Green Options

Here’s some lighthearted news to bring a smile to your face. A nearly 20 year old giraffe at the zoo known as Israeli Safari has given birth to her 11th baby, setting a world record. She is formally known as Denissa, but more humorously known as “super-mum.”

The U.S. National Park Service has partnered with the American Museum of Natural History to cryogenically freeze tissues from endangered species that live within U.S. national parks– eventually the new research collection will contain an estimated 1 million samples.

The effort will facilitate research that could help protect these endangered species from going extinct– or at least leave a record of their genetic makeup behind. The first specimens to enter the collection will be blood samples from California’s endangered Channel Island fox. They will be followed by genetic material from the American crocodile and the Hawaiian goose.

It’s an experience many of us relish– taking a weekend stroll through the colors, sounds, and smells of a local farmers market and then choosing fresh items to take back to our homes, as well crafts, or maybe a cd from a local band. We know that the food will eventually fill our stomachs contently, or that another item we found will be a perfect and unique gift for a special friend or family member.

This summer you can show your support for your favorite farmers market, by helping it win a $5000 reward. Care2.com and Localharvest.org are sponsoring this great online contest. The $5000 top prize will be awarded to the farmer’s market that is voted the most popular by internet users like you.

Last year one of the most critically endangered birds in the world, the Northern Bald Ibis, nested in Spain for the 1st time in 500 years. Terrific news has now arrived that a pair is nesting again in the same location this year.

The current worldwide population of wild Northern Bald Ibises is thought to be around 510 in total, with around 500 of these individuals living in Morocco. In the last century the population of Northern Bald Ibises has declined by approximately 98% because of hunting, habitat loss, and pesticides. Its once great range is now small.

What’s most encouraging about the ibises in Spain’s Natural Park of Brena is that they were born in captivity, and are the first pair to successfully nest in the wild– an indication that captive breeding programs might work for this species. An estimated 1,000 ibises are currently living in captivity.

It’s rare that a city sets out to create a new tourist attraction and is able to do so with terrific success– but Lima, Peru has done it.

The Magical Fountain amazes visitors with its rapid changes and height.

While Lima is generally trashed by Peru guidebooks as the place everyone must dreadfully pass through on their way to other destinations like Machu Picchu, in the past few years great strides have been made to improve the city’s offerings, such as “The Magic Circuit of Water” in Lima’s Parque de la Reserva.

Technological innovations can solve some of the world’s biggest problems right? That’s what a firm of Chilean architects would like us to believe. They’ve come up with a creative idea for how land-locked Bolivia could regain access to the ocean. It was not too long ago, in 1883 to be exact, that Bolivia lost the little coastline it had in a war with Chile. Since it’s only be gone for a short time, now’s the perfect time to get it back!

The romantic imagery painted of Spanish bullfighting in Ernest Hemingway’s famous book The Sun Also Rises might soon be the stuff of history. Spain is edging ever closer to banning the sport.

Thanks to a petition with 180,000 signatures, the regional government of Spain’s northeastern Catalonia area will soon debate banning the sport tied so closely to Spain’s image. Recent polling indicates that less than 30% of Spanish citizens like bullfighting, reflecting an overall trend that animals should be treated more humanely.

Our friends at the new site MapVivo.com are having a travel writing contest. To enter, you simply need to write a short travel journal for the site, upload some photos, and make your trip sound exciting. That’s it!

Among all entries received by June 15th, judges will select the winners from the 10 journals voted most popular by MapVivo users. The grand prize is a $1000 travel voucher to a destination of the winner’s choice. 5 runners up will receive free Bradt Travel guides to the destinations of their choice.

In the western Argentinian province of San Juan, the provincial government has authorized the development of what will be the most powerful solar energy park in Latin America to date. The park is hoped to be operational by the summer of 2010.

A Buenos Aires landmark, the solar powered Floralis Generica.
A bidding process will begin in June of this year, and Brazilian, German, and Spanish companies are expected to invest in the project, which has an estimated price tag of $120 million dollars. The provinicial government of San Juan has already agreed to invest between $15 and $20 million.

Move over Hubble Telescope, the European Space Agency has launched the largest telescope ever sent to space on a mission to study how the Big Bang created the universe. This comes right on the heels of another related and exciting scientific breakthrough: for the first time ever, scientists have successfully showed us how the earliest building blocks for life on the planet probably formed from scratch. Are we on the brink of a more complete understanding of our planet’s evolution?

Details you say? Here they are. The European Space Agency’s plan to study the Big Bang comes at a cost of $952 million. Yesterday a rocket launched from the South American country of French Guiana sent the telescope as well as a spacecraft above our atmosphere, and they both could very well soon be household names.