Category Archives: Celebrate

Gabon: Tourism versus Oil Revenues

February 7, 2012 Coastal Care

Loango National Park is a national park in western Gabon. It protects diverse coastal habitat. The naturalist Mike Fay called Loango ‘Africa’s Last Eden’ and this is where Michael “Nick” Nichols from National Geographic, took his well-known pictures of surfing hippos. Both men call Loango the ‘Land of surfing hippos’. The park’s 1,550 km of savanna, pristine beach, forest and mangroves are a must-see in Gabon. Loango National Park offers the unique opportunity to observe elephants, buffalos, hippos, gorillas and leopards venturing onto the white sand beaches. Wikipedia. Photo source: ©© Marfis

Excerpts;

A decade ago Gabon set aside 10% of its land for national parks. It wanted to become Africa’s magnet for eco-tourists.

Of all the new parks in Gabon, Loango held perhaps the greatest potential to lure international tourists, given its rare wildlife and unusual coastal setting. Gabon saw the parks as a way to boost their economy, long dependent on oil.

All sorts of animals wander this rare stretch of undeveloped coast, western lowland gorillas, red river hogs, leopard tracks can been seen in the sand, elephants on the beach and hippo in the surf.

The idea was to turn Gabon into the African equivalent of Costa Rica, a country that has profited from its rainforests and wildlife through eco-tourism, hoping that tourism can help Gabon reduce its reliance on oil…

Gabon: Surfing hippos, lacking tourists, Read Full Article, BBC

In The Land of The Surfing Hippos, National Geographic

Celebrate

10 of The World’s Most Unusual Beaches

February 7, 2012 Coastal Care

Durdle Door, Dorset Bay, UK. This 95-mile coastline along England’s southern edge is a geologic storybook of the last 185 million years. Stroll the shore and you’ll see well-preserved dinosaur fossils and footprints, water-worn limestone arches, and striated rock faces. But the most unusual stretch is near Studland in Dorset, where stark white chalk cliffs and sea stacks look like towering icebergs that have slowly calved over the centuries. Photo source: ©© Midlander1231

Excerpts;

No disrespect to gorgeous beaches with powdery white sand, but sometimes the standard-issue paradise starts to feel, well, bland. It’s time to set off for shores with strange hues of sand, alarmingly low-flying aircraft, and hot pools you can dig yourself. From Florida to New Zealand, these 10 picks take you to some peculiar beaches, all worth a visit…

Read Full Article, Jaimie Moore

World’s Most Unusual Beaches, BBC / Lonely Planet
Candy sands, disappearing waves, transformed trolls — if life is a beach, these are its strangest days. These 10 beaches might not all be swimmable but they are all extraordinary.

Celebrate, Features, Photo of the Month

Giant’s Causeway, Northern Ireland; By Liz Lantz

February 1, 2012 Coastal Care

By © Liz Lantz

“This photo of © Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland was shot at dusk in September 2004. Growing up in Chicago, I had not seen such a rugged coastline before this trip overseas; it was absolutely magical.

Honoring the landscape and sharing moments that commonly go unnoticed in our busy lives are two themes carried throughout my work.”

Book Reviews, Pollution

Moby-Duck

January 7, 2012 Coastal Care

Photo source: ©© EJP Photo

Moby-Duck

A Book by Donovan Hohn. Viking, 2011.

Excerpts;

On Jan. 10, 1992, a container ship traveling south of the Aleutians, in the region once quaintly known as the Graveyard of the Pacific, en route from Hong Kong to Tacoma, Wash., took a steep roll and lost part of its cargo.

The incident had near-mythical repercussions. Among the lost merchandise were 7,200 packs of bathtub toys. Each four-piece set included a blue turtle, a green frog, a red beaver and a yellow duck.

This came to be erroneously understood as the story of 29,000 rubber duckies set adrift and washing up all over the globe…

Read Full Review, The New York Times

Moby-Duck, is “The true story of 28,800 bath toys lost at sea and of the beachcombers, oceanographers, environmentalists, and fools, including the author, who went in search of them.”

A book “Entertaining as well as philosophic… A metaphysical quest, an encyclopedic rummage through the mysteries of the ocean and the history of plastics, and a close-up look at what we are doing to our planet…”

Moby-Duck: The Book

Lost at sea: On the trail of Moby-Duck, Independent UK
The fate of a shipment of bath toys missing since 1992 has led to greater knowledge of the world’s oceans.

Curtis Ebbesmeyer and Friendly Flooties, Wikipedia

Celebrate, Features, Photo of the Month

Sandbank On The Coast Of Whitsunday Island, Queensland, Australia; By Yann Arthus-Bertrand

January 1, 2012 Coastal Care

© “Banc de sable sur le littoral de l’Ile de Whitsunday, Queensland, Australie (20º 15″S – 149º 01’E).”
Photograph courtesy of Yann Arthus-Bertrand for Coastal Care.
All rights reserved Yann Arthus-Bertrand ©2011.

By © Yann Arthus-Bertrand

Whitsunday Island is one of the 74 islands of the Whitsunday Island group off the east coast of Australia. Named by the British navigator James Cook who discovered these islands in 1770, on Whit Sunday.

The 4.3 miles (7 kilometers) long beach of White Haven, fringed with mangroves, has sand of a rare quality: at 98 percent silica, it is said to be the purest in the world.

This site belongs to the marine park of the Great Barrier which welcomes every year about 2 millions visitors who come to admire the variety of its land and marine species. To protect them, a third of the park was classified as a “highly protected zone” by Australian authorities in 2004. In these zones, fishing is prohibited and tourism is regulated to have only a moderated impact on this very sensitive environment.

Born in 1946, Yann Arthus-Bertrand has always been fond of nature and animals.

At thirty years old, he settles in Kenya with his wife, Anne, to study the every day life of a pride of lions. The camera soon becomes necessary to relate his observations, and he understands that he has to tell the facts through images rather than words. Photography becomes his vocation.

Back to France in 1981, he publishes a book, « Lions », begins a career as a reporter-photographer and becomes specialized in aerial photography.

In 1994, under the patronage of UNESCO, he begins the creation of an aerial image bank of the most beautiful places on earth : this project will lead to the publication of The Earth from above.

He creates the GoodPlanet Foundation, a non-profit organization.

Celebrate, Features

Coastal Care 2011: In Numbers and Achievements

December 31, 2011 Coastal Care

Photograph: SAF – Coastal Care

Coastal Care 2011: In Numbers and Achievements

905 Articles In Just Washed In
13 Scientific Articles & Dossiers
2 Scientific Missions
13 Books & Reviews
11 New Picture of the Month
11 New Photographers
12 New Beach of the Month

Our deepest gratitude and thanks to our immensely talented and highly inspiring contributors of 2011.
—Santa Aguila Foundation

Johnny Abegg
Branden Aroyan
Yann Arthus-Bertrand
Robynne Boyd
Andy Coburn
James Andrew Graham Cooper
Celie Dailey
Chip Fletcher
Mary Edna Fraser
Andy Goldsworthy
Noah Gorelick
Denis D. Gray
James Marcus Haney
Mark Edward Harris
Brian Hodges
Eddie Jarvis
Joseph T. Kelley
Gary Lazorick
Maximilien Lebaudy
Carlos Loureiro
William J. Neal
Pacific Voyagers
R. Nelson Parrish
Orrin H. Pilkey
Keith C. Pilkey
Susan Salander and team
William Sargent
The TAI
Virginia Tice
Blair and Dawn Witherington
Makoto Yamashita
Robert Young

Galerie Lelong, New York
Duke University Press
University Of California Press
University of Hawaii Press
Strawberry Hill Press Publishing
Pineapple Press Publishing
and Crowdrise, a new partner.

Photo source: ©© Oude School

Beach Art, Celebrate

Light Art At The Beach

December 24, 2011 Coastal Care

Light Art installation on Kijkduin Beach.
Uploaded by jopokus2

Sea and dunes form the natural backdrop for the monumental works of glass and light art at this international seaside exhibition, where artists explore new possibilities to reach the spectator by the medium of light.

In the dunes of The Hague’s southern beach resort of Kijkduin, on the North Sea coast, more than 100 Round white glass lights of different sizes (from 0,5m to 1m in diameter) are given to the artists to turn into art pieces, to be placed along the beach boulevard and spread among the sand dunes. Some globes are hand painted, some plain white, yet all glow and constantly change colours in the evening hours, offering an illuminated and surreal landscape of glowing glass orbs.

The Kijkduin seaside installation is reinterpreted by a different group of artists each year, ranging from children to graffiti artists.

In 2008, the installation was organised by Right to Play, an international organization that helps children to practice sport and promote peace: 24 light balls have been painted mainly by ex-top skaters and soccer players from The Hague and were auctioned. They managed to give 15.000 euro to Unicef.

The 2011 Kijkduin seaside exhibition, Sixth Edition, was connected to the UN Program “Our life, our future.”

Biennal 2011

The Artistic Seashore in Kijkduin, Netherlands

Light Art Kijkduin

Celebrate, Films

Tipping Barrels

December 9, 2011 Coastal Care

Tipping Barrels – Journey Into The Great Bear, is a unique combination of surfing and environmental journalism that follows surfers Arran and Reid Jackson on a trip into the heart of the Great Bear Rainforest – a region of temperate rain forest in Canada, on the British Columbia Coast between Vancouver Island and Southeast Alaska – where they learn more about the region and the issues confronting it.

Watch: Tipping Barrels – Journey Into The Great Bear

Directed by Ben Gulliver;

Produced by Rene Gauthier and Michael Reid;

Filmed by Ben Gulliver, Ian McAllister.

Original Article, And For More Information

Celebrate

“Our Blue Canoe”, A Documentary Film Trailer, By Pacific Voyagers

November 24, 2011 Coastal Care

WATCH: The first teaser trailer for the documentary film, “Our Blue Canoe” which is currently in production and highlights the epic modern-day journey of the Pacific Voyagers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UR_nk7ZEKcE&feature=youtu.be

Uploaded on Youtube, by Pacific Voyagers

About the Pacific Voyagers:
All texts and photograph, property and courtesy of © Oceanic Nature Film Productions / Pacific Voyagers

The Goal:

“We are a group of Pacific Islanders who have come together from many nations, sailing as one across the Pacific Ocean. We are voyaging to strengthen our ties with the sea, renew our commitment to healthy ecosystems for future generations, and to honour our ancestors who have sailed before us. As we sail our Vaka across the Pacific, we are respectful and gentle, always remembering our voyage motto: “Move your paddle silently through the water.

The Ocean provides us with the air we breathe, the food we eat, life-sustaining medicines, and nourishment for our souls. Currently, our Ocean is in peril and these essential gifts are quickly disappearing.”

The Mission:

“Pacific Voyagers’ mission is simple: Use the wisdom of our ancestors, combined with modern science, to propel us into a more sustainable future, help heal our injured ocean, raise awareness, and to revive our cultural traditions of voyaging….

Starting in Aotearoa (New Zealand) in April of 2011, we have sailed to Tahiti, The Marquesas, and throughout Hawaii where we attended the Kava Bowl Ocean Summit. At the Kava Bowl Summit, all voyagers, along with some of the top marine scientists in the world, came together to address the effects of climate change on our ocean, the economic costs of the ocean, and the intrinsic value we hold for our ocean.

We have just concluded our North American leg of our journey. We sailed down the California coast, starting in San Francisco and concluded in San Diego where we are winterizing our vessels.

Commencing our journey again in January, 2012, we’ll continue to raise awareness of the current health of our Pacific Ocean and show people what they can do to help.

During our journey thus far, we’ve seen pockets of floating plastic and debris, litter strewn upon our beaches, and the most heartbreaking: a Fin Whale just off the shores of San Francisco, struggling in an entangled piece of plastic rope that only took hold deeper…

We’ll continue our voyage south to Cabo San Lucas, on to Costa Rica’s Cocos Islands, the Galapagos, The Marquesas, Tahiti, and then back to our Pacific Island homes. We’ll also attend the Festival of Pacific Arts in the Solomon Islands in July 2012. We invite and encourage you to continue following us on our journey. We get so much joy and pleasure from people following and encouraging us along the way!”

Photograph by © MagnusDanbolt, skipper of HineMoana vaka; courtesy of © Oceanic Nature Film Productions / Pacific Voyagers

Moby-Duck

Coastal Care 2011: In Numbers and Achievements

The mission of the Santa Aguila Foundation is to raise awareness of and mobilize people against the ongoing decimation of coastlines around the world.