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The Elements of Typographic Style

Patagonia Synchilla Snap-T Pullover

Minding the Earth, Mending the Word: Zen and the Art of Planetary Crisis

North Face Base Camp Duffel (Medium)

 

 

 

Wednesday
Nov122008

El Ticlio

Winding around Mount Toromocho at an elevation of 4,781 m, El Ticlio is one of the highest mountain passes in the Andes.  The train from Lima to Huancayo also goes through here, making it the highest standard gauge railroad in the world. Beautiful scenery, but very hard to breathe. [NOTE: The photo was taken in the mid-1980's. I understand that now there's not as much snow on the peaks].

Tuesday
Nov112008

Elephants in the Mist

Another image from the Tarai region of Nepal.  Went out early in the morning to look for rhinos.  A dense fog appeared as the sun started to come up.  Didn't see any rhinos. [NOTE: This image was scanned from a (slightly wrinkled) print].

Monday
Nov102008

Kebun Raya

This delightful gentleman was the caretaker of the guesthouse at the Kebun Raya in Bogor (the Bogor Botanical Garden) when I visited in the early 1990's.  The guesthouse is located on the grounds of the Garden near the giant Ceiba tree with its resident population of flying foxes.

Saturday
Nov082008

Rhinos

I took this from on top of an elephant in Royal Chitwan National Park.  The handler, climbing down to pee, told me he'd be "right back".  Out of nowhere appeared a baby rhino, and then, not far behind, her mother. I had no idea how to get the elephant to move, so there I sat, snapping pictures of some of the last one-horned rhinos (Rhinocerus unicornis) in the world and being very thankful that these magnificent creatures have such poor eyesight. [NOTE: see Scenes from Kathmandu for a brief explanation of what I was doing in the Terai lowlands of south-central Nepal.]

Friday
Nov072008

A Bridge Too Far

All of the original metal bridges on the Ledo Road in northern Myanmar have rusted and collapsed. Many of them have been replaced with makeshift bridges built using boards and long wooden poles lashed together with rattan. Our two portage elephants had strikingly different reactions to these bridges.  Loi Mai, the lead elephant, walked across without hesitation.  Aung Bu, on the other hand, refused to cross even after much prodding and his handler had to find another route (thx, Tun Shaung). [NOTE: see Bathing the Elephant and Hukaung Valley Rattan Survey for more footage of Loi Mai and Aung Bu.]

Thursday
Nov062008

Unscheduled Stop

The flight from Port Moresby to Kikori (see Palms of Kikori, PNG) usually makes two stops: Baimuru and Kerema.  On one trip flying back from Kikori, the plane made an unscheduled stop in a small village in the middle of the forest.  As we were circling to land, a small crowd formed at the edge of the landing strip. I took this photo from inside the plane. [NOTE: My colleague, Andrew Henderson, was fascinated by the whole encounter because several of the people appeared to be dressed as palms].

Wednesday
Nov052008

Illipe Nut III

Gunung Poteng, Raya-Pasi Nature Reserve, West Kalimantan.

 

Shorea atrinervosa. [NOTE: Metal tag with number on the lower right of the trunk; white plot stake in the foreground.]

 

Given the obvious supply issues caused by the unpredictable fruiting of illipe nut trees, I was very interested in trying to find an illipe nut tree that fruited every year. Soon after arriving to West Kalimantan in 1989, I went to the Raya-Pasi Nature Reserve north of Pontianak in the Sambas district.  We stopped in Bagak Sawah, a Dayak village near the reserve, to pick up Pak Afong, the park warden. As we were walking to the forest, I casually asked Afong if he knew of any annually fruiting illipe nut trees.  He said he did, and then proceeded to show me several dozen large illipe nut trees that I later determined to be Shorea atrinervosa. The forest floor was carpeted with the seedlings and saplings of S. atrinervosa.  This was surprising because the year before had not been a mast year, and none of the other illipe nut species in West Kalimantan had produced any seed. 

I spent the next three years studying a marked population of Shorea atrinervosa trees in Raya-Pasi to see if Pak Afong was right about the annual fruiting behavior of this illipe nut species.  He was.  A more detailed account of the story can be found here.

Tuesday
Nov042008

Illipe Nut II

Illipe nuts come in a wide variety of sizes and shapes. Irregardless of the size of the seed produced, all species of illipe nut flower and fruit synchronously at unpredictable intervals of from 2 to 10 years. This reproductive behavior, known as "mast fruiting",  is thought to be an evolutionary response to excessive seed predation. What this means from a commercial standpoint, however, is that the availability of seeds from year to year is almost impossible to predict.  Try explaining that to your buyers. [NOTE: Mast fruiting is thought to limit the abundance of frugivores and seed predators in the forest by concentrating their food supply into one brief period every few years when they are swamped by more food than they can posisble eat.]

Monday
Nov032008

Illipe Nut

Illipe nuts from various Shorea species.

 

Dayak children in West Kalimantan with the seeds of S. stenoptera.

 

Trucks loaded with illipe nuts waiting outside the C.V. Mentawi processing plant in Pontianak, West Kalimantan.

 

The seeds produced by several species of Shorea in Borneo contain an edible oil whose physical and chemical properties are remarkably similar to cocoa butter.  These seeds are known commercially as "illipe nuts", and large quantities are collected and sold internationally to be used in the manufacture of chocolate, soap, candles, and cosmetics. West Kalimantan exports tens of thousands of tons of illipe nuts. [NOTE: The triglyceride fractions in illipe nut oil occur in similar proportions to those found in cocoa butter, and the oil can be blended with chocolate without altering the texture, gloss, or taste of the original confection.  The higher melting point of illipe nut oil makes it especially useful as a chocolate hardener, i.e. so that it melts in your mouth, not in your hand].

Saturday
Nov012008

In Praise of Northern Hardwood Forests

Saxon Woods, Westchester County Parks, New York

 

So what if they only have 20 species of trees per hectare.  They turn such beautiful colors.