What Am I Reading These Days?

Deep Ecology for the 21st Century is a 488 page compendium about the basic tenets and historical roots of deep ecology, wilderness, conservation biology, ecofeminism, and ecological approaches to being in the world. Wonderful writings by Arne Ness, George Sessions, Gary Snyder, Jack Turner, Dave Foreman, and Thomas Berry. All of my favorites.  I am actually reading this book for the second time. Makes a nice companion to some of the readings highlighted here (and in four subsequent posts). [NOTE: Thomas Berry's chapter reflects on how to be a viable human. We could all use a little work in this area]. 

Rattan Growth in Northern Myanmar

Have recently returned from Sagaing Region, Myanmar where I re-measured 120 rattan plants that I had marked the year before to determine their annual growth. Image above shows Su Pan (left, WCS Research Assistant) and Kyaw Zin Aung (right, Ranger, Myanmar Forest Department) stretching a tape to see how much the yamahta kyein (Calamus palustris) individual had grown [NOTE: The white paint mark on the stem above and to the right of Kyaw Zin Aung's hand was the location of the last leaf in 2016].

The results from this fieldwork for yamahta kyein are shown below. There appears to be a good relationship between size and growth rate for this species, i.e. taller canes usually have access to higher light levels, and some of the larger canes grow almost 2.0 meters/year. As far as I know, these are the first quantitative data on rattan growth from Myanmar. This is the type of information that is needed to define a sustainable harvest of wild rattan populations (see Growth Data for Wild Rattans).

Goodbye

Woke up this morning and sat two periods of zazen at EHZC. On the way to work, the thought arose that 1,860 posts and over seven years was probably a sufficient investment in blogging. Use the time for other stuff, e.g. books, and community forestry, and more zazen. Bows of gratitude to everyone who visited these pages over the past years. Later. [NOTE: Image above shows me anticipating the last post of "thus i have seen" years ago at Angkor Wat]. 

Returning From Nam Sabi

Had a productive field session in the Village Management Area (VMA) of Nam Sabi. Made a basecamp deep into the VMA (more on this later), and started reading the growth bands that we had put on a sample of timber trees exactly a year ago. Scheduled a follow-up survey to finish reading the bands with WCS, Forest Department, and a team of villagers in about a week. Image above shows us pushing the boat out into the Chindwin River to return to the ranger station in Htamanthi.    

About Planet Earth

A wonderful science animation video from Kurzgesagt about living in a thin moist layer on a small wet rock. Yeah, I know that it's 7:21 minutes long, but, trust me, I guarantee that you will be engaged and will learn something (probably many things) about Planet Earth. And will be tempted to watch a couple of their other videos offered here. [NOTE: Kurzgesagt is German for "in a nutshell"]. 

Bagan

On my upcoming trip to Myanmar (with son, Luke), after finishing up in Nam Sabi (see Nam Sabi VMA and VMA Inventory) and then spending a few days in Mandalay, we will go visit Bagan (shown above). Thousands of stupas and pagodas stretching back from the Ayeyarwady River over 40 square kilometers. Yippeee!!

Are Cats Domesticated?

This post is a companion to the one about the long history of dog domestication (see Domestication of Dogs).  A recent piece in The New Yorker addresses the question that many people with cats (like me) are prone to ask (when their cats don't act like dogs): Are cats domesticated? From the article: 

In a study published last year, Wesley Warren and his colleagues at Washington University in St. Louis analyzed DNA from several wildcats and breeds of domestic cat. They confirmed that, genetically, cats have diverged much less from their wildcat ancestors than dogs have from wolves, and that the cat genome has a much more modest signatures of artificial selection. Because cats also retain sharper hunting skills than dogs, abandoned felines are more likely to survive without any human help. In some countries, feral cats routinely breed with their wildcat cousins. “There’s still a lot of genetic mixing,” Warren said. “You don’t have the true differentiation you see between wolf and dog. Using the dog as the best comparison, the modern cat is not what I would call fully domesticated.”

I thought so. [NOTE: Image above shows Colby (see Colby); he is a very accomplished hunter].

Greenland Is Melting Away

Fascinating article in the N.Y. Times about a group of scientists collecting data on the rate at which the Greenland ice sheet, one of the biggest and fasting-melting blocks of ice on Earth, will drive up sea levels in the coming decades. Really well written and super interesting; the drone footage is spectacular. [NOTE: Image by Josh Harner, NY Times].

Otomi Papermaker

Image shows Otomi woman using strips of jonote (Trema micrantha (L.) Blume) bark to make a sheet of paper (see Papel Amate) in San Pablito, Puebla. Note softened bark fibers hanging in the background, and the rectangular, flattened stone, or muito, used for pounding the bark fibers together. This picture was taken in 1984, was scanned from a slide and grayscaled, and it will be used as a verso page header for Chapter 2 of Managing the Wild (see Sigh of Relief).

Hurricane Patricia

Hurricane Patricia, the strongest tropical cyclone ever recorded, is racing toward the Pacific Coast of Mexico with sustained windspeeds of over 200 mph. It is expected to make landfall in Jalisco this evening. The popular coastal resorts, Puerto Vallarta and Manzanilla, as well as Mexico's second largest city, Guadalajara, are all in the projected path of the hurricane. Storm surges, hurricane force winds, flashfloods, mudslides, power outages – this looks really bad. Gulp.