(This is the English translation for the article that appears below. From ILCW member M. Madasamy, India)

M. Madasamy, an environmental activist from Peermade Kerala, India has sent a representation to prime minister of India and to the finance minister regarding the introduction of a common currency in Asia much like the euro in European countries.

If a common currency is introduced in Asia it will unleash more revenue through investment, trade, financial convergence, among countries and reduce exchange risk. It will also give a way to a reduced inflation rate of several nations. The name of the currency will be "asio". After the introduction of euro, the currency has led a remarkable profit through tourism among European countries.

The ministry of finance of India has sent a reply for this commendable initiative to bring this issue before the government of India and has given assurance that the government will take necessary steps in this regard soon.

The Hermit's Call

There's always been

Someone

in these woods.

Look for what

I am

You always have.

 —Bernard Quetchenbach

Environmental article written by ILCW member M Madasamy from the DEEPIKA Daily, India. In the Malayalam language.

© Boyd Norton; an excerpt from Into the Boondocks, a book-in-progress.

In the summer of 1990, on my second visit to Lake Baikal, I spent time at the northern tip of the lake. While there I became intrigued by a name I found on a map – a village called Holodnia, located about 20 kilometers north of Baikal’s northern shores. Now holodnia, in Russian, means cold. What on earth is it like to live in a place called Cold, Siberia? I had to find out.

After two days of finagling I managed to get a vehicle and driver to take me and a few colleagues to the village. There we found a charming collection of old, typically Siberian log homes, two small stores and a biblioteka (library). It was a hot day, with temperature in the high 80s – not the typical picture (or temperature) that most of us associate with Siberia. The streets were lined with lovely old shade trees. Except for a few Russian made vehicles, mostly beat up old Ladas, and an ancient tractor, this could have been a bucolic town right out of mid-America circa 1940s. The only thing missing from the picture was a makeshift stand with kids selling lemonade.



We walked leisurely up one street and down another. On one of those side streets a man stood in his yard behind a picket fence tending a garden. He waved and we stopped to chat. He was incredulous when he discovered we were Americans. Amerikanski! Apparently no one here had ever seen a non-Russian, let alone an American. With great excitement he invited us in for tea. Here was my chance to find out about life in Cold, Siberia.



We sat in his tiny kitchen. The tea was typically Russian, dark, strong and bracing. He served some small cookies as well. We made small talk. My friend Susie Crate, a Russian scholar, translated for us. He asked many questions about us. Where did we live? How did we get here? He was still astonished that we were Americans – sitting right here in his kitchen! The conversation went on and I was getting impatient. Finally, I could contain myself no longer. When a lull came in the conversation, I asked, “What is it like to live in a place called Cold, Siberia?” Susie translated.

His brow wrinkled and a puzzled look came over his face. Then he realized that I was asking how cold is Cold. He laughed and made an aw-shucks-it’s-nothing wave of his hand. “We sometimes have minus forty degrees here. It’s not bad,” he said. (Minus forty degrees Celsius is the same as minus forty degrees Fahrenheit.) Then, pointing to the north with his finger he said, “Ah, but Pereval [a village 50 kilometers north of Holdnia], they get down to minus fifty five degrees.”  (Which translates to an incredible 67 degrees below zero Fahrenheit!) He paused and smiled to let that sink in. You wouldn’t catch him living in a place as cold as Pereval. No sir. Holodnia was a much balmier climate.

The place called Cold wasn’t so cold after all.

by mdwallacebooks


Photo of Wangari Maathai courtesy:
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2004/maathai.html

I love inspiring stories. At a recent book review meeting of librarians, educators and authors, member Annette Goldsmith (whose work includes the review of international children’s literature) shared a memoir about an amazing woman, Wangari Maathai,  who spear-headed a tree-planting campaign in Kenya and received the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize.

Wangari went to college in the United States and returned to Kenya where she formed the Green Belt Movement, encouraging other women to help her plant what is now over 30 million trees as she worked toward reestablishing the country’s forest ecosystem.

My own writings about nature focus on North America. But as I am now a founding fellow of the International League of Conservation Writers, this is a good time to look beyond America’s shores.

Here are four books about this African environmentalist:

Mama Miti, written by Donna Jo Napoli, illustrated by Kadir Nelson (ages 4-8)
Wangari’s Trees of Peace, by Jeanette Winter (ages 4-8)
Planting the Trees of Kenya: the Story of Wangari Maathai, by Claire A Nivola (ages 4-8)
Unbowed, A Memoir, by Wangari Maathai  (adult biography)

by Neil Losin

(Note: Losin recently won the NESCent blogging competition for a travel grant to Science Online 2011)

Imagine that you’re considering having children. Upon visiting a genetic counselor, you discover that you and your partner both carry the same rare, recessive genetic mutation. While neither you nor your partner shows any symptoms, there is a 25% chance that your child will suffer from a debilitating genetic disorder. Then imagine that the counselor tells you that new embryo-selection technology can ensure that you’ll have a healthy baby; with early-stage genetic testing, doctors can pick a candidate embryo with the right genes and discard the others. This day is probably closer than you realize, and the ethical issues surrounding such technology will no doubt be contentious; some will argue that we shouldn’t “play God” with our reproduction.

But there is a bird in Australia that does just that.

The Gouldian Finch (Erythrura gouldiae) is an almost comically beautiful bird of open woodlands in northern Australia, but ironically, it is perhaps better known as the bird featured in the ViewSonic logo — a fitting emblem for a company that sells LCD displays. As if its rainbow-colored body plumage weren’t spectacular enough, the Gouldian Finch comes in three head-color morphs: black, red, and yellow. These morphs occur side by side in natural populations, although the yellow-headed morph is quite rare. Dr. Sarah Pryke, a behavioral ecologist at Macquarie University in Sydney, studies Gouldian Finches, focusing on how the common red- and black-headed morphs coexist in nature.

Gouldian Finches don’t mate indiscriminately with respect to head color. Instead, red-headed females tend to pair with red-headed males, and likewise for black-headed individuals. Biologists call this pattern assortative mating. But what does a Gouldian Finch gain from being choosy about its mate’s head color?

 As it turns out, it gains quite a lot. In a paper published in the journal Evolution last year, Pryke showed that offspring of mixed pairs (e.g. a red-headed female paired with a black-headed male, or vice versa) were severely compromised compared to offspring whose parents both belonged to the same head-color morph. Mixed-morph eggs were less likely to hatch and, once hatched, mixed-morph chicks were more likely to die in the first 140 days of life. Among mixed-morph offspring, female embryos and chicks were especially likely to perish. To understand why, you need to know a little bit about bird genetics.

In humans, females possess two X chromosomes, while males have an X and a Y. This makes males the heterogametic sex – “heterogametic” because they have two different sex chromosomes. In birds, however, the situation is reversed; males are ZZ and females ZW. Back in 1922, evolutionary biologist J. B. S. Haldane showed that when a genetic incompatibility existed between parents (e.g., the male and female belonged to different species, or to different morphs within a species), heterogametic offspring typically suffered the greatest viability or fertility disadvantage. This trend became known as Haldane’s Rule, and although its genetic mechanisms are still debated, Haldane’s Rule holds true in most animals.

A female Gouldian Finch, therefore, should pair with a male of her own color morph if she can. But if she can’t find a male with her head color, she may be forced to pair with a less desirable male — in fact, as many as 30% of wild Gouldian Finch pairs are mixed-morph pairs. In theory, one way a female finch could make the best of this unfortunate situation is to produce mostly male chicks, since male offspring of mixed-morph pairs are far more likely to survive than female offspring. But can a female Gouldian Finch control the sex ratio of her brood?

Pryke tested this idea in an experiment published last year in the journal Science. She paired females with red- and black-headed males, and examined the resulting offspring. Amazingly, females paired with mates of a different head-color morph produced significantly male-biased broods — 82% male, on average! Does this prove that females can manipulate the sex ratio of their offspring? Not quite… Male-biased broods could result from female embryos dying early in development, and this wouldn’t constitute sex ratio manipulation on the female’s part.

To resolve this uncertainty, Pryke painted the heads of red-headed males black, and paired these phony black-headed males with red- and black-headed females. In this situation, black-headed females produced broods with an unbiased sex ratio, despite their genetic incompatibility with their mates. And red-headed females, mating with compatible males painted to look like incompatible males, produced more sons than daughters. Sure enough, in an effort to maximize their reproductive success, females were actively manipulating the sex ratio of their brood. And they were doing so based on nothing but the appearance of their mates!

The physiological mechanism by which females accomplish this feat is not yet known; this is one of many unanswered questions about these remarkable birds. But our opportunities to answer these questions are dwindling. Gouldian Finches once occurred throughout northern Australia, but they have declined dramatically in the last half-century, mostly because of large-scale habitat alteration by humans. Now only about 2,500 Gouldian finches remain in the wild. Dr. Pryke’s experiments often involve captive birds, minimizing impacts on remaining wild populations.

Studying the reproductive biology of an Australian finch might seem an esoteric pursuit. But in evolutionary biology, lessons learned from one species can be applied to others. And if the Gouldian Finch is any indication… Well, maybe “playing God” isn’t so unnatural after all.

References:


Pryke, S. R. and S. C. Griffith. 2009. Postzygotic genetic incompatibility between sympatric color morphs. Evolution 63(3):793-798.

Pryke, S. R. and S. C. Griffith. 2009. Genetic incompatibility drives sex allocation and maternal investment in a polymorphic finch. Science 323(5921):1605-1607.

N.B. Please do not interpret this post as an endorsement of eugenics. It is not.

 

To view the colorful images of these beautiful birds go to: http://www.daysedgeproductions.com/neil.blog/?p=562

Drongos, African Kalahari Desert birds with a penchant for thievery, are taking a turn towards the avian equivalent of organized crime, a new study finds.

The victims in this case, pied babblers, have long contended with the risk of drongos popping in to make off with the babblers’ hard-earned insect prey. Now it seems a set of behaviors have evolved that are taking this interaction from a purely parasitic relationship to one of more mutual benefit. Researchers found that the drongos form protection squads for foraging babblers, keeping an eye out for trouble and strong-arming danger when it arrives.

“Like any good gangster,” says Andrew Radford, a scientist with the University of Bristol who led the research team, “as well as lying and stealing, the drongos also provide protection by mobbing aerial predators and giving true alarm calls on some occasions.”

That means pied babblers can spend less time watching for predators and more time looking for prey. The relationship is not without its caveats. Drongos still aim to take advantage of babblers, crying wolf to scare the babblers and grab the insects. The babblers likely put up with it, the researchers say, because the benefit of not having to worry about predators outweighs the cost of the drongos’ antics.

The research, which is a collaboration with the Universities of Bristol, Cambridge and Cape Town, is published online in the current issue of Evolution.

For more photos and information go to the author's blog
http://naturefiles.wordpress.com/2010/11/18/gangster-birds-of-the-kalahari-desert/

Ulan Ude is a city of 360,000 people lying more than 4000 kilometers (and five time zones) east of Moscow on the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Founded as a Cossack outpost in 1666, the city sits astride the Selenga River whose origins are in Mongolia 200 kilometers to the south. The Selenga empties into Lake Baikal about 100 kilometers west of the city.


Lake Baikal


Were they to return today, I’m afraid the Cossacks would be in for a bit of a shock. Strategically located on the Trans-Siberian Railroad, Ulan Ude was transformed into one of those ugly Soviet industrial cities that sprang up in the Stalin era, from the 1930s through the 50s. With its belching factories and rows of sterile high rise apartments, the city could serve as poster child for the Ministry of Really Ugly Architecture in Moscow.

Several of my trips to Lake Baikal have been through Ulan Ude because it gives easy access to some of the most beautiful parts of the lake along its eastern shore.  On those excursions I’ve stayed at an Eastern medicine clinic in Ulan Ude. It’s kind of a combination hospital and hostel, run by a wonderful Buryat gentleman named Baer Balzhirov. The clinic is located in a forest, typical Siberian taiga, on the eastern outskirts of the city. Quiet and peaceful, it’s a place to relax, away from the noise and traffic of Ulan Ude.

On one of my first visits Baer made arrangements for some of us to have a medical diagnosis made by one of the Eastern medicine practitioners at the clinic. I must admit that I’m something of a skeptic about certain alternative forms of medicine and some modern day folk remedies. Perhaps it’s my scientific background, but when I read wild claims made for certain herbs I’m suspicious. Good scientific testing of the effectiveness of these medicines seems to be lacking. On the other hand, I realize that in the natural world there are still some amazing substances awaiting discovery, complex derivatives from flora and fauna that may yield cures for many human maladies. So when Baer asked me, I agreed. What the hell, I thought. I’m game to give it a try and see if he diagnoses something interesting.

The practitioner looked the part of a Buddhist monk, with shaven head and maroon robe. Rather than sandals he wore an ordinary pair of street shoes. The wingtips seemed to clash with the rest of his outfit, but I suppose this footware made more sense in the climate of Ulan Ude. His dark eyes had a piercing quality, giving the impression he could use his vision to penetrate skin and bone to root out sickness. He was introduced and we shook hands. He bowed slightly and I awkwardly bowed to him. With a sweep of his hand he asked me to be seated. I sat in a straight-backed chair and he seated himself opposite me on a sofa.

I had been briefed on the procedure. The practitioner had been trained over many years to detect slight variations in the human pulse, I was told. According to the Eastern medicine theory there are something like one hundred and eighty different pulse variations that can be detected by skilled practitioners. By understanding the meaning of changes in these pulses one can make diagnoses of illness or afflictions. I tried not to let my skepticism show.

He leaned forward, grasped my forearms and rotated them so that my palms were facing upward.  He placed his fingertips on my wrists in much the same way a doctor or nurse might when checking a pulse. However, rather than a fixed position, he moved his fingers to different spots and applied varying pressure. Also, he used both hands, one on each of my wrists. Sometimes his fingertips barely touched my skin, giving a tickling sensation. At other times the pressure was firm and hard. He spent several minutes doing this, moving his fingers from place to place on my wrists and forearms. All the time there was a look of intense concentration on his face and he cocked his head in such a way that it appeared he was listening for something as well.

Suddenly he looked up at me and asked if I had any particular medical problems. The question took me by surprise.  Hey, I thought, he’s supposed to root out my problems on his own. I mulled over his question for a moment. I’m in pretty good health and, aside from an occasional cold or bout of the flu, I’ve had almost no medical – Oh, wait a minute. Yes, I explained to him, I do have one problem. You see, I went on, I’m a photographer and often I carry a lot of camera equipment, up to 15 kilos (over 30 pounds) -- sometimes more. On days when I do a lot of walking while carrying that camera gear, well, at the end of the day my hip joints ache. Sometimes I cannot sleep well at night because of that pain.

He nodded in understanding and once more grasped my wrists. Again he used his fingertips to probe my pulses. His brow was furrowed in concentration. Then he looked up at me about to speak.

I must admit I got excited. Even though I was skeptical about the procedure, I recalled articles I had read about various new medicines derived from old, traditional herbs and remedies from ancient cultures worldwide. Maybe there is something to this. Siberia is noted for its wild ginseng and other herbal medicines. Surely he is about to prescribe some ointment or salve or tea made from the extract of leaves or bark or roots of a hitherto unknown but magical Siberian plant. And this would cure my aching joints. He cleared his throat and then spoke.

“You’re getting old,” he said.

He didn’t even crack a smile.







Boyd Norton, a former nuclear physicist, has been a photographer and writer for over 45 years. He is a founding Fellow of ILCW and of ILCP. He is the author/photographer of 15 books including Baikal: Sacred Sea of Siberia (with Peter Matthiessen; Sierra Club Books) and Divided Twins: Alaska and Siberia (with Yevgeny Yevtushenko; Viking Penguin), and Safari Journal published in 2007 (Fulcrum Publishing). His next book, Serengeti: the Eternal Beginning will be published in 2011 by Fulcrum Publishing. Boyd Norton’s Outdoor Digital Photography Handbook was released in Spring 2010 by Voyageur Press. The above is an excerpt from a book-in-progress about his worldwide journeys documenting wilderness.

FIERCE
By Ian McCallum

I like the word, fierce –
the way it aligns itself with
nakedness and solitude:
a fierce nakedness ...
a fierce solitude ...
And I like the way it holds
the word, fire.

I like the word, fire –
the way it ignites
the cutting edge of poetry
refusing to be nothing less than
a fiery edge …
a fiery tongue ...
And I like the way it is linked
to the word, wildness.

I like the word, wild –
how it weaves its way
between yes and no,
how it announces itself as
a wild anger …
a wild joy …
And I like the way it nurtures
the word, fierce.

I like the word, fierce ...

ILCW Note: One of the major objectives of all of us who work as environmental writers is to teach younger people about the land and the environment. Thought you might enjoy this message from Bittu Sahgal, the editor of Sanctuary Asia.

LAST WORD
IT IS EASIER TO BUILD STRONG CHILDREN
THAN TO REPAIR BROKEN MEN

That stark sentence from Frederick Douglass more or less sums up the raison de etre of Cub magazine, launched soon after Sanctuary Asia began publication in 1981. Not satisfied with reaching conservation message to children through print alone, the Sanctuary team, headed by Noel de Sa, an educationist, Anish Andheria, a remarkable wildlifer and I, combined heads and hearts to launch Kids for Tigers, a programme fashioned around the proposition that children exposed to nature will grow up to be adults that will respect and protect nature.

At the time, in 1999, Sunil Alagh, (see his article below) a long time friend who headed a company that manufactured "Tiger" biscuits, sat me down and worked out a straightforward strategy: "Don't make Kids for Tigers boring... no long lectures. Don't give teachers even one hour of more work to do... in fact see how you can save them time. Don't charge schools anything... get the money from your sponsors. Do bring nature into schools through slide shows and films. Do strengthen school nature clubs. Do involve children's guardians and make them a part of your massive campaign to save the tiger. Do take the most enthusiastic and intelligent kids and teachers out on nature walks and camps. That's it. Do this, your job is done."

We followed his advice. Ten years later, looking back, we realise we have touched over five million kids, taken over 50,000 children out on nature walks. Mentored over 1,000 Tiger Ambassadors, capable of explaining at least one simple rationale for protecting tigers to adults: "We cannot save the tiger, without saving its forests. If we save the forest we save every creature residing therein, plus the sources of over 600 of India's purest rivers. In the process, the forest will sequester and store carbon and help us fight off some of the worst impacts of climate change."

Today many of the kids we mentored are young men and women in whom the seeds of nature appreciation have been sowed. Perhaps over 70 per cent of Sanctuary's financial and intellectual resources are dedicated to the proposition that reaching conservation message to young India, (plus the two parents / guardians that normally come bundled with them!) is the finest way to build strong children, so that tomorrow’s conservationists do not have to go through the painful process we must go through today -- repairing broken men.         --Bittu Sahgal