Environment

Bringing Pollinators Back to Washington

| ChrisHardmanWriter

HAVE YOU CONSIDERED putting in a beehive, but worried that you might not have the time to maintain it? If you live in Seattle, you’re in luck. Once a month, Corky Luster’s Ballard Bee Company will install a hive, care for the bees, and harvest the honey for you.

“It’s like having a lawn service, but with bees. You can sit back and enjoy the bees, and we will take care of them,” Luster explains.

Ballard Bee customers sign up for a year of “urban pollination” services at a time. During the 6-month honey season, they receive two 12-ounce jars of honey a month, and in winter, Luster makes sure the hive survives.

In the process, he is turning suburban backyards and city rooftops into honey producing habitats, in hopes that it will help his customers connect the dots between what they eat and the natural world around them. “By [giving people] bees, you bring them into the fold, and they become part of the food system,” Luster says.

To make his business sustainable, Luster does more than manage hives. He teaches classes, consults with chefs, and sells honey and beekeeping supplies. “We’ve had a huge interest in beekeeping in Seattle,” he explains. His classes sell out and many of his graduates move on to their own beekeeping adventures.

Luster also consults for some of Seattle’s finest chefs. He helped both Jason Stoneburner of Bastille Café & Bar in Ballard and Gavin Stephenson of Seattle’s Fairmont Olympic Hotel set up rooftop apiaries. “My goal was to educate the chefs and get them involved,” says Luster. “Both are really bright and very interested in trying to be part of the solution.”

The restaurant apiaries have succeeded. Chef Stephenson now manages five rooftop hives that house half a million honeybees. He harvested more than 400 pounds of honey last summer. Last year, after relying on the service of Ballard Bees for three years, Chef Stoneburner has taken over caring for his hives. He uses his honey in desserts, vinaigrettes, and in a popular cocktail called the Bee’s Knees.

In 2014, Luster started a new service for restaurants called the apiary partnership program. He invited restaurants and chefs to buy bee hives that he manages for a small fee. The restaurant gets 100 percent of the honey. According to Luster, the partnership is a great success and he plans to expand this program in the future. His clients include the Walrus and the Carpenter, an oyster bar in Seattle, Vif, a wine and coffee café in Seattle, and the Tom Douglas Restaurants.

Nearly half of Ballard Bee’s income comes from honey sales. The company owns an additional 130 hives that are housed 45 minutes outside of Seattle at Local Roots Farm and at Camp Korey. The honey produced by those hives has varied flavors that depend on where the bees are foraging. The first nectar flow begins early in the spring when the bees are feeding on pollen from the flowers of bigleaf maple trees, the largest species of maple found in the Puget sound area. Next the bees feed on pollen from blackberry bush flowers. The last flow is from the Japanese knotweed plant and has a fig and caramel taste to it. Called Dark Cream Honey, it’s Ballard’s favorite flavor and recently received national recognition as a 2015 Good Food Awards winner.

Education is important to the Ballard Bee Company’s mission. Luster’s goals when starting the business in 2009 were to teach people about bees, replenish the local bee population, and encourage new beekeepers. He is dedicated to spreading the word about the value of bees and says people are afraid of bees because they don’t know enough about them. When he works with a hive, onlookers express surprise that he is dressed in short sleeves without gloves. “People are amazed that honey bees are extremely gentle. They’re teddy bears,” he says. Some of his clients put lawn chairs near the hive so they can relax and watch the bees at work.

As pollinators of fruit trees, nut trees and crops, the value of bees is vast. According to the Washington State Department of Agriculture, honey bees pollinate $2.2 billion worth of tree fruits, nuts, and berries, and produce 2.5 million pounds of honey in their state alone. Those calculations do not include the value of all the seed crops bees pollinate, such as onions, watermelon, and squash.

Seattle, with its vibrant local food scene, is an ideal place to launch an urban bee company. Since Luster started his business, other bee companies have debuted, offering hosting, consulting, and education services. One business, called the Urban Bee Company, gives city dwellers a chance to sponsor a hive or an apprentice beekeeper along with hosting and education programs. “I could not be here without the support Seattle has given me,” Luster says. “I am really thankful for that.”

 

Published in Civil Eats: By

 

Turtles on the Upswing

| ChrisHardmanWriter

ENCOURAGING NEWS COMES FROM the beaches of Tortuguero, Costa Rica, where endangered green sea turtles nest by the thousands. Continuing an upward trend, the 2005 nesting season was one of the busiest on record with a total of 91,615 sea turtle nests recorded over a 4-month period. Researchers from the Caribbean Conservation Corporation (CCC) documented that in one night alone, sea turtles laid 3,000 nests on a 21-mile section of beach. In spite of poachers, beach disturbances, and turtle-eating jaguars, Tortuguero’s sea turtle population is growing steadily. “What we’re seeing are the positive benefits of long-term conservation,” explains Dan Evans of the CCC’s education program.

Located in northern Costa Rica on the Caribbean coast, Tortuguero supports the largest nesting population of green sea turtles in the Atlantic Ocean. By day the sand tells the story of the evening’s activity where rows of perfectly parallel turtle tracks cover the beach. Some of the tracks lead past the high tide mark to the deep pits the turtles dig to lay their eggs, while others only reach halfway up the beach and head back to the water. Researchers call those tracks “half moons,” when a turtle starts the egg-laying process but then changes her mind and returns to the sea. At night, it’s much harder to track the turtles’ activity. The black sand reflects the darkness of the night sky, and unless the moon is clearly visible, it’s nearly impossible to see.

Scientists and volunteers have been patrolling this beach since 1955 when renowned scientist Archie Carr set up a turtle-monitoring program with his students, friends, and family. At the time, Tortuguero’s green sea turtle population seemed on the verge of collapse. But in the years that followed, Carr and his successors at the CCC led a sea turtle campaign that helped sea turtle nesting populations rise from a low of 19,731 nests in 1972 to an all-time high of 92,523 nests in 1998. In half a century they established a permanent research station, welcomed the start of the ecotourism boom, developed a model volunteer research assistant program, and became an international force for sea turtle conservation. The data generated by the CCC’s nearly 50 years of sea turtle work has helped scientists understand the mysteries of the sea turtle and develop strategies to protect it.

CCC’s presence in Costa Rica has had positive effects on the people of Tortuguero as well. CCC collaborates with the local government, provides a variety of jobs, participates in school programs, and assists resident entrepreneurs with their ecotourism ventures. “The community has really shifted and embraces the idea that a sea turtle is worth more alive than dead,” Evans explains. Instead of killing turtles for their meat or shells, villagers can make money by hosting, guiding, or providing services to tourists coming to see the turtles.

Beginning in 1997, the scientists added a new data set to their study when beach-going jaguars started to regularly visit Tortuguero. Based on tracks, motion sensor video, and chance encounters, the researchers have determined that at least one adult male and one female and her cubs are coming out of Tortuguero National Park’s forest to feed on nesting sea turtles. CCC Scientific Director Sebastian Troëng estimates that jaguars kill about 100 of Tortuguero’s sea turtles each year, and although that number may seem high, Both Evans and Troëng agree that jaguars eating turtles are part of a natural process that doesn’t pose a threat to Tortuguero’s thriving sea turtle population. For more information about CCC and their volunteer program, visit ccc@cccturtle.org or call 1-800-678-7853.

Published in Americas magazine: By Chris Hardman

Sustaining a Splendid Species

| ChrisHardmanWriter

CAUTIOUSLY WE PLOD THROUGH a cattle pasture trying to avoid slipping in the mud or stepping on piles of dung. In the treetops above us, we hear raucous screeching, and the closer we get, the louder and more insistent the screeching becomes. Our guide, Alexander, sets up his spotting scope and waves to us eagerly while we stumble through the tall, wet grass to reach him. Suddenly a large bird with a 3-foot wing span bursts out of the tree canopy and flies overhead. With much squawking and branch shaking another follows and then another. We stare in awe at the great green macaw, one of only 270 left in Costa Rica—a magnificent rare bird that is in danger of extinction.

Citizen conservationists such as Alexander Martinez are playing an important role in the fight to save the great green macaw. A wiry 61-year-old in constant motion, Martinez works daily on saving not only the green macaw, but also other bird species as well. He operates a small bed and breakfast in the town of Puerto Viejo de Sarapiquí in the Caribbean lowlands of Costa Rica. He and his son, Kevin, guide bird hikes and take people into the hills to visit the wildlife reserve and rescue center Martinez and a friend run. In addition, Martinez volunteers with a group of local park guards who monitor and protect green macaw nests.

In his youth, Martinez was an avid hunter, but after living in Canada for a decade he returned to a very different Costa Rica. The country had gone through a logging boom in the 60s and 70s, and the introduction of chain saws and heavy equipment greatly accelerated the process. “I was shocked that everything I left behind that was so beautiful and so green was gone,” he explains. It was then he put down his gun and picked up a pair of binoculars.

The great green macaw (Ara ambiguus) lives in wet lowlands in small pockets of forests from Honduras to Ecuador. Deforestation has shrunk their habitat and concentrated their population into 5 areas: the border of Honduras and Nicaragua, the border of Nicaragua and Costa Rica, the Darien region of Panama and Colombia and two small populations in Ecuador. Scientists estimate that there are only 7,000 of these birds living in the wild.

One of the first people to sound the alarm about the status of the bird was World Wildlife Fund scientist George Powell. Little was known about the bird and its behavior in 1994, so Powell, who was working at the RARE Center for Tropical Conservation, started the Great Green Macaw Research and Conservation Project. He determined that Costa Rica had already lost 90% of the great green’s nesting territory and that there were only 210 birds left in the country. Even more alarming was his calculation that the species needed at least 50 breeding pairs to survive. At that time, Costa Rica only had 25 to 35.

What makes the macaw so vulnerable is its preference for the Almendro (Dipteryx panamensis) tree for feeding and nesting. At nearly 164 feet tall the almendro is a giant in the forest. When the massive branches break off, they leave behind vast tree cavities ideally suited for macaw nests. Their height and depth keep chicks safe from predators. Smaller tree cavities and bromeliads serve as watering holes, while the nuts provide a nutritious food source.

Unfortunately the almendro tree has become a popular tropical hardwood for patios, decks and floors. During Costa Rica’s initial logging boom, the almendro was safe because its wood was too hard to cut into. Loggers would clear all the other trees in the forest and leave the almendro alone in a field of grass and tree stumps. Once steel blades that could penetrate the wood became available, even the great almendro tree fell victim to the everpresent chainsaws.

In 1998 Powell recruited two young conservationists Olivier Chassot and Guisselle Monge Arias to take over the conservation aspect of the macaw project. Their conservation strategy depended heavily on community involvement and educational programs.

Chassot and Arias traveled to small rural communities in macaw habitat to talk to people about the importance of the bird and the almendro tree. They enlisted the help of local schools and recruited citizen conservationists to be nest caretakers. “When you talk to people and take the time to visit their communities, they understand the idea [of conservation],” Chassot explains.

Realizing that the only way to save the bird was to save the forest it lives in, the conservation team identified the San Juan-La Selva Biological Corridor, a 246,000-hectare geographical area connecting the Indio Maíz Biological Reserve in southeastern Nicaragua with Costa Rica’s La Selva Biological Station in the north to the Barra del Colorado Wildlife Reserve and Tortuguero National Park on Costa Rica’s Caribbean Coast.  In addition they lobbied for the creation of the Maquenque National Wildlife Refuge to protect the breeding range of the macaw.

The macaw population began to stabilize in Costa Rica between 1998 -2003 and increased from 210 birds in 1994 to 275 birds in 2010.

Part of the conservation strategy in Costa Rica is to provide financial incentives for protecting the birds and their habitat. Chassot’s organization, the Tropical Science Center, has been able to provide small payments to nest caretakers.  An adopt-a-tree program pays farmers fair market value to protect their almendro trees. “Most of [the farmers] who are willing to set aside land for conservation can receive payments from the government to preserve their forest,” Chassot explains. He reports that the macaw population began to stabilize in Costa Rica between 1998 -2003 and increased from 210 birds in 1994 to 275 birds in 2010. “It shows that we have been able to reverse the trend and that the population is slowly increasing.”

NICARAGUA
IN THE SMALL community of Buena Vista, Nicaragua, brightly colored awnings provide protection from the sun. A wooden stage sets the scene for music and dancing, and a poster board display of photographs showcases tropical birds. Buena Vista was the site of the 8th annual Festival Binacional de las Lapas. Since 2002 Nicaragua has joined with Costa Rica to sponsor a yearly festival in honor of the great green macaw.  Alternatively held in Costa Rica or Nicaragua, the festival includes an equal number of Costa Rican and Nicaraguan farmers, schoolchildren, nest caretakers and government officials.

Costa Rica and Nicaragua have forged an unprecedented partnership in the name of the lapa verde. “The great green macaw has no country and needs no passport to cross the border,” explains Chassot.  “[We] make sure that conservation actions on one side of the border have no negative impact on the other.”

The Nicaraguan Conservation organization, Fundación del Río has concentrated their work in the buffer zone of Nicaragua’s Indio-Maíz biological Reserve. A dense jungle with limited access, Indio-Maíz is considered one of Nicaragua’s best preserved tracts of land and one of the most important expanses of pristine rainforest in Central America. Located in the southeast corner of the country on the border of the San Juan River, this buffer zone has recently been under assault from loggers in search of lumber and clear cutters intent on planting African palm trees for bio fuel.

Fundación del Río has been monitoring macaw activities since 2002 and has documented 35 active nests. With the help of Nicaraguan citizen conservationists and local farmers, they have recorded more than 1,500 observations of macaws for their database.

Macaws are delightful birds that captivate people with their beauty, intelligence and playful nature. In Nicaragua, as in all the other countries in the macaw’s range, macaws are victims of the pet trade. Macaws are listed in the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES) as Appendix 1 which is the highest classification of protection for the most endangered species on the list. Even so, poachers capture the macaw nestlings to keep as pets, to sell to others or for export to other countries.

The removal of one or two nestlings has a great impact on the entire population because macaws are slow-breeding birds. They can take four or five years to mature, lay only two eggs at a time and nest every few years. Trading in macaw nestlings is a lucrative business with the birds selling between US $150 to $300.

To foster a love for the macaw as a special resident of Nicaragua and not as a commodity, Fundación targets the youngest members of the community. Through Radio Voz Juvenil,  Fundación Del Río broadcasts a Sunday morning program titled “Arita, the Great Green Macaw” that teaches young people and adults about the Great Green Macaw and the forest it lives in. The radio program is complemented by “Arita visita tu escuela,” a lively in-classroom educational program with games, songs, drawings and videos featuring the Great Green Macaw. Arita, a human-sized macaw mascot, has visited more than 11 schools in the municipality El Castillo so far.

ECUADOR
IN THE TROPICAL dry forests outside of Guayaquil, Ecuador, a small population of great green macaws struggles to survive in the shadow of 2.1 million people. Their sole sanctuary is the 6,000 hectare Cerro Blanco Protected Forest with 54 mammal species, 221 bird species and 100 of Ecuador’s most endangered endemic plant species. Logging, poaching and land grabbing have threatened to wipe out this population, but due to the efforts of the Pro-Forest Foundation—the NGO in charge of the reserve—the population is stable and even increasing.

The director of the Pro-Forest Foundation, Eric Horstman, has a 20-year history of conservation work in Ecuador. In 1993 after completing his 3-year assignment with the Peace Corps, he became director of the newly-formed Pro-Forest Foundation. He had heard that there were great green macaws in the reserve, but had only seen them stuffed into cages in local school zoos. “I finally saw a pair of them in the wild,” he recalls. “I was enthralled. It is a world of difference seeing a macaw in a cage as opposed to flying free in the wild.”

Horstman describes the great green macaw population in Ecuador as critically endangered and says the official estimate of 60-90 birds in Ecuador is optimistic. In addition to Cerro Blanco’s population of 11, there is another small group living in the humid tropical forests of the Esmereldas province in the North. The situation in Ecuador is so acute that scientists have recommended captive breeding of great green macaws.

Although La Fundación Ecológica Rescate Jambeli—a conservation organization that partners with the Pro-Forest Foundation—has successfully bred 17 chicks with their captive population of macaws, Horstman explains that they are holding off introducing captive birds into the wild until they establish a scientific protocol. One concern is that captive birds might introduce disease into a wild population, and of course there is the threat of injuries: macaws are fiercely territorial.

The great green macaw is officially protected in Guayaquil. But even though the city appointed the macaw their natural symbol with a strict set of regulations and ordnances concerning traffic of the species, clandestine sales of macaw fledglings continue. Fledglings are stolen from their nests in pigio trees, members of the bombacaceae family with smooth gray trunks.

The trees are hard to climb. Rather than risk [an] accident, people will just cut down the tree and hope that the chick will survive the fall. That’s just a double whammy,” Horstman explains.

Another threat to the macaw’s population is the rapid expansion of Guayaquil. Squatter settlements pop up on the city outskirts and push against the forest. Land grabbing is a problem and squatter communities have attempted to take over property within Cerro Blanco. “When we work with squatter settlements, we work with the leader,” Horstman explains.

First he obtains permission to enter the settlement, and then goes door to door with community leaders to ask people if they are interested in becoming honorary park guards. In one nearby settlement, the Pro-Forest Foundation has 11 people and one school on duty.

Horstman has found that the best deterrent to logging and poaching seems to be education, and the most compelling argument for saving the forest concerns water. There are at least 6 permanent sources of water in the reserve that the surrounding communities rely on. Horstman simply explains that without the forest, there will be no water.

“When we have engaged these people they, themselves, have recognized the ecological services of the reserve,” he says.

To strengthen the macaws’ chance for survival, the Pro-Forest Foundation has restored more than 200 acres of macaw habitat by planting native trees. “Trees that we planted in 1993 are now flowering and producing fruits. It’s not that long of a turnaround time,” Horstman explains. In that same time period the macaw population has grown by nearly 50% from a low of 6 to a high of 11. “The population seems to be slowly increasing,” Horstman says. “That is a hopeful sign.”

Efforts to protect the great green macaw have a ripple effect across its 6-country territory. To save the bird, the forest has to be saved first. In doing so, all the other smaller, less dramatic species retain their forest homes as well. In that respect the impact the bird has on its surroundings is truly great and truly green.

Published in Americas magazine, January-February 2011, by Chris Hardman

 

Energy from Water in Nicaragua

| ChrisHardmanWriter

CARLOS COLONEL owns an avocado farm on the slopes of an extinct volcano on Ometepe Island in Nicaragua. A while back, he realized that he could use the waterfall on his property to create clean energy, not only for himself, but for some of the poorest residents of the island who had never had power before. His quest to create a small hydroelectric power plant took nearly 5 years as he overcame geography and skeptical investors to bring light where there previously had been darkness. Now he employs local people to run the power plants that provide low-cost, environmentally-friendly electricity to 35% of the people on the island.

As one of Nicaragua’s most popular tourist destinations, the northwest side of Ometepe island was well equipped with power stations. But the rural side, where Kinloch has his avocado farm, was left in darkness. To make his dream of renewable energy a reality, Kinloch and his business partners had to raise more than one million dollars by convincing potential investors that they would see a return on their investment and that the rural villagers would pay their bills.

Kinloch hired community members to build the power plant and install the pipeline on the slope of the volcano. All of the power plant supplies had to be shipped to the island from the mainland. Once the pipeline was complete, an earthquake hit Ometepe destroying 30% of the pipeline. Undaunted, Kinloch and his team forged ahead to face the next challenge: raising money to purchase power lines. It took another 3 years for Kinloch to find an investor to supply 35 kilometers of power line to the rural communities of Ometepe.

Kinloch ignored the skeptics on the mainland who told him the local people would break the power plant equipment. “We took small farmers who didn’t have any idea about the computer and energy, and we taught them how to run the turbine,” Kinloch explains.  “I taught the guy who milks the cows to work the turbine, and he can do it.” Kinloch purposely hired only local people, who now have a reliable source of income in addition to access to clean energy.

Electricity came to the rural side of the island with much excitement. “We had to teach them about energy and how to use the energy,” Kinloch explains. “For the first month it was crazy. They had the light on every night and radio on all the time.” Kinloch relied on community leaders and teachers to teach the community how to use energy wisely and safely.

“The mind grows when you have light,” says Kinloch. Electricity changes lives. Land value increased and some residents have sold land to build better houses and start businesses. Farmers, who use the hydro powered irrigation system, can increase their yield by extending their growing season well past the rainy season. Kinloch’s goal is build enough power plants to supply 100% of the power on the island. His dream is for all of Ometepe to enjoy the benefits of renewable energy.

Published in Americas magazine by Chris Hardman

 

Mowtown to Growtown

| ChrisHardmanWriter

FOUR YEARS AGO, Detroit businessman John Hantz received national attention when he announced his plans to create the world’s largest urban farm in Detroit. His plan to buy vacant city land and convert it to orchards and tree farms was hailed as visionary by some and nefarious by others. After 4 years of negotiating wit the city and meeting with neighbors, Hantz Farms was finally able to purchase 1,400 vacant city-owned lots on Detroit’s lower east side for half a million dollars.

“The purpose of the investment is to make neighborhoods more livable,” says Hqntz Farms president Mike Score. “Our intention is to take larger blocks of contiguous land and make our woodlands a permanent feature in the city.”

In a bankrupt city that has lost a quarter of its population in 10 years, vacant land has become a pressing  concern. The city of Detroit is drowning in the fniancial burden of owning nearly 200,000 vacant parcels–almost half of them residential plots.

The Hantz proposal, initially a plan to create commercial fruit orchards and cut-your-own Christmas tree farms, had been scaled back to a simpler tree-planting project by the time the city approved the land sale in December 2012. Hantz Woodlands–a subsidiary of Hantz Farms–agreed to buy 1,400 vacant parcels from the city, clean up the debris, tear down decaying buildings, plant 15,000 trees, mow the grass regularly,and pay taxes on the land. The parcels are interspersed among homes that people are caring for and living in.

A small, but loud, group of community activists allege that the transaction is a “land grab” and demand that Detroit’s surplus land go into a community trust. They accuse Hantz of greed disguised as philanthropy. What if Hantz sells some of those parcels for housing, they ask, and he makes a profit off the cheap land?

Score has posed that question to the people currently living in the area. “If you go up and down the street and ask people, ‘What do you really want to happen in this neighborhood?’ they say they want a house on every lot,” he says. At this time, there isn’t a great demand for land in Detroit, but if in the future people decide this is a nice place to live and Hantz Woodlands can build houses on some of its land, Score says the neighbors would be pleased.

Hantz Farms maintains a small demonstration site next to its office on Mt. Elliot Street. Oak and sugar maple trees in tidy rows grow on 50 lots that formerly were used as dumping grounds. Gone are the frayed tires, soggy mattresses, and semi trailer full of chemicals. The drug dealer that used to operate on the corner has moved on, and the 80-year-old woman who lives on the street is delighted.

Although urban farming seems a viable income source for a city with a surplus of land an a shortage of people, Detroit lacked a formal policy for urban agriculture until recently. The city’s first agriculture zoning ordinance, adopted by Detroit City Council in April 2013, recognizes agriculture as a legal use of land and establishes guidelines for it. With the law on their side, Detroit’s farming entrepreneurs should now be able to avoid spending 4 years and a lot of money for the right to buy land in Detroit.

Published in Organic Gardening magazine by Chris Hardman

 

Python Pete—The Snake-Sniffing Puppy

| ChrisHardmanWriter

BIOLOGISTS IN the Florida Everglades are using man’s best friend in their battle against invasive species.  National Park Service Wildlife technician Lori Oberhofer is training a beagle puppy—nicknamed python Pete—to sniff out pet Burmese pythons that have been released into the wild.

Burmese pythons are a popular item in Florida’s booming exotic pet trade, and according to National Geographic, more than 144,000 of them have been imported to the U.S. from Asia since 2000.

Although they are legal to own, the problem comes when they grow up. As one of the world’s largest snakes, they can reach up to 15 feet long, causing many horrified owners to dump them into the nearest swamp.

As the snake’s popularity has increased, so has the population that is invading the Everglades. In a 10-year period, park officials removed 52 Burmese pythons from the Everglades, but then in 2004 alone they removed 61 pythons from the park.

Biologists believe that the pythons are breeding in the Everglades, and like most invasive species, their success is bad news for the park’s native species. The pythons appear to be eating native wood storks and mangrove fox squirrels and taking away habitat and food from the Everglade’s threatened eastern indigo snake. Tourists have even watched the giant snakes fight with park alligators.

Oberhofer is training her own puppy to search for the snakes and bark upon discovery. She is relying on the dog’s acute sense of smell to pinpoint the snake’s location. Then, park officials can capture the snake and remove it before it does more harm to the environment.

Working under the assumption that the Burmese python has a unique odor that is species specific, Oberhofer has spent several months teaching Pete what Burmese pythons smell like using a captive python in a mesh bag.

To protect Pete while he is working, Oberhofer will keep him on a leash and out of the water. That way he won’t risk becoming a statistic himself.

Published in Wildlife Conservation magazine by Chris Hardman

 

Cancun Makes a Comeback

| ChrisHardmanWriter

NEARLY A YEAR after one of the strongest Caribbean hurricanes on record ravaged Mexico’s number one tourist destination, Cancun is reinventing itself. “In addition to improved airport facilities, returning guests will also witness that Cancun’s resorts, attractions and beaches have experienced a great deal of change since Hurricane Wilma last year, thanks to a destination-wide commitment to revitalize the area,” says Artemio Santos, executive director of the Cancun Convention and Visitors Bureau.

More than just a popular vacation spot, Cancun generates a significant source of income for the country as a whole. According to the Cancun Convention and Visitors Bureau, approximately three million tourists visit Cancun each year accounting for 30% of all tourism dollars spent in Mexico. When hurricane Wilma blew through the Yucatan peninsula on October 21, 2005, the damage to Cancun’s hotels, restaurants, and beaches was immeasurable. Ranked a category 5, Wilma battered Cancun for more than 24 hours with top winds estimated at 145 mph.

The slow-moving hurricane decimated Cancun’s top attraction, its beautiful shoreline with miles of soft sand. What was once a boulevard of powder-white sand, was reduced to a thin strip of beach in some locations and to no beach in others. To fix the famous beach, the Mexican government hired Jan De Nul, a global leader in dredging, stone placement, filling and salvage services, to reclaim the sand that was swept out to sea.

On February 1, Jan De Nul embarked upon a massive dredging project they finished in record-time only two months later. Working around the clock, workers dredged sand from 22 miles offshore and delivered it through a pipe for distribution on Cancun’s shoreline.  The project cost $21.5 million to complete and gave Cancun an even wider beach than before Wilma.

In addition to beach improvements, the city is using this opportunity to upgrade its infrastructure and add new attractions, condos, and restaurants. Many of the hotels have been rebuilt with additional first-class services.  The airport, which ranks second to Mexico City as the country’s busiest airport, is expanding and upgrading to accommodate more tourists at a higher level. “A lot of what was done was trying to make [Cancun] a more luxurious destination,” says Claire Kunzman a representative for the Cancun Tourism bureau. Upgraded services, and increased high-end hotels are designed to appeal to a more upscale visitor.

The city of Cancun has launched a massive public relations campaign—which included a $77,000 two-page advertisement in the official 2006 World Cup guide—to convince people to come back to Cancun. According to the Cancun Convention and Visitors Bureau’s most recent statistics, 700,937 tourists visited Cancun from January to April of 2006. Although that number is less than the 1,277,847 tourists who visited Cancun in the same time period last year, the public appears to be welcoming the new Cancun.

Recently the leading online travel company Orbitz ranked Cancun as the third most popular destination in the world for the summer of 2006. “We expect that both new and returning visitors alike will be excited to see the brand-new Cancún and all that the island now has to offer,” Santos says.

Published in Americas magazine by Chris Hardman

 

Cutting a Course of Pollution

| ChrisHardmanWriter

CRUISE SHIPS introduce millions of people to exotic places throughout the Americas. As the industry grows, so does the size of the ships. Some carry as many as 5,000 passengers and crew. According to a study conducted by analyst G.P. Wild, the number of people taking cruises will reach 20.7 million by 2010. The Caribbean is the principal destination accounting for almost half of all cruise traffic.

The problem — according to Oceana, a non-profit organization based in Washington D.C. — is that cruise ships are legally able to dump raw sewage into the ocean. To address this issue, Oceana has launched the Stop Cruise Ship Pollution campaign with two goals in mind: create federal legislation in the U.S. to control cruise ship water pollution and convince cruise ship companies to install modern sewage treatment equipment. “These boats go to some of the most beautiful places on the planet, places that are already struggling with all kinds of pollution from development,” says Oceana Pollution Program Director and Senior Scientist Jackie Savitz. “These boats are capitalizing on the glory of the marine environment and in the meantime they are dumping all kinds of waste.”

Each day an average-sized cruise ship hosting 3,000 passengers and crew generates 30,000 gallons of sewage. An additional 255,000 gallons of waste water comes from sinks, dishwashers, and laundry — much of which contains toxic chemicals from industrial cleaning products, dry cleaning, and photo processing. Under current environmental laws, all of this waste can be dumped untreated into the ocean once the ship is more than three miles away from shore. “Harmful nutrients in sewage like nitrogen and phosphorous are well known pollutants that cause low oxygen problems like the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico,” explains Savitz. She says that raw sewage contaminates marine ecosystems and contains viruses that can make humans and marine life sick.

The cruise ships have responded to public pressure by voluntarily adopting memorandums of understanding and waste management policies that agree to fully comply with laws and regulations, welcome new technology, and minimize waste. “We make our living off of pristine environments and we have no reason not to be invested in the future of the environment,” explains International Council of Cruise Lines President Michael Crye. He says that the industry has invested millions of dollars in advanced waste water treatment on board cruise ships and that some of the new systems — like those in use in Alaska —  discharge water that is drinking-water quality. “Our mandatory waste management practices and procedures basically mandate that none of our members discharge anything within four miles of the shore unless they have these advanced wastewater treatment systems installed,” he explains.

Oceana wants all cruise ships to install the most current waste treatment technology and estimates that cruise ships could install new technology within five years at a cost of only $1.50 dollars per day per passenger. In order to find out if cruise customers would support  the cost of new technology, Oceana hired Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, Inc. to conduct a survey of cruise ship patrons. The poll revealed that six out of ten cruisers are willing to pay extra to make sure that cruise ships never dump sewage into the ocean. More than 90 percent of this group said that they would pay more than $25. “What we want them to do is get into the 21st century and upgrade to state-of-the-art sewage treatment and then we’ll be off their back,” Savitz says. “If they treat the stuff and stop dumping raw sewage, we think the customers will be a lot happier and the oceans will be a lot better off.”

Published in Americas magazine by Chris Hardman

 

A Damper on Earthquakes

| ChrisHardmanWriter

PROFESSOR CINNA LOMINITZ of the National University of Mexico has lived through some of most deadly earthquakes in the Americas. When he was 14, he survived Chile’s 1939 earthquake that measured a magnitude of 8.3 and killed 28,000 people.

Years later he felt the effects of Chile’s 1960 earthquake that measured a magnitude of 9.1. He has never forgotten the cries of the wounded after the 1985 earthquake in Mexico City that destroyed 400 buildings and killed 10,000 people. Perhaps that is why he has devoted his professional life to understanding earthquakes and how to survive them.

One question he set out to answer is why do some powerful earthquakes do little damage and weaker ones do great damage? For example, the 2003 Colima, Mexico, earthquake had a magnitude of 7.4 but killed only 18 people. The difference, according to Lomnitz, might be a matter of mud.

Significant parts of Mexico City are built upon ancient mud flats that have a natural “pitch” of one cycle every 2.5 seconds. All objects vibrate at a specific frequency, and unfortunately Mexico City’s mud vibrates at the same frequency as certain earthquake waves.

The danger increases in buildings that are 10 to 15 stories tall because they, too, have a 2.5 second period.

“It’s like a tuning fork,” Lomnitz says. “They start vibrating with the earthquake. Since they lack damping, they don’t just move once. They move worse and worse as the earthquake proceeds.” Eventually the buildings sway out of control and collapse. “Something like that can happen in every earthquake,” he explains.

“However, in Mexico City it just specifically attacks buildings with that height. For example, in the downtown area you can find hundreds of old churches. Nothing happens to them. They’re not tall enough. This is true for all of the old colonial buildings.”

Major metropolitan areas in other parts of the world — such as the San Francisco Bay Area and the waterfront district of the Japanese city of Kobe — also have been built on mud flats and lakebeds. Both of those cities suffered devastating earthquakes in the past two decades.

Professor Lomnitz suggests that buildings, like cars, be equipped with dampers to make them more earthquake-resistant.

“These dampers work exactly the way the shock absorbers do in the car,” he explains. He believes that not only should dampers be included in new buildings, but they should also be added to already-existing buildings.

According to Lomnitz, the technology is available, the process is relatively inexpensive, and even though dampers do add to the construction cost, they add to the value of the building because they help save lives.

torre
El Torre Mayor, Mexico City

Lomnitz points out that although a solution exists, dampers are not standard equipment in structures and their use is not yet widely recommended in building codes.

Mexico City now has one building that is equipped with dampers. At 55 stories high, the Torre Mayor is the tallest building in Latin America. It was built in 2003 and includes 96 dampers.

To educate others about the value of damping on soft ground, Lomnitz strives to be heard in the scientific community. A professor of seismology at the Institute of Geophysics, National University of Mexico, he is also a member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences, a chairman of the Committee of Earth Sciences in the National Research Council of Mexico, and a participant in UNESCO emergency field teams.

“My hope is that much more will be done about this peculiar problem to enable us to do away with earthquake risk on soft ground altogether.”

Published in Americas magazine,  July-August 2004, by Chris Hardman