Interesting Expedition

Check out (at the link below) this Coastal/Marine Expedition. The expedition is led by two South African's my mother met while in Gabon (West Central Africa).

Click Here

Here is an excerpt from their website MOVING SUSHI:

"The aim of the expedition is to film an objective and holistic documentary concerning the exploitation of marine resources, the effectiveness of marine protected areas and the potential development of aquaculture. By understanding the problems of fisheries globally, The Marine Resource Expedition hopes to highlight the positive aspects of marine resource conservation, something which is often overlooked."

Shark Finning!

Shark finning is without a doubt the hardest thing I've ever watched.

See for yourself:



On another note:

Scientists recently discovered a seamount off the coast of Cocos Island (off Costa Rica) that is critical habitat to many species of sharks. Unfortunately, the seamount is not yet protected by the marine protected area for Cocos Island and fisherman are rapidly depleting the areas shark population for shark fins. A fellow National Geographic Grantee, Ben Horton, is doing important work to document this seamount and its sharks in order to convince the Costa Rican Government to include the sea mount within the protected area boundaries. Hopefully this will help reduce the shark finning there. Please follow his updates and support his project any way you can. Go here http://www.cocosseamount.blogspot.com/

Here is a photograph of a school of hammerheads near the Cocos Island Sea Mount. Photograph taken by Ben Horton.

ECUADOR.

On January 7th I will be traveling to Ecuador with my father to climb a few of the glaciated volcanoes there. Two of them, Cotopaxi and Chimborazo, are quite well known and should provide some exciting adventures. Chimborazo is actually the closest point on earth to the sun. Nope not Mt. Everest. Both have dissapearing glaciers and both are heavily climbed by tourists, especially Cotopaxi. On my expedition I hope to document (through photographs) the impact of tourism on alpine environments. The impact of tourism on other mountains has been well documented, particularly Mt. Kilimanjaro, which I climbed 3 years ago. I'll be posting here to let you know what I find. The image above is a digital elevation model of Cotopaxi taken during a Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (click on the photo for more information).