Carnival of the Green #29

We asked Nancy Swift of The Aberdare Institute, Kenya East Africa to host this week's carnival. The Institute is located in the Frank Buck Zoological Preserve and dedicated to the welfare of endangered species through its programs of research and education.

Dr. Swift's adventures are a regular feature on The Animal Broadcast Network.

Carnival of the Green, started by City Hippy and TriplePundit, is now booking space on the 2007 train and for good reason, COTG is one of the premier carnivals on line - congratulations to everyone.

Special thanks to Website Design and Promotion for hosting last week, great carnival guys. COTG #30 is back for a second round at Dee's Dotes next Monday.

Now, Carnival of the Green episode 29

EARTHWINDWATERFIRE

Josh Rosenau of Thoughts from Kansas presents a few thoughts On Being Right.

A Magazine Treehuggers Can Love recommended by Enrique Gili from Common Ground.

From U of N Carolina a proposal by The Dirty Greek FOOD FIGHT: UNCG Farm-to-School. George has been doing his homework, worth a read.

Laura Lynn Klein, Organic Authority, updates us on the nation's largest inner-city community garden, LA's South Central Farm, and their fight against eviction.

Nancy of The Garden's Gift shares a few insights about composting, in Let's Make Compost and some community composting ventures that may inspire your search for "black gold."



The Evangelical Ecologist, Don Bosch, has this post on a more unorthodox sort of prayer walk, one that might include a golf course or a long, wandering trek through the woods.

Judy at Savvy Vegetarian responds to Mark Morford's article in the SF Chronicle about The Greening of Walmart. Only a little frothing and snarling and ranting - promise!

Do you trust the forest service? Well do ya, punk? Daniel Stentor, from debitage, asks a timely question.

Elisa Camahort at the hip & zen pen urges us to consider the size of our soapbox with her post, Why be vocal?



Riversider from Save the Ribble presents 2 empassioned Tales from the Riverbank.

Saving the Leatherback Turtle is the journal of Robert Miller (Rob's Idaho Persective) and Karyn deKramer written during their recent volun-cation working with Earthwatch on St. Croix.

Siel, aka the Starbuck's Challenger from green LA girl shines her light on an old friend, Seventh Generation with Greenness is Next to Cleanliness.

Whatever floats your...raft from Elsa Mary at the greener side just in time for Memorial Day, relaxing by the pool.

Dan Rhoads, A Concerned Scientist, comments on the soon-to-be-dedicated US Supreme Court cases pertaining to the Clean Water Act and the environment, Conservative bloggers on the Rapanos and Carabell cases.

Greener Magazine's Harlan Weikle looks underground for Environmentally friendly water storage, a report on an experiment by some at drought risk Florida coastal counties to use water to store - water?



Spirit, The Seventh Fire is revisited by Nancy Swift for the Animal Broadcast Network. Dr. Swift reminds us that Permaculture, a Native American tradition, still echoes in today's sustainability movement.

Because this Carnival was co-hosted by the illustrarted Frank Buck it seemed only appropriate that we leave til last, but certainly not least, a Special: Cartoon Call from Al at City Hippy.

That's it for COTG 29. I'm privileged to have been your guest host this week. Please be sure to visit Dee's Dotes when Carnival of the Green, the 30th edition, returns Monday, June 5.

To our American colleagues, have a safe Memorial Day and everyone, now is the time to help those devastated by Saturday's earthquake in Java, Indonesia.

Permaculture and Native American tradition

Spirit, The Seventh Fire, if you missed it during the first national tour was a rare chance to be reunited with a Native American culture. The multimedia show scored by Peter Buffett tells the story of a modern everyman suddenly confronted with his Native American heritage.

The show began its tour to coincide with the opening of the Smithonian's new National Museum of the American Indian and was an instant sensation. Picture. Although on hiatus, Spirit has an active web site and plans a new tour in the near future.

The heritage of Native America is a rich history of diversity and union, common ancestry and nations of people as different from one another as the Inuit and the Inca. The Native people of the Americas lived close to the land and, like agrarian/hunter societies everywhere learned to rely on nature and more than that, cultivate their natural surrounding in order to provide food, shelter, and energy in a way that was sustainable or all species, plant or animal.

Permaculture is the word used to describe this tradition of sustainable production, a system, which examines ways to work with nature rather than against it and, with practice, evolve beneficially, environmentally sound solutions.

We found a few web sites with more information on permaculture and an interesting field study coming in July, which you may want to explore. It's The Nunoya Nuntal Reality Trip International Workshop, the application deadline is June 1.

• ATTRA - National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service
• The Permaculture Institute
• Honor the Earth

by Dr. Nancy Swift
ABN

Koalas: Moving Portraits of Serenity

"Everybody in the vicinity of the koalas looked as if they had seen rare glimpses of eternity."

With her very first words from Koalas: Moving Portraits of Serenity author/editor Joanne Ehrich sets the stage for this beautifully crafted collection of photographs by amateur photographers and professionals around the world who have been transfixed by the sight and serenity of tiny koala, the gentle "Native Bear" of Australia.

"It seems as though koalas utter a gentle whisper that can only be heard by our true selves, rousing our soul's essential desire to take time-out...to capture a little bit of that koala power to keep for ourselves."

Not actually a bear but rather a marsupial the koala is perhaps the best known teddy bear like creature in common imagination and this book containing over 300 beautiful full color plates by 120 photographers does little to dispel that image. Photo after photo makes us fall in love more with the turn of each page. Every sublime image and each gaze into the lens confirms what these photographers experienced in the presence of Australia's most charismatic resident, that they, "Like Himalayan monks who are helped by people from around the globe... invoke our protective instinct, making us feel good about being good."

But there is another element to this book and that is the more compelling truth that although koalas are unerringly beguiling as anyone who has ever seen one will attest, the koala is truly an endangered species; threatened by its own vulnerability as much as by its endearing charm.

Ms. Ehrich has spent years compiling hundreds of images of these gentle arboreal creatures and brings us a dynamic, almost kinetoscopic, view of the koala as seen through the elegantly scripted pairing of images in successive time line. The result is a fluid sequence of portraits that almost appear to move as you gather in one compelling frame after another. As if strolling through the halls of an exhibit you intuit more from the images than just form and feeling you get a sense of the natural structure and texture of the koala's very lives which leaves you wanting to learn yet more.

The pages are lightly interwoven with an intelligent, readable narration describing the nature and proclivities of this Australian native, adding to the reader's understanding of the plight and perhaps the ultimate salvation of the koala as a species. Like a pictorial reflection of Silent Spring, Koalas: Moving Portraits of Serenity may in fact serve as a template for the very survival of nature, the koala, and ourselves.

According to the foreword by Australia's "Koala Woman," Deborah Tabart, Executive Director of The Australian Koala Foundation, koalas have had a special relationship with the land and people of Australia but, "Sadly, the plight of the koala is an indicator that the Australian bush and the planet are in trouble, and it is everyone's responsibility to keep them alive and healthy." The Foundation has been instrumental over the last eighteen years in drawing attention to the cause of the endangered koala and has recently put forward a study that will hopefully result in official action by the Australian government to take steps to protect the koala given the foundation's evidence "that the koala could be gone altogether from the eastern seaboard within fifteen years—a harrowing thought."

The book is about the koala but the story is really of koala and the people who have made a life alongside the tiny Aussie. From the earliest legends of the aboriginal peoples who originally inhabited the land to those of the first settlers and now 21st century modern urban Australians the experience of living with the mystique of the koala has been a seminal experience and not always kind; but there is a power in the relationship seen in these photographs that makes us want to bridge the gap and live more in a world with koalas than in a world without them.

This book should be in every home where there are children and in every heart that is human. Perhaps famed zoologist Jack Hanna says it best in his afterword, "As we close Koalas: Moving Portraits of Serenity—an exquisite celebration of the lovable koala—we are also opening a new chapter in their future on earth."

by Harlan Weikle
for Greener Magazine and ABN

Koalas: Moving Portraits of Serenity, edited by Joanne Ehrich
Oversized trade hardcover; 260 pages, 9.25 x 12.25 inches, 315 photographic plates
$45 USD; ISBN 0-9764698-0-4; www.koalajo.com/

Disney Studios new movie The Wild opens today April 14th in theaters across the country