Tag archives for Asia
Photographers document endemic species of Tompotika, Sulawesi
Posted by International League of Conservation Photographers on February 23, 2012 
Tompotika, Central Sulawesi, Indonesia An international team of photographers gathered on the island of Sulawesi for a Tripods in the Mud photographic expedition in partnership with the Alliance for Tompotika Conservation / Aliansi Konservasi Tompotika (AlTo). Joining the effort were ILCP Fellows Sandesh Kadur (India), and Kevin Schafer (USA), joined by Riza Marlon, a well-known Indonesian…
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Dr. Çağan Şekercioğlu is a National Geographic Emerging Explorer. A professor of conservation biology, ecology and ornithology at the University of Utah Department of Biology, he also directs the Turkish environmental organization KuzeyDoğa. A gray wolf (Canis lupus) photographed by one of KuzeyDoğa‘s camera traps in Kars Turkey (Türkiye) is the only country covered almost entirely by three…
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We have the knowledge that can contribute to finding solutions to the crisis of climate change. But if you’re not prepared to listen, how can we communicate this to you? — Marcos Terena, Xané leader, Brazil. The precipitous rise in the world’s human population and humankind’s ever-increasing dependence on fossil fuel-based ways of living have…
The photo you see above is of an adorable stray cat that’s living like a squatter at Bangladesh’s biggest children’s hospital. The kitty could be called adorable, if a little standoffish. It’s also something of a scourge: Cats shouldn’t be allowed to roam the open halls and wards of a hospital, certainly not one…
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Globe-trotting archaeologist and National Geographic Fellow Dr. Fredrik Hiebert has traced the development of human society from Mongolia to the Andes, making discoveries in deserts, mountains, and underwater. Now find out how you can join him for a live conversation, Monday January 23 at 2:30pm ET.
Posted by A North Pacific Bluefin tuna fetched 56.49m yen/$736,000 at Tsukiji fish market’s first tuna auction of the year. Bluefin stocks in the Atlantic and South Pacific are depleted to fractions of their original size thanks to overfishing driven primarily by the Japanese sushi market. Many of us, who may love sushi as much as the…
India: The Cost of Bad Water
Posted by Dan Morrison of National Geographic News Correspondent in Water Currents on January 5, 2012 According to a new report, India’s cities are drowning in their own waste due to poor planning and administration. With no one else looking out for their health, individual households take on the burden and financial cost of one of the basic jobs of government. The money to clean water could have been saved or spent on education, housing, health care, or culture and entertainment.
Durban Plan for Climate Treaty Greeted With Mixed Feelings
Posted by Leon Marshall of Environmental Journalist, News Watch South African Contributor on December 12, 2011 The COP17 round of climate negotiations in Durban has once again shown just how hard it is to devise a cohesive international response to this threatening phenomenon. It is for this reason that the conference’s agreement to sign up to an all-inclusive legal commitment to reduce carbon emissions has been hailed as a major breakthrough,…
Posted by As of today, the National Geographic Society has issued 10,000 grants funding research and exploration since 1890–including ten National Geographic grant projects that, according to an internal panel, “have made the greatest difference in understanding the Earth.” Barbara Moffet interviews Krithi Karanth, a 32-year-old conservation biologist based in Bangalore, India, the recipient of National Geographic’s 10,000th grant.
“A country once know as ……”
Posted by Juan Valdes on December 2, 2011 Over the past several days the media has been reporting on U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s trip to Myanmar. Some have prefaced their reports using the following verbiage: “Myanmar, a country once know as Burma ……” In 1989 the largest nation on the Southeast Asian mainland changed its name from Burma to Myanmar―a…
After Tar Sands Pipeline Decision Delayed, Other Routes Sought
Posted by Mason Inman on November 17, 2011 The Obama administration delayed deciding whether to approve the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, which has been proposed to carry tar sands from Canada to Texas’s Gulf Coast. The administration said it should consider alternate routes and wait until early 2013 to decide. Industry officials in Canada thought the delay may derail the pipeline, and threaten the country’s…
Posted by Evolutionary history shows that human populations likely originated in Africa, and the Genographic Project, the most extensive survey of human population genetic data to date, suggests where they went next: Arabia.
Posted by The United Nations chose today as a “symbolic date” for the the population milestone of 7,000,000,000 people. Today is also Halloween, so the UN chose aptly: Population has been the monster knocking at our door for a long time. National Geographic Senior Environment Editor Robert Kunzig comments that the biggest population problem is not growth, it’s the way we live.
As Armenia was celebrating twenty years of independence in September, local and international experts came together to discuss youth, maturity, and transitions at the TEDx Yerevan event on September 24, 2011. Among them was Jason Sohigian, Deputy Director of the Armenia Tree Project (ATP).
Arab Spring and the global financial crisis delivered a double whammy to tourism in the Middle East. The Arab world lost more than U.S.$7 billion in tourism revenue as a result of 2011′s upheaval, according to Bandar bin Fahd Al Fahed, the chairman of the Arab Tourism Organization. (Reported by Ahram Online, September 30, 2011.)…
Changing Climate a Hot Topic Among Himalayan Villagers, Study Finds
Posted by Brian Handwerk on September 9, 2011 Warmer temperatures, variable monsoons, and other signs of climate change are a hot topic of conversation among many Himalayan villagers, according to scientific sampling of climate change perception among local peoples.
Salmon in all their varieties are a great resource for humanity. But for the Peoples of the North Pacific the iconic fish also represent a critical heritage that goes back thousands of years. Plagued by overfishing, industrial pollution, and contamination of rivers, salmon are in trouble across their ancient habitat.
Authorities in Madagascar this week arrested two men and seized close to 200 of some of the world’s rarest tortoises that they were trying to smuggle out of Antananarivo’s Ivato Airport to Jakarta, Indonesia, TRAFFIC, the wildlife monitoring network, said today.
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Picture Gallery ‘Words by Joanna Eede, editorial consultant at Survival International, the international movement for tribal peoples (www.survivalinternational.org). Photographs by © Cat Vinton.
Posted by The middle ear of mammals contains a chain of three tiny bones (auditory ossicles), the hammer (malleus), anvil (incus), and stirrup (stapes). This chain transmits and amplifies sound vibrations from the eardrum to the inner ear. The eardrum (tympanic membrane) itself is stretched across an additional bone, the ectotympanic. In all other land vertebrates, a…
For millennia, Altai people herded their livestock across what is now known as the Golden Mountains of Altai UNESCO’s World Heritage Site, in Russia’s southern Siberia. They endured many obstacles–from Mongol hordes to Soviet oppression. Now they face a new challenge–climate change.
The remaining hundred uncontacted tribes in the world capture the imagination of millions of “civilized” people. Yet they are the last cultures fully engaged with their natural environment. If they are stripped of their ancestral land, all of humankind will have lost the last people who truly understand our connections with the Earth.
The primary feeding ground for the Critically Endangered western gray whale may be devastated if a proposed third oil and gas drilling platform is allowed to operate offshore of Russia’s Sakhalin Island, an international coalition of NGOs said today.
Cherry trees are a cherished landmark of Washington, D.C. Admired by thousands of visitors at this time of year, when they are in flower, the trees represent an enduring bond between the U.S. and Japan. But few people know of the woman behind Japan’s gift of the trees to America–a pioneering National Geographic editor who famously reported for the magazine on the earthquake wave that devastated Japan in 1896, and introduced the word tsunami to the English language. Meet Eliza Scidmore.
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For this installment of Mobile Message, Amy Benziger interviews Sara Chamberlain, project director for BBC Janala. Based in Bangladesh, the initiative incorporates on-screen English tutoring through a television drama and a game show, combined with English lessons via the mobile phone that build on the content in the programs.
