The Conscious Earth

Conscious Earth Closes

2011-08-07T16:33:00.000-07:00

(visit my new site at koribrus.com)

First and foremost, a huge thanks the thousands of visitors, commentators and followers that took part in this blog over the past years. As those still following know, the blog tailed off after my trip abroad. After a long dormancy I'm ready to turn the page.

I started the blog for a few reasons. I wanted a writing project, and environmental commentary was a natural fit with my work role at the time. More significantly, when I began The Conscious Earth in 2006 environmental awareness was in a much different place than it is today.

The idea of environmental responsibility and values was still largely a special interest. People cared, but environmental concerns were considered something separate from the the social, political, and most importantly economic, decisions of the day. In that context, this blog really targeted three specific issues:

The tendency of "environmentalists" to frame the environment as an ultimate value: to this day, many environmentalists and conservationists place the natural world above human concerns. The stance is not only wrong, but counterproductive to the movement as a whole. The environment never needed saving because it will ultimately outlast us all. Human beings aren't clever enough to wipe life from this planet, and the earth itself has no qualms with spending a few millions years recovering from us in order to re-emerge in full bloom.

Second, and related to the first, our place in the natural world is not as a tiny subset in the web of life. People grow out of the earth in the same way apples grow from trees and poppies grow from fields. We're an end product of the earth, not a subservient part. Wipe out people and the earth goes on. Wipe out the earth and everything goes with it. The environmental movement's failure to understand this has always left the majority of people alienated from the cause.

The criminal undermining of the reality of climate change: In 2006, the so called debate of humanity's role in climate change was in full rage. The news industry had singularly abdicated its responsibility to factual reporting, and the environmental movement was helping them by failing to frame the issue in human terms.

The Conscious Earth sought to address each by framing the environment in human terms, and flipping the spin of those who advocated the ongoing destruction of the planet in the name of profit.

The project was successful, as far as it went. But far beyond these small posts, the world changed rapidly while I was traveling in 2008 and environmentalism moved forward from the back burner. Since then there has been little debate about the need for change, as well as the need to live in a relationship with the planet that is at least remotely sustainable. The economic strains of the last years have only punctuated that. Fewer and fewer people buy into the argument that the economy and the environment are opposed. People want solutions that take both into account.

That is the good news. The bad news is that while everyone understands the needs, far too few are taking action. Every level of society - from the meaningless state of politics, to corporate greed, through voter apathy - has been blamed. I don't think its any of these things.

Paralysis and stagnation has set in at all levels - government, business and citizen engagement. The world seems too complicated, and leaders in all parts of society function more from fear than vision. Everyone's afraid to act out of an anxiety of sending the whole system into a tailspin. There seems to be too much to know, too many facts, too many perspectives.

Knowledge, facts and perspectives - the raw quantity of everything around us, and we're stuck in the middle of it wondering how to cope with the growing volume of an ever more complicated world.

But we mis-framed the question once again. The problem isn't in the apparent complexity. It's in the fact that we have been busy focusing on quantity.

The problems of the world are ones of quality not quantity. They are about meaning and not facts. Their about purpose rather than progress. If you doubt that, look more closely at the rise of fundamentalism and extreme views in the world. This is a reaction to a world obsessed with quantity - doing more, having more, being more - for no conceivable purpose.

The road to quality and meaning is always simpler and more direct. And this is the reason The Conscious Earth has come to a close.

I'll be launching a new site shortly. It doesn't promise to solve the world's problems. But, with luck, it will give a small glimpse at meaning, for better or for worse, to some of the challenges and events of the world today.

Those interested are invited to join. You can find it at http://www.140haiku.com/. Stories and content will begin tomorrow.

Thank you again for every ounce of support along the way. I hope readers gained as much from reading The Conscious Earth as I did from writing it.

Canada Savaged Over Oil Sands

2009-12-01T09:14:00.001-08:00

I typically do not re-post articles, but yesterday's piece is the Guardian is noteworthy. Titled "Canada's image in tatters" the article details at length Canada's roll as a corrupt petro-state, and the litany of damage our nation has caused to climate change negotiations.

The following is an excerpt that clearly paints Canada's true colours when it comes to the environment.

So here I am, watching the astonishing spectacle of a beautiful, cultured nation turning itself into a corrupt petro-state. Canada is slipping down the development ladder, retreating from a complex, diverse economy towards dependence on a single primary resource, which happens to be the dirtiest commodity known to man. The price of this transition is the brutalisation of the country, and a government campaign against multilateralism as savage as any waged by George Bush.

Until now I believed that the nation that has done most to sabotage a new climate change agreement was the United States. I was wrong. The real villain is Canada. Unless we can stop it, the harm done by Canada in December 2009 will outweigh a century of good works.

In 2006 the new Canadian government announced it was abandoning its targets to cut greenhouse gases under the Kyoto protocol. No other country that had ratified the treaty has done this. Canada was meant to have cut emissions by 6% between 1990 and 2012. Instead they have already risen by 26%.... the future cut Canada has volunteered is smaller than that of any other rich nation.

After giving the finger to Kyoto, Canada then set out to prevent the other nations striking a successor agreement. At the end of 2007, it singlehandedly blocked a Commonwealth resolution to support binding targets for industrialised nations. After the climate talks in Poland in December 2008, it won the Fossil of the Year award, presented by environmental groups to the country that had done most to disrupt the talks. The climate change performance index, which assesses the efforts of the world's 60 richest nations, was published in the same month. Saudi Arabia came 60th. Canada came 59th.

In June this year the media obtained Canadian briefing documents which showed the government was scheming to divide the Europeans. During the meeting in Bangkok in October, almost the entire developing world bloc walked out when the Canadian delegate was speaking, as they were so revolted by his bullying. Last week the Commonwealth heads of government battled for hours (and eventually won) against Canada's obstructions. A concerted campaign has now begun to expel Canada from the Commonwealth.

In Copenhagen next week, this country will do everything in its power to wreck the talks. The rest of the world must do everything in its power to stop it.

None of this should represent news to any reasonably well informed Canadian. Seeing it laid out in one single column, however, should do more than give us pause. It should be the start of a serious conversation about what it is to be Canadian, and about what role we want to play in the world.

And nowhere is this issue more relevant than with respect to climate change, a crisis that most Canadians feel, "is the planet's defining crisis".

Book Review: Confessions of a Radical Industrial

2009-11-08T14:52:00.000-08:00

Many books offer environmental understanding and perspective, but few of them offer a genuine path for tangible change. This is exactly what Confessions of a Radical Industrialist, the new book by Ray Anderson, attempts to do.

In 1973, Ray Anderson founded Interface, a company he built into the world's largest manufacturer of modular carpets. But in 1994, he charted a new course for his industrial, petroleum based company after reading Paul Hawken's The Ecology of Commerce. In the abrupt, soul shattering understanding that followed, Ray Anderson launched a new transformative direction for Interface - to become not only sustainable, but restorative.

That year, he delivered a new vision to his management team that would ultimately make Interface a world leader in sustainability and environmental responsibility:

"So here's the vision (I) share with you today: I want Interface to be the first name in industrial ecology, and here's my challenge to you. I want to know how long it's going to take us to get there. Then, I want t o know what we'll need to do to push that envelope and make Interface a restorative enterprise. To put back more than we take from the earth and to do good for the earth, not just no harm. How do we leave the world better with every square yard of carpet we make and sell?"

That question was eventually answered by Interface's Mission Zero, a formalized corporate vision to make the company fully sustainable by the year 2020. They have come along way towards that goal. Over the past 15 years while governments and industries in the United States insisted that the 7% reduction in greenhouse gases called for by the Kyoto Protocol would destroy the economy, Interface lowered theirs by 71% while increasing sales by two thirds and doubling earnings.

Their environmental success did not stop there. They have also increased renewable energy use from 0 to 28%, water use has decreased by 72%, and the recycled content of their carpets has gone from 0.5% to 24%. These are just a few examples of Interface's transformation to date.

In Confessions of a Radical Industrialist, Ray Anderson details this success and outlines a pathway that other corporate leaders can follow in transforming their own organizations. He shares what he's termed the "7 faces" of sustainability that Interface embraced in guiding their efforts to eliminate waste, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and build environmental responsibility into every aspect of their operations and corporate culture.

Those faces are:

Moving towards zero waste
Eliminating emissions or rendering them benign
Increasing efficiency and renewable energy
Closed loop recycling and turning waste into raw material
Making transport systems resource efficient
Sensitizing employees, suppliers and communities to environmental responsibility and opportunity
Redesigning commerce to assess accurate costs, set real prices, and maximize resource efficiency

Confessions follows Interfaces success and best practices through each of these faces while weaving in first hand stories of the employees and innovators who created these solutions. At each stage, the value of human creativity and innovation is emphasized, alongside the need to harness these gifts as an integral element in the path to true sustainability.

The book is more than platitudes and idealism. By his own admission Ray Anderson is a competitive capitalist with an eye pinned keenly on the bottom line and ultimate success of his business. And this, I'd argue, is a primary reason for his success. In Confessions, he has supplied a pragmatic roadmap for continuous environmental improvement that is anchored in the constraints faced by organizations in the real world. It is a bottom line approach that should gain the attention of industrialists throughout the developed word, where corporations are facing high input costs and the aftermath of the global economic recession. The competitive advantage Interface enjoys thanks to their efficiency and low waste operations can form a new model for the changing economic reality that corporations are facing here in the emerging era of sustainability.

Despite the author's industrial career, the book goes well beyond the typical line between industry versus environment and points towards a more fundamental relationship, one that accurately places human endeavour within the context of the natural world. It is not an indictment against industry, but instead points to its true and sustainable place as a system that operates through the gifts, and limits, of the natural world. Anderson calls this "thinking in the round", a reference to the perfectly efficient and renewable closed circle that all natural systems operate within. It is a sound model to follow.

And in following that model, the Anderson reveals a deep faith that because human beings are an extension of the environment itself, our best enterprises, values, and talents can find alignment and synergy with the natural laws of sustainability. Readers may respond, "This is the view of one person, in one small corner of the industrial world. How does this apply to global environmental problems facing our global society?" I'll let Mr. Anderson answer in his own words,

I am convinced that having a sustainable society for the indefinite future depends totally and absolutely on the vast, ethically driven redesign of the industrial system about which I have written, triggered by an equally vast mind-shift. But - and this is the hard part - that shift must happen one mind at a time, one organization at a time, one technology at a time, one building, one company, one university curriculum, one community, one region, one industry at a time, one product at a time until we look around one day and see that there is a new norm at work, and that the entire system has been transformed.

Confessions reminds us that while the problems facing the environment are large, the seeds of change are always the same. They encompass the dedicated actions of each individual person doing what they can to improve the world for the better.

However, the magnitude of each person's responsibility is also proportionate to the amount of impact they are responsible for creating. Ray Anderson stands apart not for his environmental awareness, but because he took the rare approach of both confronting the full impact of his petroleum based business, and accepting a level of responsibility that was equal to this impact.

Confessions of a Radical Industrialist and the success of Interface's environmental efforts to date are both testament to this acknowledgment of responsibility. Interface's journey towards complete sustainability is still being written, but with luck and hope we can look forward to reading about those last steps of the journey in Ray Anderson's next book.

For more information visit the Interface website, Mission Zero, or see Ray Anderson speak on TED.

The Dark Side of Recycling

2008-11-13T15:46:00.000-08:00

The following is a disturbing profile of the state of the computer recycling business in the United States, and where the electronics end up.

The town of Guiyo in southern China is now one of the most polluted places on earth, registering the highest levels of cancer causing dioxins anywhere recorded. Governments are guilty of turning a blind eye, as businesses in both the US and China profit from the poisonous conditions.

"The situation in Guiyu is actually pre-capitalist. It's mercantile. It reverts back to a time when people lived where they worked, lived at their shop. Open, uncontrolled burning of plastics. These are among the most toxic compounds known on earth."

"We have a situation where we have 21st century toxics being managed in a 17th century environment."

Watch CBS Videos Online

Campaigning for Change

2008-10-05T21:05:00.000-07:00

With most of the world's people facing the catastrophic fallout of the worst US presidency in history and the now undeniable threats facing the Earth's environment, there seems to be an almost universally shared sense of flux, change and uncertainty. As unpleasant as that might feel, it's also a needed and necessary good that can clear the way towards real change and a new way of looking at the shared problems that, together, we desperately need to solve.

So, following the themes of responsibility and action that I've outlined over the past several months, I hope you'll follow me on my next path. Vancouver is coming up to a municipal election on November 15th, and I'm happy to announce that I'll be running the online campaign for mayoral candidate Gregor Robertson and the Vision Vancouver party.

For those unfamiliar with the local business and political scene, Gregor Robertson is a progressive Vancouver businessman who first rose to prominence by creating an immensely successful national business based on organic foods, sustainability and fair trade called Happy Planet. When the provincial "Liberal" government swept to power and promptly eliminated the Ministry of the Environment, Gregor made the decision to enter politics.

He was elected as a provincial MLA in 2005, where he served until this year. In the wake of outgoing mayor Sam Sullivan's atrocious legacy of homelessness, self serving politics, and social apathy, Gregor stepped down from his office in the provincial government to enter the mayor's race.

After meeting him in person I can gladly say he lives up to every expectation. He's honest, passionate, and is running a leadership fueled, Obama-style campaign for change.

For the past three weeks I've been helping to launch the Vision Vancouver campaign website with my friend and colleague Jason Mogus from the Webby award winning Communicopia and the talented shop of Agentic Communications. The site is now live, and from now through November 15th I'll be be driving all online campaign communications and working to elect a truly progressive government to Vancouver City Hall.

You can follow me during the election on the Vision Blog, our Facebook group, or get on the ground updates from Gregor Robertson on his Twitter feed. I'll also be offering an inside peek at the campaign here at The Conscious Earth. I hope you join us.

8 Months of Photo Highlights

2008-09-18T00:25:00.000-07:00

Thanks to all my readers for hanging in while I get my feet back on the ground here at home. Many new developments are coming soon, but in the mean time, please enjoy these photo highlights of 8 months of travel.

Thanks to everyone for following along.

My Rights, Your Responsibility

2008-09-09T14:41:00.000-07:00

I’m home now in Vancouver, with the daunting task of summing up and integrating a journey that covered four continents and more than eight months of my life. It can leave a person wondering how to bring that much home, or what home even means.

That said, there are a few common themes that became clear over the course of the journey. A major one concerns the views and assumptions that tend to guide the actions of our culture with the rest of the world, the damage of which becomes obvious when viewing there effects on some of the most impoverished nations on Earth.

In the case of Rwanda, we have been told that there horrific genocide was the culmination of tribal conflicts that stretched back centuries. After a mere days in that country, the truth became quickly and overwhelmingly obvious – that the division between Hutus and Tutsis was a colonial weapon established by the Belgians, and exploited by the French, in order to gain greater control over the population and later to profit by selling the weapons of genocide.

In rapidly developing India, they are celebrating their initiation into the world's nuclear fraternity, while domestically, the moral stance of the Dalai Lama has been criticized and questioned on the grounds that it may threaten Sino-Indian relations. One of the world's greatest ironies may explain India's true motivation. In 1999 , Major William Corson, intelligence aide to US President Dwight David Eisenhower, alledged that India agreed to grant the the Dalai Lama asylum in exchange for US help in developing nuclear weapons.

The case is similar in the issue of global warming, where western governments, in particular the US, points the finger of blame at developing countries while it is responsible for maintaining the worst mileage standards, consumes the most beef (one of the largest greenhouse gas contributors), and uses the most crude oil while they continue to propogate a war over oil to maintain the status quo.

That word, responsibility, is the key. Western morality is anchored on a bastardization of Adam Smith that assumes ultimate good will magically prevail for all by pursuing our own individual interests. However, unless balanced by an equal sense of our personal responsibility, what we perceive as our rights quickly turns into indulgence, and there begins most of the world’s problems.

An embrace of responsibility, alongside of our personal rights, makes it obvious that while we have a right to trade and deal diplomatically with African nations like Rwanda, we equally have a responsibility for the outcome of that trade when we market in weapons of destruction to an oppressive regime. It makes it obvious that the moral rights of an entire people are not appropriate negotiating items in diplomacy and trade. It also becomes obvious that the country responsible for the most environmental damage needs to take the lead in forming environmental solutions.

If we strike another person, that blow is not the fault of the person receiving it. A gun owner is responsible for their weapon falling into the hands of young children. Unintentional murder is deemed involuntary manslaughter and is not the responsibility of the murdered. Likewise, the direct harm caused by our consumer, policy, and business decisions is not the fault of our trade partners, but the responsibility of those perpetrating the actions - exploitative businesses, the government’s that those businesses lobby for profitable trade policies, and we, the citizens, who value what we call prosperity over the human rights of other nations affected. The solutions, then, rest with us.

Responsibility can begin at home. The United States, Canada and my own city of Vancouver have a lot of work to do this fall. It’s time to get to it.

Opening Day in Beijing

2008-08-08T11:36:00.000-07:00

History

Silence

Voice

An Accidental Trip to Thailand

2008-07-21T11:49:00.001-07:00

It was meant to be a side trip to the Philippines where a good friend is doing anthropological research in a traditional Kalinga Valley village. Unfortunately, I let myself get bluffed out by the weather and never made it.

My arrival date earlier this month in Manila ended up being the day after a second of two typhoons rolled through the country. Conditions on the newsreel looked pretty tenuous and I opted to disembark at our stop-over in Bangkok rather than risk being stranded in Manila for two weeks. As it turns out, the route north to the village was fine, much to my disappointment.

Sooooo, I tried to go to the Philippines and all I got were these stunning photos of Thailand....

Ladakh - The Last of India

2008-06-27T03:31:00.000-07:00

The past few weeks have definitely been a different flavour. Heading steadily to the north of India, the people and country side have both shifted towards mountainous and Buddhist, culminating in Ladakh which is called the closest thing to Tibet on the subcontinent. It was far and away one of my favorite places in the country.

The main city of Leh is almost indescribably beautiful. The town is a fertile strip of green nestled between the desert hills of brown and a back drop of Himalayan peaks. Set against crystal clear skies the view is an every changing Crayola box of greens, blues, whites and brown.

The culture is also an interesting departure. The area only opened to tourists in 1974 and until then a remarkably self sufficient society had braved the high desert and -50C winters for centuries, key to which was a strong sense of environmental values and strict population control. In addition to a large population of Buddhist monks and nuns, the area is one of a handful of cultures that actively practiced polyandry - the taking of more than one husband by a single woman (pause for applause from my female readers.....)

Polyandry is now a thing of the past (pause for tears from my female readers...), however the strong position of women and an intimate sensitivity to the natural environment has remained, giving the place a far more progressive spirit then many other places in India. I spent
most of my time there hiking up the nearby hills and visiting the centuries old Buddhist ruins, the centre piece of which was the palace looming above the town of Leh itself. Extensive restoration is going on, but despite that it was mostly just me wandering unobstructed
through 9 stories and 400 years of ruins. It was fabulous.

Fabulous and, as I mentioned, solitary. On the verge of departing from India that has probably been one my biggest surprises. This has far and away been the most isolated period of travel I've ever had. There are other travelers around, but the entire time in India has been a strange anti-confluence, like a trip to a parallel universe as if I disembarked in Bombay at platform 9 3/4.

Even where I've been following what should be the beaten path, things turn up empty. The most recommended hotels are barren, restaurants are strangely empty, and when I do things that seem to be the most natural cultural or tourist events there's nobody around.

In a day-trip outside of Leh I visited the active monastery at Hemis, the richest in the province and a 'must see' stop to witness the monks during morning prayers. The monastery again is impossibly beautiful, tucked high into a side valley away from the Indus River and surrounded with green trees and flowers. It was just myself there, taking a humble and uninterrupted seat at the back of the gompa (Buddhist temple) where I was graciously welcomed and served hot tea along side the monks. It was a stirring experience, admittedly made more so by the lack of outside distraction.

It was a similar case a few days later during June's full moon. It was one of my last days before leaving and the natural thing to do (as I saw it) was to climb to the "Shanti Stupa" - a stunning brand new Buddhist monument gifted by the Japanese. It's the highest point in town and the
only vantage point complete with a tea house/cafe. Again, mysteriously, it was virtually tourist free for the rise of the moon, which I can happily say was completely breathtaking.

None of that is to take anything away from the incredible time this has been. There have been countless things to see and there are the more than enough encounters with friendly locals, shop owners, and traders. However, over the course of some weeks, or months, I find I need a
little more than the same two conversations, "What country?" and "Very long man!...How long?", "....that's none of your business sir!."

After being turned back by fictitious concerns about the twin typhoons that recently rolled through the Philippines, I'm now in Bangkok - heading to the beach and the slow lead up towards heading home.

Here's the photo show from Ladakh.

Canada Sued for Climate Change Failures

2008-06-19T02:20:00.001-07:00

I've been substantially away from the home front news for quite awhile, but this is worth mentioning on both a national and personal note.

On June 18, Canada became the first country ever to be brought to court for failing to comply with its legal commitments to combat global warming, specifically its failure to meet (and perhaps more to the point, their failure to do anything about) their mandatory legal obligations under the Kyoto Protocol.

The lawsuit itself is being argued by a coalition of groups - most notably my former workplace, Ecojustice Canada - and seeks a declaration from the Court that the government has not complied with the law, and an order requiring it to do so. A decision is likely to occur in the coming months.

For readers unfamiliar with Ecojustice (formerly Sierra Legal Defence Fund), I strongly recommend them as a worthy organization to support (I do so myself). For my American readers, think Earthjustice.

Non-Cooperation and the Olympic Games

2008-05-30T21:04:00.000-07:00

"The present era is rampant with the five forms of degeneration, in particular the red ideology (....)

"In future, this system will certainly be forced either from within or without on this land that cherished the joint spiritual and temporal system. If in such an event we fail to defend our land, the holy lamas, including the "triumphant father and son" will be eliminated without a trace of their names remaining; the properties of the incarnate lamas and of the monasteries along with the endowments for religious services will all be seized. Moreover, our political system will be reduced to an empty name; my officials, deprived of their patrimony and property, will be subjugated like slaves by the enemy; and my people, subjected to fear and miseries, will be unable to endure day or night. Such an era will certainly come!"

These were the words of Thubten Gyatso, the 13th Dalai Lama of Tibet, spoken two years before his death in 1931 (pictured above). With the exception of the demise of the Dalai Lama himself (the 'triumphant Father), all that he stated has come to pass. The scope and power of the prophecy culminated in 1995, when at the age of 6, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima was kidnapped by the Chinese government mere days after being recognized as the 11th Panchen Lama of Tibet (i.e. the 'son' and second most important leader in Tibetan culture). Nobody has seen him, nor his parents, since.

I am writing now from Dharamsala, India - home of the current Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government in Exile - where the lead up to the Olympics, the complete lack of tangible support from other governments, and the combined weight of 59 years of Chinese atrocities are the central issues of daily life for the town's Tibetan population.

Since China's invasion in 1949, an estimated 1.2 million people have lost their lives through murder, starvation and disease. Six thousand monasteries were destroyed and the Chinese have continued with an unabated policy that seeks the destruction of Tibetan culture ever since.

It is against that historical backdrop that the International Olympic Committee awarded the 2008 Summer Games to China. The move is sometimes compared to the 1936 Games in Nazi Germany; however, Germany was awarded those games in 1933 prior to Nazi control of government, and the games were held prior to the Nazi invasion of Austria and prior to their systematic extermination of Jews. By comparison, China was granted the games after being the demonstrable perpetrator of an invasion against an independent nation and the systemic annihilation of a culture.

In the 59 years since the Chinese invasion the western response and characterization of China's policy has become increasingly miasmic. It is enlightening to return for a moment to 1960, when a report by the International Commission of Jurists called the Chinese invasion and actions in Tibet what they always have been - genocide. To quote:

"According to the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, which was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in December, 1948, human groups against which genocide is recognized as a crime in international law are national, racial, ethnic and religious. The committee found that acts of genocide had been committed in Tibet in an attempt to destroy the Tibetans as a religious group..."

Further, we often hear about "human rights abuses" committed by China. That is a television friendly phrase that sheds little light on what has been perpetrated against the Tibetan people. Again, the Jurists' report leaves little room for speculation,

"The Committee came to the conclusion that the Chinese authorities in Tibet had violated the following human rights,

Article 3 - the right to life, liberty and security of person was violated by acts of murder, rape and arbitrary imprisonment.

Article 5 - Torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment were inflicted on the Tibetans on a large scale.

Article 12 - Rights of privacy, of home and family life were persistently violated by the forcible transfer of members of the family and by indoctrination turning children against their parents. Children from infancy upwards were removed contrary to the wishes of the parents.

Article 16 - The voluntary nature of marriage was denied by forcing monks and lamas to marry. (Allow me to paraphrase so as to ensure we are being crystal clear here. Buddhist monks and nuns who had taken voluntary and spiritual vows of celibacy were forced to fuck, sometimes each other, by Chinese authorities.)

Article 18 - Freedom of thought, conscience and religion were denied by acts of genocide against Buddhists in Tibet and by other systematic acts designed to eradicate religious beliefs in Tibet.

Article 26 - The right to liberal education primarily in accordance with the choice of parents was denied by compulsory indoctrination, sometimes after deportation (see Article 12), in communist philosophy.

Article 27 - The Tibetans were not allowed to participate in the cultural life of their own community, a culture which the Chinese have set out to destroy."

I could go on. Those were merely the most harrowing of the 16 human rights violations China was found guilty of.

Since that time, they have been condemned by other nations and NGOs for subjecting Tibetan women to forced sterilization and abortions and for systematically denying employment, health care and education to Tibetan citizens. Those who have escaped to India tell more graphic tales of torture including crucifixion, vivisection, disemboweling, dismemberment and burning. Women have been electrocuted on breasts and in their mouths and vaginas while other individuals were buried alive.

On August 8th, the nation that perpetrated these crimes, and that continues to engage in wide spread human rights abuses, will be hosting the world in the 29th Olympiad, an event that supposedly honours "universal fundamental ethical principles". The Beijing games are an offense that strikes the very core of these human values.

Having granted China the games, the IOC will do nothing to oppose them. Nor will there be a boycott from any of the 200 nations slated to compete in them. Action on this issue rests with us.

So in keeping with the themes I began several weeks ago in Generosity, Non-Violence and Non-Cooperation, here are a few meaningful actions that you can take in protest of the Beijing Games.

Athletes - You are the key individuals in the games. Without you there are no games. Given that governments will not boycott you can do so yourself. The higher profile you are, the bigger news it will be, and the more attention it will draw to the Tibetan cause. This legitimately may not be possible in light of corporate sponsorship deals. In this case, compete, and if you win a medal leave it behind on the podium or do not show up to accept it. Academy Awards have been refused. You can do the same with your medals.

In addition to dreams of victory, you may also have dreams of bringing home the medal itself, of displaying it proudly in your home, or making it an heirloom for you children. If so, know that the gold, silver or bronze of your victory was mined through the deforestation, pollution the destruction of the Tibetan environment while the Tibetan people received little to no economic benefit. Is this the heirloom you would leave your children? Or want around your neck?

Viewers - You are the second most important group of people. Through the sale of television rights the IOC has generated $2.5 billion in revenue. That is money networks anticipate getting back in spades through the sale of advertising time. But that is only a smart investment if people actually watch.

You are directly responsible for the profits that are realized by television networks from the games. Do not watch them. Don't watch an event, don't even watch the highlights. If you see your favorite newspaper, or magazine, with a cover story on the outcome of an event do not buy it.

If you think this sacrifices too much of your entertainment time, then I ask you 'what do you value in your life'? What values do you intend to communicate to your children? How important is this single entertainment event when you live in a world brimming with entertainment opportunities? Will you play your part in generating profits in an Olympics being held within a regime condemned for acts of genocide? Will you let your children watch that event? Is entertainment more important than the future of a peaceful culture and the lives of 6 million people? You can also ask yourself how much you remember from the last games, or better still the ones before that. Probably not much.

I am an avid sports fan and have followed every Olympics since 1984. I will not watch a minute of these games.

Shoppers - Olympic memorabilia and authentic Olympic sporting goods will be plugged mercilessly from now through Christmas. There is a fully functional and equivalent alternative available through competing brands for whatever equipment you need. Choose the alternative. Especially if it is a gift for your child. It is a chance to show them how their actions impact the lives and survival of others in the human family.

After your purchase, send a note along with the sales receipt to your National Olympic Committee (links available through the map here), and your national TV network, explaining why you didn't watch the games and why you are not supporting them as a consumer. If you are feeling extra motivation, send another copy to your Minister of Sport, Prime Minister or President.

Pass it on - individual action accumulates weight and effectiveness with numbers. Share these actions with friends, family, fellow students or workmates. If you are taking part in protests or actions, make these actions a part of your communications efforts. A two hour protest will leave little impact unless each individual who attends is empowered to take meaningful action in their own lives.

Most importantly, add your own ideas to the list above. These are only the actions that came immediately to mind and is by know means exhaustive.

Finally, if you feel that your actions do not matter, or won't amount to anything, then I leave you with the words of His Holiness the current Dalai Lama,

"It is therefore part of our responsibility towards others to ensure that the world we pass on is as healthy, if not healthier, than when we found it. This is not quite such as difficult proposition as it might sound. For although there is a limit to what we as individuals can do, there is no limit to what a universal response might achieve. It is up to us as individuals to do what we can, however little that may be. Just because (our action) seems inconsequential, it does not mean that we should not do it."

postscript - Incidentally, in light of recent protests do you know the history of the Olympic torch relay? It has no precedent in ancient Greece. It was introduced as a propaganda stunt to embrace other nations around the totalitarian ideology of, you guessed it, Nazi Germany.

Generosity, Non-Violence & Non-Cooperation

2008-04-27T02:15:00.000-07:00

Having escaped Bombay I'm now in Rishikesh, where this morning I was listening to an old lecture by Jack Kornfield over a second cup of mediocre coffee.

He was discussing the roots of generosity and what that force looks like when turned loose in the greater world. Specifically, he talked about how at its root generosity requires an embrace of all hardships in this world as well as all joys, and it is only through that embrace that we can see and change the greatest of the world's ills. To quote,

"...abundance means the willingness to open to life as it is, to face injustice and suffering. As Martin Luther King (Jr.) wrote, 'We will soon wear you down with our capacity to suffer in the struggle for the rights of others, and with that suffering we will win our freedom and (yours along with it)."

To wear down an oppressor with a capacity to suffer is something worth considering in the context of our current social struggles - from the protests over Tibet, to the war in Iraq and the reality of global warming. The truth of today is that we blame a complacent public, unresponsive governments and a corrupt media system for turning deaf ears to the troubles of the world while each one of us places the preservation of our own comforts and lifestyles before the suffering of the world around us.

Consider the description below of Indian citizens staring down the barrels of British guns during the Quissa Kwani bazaar massacre of the independence movement:

When those in front fell down wounded by the shots, those behind came forward with their chests bared and exposed themselves to the fire, so much so that some people got as many as twenty-one bullet wounds in their bodies, and all the people stood their ground without getting into a panic. . . . The paper of, which represents the official view, itself wrote to the effect that the people came forward one after another to face the firing and when they fell wounded they were dragged back and others came forward to be shot at. This state of things continued from 11 till 5 o'clock in the evening. When the number of corpses became too many, the ambulance cars of the government took them away.

Can we even conceive of such a whole hearted embrace of a cause beyond ourselves?

The fault isn't our own, it simply points to the next great state of embrace required in order to face the problems of a global community and the global solutions we need. The movements led by Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. were ones involving nations and race. The challenges of today - from the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the one threatening Iran; to the global issue of climate change - require a new embrace of ourselves first as global citizens and then as citizens of the Earth itself.

Protests of today are seen by the public for what they are, staged events performed for a known audience where all performers - whether activists or police - go home to their televisions and lives after the sun goes down. Our complacency of response is not a social disease. It matches the level of involvement of those who design these displays of non-violence.

We need to understand that in embracing non-violence as our mode of protest, we have abandoned its sibling non-cooperation, and that estrangement is the primary reason for our current failures. At its heart, non-violence smacks of passivity and a passive action can only lead to a passive result. Gandhi himself said that if faced with a decision between passivity and violence he would choose violence every time. Protesting the wrongs of society needs to directly affect the perpetuation of those wrongs. Any action different from that is, by its very nature, passive.

What would happen if the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan government in exile, and the 100,000 Tibetans living in India joined with those who remained in their ancestral home to march upon Beijing itself for the opening of the Olympic games? What if, like that sole protester in Tiananmin Square, they put their lives in the way of Chinese police and guns to peacefully assert their rights over what is theirs?

What would happen if those employed by Exxon, BP and Shell walked out together from their well paying jobs to demand that the people who issue their pay cheques also act in accordance with their desire for a safe and healthy planet?

What would happen if those employed by the US State Department and Defense Department left in unison until the government that offers them the security of employment, also offers their children the security of a safe world?

The answer is that these institutions would be brought to their knees within moments, and it is this power that is the right of all people, that is at the heart of Satyagraha, and forms the greatest fear of the powers that be.

These are not the only possibilities. The solutions for our problems are as limitless as the imaginations of those who conceive of them. However, the common thread is that our actions must match in scope the problems they are meant to solve. Actions must directly affect the problem, those actions must stem from a sense of self and community as large as the challenges they face.

Many will disagree with this, and that is actually a good thing. The difference between the suffering of the world and our resistance in embracing that suffering - that is, to put our own personal safety on the line - defines the growth we need to achieve in order to create the world we desire.

Beleaguered in Bombay

2008-04-26T00:10:00.000-07:00

I love cities. Though I profoundly love nature, I'll always choose to live within the human dense drama of the urban landscape. The bigger the better, and since first visiting there two years ago, Bombay has been one of my favorite cities in the world.

With sixteen million people, water in every direction, and all the chaos that India has to offer, Bombay makes the head spin, the heart hurt and has you running for cover or screaming for more - usually in the same 24 hour day. That said, my most recent visit had me doing far more running for cover than rejoicing. The flu, heat in excess of forty degrees, and an overwhelming dose of human misery and cruelty left me suffering and gladly departing town.

On the taxi ride from the airport to my hotel in the southern suburb of Colaba, my busted-up cab rear-ended a brand new Honda. We pulled to the side of to the side of the road and after getting out of the vehicle my nearly destitute and toothless driver was physically assaulted before having his mobile phone stolen from him. I can only guess that this was to ensure that he wouldn't bolt out of the area when the claim was filed; however, it was an unnerving act to witness given that the clothes worn by the other driver amounted to more than two months wages for my cabbie.

A few days later I visited the Buddhist ruins of nearby Elephanta Island, where a crippled dog was wandering in near insanity while seeking food wherever it could, as it's rear leg swung freely from a complete break halfway up. I was a gross disfigurement that could only have been accomplished through human hands. Meanwhile, Indian tourists were teasing monkeys by discarding their used water bottles as food, adding to the already substantial layer of refuse littering the once holy site.

Worst of all was the unknown fate of an infant toddler who had been paraded through a downtown intersection. No more than 2 years of age, she was being carried by a man who demonstrated not a hint of parental care as he thrust the pulsing, bleeding wound of her left hand in the face of every passing motorist. The girl stared on in mute shock as we handed over a stack of rupees while her guardian gripped her arm and waved it in our faces, goading us for more money.

The worst parts of Bombay grind you down and leave you wondering at the ultimate fate of the city. Although it possesses upwards of 40% of India's wealth, 55% of Bombay's residents live in slums. New high rises and renovated flats exist beside shacks of tarp and tin in a third world city where real estate prices rival those of London and New York. The lack of public conscience that plagues Bombay is summed up brutally and honestly by Suketu Mehta in his Pulitzer Prize nominated account of Bombay, Maximum City:

Indians do not have the same kind of civic sense as, say, Scandinavians. The boundary of the space you keep clean is marked at the end of the space you call your own. The flats in my building are spotlessly clean inside; they are swept and mopped every day, or twice every day. The public spaces - hallways, stairs, lobby, the building compound - are stained with betel spit; the ground is littered with congealed wet garbage, plastic bags, and dirt of human and animal origin. It is the same all over Bombay, in rich and poor areas alike.

This absence of civic sense is something that everyone from the British to the Hindu nationalists of have drawn attention to, the national defect in the Indian character.

They are words that are worth considering as India surges towards double digit economic growth. But in this city whose history is painted by commerce and currency there is a more striking example of this problem. In a time of soaring wealth and a growing divide between rich and poor, the image of Mahatma Gandhi has been quietly removed from India's new currency notes.

It would be well to carry his message of care forward, alongside economic prosperity.

More images of Bombay below.

A Morning at Elephant Junction

2008-04-04T15:49:00.000-07:00

Although my recent elephant safari was entirely unsuccessful, I was able to spend a morning with several Asian Elephants at the Elephant Junction sanctuary in Kumily.

Throughout the three hour visit I vacillated through a range of emotions. A quiet grief for the confinement and captivity of these intelligent and sensitive creatures gave way to both exhilaration at being in such close quarters with them and optimism for the gentleness with which they were treated by their mahouts, all before feeling my heart spin back again towards remorse.

By all indications the elephants were well treated and looked after. Verbal commands alone were being used to instruct them, and this even applied to the completely unruly 11 month old infant Kanan, who required all the will his mahout could muster just to stop him from eating the thatched shed within a trunk's reach of his enclosure.

The enclosures themselves were immaculately clean. Dung was cleared out regularly, and all of them were layered with thick blankets of maize stalks and palm fronds, which acted as both bedding and a continuous source of food for the elephants' ceaseless appetites.

Some elephants were quite constrained, but in fairness this varied according the manageability of the individual. Some were kept on short chains, particularly the mother of Kanan who could be understandably intolerant of human contact with her infant, but others were left completely free and stood calmly among the visitors and staff. Most importantly, all harnesses are removed each day at 5pm after the tourist hours are through.

However, despite the quality of this particular sanctuary others fail miserably in looking after the needs of their inhabitants. Small pens, lack of contact with the natural world and abusive mahouts are all common. That greater context left me concerned for the future of the species.

The population of wild Asian elephants stands at just 30,000 with about half of those in India. Meanwhile, it's much publicized African cousin boasts a population in excess of 600,000. Meanwhile, while the African Elephants compete for land and resources with about 900,000,000 people across the world's third largest continent, India's 15,000 remaining elephants face the inconceivable population pressure of more than a billion people.

This is the mathematical fact of wildlife conservation in the world's second most populous nation, and until environmentalists address the overwhelming human need of a billion individuals within their calls for conservation, the Asian elephant, tiger and a host of less prominent species won't last the upcoming decades.

I don't have an answer for this one, other than to say that it's my gut belief that there must be a place for elephants in their wild habitats along side our own, for the simple reason that we both come out of, and depend on, the natural world for our survival.

Ultimately, our mutual survival will depend on the preservation of the same natural environment.

Leech Trekking in Periyar

2008-03-28T21:52:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's a picture of a dead fish floating in a pond. And with the exception of a troop of monkeys, that was all the wildlife available during a full day safari in Periyar National Park, India.

The differences between here and Africa were profound.

While Africa receives most of the press about endangered wildlife, I walked away from every park I visited filled with awe and optimism for the future of species at risk. Periyar felt dead, and even though it apparently boasts healthy populations elephants and tigers, there were few signs of life. Meanwhile, the wilderness experience was compromised by the carnivorous appetite of the jungle's overwhelming leech population.

The Lonely Planet guidebook (which now borders on useless thanks to some key format changes, I'm switching to Footprint) advises that "leeches may be present following rain". That's sporting of them to pass on the tip (Rough Guide failed to do that much), but any review of the park falls short without an precise explanation of what this means...

The tour began at 5:15 am on the heels of week long rains from the nearby town of Kumily. By 7 o'clock we were squinting at a shadowy dot on the horizon that was meant to be a deer (I'm still not convinced) and noticed a few leeches scattered on the roadway. Unlike the slug-like variety you've seen around your local swimming hole, these creatures spring across open ground like Slinkys down stairs, and as we were to find out shortly, nothing short of the tightest woven fabric will halt their march to bare skin, and these few roadside specimens were the first in a plague of near biblical proportions once we reached the jungle proper.

Once at the park's headquarters we donned our 'leech proof socks' - a kind of canvas gaiter worn like a knee high sock inside your shoe - and were rowed across to the far side of the lake for the start of a three hour trek. Twenty feet down the path each of us had a half dozen leeches on our shoes. One hundred feet the ground crawling with, not a handful, not a dozen, but hundreds of marching, swarming worms. The jungle floor was alive and everybody's legs were covered up to the knees, with more disappearing through the leather and canvas of each available shoe.

We turned back then and there having seen no more than a hundred feet of forest and a single troop of monkeys in the canopy above. The downside of the retreat was looking like colossal cowards for calling it quits after a mere five minutes. I'm not worried. The intrepid explorers that kept on enjoyed three hours of soaking rain and annelid infestation to see no more wildlife than we did in the first hundred feet. I'm calling it a victory for our hides and our nerves.

Later that day we headed deeper into the forest via jeep, but the story was the same. With the exception of a few more monkeys and the dead fish expertly framed above, the jungle offered no wildlife while the leeches continued their assault, appearing inexplicably in our covered jeep, on our sleeves, and pasted to our faces.

Granted, I'm more than a bit squeamish of the creepy crawlies of the world, but in addition to the abysmal wildlife experience, the concerted lack of information on trekking conditions bordered on negligence. Periyar is India's most visited national park. I doubt this would be the case if park officials, and tourist guide books, ponied up valid information about the Periyar experience.

I'm interested in other's experiences here. For now, I recommend it to no one. Head to Ranthambore instead where two years ago I saw a tiger and an array of other Indian wildlife.

Shark Alley - South Africa

2008-03-07T13:36:00.000-08:00

Here's one I've been looking forward to, in spirit since witnessing the breathtaking footage of Planet Earth, and in practice since first stepping foot in Africa - cage diving with the Great White Sharks.

Before describing the experience there's a need to address the inevitable and already existing concerns about diving with the great white. In particular, some environmentalists take issue with the activity because they allege that diving with these predators conditions them to view human beings as food. After a day of close quarters observation, both in the cage and from the ship's deck, I can tell you with full confidence that this concern is both unwarranted and unfounded.

To begin with, conditioning an animal to change its natural response patterns takes time, and a unique aspect about the South African great whites is that they are a completely open population, meaning that any given individual shark is only spending about three or four weeks in the area. That's far to little time to ingrain a new conditioning pattern. More to the point, whomever asserts this as a concern has a feeble understanding of conditioning. In order for sharks to be conditioned to view human beings as food, they need to receive some form of reward that causes them to believe this. For starters, they aren't managing to eat human beings during these trips. More importantly, they aren't permitted to eat anything else either. The bait used to attract sharks is pulled away before they can reach it. The entire strategy of shark diving focuses on piquing the shark's natural curiosity in order to bring it within sighting distance. They are not fed, and most importantly human beings are never presented as food, nor are they interested in them as such. Case closed there.

As far as the experience itself goes, its a phenomenal opportunity to appreciate one of natures most specialized creations. In the cage itself we witnessed great whites of up to 4 metres in length passing within a foot of our eyes. The largest of the species can top 6 metres, but there was no shortage of awe and appreciation for the beauty and power of these animals as it was.

In totaly, we witnessed four individual great whites in close quarters, and on one occasion saw one consume a giant lion's mane jellyfish measuring a full metre in diameter. The shark sucked it back with one motion, and even the marine biologist on board the vessel enthused that she had never so much as read about a great white preying on jelly fish, let alone witness it. The sighting will be her next academic submission to the professional journals.

More than anything the trip was an opportunity to witness a species deeply in peril. Despite their dense numbers on the southern tip of Africa, sharks across the world are in steep decline. Each year 100,000,000 (no that is not a typo) die at the hands of long line fishing nets and cast aside as by catch (but only after their fins are lopped off as delicacies, often with the sharks still alive). Meanwhile, collectors across the globe are willing to pay upwards of $100,000 for their very own set of great white's jaws for display as a trophy to god knows what.

The work of the tour leaders and conservationists who bring these creatures to the public eye is one of the biggest forces working in favour of their protection, and from start to finish, I have nothing but praise for the professionalism of this trip and the enormous respect they help spread for the great whites of South Africa.

Tanzania to Cape Town Photo Highlights

2008-03-04T09:13:00.000-08:00

The departure for India is fast approaching, but while I'm still in Africa here are the photo highlights from the past two months. I've included titles and descriptions on the files, so anyone wanting a bit more context for the pics can read those directly on my flickr account here.

My Father the Sun, My Mother the Moon

2008-02-22T00:52:00.000-08:00

I've loved solo travel ever since my first trip across Europe a decade ago. Its sense of freedom and endless possibilities are the rarest gifts, and I find it difficult to give those up to travel with others for long.

Unfortunately, there are days when trudging alone grinds you down. Whether it's the petty uncertainties from being perpetually uprooted, or facing dinner on your own (yet again!), the challenges are always present. Then there are the more difficult moments, the emotional events that come on without warning and leave you limping and lurching through whatever city you're in at the time. It was on that note, and a heavy heart, that I started the sunset climb of the Lion's Head yesterday afternoon.

The Lion's Head is a jagged 669m guardian of rock overlooking Cape Town from a seat directly in front of Table Mountain. The peak thrusts clear from the brush and low trees on its flanks and to form a sentinel watching over the city's Atlantic suburbs and downtown core. It's stunning.

The hike is meant to last two hours, and I started out at twenty after five with the sun still pounding out of the clear blue sky. I was caught without sunblock again, as usual forgetting the relentless burn of the sun at these latitudes until it's all but sunk behind the horizon. But it was beautiful and fresh. The trail circled around the peak, bringing every corner of the city into view one after another before cutting up in a vertical chain climb to the final ascent. All in, it was about thirty minutes and several photo stops before I was crossing the summit to find a comfortable spot for to await the setting sun.

Immediately in front of me was the cold Atlantic and the Clifton and Camps Bay suburbs clinging to the slim line of coast. On the right the smaller peak of Signal Hill stood watch over my current home in Sea Point, and behind me spread the downtown core of the City Bowl nestled into the flanks of Table Mountain. It was a stunning and virtually private panorama until shortly after six when the summit started filling up. The company was nice, and the crowd grew to cover every open space without taking away from the quiet of the surroundings or the sound of my thoughts.

It's amazing how wrong you can get things, how incomplete your own version of the truth can be, and how blind you can be to the right way of simply being with things, most of all with yourself. You try to live from that place, but no matter how well you think you understand, you end up feeling like you need some sort of answer. Sometimes its moments like these.

The sun began its final descent behind the clouds and sea, and as it did the answer to a question I had only whispered rushed in. What a beautiful simplicity, and how terrifyingly easy it is to miss. It's as if you're capable of accepting anything in the world, except what's in your own heart, and sometimes you just need a place like this where you can be quiet for long enough and remember.

A few moments later the sun disappeared and eyes turned exactly 180 degrees to look out across the opposite face, for not only was this the rising of the full moon, it was also a lunar eclipse. The moon broke the horizon over City Bowl and the Sun and Moon embraced its creation, the Earth, in arms reaching from either end of the cosmos, touching every corner of our world and in doing so touching everyone I love.

I spent some time in that place and gave thanks for all the gifts of the day before beginning the trip down. It was time for a burger, and a beer.

Nelson Mandela and District Six

2008-02-20T17:13:00.000-08:00

February 11th marked the 18th anniversary of Nelson Mandela's long walk to freedom. I missed the opportunity to make a commemorative post on that event, but hopefully I can make up for it by sharing an equally important, though less known, story of apartheid - the story of District Six.

District Six was established adjacent to the downtown core in 1867 as the "Sixth Municipal District of Cape Town" – a mixed community of freed slaves, merchants, artisans, labourers and immigrants. Over the next century the modest area grew into a cosmopolitan melting pot boasting a rich jazz scene. Later, as the dark years of apartheid clamped down on the city, it became a haven for musicians, writers and politicians looking for a moment of escape. In the words of legendary South African jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahim, District Six was a "fantastic city within a city. Where you felt the fist of apartheid, it was the valve to release some of that pressure."

However, by the mid sixties the government had the community in its sights. In 1966, after allowing the area's infrastructure to crumble for years, the government classified District Six a slum and declared it a 'whites only' area under the infamous Groups Area Act. Forced removals began two years later and by 1982 sixty thousand people had been relocated to the Cape Flats township some 25 kms away. District Six was razed to the ground and, despite having once been home to a tenth of Cape Town's population, the area remains barren wasteland to this day. In the face of growing political opposition from within, and international pressure from outside South Africa, the apartheid regime never succeeded in redeveloping the 528 acre site.

I visited the area after a brief tour of the excellent District Six Museum. Arriving there at 5pm with the southeast winds blowing over Table Mountain, the scene was harrowing.

New tarmac winds through what appears to be undeveloped land and overgrown grass, but as you pick your way through barrens, increasingly vivid relics emerge. Broken brick work and porcelain tiles become more frequent and the concrete foundations of old residential buildings poke through the ground. Cracked and weed ridden streets run uphill towards new developments while the housings of old sewer entrances stand open and uncovered, leading 25 feet down to the storm sewers that serve the ghost community.

It was one of the most stark and disturbing sights I've seen, and powerfully symbolic of the injustices committed against non-white South Africans during the time of apartheid.

The healing process continues as the District Six Beneficiary and Redevelopment Trust carries on the work of land restitution on behalf of displaced residents. Their formal goal is to "facilitate the return of previously dispossessed persons to their ancestral land." Negotiations are ongoing.

District Six slide show below.

The Themed Toilets of Ngepi

2008-02-16T11:33:00.000-08:00

A raft of new posts are on the way, including photo highlights from the past two months, and full articles on the wrap up of the African overland tour and of life here in Cape Town. In the mean time, here's a short photo set to pass the time. Our campsite in Ngepi, Namibia had some odd ways of dealing with the calls of nature, among other things....

Ground Rush in Namibia

2008-02-08T02:31:00.000-08:00

This is the sort of thing you don't tell your mother about until you are safely back on the ground...or perhaps never. Sorry Mom!

Skydiving courtesy of Ground Rush.

PS - photos in reverse(ish) order because this flash player is retarded.

Would You Rather Date a Cheetah or a Cougar?

2008-01-24T05:51:00.000-08:00

Anyone from Vancouver, or those who have visited, will have first hand experience of the social disfunction that plagues our fair city's dating scene. Here's a couple of choice responses I've received from friends back home over the past days.

The first is the latest article by a dear freind, fellow writer, and a lovely girl who's to good to be single - Vancouver Guys Suck Ass. The second is just a great piss take of your's truly:

Wow very fun and nice pictures as well. I could not help but giggle a bit
at trying to find parallel opportunities here in the urban wasteland. The whole
story might of read quite differently.
Title: Cougars at Sammy J. Peppers
From: Vancouver Urban Fashionista.
Catching a glimpse of one Vancouver’s trickiest land animals.
“The bar began in 2005, when the owners faced a huge problem with the number of single available women in Vancouver. In the course of one year, cougars number in the thousands took out 38 men and boys, plus an additional four families of elves on Robson. But ratherthan dispersing the cougars, as is both sanctioned and encouraged by the local authorities, they opted instead to capture them - a decision they credit as having changed the course of men’s lives forever.”
You can see the parallels here. Take care man. :)

Cheetah Pets & Cheetah Predators

2008-01-22T00:07:00.000-08:00

The past week saw one of the most impressive and unexpected stops on the tour so far - the Otjitotongwe Cheetah Park in Namibia.

Until then I hadn't caught so much of a glimpse of the world's fastest land animal, and as I said to a travel mate, I might as well pack up and go home if I couldn't see one here.

The farm began in 1994, when the Nel family faced a huge problem with the big cats. In the course of one year, cheetahs took out 38 sheep and goats, plus an additional four calves on the family farm. But rather than shooting the cheetahs, as is both sanctioned and encouraged by the Namibian Nature Conservation, they opted instead to capture them - a decision they credit as having changed the course of their lives forever.

A pregnant female was among the captured cats, and when three of the five cubs survived birth, the family adopted them as house pets and decided to turn their working ranch into a private reserve for the protection of cheetahs. Today, the fenced reserve spans 250 hectares and provides a safe home for 22 wild cheetahs, in addition to their three current house pets.

Time spent with the 'domestic' ones was almost surreal, while at the same time feeling utterly safe. They began purring like idling Volkswagens as soon as we arrived, and all in we had about 45 minutes to spend with them in the Nels' backyard. As risky as you'd think the experience might be, there really was minimal (if any) danger. Cheetahs are specialized for speed and are notoriously weak compared to other big cats. In the wild, they will often get bullied off their kill by lions or hyenas, and although 'big' they stand at about the same height as standard sized dog. They were even left free to play with the family's Jack Russel, doing no more to it than rolling it end over end if it got to yappy or in their face.

After the visit with the house cats we survived an hour long deluge before piling into the back of a pick-up truck for feeding time in the wild reserve. These cheetahs were an entirely different story. Unlike their domestic cousins, these were fit, lean predators in the prime of their lives. Just one hundred yards into the fenced off reserve we were surrounded by no less than a dozen active, pacing animals with no more than the open rail of the truck bed between us and them. I never felt more like a cow being led to the slaughter than at that moment.

But again, it was surprising how little of a threat they were, despite all appearances. The guides stepped directly out of the truck armed with nothing more than a small stick about the size of a conductor's wand - just a prop to make themselves look a bit bigger in the face of a couple bluff charges by the more aggressive cats. Once on the ground, they hauled out the garbage bin of fresh donkey meat that had been riding in the back with us and gave each a healthy 2kg chunk.

I realize that all sorts of people have a problem with keeping big cats or other wild animals as pets. I've never endorsed it, but in secure grounds in the middle of nowhere I could see no harm. All of the cheetahs were in immaculate health, and the service the Nels are providing in giving these animals a safe habitat in the face of the farmers' rifle puts them far beyond most cheetah conservation efforts, particularly the Namibian government who continues to sanction their killing.

All in their are just 7,500 cheetahs remaining in the world, but through their "pest control" policy, the Namibian government endorses the killing of up to 500 to 600 every year. Meanwhile, the Nels are looking to greatly expand their efforts. Eventually, they aim to have their entire 7,500 hectare farm securely fenced for the benefit of the cats. It was more than a pleasure to leave them with a donation towards that effort. The cost of fencing is about $50 Namibian Dollars (about $7 per km), and every square meter of land included in the reserve means a better life for the cheetahs who live there, and more room to transfer other cats that are facing a death sentence on local livestock farms.

For more information on the Otjitotongwe Cheetah Park, see the complete contact details below.

Tollie & Roeleen Nel
Otjitotongwe Cheetah Park
PO Box 60
Kamanjab, Namibia
Phone: 09 264 67 687056
Email: cheetahs@iway.na or Mario@cheetahpark.com
http://www.cheetahparknamibia.com

Safari in South Luangwa

2008-01-06T01:10:00.000-08:00

When you say the word 'safari' most thoughts turn to the endless plains of Tanzania's Serengeti. But where the Serengeti can be likened to driving a sports car on a four lane superhighway, Zambia's South Luangwa National Park is the safari equivalent of a motorcycle ride through a winding country road.

Covering 9,050 square kilometers along the Luangwa River, South Luangwa is a gem. It boasts large herds of giraffe, buffalo, impala, abundant populations of crocodiles and hippos, and of course, elephants. Thousands of them. And unlike traveling with the overpopulated tourists hoards in the Serengeti, the open jeep tours here bring you in direct contact with the environment like few other safari's can. Roadways are narrow and unobtrusive, and in the rainy month of January the sparse forests and grasslands are in full, vividly green bloom.

South Luangwe is also a bit of a success for conservation efforts.

In the 1970s, poaching decimated the park's elephant population to a mere 6,000 animals, but aggressive patrolling and the international ban on ivory trade has helped that number rebound to 16,000 today. Elephants of every age (including stumbling newborns) are constantly within sight, so much so that it's difficult to imagine how dense the herds would have been when the park's original population of 100,000 was intact.

Mother Nature is also lending the elephants her helping hand, proving her wisdom even in the face of mankind's most wanton attempts at destruction. Tuskless elephants have always existed in small numbers, but with selective hunting by ivory hungry poachers, nature is selecting this formerly rare variation in far greater numbers, ensuring that the world's largest herbivor stands a chance of survival even if poaching once again becomes common.

As striking as they were, the elephants were only one half of the surprise and as the hour rolled on towards 6pm, the sun fell below the horizon and the nightime safari began. Hippos emerged from the water to graze in the long grass, and you could feel a tangible shift in power as darkness began to favour the park's predators.

Within ten minutes of nightfall we rounded a bend in the path and our spotlight caught the gleam of feline eyes. It was a leopard, the most elusive and shy of all of Africa's 'big five'. During daylight you're lucky to spot a glimpse of one dozing a hundred yards off in the canopy of a tree, but spinning the jeep around as close as we could the big cat strolled within ten feet of us. It was completely undisturbed by our presence and paused briefly to grant us a photo shoot before moving confidently away towards the unseen (to our eyes) herd of impala collecting in the brush beyond.

Far more terrifying was the awakening pride of lions. The cats strode directly along the sides of our open vehicle, and unlike the leopard, rather boldly surveyed the occupants of the jeep itself, as if casually browsing the menu of a familiar restaurant. The jeeps act as a type of territorial boundary and the presence of the lions is meant to be safe so long as you remain inside. Under no circumstances would I have it any other way.

As immersed as we were during our four hour safari, nature always has something more to offer - sometimes in the most unexpected places.

The next morning while back at the Flatdog campsite on the opposite side of the river, I was sluffing along between the bar and the toilets in half done up sandals when I heard branches breaking off to my left. Twenty yards from the toilets was Uncle Gilbert, a massive bull elephant casually consuming what had formerly been a large healthy bush. he was taking his time grabbing individual branches with his trunk and expertly sawing off moutfuls against his tusks until the bush was satisfactorily plucked clean and he moved away - directly towards the place I was standing.

He hadn't seen me leaning againt the bathroom entrance when he began walking but at ten yards he finally caught sight of me. His ears went up like two sails grabbing the wind, and my entire visual field was instantly filled by a wall of grey flesh. Taking the hint, I kept eye contact while slowly making two long steps back into the toilets. His comfort zone restored, Uncle Gilbert walked off to his next meal.

Exiting the bathroom, I turned towards the bar to do the same.