Archiv der Kategorie: Naturschutz

Naturschutz-Projekte

Species extinctions & pandemics: Will we survive or are we the next endangered species?

FOREWORD

The author, Gerd Michael Müller, born in Zürich in 1962, traveled as a photo-journalist to more than 50 nations and lived in seven countries, including in the underground in South Africa during apartheid. In the 80 years he was a political activist at the youth riots in Zürich. Then he was involved in pioneering Wildlife & eco projects in Southern Africa and humanitarian projects elsewhere in the world. As early as 1993, Müller reported on the global climate change and in 1999 he founded the «Tourism & Environment Forum Switzerland». Through his humanitarian missions he got to know Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama and other figures of light. His book is an exciting mixture of political thriller, crazy social stories and travel reports – the highlights of his adventurous, wild nomadic life for reportage photography .

(please note that translation corrections are still in progress and images will follow soon)

Australia, Queensland, Daintree Eco-Lodge & Spa, Award Winner, Gourmet-Restaurant Australien, Queensland, Daintree Eco-Lodge & Spa, eine der weltbesten Lodges Aborigines, Ureinwohner, Regenwald,Gourmet-Restaurant, Yoga, Wellness

The Earth is suffering from three diseases: Species extinction, climate change and pandemics! This is as if the patient had liver cirrhosis, heart failure and kidney insufficiency at the same time. Consequently, there will be many complications: Even more wars, diseases, conflicts, natural disasters and civil wars if we do not get the population growth under control. Food shortages, distribution struggles and migration flows can already be seen as a consequence. If we do not change our behavior, it is very likely that the end of humanity is near and our population will largely collapse. This will not be the end of evolution, but certainly the end of an era as we know and love it! And it is also not excluded that with the big species extinction also our species will be wiped out to a large extent and the human being will become the planetary history.

The human being has raged on the planet earth and will ruin it soon completely. First we have wiped out the Pleistocene fauna in North America and in South America, then in Australia the large giant marsupials and birds, and when man populated Polynesia, the large megafauna elements disappeared all the way to New Zealand. When these are missing, it also has an impact on the entire fauna and flora. For example, in the last 10,000 years we have destroyed about half of the earth’s natural forest cover and altered the biosphere to the point that entire animal populations have been wiped out. Whereby the Red Lists show only a fraction, barely ten percent, of the species described, let alone of all species living on Earth. In other words, the 800 species that have been shown to have become extinct in the past 500 years do not represent the number of animals and species that have disappeared or are currently disappearing. We are losing many species in the last remaining primary forests long before we even discovered and scientifically described them.

Today we know that 78 percent of flying insects have declined in 40 years. In the near future, we will lose about one million species. First we changed vegetation and wildlife with agriculture and resource extraction, then we poisoned into the geosphere, first with CFCs, now with greenhouse gases. What do we need to do to stop the destruction of our planet? Well we would have to take a whole series of drastic measures. The pandemic gives us a foretaste of what awaits us, or rather, at the end of 2020, Switzerland should have taken stock of where it stands with regard to the protection of its biodiversity, to review the objectives achieved both in the Swiss biodiversity strategy and the global biodiversity convention: it says: „The conservation status of populations of National Priority Species will be improved by 2020 and extinction prevented as far as possible.“ But among birds alone, partridge, snipe, curlew, red-headed shrike and ortolan are extinct or present in tiny numbers as breeding birds by the end of the decade. Switzerland is on track for only one target of the biodiversity strategy, and that is forest biodiversity. For one third of the targets, the result is lower, for one third no progress can be seen, and for the last third, developments are going in the opposite direction. The picture is also almost congruent with the national strategy for the „Aichi“ biodiversity targets, which were agreed in 2010 as part of the Biodiversity Convention: Switzerland is on track for only one-fifth. For 35 percent of the targets, however, there is no progress at all.

The Swiss flora was one of the richest and most diverse in Europe. However, more than 700 plant species are considered to be threatened with extinction. Researchers from the „University of Bern“ and the Data and Information Center of the Swiss Flora have analyzed the results with the help of 400 volunteer botanists and visited and verified over 8000 old known sites of the 713 rarest and most endangered plant species in Switzerland between 2010 and 2016. This unique treasure trove of data has now been analyzed by the „University of Bern and the results published in the scientific journal „Conservation Letters“. In their „treasure hunt“, the botanists often came up empty-handed – 27% of the 8024 populations could not be recovered.

Species, which are classified by experts as most endangered, even lost 40% of their populations in comparison to the findings from the last 10 – 50 years. These figures are alarming and impressively document the decline of many endangered species in Switzerland. Particularly affected are plants from so-called ruderal sites – areas that are under constant human influence. The affected plant species include the marginal vegetation of agriculturally used or populated areas. These populations showed losses more than twice as large as species from forests or alpine meadows. The intensification of agriculture with a large use of fertilizers and herbicides, but also the loss of small structures such as rock piles and field margins are particularly affecting this species group. Plant species of water bodies, banks and bogs are similarly affected. Here, too, the causes are home-made, according to the researchers: water quality losses due to micropollutants and fertilizer pollution from agriculture, the loss of natural river dynamics due to river straightening, the use of rivers as a source of electricity, or the draining of moorland.

In Germany, 80,000 measurements were carried out by interdisciplinary working groups from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands as part of the „Jena“ experiment. They had sown different numbers of plant species on more than 500 experimental plots, ranging from monocultures to mixtures of 60 species. In addition to plants, all organisms occurring in the ecosystem were studied – in the soil and above it. In addition, the material cycles of carbon, nitrogen and nitrate and also the water cycle over the entire period of 15 years. In this way, the scientists were able to demonstrate how species diversity affects the capacity of the soil to absorb, store or release water. The Jena experiment showed for the first time how much the nitrogen cycle of a soil depends on many factors such as species diversity, microbiological organisms, the water cycle and plant interaction.

Species-rich meadows had higher productivity than species-poor meadows over the entire period of the „Jena Experiment“. Increased management intensity through additional fertilization and more frequent mowing achieved the same effect: if a farmer promotes and fertilizes certain species, he is on average consequently no more successful than nature. The biomass energy (bioenergy content) of species-rich meadows was significantly higher than that of species-poor meadows, but at the same time similar to many of today’s heavily subsidized species, such as Chinese reed. Species-rich areas had better carbon storage. The number of insects and other species was significantly higher. Interactions between species such as pollination occurred more frequently. Species-rich meadows transported surface water into the soil better. Species-rich ecosystems were more stable to disturbances, such as droughts or floods, than species-poor ecosystems.

In France, 80 percent of insects have been lost in the last 30 years. In Switzerland, the figure is about 60 percent, and in Germany, species loss is also dramatically high. In view of the rapid loss of biodiversity and the desolation of the cities, I have been asking myself for a long time why all the useless lawns in front of all rental and apartment buildings are not converted into gardens for inclined hobby gardeners and self-supporters among the residents, and especially the poorer people and those with a migration background and agricultural know-how could grow their food partly in front of the house. This would also counteract poverty a little and guarantee the survival of many families as well as be meaningful. Why should we all import food from Africa, China and Latin America when we could beautify our cities, increase biodiversity and counteract climate change with local cultivation. As soon as a blade of grass makes itself felt, the lawn robot is already there. Useless thuya hedges as far as the eye can see. Most people don’t know what to do with nature anymore. We should think about what our communities actually do with their communal areas. They create large cultivation structures instead of promoting small-scale, local cultivation.

The core problem we all face is that 80 million people are added to the population every year, and those just born now theoretically have a longer life expectancy, even in the developing world. By the end of the century, there will be eleven billion of us, so we will need even more living space and even more agriculture for food production. By totally transforming the earth’s surface for agriculture and feeding future generations, we are destroying the treasure troves of biodiversity for all eternity. It cannot be that we destroy alone with the cattle economy for the meat production whole species existence and important ecological systems irretrievably. A vegan diet is therefore becoming the supreme credo for the growing world population. And what about an even more important resource, drinking water? Through the use of pesticides, we are poisoning our drinking water, the rivers and the lakes – also in Switzerland. There is only one solution: to abandon pesticide-intensive cultivation and return to mixed crops, which have proven their worth over centuries and promoted biodiversity.

The palm oil industry has cut down more than half of the rainforest (the size of Germany) in the Indonesian provinces of Kalimantan and Sumatra in the last 30 years and is now starting to destroy the virgin forest on a grand scale in Papua New Guinea as well. The timber industry is happy about this, as are the oligarchy and the military. In the process, small farmers are inevitably expropriated, which is quite legal in Indonesia. The Indonesian parliament also recently passed a law that radically curtails national environmental, labor and social standards and provides for zero environmental impact assessments. Therefore, the progressively worded agreement is another illusory paper tiger that will lead to the worrying destruction of huge rainforest areas in Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea. With the free trade agreement with Indonesia, Switzerland would legitimize this state of affairs and once again declare the completely insufficient eco-labels as standard.

End times: The Sixth Mass Extinction has begun – are we going down with it?

Schreibe eine Antwort

Australia: A big bush fire due to the dryness due tot he global climate change

FOREWORD

The author, Gerd Michael Müller, born in Zürich in 1962, traveled as a photo-journalist to more than 50 nations and lived in seven countries, including in the underground in South Africa during apartheid. In the 80 years he was a political activist at the youth riots in Zürich. Then he was involved in pioneering Wildlife & eco projects in Southern Africa and humanitarian projects elsewhere in the world. As early as 1993, Müller reported on the global climate change and in 1999 he founded the «Tourism & Environment Forum Switzerland». Through his humanitarian missions he got to know Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama and other figures of light. His book is an exciting mixture of political thriller, crazy social stories and travel reports – the highlights of his adventurous, wild nomadic life for reportage photography .

(please note that translation corrections are still in progress and images will follow soon)

According to the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, a dramatic insect extinction is occurring with serious consequences for the ecosystem and human societies. Forecasts show that we will lose over a million animal species in the next few years, and many species will be so decimated in their populations that they will no longer matter. With maximum impact on humans: The destruction of the rainforests as well as the loss of biodiversity of the native fauna and flora will lead to an increased incidence of e.g. Lyme disease. It has been proven that with less small mammal biodiversity, there is a higher Borrelia load in the ticks. Due to climate warming with hotter and drier summers, more and more pandemics are emerging in the temperate zones as a result of the loss of biodiversity.

On a 20 percent of the earth’s surface, 80 percent of the biodiversity hot spots of all species are found in the tropics. One of the most comprehensive studies by Anthony Warden of the University of Cambridge, in which around 100 economists worldwide examined how the global economy benefits from nature, found that if 30 percent of the earth’s surface were protected with the most important protected areas, then the benefits of protecting these areas outweigh the costs by a ratio of 1:5. This means that if we invest one euro in protection, we gain four euros in the long term. But it will be a long time before this realization is accepted in the lowlands of the resource-intensive economy. It is simply incomprehensible that, despite all the findings that were already available in the early 1990s, and at the latest in 1997 with the „IPPC“ report, and which proved the lonely callers in the desert right, hardly any effective measures were taken or consistently implemented.

Between 1961 and 1990 alone, temperatures had already risen by two degrees Celsius, while the global average had risen by only 0.6 percent. The predictions at the time for the Alpine region ranged up to five degrees more in the next 30 years. Fittingly for the „Kyoto Summit“ in December 1997, „El-Nino“ swirled through the headlines and with it animals dying of thirst in Australia, fields submerged in mud in Malaysia, forest fires in Indonesia and elsewhere. The warning could not have been clearer enough. As recently as 1992 at the Rio Earth Summit, politicians had promised to protect the climate system for today and future generations. But the development went in the opposite direction. The „Easy Jet Generation“ was just rolling or flying in, everyone was jetting off to London or New York for a few days of shopping, to Ibiza for „raves“ etc. and to Milan to buy a pair of shoes. Suddenly a plane ticket to London cost less than the train ride from Zurich to Bern or Geneva. A catastrophic turn of events that still does not bode well. Air traffic should finally be taxed internationally.

We, the supposedly „clean“ Swiss, and our German neighbors, who are almost on a par with us, are world champions in consumption, waste and CO2 emissions. Switzerland has made it to fourth place on the world ranking list of polluters and CO2 emitters, but we have exported our large footprint abroad. Thus the civilization garbage of our over all mass consuming and resources squandering society from the origin to the destruction is banished from our eyes and our environment. One of the dirtiest industries, the textile industry and other polluting productions have been moved to China, Vietnam and Bangladesh in the last decades. CO-2 emissions are thus largely outsourced to structurally weak or human rights-denying regions. My climate“ compensation certificates and similar instruments have been created to ease our consciences, but not to alleviate the situation.

Our balance sheet is by no means good and clean but simply miserable. It is only now, in November 2020, that the Federal Council has presented the consultation documents for the „Sustainable Development Strategy“ (SDS), and they are once again an indictment of „clean“ Switzerland. The record of showcase Switzerland looks even worse when the economic factors of the largest off-shore financial center are taken into account. At the end of 2019, Swiss banks managed a quarter of the world’s assets. A whopping 3742.7 billion Swiss francs. But the immense assets are hardly invested in sustainable projects. On the contrary. The goldmine and tax haven Switzerland favors and protects hundreds of potent headquarters of multinational corporations and contributes massively to the outflow of private wealth from developing countries and thus to the global redistribution from the bottom to the top. The exploitation and greed knows no limits, not even in times of Covid-19. On the contrary, it favors the global techno-giants and super-rich. And this big shadow falls back on Switzerland. No matter how white we wash the image and how beautiful we tell ourselves or preach to others!

In this country, too, biodiversity, waters, glaciers and air pollutants are in a bad way. The „My-Climate“ CO2 compensation business is pure eyewash and helps no one if we constantly increase our consumption and the waste of resources instead of drastically reducing and do not radically rethink our throwaway society. In accounting terms, more than 30 million tons of CO2 (instead of being emitted on Swiss soil) would have to be saved outside the country’s borders. This will not only cost several billions, but is also economically and ecologically nonsensical. These amounts for the CO2 reductions not achieved domestically will be missed by the economy. The „decarbonization of society“ will not progress one millimeter in this way, the dependency and mess would become bigger and bigger, simply because of the increasing population density. Now the thin protective layer in the atmosphere is not worth a penny in the free market economy, it costs nothing and to pollute it also not.

The mineral resources are exploited mercilessly. The young and the next generation will be stunned to realize that in the consumption frenzy after the oil crisis in 1975 and especially since the beginning of the 1990s, we have burned almost as much gas, coal and oil as in a million years of earth’s history before. And this, although the sun has always sent 10’000 times more energy to the earth’s surface than man needs and mankind is not able to follow politically and even less to act adequately, despite scientific knowledge. The garbage dump of mankind is meanwhile not only visible in the most distant regions and in the oceans, on and under the sea surface equally recognizable. Fortunately, we cannot yet see all the junk in space by eye. And as we know, this is only the tip of the iceberg. Micro-plastics, nanoparticles and pesticide toxins have long since reached groundwater and the food chain, where they cause further damage to health and great suffering.

It is extremely regrettable, but not surprising, that the Swiss population in 2021 has rejected both the drinking water and the pesticide initiatives, as well as the CO2 initiatives. So it may continue to be sprayed for all it’s worth, which makes the farmers happy. Nature-based farmers and organic farmers have also opposed it. All right, the Covid-19 crisis has diminished the appetite for new restrictions and new innovations. But the Swiss economy as a whole got off lightly, except for certain circles such as the tourism, catering and event industries, but they were also well compensated.

A radical societal paradigm shift is necessary

Schreibe eine Antwort

The Global climate change will dried out many regions around the globe and leave them with dramatic water-shortage

FOREWORD

(please note that translation corrections are still in progress and images will follow soon)

According to „Copernicus“, the decade from 2011 to 2020 was globally the hottest year since measurements began. In Europe, too, but especially in the Arctic, record values of up to six degrees above average were recorded in the period from 1981 to 2010. In 2020, the high temperatures are particularly extreme, as they occurred without an El Niño effect in the previous year. 2021 should see another temperature increase as a result of the La Nina effect, and this is despite the fact that we have now had a Covid-19 year of very limited air travel. CO2 increases are also certain to continue. The Arctic will continue to melt and if it comes to the „worst case“ scenario and the Atlantic roll stops moving as it has been, we are looking at dark times.

In view of the unfortunate fact that after more than 30 years of dithering and hesitating, denying and refusing, watching the destruction and looking the overwhelming facts almost inactively in the eye, living in the consciousness and with the bad conscience of doing even more overexploitation than ever before, each of us must now take the reins into our own hands and make substantial contributions. „Reduce to the max“ is the motto. In other words, reduce resource consumption at all levels. We are all in the same boat. Covid has impressively demonstrated this to us. There is no more time to lose. Therefore, it is only right that the climate movement and climate youth overtake or outflank the Greens on the left and demand a much faster and more consistent approach. Covid-19 is costing us trillions. Add a few trillion to transform the economy and we would have gained enormously.

We desperately need to avoid more pandemics, so any investment would be worth it. It is up to each of us to contribute to this, but it can no longer be done without drastic steps on an unprecedented scale. Long-established lifestyles will have to change dramatically. For example, in consumer behavior: less meat consumption, less packaging, less transportation and work, use ecological means of transport and promote bio-diversified, local cultivation everywhere, etc. In agriculture, drastically reduce pesticides and herbicides and create incentives for organic farming and consistently apply water protection. All subsidies for fossil energy production must be discontinued, and in air travel a high fuel tax must be introduced across the board, thus significantly reducing air travel. In the business world, introduce carbon footprint accounting in companies everywhere, promote sustainable building technology in construction, and take charge of the greening of cities. Meadows instead of green spaces, avoid soil sealing and in forestry, cultivate mixed-age and mixed-species forests.

Although 2020 saw a revival of the „Paris Coalition of High Ambition“ at the first virtual United Nations climate change summit, where 75 nations committed to the goal of „net zero“ emissions. Most nations are aiming for the goal by 2050. So far, however, only 75 of 197 nations have submitted new or increased climate targets. But only the UK and the EU have substantially increased their targets. For all other states, the ambitions are low. Far too low for the goals of the Paris climate agreement ever to be achieved. As a result, the „Coalition for Carbon Neutrality“ proclaimed by UN Secretary-General Antonio Gutierrez has a good 65 percent of the world’s CO2 emissions at its disposal, which could still rise if the financial pledges for the green climate fund of 100 billion Swiss francs per year are advanced. The key instrument is the carbon price, which is also recognized by the EU and is to rise steadily until 2030. In 2015, Nobel economics laureate William Nordhaus proposed the creation of a climate club that would draw mutual benefit from the sharing of climate protection and exclude free riders, as this is the only way to get out of the „prisoner’s dilemma.“

The coalition of the willing should concede the greatest possible benefits and advantages for its members. In this way, it would be possible to counteract the problem of benefits without making efforts and contributions of one’s own. The capital market would also be well advised to invest in sustainable and green products and resources and to rapidly phase out coal. For UN Secretary General Guttierez, this is an important step forward, but it is still not enough. We must not forget that the world is still on track for a global temperature rise of more than three degrees, which would be tantamount to a catastrophe, he said. In other words. We are still traveling at 180 kmh in terms of fossil fuel consumption.

A reduction in speed is needed. The Corona pandemic in particular has shown what is possible and can be mobilized in extraordinary situations. Patient Earth is lying in the intensive care unit, gasping for breath. It is high time to act and to implement drastic measures. For the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current (AMOC) has also dramatically lost strength in recent decades. The ocean current is also known as the Gulf Stream and carries mild temperatures up to the Channel Islands, Ireland and Great Britain, further towards the Netherlands to western Germany and Scandinavia in the higher water levels even in winter. The Gulf Stream system moves almost 20 million cubic meters of water per second, about a hundred times the Amazon current,“ says Stefan Rahmstorf, a researcher from the „Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research“ on the importance of this climate system (PIK). is the initiator and co-author of a study published in spring 2021 in the journal „Nature Geoscience“.

Butterfly Effect: Hedge Funds, the Drivers of Wars and Climate Change

Let’s face it, financial markets are at the center of the economy, determining commodity and food prices around the world and dictating what happens around the globe. Hedge funds are the bane of food and water and commodity capitalism at its purest. Let’s take a closer look: In 2008, food and commodity prices rose sharply even though the world was in recession after the financial crisis. This shows that prices rose due to speculation and not due to increased demand. What started as the flap of a butterfly’s wings on Wall Street in 2010 went on to cause riots, wars and global refugee crises. The flapping of wings was triggered by then President Bill Clinton and National Bank President Alan Greenspan with the Commodity Modernization Act, i.e. the liberalization of markets that had been strictly regulated since the 1930s and limited the number of speculators. But from now on, anyone could speculate in commodities and food without limits.

As a result, the financial markets licked blood and Wall Street and hedge funds dictated events in the most vicious way. In the same year, Russia’s wheat crop was down more than 30 percent due to climate change and drought. Wall-street speculated on a shortage of supply and drove up the price of wheat by 50 percent, which led to the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt because Egypt imported nearly 80 percent of its wheat from Russia. A rapid increase in food prices and a small increase in oil prices inevitably leads to conflicts and armed conflicts, scientists and mathematicians also noted.

Thus, in 2011, wars degenerated in Libya after the fall of Gaddhafi as well as in the Iraq war, both leading oil exporting states, fueling further conflicts in the region and triggering a conflagration that swept the entire Orient. So, too, did the unending war in Syria. This was triggered in turn by hedge funds and speculators on Wall Street and in London. They drove up the oil price massively because they were speculating on export losses. The butterfly’s wings have fluttered here, too, and so the deregulated markets have become an engine of chaos.

This speculation and the developments in the oil states also had even more far-reaching consequences. Due to the enormous rise in the price of petrodollars, Russia and Saudi Arabia, but also Venezuela, came to immense wealth and increased their military budgets and police forces either to suppress revolts at home or for further offensives. Russia in Syria, in Ukraine, and most recently in Crimea. In the case of Saudi Arabia, war came to a head in Yemen and in many other regions in the conflict between Shiites and Sunnis, meanwhile Iran, infiltrated the Middle East in its own way and pumped it full of its crude ideologies, weapons and fighters. The rise in oil prices was also the beginning of doom for Venezuela, which perished from the resource curse. Here, too, the speculators were ultimately the trigger and responsible for the streams of refugees from Latin America to the USA and from Africa and the Orient to Europe.

Climate change: How do we meet the epochal challenge?

Schreibe eine Antwort

Airshot of Hardy Reef, Great Barrier Reef, Brisbane, Queensland

FOREWORD

The author, Gerd Michael Müller, born in Zürich in 1962, traveled as a photo-journalist to more than 50 nations and lived in seven countries, including in the underground in South Africa during apartheid. In the 80 years he was a political activist at the youth riots in Zürich. Then he was involved in pioneering Wildlife & eco projects in Southern Africa and humanitarian projects elsewhere in the world. As early as 1993, Müller reported on the global climate change and in 1999 he founded the «Tourism & Environment Forum Switzerland». Through his humanitarian missions he got to know Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama and other figures of light. His book is an exciting mixture of political thriller, crazy social stories and travel reports – the highlights of his adventurous, wild nomadic life for reportage photography.

(please note that translation corrections are still in progress and images will follow soon)

Policy failures: „Chronology of good intentions“ and decades of failure

2021 showed again, the Corona Pandemic is Pipifax in comparison, what rolls on mankind and in the soon 50 year old knowledge about the harmful CO2 emissions for our planet, is merrily continued, more and more thoughtlessly consumed, resources wasted, fauna and flora and the habitat of millions of people destroyed. Already President Nixon warned in the 70s of the dramatic consequences (one of his few rays of hope) and the first „IPPC“ report of 1990 warned of the consequences of our unbridled overexploitation. There is no need to be a crazy doomsday prophet anymore, today’s scientific findings and the knowledge of how lamely we react to the threat allow no other conclusion than that our species has reached the end age. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, there are two horror scenarios: One is a two-meter rise in sea level by the end of the century, depending on how fast the Antarctic ice sheet continues to melt. Another is the collapse of the Atlantic Overcurrent Current (AMOC), which has already weakened. It distributes cold and warm water in the Atlantic and influences, for example, the monsoon in Africa and Asia, which is important for billions of people. The collapse of the Gulf Stream would also have a serious impact on Europe. If emissions remain the same until 2050, the temperature at the end of this century would be 2.1 to 3.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. If CO2 emissions were to double by mid-century, the temperature could rise by up to 5.7 degrees. And unfortunately, this is how things will continue. After all, the U.S. government’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) calculated in 2019 that CO2 emissions will rise from around 36 billion metric tons a year today to more than 42 billion metric tons by 2050 as a result of the industrialization of many countries, which is only just beginning. China produces the most greenhouse gas, about a quarter of the total, ahead of the U.S. at 18 percent and the EU at 17 percent. The proportion of CO2 emissions that are absorbed in sinks such as forests or oceans and do not remain in the atmosphere is about 44 percent, according to the report.

In 1997 the third report of the „IPPC“-climate council came out and what was outlined and proved there, exceeded all the horror scenarios and the extent of destruction by far that I had already noticed since 1993! The report should change also my activity lastingly. From then on, I refrained from the many air and long-distance trips and concentrated more on local destinations that could be reached by train. In 1999, I founded the „Tourism & Environment Forum Switzerland“ in Samedan together with Gisela Femppel, an editor of the „Südostschweiz“ and with my professional colleague Heinz Schmid, which was also supported by the famous tourism director of St. Moritz, Hansruedi Danuser. The NGO was domiciled at Samedan Airport, because at that time I was living up there in the fantastic Upper Engadin, during the winter of the century and the following two years, because I had moved from Zurich to the Engadin with my girlfriend Eve, an enthusiastic snowboarder, after the separation from the mother of my daughters. In the Engadin high valley I could regularly roam on horseback through the snow-covered forests of the alpine slopes and for the first time in my life also ride through the drifting snow and the untouched white splendor.

For the „Tourismus & Umwelt Forum Schweiz“ (Swiss Tourism & Environment Forum) I created a web portal that linked scientific facts, environmentally relevant NGO projects, responsible authorities such as the „Bundesamt für Umwelt“ (BUWAL), international organizations and critical media reports with sustainable travel offers and tips for environmentally conscious travelers. For three years I served as managing director and president for this environmental organization and set some accents in Graubünden with traveling exhibitions on the topic of „Climate Change in the Alps“ with a „Rail-Expo“ traveling exhibition of the Rhaetian Railway, three rail cars that were stationed in Davos, St. Moritz, Samedan, Pontresina and six other alpine locations in Graubünden and sent out the first warning signals. Members of the „Tourism & Environment Forum“ at that time were the „BUWAL/FLS“, the Swiss National Park, the „Biosphere Reserve Entlebuch“, the „Research Institute for Leisure and Tourism“ of the University of Bern and the „Europa-Institut“ in Basel, but also the newly launched car rental company „Mobility“ and „Toyota“ with the first hybrid vehicle, the „Prius“, along with some transport associations, hotels and media. Three train wagons were stationed at the train stations in six Graubünden locations for 14 days each. In addition, we organized a live concert to kick off each exhibition. The „Tourism & Environment Forum“ was also present at the annual vacation fairs in Zurich and Berne with presentations and exhibitions. Travel more consciously, experience more, destroy less, was the motto for travelers, in order to bring about the necessary CO2 reduction measures and an energy transition at home as well, was the goal.

„This was the first long-term institutional „Corporate Social Responsibility“ commitment of my own press agency in this country! After all, I had already been privately and journalistically involved in a number of wildlife projects and humanitarian missions abroad. At that time, I published numerous environmentally critical publications and commentaries, such as „A Requiem for the Coral Reef“ in the „Mittelland-Zeitung“ or „In the diver’s paradise Maldives, a time bomb is ticking“. In the commentary I wrote the following: „It is not El-Nino who is to blame. It is the human being who progresses too far. Alarm bells are ringing around the globe. Central America has been devastated and set back decades. The coral world in the equatorial belt is threatened or already largely destroyed, the oceans polluted, the animal world wiped out here and there, the Alps built up and spoiled“. In 1997, in response to the IPPC climate report, I wrote in „Südostschweiz“ about climate change in the Alps under the title „Keiner kommt ungeschoren davon – Alpen von der Klimaerwärmung besonders hart betroffen“.

In the magazine „Touring“ and in the „Brückenbauer“, both media with million reader public appeared further critical reports of me, which resounded far beyond Switzerland, since I interviewed the „UNEP“ director Klaus Töpfer, the head of the UN environmental organization as well as with Michael Iwand, at that time director environmental management with „TUI“ (tourism union international) and Iwand Widerpart of the „German environmental assistance“ and the nature protection federation and at the ITB the largest tourism trade fair in Berlin intervened to take the topic on the agenda. Prof. Hansruedi Müller of the „Research Institute for Leisure and Tourism“ (FIF) also pleaded for „more heart-liners than hard-liners“. From this and the following experiences and examples, one can confidently say that the „Corporate Responsibility Initiative“ accepted by the people and the popular majority rejected by the cantons will now also lead to much more paper without effect and will remain toothless. Once again, Switzerland and the corporations that dominate it have failed to live up to their global responsibilities. To our shame and against our belief in progress, we have not come one step further in the last 30 years. On the contrary. The footprint has become larger and we have made it to 4th place of the environmental offenders.

So I addressed this urgent climate appeal to the Swiss politicians and population more than 30 years ago and to the „world public“ at the „ITB“ in Berlin and already stated at that time: „The drastic trail of devastation left by industrialized man and the (un)civilized tourist is mostly carried out on the hump of the 3rd world nations and is becoming more and more dramatic. But we here in the Alps are also particularly affected by climate change. The temperature rise is expected to be much higher than the world average and the glaciers are melting just like the biodiversity. We can no longer stand idly by and watch this happen, I said to myself, and from then on I also gave up a car or a motorcycle and committed myself to the expansion of the rail infrastructure and bicycle paths. Also in my function as president of the Swiss Tourism & Environment Forum. I gave critical speeches about my own travel industry, which was urged to do more for the environment and against the enormous damage caused by air traffic and excessive mass tourism, which won me more enemies than friends. Tourism propagandists were not happy to see the global impact of their business model increasingly criticized. I emphatically challenged the travel agency association to do more than just pay the usual lip service. But what happened was that, in the words of Greta von Thunberg, „When there’s a fire, people often rub up against the fire alarm instead of putting out the fire.“ I too felt like saying „I want you to panic“ inside.

Authorities everywhere were then, as now, in a state of enforcement emergency. Whether it is compliance with the Clean Air Ordinance, noise levels to protect the public, international agreements to reduce CO2 emissions, or the fulfillment of declarations of intent and objectives such as „Agenda 21“, the „Charta of Lanzarote“, or the „Declaration of Crete“, wherever we look, we find that none of the objectives have come close to being met. „The crux is that while the need for environmentally and socially responsible tourism is undisputed, still not much is happening,“ which I criticized harshly in the presentations and reports at the time as president of the „Tourism & Environment Forum.“ The tour operators, above all the three big ones „Kuoni Reisen“, „Hotelplan“ and „Tui Reisen“ hardly cared about water and energy supply and waste management on site, which led to devastating pollution of beaches and seas especially on the Maldives and other islands. An investigation by the „Higher School of Tourism“ (HFT) concluded at the time that the „Declaration of Crete remained a dead paper tiger“! And the greenwashing continued unchanged but inflationary from then on. We have already reached certain climate tipping points in some places around the world, some scientists agree. The precious, vital treasures of our earth are disappearing at the speed of light. Every four seconds, forests the size of a soccer field are cut down around the world – including or primarily for soy or palm oil plantations. The destruction of rainforests by slash-and-burn in the Amazon, Congo, and Indonesia

account for eleven percent of global CO2 emissions! Biodiversity is declining rapidly, with up to 150 plant and animal species disappearing from the earth every day. The more natural habitats shrink, the greater the risk of viruses spreading from animals to humans. Corona is the most recent example. Ebola, dengue, Mers, Sars, Zika, all these viruses have also been proven to be due to climate change and dwindling biodiversity. That’s why we need to be much more determined to protect natural habitats and crack down on wildlife trafficking and wildlife markets.

Brazil/Salvador de Bahia: In the Cauldron of Magical Slave Energy

Schreibe eine Antwort

Brasilien: Candomblé Ritual, Salvador de Bahia | Candomblé spiritual ritual — **Brasilien: Candomblé Ritual in Salvador de Bahia | Candomblé spiritual ritual in Salvador de Bahia**

FOREWORD

(please note that translation corrections are still in progress and images will follow soon)

During one of the first of a total of five trips to Brazil, after the Iguacu Falls, Rio de Janeiro, I also discovered Salvador de Bahia, the landing place of the Europeans and the first capital of Brazil. If you want to get to know the exotic facets of Bahian life, get ready for hot come-ons, cool rejections and delicious consolations, at least during Carnival. If you dive into the mystical world of the candoble and let yourself be overwhelmed by the overwhelming spirituality, you will leave the local world and fall into a trance to the point of ecstasy. A trip to Salvador de Bahia is like a departure to new shores. First of all, it is admirable how exhilarated the Baihanos go through life. Remarkable how they express their joy and sorrow.

The mystical world of gods and spiritual source of the Bahanos is reflected in the Candomble, which gave reason for the Christian mission, especially since Bahia was the starting point of the western explorers and conquerors. Not only the bastions along the coast testify to this. The roots of the slave tower are deeply anchored in the local culture. Especially the candomble spirituality, lived out in secret, bears witness to this. When hundreds of gospel singers resound with fervor, not only does the earth tremble, but the air in the far periphery also vibrates, as with an approaching hurricane. The psalm-singing Catholic boys‘ choir next door in the Sao Fransico monastery in the baroque old town district of Pelourinho really sounds rather pitiful.

Rarely does one discover such a playful people that has produced an incredible number of dance and musically gifted people. In Salvador de Bahia, the cradle of carnival and samba, there is no standing still or being stiff as a board. Everything is in flux, everyone is constantly on the move, more or less gracefully. Another Bahian specialty is capoeira, the martial art disguised as dance. Here, too, the graceful flowing movements are recognizable, flowing through the whole life and triggering impulses. But not only in expressing feelings also the body cult is on top of the agenda. In this the Bahianos hardly differ from the Cariocas. There is hardly an Adonis who does not present his athletically steeled body in his skimpy briefs. There is no woman who does not proudly walk around the beach in her Fio dental (tooth thread) bikini, flirting with her grace and freedom of movement. No wonder the church has sent more friars here than anywhere else in the world. In Salvador de Bahia alone, 165 houses of worship have been built.

In 2003, I was stationed in Fortaleza in northeastern Brazil for three months as a resident manager for a Swiss travel company and had a hell of a good time. Few guests, so no stress, a hotel room right on the Beira Mar (that’s like the Copacabana in Rio), and a good vehicle with which I could drive all the way to Jericoacoara to the fantastic sand dunes or south to Moro Branco. I was very attracted to the Brazilian lifestyle, music, language and cultures on previous trips, so I also learned a little Portuguese. Since I spoke Spanish well, it was easy for me to get started and I like the Brazilian dialects better than the harsh Spanish accents. I am also enchanted by the music of many Latin American sounds: from the tango in Argentina to the bossa nova of a Gilberto Gil in Brazil or the folk dance forro, as in Fortaleza, from the salsa and son in Cuba to the merengue in the Dominican Republic, all these musical styles and dance forms appeal to me very much.

In Fortaleza I lived during these three months as a Station Manager at Beira Mar, ideally located also for daily trips to the beautiful city beach Praia do futuro and at night to Praia do Iracema at the end of Beira Mar, where the tourist entertainment district with all the nightclubs was located, which was very convenient for the local tourist service. At the end of the three months, I was shipped off to Sinai, but after the six-month assignment in Sharm el Sheikh, I returned to Fortaleza unemployed because the tsunami had hit Asia and as a result all the travel companies needed fewer station managers and tour guides.

When I returned to Fortaleza, I lived for two months in the Serviluz favela with a friend who had a small brick house near Praia do Futuro and I felt quite comfortable there. Soon I knew a lot of people via Heldon and his friend Joaquin, and the neighbors in the favela also knew me, so I could move around freely there day and night. It was a comfortable time, because I had made good foreign exchange deals with the tourists in Sinai and before in Brazil. This was always a tolerable source of side income in this job. In Poland, I almost became a zloty millionaire. Then a friend from Switzerland visited me and we rented a „Highlux“, i.e. an off-roader, to drive up along the Brazilian coast from Fortaleza in the state of Céara via the states of Maranhão and Piaui to Manaus and to complete the return journey inland.

That’s a good 6000 kilometers we planned to cover in 11 days. The off-road driving was more comfortable than driving on the asphalt road, which was completely littered with holes, up to half a meter deep. The asphalt looked like it had been bombed over a wide area! Therefore, I often drove on the scree strip to the right of the roadway. There one comes basically faster ahead and whirled up strongly dust, which is to be seen already from a distance and prevents the accident danger. The journey went via Jericoacoara, with its fantastic dune landscape, which was surpassed in beauty by the crystal clear lakes in the sand dune landscapes in the next state of Maranhao. An extremely fascinating region! The deep blue Atlantic with lonely dream beaches to the left, a gigantic sand dune strip along the coast and inland the esmerad green jungle. The national parks of Jericoacoara and Lençóis Maranhenses on the Atlantic coast are unique biotopes.

I like deserts better than virgin forests. One gets on better. At least in 4×4. But even here, I would have been stranded without the help of the local fishermen, because on this trip numerous rivers had to be crossed. Except for one time it went quite well, but then we came to a river, which was shallow on our side first about 30 meters, then there was a small sand island in front of the place where the river flowed through a narrow, tearing mouth, like in a funnel. You could just make that out from 40 meters away, and it was probably the most dangerous part. „If I couldn’t cross the last ten meters after the tiny river island at full throttle,“ it would look bad, I thought.

And that’s exactly what happened. So I drove with a lot of speed through the 30 meters wide, shallow river towards the island, but got stuck there due to the slope and had too little momentum to cross the current channel with the ripping flow. and came to an abrupt stop with the engine hood stuck in the water at a 45 degree angle to three quarters. After a few hours, a couple of fishermen approached. Only thanks to a boat in the current channel that lifted the car a little and a car that pulled us back from behind with the wire rope over the shallow part of the river, we managed to get out of the river.

Another time, just as I was walking alone in the sweltering midday heat, I got stuck in deep quicksand. It took four hours, many drops of sweat and endless jerks for a few meters further. The sand was scorching hot, I shoveled like a madman for hours and didn’t think I would make it. But finally it worked out. And so the journey continued to Ilha do Maranhão, one of the largest alluvial areas in the world at the foothills of the Amazon. 800,000 buffalo populate the island, which belongs to only a few Hundert landowners who hardly employ any workers.

Where the animals pass in the dry season, a river course emerges in the rainy season. Thus, the fragile ecosystem and the thin layer of humus is destroyed in just a few years. Year after year, huge areas of virgin forest are being appropriated first for cattle breeding and then for intensive agriculture such as soy plantations. In the past 30 years, almost a quarter of the Amazon Delta has been destroyed. Yet the biodiversity here is unparalleled. In the Amazon alone there are over 2000 different fish. For comparison: In the whole of Europe there are just 150 species of fish. The same is true for all animal species, most of them are endemic.

The adventurous journey continued through the state of Piaui and from there we drove on to Manaus. Then again a good 3000 kilometers inland back to Fortaleza, where we visited the Gruta de Ubajara, Brazil’s largest caves with nine chambers and a depth of a good kilometer, at the Ubajara National Park, about 300 km west of Fortaleza. Now we come to the last and most special Brazil tripf Fortaleza.

Endless horizon and dunes of the National park Lencois in Maranhao

1997: Hell Trip to the Drug Cartels of Colombia

Schreibe eine Antwort

FOREWORD

(please note that translation corrections are still in progress and images will follow soon)

Few countries, like Colombia, are peppered with such imposing scenic diversity and incomparable abundance of natural wonders as the fourth largest country in Latin America. The massless generosity of this paradisiacal gene bank of fauna and flora, spread between the Andes and the Amazon basin, is overwhelming. Unfortunately, when one hears or speaks of Colombia, one usually hears of drugs, murder and corruption. The guerrilla war of the „Farc“ (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia), is one of the longest and bloodiest civil wars apart from the Marxist terror of the „Shining Path“, the „Sender Luminoso“ in Peru. The civil war in Colombia has officially ended but the fundamental problems of the country and the widespread cultivation of cocaine are far from solved. There is no longer an all-powerful Pablo Escobar, but there are more rival drug cartels that make life difficult for the farmers and the population. But for now, let’s take a look at the fascinating and, for most people, unknown, beautiful sides of Colombia.

In Bogota I met my professional colleague, the aviation journalist and military pilot Hans-Jörg Egger. Together we flew from the capital of Colombia in all directions in one week on behalf of Swissair. First to Letica in the border triangle of Brazil, Colombia and Peru in the south of the country in the middle of the Amazon jungle, then to Cartagena in the colonial pearl, with the magnificent colonial style buildings similar to Havana. We continued on to Cali, then the drug stronghold of Pablo Escobar, another destination was Villa Vicencio, also known as a drug transshipment point, and finally we flew up to the Caribbean island of San Andres, which lies off the coast of Nicaragua. Quite an ambitious program in one week. The purpose of the trip: We were to put together a travel itinerary for the annual Swissair VIP shareholders trip and reconnoiter the best places where ancient aircraft types still fly around. It was to be a fantastic vintage aviation trip. Let’s go.

The harbingers of the jungle begin less than 100 kilometers from Bogota, but to get there you have to overcome the grueling pass road of the Sierra Oriental at an altitude of 3700 meters above sea level and then master and survive the winding descent on narrow paths along abyssal canyons down to a hundred meters above sea level. The sun is just sinking on the blood-red horizon above the steaming jungle, where tropical thunderstorms are violently raining down on the esmerald green jungle just before dusk, making the drive on the slippery pass road hell. After seven hours of driving we made it and arrived in Villa Vicencio.

After an interview with the airport director we board the silver fuselage of the DC-6, with which we fly through the lashing rain with loud propeller howling. The pilot’s forehead is also covered with thick beads of water, as it looks to him like difficult flying and landing conditions. Droning, the propeller engines fight against the dense cloud swaths of clouds that are quickly whizzing by. The view from the small round windows sweeps over the green jungle sea in the Amazon basin, the meandering river courses and island dots. Then the descent begins and we set down for landing, whereupon, relieved to have arrived undamaged, we taxi with the old jalopy over the bumpy jungle runway of Leticia in the border triangle.

Rarely do the sunny sides of Colombian life and the splendor of the Andean and jungle state come to light. But anyone who fearlessly confronts the terra incognita in South America’s Garden of Eden, despite poverty and violence, will be magically drawn to Colombia’s magic and the fiery temperament of its people. The north of Colombia is dominated by the eastern, western and central cordilleras. Three massive Andean strands rising to 5000 meters with snow-capped peaks, are the topographic panopticon of the country. They contain fertile valleys with volcanic ash soils on which coffee plantations, vegetable and grain fields and fruit trees flourish, fragrant flowers and spice plants bloom.

In Amazonia, it’s as if time has stood still. Fitzgeraldo’s adventures revive on the mental horizon – thousands of dangers still lurk in the tropical rainforest. The Yaguas Indians are not a threat, although they still blow deadly poisoned arrows from their blowpipes when hunting animals and birds. They never were, on the contrary they are the protectors of the jungle and defend it against the unwanted and destructive intruders. Unfortunately in vain. Visitors, however, after painting their faces with the green color of the Urucu tree, are mostly welcomed in a friendly manner, because they are a promising prey thanks to souvenir purchases.

Danger lurks more in the water and in the air than on the ground. Crocodiles and pirhanas prevent a cooling bath in the Amazon, parasites and malaria mosquitoes can quickly make your life miserable, poisonous spiders and insects can even make it hell, and then there is always a full concert here. Macaw parrots, howler monkeys, vultures, cormorants and ibises are always to be heard, an anaconda, a boa or a jaguar however one gets to see rarely. I was lucky enough to encounter two lazy jaguars that had made themselves comfortable under a shrub in the shade of the sultry heat. Those who set out with Capax under the expert guidance of the „Tarzan of Leticia“ were able to experience a lot and mostly returned from the jungle expedition to civilization unharmed.

Along the Andean foothills, endless savannahs with cattle pastures spread out in the north, turning into desert-like areas like the Guajira Peninsula in the east. White sandy beaches line the coasts of the Caribbean islands of San Andres and Providencia off Nicaragua’s coast. More than 40 nature reserves and national parks covering a total of 10 million hectares, which represent a kind of genetic treasure chest and information bank on the development of our planet, bear witness to Colombia’s immense fauna and flora wealth. The primeval sites of Colombia’s colonial metropolises, the villages of the Yagua Indians near Leticia in the border triangle, the Caribbean flair of the vacation island of San Andres off the coast of Nicaragua and the simple dwellings of the farmers in the magnificent Amazonian refuges slowly come together to form a grandiose microcosm.

Cartagena is one of the most beautiful colonial relics in all of Latin America and the highest of all emotions for historians, architects and the culturally ambitious. It was once the most important port city on the continent for the slave trade and the seat of the then dreaded Inquisition Tribunal. A place of many tragedies and their heroes, of adventurers and their legends, rich in castles, monasteries and museums, all of which are World Heritage Sites.

Overlooked by the Andes, embraced by the jungle and swayed by the Caribbean and Pacific symphony of oceans, the life of Colombians simmers between happiness and despair, anger and impotence, oscillating from exuberant joie de vivre, carried by joyful dance music like the cumbia, to the deepest sadness over the victims of poverty, drug barons, corrupt politicians and tyrants. Colombians live, love and suffer life to the fullest. One is swept along, dives in, perhaps submerges and, with a little luck, emerges more comfortable. Although the tough peace negotiations have led to the disarmament of the „Farc“ and the cessation of their attacks on the military and the civilian population, the amnesty has not brought about any atonement, any admission of guilt, and no coming to terms with the atrocities committed by the guerrillas with regard to the numerous victim families.

On the other hand, the farmers were denied the necessary support for infrastructure (roads, electricity, water) in inaccessible regions, so that in many jungle regions they have no choice but to grow cocaine. In addition, the Colombian government is now clearing more and more virgin forest, not for an agrarian reform that would help the farmers, but solely for the exploitation of the timber industry, which is clogging up the narrow waterways, the only transport routes accessible by boat, with logs, making it impossible to transport other goods such as bananas, vegetables or fruit. Since there are no roads, no electricity and no local administration, the farmers are helplessly at the mercy of the drug cartels. Very few have an alternative to coca cultivation.

At the end of our trip to Colombia, Hans-Jörg and I arrived at the airport in Bogota, as always in the last few days, only shortly before departure. We had gotten used to the fact that 15 minutes was enough to board the plane. This worked well with all Colombian flights, but the upcoming flight to Ecuador, was just a foreign flight. We had not thought about that and that the procedure would take much longer. When we arrived at the counter and learned that boarding was already completed, I showed the check-in counter employees two business cards and said: „Stop the airplaine, now immediately“ and just ran through the gate past the surprised securities out onto the airfield, Hans-Jörg gasped next to me, after all, we both had a lot of camera luggage around and in tow. Without being shot at, we ran towards the plane, which had closed all doors and was taxiing to the runway.

At the same time, however, we saw a stair car racing towards the aircraft and the jet stopped. After a few dozen meters we had made it and were allowed to rush up the stairs, whereupon the boarding door was opened and we could board. „Wow, what awesome action!“ Why did the plane stop, you ask? Well, one business card was that of the Colombian Minister of Aviation and the other, that of the Bogota Airport Director. Both of these people we had interviewed before. And so it happened that for us two Swiss journalists in Colombia, a commercial airliner on an international flight was stopped on the taxiway for departure so that the two VIPs could board.

Someone should try that in Zurich, Frankfurt or London. Since our boarding was already quite spectacular, we were also allowed to take turns in the third pilot seat in the cockpit of this plane and experience the flight to Quito with the pilots. There, for the first time, I became visibly aware of how fast it goes when two commercial airliners race toward each other at 700 kilometers per hour each. I was able to witness this during the spectacular landing approach in Quito, when a plane that had taken off from there was first a small dot that quickly grew larger and closer and seconds later flew very close and very fast past our cockpit. Even more blatant was the flight with the Equadorian military aircraft over the Andes, during which I was quite dazed as a result of the acceleration. I was not as fit as a military pilot after all! Anyway, this was my most spectacular trip as an aviation journalist and I would like to return to Colombia and spend much more time there.

Guyana 1997/2003: From the jungle directly into space

Schreibe eine Antwort

French Guyane: Two monkey’s riding on a Tapir

FOREWORD

(please note that translation corrections are still in progress and images will follow soon)

Thanks to the cooperation with the „AOM“, which connected the French Départements d’outre Mèr, i.e. French Guyana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, the South Seas or New Caledonia with Paris, I flew almost once a year to Cuba and was also briefly on Guadeloupe, three weeks in the South Seas, and now flying to French Guiana in the backyard of the Grande Nation, „where the pepper grows,“ where political prisoners have been exiled on an island and the European Space Agency (ESA) has set up shop in Kourou. The most exotic of all EU members is known at best through the movie „Papillon“, as a former penal colony, and so the image of French Guyana is also characterized by diffuse ideas and shimmering legends. Guyana’s reputation as a dangerous country populated with legions of poisonous insects, fearsome tarantulas, deadly snakes, meter-long aligators and piranhas is probably true, but beyond that, the country where Europe runs out and disappears into the green jungle thicket is one of the most stable in the region.

„The most dangerous creature here is man, followed by wasps,“ puts Philippe Gilabert, founder of „CISAME“ (Centre Initiation Survie et Aventure au Millieu Equatorial), an idyllic camp in the middle of green hell after about 60 kilometers of pirogue travel upstream on the banks of the Approuague near the Brazilian border, into perspective. „Humans,“ Gilabert, a former „Legion Etrangere“ paratrooper and terrorism expert, tells us, „are the most harmful creatures to the fragile ecocycle of the primary forest. Then would come the wasps, but they are a threat only to unwary humans, added the then 43-year-old Frenchman, who worked as a paratrooper and terrorism expert, wryly. He and Manoel, a Karipuna jungle Indian must know, because they specialize in bringing the wild jungle closer to as many civilized people as possible (than they actually care to) and offer 10 days of survival training to the toughest. So the civilization-impaired first practice archery, trapping, climbing, canoeing, fishing, making fire and building dwellings before having their own experience of what it’s like to have to survive in the jungle. So the jungle experts show the civilization-weary how to survive in the jungle and nature-lovers what treasures and functions the primary forest has and why it is absolutely necessary to protect it worldwide.

Among the guests of Mirikitares, the camp of the river people, as the Karipunas call this place, are reservists of European and North American armed forces as well as executives of companies who want to get their top shots in shape here. Even ordinary tourists are inspired to fulfill their dream and plunge into a daring jungle adventure. The fact that this is not just a macho world is proven by the growing number of women who come here and can often easily compete with us men in survival training. Either way, everyone gets to know themselves and their limits or abilities. The commitment goes to the substance of the mental and manageable, the survival mode switches on and amazing, existential insights open up to you. You suddenly realize how small and inconspicuous, how vulnerable and alone you are. You go from being the hunter to the hunted. A unique experience.

Having barely escaped the rainforest unscathed, new habitats open up, at least in the imagination, on a galactic trip to the moon, revealed to curious travelers in Kourou, not far from Guyana’s capital Cayenne, at the European Aerospace Center, the „Centre Spacial“ of the (ESA). So it is from here that the journey into space starts. The place itself offers nothing, except for the usual third-world view of the country’s class hierarchy. In the old town live the socially weakest, the Creoles, Indians and white unskilled workers, surrounded by out-of-place concrete buildings for the middle class, and on the beach the magnificent villas of the Europeans, scientists and employees of the space station in nearby Kourou.

After a visit to the European Union Space Station, I take a boat to Devil’s Island, a penal colony made famous by the movie Papillon. The three islands off the coast, Ille Royale, St. Jospeh and Ille Diable, where political prisoners were held for years by France in extreme conditions before ending up under the guillotine. Some, it is said here, would have preferred to be eaten by sharks while fleeing through the sea than to continue to suffer the earthly torment settled here. Guyana’s highlights include the country’s Wild West, especially the picturesque colonial town of St. Laurent-du-Moroni, on the border river with Suriname, which is well worth a visit. The colorful mixture of peoples, including Indians, raven pirogue drivers, bustling Indo-Chinese and Hmongs who came here via France to flee the Pol Pot regime, as well as Haitian cloth merchants, Dominicans and Creoles of all shades, and a few whites, was and still is impressively diverse.

On the last evening before our departure, we, a small group of journalists from Switzerland, trolled late at night through the harbor district of the capital Ceyenne and we were already quite drunk, after the humid happy rounds in some bars. Obviously, we had been observed, because at a rather dark intersection, suddenly from all sides a few sinister figures stepped out of the cracks of the houses quickly towards us. I could just warn my companions with a loud call, then someone coming from behind sprayed tear gas into my eyes, whereupon I could see nothing more and inhaled the irritant gas coughing. I whirled around like a dervish and began to swing my camera equipment around to keep the three attackers at a distance, whom I could see only dimly. Then I broke through on one side and ran up the street until I was out of breath and out of range of the gang. My colleagues were also lucky and managed to fight back and save themselves from the attackers. With this adventure behind us, we left the country the next day and flew back to Switzerland.

On one of the first of a total of five trips to Brazil, after Iguaçu Falls, Rio de Janeiro and Buzios, I also discovered Salvador de Bahia, the landing place of the Europeans and the first capital of Brazil. If you want to experience the exotic facets of Bahian life, be prepared for hot pickup lines, cool rejections and delicious alcoholic consolations, at least during Carnival. If you dive into the mystical world of Candobléein and let yourself be overwhelmed by the overwhelming spirituality, leave the local world and get into a trance to ecstasy. Candomblé is a Brazilian religion that has its roots and cradle in West Africa. The saints Orixá, Nkisi or Vodum are, in contrast to the supreme god Olorun, so to speak „approachable“. Most enslaved Africans came from Nigeria and Benin and were influenced by the Yoruba and Bantu traditions. During a Candomblé rite, a saint can take possession of a person. The roots of the slave tower are deeply rooted in the local culture. However, they are often lived out in secret. But when hundreds of powerful gospel voices resound from full fervor and the percussionists begin with their drum rhythm, then not only the earth trembles, but also the air vibrates in the far periphery, as with a howling hurricane. This makes the psalm-screeching Catholic boys‘ choir in the Sao Fransico monastery in the baroque old town district of Pelourinho sound rather pitiful.

A trip to Salvador de Bahia is therefore like setting out for new shores. First of all, it is admirable how elated the Baihanos go through life. Remarkable how they express their joy and sorrow. The mystical world of gods and the spiritual source of the Bahanos is reflected in Candomblé, which gave reason for the Christian mission, especially since Bahia was the starting point of the western explorers and conquerors. The bastions along the coast are not the only evidence of this. In Salvador de Bahia, the cradle of carnival and samba, there is no standing still and no stiff posturing. Everything is in flux, everyone is constantly on the move, more or less gracefully. It is rare to discover such a playful people, who have produced an unbelievable number of talented dancers and musicians.

Another Bahian specialty is capoeira, the martial art disguised as dance. Here, too, the gracefully flowing movements are recognizable, flowing through their whole lives and triggering impulses. But not only in expressing feelings also the body cult is on top of the agenda, in this the Bahianos hardly differ from the Cariocas. There is hardly an Adonis who does not present his athletically steeled body in his skimpy briefs. There is not a single woman who does not proudly walk on the beach in her „Fio dental“ bikini, flirting with her gracefulness and permissiveness. No wonder the church has sent more friars here than anywhere else in the world. In Salvador de Bahia alone, 165 houses of worship have been built.

In 2003 I was stationed for three months as a resident manager for a Swiss travel company in Fortalezza in the northeast of Brazil and had a truly good time there. Few guests, so almost no stress, a hotel room right on the Beira Mar (that’s like the Copacabana in Rio) furthermore I had a good vehicle with which I could drive to Jericoacoara to the fantastic sand dunes or south to Moro Branco. I was very attracted to the Brazilian lifestyle, music, language and culture on previous trips, which also helped me learn a little Portuguese. Since I spoke passable Spanish, it was easy for me to get into Portuguese and I like the Brazilian dialects better than the harsh Spanish accents. I am also enchanted by the music of many Latin American sounds: from the tango in Argentina to the bossa nova of a Gilberto Gil in Brazil or the folk dance forro, as in Fortalezza, from the salsa and son in Cuba to the merengue in the Dominican Republic.

In Fortaleza, during these three months, I lived as Station Manager at Beira Mar, ideally located for daily trips to the most beautiful city beach, Praia do futuro, and at night to Iracema at the end of Beira Mar, where the tourist entertainment district was located with all the nightclubs, which was very convenient for local tourist services. At the end of the three months I was shipped off to Sinai, but after the six month assignment in Sharm el Sheikh, returned to Fortaleza unemployed because the tsunami had hit Asia and as a result all the tour companies needed fewer Station Managers and Tour Guides.

Upon my return to Fortaleza, I first lived and stayed for two months in the Favela Serviluz with a friend who had a small brick house near Praia do Futuro and felt quite comfortable there. Soon, via Heldon and his friend Joaquin, I knew many people and the neighbors in the favela knew me as well, so I was able to move freely there day and night. It was a comfortable time, because I had made good foreign exchange deals with the tourists in Sinai and before in Brazil. This was always a tolerable source of extra income with these jobs. In Poland, I almost became a zloty millionaire. Then a friend from Switzerland visited me and we rented a „Highlux“, an off-roader, to drive along the Brazilian coast from Fortaleza in the state of Céara via the states of Maranhão and Piaui up to Manaus and then to complete the return journey inland.

That’s a good 6000 kilometers we wanted to cover in 11 days. The off-road driving was more comfortable than driving on the asphalt road, which was completely littered with holes up to half a meter deep. The asphalt looked like it had been bombed over a wide area, which is why I often drove on the scree strip to the right of the road. There one comes in principle faster ahead and whirls up strongly dust, which is to be seen already from a distance and prevents the accident danger. The journey went through Jericoacoara, with its fantastic dune landscape, which was surpassed in beauty by the crystal clear lakes in the sand dunes in the next state of Maranhao. An extremely fascinating region! The deep blue Atlantic with lonely dream beaches to the left, a gigantic sand dune strip along the coast and inland the esmerad green jungle. The national parks of Jericoacoara and Lençóis Maranhenses on the Atlantic coast are unique biotopes worth preserving.

I like deserts better than virgin forests. One gets along better. At least in 4×4. But even here, I would have been stranded without the help of local fishermen, because on this trip numerous rivers had to be crossed. Except for the one time it worked quite well, until we came to a river that was shallow on our side only about 30 meters, then there was a small sand island just before the place where the river flowed through a narrow mouth, like a funnel, much more tearing. You could just make that out from 40 meters away, and it was probably the most dangerous part. „If I couldn’t cross at full throttle the last ten meters after the tiny river island,“ it would look bad, I thought. And that’s exactly what happened. I drove with a lot of speed through the 30 meter wide, shallow river towards the island, but got stuck there due to the incline, had too little momentum to cross the current channel and was soon stuck with the hood at a 45 degree angle to three quarters in the water. After a few hours, a couple of fishermen came along. Only thanks to a boat in the current channel that lifted the car a little and a car that pulled us back from behind with the wire rope over the shallow part of the river, we managed to get out of the river.

Another time, when I was just out on my own in the sweltering midday heat, I got stuck in deep quicksand. I was shoveling like a madman in the scorching hot sand and didn’t think I would make it. It took four hours, many drops of sweat and endless jerks for a few meters further, but finally it worked out. And so the journey continued to Ilha de Maranhão, one of the largest alluvial areas in the world at the foothills of the Amazon. 800,000 buffalo populate the island, which belongs to only a few hundred large landowners who hardly employ any workers. Where the animals traverse in the dry season, a river course emerges in the rainy season. Thus, the fragile ecosystem and the thin layer of humus is destroyed in just a few years. Year after year, huge areas of virgin forest are being appropriated first for cattle breeding and then for intensive agriculture such as soy plantations. In the past 30 years, almost a quarter of the Amazon Delta has been destroyed. This is a catastrophe, because the incomparably high biodiversity is also seriously threatened here. In the Amazon alone there are over 2000 different fish. For comparison: In the whole of Europe there are just 150 species of fish. The same is true for all other animal species, most of which are endemic. The adventurous journey continued through the state of Piaui and from there we drove on to Manaus. Then another good 3000 kilometers inland back to Fortaleza, where we visited the Gruta de Ubajara, Brazil’s largest caves with nine chambers and a depth of a good kilometer, at the Ubajara National Park, about 300 km west of Fortaleza. Now we come to the last and most special of my Brazil trips and my only cruise.

Französisch Guyana: Drei Ara-Papageien auf einem Zweig

Borneo 96: Stalking through the jungle with handicapped Orang Utang

Schreibe eine Antwort

Malysia/Borneo: A handicaped young orang utan at the reha station in Sepilok, Sarawak

FOREWORD

(please note that translation corrections are still in progress and images will follow soon)

In 1996 I made a trip to Malaysia to celebrate 50 years of independence from the British crown and after the state celebration with all Asian heads of state, I first traveled around Malaysia by car for ten days and visited Taman Negara National Park in the rainforest. The country’s fascinating charms range from dreamlike beaches on the islands of Lankawi and Tioman in the north on the Thai border, to cultural strongholds such as Penang or daring climbing tours on Mount Kinabalu, or even the wildlife paradises in the two national parks of Niah and Gunung-Mulu. After the round trip through Malaysia and the side trip to Langkawi I flew to Borneo and landed in Sarawak with the aim to explore the situation of forest clearing for palm oil production, the thereby threatening situation of the head hunters and the destroyed habitat of the Orang Utan.

At Lake Batang Ai in Sarawak on Borneo I started the expedition into the rainforest and hired a guide with a dugout canoe to lead me to the Iban Headhunters living here. After two days‘ travel from Lake Batang Ai, paddling a canoe upstream through a sea of deforested tropical tribes flowing downstream, I ended up in one of these remote longhouse villages. The days of decapitating intruders with the parang, the dreaded long knife, and hanging the grisly trophies in the form of shrunken mini-skulls from the beams of the longhouses are thankfully over. But I have yet to see such shrunken skulls, and I don’t want to end up that way.

The longhouses of the head hunters are built on stilts, up to 100 meters long and have a continuous wide corridor leading to a longitudinal veranda. In the longhouse, one dwelling is then lined up next to the other. So that everyone knows what the other of the clan is doing. Unfortunately, due to my lack of language skills, it was very awkward to have conversations with the headhunters about their traditions and way of life, since no one understood English. Communication was only through sign language, observation and a „low-level“ communication. In the hallway, which is a good five meters wide, talented Iban women sit and weave elaborate bast mats, shape vessels out of clay, or sit at a loom while older men and women supervise the children. In the evenings, the younger men join them, drink their tuak (palm wine) and tell stories about hunting, field work or their work on the plantations.

Unfortunately, after a short time I came down with malaria, which laid me completely flat. Although I had swallowed some „Lariam“ tablets, I still felt very bad. Shaken by fever cramps and checkmate, I lay around for three days like a dead fly in the „longhouse“ of the headhunters, before I could go back by dugout canoe to a jungle camp that had a radio station. There I tried with Switzerland over the radio connection and the telephone handset held elsewhere to the radio, to take up contact with my family. When then at home in Switzerland the tape recorder instead of a connection came, because it was there in the middle of the night, I said only briefly that I wanted to say goodbye, because I would probably not survive the night. After that, I lay down outside under the starry night sky, shaken by more bouts of fever. I wanted to die at least in the open air and not in the tiny, stuffy wooden hut in which I had been quartered.

What happened now was unique and should shake my distinctive sense of reality fundamentally. Whether it was only halucinations or whether I was actually brought back from the ascension, is not clear to me until today. In any case my astral body took off and then I saw purely optically already the stars with comet-like rapid speed coming towards me and felt pulled weightlessly up into the orbit and glided so to speak like the spaceship „Enterprise“ which jetted with light speed through the orbit towards the starry sky. But since the stars cannot come toward me, I realized that I probably took off like an angel and now raced toward the sparkling firmament, unless my fevered brain was doing its antics and hallunzigone vision with me. Either way the journey to the stars was as exciting as it was enlightening. Shortly thereafter, a scream and screech rang in my ears and I heard my daughter and her mother howling in horrified tones, but not understanding any of their words. „What the hell are they doing up here,“ I thought for a moment, and then my little daughter’s voice occupied my mind so much that my light-speed flight to the stars abruptly lost momentum and I completed a loop back to Earth, telling myself that the time to depart had not yet come, since there were two people who needed me. So I swallowed three more „Lariam“ tablets and had now reached the dose for an elephant, as a tropical doctor told me a few days later. But after that it slowly went uphill again.

With the help of the jungle camp residents I got back on my feet after two days, traveled on to Kota Kinabalu to the Orang Utan Rehabilitation Station in Sepilok and arrived just at the right time, because at 11:00 a.m. the feeding of the Orang Utan was taking place from a platform about two kilometers further in the forest interior. Two groups of tourists had already started walking before me on the wooden walkway that leads a good two meters above ground into the rainforest to the large visitor platform and the two feeding places in the trees behind it. As I slowly approach the scene with my telephoto lens and recognize the young orangutans on the feeding areas, as well as the adult orangutan hanging from the wire rope that was stretched between the two feeding areas, I also heard the shouts of individual visitors who wanted to persuade the large orangutan to turn around, as he cheekily stuck his butt out at all of us. The isolated calls bounced off his butt. As a photographer, I was also interested in the fat guy showing us his face. So I emitted a few loud grunts, as I had heard them before, and apparently hit the right note. And lo and behold, in no time the orangutan turned around, showed his smacking face and looked curiously over at us. Perfect: „Ready for the photo shoot?“ Click, click, click.

After that, I watched as the babies got their food and gobbled it down, then abruptly disappeared back into the trees. But I wanted to get back to the rehab station before the others after the feeding, so I made my way back down the dock before the others. As I tried to sneak past a young handicapped orangutan, with a chopped off but already healed arm, lying backwards on the walkway and thus blocking the passage, he grabbed me by the lower leg. What was I supposed to do? When I wanted to gently release his hand that was clutching my leg, he simply grabbed me by the wrist, whereupon we both, the young orangutan and the still feverish and sweaty photographer ran hand in hand through the jungle to the station. That was a wonderful feeling. The orangutan could have taken me right up into the treetops with his buddies. That didn’t work, but I made a damn good appearance in the rehabilitation ward when we arrived there, still hand in hand, like good old friends, to talk to the ward manager.

My report about the „endangered“ apes was well received in the Swiss media and besides seven daily newspapers that printed the report, also the „Brückenbauer“ with a circulation of millions published the story with an appeal for donations, whereupon several tens of thousands of Swiss Francs were donated and benefited the Orang Utan Rehab Station in Sepilok. The apes became known through the Swiss environmental and human rights activist Bruno Manser, who vehemently campaigned for the indigenous people of the rainforest, the former head hunters, and then disappeared without a trace and was possibly murdered by the „timber mafia“, to whom he was a thorn in the flesh.

Bruno Manser from Appenzell lived in Borneo from 1984 to 1990, making records of the fauna and flora of the tropical rainforest and learning the language and culture of the Penan, a nomadic people group on Borneo, and living with them. In 1990 he had to flee to Switzerland after he was expelled by the Malaysian government and declared an „undesirable person“. A bounty of 50000 dollars was also placed on his head. In 1993, Manser participated in a fasting action and. a hunger strike in front of the Federal Parliament in Bern to protest against the import of tropical timber. In 2000, despite an entry ban and a bounty on his head, he traveled from the Indonesian part of Borneo (Kalimantan) across the green border into the Malaysian Sarawak to the Penan and was never seen again. Since then, Bruno Manser has been considered missing and was officially declared dead in 2005.

The orang utan, the „forest man“ in Malay, has been threatened with extinction since the mid-1960s. Despite international species protection agreements, at that time still extremely restrictive trade agreements and the two capture and rehabilitation stations on Semengho in Sarawak and Sepilok in Sabah on the Malaysian island of Borneo, the close relatives of Homo Sapiens are more acutely endangered than ever. Greed for tropical timber and palm oil is destroying their habitat, the primary forest. The destruction of their refuges has left them isolated in small groups. The clear-cutting of the rainforest destroys not only the material but also the spiritual basis of existence of many primitive peoples, because the imagination of the Orang Ulu, Melanau, Kenzah and Kajan tribes assumes that their ancestors live on as birds, insects or animals in their native environment. Thus, with each tree cutting, the cultural heritage is desecrated and mercilessly destroyed. And by far the largest segment of the population in Sarawak, the Bidayuh rice farmers believe in the symbiosis of the human and plant life cycle and believe that after their death, people return to earth as drops of water that fertilize the soil and give life.

Malysia/Borneo: A orang utan baby and his mother at the reha station in Sepilok, Sarawak

Maldives 93: First signs of climate change become visible

Schreibe eine Antwort

Maledives: The beach of Ihuru island in the Ari Atoll and Indian Ocean

FOREWORD

(please note that translation corrections are still in progress and images will follow soon)

Via Sri Lanka, which I got to know for ten days on a cultural round trip and refined with numerous visits to Ayurveda clinics to learn more about the 3000 year old health knowledge, I arrived in the Maldives. Thanks to the great distance to the continent as well as the gigantic insular distances of 764 km length and 128 km width, the island kingdom could escape the grasp of the colonial powers. The territory of the island kingdom covers 90,000 square kilometers and is home to over 1300 islands. The Arabs exerted the greatest influence on the Dhivehi Islanders. Islamization began as early as 1153, when the Buddhist king Kalamaninja converted to Islam. The Kalamaninja dynasty lasted 148 years and ruled with 15 sultans, followed by another 78 sultans in the over 800 year history of the Maldives.

The almost 1800 coral atolls stand out from the deep blue Indian Ocean like a shining white pearl necklace. A mosaic of light and color surrounds the chain of islands scattered from north to south across seven degrees of latitude. Each of these islets, covered in smaragd green vegetation and fringed with turquoise blue lagoons and ring-shaped reefs, which rise from the depths of the seabed and turn its opulent underwater splendor upward, looks slightly different again. The outer reefs shield the atoll, which often rises only a few centimeters above the water’s surface, from the surf. The colorful coral gardens were then home to a tremendous abundance of species. A picture book idyll of sea, sun and palm beach and secluded island romance as well as an Eldorado for divers as well as water sports enthusiasts, awaited me on the first tourist island of Ihuru.

The downsides, however, are: A fragile ecosystem, which is endangered by the rise of the sea level and especially by tourism. An island kingdom that was already visibly threatened in its existence by global warming in the early 1990s and is probably irrevocably doomed. In addition, the mountains of garbage left behind by tourists on the islands and on nearby Male are testimony to the growing environmental pollution and the destruction of fragile ecosystems. Since tourism has replaced fishing as the main source of income, a flood of garbage has poured over the tourist islands and coral gardens along with the tourist boom. Apart from fish, coconuts and bananas, all other consumer goods have to be imported. The fuel consumption for the transport of the goods to the tourist islands already devoured a lot of fuel at that time and was reflected in second place in the import statistics.

On Ihuru, I already saw then how the local fishermen brought in shiploads of sandbags and piled up ramparts on the beach against the erosion. This made me realize almost 30 years ago that there was climate change, which was still downplayed as the „El Nino“ effect. But as I became more aware of the global glacier melt and the fact that this was causing sea levels to rise and the climate-deciding Atlantic Ocean to abruptly break off, I published several reports and commentaries in Swiss daily newspapers. At that time, global warming was already becoming apparent, which was then explained in detail and scientifically substantiated four years later in the first „IPPC“ report. The „El nino“ effect dramatically destroyed the submarine coral world of the Maldives in 1993, as it bleached out and largely died. Fortunately I experienced the incredible colorfulness of the iridescent soft coral gardens during my first dives on Ihuru and Rihiveli as well as on the sister islands „Dighofinolu „and „Veliganda Hura“.

In 1992 at the Rio Conference on Sustainable Development, tourism was not yet an issue. But this changed rapidly thereafter due to global air traffic growth. In 1994, the „World Travel and Tourism Council“ (WTTC) and the „World Tourism Organization“ (WTO), together with the „Earth Council“, published the „Agenda 21“ for the travel and tourism industry and appealed to the United Nations to better anchor the „Agenda 21“. But it was not until April 1999 that the Commission presented its first four-year program on „Tourism and Sustainable Development.“ In the meantime, a flood of eco-labels and eco-certifications emerged, as well as CO2 compensation schemes such as „My Climate“ when flying, all issuing a kind of ecological certificate of harmlessness, which, of course, is by no means the case when viewed from a reel.

Four years later I traveled to the Ari Atoll to the island Makafushi and participated in a freighter sinking, with which again an artificial coral reef should be created. Unfortunately, by then the coral reefs were already bleached and all life had died. But all these are drops on a hot stone and if we continue as we are doing, the Maldives will sink again in less than 50 years and will be remembered as a sunken island atoll.

Malediven: Males Hauptmosche. Males main mosque

Komoren: Die Parfüminseln tauchen aus der Versenkung empor

Schreibe eine Antwort

Auszug aus dem Buch «DAS PENDEL SCHLÄGT ZURÜCK – POLITISCHE & ÖKOLOGISCHE METAMORPHOSEN» des Zürcher Fotojournalisten Gerd Michael Müller.

Grandes Comores: A young woman having a sandelwood facial mask on while walking through the public.

Vorwort:

Das Buch des Zürcher Foto-Journalisten Gerd Michael Müller nimmt Sie ab den wilden 80er Jahren mit auf eine spannende Zeitreise durch 30 Länder und 40 Jahre Zeitgeschichte mit Fokus auf viele politische Vorgänge in Krisen-regionen rund um den Globus. Er beleuchtet das Schicksal indigener Völker, zeigt die Zerstörung ihres Lebensraumes auf, rückt ökologische Aspekte und menschenrechtliche Schicksale in den Vordergrund und analysiert scharfsichtig und gut informiert die politischen Transformations-prozesse. Müller prangert den masslosen Konsum und die gnadenlose Ausbeutung der Ressourcen an, zeigt die Auswirkungen wirtschaftlicher, gesellschaftlicher und politischer Prozesse in einigen Ländern auf und skizziert Ansätze zur Bewältigung des Klimawandels. Pointiert, hintergründig, spannend und erhellend. Eine gelungene Mischung aus globalen Polit-Thrillern, geho-bener Reiseliteratur, gespickt mit sozialkritischen und abenteuerlichen Geschichten sowie persönlichen Essays – den Highlights und der Essenz seines abenteuerlich wilden Nomaden-Lebens für die Reportage-Fotografie eben. Es erwartet Sie eine Reise durch die epochale Vergangenheit und metamorphorische Phasen vieler exotischer Länder rund um den Globus. Nach der Lektüre dieses Buchs zählen Sie zu den kulturell, ökologisch sowie politisch versierten Globetrotter.

Die Parfüminseln tauchen aus der Versenkung empor

The Comores Islands belong to the poorest countries in the world with a very high birth child death rate

Lange hielten sich die rivalisierenden Sultanate am Schnittpunkt der arabischen und afrikanischen Welt im Verborgenen. Ausser den Parfumherstellern, die sich hier mit den begehrten Ylang-Ylang Duftstoffen eindeckten und bereicherten, kennen nur wenige die Grande Comores, mit den vier Inseln, Grande Comores, Anjouan, Moheli und Grand Mayotte. Die Einheimischen nennen die vier Vulkaninseln zwischen Madagaskar und Mocambique Ngazidja, Ndzuani, Mwali und Mayotte. Sie sind politisch und geografisch gespalten und kulturell ein Panoptikum, wo malayische, polynesische, afrikanische und französische Einflüsse verschmelzen. Vor der Kolonialzeit rangen bis zu 12 Sultanate vergeblich um die Vorherrschaft. Den Franzosen gelang es 1845, die durch die zerstrittenen Regenten geschwächten Komoren unter ihre Schutzherrschaft zu stellen und sie 1912 zum Überseeterritorium der Grande Nation zu erklären.

In einem Referendum votierten 1977 allein Mayottes Bevölkerung für den Verbleib bei Frankreich. Die anderen Inseln entschieden sich für die Unabhängigkeit und für die lang ersehnte, hartumkämpfte Unabhängigkeit und vereinten sich schliesslich zur islamischen Konföderation der Komoren. Doch der Spaltpilz Mayotte trübten die Einheit des neuen Insel-staates, der die Unabhängigkeit übrigens wirtschaftlich gesehen, enorm büsste und total verarmte. An touristischer Attraktivität würde es den Inseln bei weitem nicht fehlen. Grande Comores ist mit 1025 Quadratkilometern die grösste Insel. Hinter Ngazidjas Hauptstadt Moroni, deren prächtiger Bau die strahlend weisse Freitagsmoschee schon von weitem aus dem Häusermeer hervorsticht, erhebt sich der mächtige Vulkan Karthala.

Islamique Republic Grande Comores: Volcanic landscape at Dibwani Pass

1977 brach er zum letzten Mal aus, hinterlies breite Lavaspuren, die der jüngsten komorischen Vulkaninsel einen bizarren Anstrich verlieh. Durchquert man Grande Comores von West nach Ost über den steilen Dibwani-Pass, ragen auf der nördlichen Flanke der Strasse viele weitere kleine Vulkankegel empor. Dieser fantastischen Mondlandschaft haben die Komoren wohl auch den arabischen Namen der «Mondinseln» zu verdanken. Auch die Küste ist zumeist aus schroffem, pech schwarzen Lavagestein. Der schönste Badeort der Hauptinsel wartet mit drei perlenweissen Stränden auf, umsäumt vom vorgelagerten, schillernden Korallenriff. Hier hat sich das Galawa Hotel eingenistet. Bei Ebbe treffen scharenweise buntgekleidete Frauen mit Kopftüchern ein. Im seichten, kristallklaren Wasser fischen sie mit Netzen und Harpunen aus Armierungseisen Jagd auf Tintenfische oder auch grössere Fische, die sich in ihren im Kreis aufgespannten und dann zusammengezogenen Netzen verfangen.

Anjouan, die Perle der Komoren, ist die Insel der unberührten Täler, der idyllischen, tropischen Fluss- und schroffen, dicht bewachsenen Kraterlandschaften und Vulkankegeln. Am Fusse der Regenwälder liegen die herrlich duftenden Vanille, die Gewürz und die Ylang Ylang Plantagen, an denen sich die französischen Parfumhersteller Jahrzehntelang bereicherten. Die Nachbarinsel Moheli gibt sich überaus afrikanisch orientiert und ist ein Refugium der Riesenwasserschildkröten, die ich völlig überraschend zu Hunderten am nächtlichen, vom Vollmond hell erleuchteten Strand ihre Eier verbuddelnd sah.

Grandes Comores: The Mosque and Mausoleum in Mitsamiouli on Anjouan island

Ansonsten ist die Insel eher ein Refugium für Robinson Cruso AnhängerInnen. Auf dem Markt von Mitsamiouli erkennt man die wenigen Musungus (weisse Touristen) auf den ersten Blick. Ich sah jedenfalls ausser meinen drei Journalisten-Kollegen keinen einzigen Weissen auf der Insel. Hier dominierten nicht mit schwarzen Hijabs verschleierte Frauen, sondern die mit farbenfrohen Ngazidjas und um den Körper geschlungen Lesotho-Tücher gekleideten Ladies das Bild, derweil die Frauen auf Anjouan zumeist einen rotweissen Chiromani trugen. Viele der Gesicher waren mit einer dicken Schicht aus Sandelholz als Sonnen- und Moskitoschutz bedeckt. Die mit fortschreitender Tageszeit bröckelnde Schönheitsmaske,, diente dazu die zarte Haut der Frauen gepflegt zu erhalten. Echt schockiert war ich, als ich im Hotelzimmer, der sich so puritanisch gebenden islamischen Gottesstaaten auch wenig kaschiert Präservative herum lagen. Dass anstatt des Korans Kondome auf dem Nachtisch liegen würden, hätte ich hier zuletzt erwartet. Und dass es hier Kondome offensichtlich zur Standard-Hotelzimmer-Ausstattung gehörten, hätte ich nimmer erwartet. Man(n) lernt dazu. Später fand ich heraus, dass es neben dem Normaltarif auch noch einen Schäferstündchen-Tarif gab.

Doch von den pragmatisierten und zeitgenössischen sogenanten Unsitten nun zu den traditionellen matriarchalischen Sitten des Landes. Bei der Grande Mariage, dem pompösesten Fest und wichtigsten Ereignis im Leben eines Komorers und einer Komorerin, werden traditionellerweise alle Geschütze aufgefahren. So kommt es vor, dass die Eltern ihrer Braut ein Haus bauen, derweil der Bräutigam die Braut mit echtem Gold oder Juwelen überhäuft. Die während Tagen oft mit Hunderten von Gästen zelebrierte Hochzeit ist nicht nur ein festliches Grossereignis sondern stets auch mit sozialem Aufstieg verbunden. So jedenfalls die Erwartung der meisten InselbewohnerInnen. Eine Familie vollzieht durch diesen Akt auch einen Klassen-wechsel in die Oberschicht, wird im Kreis der grands notables aufgenommen und ist fortan auch im politisch religösen Kontext einflussreicher. Nicht selten bedeutet die Grande Mariage aber auch den finanziellen Ruin einer Familie. Sxchon damals monierten die Jungen Leute zu Recht, dass das Geld besser in die Bildung und Weiterentwicklung des Landes investiert werden sollte, statt es so unsinnig zu verpulvern. Die Analphabetenrate betrug damals fast 50 Prozent und die Republik der Komoren zählte zu den 15 ärmsten Nationen der Welt.

Grande Comores: The harvest of the Ylang Ylang plant will be destilled to a perfume extract here in Mutsamudu. Most often children do the job

Wie hat Ihnen die Story gefallen? Ich freue mich auf Ihre Kritik und Ihren Kommentar oder weitere interessante Details.

Comores: Tourists meeting fishermen boats at Galawa Beach

Links zu weiteren Berichten und Buchauszügen, die Sie interessieren könnten:

Mit den Khoi-San durch das Okavango-Delta pirschen

Die Bushmänner, deren Leben bald Geschichte ist

Besuch bei den Buschmännern im Okavango Delta

Wegweisende Wildlife Projekte in Afrika

Malediven 93: Die ersten Anzeichen des Klimawandels

Malaysia: Bei den versehrten Orang Utans in Borneo

Philippines 95: Auf den Spuren der Geistheiler

IN EIGENER SACHE: IHR BEITRAG AN HUMANITAERE UND OEKO-PROJEKTE

Geschätzte Leserin, werter Leser

Der Autor unterstützt noch immer zahlreiche Projekte. Infolge der COVID-19 Pandemie ist es aber für den Autor selbst für und zahlreiche Projekte schwieriger geworden. Die Situation hat sich verschärft. Für Ihre Spende, die einem der im Buch genannten Projekte zufliesst, bedanke ich mich. Falls Sie einen Beitrag spenden wollen, melden Sie sich bitte per Mail bei mir gmc1(at) gmx.ch. Vielen Dank im Namen der Empfänger/innen.

Your Focus to the World

GMC liefert brilliante Bilder, spannende Reportagen und konzipiert Ihre Medienkampagne

Archiv der Kategorie: Naturschutz

Species extinctions & pandemics: Will we survive or are we the next endangered species?

FOREWORD

End times: The Sixth Mass Extinction has begun – are we going down with it?

FOREWORD

A radical societal paradigm shift is necessary

FOREWORD

Brazil/Salvador de Bahia: In the Cauldron of Magical Slave Energy

FOREWORD

1997: Hell Trip to the Drug Cartels of Colombia

FOREWORD

Guyana 1997/2003: From the jungle directly into space

FOREWORD

Borneo 96: Stalking through the jungle with handicapped Orang Utang

FOREWORD

Maldives 93: First signs of climate change become visible

FOREWORD

Komoren: Die Parfüminseln tauchen aus der Versenkung empor

Die Parfüminseln tauchen aus der Versenkung empor