Courtney Hamilton - OnEarth Magazine, from NRDC

Man vs Nature

Three days before I returned from New Year's vacation I was stung by a scorpion in my bedroom, but surprisingly (to my roommates back home) I put the onus of culpability upon myself and the hotel, not the little critter.
It’s not that I thought the hotel should have exterminated all (or any) arachnids in the vicinity of my jungle bungalow—that would be absolutely ridiculous, as well as morally questionable—but I hold myself and the hotel responsible for what was an extremely painful experience because I believe neither of us took the proper precautions to avoid a relatively predictable man vs. nature conflict.
You see, though the hotel was in the middle of nowhere, riverside, near the Caribbean coast of ...read full post

Comments (0) | January 16, 2009
Traveler's Dilemma

Just this last June, LA Times columnist Dan Neil astutely observed that "on a fundamental level, ecotourism is a contradiction in terms" and so he begged his readers, "Please don't go."
The premise of his argument was simple-- how can hundreds of tourists flock to the most fragile ecosystems in our world to "see them before they go" and yet not play a role in precipitating their very collapse? Even when people travel the best way that they can, carrying out what they carry in and supporting local communities with fair wages... there is still a premium to be paid for adventures into the bowels of the Amazon or to the top of Mt Kilimanjaro.
Even OnEarth's cover story for it's Winter 2009 issue touches on the topic as it relates to less exotic locales when it asks "are we loving the West to ...read full post

Comments (0) | December 12, 2008
The Aussie Global Warming Diet: Veggies, Chicken, and Kangaroo Meat

Since I left Thailand, lots of things have happened. Citizen protests have errupted in in Bangkok, violence and gunfire has spread along the Thai/Cambodian border, and elsewhere in the Asia/Oceana region, an Australian government advisor has recommended that citizens cut carbon fast... by switching their burgers for kangaroo chops.
Like the elephant in Thailand, the Kangaroo is a national symbol in Australia, appearing on the coat of arms, the dollar coin, and as a star in popular TV shows. Apparently, now it just may begin to resurface on the dinner plate.
I understand where the suggestion comes from: Methane from Aussie ...read full post

Comments (2) | October 17, 2008
Looks Like a Tiger, Walks Like a Drunk

Meow, was, by all means, a gorgeous tiger. He was also charmingly kind and sweet and was known to enjoy a good scratch on the belly from his cartakers.
But, of course, Meow-- the special tiger-- had a special kind of story too.
Meow was, in fact, the inspiration for opening the wildlife sanctuary in Thailand that I worked at. When the founder of the camp first met Meow, the sweet little kitty was living at a gas station.
To earn some extra cash the owner had kept Meow-- from kitten to adult-- out front of his shop to attract tourists and other purchasers of his goods. But since the owner was a gas station owner-- not a zoologist-- Meow's diet was lacking to say the least. If I remember correctly, this beautiful beast was subsisting largely on table scraps for the better part of his ...read full post

Comments (0) | September 29, 2008
That's Right-- the Red Bucket IS the Flush

One conservation measure that I learned while I was in Thailand at the wildlife sanctuary was how to use a Thai Flush. Basically, that meant that when it was time to flush you'd take a scoop of water from the bucket on the right and pour it into the toilet. Gravity would pull the water down and clear the bowl.
What the toilet lacked in sanitation it made up for in creativity... I have to be honest, there is no better way to measure and minimize the water wasted with each flush than to make a person use a scooper each time they need to pour in a little more water.
Being that in America about 40 percent of the water used in the home gets flushed down the toilet each day, I have to admit the basic thai approach is a far more efficient ...read full post

Comments (1) | September 19, 2008
The Downside of Adaptation

Thai elephants are not alone in the continued loss of habitat. Despite a complete ban on commercial logging in 1988, illegal logging still continues in some areas and the government is regularly faced with the challenges of enforcing laws. And, there is the added fact that hotels for tourists are allowed to be built in national parks, further encroaching on the remaining forest cover in Thailand.

As they've been displaced, some species have learned to cohabitate with their human neighbors. These animals-- like many rescued at the wildlife sanctuary-- meet a mixed fate in their struggle for survival: they find that they can raid construction sites and trash at night for easy cuisine, but often what they are left with are meals devoid of nutrition and laced with toxics and chemicals.
At the wildlife camp Sally, the resident macaque foster mother, was a living example of what that meant.

...read full post

Comments (0) | September 11, 2008
How to Walk an Elephant

In Thailand the image of the elephant is ubiquitous: on money, on buildings, on archways, gateways, and even jewelry. But the everywhereness of the elephant is rather ironic-- according to a recent article by Science Daily only 1,000 Thai elephants remain in the wild. The natural species borders on eradication as populations dwindle, habitat continues to be destroyed and the inability of different packs to reach each other leads to more and more inbreeding (a plight similar to that of the Rocky Mountain Grey Wolf, though more extreme).

With the natural population in continued decline, it is increasingly overshadowed by the population of domesticated Thai elephants. Current estimates suggest that as many as 2,000 elephants are living interdependently with their ...read full post

Comments (0) | August 26, 2008
Animal Farm, Thai Style

About a year ago, when I was an intern doing youth outreach at NRDC, I developed an interest in elephants. As a mini-project I was researching eco-tourism: who goes on these trips, how do they find out about them, how might NRDC also develop a relationship with these philanthropic folks?

But along the way I learned 2 new things:

1. I am the person I was researching, demographically speaking, that is.

2. You can go to China to take care of pandas (the endangered adorable ones), if you agree to always wear a hospital gown when you hold them.

In a heartbeat I was hooked, I was set, I was ready to go.

But to my dismay (and in retrospect, to my fortune, considering that not-so-little Chengdu earthquake that struck right around when I thought I might like to go) further research revealed that volunteering with pandas has a price tag in the many thousands of dollars -- far out of my budget.

I set off on a search for ...read full post

Comments (0) | August 20, 2008
Runaway Pachaderym

My first day at the volunteer camp I woke up at 6.30am to fetch the elephants from their hiding places in the forest. But after about an hour of waiting in a clearing for the mahouts to come back with their charges it became apparent that one of the elephants had broken free from it's leash in the night and had gone on a walk about.

Three hours later, Nam Phon (the elephant) was found. 3.6 kilometers away. In the middle of a stranger's banana plantation. Joyously munching away at the farmer's stock.

Elephants, it turns out, love bananas.

Comments (0) | August 20, 2008