Thursday, May 3, 2012

This Guy's A One-Man Forest-Planting Machine

Reposted from the CBC. 

April 9, 2012
File this under "anything is possible": Jadav "Molai" Payeng lives in the forest in the northern Indian province of Assam. The place where he lives shares his nickname - it's called 'Molai Kathoni', or 'Molai's Woods'. And that's because Payeng planted all the trees there himself.





This Guy's A One-Man Forest-Planting Machine

One day in 1979, a 16-year-old Payeng found a number of snakes that had been washed ashore on a sandbar due to flooding. By the time he came across them, all the animals were dead because of extreme heat and no tree cover. He says he "sat down and wept over their lifeless forms. It was carnage". When he asked the forest department for help with planting trees, they told him nothing would grow on the sandbar. He decided to prove them wrong.
He left behind his original home and his education and started living on the sandbar itself, dedicating his life to growing first bamboo and then trees. He has lived on the land ever since, fostering the natural environment and even transporting red ants from his village to encourage better soil quality for growing trees. Payeng says he "was stung many times" during transport.
The authorities only discovered what Payeng had accomplished in 2008, when a group of 100 wild elephants went on a marauding spree and wound up in Molai Kathoni, where they destroyed Payeng's home. He rebuilt it, and refused calls to destroy the forest in order to better track the elephants.
Today, there are many species of flora and fauna living in the forest with Payeng, including some endangered species and at least five tigers. One government minister has proposed declaring the area a conservation reserve to protect the forest and its inhabitants.

David Suzuki Is Coming To Montreal

David Suzuki is giving a speak on May 18th, 11am, at the Montreal International Conference on Degrowth in the Americas. Au Colloque international de Montréal sur la décroissance dans les Amériques.

Free tickets are being given away by registration, first come first serve, get your ticket now!

http://montrealdegrowth-eivtefrnd.eventbrite.com/


What we do to the planet & all life on earth, we do to ourselves. Seperation is an illusion.
Ecosystems are not unique to one place, the whole planet is one ecosystem. What we do to the planet, we do to ourselves.

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Little Visitors

Ok, maybe they're not really that little, but as racoons go, they are not that big either. I have seen these fellows before.
Taking photos through the glass wasn't that easy. This fellow was yawning; a split second before his tongue was out the full length, it was so funny.

Here you can see that the photo was taken through glass but I love this shot despite seeing the reflection of the floor within the house (the light was not on in the kitchen, but I did have the porch light on).