Monthly Archives: October 2016

Field Notes: Svalbard Coal

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Working a 3-foot Seam

The Svalbard Archipelago hosts the northernmost coal mines in the world. For now, only enough coal is being extracted to run the aging power plant in the largest settlement in the archipelago, Longyearbyen, on the island of Spitzbergen. The others have been closed – but not out of climate concerns. abandoned-coal-car-cableway
Coal Car Cableway (Temporarily?) Shut Down

Rather, it is the dwindling economics of coal that pushed the closure. That the mine owners claim that closure to be temporary only drives the point home. Even 800 miles above the Arctic Circle, in the most fragile climate on the planet, money trumps common sense.
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Glacier in Rapid Retreat

Of late, I’ve been including, in both my Arctic and Antarctic Tweets, the hash tag #NoIceNoUs.

No joke.

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Alkefjellet Cliffs

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Ivory Gull on Blue Ice, Brepollen

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Female Polar Bear, in the pack ice, 81.36 North Latitude

thick-billed-murre-alkefjellet-20160717_031128_87502016Thick-billed Murre

It is worth seeing for yourself. And it is worth saving. To hear my prose essay on Svalbard coal and see more photographs, layer-up, slip into your kayak, and paddle over to Living on Earth

My fieldwork in Svalbard was supported by One Ocean Expeditions, and I highly recommend them.

Mark Seth Lender
Producer/Essayist/Photographer
Living on Earth
Member: Explorers Club
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Africa

elephant-herd-at-sunrise-7087In August, 2016 I returned to Africa. It was twice a homecoming.  Because Africa, with its stone tools predating the time when we were even Human,\ is the origin of Us. And because it is the origin of me; of what I have become; of the thing to which I have dedicated my life, Wild things, and the Wilderness without which they cannot exist. The eyes I see with now are not the eyes of a quarter century ago. I set out went looking for difference, for what separates one from of life from another. Instead, I have come to see animals as like us more than apart from us. More than this, I know that without them we cease to exist. Literally perhaps (because the World without the Wild is unlikely to sustain us), but more important;y, because without Wildlife the part of us that is Human will die, of loneliness and shame. I fear for the Natural World.

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There is something you can do for the wildlife and the people of Africa. Follow in my tracks. See these things for yourself. Go with small groups, go with local guides. If wildlife and wilderness are to survive at all, it will be because local people see their economic survival tied to these things.

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I was hosted in the Maasai Mara by Don Young of Donald Young Safaris and by Nick Wood of Sekenani Camp.  I can recommend both without hesitation.  Between them, they support many families and provide the income that provides an education for the children of those families.  They make wildlife valuable and in our world today, without defined monetary value nothing survives.

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You can visit the Mara with Don or Nick with complete moral clarity. Their tours in the Maasai Mara range from about $300 a day all inclusive, to about $950 all inclusive.  Save up.  Go soon. It’s worth every dime.

 – Mark Seth Lender  [MSL at MarkSethLender dot Com]

Sekenani Camp:

https://www.facebook.com/sekenanicamp/

Donal Young Safaris:

http://www.donaldyoungsafaris.com  [US office, Colorado Tel 303-4398462]

 

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