Yes, that's right, there's a special day for toilets. But while it may be fodder for scatalogical jokes, for the many millions of people who do not have access to toilets it's no laughing matter.

Imagine what it would be like if we weren't able to flush away the vast amounts of human waste we generate in our cities. Apart from the stench and vermin, disease would flourish, as it does in many of the world's informal settlements.

Poor sanitation kills 1.8 million people a year--mostly children and primarily through diarrheal diseases, reports colleague Tasha Eichenseher today on National Geographic's Green Guide blog.

Read more about this intolerable situation and learn what a privilege it is to have access to a toilet.

In this subsequent video interview with NatGeo News Watch, below, Nicklen shares his thoughts about leopard seals--and other polar predators he has studied since he was a boy growing up in a small Inuit community in the Canadian Arctic.

He talks about the patience and time needed to make the photographs of polar predators for ten National Geographic Magazine articles and for his new National Geographic book, Polar Obsession.

A large female leopard seal greets photographer Göran Ehlmé. Anvers Island, Antarctica (p. 161 of Paul Nicklen's new book, Polar Obsession.)

A leopard seal feeds Paul Nicklen a penguin. Antarctic Peninsula (p. 36)

© 2009 Paul Nicklen/National Geographic

Growing up in the Arctic, Nicklen said, "We didn't have a television...telephone...radio...so all of my entertainment came in the form of playing outside, and that meant being around animals...seeing my first polar bear when I was five years old.

"So you really learn from the time you are young how these animals work, what makes them tick. You learn about social hierarchy, and then most of all, the best thing you learn is their connection to the ecosystem," he said.

Looking towards an uncertain future, a huge male bear triggers a camera trap, taking his own picture. Leifdefjorden, Spitsbergen, Norway (p.239)

© 2009 Paul Nicklen/National Geographic

All this information plus a college degree in marine biology taught Nicklen how to approach and get up close to animals, to use body language to communicate with them, and devote many hours to get them used to his presence before getting into the water with them.

A large bull walrus returns to the shores of Prins Karl Forland after diving and feeding on clams. Svalbard, Norway (p. 150)

© 2009 Paul Nicklen/National Geographic

What people don't realize when they see his pictures, Nicklen says, is the sometimes days, weeks or months he needed to get the animals to care less about his presence.

Narwhals dive deep under the ice to feed on Arctic cod, then return to the surface to breathe and raise their tusks high in the air. Lancaster Sound, Nunavut, Canada (p. 103)

© 2009 Paul Nicklen/National Geographic

"The narwhals story...a chapter in the book, took me 15 years to try to figure it out," Nicklen said. The project involved working with the Inuit, buying an ultralight plane, flying out to the remote pack ice in the Arctic, "and finally, in one day, getting all those images for that narwhal story. It's just time and patience."

© 2009 Paul Nicklen/National Geographic

Polar Obsession (National Geographic Books; November, 2009; $50; hardcover) is a showcase of Nicklen's best pictures and an opportunity for him to share important insights into animal behavior, the fragile polar environment and climate change that threatens the ice and its inhabitants.

In the Arctic spring, meltwater channels drain toward and down a seal hole, returning to the sea. (p. 71)

© 2009 Paul Nicklen/National Geographic

"The polar regions are disappearing quickly, and I want my photo essays to stand as a reminder of what is at stake. It is my mission to bring the rare, remote and threatened to caring people who can enjoy and help protect these lands and creatures," Nicklen writes in his introduction.

The book includes 150 of Nicklen's most spectacular images from the polar regions. Elephant seals, leopard seals, whales, walruses, narwhals, polar bears, penguins, albatrosses, petrels, arctic cod, and krill, are among the cast of characters he captures through his lens. To make these photos took many years of thinking and planning and sometimes many hours of waiting in difficult conditions for the right moment.

A kittiwake soars in front of a large iceberg. Svalbard, Norway (p. 29)

© 2009 Paul Nicklen/National Geographic

In essays introducing each chapter, Nicklen describes the ice fields, floes and frozen seas that are the backdrop to his images.

A young polar bear leaps between ice floes. Barents Sea, Svalbard, Norway (p.16)

© 2009 Paul Nicklen/National Geographic

"Nicklen has risked his life many times in the 20 years he has been documenting the polar regions," says the National Geographic news release about this book. "He has crashed his ultralight airplane, fallen through the sea ice, been lost in blizzards, bitten by fur seals, attacked by a walrus and an 8,000-pound elephant seal, charged by a grizzly bear and sniffed through the thin fabric wall of a tent by a polar bear."

A gentoo penguin chick peeks, checking for patrolling leopard seals before tempting fate. Port Lockroy, Antarctic Peninsula (p. 166)

© 2009 Paul Nicklen/National Geographic

"If I really want people to care about polar species, my images have to be wild and raw," he writes. "I want people to feel what it's like to be in the water, swimming three feet from a polar bear. I want them to experience what it's like to be offered a penguin as food by a leopard seal. Only then will they really care about that habitat and that species."

Paul Nicklen emerges numb from the cold after an hour under the ice. Admiralty Inlet, Nunavut, Canada (p. 15)

© 2009 Paul Nicklen/National Geographic

Mother bear and two-year-old cub drift on glacier ice. Hudson Strait, Nunavut, Canada (p. 77)

© 2009 Paul Nicklen/National Geographic

Included in the book is a gear list detailing the enormous amount of equipment that accompanies Nicklen on his assignments, "likely more equipment than any other natural history photographer on the planet," because Nicklen shoots above and below water.

He usually travels with 14 to 20 cases and hockey duffel bags weighing between 60 pounds and 70 pounds each. "Getting to and from location with all the gear is often the worst and hardest part of the assignment," he writes.

Paul Nicklen on assignment. Lewes Lake, Yukon Territory, Canada. (not in book)

© 2009 Paul Nicklen/National Geographic

Those were the thoughts today of Xie Feng, minister and deputy chief of mission of the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. He made the observation at the official opening at the National Geographic Museum of the exhibition "Terra Cotta Warriors: Guardians of China's First Emperor."

Caption: Terra cotta figures on exhibition at the National Geographic Museum, Washington, D.C. The average terra cotta warrior is 6 feet tall and weighs 300-400 lbs. Craftsmen sculpted individual facial features for each figure by hand. Many of the faces are thought to resemble the artists themselves or some real person or military figure. It is believed that no two faces are identical.

Photo by David Braun

Auspicious sign

Minister Xie also observed that while President Obama was in Beijing today, visiting the Forbidden City and holding talks with China's President Hu Jintao, the terra cotta warriors were in Washington--a coincidence that was "an auspicious sign" of the improving relationship between the two countries.

White House photo by Pete Souza. 

The National Geographic Museum is the final venue of the terra cotta warriors' four-city U.S. tour. The largest number of terra cotta figures ever to travel to the United States for a single exhibition includes more than 100 artifacts from the tomb of Qin Shihuangdi, who ruled from 221 B.C. to 210 B.C.

Caption: A view of reconstructed warriors, on exhibition in China. Originally, the soldiers were painted with pigments made from minerals mixed with either egg white or animal blood.

Photo by Wang Da Gang

"The First Emperor's magnificent terra cotta army is one of the great wonders of the ancient world," said Terry Garcia, National Geographic's executive vice president for Mission Programs. "Visitors to the National Geographic Museum will have the rare opportunity to experience one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of the 20th century as they stand face-to-face with the terra cotta warriors," he added.

Level 1 artifacts

More than 96,000 tickets have been purchased in advance for the Washington venue of the exhibition, which offers an in-depth look at the First Emperor's enormous tomb complex that contained thousands of terra cotta warriors intended to protect him in the afterlife. The exhibition showcases the life-size terra cotta figures and other objects, including 20 "Level 1" artifacts--China's highest possible ranking in terms of rarity and importance.

Caption: Albert E. Dien, Ph.D., professor emeritus, Stanford University, is guest curator for the "Terra Cotta Warriors: Guardians of China's First Emperor" exhibition. In this video he explains why the terra cotta warriors are the "Eighth Wonder of the World."

Video by David Braun

Secrets of the Qin

Discovered after being buried for more than 2,000 years, the terra cotta warriors reveal secrets of the Qin dynasty, a National Geographic statement about the exhibition explains.

"The warriors were found in 1974 by a group of farmers digging a well near Xi'an in China's Shaanxi province. When archaeologists began excavating the area, they uncovered a subterranean vault containing fragments of thousands of terra cotta figures in four pits."

Caption: Terra cotta warriors and horses found in the tomb of China's first emperor Qin Shihuang, located north of Xi'an in China.

Photo by Wang Da Gang

Caption: There are four pits of varying sizes, three of which contain warriors, filled with an estimated 7,000 figures along with hundreds of horses, chariots and weapons. Pit 1 (in the illustration above) is the largest at 203 feet x 755 feet, roughly the size of two and two-thirds football fields, and was the first to be discovered. Ranks of terra cotta warriors, horses and chariots were placed in formation throughout this space.

"More than 1,000 life-size figures have been unearthed as part of the site's ongoing excavation, with estimates of 6,000 more remaining in the known underground pits," National Geographic's statement says.

"Construction of Qin Shihuangdi's tomb took 36 years to complete, and the tomb complex is estimated to extend more than 19 square miles."

Warrior assembly line

"The terra cotta figures were created in assembly-line fashion, and molds were used to mass-produce hands, heads and ears. Craftsmen sculpted individual armor details and facial features by hand. It is believed that no two faces are alike," National Geographic said.

The 15 terra cotta figures in "Terra Cotta Warriors: Guardians of China's First Emperor" consist of nine warriors--two infantrymen, a chariot driver, two officers, an armored warrior, two archers and a cavalryman--as well as two musicians, a strongman, a court official, a stable attendant and a horse. The exhibition showcases 100 sets of artifacts, including weapons, stone armor, coins, jade ornaments, roof tiles and decorative bricks, and a bronze crane and swan.

Two replica bronze chariots are also on display.

Caption: One of the replica bronze chariots on exhibition at the National Geographic Museum. All figures are life-size.

Photo by David Braun 

Caption: National Geographic Museum Director Susan Norton and her staff worked for more than two years to bring "Terra Cotta Warriors: Guardians of China's First Emperor" to Washington, D.C. In this video she talks about the planning and challenges of moving and exhibiting 2,200-year-old artifacts.

Video by David Braun

The objects in the exhibition are drawn from 11 different collections in and near Xi'an, including the Museum of the First Emperor's Terra Cotta Army and Horses, Shaanxi Provincial Institute for Archaeological Research, the Zhouzhi Museum, Baoji Museum, Xianyang Museum, Lintong Museum, Fengxiang Museum, Chencang Museum, Xi'an Institute for Archaeological Research and Protection, Baoji Archaeological Excavation Team and Xianyang Institute for Archaeological Research.

Photo by David Braun

The Washington exhibition is open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., with extended hours on Wednesdays until 9 p.m. The National Geographic Museum is closed on December 25. The exhibition will be open to the public from November 19, 2009 until March 31, 2010.

Tickets are timed and dated and can be purchased online at the Buy Tickets page of the exhibition Web site www.warriorsdc.org, by phone at (202) 857-7700 and at the National Geographic Museum ticket booth located at the exhibition's entrance or at the National Geographic ticket office, 1600 M Street, N.W., Washington, D.C.

Caption: A standing archer. The warriors' hands are positioned to hold weapons, many of which were stolen during the rebellions that followed the emperor's death.

Photo by Wang Da Gang 

Caption: A detailed look at one of the terra cotta warriors found in the tomb of China's first emperor Qin Shihuang, located north of Xi'an in China.

Photo by Wang Da Gang

Photo by David Braun

The exhibition is co-organized by the Bowers Museum, Houston Museum of Natural Science and the National Geographic Museum, and is guest curated by Dr. Albert E. Dien, professor emeritus, Stanford University.Support for the exhibition was given by American Airlines; Amtrak; Washington, D.C.'s Loews Madison Hotel; P.F. Chang's China Bistro; The PIMCO Foundation; UPS; Viking River Cruises; and WTOP.

Terra Cotta Warriors Exhibition Fact Sheet

Emperor Qin Shihuangdi

In the long history of China, the First Emperor of the Qin dynasty stands out for his accomplishments and the controversy that surrounds his rule. He ruled a unified China for only 11 years, but many of his reforms have lasted as long as his warriors have stood guard -- more than 2,200 years.

Born in 259 B.C., Ying Zheng became king of the state of Qin at age 13. In 239 B.C. the king began to rule in his own name and shortly thereafter he sent his armies to conquer the surrounding states. By 221 B.C. a vast empire was under his control. He renamed himself Qin Shihuangdi (Chin She-hwong-dee), First Emperor of the Qin.

The emperor instituted a series of ambitious reforms, creating a centralized administration to consolidate his power. He is credited with unifying seven warring states; building an extensive network of roads; standardizing weights, currency and measures; establishing Qin writing as the official language, which became the basis of the written script now known as Simplified Chinese; beginning construction on the Great Wall of China; and pioneering the use of mass production.

In 210 B.C. Emperor Qin fell ill and died unexpectedly. He is believed to have been interred beneath a large man-made hill in an elaborate chamber that has not yet been excavated.

Records written nearly 100 years after Emperor Qin's death show that succeeding dynasties defined the Qin period as a time of draconian enforcement of harsh laws. However, recent discoveries of Qin laws indicate a less severe administration than previously imagined, and the emperor's reputation is being reevaluated. Regardless of how his legacy is ultimately judged, the impact of his rule and the grandeur of his tomb set a standard that has not been surpassed.

The tomb complex and pits

Photo by Wang Da Gang

As was customary, Emperor Qin began work on his tomb complex when he ascended the throne at age 13. After conquering the neighboring states, he expanded the plans in keeping with his new title of First Emperor. The tomb complex covers 19 square miles and includes a man-made earthen mound rising above his underground burial chamber.

Providing for the emperor in the afterlife meant filling his tomb complex with a wide range of items to serve his needs. The emperor's tomb mound sits at the center of what was once a walled area. Outside the walled tomb area in pits three-quarters of a mile to the east are the warriors, standing ready to defend the emperor.

Photo by Wang Da Gang

The army faced east, towards a pass in the mountains through which enemies might approach.

There are four pits of varying sizes, three of which contain warriors, filled with an estimated 7,000 figures along with hundreds of horses, chariots and weapons.

Photo by Wang Da Gang

Pit 1 is the largest at 203 feet x 755 feet, roughly the size of two and two-thirds football fields, and was the first to be discovered. Ranks of terra cotta warriors, horses and chariots were placed in formation throughout this space.

Pit 1 was dug to a depth of about 15 feet, with walls of pounded earth dividing the interior into 11 corridors. The floors were paved with bricks. A framework of wooden pillars and beams covered with planks, matting and a plaster shell formed the roof. The whole area was covered with earth mounded about 6 feet above the original ground surface. Pits 2 and 3 were constructed in similar fashion.

Photo by Wang Da Gang

Photo by Wang Da Gang

The figures contained in the smaller Pit 2 are more varied. The ranks include cavalrymen, chariots and 160 standing and kneeling archers.

Pit 3 is even smaller and is the only one to be completely excavated. This pit was meant to serve as a command center for the underground army. It contains just 68 soldiers, most of them guards with a few officers stationed behind a single chariot, perhaps meant for the supreme commander.

Pit 4 is incomplete and contains no figures, suggesting that work ceased in the rebellions following the death of Qin Shihuangdi.

The warriors

Photo by Wang Da Gang

The average warrior is 6 feet tall and weighs 300-400 lbs.

Craftsmen sculpted individual facial features for each figure by hand. Many of the faces are thought to resemble the artists themselves or some real person or military figure. It is believed that no two faces are identical.

Originally, the soldiers were painted with pigments made from minerals mixed with either egg white or animal blood.

The legs and feet of each warrior are solid clay to support the weight of the figure. To create the torso, artisans built up coils of clay; the hands, arms and head were molded separately and then attached.

Photo by Wang Da Gang

When a figure was complete, a layer of fine clay was applied to the entire sculpture so individual details could be incised by hand. After this was completed, the statues were fired at high temperatures.

The warriors' hands are positioned to hold weapons, many of which were stolen during the rebellions that followed the emperor's death.

The warriors were discovered in March 1974 by a group of men digging a well along the Wei River near the city of Xi'an. The tomb complex of the First Emperor has since been dubbed the Eighth Wonder of the World.

To date, only 1,000 figures have been excavated and restored.

All information is drawn from exhibition text and the "Terra Cotta Warriors: Guardians of China's First Emperor" exhibition e-Guide, available for download at www.warriorsdc.org

More photos from the the Terra Cotta Warriors exhibition at the National Geographic Museum:

Photos by David Braun

 

Intelligent Travel: Sneak Peek--Terra Cotta Warriors at NG

BlogWild: Terra Cotta Countdown

National Geographic Magazine: Treasures from Ancient China

By Stuart L. Pimm
Special contributor to NatGeo News Watch

Ten days ago I was in Colombia with my Colombian graduate student German Forero Medina, about to give a keynote address on REDD--Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation -- the subject now uppermost in the minds of those of us who care about biodiversity. (Read about REDD on my earlier blog on NatGeo News Watch.)

I wasn't going to go that far without taking time to visit one of the most diverse rain forests on Earth--the Chocó, along the country's Pacific Slope.

Colombia has more than one rain forest. The most familiar is the Amazon.

This has been a good few weeks for the Amazon, so that news first.

Just over a week ago, Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced that only 7,000 square kilometres (2,700 square miles) of the Brazilian Amazon were cleared in the 12 months to August 2009. [NatGeo News Watch: Amazon deforestation slows as Brazil tightens prevention.]

That's by far the lowest rate since the country's National Institute for Space Research started using satellite imagery to monitor forest losses.

Neighbouring Colombia has much less of the Amazon compared to Brazil, but it too has been losing forest cover.

At the International Forum on Biodiversity and Climate Change on the November 6, Environment Minister Carlos Costa told his audience in Bogotá: "It is important for the world to know that the Colombian Amazon is for conservation only." I was in the audience.

The Colombian government was making more than bold statements. At the Protected Areas Conference and on the Biodiversity Forum two weeks earlier (October 26, also in Bogotá), the country announced the creation of the Yaigoyé Apaporis National Par --an area of over 1,000,000 hectares (4,000 square miles) in the Amazon close to the equator.

Even before that addition, Colombia had exceeded the targets for conservation it had agreed to meet by signing the Convention on Biological Diversity. Signers agreed to set aside 10 percent of their land for protected areas by 2010.

With this latest addition, Colombia has protected 12.5 million hectares of its country--about 49,000 square miles, or 11 percent of the country-- an area a little smaller than the State of Florida. Some 70 percent of the protected land is in the Amazon.

Here's the problem that had me at the second meeting--and German Forero Medina at both meetings: Colombia is spectacularly rich in biodiversity. (Ask any birdwatcher. Colombia has nearly 1,900 species, more than any other country and 19 percent of the world's total. It has a similar excess of mammals and amphibians.)

But rich in species though the Amazon might be, it's Colombia's other forests that have even more species--and they are not been given the same protection. German and I were in Colombia to argue for more reserves outside Colombia's Amazon.

Conservation biologist Stuart L. Pimm visits Colombia's Chocó rain forest. There Jorge Orejuela, director of the Cali Botanic Garden and an expert on the Chocó's birds and orchids, tells Pimm about the remarkable orchids and other species in one of Earth's biodiversity "hotspots."

Video by Stuart L. Pimm

One of those regions, the Chocó was where I headed after the meeting. The old road from Cali to Buenaventura is "the best area in the world for seeing a rich diversity of birds," according to Steven Hilty and William Brown, authors of the Birds of Colombia.

How could I resist? This is one of 25 "biodiversity hotspots"--places that my Duke University colleague Professor Norman Myers and colleagues showed contained half of all the variety of life on Earth--in about 10 percent of the land surface. By definition, hotspots are also places where there's been large losses of habitats.

22 feet of rain a year

Resist? Well, easily, it happens. Dripping wet mountain forest, some areas getting 7 metres (22 feet) of rain each year sounds wonderful, but tragically, it's been a war zone. Coca grows well here. The consequence of U.S. citizens being unable to "just say no" to cocaine have played havoc with Colombia and scarred the lives of millions of its people. Armed conflict and anti-government guerrillas had been active in the Chocó.

But all my Colombian friends were cautiously optimistic about the reduction in violence in the last few years. So I set off with Jorge Orejuela, an old friend with whom I shared a house in graduate school decades ago.

Jorge won the prestigious National Geographic/Buffett Award for Leadership in Conservation in 2007. He's the director of the Cali Botanic Garden and an expert on the Chocó's birds and orchids. And he won the prize for his efforts to protect the Chocó's forest.

Photo of orchid Dracula wallisii by Luis Mazariegos

In the rain, our 4x4 slipped and slid down the narrow dirt road, from Cali to the coast. Then we turned into the watershed of a large reservoir, showing our permits to the Colombian military who guard the area.

The next morning the rain let up. Jorge spotted orchids everywhere--many were small and I missed them. Close up, they were lovely.

"Here's a branch covered with orchids." Jorge pointed them out. "There's an orchid in the genus Pleurothallis--perhaps it's a new species...There are a hundred or more new species being described every couple of years from this genus in Colombia and Ecuador."

Video still by Stuart L. Pimm

Later, standing in the middle of a small river, looking at its bank covered in showy Sobralia orchids, Jorge continued, "Biodiversity here is unbelievable. Along this gradient from the Andes to the lowlands, we may have 1,500 species of butterflies and 800 bird species." (That's half as many again as birds that nest in all of Europe and North Africa.) "Orchids--perhaps 1,000 species."

"There's high human pressure on this area. My work that was highlighted by National Geographic was protecting areas that, had they been destroyed, the endemic species--those that we found only within them--would have been lost for ever."

Photo of orchid D. syndactyla by Luis Mazariegos

Just how many species are found only in these areas, I wondered. "And how many species are still unknown to science here," I asked Jorge.

"It's hard to tell," he said. "In one area, not knowing anything about orchids, we collected 400 species--and that was not the only thing I had to do. This was in an area of only 30 square kilometres." (About 12 square miles).

"Easily 20 percent of those species were new to science...Many of those are endangered--they are rare and found only in those particular places."

Professor Stuart L. Pimm is a conservation biologist at Duke University, North Carolina. A former member of the National Geographic Committee for Research and Exploration, Pimm is the author of dozens of books and research papers, including the book "The World According to Pimm: A Scientist Audits the Earth."

Read earlier blog posts by Stuart Pimm>>

But linger and ask about local festivals, and soon you will find that the U.S. is a richly diverse country that celebrates cultures of every kind. The melting pot is chock-full of spicy ingredients.

That was the experience of two adventurous photographers, Ross McDermott and Andrew Owen, who set out to discover and document America's small, hidden, and bizarre festivals.

Photo © American Festivals Project

Forty thousand miles and forty festivals later, they have thirty thousand pictures and many hours of video that showcase the many ways Americans celebrate.

"We discovered that what may have started as small local festivals have become in some cases national and even international events, thanks in large part to the Internet," Owen said in an interview. "These festivals are attracting people with a shared passion or interest, and so they have become global experiences with a local flavor."

The World Beard and Mustache Competition attracts contestants from every corner of the world. In the past few years, the competition has been attended by more Americans than any other country. See more photos on The American Festivals Project's World Beard and Mustache Competition Web page.

Photo by Ross McDermott and Andrew Owen

McDermott (27) and Owen (28) are from Charlottesville, Virginia, where they met through a mutual friend. The idea to document American festivals is McDermott's, who was inspired by the cultural festivals he photographed while teaching English in Japan.

Funded in part by the National Geographic Young Explorers Grants program, McDermott launched the "American Festivals Project."

In a truck converted to run on used vegetable oil they scrounged along the way from fast food restaurants and universities, the duo hit the festival circuit.

Photo © American Festivals Project

"I thought we would look for the most bizarre festivals and those that were dying out. But what we found is that in most cases the festivals are alive and doing well," McDermott said. "Their dynamic has changed with the influx of many visitors, but they are doing well."

The photographers sought out festivals that seemed to focus on the more peculiar facets of the American way of life.

And so they headed for the Machine Gun Shootout, Wooly Worm Festival, Cajun Mardi Gras, Rattlesnake Roundup, Xtreme Cheerleading, Middle of Nowhere Celebration, Rainbow Gathering, Okie Noodling Competition, Lumberjack Championships, Pine Ridge Pow Wow, Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, Hick Festival, and Pole Dancing competition. What could be more American than festivals like those?

Xtreme Dance and Cheer Competition, Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin. See more photos and read about this at The American Festivals Project's Xtreme Cheerleading Web page. 

Photo by Ross McDermott and Andrew Owen

Okie Noodling Festival from American Festivals Project on Vimeo.

World's Largest Rattlesnake Roundup, Sweetwater, Texas. See more photos and read about this at The American Festivals Project's World's Largest Rattlesnake Roundup Web page.

Photo by Ross McDermott and Andrew Owen

Rainbow Gathering, Sante Fe National Forest, New Mexico. See more photos and read about this at The American Festivals Project's Rainbow Gathering Web page.  

Photo by Ross McDermott and Andrew Owen

Rainbow Gathering 2009 from American Festivals Project on Vimeo.

Pine Ridge Pow Wow, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota. See more photos and read about this at The American Festivals Project's Pine Ridge Pow Wow Web page.

Photo by Ross McDermott and Andrew Owen

Pine Ridge Pow Wow from American Festivals Project on Vimeo.

"The Machine Gun Shootout in Kentucky was an example of what we thought were going to be eccentric people shooting their guns," McDermott said. "Instead, we found people passionate about their collections, and owning and firing machine guns in a safe and educational manner."

Machine Gun Shootout in Kentucky. See more photos and read about this at The American Festivals Project's Knob Creek Machine Gun Shootout Web page. 

Photos by Ross McDermott and Andrew Owen

Every festival gave them the same impression. The participants they met were passionate people with compelling reasons for doing what they were doing, and who were very good at it.

"We discovered that we were not photographing one-off events so much as sub-cultures. The Machine Gun Shootout is a festival for the machine gun sub-culture across the U.S. And the same can be said for the other festivals," McDermott said. "These festivals are sub-cultures within the homogenous American culture."

"The Cajun Mardi Gras is not only for the local people," Owen added. "It draws old-time musicians like fiddlers, from everywhere. It's really like a gathering of tribes. These festivals are focused human gatherings."

Cajun Mardi Gras, rural Louisiana. See more photos and read about this at The American Festivals Project's Cajun Mardi Gras Web page. 

Photo by Ross McDermott and Andrew Owen

"There are strong family traditions in some of these festivals," McDermott said. "For many participants, such as at the Lumberjack Championships, there is real pride in what's been passed down through the generations, and an opportunity to show that off."

World Lumberjack Championships, Hayward, Wisconsin. See more photos and read about this at The American Festivals Project's World Lumberjack Championships Web page.

Photo by Ross McDermott and Andrew Owen

2009 World Lumberjack Competition from American Festivals Project on Vimeo.

It sounds like an idyllic vacation, traveling across America, visiting interesting festivals, meeting colorful people. But from a photographer's point of view it had challenges and was very hard work.

"Unlike photographers who have the privilege of revisiting an event to rework shots that they might have missed, we were working on a very short notice, and often had a one or two-day window to gather all our material. We would arrive and start shooting, sometimes from sunrise to dusk, in all kinds of weather and without really knowing what the event would offer," McDermott said.

They would sometimes have to spend hours looking for veggie fuel for their truck. Driving from one festival to the next could involve long overnight journeys.

Sleep happened whenever the guys had a chance. In Oklahoma, it was so hot inside the tent that McDermott decided to sleep on the concrete picnic table.

Photos © American Festivals Project

"We attended a festival in Louisiana on one day and another in Wisconsin the very next day," Owen said. "That meant we had to drive through the night. We started shooting the second we arrived, and didn't stop for 12 hours."

McDermott and Owen are mulling over several uses of their collection of images and video. They are busy with talks and planning an exhibit in Charlottesville on January 9th at The Bridge--Progressive Arts Initiative.

Are there any plans to photograph the festivals of Europe or Asia?

"Not right now," McDermott said, "we're still trying to absorb what happened to us in America."

To see more of the 30,000 photos made by Ross McDermott and Andrw Owen, please visit The American Festivals Project Web site. Prints of the photos can be be ordered.

Support the AFP! from American Festivals Project on Vimeo.

"If the glaciers of the Himalaya melt, it will affect the livelihoods and survival of three hundred million people in China and up to a billion people throughout Asia," he said at the event convened by the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO.

Photo © FAO/Giulio Napolitano

World leaders meeting at FAO headquarters for the summit "unanimously adopted a declaration pledging renewed commitment to eradicate hunger from the face of the earth sustainably and at the earliest date," according to an FAO news release.

"Countries also agreed to work to reverse the decline in domestic and international funding for agriculture and promote new investment in the sector, to improve governance of global food issues in partnership with relevant stakeholders from the public and private sector, and to proactively face the challenges of climate change to food security."

Photo © FAO/Alessandra Benedetti

"Africa's small farmers, who produce most of the continent's food and depend mostly on rain, could see harvests drop by 50 per cent by 2020. We must make significant changes to feed ourselves and, most especially, to safeguard the poorest and most vulnerable," Ban Ki-Moon said.

FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf stressed the need to produce food where the poor and hungry live and to boost agricultural investment in these regions, according to the FAO statement.

"In some developed countries, two to four percent of the population are able to produce enough food to feed the entire nation and even to export, while in the majority of developing countries, 60 to 80 percent of the population are not able to meet country food needs," Diouf said.

Photo © FAO/Giulio Napolitano

"The planet can feed itself, provided that the decisions made are honoured and the required resources are effectively mobilized," he said, calling for an increase in official development assistance to agriculture, a greater share of developing country budgets devoted to agriculture and incentives to encourage private investment.

"Eliminating hunger from the face of Earth requires US$44 billion of official development assistance per year to be invested in infrastructure, technology and modern inputs. It is a small amount if we consider the $365 billion of agriculture producer support in OECD countries in 2007, and if we consider the $1,340 billion of military expenditures by the world in the same year," Diouf said.

"Over the past five years, several countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia have succeeded to substantially reduce the number of hungry people in their territories," Diouf said. "This means that we know what should be done and how it can be done to defeat hunger."

"In low-income food-deficit countries, food security programmes and plans exist and are awaiting political will and financing to become operational," he noted.

Diouf also underlined the fact that food security goes beyond production, the statement added. "We need protection against pests and diseases of plants and animals which often directly affect human health. We have likewise to face emergency situations resulting from natural disasters and to conserve the national resource base of food production to ensure sustainability."

The pope called for greater understanding of the needs of the rural world. "At the same time," he said, "access to international markets must be favoured for those products coming from the poorest areas, which today are often relegated to the margins. In order to achieve these objectives, it is necessary to separate the rules of international trade from the logic of profit viewed as an end in itself."

"While it is clear that the massive destruction of tropical rainforests poses a serious threat to the incredibly rich biodiversity found on Earth, others hazards are not so explicit," the group says in an essay published in the November 16 issue of the journal Current Biology.

The group made their statement in anticipation of an international agreement that global warming can be slowed by reducing carbon emissions caused by deforestation.

NGS stock photo by James P. Blair

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) consists of 192 countries that seek to develop intergovernmental policies that address challenges posed by climate change. The UNFCCC will meet in Copenhagen in December of 2009 to complete an agreement on incentives to reduce deforestation.

"Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) proposes to compensate tropical forest countries if they reduce their rate of deforestation, thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and includes strategies for conservation and enhancement of forest carbon stocks," the scientists say in a news statement.

"REDD should have multiple benefits. But, unfortunately, although the final rules might safeguard carbon stocks, they may fall short of their potential to protect biodiversity," says the author who organized the collaboration, Stuart L. Pimm from The Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. Pimm is a regular blogger for NatGeo News Watch and a former member of the National Geographic Committee for Research and Exploration.

Pimm and colleagues explain in their essay how REDD policies might have a less than advantageous impact on biodiversity and suggest how careful policies might reduce carbon emissions and benefit biodiversity.

NGS stock photo by James P. Blair

The researchers point out that if REDD emphasizes reducing deforestation rates, governments are likely to focus on areas that are cheapest to protect and that areas with high biodiversity might not be cost-competitive.

"Further, forests with the greatest density of carbon might not be the most essential locations for biodiversity conservation. There is also concern that deforestation processes will not be effectively abated by REDD, but simply displaced to other areas," the scientists say in their statement.

"Implementing REDD might accelerate the conversion and degradation of high biodiversity areas where REDD or other conservation funding is not available."

"Implementing REDD might accelerate the conversion and degradation of high biodiversity areas where REDD or other conservation funding is not available," Pimm explained.

The authors make several suggestions for maximizing the positive biodiversity impacts of REDD policies.

They propose that rules to conserve, assess and perhaps even financially support biodiversity should be included in the text of the Copenhagen agreement.

"Biodiversity, itself, is essential to ecosystem adaptation. Ensuring that REDD policies not only reduce carbon emissions but conserve biodiversity will ensure that humanity and the biosphere can be as resilient as possible to climate disruptions," Pimm said.

North America before the time of contact with Europeans five hundred years ago was a mosaic of extraordinary human diversity. Hundreds of tribes had their own cultures, political systems, art forms, spiritual beliefs--and languages.

NGS stock photo by David Boyer

By the late 19th Century all that had changed. Most tribes had been restricted to reservations. Many of their children were taken to boarding schools where they were required to speak only in English as part of a program to assimilate Native Americans into the white culture. Native American languages were mainly dead or dying.

By the late 20th Century, more than half the Native Americans in the U.S. were living in urban areas, where English was their everyday and home language. The few remaining Native American languages still in use were increasingly spoken only by the elders.

But there has been a resilience among the first people of North America in the 21st Century, and many of them have been determined to hang on to their heritage. Others are looking for ways to revitalize traditional cultures, spiritual values--and languages.

NGS stock photo by Chris Johns

One organization that has been established to record the disappearing languages around the world, including those of North America--and perhaps to help revitalize those that are on the brink of extinction--is the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages.

Under the Enduring Voices Project, linguists journey to meet with last speakers, listen to their stories, and document their languages with film, pictures, and audio to help communities preserve their knowledge of species, landscapes, and traditions before they vanish, according to the project's Web site.

I spoke to Dr. Greg Anderson, director of Living Tongues, about the disappearing languages of the U.S. and what's been done to document, if not save them.

Why should we care about preserving languages?

Whether for heritage or scientific reasons, languages need to be recorded.

Every language is useful as a means to identify a group. It codifies the history and world view of a people. It's clear that it's important to many people that they have their language that identifies them uniquely as a group.

Most native communities in the U.S. want to have as good and accurate record of their language as possible, in a format to be enjoyed by as many people as possible. There is great interest in documenting this heritage.

Documenting a disappearing language is so important, but it's possible only to really begin to appreciate all the subtleties and complexities of language if you have some speakers left to give you the dynamics and social context. If a language goes then it can't find new life without recorded materials.

"Every language furthers and refines our understanding of cognition, communications systems, the nature of the mind and the different ways people categorize our collective human experience."

From a scientific perspective it is also imperative to document languages while they are still alive. Languages are markers of identity and group cohesion. Linguists will tell you that every language furthers and refines our understanding of cognition, communications systems, the nature of the mind and the different ways people categorize our collective human experience.

For scientists, who knows what benefits there will be down the line that we don't even know about now yet. Certainly there will be uses for the data. But you can be sure it won't be used if it's not documented.

Tell us about the language hotspots in North America

In the Enduring Voices project, we focus on the situation of languages in hotspots. Several hotspots have been identified in North America, most notably in Oklahoma. It is where we find a concentration of unique languages that are vanishing. These are the priority areas for future work in language documentation.

The idea is to create areas where efforts need to be concentrated, where the number and different types of languages have consequences that are greater collectively for humanity.

Source for Language Hotspots map: Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages

Each language is of course equally valued, but we have a finite number of people, dollars, and time to do this work, so we need to maximize our efforts and resources.

In North America there are 150-170 languages that still have at least one speaker. Many of these languages have fewer than a hundred speakers. There are very few languages that have decent prospects of surviving without significant effort on the part of their communities to continue to find a use for them.

Oregon was probably the most diverse region of languages in the U.S. California might have the claim, but it is much larger, so the award for density of linguistic diversity goes to Oregon.

"At the time Lewis and Clark arrived in what's now Oregon 200 years ago there were 14 language families, more than in all of Europe combined."

At the time Lewis and Clark arrived in what's now Oregon 200 years ago there were 14 language families, more than in all of Europe combined. Today only five families of languages exist, and most of them have only a handful of speakers.

There is only one language family that has more than a hundred or two hundred speakers, and that's Northern Paiute, in southeastern Oregon, where the elders can still speak it when they get together. For most of the rest of the people there the everyday language is English.

The vast majority of the remaining languages in Oregon are known only by very few elders. The language diversity of that region has fallen off a cliff.

NGS stock photo by David McLain

There has been some documentation of these languages, but mostly just as text, and often a hundred years old. The complexity of the setting of these texts, and the sounds of the languages have often been lost.

With the loss of the languages, all kinds of wonderful things that the speakers did with their languages have also vanished, for example, some of the greatest works of oral literature ever produced--the multilingual performances with different characters speaking different languages that was found in the Pacific Northwest.

The highly elaborate dances that accompanied the oral tradition are frequently also gone.

Large amounts of local knowledge about fauna and flora, ecosystem management, local place names, spiritual values, and so on are all submerged, altered or gone because the original languages that expressed these concepts are gone or no longer well understood.

 How is this situation being addressed?
 
Two directions. We have tried to do a little through the Enduring Voices program, which has been quite effective at raising public awareness about the issue of language endangement. A longer-term arrangement is through Living Tongues, where we plan and execute larger scale projects. These are the main ways we engage the communities and help them to document and revitalize their languages.

Through Enduring Voices, we have been helping the Winnemem Wintu, one of the indigenous peoples of north central California. We have given them a technology kit and are providing training to help them compile video and audio recordings, with the purpose of producing language revitalization materials for their language.

Winnemem Wintu representatives are going to take part in an Enduring Voices workshop in Santa Fe next April. They will be joined by representatives of the Sac and Fox tribes, who are also interested in maintaining their Sauk language.

Our workshop takes people step by step through the raw data they collect and shows them how to produce a book or audio or some other product they can use to document their language and/or to teach others to speak it.

NGS stock photo by B. Anthony Stewart

There is a long process between raw data and usable material. But the communities themselves must want to collect the data and do something with it. This is really the only way that languages will survive into the future, if activists in the communities are interested in maintaining their language.

How communities use their language is up to them. It can be informal, such as by producing a reader, or formal, such as a course taught in schools. Languages can be revitalized by finding new users and creating new uses for them.

Some communities outsource this work to us. We have been working with the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians in Oregon and helping them build a talking dictionary. It now has many thousands of words. Only the tribe has access to it. It is knowledge they want to keep to themselves, which is their right.

NGS stock photo by Bates Littlehales

Once a language is dead it is pretty hard to imagine how it could be brought back. When you are down to only a few speakers you can find ways to build speaker communities, such as happened successfully in Hawaii, where they have created new speakers.

Language nests have been built in other native American communities with some success. The Cherokee in Oklahoma have shown great success in generating new speakers with their immersion school.

NGS stock photo by Maggie Steber

The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, a casino-funded tribe, has resources and the will to support language regeneration programs, and have successfully generated new speakers of Chinuk Wawa, the lingua franca of many Oregon reservations of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This shows that it is possible to reclaim languages.

If you have five speakers of a language and you start immersion schools you can produce 25 speakers. Then you can multiply those again. The Cherokee can be thinking of thousands and tens of thousands of speakers of their language on this basis ultimately. It is a model that has worked.

Children are sponges and absorb languages easily. If they are placed in a language immersion situation where everyone is speaking the language they will become fluent.

Preserving languages should be of interest to everyone, right?

Enduring Voices is promoting the key hotspots issue in your backyard. Sure there are vanishing languages around the globe, but your neighbors might be speakers of one of them. Most people appreciate that diversity is good. You wouldn't want to be allowed to eat only one kind of ice cream flavor or only one type of food always and forever with no options. 

"The loss of any language is a loss for us all. We lose part of the human genius, and with the disappearance of a language also goes a lot of spiritual concepts, art, and so on."

The loss of any language is a loss for us all. We lose part of the human genius, and with the disappearance of a language also goes a lot of spiritual concepts, art, and so on.

There is also the concept that you don't have to be tied to one language, or worse, be forced to learn one over another. You don't have to give up one language for another. People are capable of learning and appreciating more than one language. Multilingualism is the norm in many parts of the world. 

How do you find languages to rescue?

We wait for people to come to us. Native American communities tend to be cautious with outsiders. They are also perfectly capable of finding the information through the media and public information sources, and through word of mouth, if they want to do something about preserving their language.

We will work with any North American community, no matter what the size or the state of their language (unless it has no speakers and was never recorded of course), to see what kinds of solutions might be possible.

If there is a will to maintain the language, we seek to find the way to make it happen. Interested community activists are welcome to contact Enduring Voices or Living Tongues to start the discussion.

He called on "people of goodwill everywhere" to join him in a worldwide hunger strike this weekend. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said he will be joining the strike on Sunday.

FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf is spending the 24 hours he is on hunger strike in the reception area of the FAO headquarters building in Rome. Media interviewed him as he started the hunger strike last night. Diouf dressed in a tracksuit, overcoat and woolly hat to keep out the cold. His make-shift room in the reception area is equipped with a desk, a sofa to sleep on and a prayer mat.

© FAO/Giulio Napolitano

Diouf began his fast at 8 p.m. yesterday in the lobby of FAO headquarters in Rome, where he also spent the night. He told reporters, "I hope that through these gestures we will raise awareness, and build pressure from public opinion to ensure that those who can change this situation are able to do so."

According to FAO statistics 1.02 billion people live in chronic hunger.

The World Summit on Food Security (16-18 November 2009) has been called to agree on immediate action to reverse the situation and build momentum to end the scourge of hunger and malnutrition, the FAO said in a statement.

Heads of state and government from FAO's 192 Members have been invited to attend. Diouf hopes there will be as many participants as at the last FAO Summit in 2002.

"Despite all the promises made, concrete action on hunger has been lacking," Diouf said earlier this week, adding, "In the absence of strong measures another global food crisis cannot be excluded."

Diouf also launched an online anti-hunger petition on http://www.1billionhungry.org/. Visitors to the Web site are asked to sign the petition if they agree that one billion people living in chronic hunger is unacceptable. Everyone is encouraged to use Twitter or other social media tools to spread the word about the initiative.

The FAO produced this video to promote the petition:

One billion people live in chronic hunger. In the time it takes to watch this video, two children will die of hunger. If this situation is unacceptable to you, sign on http://www.1billionhungry.org

Video by FAO

"I would urge as many people as possible to sign our petition," Diouf said. "Each click will serve as another reason, in addition to the billion we already have, for ending hunger. Each click will also serve as a goad to world leaders to 'walk the talk'."

Diouf, who issued a call for a worldwide hunger strike at a press conference last Wednesday, will touch neither food nor water until 8 this evening.

Anyone wanting to join the strike can do so at any time this weekend, deciding for themselves how many meals to skip, the FAO statement said.

"I hope that this gesture, together with others, may help achieve our goal of reducing the number of people around the world suffering from hunger and the number of children--now one every six seconds--dying of hunger or related diseases," Diouf said.

"We have the technical means and the resources to eradicate hunger from the world so it is now a matter of political will, and political will is influenced by public opinion."

© FAO/Giulio Napolitano

"At a time when so many species of wildlife are threatened, we once in a while have an opportunity to celebrate an amazing success story," Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said when making the announcement this week. "Today is such a day. The brown pelican is back!"

Pelicans are primarily fish-eaters, requiring up to four pounds of fish a day, according to the USFWS Brown Pelican Fact Sheet. "Their diet consists mainly of 'rough' fish such as menhaden, herring, sheepshead, pigfish, mullet, grass minnows, topminnows, and silversides. On the Pacific Coast, pelicans rely heavily on anchovies and sardines. The birds have also been known to eat some crustaceans, usually prawns."

NGS stock photo by Bianca Lavies

The brown pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis) was first declared endangered in 1970 under the Endangered Species Preservation Act, a precursor to the current Endangered Species Act. "Since then, thanks to a ban on DDT and efforts by states, conservation organizations, private citizens and many other partners, the bird has recovered. There are now more than 650,000 brown pelicans found across Florida and the Gulf and Pacific Coasts, as well as in the Caribbean and Latin America," said a statement released by the Department of Interior (DOI).

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service removed the brown pelican population in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and northward along the Atlantic Coast states from the list of endangered species in 1985. This week's action removed the remaining population from the list.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates the global population of brown pelicans at 650,000 individuals.

NGS stock photo by Bates Littlehales

"After being hunted for its feathers, facing devastating effects from the pesticide DDT and suffering from widespread coastal habitat loss, the pelican has made a remarkable recovery," Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks Tom Strickland said at a press conference in New Orleans to announce the delisting. "We once again see healthy flocks of pelicans in the air over our shores."

The pelican's recovery is largely due to the federal ban on the general use of the pesticide DDT in 1972, the DOI said. "This action was taken after former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Rachel Carson published Silent Spring and alerted the nation to the widespread dangers associated with unrestricted pesticide use."

Measuring up to 54 inches long, weighing 8 to 10 pounds, and having a wingspan between 6-1/2 feet and 7-1/2 feet, brown pelicans are the smallest members of the seven pelican species worldwide, says the USFWS Brown Pelican Fact Sheet. "They can be identified by their chestnut-and-white necks; white heads with pale yellow crowns; brownstreaked back, rump, and tail; blackishbrown belly; grayish bill and pouch; and black legs and feet.

NGS stock photo by Robert Madden

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Sam Hamilton praised the Gulf and Pacific Coast states for their constant efforts to restore this iconic coastal species. "Brown pelicans could not have recovered without a strong and continuing support network of partnerships among federal and state government agencies, tribes, conservation organizations, and individual citizens," said Hamilton. "This is truly a success story that the whole nation can celebrate."

In the southwest, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, The Nature Conservancy and numerous other conservation organizations helped purchase important nesting sites and developed monitoring programs to ensure pelican rookeries were thriving, the DOI added.

"Louisiana, long known as the 'pelican state,' and the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission jointly implemented a restoration project. A total of 1,276 young pelicans were captured in Florida and released at three sites in southeastern Louisiana during the 13 years of the project."

Brown pelicans have extremely keen eyesight, states the USFWS Brown Pelican Fact Sheet. "As they fly over the ocean, sometimes at heights of 60 to 70 feet, they can spot a school of small fish or even a single fish. Diving steeply into the water, they may submerge completely or only partly--depending on the height of the dive--and come up with a mouthful of fish. Air sacs beneath their skin cushion the impact and help pelicans surface."

NGS stock photo by Micheal E. Long

Past efforts to protect the brown pelican actually led to the birth of the National Wildlife Refuge System more than a century ago in central Florida, according to the DOI.

"German immigrant Paul Kroegel, appalled by the indiscriminate slaughter of pelicans for their feathers, approached President Theodore Roosevelt. This led Roosevelt to create the first National Wildlife Refuge at Pelican Island in 1903, when Kroegel was named the first refuge manager. Today, the system has grown to 550 national wildlife refuges, many of which have played key roles in the recovery of the brown pelican."

Brown pelicans have few natural enemies. Although ground nests are sometimes destroyed by hurricanes, flooding, or other natural disasters, the biggest threat to pelicans comes from people, says the USFWS Brown Pelican Fact Sheet. "In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, pelicans were hunted for their feathers, which adorned women's clothing, particularly hats."

NGS stock photo by Bates Littlehales

With removal of the brown pelican from the list of threatened and endangered species, federal agencies will no longer be required to consult with the FWS to ensure any action they authorize, fund, or carry out will not harm the species. However, additional federal laws, such as the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Lacey Act, will continue to protect the brown pelican, its nests and its eggs, FWS said.

FWS has developed a Post-Delisting Monitoring Plan, designed to monitor and verify that the recovered, delisted population remains secure from the risk of extinction once the protections of the Endangered Species Act are removed. The Service can relist the brown pelican if future monitoring or other information shows it is necessary to prevent a significant risk to the brown pelican.

The pouch suspended from the lower half of the pelican's long, straight bill really can hold up to three times more than the stomach, according to the USFWS Brown Pelican Fact Sheet. "In addition to being used as a dip net, the pouch holds the pelican's catch of fish until the accompanying water--as much as three gallons-- is squeezed out. During this time, laughing gulls may hover above the pelican, or even sit on its bill, ready to steal a fish or two. Once the water is out, the pelican swallows the fish and carries them in its esophagus. The pouch also serves as a cooling mechanism in hot weather and as a feeding trough for young pelicans."

NGS stock photo by Robert Madden

Monitoring brown pelicans from now on will be done in cooperation with the State resource agencies, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Mexico, other federal agencies, non-governmental organizations, and individuals, FWS said this week, adding, that the service is working with state natural resource agencies where the brown pelican occurs to develop cooperative management agreements to ensure that the species continues to be monitored.

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"Some countries have already made the link to a limited extent and are glimpsing benefits in terms of jobs, livelihoods and economic returns that outstrip those wedded to older economic models of the previous century," says a statement accompanying the release today of a report prepared by The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB).

NGS stock photo by Michael Nichols

TEEB was launched by Germany and the European Commission in response to a proposal by the G8+5 Environment Ministers (Potsdam, Germany 2007) to develop a global study on the economics of biodiversity loss. It is an independent study, hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme with financial support from European countries.

In its report released today, TEEB gave these examples of countries already reaping benefits from ecosystem projects:

• In Venezuela, investment in the national protected area system is preventing sedimentation that otherwise could reduce farm earnings by around U.S.$3.5 million a year.
• Planting and protecting nearly 12,000 hectares of mangroves in Vietnam costs just over $1 million but saved annual expenditures on dyke maintenance of well over $7 million.
• One in 40 jobs in Europe is now linked with the environment and ecosystem services ranging from clean tech "eco-industries" to organic agriculture, sustainable forestry and eco-tourism.
• Investment in the protection of Guatemala's Maya Biosphere Reserve is generating an annual of income of close to $50 million a year, createed 7,000 jobs, and boosted local family incomes.

"Accelerate, scale-up and embed investments in the management and restoration of ecosystems."

The TEEB report, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, calls on policy-makers to "accelerate, scale-up and embed investments in the management and restoration of ecosystems."

It also calls for more sophisticated cost-benefit analysis before policy decisions are made.

The report cites a study on mangroves in south Thailand on the conversion of mangroves into shrimp farms, an example of cost-benefit analysis that was perhaps not very well thought-through.

"Subsidized commercial shrimp farms can generate returns of around $1,220 per hectare by clearing mangrove forests. But this does not take into account the losses to local communities totaling over $12,000 a hectare linked with wood and non-wood forest products, fisheries and coastal protection services," TEEB said.

"Nor does the profit to the commercial operators take into account the costs of rehabilitating the abandoned sites after five years of exploitation---estimated at over $9,000 a hectare." 

Ecosystem-savvy economy

TEEB's report outlines a plan to catalyze a transition to more ecosystem-savvy economies able to meet the multiple challenges and deliver the multiple opportunities on a planet of six billion people, rising to nine billion by 2050.

Said Pavan Sukhdev, TEEB's study leader, "Nature's multiple and complex values have direct economic impacts on human wellbeing and public and private spending. Recognizing and rewarding the value delivered to society by the natural environment must become a policy priority.

"The economic invisibility of ecosystems and biodiversity is increased by our dominant economic model, which is consumption-led, production-driven, and GDP-measured. This model is in need of significant reform. The multiple crises we are experiencing--fuel, food, finance, and the economy--serve as reminders of the need for change.

"It is now up to governments to provide fiscal or other incentives to move us from short-term opportunism to long-term stewardship. The right policies can help us move toward a resource efficient economy."

The report comes in advance of the United Nations climate convention meeting in Copenhagen where governments are expected to give the green light to funding developing countries to maintain forests, the statement says.

"Close to 20 per cent of current global greenhouse gas emissions are linked with deforestation. Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) aims to counter this while also generating financial flows from North to South.

"REDD and REDD-Plus, which includes not only maintaining forests but planting and recovering forest systems, secured the backing of close 15 presidents and prime ministers at a special meeting hosted last month by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon." (Read about this on Stuart Pimm's blog Better REDD than dead when it comes to climate change.) 

NGS stock photo by James P. Blair

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, said: "Paying developing countries under REDD marks a fundamental step forward in terms of bringing the huge financial importance of ecosystems and biodiversity into the centre of economic activity."

"It could open the door to more creative and forward looking funds and mechanisms covering other nature-based infrastructure such as peatlands and wetlands en route to support for the services generated by coastal and marine ecosystems such as coral reefs to mangroves," he said.

Read on for the key recommendations of The Economics of Ecosystems and Biovidersity:

Data based on analysis of satellite imagery by the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) suggests that 2,700 square miles (7,000 square kilometers) of forest were cleared in Brazil during the 12-month period, the lowest rate since the government started monitoring deforestation in 1988.

Photo of Amazon forest courtesy of Brazil's Ministry of Environment

"The new deforestation data represents an extraordinary and significant reduction for Brazil. Climate change is the most challenging issue that we face today," Lula said.

Photo of Brazil's President Lula at yesterday's event by Ricardo Stuckert/PR

The slowing deforestation levels are primarily a result of the Action Plan for Deforestation Control and Prevention in the Amazon, a set of cross-government policies and measures launched in 2004 to improve monitoring, strengthen enforcement, define conservation areas and foster sustainable activities in the region, said a statement from Brazil's Secretariat for Social Communication (SECOM).

"With the support of 13 government agencies, the plan played a major role in helping reduce deforestation in the Amazon by 74.8 percent from 2004 to 2009."

Deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazon 

Surveillance and enforcement

The INPE data indicates that the projected 32 percent increase in government inspections over the last year inhibited illegal deforestation in the Amazon, the statement added.

"Satellite images from INPE's near real-time deforestation detection system enabled government inspectors to focus their efforts where deforestation is most critical and act quickly to prevent new areas from being cleared.

"As a result of this surveillance, the Brazilian Environment Institute apprehended around 230,000 cubic meters of wood, 414 trucks and tractors, and embargoed 502,000 hectares [1,240,000 acres] of land linked to illegal deforestation activities in the region over the period from August 2008 to July 2009, leading the government to issue over R$ 2.8 billion reais [U.S.$ 1.6 billion] in fines.

"In addition to fines, the government used other tools to financially constrain those whose activities contribute to the destruction of the forest. This includes a resolution enacted by the National Monetary Council in mid-2008 that requires farmers and ranchers in the Amazon to meet environmental criteria in order to obtain loans from public and private banks."

Brazil is home to 60 percent of the Amazon. The "Legal Brazilian Amazon" ("Amazonia Legal Brasileira") is an administrative region that spreads across the states of Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Mato Grosso, Pará, Rondônia, Roraima and portions of Tocantins, Maranhão and Goiás. It represents 53 percent of Brazil's total land area (about 2 million square miles or 5 million square kilometers), has a population of 25 million people, and generates just under 8 percent of Brazil's total GDP.

Around 43 percent (800,000 square miles or 2.1 million square kilometers) of the Amazon land falls within Protected Areas or Indigenous Lands Around 21 percent of the Amazon are federal or state public lands outside Protected Areas and Indigenous Lands. There are about 400 identified and demarcated indigenous lands in the region, home to between 170,000 and 200,000 indigenous people.

Image and caption courtesy of Brazil's Ministry of Environment

Conservation and sustainable activities

Federal and state governments also worked to create around 50 million hectares [123 million acres] in new conservation units in the Amazon from 2004 to 2008, while another 10 million hectares [25 million acres] in indigenous lands were granted recognition in the same period, SECOM said. "Today, 43 percent of the Legal Amazon is federally protected."

The government also initiated a concession scheme for sustainable management in public forests. The first concessions were granted in August 2008, enabling three private groups to carry sustainable logging and extraction activities in 237,000 acres (96,000 hectares) of the Jamari Public Forest, in the state of Rondônia.

Deforestation and climate change

Deforestation in the Amazon region is the main source of Brazil's greenhouse gas emissions, SECOM said. According to the first National Inventory of Greenhouse Gases, up to 75 percent of Brazil's emissions come from deforestation and land-use change.

"For this reason, tackling deforestation is at the center of Brazil's strategy to combat global warming. Launched in December 2008, the National Plan on Climate Change sets targets to cut deforestation rates by 80 percent by 2020, which would avoid 4.8 billion tons in CO2 emissions during this period.

"To meet these goals, the plan sets out a number of actions and programs to combat illegal logging and provide sustainable economic alternatives to the people living in the Amazon, among other measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in different sectors," SECOM said.

Photo of Amazon forest courtesy of Brazil's Ministry of Environment

Further action required, conservationists say

Although it is essential to recognize the efforts made by the federal and state governments as well as Brazilian society in general, further action is required, said WWF-Brazil CEO Denise Hamú.

"Deforestation needs to continue falling in a sustainable manner and must take place in other Brazilian biomes in addition to the Amazon, such as the Cerrado," she said in a statement issued by the conservation organization in response to President Lula's announcement.

Hamú also said that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, to be held in Copenhagen in December, will be a good opportunity for Brazil to defend the adoption of clear and ambitious emission reduction commitments by the participant countries.

"Deforestation numbers such as the ones showed today by President Lula strengthen Brazil's credentials to lead the climate negotiations and take the forefront in building a new development model for the world that respects the environment and the people."

"Deforestation numbers such as the ones showed today by President Lula strengthen Brazil's credentials to lead the climate negotiations and take the forefront in building a new development model for the world that respects the environment and the people", Hamú said.

"Among the other biomes, the most critical situation is found in the Cerrado," WWF-Brazil said. "While deforestation in the Amazon has finally fallen below 10,000 square kilometers, in the Cerrado it surpasses 20,000 square kilometers." The Cerrado is a vast tropical savanna region southeast of the Amazon.
 
36 football fields a minute

Despite conservation efforts, global deforestation continues at an alarming rate--13 million hectares per year, or 36 football fields a minute, WWF added. "It generates almost 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and halting forest loss has been identified as one of the most cost-effective ways to keep the world out of the danger zone of runaway climate change."

Apart from decreasing emissions caused by deforestation in the Amazon, Brazil needs to work on achieving reductions in the industry and transport sectors, and especially in energy generation and transmission processes, added Cláudio Maretti, WWF-Brazil's conservation director.

"After all, the planet urgently needs expressive greenhouse gas emission reductions", he said. 

The boreal forest, as it is called, must be preserved because it is holding vast amounts of carbon in and under its trees, and also because it offers a buffer for plants and animals impacted by climate change.

Cut down those trees and develop the land and all that carbon will be released into the atmosphere--and the animals and plants seeking sanctuary from the warmer lower latitudes will have nowhere to go.

Carbon-rich wetlands in Canada's Northwest Territories.

Photo by Chad Delany, Ducks Unlimited

"When the world thinks of forests and their value to offset global warming, tropical forests come to mind," say the Boreal Songbird Initiative and the Canadian Boreal Initiative, sponsors of the report The Carbon the World Forgot.

The report released today shows that the global impact of Canada's boreal forest, which stores nearly twice as much carbon per acre as tropical forests, has been vastly underestimated.

Canada's boreal forest

Map courtesy of Boreal Songbird Initiative

"The Carbon the World Forgot identifies the boreal forests of North America as not only the cornerstone habitat for key mammal species, but one of the most significant carbon stores in the world, the equivalent of 26 years of global emissions from burning fossil fuels, based on 2006 emissions levels. Globally, these forests store 22 percent of all carbon on the earth's land surface," says a statement accompanying the release of the report.

Breakdown of carbon stored by global forest biome

Chart courtesy of Boreal Songbird Initiative

"Past accounting greatly underestimated the amount and depth of carbon stored in and under the boreal forest," says Jeff Wells, an author of the report. "In addition to carbon storage in trees, organic matter accumulated over millennia is stored in boreal peatlands and areas of permafrost. Some of this boreal carbon has been in place for up to 8,000 years."

"The boreal forest's status as the most intact forest left on Earth also offers a unique opportunity for plants and animals forced to adapt to shifting habitats."

The boreal forest's status as the most intact forest left on Earth also offers a unique opportunity for plants and animals forced to adapt to shifting habitats. Most other habitats today are highly fragmented by human activity, creating a variety of additional obstacles for species survival, the statement added.

Oscar Lake in Canada's Northwest Territories

Photo by D. Langhorst, Ducks Unlimited

"In light of these findings, today's report urges that international negotiations on carbon and forest protection consider ways to account for and protect the boreal," the authors say.

"Any effective and affordable response to climate change should include preserving the world's remaining, carbon-rich old-growth forests," said Steve Kallick, director of the Pew Environment Group's International Boreal Conservation Campaign. "This report makes clear that nations must look not just at the tropics but at all the world's old-growth forests for climate change solutions."

Map courtesy of Boreal Songbird Initiative

"Keeping that carbon in place by protecting boreal forests is an important part of the climate equation," said Andrew Weaver, "If you cut down the boreal forest and disturb its peatlands, you release more carbon, accelerating climate change." Weaver of the University of Victoria is a lead author for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was awarded the Nobel Prize.

Photo by Jeff Wells, Boreal Songbird Initiative

"The collision of climate disruption and massive human degradation of ecosystems is seriously worrying globally," said conservation biologist Stuart Pimm of Duke University. "These changes are surely novel in earth's history. Maintaining the boreal forest's intactness will be critical to slowing ecosystem shifts and to providing migratory corridors for displaced wildlife." Stuart Pimm is a regular contributor to NatGeo News Watch. 

Photo by Larry Innes, Canadian Boreal Initiative

"Conservation can be an important tool in the fight to mitigate climate change," said Larry Innes, director of the Canadian Boreal Initiative, a sponsor of the report. "International protocols and legislation need to create opportunities to maintain the carbon stored in intact boreal forest soils, peatlands, and wetlands while enabling indigenous and local communities to take a leadership role in determining how to best conserve not only carbon, but the full suite of ecological, cultural and economic values that the boreal forest represents."

Photo by Jeff Nadler

More than 1,500 international scientists led by authors for the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recommended in 2007 that at least half of Canada's boreal forest be protected from further disturbance--in large part to keep both the boreal forest carbon bank and internationally significant wildlife habitats intact.

Despite the current lack of international protocol, several Canadian First Nation, provincial, and federal governments have taken important steps to protect hundreds of millions of acres of Canada's carbon rich boreal forest. In all, scientists are recommending that at least 300 million hectares be protected.

Read on for more photos, maps, and the full text of the executive summary of the report The Carbon the World Forgot:

Credit: Photo courtesy of Tim Davenport.

"The most extensive DNA study to-date of Africa's rarest monkey reveals that the species had an intriguing sexual past. Of the last two remaining populations of the recently discovered kipunji, (key-POON-jee), one population shows evidence of past mating with baboons while the other does not," the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) said in a statement.

NESCent is a collaborative effort of Duke University, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University and is sponsored by the National Science Foundation.

"The first analyses revealed that kipunji represented an entirely new genus of primate, Rungwecebus. Now, thanks to additional DNA samples collected from dung and tissue--the most extensive genetic data to date--scientists have a more complete picture of the genetic makeup of this monkey," NESCent said.

"The kipunji is found in two tiny forest fragments totaling less than seven square miles," researchers explained. "Of the last two remaining populations, one is in Tanzania's Southern Highlands, and the other lies 250 miles away in a mountain range called the Udzungwas."

Dung samples

Armed with six dung samples from the Udzungwas--the first ever genetic material from this population--and two additional tissue samples from the Southern Highlands, the researchers were able to reconstruct the genetic relationships between these populations and kipunji's closest kin, NESCent added.

"Confirming other reports, the Southern Highlands population contained bits of DNA that are similar to baboons. This suggests that the two species interbred at some point after they diverged," researchers explained.

"Way back in time in the evolutionary history of this population there was at least one event where there was some cross-fertilization with a baboon," said study author Tim Davenport of the Wildlife Conservation Society.

In contrast, the researchers discovered that the Udzungwa population showed no traces of baboon DNA.

"We thought the DNA from the second population would match the first one, but instead we got something quite different," said first author Trina Roberts of the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in Durham, North Carolina.

"Mating across the species barrier isn't unheard of in the animal kingdom."

Mating across the species barrier isn't unheard of in the animal kingdom, NESCent said.

"We usually think of species' genomes as being contained and not sharing with each other, but sometimes one species picks up genetic material from another through interbreeding," said Roberts. "It's as if the genomes are a little leaky."

The findings help to settle a debate over kipunji's status as a new genus of primate. "They're still separate taxa--they're not baboons, they're still kipunji," said co-author Bill Stanley of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. "But there's a little bit of baboon DNA that shows up when you analyze their DNA."

Their results may also help to set conservation priorities for this critically endangered monkey. Much of the kipunji's remaining habitat is threatened by deforestation for farming and other uses, the researchers explained. "There's a lot of pressure on the forest for natural resources--food, medicine, fuel, and building materials," said Davenport. "Part of the challenge we have is making sure the forest isn't degraded any further."

Census data indicate there are just over 1,100 individuals left in the wild, said Davenport. Of these, roughly 1,000 live in the Southern Highlands, and 100 remain in the Udzungwas. Both populations may require habitat protection if we are to preserve the genetic diversity of the species, researchers said.

"Udzungwa is a tiny population," said Roberts. "What we've shown is that it is substantially different from the first population. We may not be able to resurrect it by simply transplanting kipunji from one population to the other," Roberts said.

"If we were to lose it we might in fact lose the true kipunji genome forever," she added.

"We have two separate populations that are slightly genetically different, so until we learn more it is extremely important that we maintain both of them," Davenport said. "It might be that those genetic differences have an impact on their survival in the future."

The team's findings appear online in the November 11 issue of Biology Letters.