Re-start

Now that I've revived, Rip van Winkle - like, I'm up and blogging again .... starting tomorrow :-)

Sailing ships

Beluga, whale. Kite, sail. Open-ocean shipping, fuel-thirsty. Clever minds have been working on the issue of moving vast amounts of cargo across the world's oceans with considerably greater efficiency (thereby greatly reduced cost) and have come up with this. The Beluga Shipping Company are about to launch their fleet of kite assisted ships on the Atlantic, leading the way in the search for cheaper transport of goods by sea. New Zealand could benefit greatly from the Beluga initiative, given our position on the globe. The Frogblog article looks at what we might see on the news in February.

Deep green blog

The Woodmouse blogs from Britain and keeps a weather-eye on the global/political climate. He/she's worth a look if you too are following the big debate.

Normal transmission

Following a swamping by end-of-year tying-up, Christmas madness, an explosion of growth in my rain-fed garden... I'm back in the pilot's seat and ready to blog. A thousand apologies for the dearth of posts!
Snowy

Gardener?

This locally written online diary follows the daily adventures of a Southern gardener and has so far covered diverse topics such as: building a 'bee-bank', growing stinging nettles for native butterflies, growing fruit in a windy spot and so on. Take a look whenever it's too wet or windy to get outside into your own garden!

Suckers!

“Scientists since the early '90s have seen the potential for cleaning up contaminated sites by growing plants able to take up nasty groundwater pollutants through their roots”.

This article explores the potential for transgenic poplars to be used to ‘mop up’ contaminants from groundwater. Why they need to use transgenic plants for this purpose is the point of contention for me. If there exist trees, shrubs, herbs, grasses and reeds able to do this already (and there are) why is there a need to employ transgenics presently restricted to controlled, contained facilities and free them into the open environment? The argument that the transgenic poplars are ‘100 times more efficient’ at taking up “trichloroethylene, the most common groundwater contaminant” in the American study doesn’t wash it for me. Read for yourself and comment if you see something I’m missing!

Cleaning up Central

"Life in the 21st century is so heavily bathed in chemicals..and the search for reassurances has become increasingly ardent" - Thursday's Southland Times editorial focuses on fruit, in particular apples grown in Central Otago under the Apple Futures banner and the implications for all food crops grown in New Zealand. The editorial fudges the ideas of safe food a little, opinining that the initiative (Apple Futures) is something of a political response to market perceptions, rather than a real clean-up of chemicals on our fruit, but nevertheless lauds the moves to significantly reduce chemical use in orchards in Central Otago, Hawke's Bay and Nelson. The author talks of massive markets for 'organic' products and rightly says it extends far beyond the pipfruit area. The care taken with the word 'organic' is due to the fact that the methods proposed for the industry are partial, rather than full, and represent reduced application, rather than zero use. No detectable chemical residue is different to no chemical use, but it is a step in the right direction. The support for the new approach is at tempered with the claim made at the beginning of the article -"New Zealanders and our markets are already assured that we produce extremely safe fruit", but there is enough light showing for the supporters of an 'organic nation' to feel encouraged.

Local Body Election night

Flouride

Young people in my town don't drink water, they drink soft drink. They do this because the water smells of chlorine and tastes bad. Their teeth suffer from the sugar in their favourite drink. Health officials propose to put flouride into the drinking water to strengthen those teeth, but the 'target audience' isn't drinking the water and the plan won't work. A far better idea is to provide clean, good tasting water that children will drink. Let's look to the cause, not just treat the symptom.

Coloured whitebait

There is a good deal of interest in whitebait in Southland right now - the price is high as are the stakes for the sustainability of the fishery. It is difficult to find a lot of information on the state of the whitebait fishery and the habits of the fish, but an article in the Feb 2006 edition of New Zealand Geographic, by NIWA researcher Dr. Cindy Baker, reveals some very interesting observations. Dr. Baker stained live whitebait (pink and orange) in order to track their progress up the Mokau river in North Taranaki and found that: they migrate at night ,where most baiters believed they only did so during the day, they can swim 18km over 36 hours (1.5km per hour), eels eat far fewer whitebait than most believed, and the bait swim back out to sea and up nearby rivers at times. Whitebaiters know a great deal about the habits of the fish that swim around their own stand and this knowledge combined with information gathered by a scientist could help them increase their catch, but my hope is that the same information will improve the fishery to a level that is sustainable. It is not that way at present. Here are links to more of Dr. Bakers whitebait work. One and Two.