Salam aleikum (peace be with you)!

As I am writing this entry, a young girl in Pakistan is fighting for her life. She was shot in the head by somebody who objected to her speaking out against the (Pakistani) Taliban.

While Malala is in critical condition and being treated in a military hospital, a storm has started in the media including the following contributions:

• At least 50 Islamic scholars have issued a Fatwa (Islamic ruling) declaring the attack on Malala as unislamic adding that the United States was the enemy of Islam and Pakistan
• A Jewish Press reporter in a contribution under the title "An Evil and Repugnant Ideology" comments on these "abnormal humans" who "are logically acting on ... Shari'a, Islamic law" and finishes his comment with the rethorical question "Do I need to add that this ideology is evil and repugnant?"
• Madonna dedicated a song to Malala during a show. Later, during the portion of the show where she performed a striptease, Madonna displayed the word “Malala” written on her back.

Using this sad case as an occasion to criticise one's old enemies or for a striptease...?!

I don't think that there's much need for another criticism of this act of violence. Instead, I would like to recommend you to have a look at the diary that Malala published in 2009. It gives a child's perspective on the situation in the Swat Valley in 2009 and includes some surprising statements about school from a young schoolgirl: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7834402.stm

Listen!

In the last months, I have had the opportunity to travel in some very biodiverse parts of the world. In fact, I have read the superlative "one of the most biodiverse places on earth" so often that I felt it is used quite inflationary. However, I am also aware of the fact that trying to measure the biodiversity of a specific place is a daunting task*. And of the fact that many people who care about biodiversity are at pains to point out what it means if biodiversity declines.

In this context, I have read (and listened into) the following article with great interest.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/sep/03/bernie-krause-natural-world-recordings

I find the approach of listening to biodiversity quite inspiring. A few hours after reading the article, I tried to listen to how the city sounds from the flat of my host. And later today, when I walk in New York, I want to try to pay attention to the different soundscapes of different places.

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* Just think about the challenges involved in defining and demarcating a specific 'place' (one square metre? one square kilometre? the whole ecosystem?).
And then you haven't even begun to think of the definition of 'biodiversity' etc. And once you have your definitions clear, imagine going out there on a really steep slope which is densely vegetated and try to find every single living organism (beside animals and plants not forgetting the bacteria and fungi above, on and below the ground). Really, it cannot be done! That is why researchers studying biodiversity have to use indicator species etc. which again gives rise to all kinds of uncertainties and further questions...

The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and a warning from the Elder Brothers

The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is a mountain range that contains the highest mountains of Colombia. Amongst others, it is unique in the world for having such high mountains (almost 6000 metres) so close to the coast. On some days, it is possible seeing the snowcovered peaks from a beach on the Caribean coast!

The Sierra Nevada is very special also with regard to culture. One of the indigenous people living there are the Kogi. Some Kogi can now been seen in villages and cities on the foot of the Sierra Nevada. However, a group of Kogi living in the higher parts of the mountain range have chosen to have no contact to the outside world.

The Kogi consider the Sierra Nevada to be the Heart of the Earth and themselves as the "Elder Brothers" responsible for it. In the last years, the Elder Brothers have noticed changes to the Heart of the Earth. Concerned, they broke their isolation and invited a film team from the BBC to transmit a message to us "Younger Brothers". The resulting documentary, "From the Heart of the World: The Elder Brothers' Warning" can be found on youtube.

Fe en la Causa

Colombia is such a diverse country and this entails that besides lots of things that I like here there are also some that I find harder to digest. One example for the latter are the recruitment and motivational videos for the the Colombian army and the war it wages. They are part of "Fe en la Causa", a media campaign by the Colombian armed forces.

Here's a few examples of such videos. The video that has been watched most is the one below. Even if you don't understand Spanish, you'll notice how intense the voice speaks to you telling you about heros and glorious troops. It also tells you about the need for "Fe en la Causa" (Faith in the Cause).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAXA1EHh2eE

The next video refers to some important dates in the history of Colombia, amongst others putting the Colombian Army in an uninterrupted tradition with a rebel force fighting the army of the established power (Simon Bolivar's troops in the struggle for Independence from Spain). When I watched it I thought that the rebel organisation FARC (who are fighting the Colombian Army) probably also claim to be the heirs of Simon Bolivar...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA0pJZ4HRd8

For X-Mas with the Colombian armed forces click here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmtOVchbD0o

Different worlds in southern Colombia

From Popayan, a nice historic city in southern Colombia, I travelled east crossing the Sierra los Coconucos. To both sides of the road, vegetation was as dense as a wall.

 

It was very misty and the cloud forest looked pretty misterious.

No surprise that this strange landscape is inhabited by strange animals, too.

Even some of the public transport vehicles here looked unusual.

On the eastern side of the mountains, I arrived in another beautiful region, famous for its coffee ...

... but even more well-known as Colombia's main archeological site: San Agustín. The flagship remains of the ancient and mysterious culture of this place are huge stone statues and tombs.

I found some of the common household objects like pots, grinders, etc. (some of which are 3000 years old), that are on display in the site's great little museum, very interesting, too.

A few hour's drive north of San Agustín's cool, rainy and green landscape, ...

... I entered the Desierto de Tatacoa.

This tiny desert is famous for observing the stars. When I was there, the sky was cloudy however and I couldn't see many stars but instead enjoyed the beautiful changing light of sky and desert landscape.

A few hours further north, I arrived in Bogota, yet another completely different world with traffic jams, homeless people sleeping next to the main roads and modern skyrise buildings that are illuminated in different colors at night.

Some more fotos from Peru and Ecuador

After some blog entries without pictures, here are a few fotos from Peru and Ecuador to give an impression of the incredibly diversity of landscapes in these countries.

Mountain road in Peru

Different types of maize put out to dry in the sun

Mountain lake

Lima

My first glimps of the Pacific

Back on mountain roads

A village in the hills

In southern Ecuador

 Chimborazo vulcano

 Quito

A village on the Ecuadorian coast

Plastic Planet

At the moment, I am very interest in possible solutions to challenges facing life on Earth. However, there are some instances where I find it worthwile and necessary to take a step back and think about what these challenges/problems really are. Plastic is one of them.

Austrian filmmaker Werner Boote's great documentary Plastic Planet is available on DVD and you can also watch it online (in English and German) if you search for "plastic planet werner boote" on vimeo.com.