ecotourism Archive

  • The Sonoma Valley in Northern California is known for it's world-class wine, gentle hills, and year-round temperate climate, where novelist-gentleman-farmer Jack London set up his ode to wild sustainability one hundred years before it became a thing. Flying over in a hot air balloon, hiking the protected hillsides to find a precious Pinot Noir at one of the 425 wineries, sailing off the coast, there are many ways to get lost in them hills.

    Wild Sonoma’s ‘Valley of the Moon’ – Living with the Land

    Posted on May 15, 2019 | 1 Comment
    The Sonoma Valley in Northern California is known for it's world-class wine, gentle hills, and year-round temperate climate, where novelist-gentleman-farmer Jack London set up his ode to wild sustainability one hundred years before it became a thing. Flying over in a hot air balloon, hiking the protected hillsides to find a precious Pinot Noir at one of the 425 wineries, sailing off the coast, there are many ways to get lost in them hills.

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  • Canadians facilitate illegal land sales of ancestral land in Caribbean Honduras, and members of the Honduran Black Fraternal Organization (OFRANEH) denounced for defamation by tourism investors Patrick Daniel Forseth (Carivida Villas) and Randy Jorgensen (Life Vision Developments) -- see any issues of neocolonialism here?

    “Little Canada” Honduras Neocolonists Denounce Garifuna Defenders

    Posted on October 4, 2017 | 5 Comments
    Canadians facilitate illegal land sales of ancestral land in Caribbean Honduras, and members of the Honduran Black Fraternal Organization (OFRANEH) denounced for defamation by tourism investors Patrick Daniel Forseth (Carivida Villas) and Randy Jorgensen (Life Vision Developments) -- see any issues of neocolonialism here?

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  • Morro Bay, the bounty of sea, dune, bay, and estuary ebb and flow against the sacred Nine Volcanic Sisters, the rocky Morros. Small town charm coexists with protected parkland and one of the few remaining functioning wetland estuaries in overpopulated California, a direct counterpoint to its channelized and endlessly pumped and polluted waterways. The landscape invites migrating birds and tourists, fosters endangered plants and animals, and allows fish populations to thrive.

    Morro Bay Estuary and Its Nine Volcanic Sisters

    Posted on October 31, 2016 | 1 Comment
    Morro Bay, the bounty of sea, dune, bay, and estuary ebb and flow against the sacred Nine Volcanic Sisters, the rocky Morros. Small town charm coexists with protected parkland and one of the few remaining functioning wetland estuaries in overpopulated California, a direct counterpoint to its channelized and endlessly pumped and polluted waterways. The landscape invites migrating birds and tourists, fosters endangered plants and animals, and allows fish populations to thrive.

    Continue Reading...

  • Big Bear in the San Bernardino Mountains has year-round outdoor attractions, including skiing, hiking, boating, and fishing. Yet long before the resorts, the area was called Yuhaviat, or "Pine Place" by the original inhabitants, the San Manuel Band of Serrano Mission Indians, with their sacred site of snow quartz called the Eye of God.

    Eye of God: Big Bear’s Sacred Site of Creation

    Posted on September 21, 2015 | 2 Comments
    Big Bear in the San Bernardino Mountains has year-round outdoor attractions, including skiing, hiking, boating, and fishing. Yet long before the resorts, the area was called Yuhaviat, or "Pine Place" by the original inhabitants, the San Manuel Band of Serrano Mission Indians, with their sacred site of snow quartz called the Eye of God.

    Continue Reading...

  • While Ile à Vache, a 20-square mile island off of Haiti’s southern coast, has been promoted as a jewel of Caribbean ecotourism, the subsistence fishermen and farmers of the island have been ignored. As the government moves forward with development plans, the people have responded with a series of protests.

    Land Grab in “Paradise”: Haiti’s Île à Vache Fights Back

    Posted on June 17, 2014 | 2 Comments
    While Ile à Vache, a 20-square mile island off of Haiti’s southern coast, has been promoted as a jewel of Caribbean ecotourism, the subsistence fishermen and farmers of the island have been ignored. As the government moves forward with development plans, the people have responded with a series of protests.

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  • A gold rush that accelerated with the onset of the 2008 global recession compounds the woes of the Amazon basin, laying waste to Peruvian rain forest and spilling tons of toxic mercury into the air and water.

    Peru: lllegal Gold Mining versus Biodiversity and Ecotourism

    Posted on April 9, 2014 | 2 Comments
    A gold rush that accelerated with the onset of the 2008 global recession compounds the woes of the Amazon basin, laying waste to Peruvian rain forest and spilling tons of toxic mercury into the air and water.

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  • The Loliondo Game Controlled Area (LGCA), one of Tanzania’s most well-known Maasai community concessions and wildlife destinations, is in the spotlight as local stakeholders and outside financial interests clash over its natural resources. Watch "Welcome to Loliondo," a documentary on how the Maasai confront the threat of safari tourism taking away their land.

    Welcome to Loliondo: Maasai Struggle Against Game Hunters for Land Rights

    Posted on November 27, 2013 | No Comments
    The Loliondo Game Controlled Area (LGCA), one of Tanzania’s most well-known Maasai community concessions and wildlife destinations, is in the spotlight as local stakeholders and outside financial interests clash over its natural resources. Watch "Welcome to Loliondo," a documentary on how the Maasai confront the threat of safari tourism taking away their land.

    Continue Reading...

  • Film and music of shimmering yet jarring beauty play together on a South Seas beach in "Legong: Dance of the Virgins." It's a rarely screened 1935 silent movie, shot entirely in Bali with a Balinese cast, mixed with a new score by Club Foot Orchestra and Gamelan Sekar Jaya. Presented in a crude but rich two-strip early Technicolor process, one of the last silent films made by Hollywood, it depicts Bali as Westerners idealized it at the time.

    Legong Film: Balinese Dream Dance of Nymphs in Heaven

    Posted on August 17, 2013 | No Comments
    Film and music of shimmering yet jarring beauty play together on a South Seas beach in "Legong: Dance of the Virgins." It's a rarely screened 1935 silent movie, shot entirely in Bali with a Balinese cast, mixed with a new score by Club Foot Orchestra and Gamelan Sekar Jaya. Presented in a crude but rich two-strip early Technicolor process, one of the last silent films made by Hollywood, it depicts Bali as Westerners idealized it at the time.

    Continue Reading...

  • Baja California, despite proximity to the US and recent rampant growth, remains a wild and untamed coastal desert. Behind the charming pueblitos and peaceful resorts lies a varied history where conquest and development have moved both slow and fast. Following a recent trip to the Gulf of California town of Loreto, this first in a series of articles attempts to define what makes the place special, as well as what the future holds for this (mostly) hidden resort region.

    Baja California: An “Earthly Paradise” in the Desert

    Posted on July 10, 2013 | 7 Comments
    Baja California, despite proximity to the US and recent rampant growth, remains a wild and untamed coastal desert. Behind the charming pueblitos and peaceful resorts lies a varied history where conquest and development have moved both slow and fast. Following a recent trip to the Gulf of California town of Loreto, this first in a series of articles attempts to define what makes the place special, as well as what the future holds for this (mostly) hidden resort region.

    Continue Reading...

  • I am on the trail of John Muir, intending to walk into the wild high country, his "range of light," inspired by the vision of Ansel Adams who once said: “Life is your art. An open, aware heart is your camera. A oneness with your world is your film. Your bright eyes and easy smile is your museum.”

    Wilderness of Minarets: On the Coyote Trail of Muir and Adams

    Posted on December 1, 2012 | 6 Comments
    I am on the trail of John Muir, intending to walk into the wild high country, his "range of light," inspired by the vision of Ansel Adams who once said: “Life is your art. An open, aware heart is your camera. A oneness with your world is your film. Your bright eyes and easy smile is your museum.”

    Continue Reading...

  • Set in a wild forest near the Skärsjön Lake, the Kolarbyn Eco-Lodge is Sweden’s most primitive hotel, offering twelve electricity-free "nature huts" allowing communion with the Swedish landscape without actually camping.

    Wild Eco Lodge: Sweden’s Primitive Kolarbyn

    Posted on September 10, 2012 | No Comments
    Set in a wild forest near the Skärsjön Lake, the Kolarbyn Eco-Lodge is Sweden’s most primitive hotel, offering twelve electricity-free "nature huts" allowing communion with the Swedish landscape without actually camping.

    Continue Reading...

  • The BBC documentary swims deep into the mythological underwater world of the "cenote sagrada" of Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula.

    Swimming into Xibalba: Secrets of the Maya Underworld

    Posted on March 24, 2012 | 4 Comments
    The BBC documentary swims deep into the mythological underwater world of the "cenote sagrada" of Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula.

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  • REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) purports to combat global warming by saving rainforests, but without reducing greenhouse gas emissions, nor putting the capitalist system and its excesses—the real causes of environmental disaster—on the table.

    Chiapas: Corporate Polluters Lust for Trees

    Posted on December 10, 2011 | 2 Comments
    REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) purports to combat global warming by saving rainforests, but without reducing greenhouse gas emissions, nor putting the capitalist system and its excesses—the real causes of environmental disaster—on the table.

    Continue Reading...