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Four flights and just over 34 hours of travel mark the beginning of the second phase of our 2009 Expedition Blue Planet as we fly halfway around the globe to join the Blue Legacy film crew in Cambodia. What started as a research outline last year for my upcoming book on global water issues, quickly evolved into a five continent expedition dedicated
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Date:
7/19/2009
Washington, D.C. has been my home for many years. It is where my foundation is headquartered, where my family resides. It is also home to members of the Earth Conservation Corps, a service organization that teaches at-risk teenagers and young adults from the poorest, most violent neighborhoods to clean up their local Anacostia River – and their lives.
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Our nation’s capital casts a long shadow. Just a few miles from the Mall – famous for the White House, Lincoln Memorial, and Washington Monument – lies a troubled world that bears little resemblance to these iconic representations of democracy. No mobs of tourists throng the streets snapping photos here. Few world leaders ever visit.
Anacostia,
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The team and I spend our final day on the Mississippi River visiting again with the Cajun people living at the frayed edges of the bayou close to the Gulf of Mexico. You only have to talk to a few of them to find out what their biggest concern is: land loss.
We drive over an hour along the flat, long highway that leads from Golden Meadow, the Cajun
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Date:
4/27/2009
Today we feel blessed getting to spend another few hours with the generous, openhearted Cajun people. We’ve journeyed down the Mississippi River from St Louis to Louisiana to investigate how farming relates to fishing. In a general sense, both farmers and fishermen survive off the land. They may not consider themselves environmentalists, yet the livelihoods
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Date:
4/26/2009
Here on the Lafourche bayou about an hour southwest of New Orleans, the Cajun people have passed along shrimp trawling as a way of life for generations. We have timed our visit for the Blessing of the Fleet, an annual tradition at the start of the shrimping season intended to ensure a bountiful harvest and safety on the water.
A dozen wooden boats
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“I’ve been doing this way longer than Erin Brokovich,” says 65 year-old grandmother, professional chemist, and spitfire activist Wilma Subra. With her short blond ponytail and bangs, Capri pants and sandals, she looks twenty years younger than she is—and has the energy of a teenager. That’s lucky for the people of New Orleans because Wilma has made
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Date:
4/24/2009
“Louisiana’s wetlands are twice the size of the Everglades National Park, funnel more oil into the US than the Alaskan Pipeline, sustain one of the nation’s largest fisheries, and provide vital hurricane protection for New Orleans. And they are disappearing under the Gulf of Mexico at the rate of 33 football fields a day.”
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Date:
4/23/2009
St Louis marks a dividing line in the Mississippi River. To the north, in Minnesota, it is a national treasure attracting more people for recreation than Yellowstone National Park. To the south, it is hardly a river anymore. It more closely resembles a drainage pipe.
As it journeys through the middle of America, the Mississippi suffers the bombardments
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Date:
4/22/2009
On the day we’re investigating the truth about corn ethanol, and rapidly reaching the conclusion that the American public is being robbed blind when it comes to government subsidies for the stuff, we get robbed ourselves.
MeiMei, Ben, Jos and I are filming interviews and stand-ups near the arch in St Louis for the afternoon. But after two straight
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Date:
4/21/2009
When your great-great-grandmother settled a place in 1823, you can call yourself a local. 186 years later, Steve Black still manages the family farm and rents out the archetypal white wooden house, complete with wraparound porch, and worn red barn.
Like many other farmers in the area, Steve grows corn and soybeans, commodity crops subsidized by
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Date:
4/20/2009
Cold and wet. That’s what we are after an entire day out shooting in ceaseless spring rains. Only a scorching hot bath can cure this kind of shivering.
In the morning, Ben, Pablo and Ali went to the cornfields to shoot b-roll of the agriculture—mostly corn and soybeans—that dominates the Mississippi River basin. They returned shortly after noon
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Date:
4/19/2009
The Mississippi River stitches together a quilt of ten states from Minnesota to Louisiana. The geometric plots of agricultural land stretching out to either side form the patchwork in shades of brown, planted mostly with corn and soybeans but not yet showing signs of spring growth.
The team traveled today from Washington, D.C., where we’ve spent
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Date:
4/18/2009
We’re leaving the Middle East today to return to Washington, D.C. We’ll be traveling by bus for 30 minutes from the kibbutz in Israel to the border crossing, entering Jordan at Aqaba on foot, catching a taxi on the other side, and driving over three hours to the airport in Amman. From there, we will fly to Paris, and after a five-hour layover, on to
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Date:
4/6/2009
It is so dry here. I drink water constantly but always my throat feels scratchy. My eyes feel as dry as the barren riverbeds of the region, and it seems no amount of eye drops can remedy the situation.
Water is scarce in the desert. This shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone. The problem is, it is rapidly growing scarcer. So far the situation has
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Date:
4/5/2009
For this blog, I simply want to allow the inspiring, generous, and courageous students of The Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, located on Kibbutz Ketura in Southern Israel, to speak for themselves. In a region torn by conflict, the Arava Institute brings together Israelis, Palestinians, Jordanians, and international students to learn about
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Hindus call Varanasi, which was our first stop on this Expedition, their holiest city. Muslims, Jews, and Christians name Jerusalem, where we are today, one of their holiest cities. Both places contend that they are the oldest continuously inhabited cities on Earth, and you can feel their timeworn auras.
Jerusalem’s narrow stone paths are totally
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Date:
4/3/2009
A concrete wall eight meters high divides the landscape. On one side, Israel. On the other, the West Bank. The barrier is decorated with graffiti in Arabic and English reading, “Imagine war is over,” and “Welcome to wall of tears.” A painting shows a dove with a blindfold and its wings tied behind its back. I’ve only seen a wall like this once before
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Date:
4/2/2009
After the intensity of our travels around the Jordan River Basin over the past week, today’s relatively mellow pace was a gift. The team stayed the night on a moonlit hillside overlooking the Dead Sea at a quiet hostel with no internet access. I must admit, that actually served as a welcome buffer between me and the never-ending barrage of urgent emails
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Date:
4/1/2009
In a region where terrorist bombings make headlines every few weeks, barbed wire fences and concrete walls sever the landscape like scars, and soldiers poke their heads out from checkpoints every few dozen kilometers, water lies at the heart of peace and conflict.
I had imagined that I might be frightened or at a minimum jumpy while traveling in
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We arrived late last night to a youth hostel north of the Sea of Galilee, and laughed when we found Jos and Duff editing blissfully away in the common room as hordes of club-going teenagers wandered by. The pounding music kept us up til 2am. Middle Easterners can seriously party; there’s been a raging discotheque at every stop of our trip here!
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It takes a minimum of two hours and four buses, each of which travels approximately the length of a tennis court, to cross the border between Jordan and Israel at the southern tip of the Sea of Galilee. We just learned that through experience.
The two countries enjoy an uneasy peace. Jordan lies along the east side of the Jordan River Valley, Israel
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Date:
3/29/2009
Othman Mizra grew up swimming, catching fish, hunting birds, and setting his family’s water buffaloes out to pasture in an oasis. Literally. It was not some fantasy world you read about in storybooks, but an actual living, breathing wetland on the northeastern edge of the dusty, barren expanse of desert that covers much of Jordan.
But that was before
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We lost an hour last night. No, we didn’t leave it behind on the plane or accidentally toss it in the laundry. It was daylight savings here in the Middle East, and we had to set our clocks back. Which was especially tough given that we were scheduled for a sunrise departure anyway.
Still, the team managed to wake up, eat breakfast at the kibbutz,
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We arrived at the kibbutz in Israel at 2am last night, after 21 hours of travel from Cape Town. Africa is an enormous continent! Flying two hours from Cape Town to Johannesburg, followed by another nine hours direct to Tel Aviv really put things in perspective.
But our exhaustion quickly transformed into excitement the moment we touched ground.
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While I remain in Saudi Arabia for another day, the team travels from Cape Town, South Africa to Tel Aviv, Israel.
The focus in Cape Town was production: cranking out our three short films about India, as well as interviews and audio podcasts – all posted now on our website. We’ve also made solid progress on the two Botswana films. Last night I
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Date:
3/25/2009
I’ve had fascinating meetings in the past two days with the Saudi Arabian Minister of the Information, the Minister of Tourism an others about bringing Expedition: Blue Planet here in the near future.
In response to desertification, depletion of underground water resources, and lack of perennial rivers or permanent water bodies, the government
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Today I flew from Istanbul to Saudi Arabia. I will spend a few days here attending a royal wedding and meeting with various government officials about the possibility of making this a future Expedition: Blue Planet destination.
The rest of the team remains in Cape Town, working hard on our videos and web content.
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Date:
3/23/2009
We are really getting our rhythm down as a team now in terms of the Expedition videos, figuring out our workflow and style, which is exciting. Today, we’re putting finishing touches on the third film about India – “Ganges: Endangered Source.” It addresses the issue of global climate change, which is causing the rapid disappearance of the Himalayan
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Date:
3/22/2009
We’re so fortunate to have a team of enthusiastic, dedicated researchers preparing our location and policy briefs for each Expedition: Blue Planet destination, as well as coordinating outreach to schools and assisting with social media development. Most of them are students at the Harvard Extension School. Check out their briefs and bios under the
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I did a satellite media tour today from the World Water Forum in Istanbul, and reached an estimated four to five million people. Hoping to increase awareness of water related issues – and inspire active engagement.
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We did it! We posted four videos today, mostly of the India portion of Expedition: Blue Planet. Check under Expedition Videos to see them – each one is quite different.
1) The Introductory piece explains the mission of our 100-day journey.
2) “Ganges: The River Goddess” shows you the ancient and holy city of
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Hard at work in beautiful Cape Town! Jos and Duff continue to put polishes on the films of India. Pablo and Ben are crafting the Botswana rough cuts. MeiMei is producing audio podcasts from India interviews. Ali is uploading photos to Flickr and making a Behind the Scenes video for India from our Flip video cameras. And I am in Istanbul for the World
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Date:
3/18/2009
I leave the team working on videos in Cape Town and fly today to Istanbul for the World Water Forum. The international conference, which includes representatives of governments, NGOs, and water-related industries, runs from March 16 to March 22. Discussions will focus on how to cope with the growing shortage of clean water around the world, as this
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Date:
3/17/2009
Justine, our Executive Producer, arrived last night in Cape Town from Washington, DC. It was a joy to see her smiling face in person, as we speak to her nearly every day from the field. She is our lifeline to the outside world: coordinating our travel, our website changes, and all the people contributing to our efforts, and sharing valued insights
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Date:
3/16/2009
Jos and Duff, the editing team, are wonder twins: put their fists together (preferably near a mountain of electronic equipment) and watch the fireworks explode!
These two have been literally holed up in a room day in and day out editing non-stop, tirelessly, with so much devotion to their art. They even stayed behind in Maun to get the job “properly”
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Date:
3/15/2009
We traveled yesterday from Maun, Botswana to Cape Town, South Africa, a beautiful seaside city with brave mountains towering just around the edges. The Expedition team will be spending a week here producing our first videos and preparing for the intensity of our upcoming visit to the West Bank.
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Date:
3/14/2009
“Welcome to my office!” announces Sean with a grin as he leaps overboard and pulls his motorboat up onto a bank of the Okavango Delta. He then informs us that it is safe to shoot underwater footage in this particular river offshoot because the crocs don’t come here—usually, anyway. This morning’s tour with the lodge owner, a round and generous man
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Today was just plain fun. And gorgeous. After days of rain, I have to admit it was a joy to see blue sky scrambling its way out from behind the abundant clouds. Even the birds seemed in a celebratory mood, chirping with extra glee.
We started the day with an interview with Professor Lars Ramberg, Founding Director of the Harry Oppenheimer Okavango
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Date:
3/12/2009
We finally have an opportunity this morning to sleep in, and I feel spoiled by waking after sunrise. Hippos moo like cows in the river that flows just outside the rooms, yawning their massive jaws. We’ve been told that they kill more people in Botswana than any other wild animal. They’re aggressive and surprisingly quick given their girth.
In Botswana,
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Date:
3/11/2009
The national motto of Botswana is “Let the rains come!” Today pula falls in abundance, solemn shadows sweeping across the grasslands.
The fierce downpour makes it difficult for us to travel with our piles of electronic gear. Video cameras, cameras, computers, and hard drives all need to be kept dry, and we awkwardly struggle to keep them
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Date:
3/10/2009
When we meet at dawn for breakfast, Ben and Ali inform us that a small herd of elephants lingering around their tent served as their alarm clock. “You know you’re in Africa when!” we joke once more.
We decide to take a ride in mokoro, narrow dugout canoes made like those poled around the Okavango Delta for thousands of years by the native “River
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We are incredibly fortunate to have Map Ives, a living legend of the Okavango Delta, join us for two days of our bush journey as the resident expert. A grizzly bear of a man with a scraggly long white beard, sun-worn skin, and an easy resounding laugh, Map is the quintessential bush adventurer. He was born in Eastern Botswana to a British father and
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Date:
3/8/2009
Writing about the Okavango Delta, it is tempting to present a package of clichés wrapped in hyperbole and tied up with a bow of abundant adjectives: “The most magnificent place on Earth!”, “A pristine wilderness, such as hardly exists anymore on our planet!”, “A journey back to the dawn of time!”
Yet all these remarks are true. In fact, anything
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Date:
3/7/2009
What a delight to awaken this morning to a view of water, a placid 10-meter stretch of the Okavango Delta, green reeds leading up to the edge, brush and trees extending in every direction all the way to the flat horizon. Gurgles, screeches, whistles, and croaks popping out from birds and frogs thick around our wilderness lodge create a symphony. It
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Date:
3/6/2009
It’s been a madcap day of travel. 24 hours straight from India to Botswana: Delhi to Abu Dhabi, UAE to Johannesburg, South Africa, to Gaborone, capital of Botswana, then to Maun, the village where we’ll stay for the next two nights.
By the final leg, we had reached a point beyond hunger and exhaustion, our eyes bloodshot and hair matted, but each
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Date:
3/5/2009
We began the day with a 6 am departure via van from Rishikesh back to Delhi for a day of meetings prior to our 9:30 pm series of flights to Botswana. The sun hides behind the mountains until nearly 9 am in Rishikesh, so the sky still echoed with darkness as we gathered our belongings. The roads were blessedly quiet for a few hours, allowing us to catch
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Most people know that the Himalayas are home to the tallest mountain on Earth, but few realize that they also shelter the largest stores of water outside the polar ice caps. Seven great Asian rivers originate here, supplying water to northern India, western China, Tibet, much of Southeast Asia, and all of Nepal: the Ganges, Mekong, Yangtze, and Yellow,
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Date:
3/3/2009
From Varanasi, the holiest city of Hinduism, where pilgrims wash their sins away as raw human sewage dumps into the river nearby, upstream to Kanpur, where tanneries besiege the water with industrial toxins, we travel upstream again to Rishikesh. This picturesque town in Northern India lies at the foothills of the Himalayas, close to the very source
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Date:
3/2/2009
What a week we’ve had! We set out on Expedition: Blue Planet only eight days ago but it feels as though a month has gone by. We hit the ground running with a 10 am interview that first day in New Delhi and haven’t slowed down since. We’ve filmed three interviews with water experts in three different cities and over 300 hours of video footage, schlepping
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Date:
3/1/2009
The Indians have a handy expression for navigating their roads: “Good horn, good brakes, good luck.”
After a 8-hour drive to Kanpur this morning and another10-hour, truck-congested drive back to Varanasi tonight, we’ve noticed that the horn is particularly valued. Many of the trucks are painted all around in bright colors–slanting black eyes on
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Date:
2/28/2009
We woke up at 5 this morning to climb on a bus to Kanpur, a large industrial town about 300 km up the road from Varanasi, to interview Rakesh Jaiswal, an environmental scientist and the founder of Eco-Friends, a non-profit organization. The Ganges here is unrecognizable as a nation’s great provider and Hindu goddess. Water bubbles along the shore,
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Date:
2/27/2009
We are fortunate to have another day to explore Varanasi. The place is endlessly fascinating, a non-stop sensory explosion. Adorable schoolchildren dressed in matching uniforms ride open-air, bicycle-powered rickshaws, eight of them crammed along the benches, backpacks hanging from a hook out the back. Today we saw them all hop out at a slight rise
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Date:
2/26/2009
As the mahant, or spiritual and administrative head, of the second largest Hindu temple in Varanasi, Veer Bhadra Mishra carries a tremendous weight on his shoulders. He inherited the family job at just 14, when his father passed away. Yet in spite of the pressure of being a priest, he was the first in his family to attend university, where he
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Date:
2/25/2009
In Varanasi, water is life. But water is also death.
Ganga, the Ganges, sacred river of India, stretches elegantly over 2,510 km from the Himalayas through some of the most populated regions on the planet before unifying herself with the ocean. According to Indian mythology, the goddess descended to the Earth through matted locks of god
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Date:
2/24/2009
Mahashivratri is the holiest day of the year for Lord Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction and one of the three primary gods. And here we are in Varanasi, the holiest city in all of India, just in time for the celebration. Usually, 60,000 pilgrims visit to pay their respects to Mother Ganga here each day. Today, there are tens of thousands more: dancing
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Date:
2/23/2009
We head to a slum in Delhi because access to safe drinking water is a constant source of stress for its residents, as it is for 900 million people around the world. Unsafe water leads to health problems from waterborne diseases, which are the second largest cause of death for children under five globally. And with growing numbers of people everywhere
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Date:
2/22/2009
And we’re off!
After a 1:30 am arrival, which turns into 3:30 am by the time we reach our hotel in Delhi, we’re up at 7 to prepare for our first interview. The team hasn’t even met. We gather in the dining hall for a buffet that offers both Western breakfast and Indian items including puffy friend puri bread and dahl, a mouth-watering combination
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Date:
2/21/2009
I can’t believe the day is finally here. After a year of tireless preparation, Expedition: Blue Planet begins tomorrow in India.
I left from Washington, D.C. at 10 pm on Thursday, February 19 along with half of the team - Argentinean cameraman Pablo, American writer MeiMei, and American producer Jim. We shall arrive, exhausted but exuberant with
. . . Read more.
Date:
2/20/2009
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