'er had eat,
And round and round did spew.
We started dying one by one
Not many made it through’.

‘But I have come to help you out -
A conservation trooper.
We are averred, to save the bird
from such a major blooper.
Ah wretch! We say, the plastic day,
Has gone – is that not super?’

We looked upon the rotting sea,
And drew our eyes away
We looked upon the plastic beach,
And vowed it would not stay.
We’d bury it for 50 years
No albatross would feast
Of plastic fare, we’d save the life,
Of man and bird and beast. .

We went like those that hath been stunned,
And worked through dusk and dawn:
Both sadder and yet wiser men,
We rose the morrow morn.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7312777.stm