Avuncular American

Merja Zerga: Pilgrims of the Blue Lagoon

This guest post by house guest Christiane Delongueville is in the realm of "singing for your supper," or, to put it more genteely, making the most of our limited resources here at TALIM.  We could have asked our talented Brussels friend Christiane to share with specialists her extensive knowledge of molluscs in the Strait of Gibraltar and Mediterranean, or suggested an illustrated talk on her wonderful collection of nature photography in the Arctic.  But the easiest (for us!) was simply to ask her to share with our readers her great photos from a day on the Merja Zerga lagoon at Moulay Bousselham, a couple of hours' drive south of Tangier.  For Moroccan birdwatchers keen for such detail, the photos were taken in late February.  Click on photos to see full-size.

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Recently I had the privilege of being a guest at the Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies (TALIM).  A lot of my time was devoted to admiring all the magnificent paintings and documents exposed in the museum rooms open to the public.

When the question arose - “What can we do this weekend in the vicinity of Tangier?” - inspiration came when looking at the painting: “L’espoir” (1994 by Mouh El Hachimi) showing a dove perched in an open window. The choice was made; we would travel south to look at Moroccan birds.

Examination of the old maps at the Legation was of limited help; only the river Loukkos was mentioned. We headed for Moulay Bousselham, a quiet fishing village (when not filled with 200,000 pilgrims during the annual moussem of Sidi Moulay Bousselham) 30 km south of Larache, where the lagoon is renowned for its migratory birds. Some birds spend the winter; others use this body of water as a stop during their migrations. This is also a great spot for fishing.  Eels are caught in special nets and clams are taken by hand from the bottom of the lagoon at low tide.

The Merja Zerga (blue lagoon) is composed of brackish waters and contains anywhere from 50% to 90 % salt water depending on the season.

With the help of a guide and his boat we explored different areas of the lagoon, including a stop on a sand bank. We were lucky with the weather, and the sunshine and our binoculars helped us spot a lot of birds. Of course the easiest to see are the bigger ones like flamingoes, grey herons, egrets and even a spoonbill.

This place is a paradise for sea birds like different types of gulls, terns, oystercatchers and cormorants.

We could see different species and looked at beak, leg, and tail colors for hints: were we looking at adults or juveniles? The rare Andouins gull and the Sandwich tern were very close to us.

Further we came across the waders, birds eating small invertebrates in the mud in a coastal environment.

Here we looked at differences between males and female, behavior… We saw plovers, turnstones, curlew with their nicely curved beaks.

The climax was an osprey back from fishing, peacefully eating its big fish on a half-submerged boat, with a slender billed gull waiting for some remains.

On our way back we saw a big group of cormorants drying their wings and a mix of different types of sea birds (photo at top of page). The tide from the nearby Atlantic was coming in and the birds were on the point of leaving the deepening lagoon for more comfortable places to await the next tide.

We finished this idyllic morning with a fish lunch in a peaceful restaurant of Moulay Bousselham.  I hope to have given you a taste of how wonderful this place is and which is worth a visit… at low tide.

Photos and text by Christiane Delongueville.

South of Europe's Volcanic Cloud

Al hamdulillah.  Thank God.  Thanks also to Royal Air Maroc, which got us back to Brussels yesterday from Tangier, just as Belgian air space was opening to allow a few flights to land.  Our flight from Morocco was on schedule, and the scene at Tangier's shiny new airport was a picture of calm.  We didn't realize how lucky we were - TV cameras were on hand at Brussels to record horror stories from travelers who had been stranded for days.  Whereas we were just returning on our planned day and flight.  Lucky us.

House guests in the medina of Tangier (of which more in a coming post), looking out onto the Strait of Gibraltar and across to Spain, we knew that we at least had options - ferry, train, bus - that the poor travelers stuck in airports did not.  But the feeling that the entire continent to the north, and the incessant flow of planes across the Atlantic, had come to an almost complete halt was eerie, a bit like the oppressive atmosphere of On The Beach, Nevil Shute's post apocalyptic novel turned into a classic film in 1959.

In On The Beach, the cloud of course is invisible nuclear fallout, and the refuge - only temporary, which gives book and especially film a sense of "après nous, le Déluge" - is Australia.  The rest of the Southern hemisphere has already succumbed to the radiation.

The eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajoekull volcano may be a natural phenomenon, but its effect on the airline industry and the rest of the world economy that is linked to this vital means of moving people and things has brought images of apocalypse to TV screens worldwide.  Whether it's your airmail letter delayed or misrouted, your rose farm in Kenya wilting in the sun, or your vacation plans ruined, the effect of this spewing spoiler is universal.  The AP has a good economic roundup.

Questions are already being raised - in a way that no amount of lecturing on air travel's effect on climate has done - over the viability of an economic model that can be grounded by almost invisible dust.  Great Britain's launching of Royal Navy ships to help repatriate its citizens has heroic echoes of Dunkirk, but the real long term solution to this vulnerability will be less photogenic.  More telecommuting, better rail/air regional hubs, and better coordination than a five day delay by European transport ministers in dialing up a conference call.

We're not yet "On the Beach," helplessly waiting for the cloud to descend upon us.  It is not, as the French title of the film goes, "Le Dernier Rivage."

From Insecurity To Interdependence

"... from insecurity, to interdependence."

So ends the brief but eloquent "Declaration of Interdependence," written by Dr. David Suzuki and colleagues for the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit.

In the lead up to the 2009 Copenhagen summit, scientists, political leaders, and pundits are feverishly trying to set the stage, respectively issuing dire warnings of climactic disaster, or "managing expectations," shorthand for lowering hopes for definitive action.  Exhibit One: this weekend's APEC Summit.

Like the United States' own "Founding Fathers" seminal document, the Declaration of Independence, Suzuki's declaration tries to distill self-evident truths into language that Everyman and Everywoman can grasp - "This We Know" ("we are interconnected -- using, cleansing, sharing and replenishing the fundamental elements of life").  Or, looking at the glass half full, abusing, polluting, expropriating, and wasting the fundamental elements of life.

Thankfully, the eminent Canadian scientist labors from the optimistic premise of "a new politics of hope."  Remember, he wrote the Declaration of Interdependence in 1992, when even a President like George H.W. Bush could utter these words when signing the Framework Convention on Climate Change: " to sustain development, we must protect the environment; and to protect the environment, we must sustain development."

A decade after father Bush worried about leaving a legacy for his children, son George W. was castigated by environmental groups for not only ignoring Rio's 10th anniversary, but for actively siding with the polluters.  Bush Jr. is back in Texas, where his air conditioner is presumably turned down to an Arctic low, shutting out all evidence of rapidly rising temperatures.  Once in a bubble, always in a bubble.  Until it bursts.

Independence and Interdependence need not be mutually exclusive options.  When I see a country like Denmark, in the wake of the '70s oil crises, make a concerted effort toward energy independence through use of wind, solar, and other alternative resources, I see it as helping the rest of us.  One less EU country that has to face a cold sweat as Russia threatens another natural gas valve malfunction and plunges parts of Europe into a winter deep freeze.

And if countries as different as Nigeria and Vietnam can adopt sound agricultural practices that lead to greater food security, then the rest of the world also reaps the benefit.

The US Declaration of Independence referred to "the Laws of Nature" in its preamble, though we had to wait more than two centuries before Dr. David Suzuki enumerated how those same Laws militated for our global Interdependence.  The bubble that we live in, that little crust surrounded by a vulnerable atmosphere, is our shared environment.  If you live by zero sum arithmetic, then you might look at the drought-stricken starving East Africans and say "there but for the grace of God...".

But today's starving nomads are tomorrow's boat people refugees, or next year's terrorists.  Interdependence is not idealistic gibberish: at its very root is self-interest, where the self-interest is mutual.  John Dunne said it best:

No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

If that was a self-evident truth in the 17th century, when most people never traveled beyond their village, how much truer is that in our interconnected world of today?

Bali: The Bush Signing Statement: "What Agreement?"

The delegates at the Bali Climate Change conference had barely left the negotiating table.  Maybe some of them were mercifully incommunicado, already in deep slumber on a long haul flight back home.  Other, more stalwart ones, may have even have had a glass or two of bubbly to celebrate the eleventh hour turnaround by the United States, which finally meant consensus after weeks of wrangling.

Maybe even Papua New Guinea delegate Kevin Conrad, who had shamed the US Delegation with his "provide leadership, or get out of the way" zinger, maybe even he allowed himself a little self-congratulatory tipple.  But all of these reactions could not account for the man in Washington, the one who had his fingers crossed behind his back the whole time.  Saying one thing, while thinking another; acquiescing to a law banning torture, then doing another "signing statement," taking it all back.  This is the Bush Method.

"Serious Concerns" was what the world heard coming from the White House, about what it thought was a done deal only hours old.  Look at the body language, the tone of voice, the resigned frown on US Undersecretary of State Paula Dobriansky as she says that the US was finally, after being the butt of booing and hissing from the rest of the world, "joining consensus."  I don't know where she was, hours later, when the White House issued its "signing statement."  If she, by joining consensus, had overstepped her remit, then she probably had a hollow feeling in her stomach.  If - much more likely - it had all been a ploy to dilute serious proposals to act to counter climate change, just so the prodigal US could be brought back inside the tent, then she and the rest of the US delegation could go back to their champagne.

As someone who used to sit at the table behind a "United States" nameplate, I used to keep in mind the classic Harvard Negotiation Project "Getting To Yes" principle of BATNA.  The Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement.  In other words, you did your best to obtain what was the bottom line for the US (in my case, they were nuts-and-bolts issues involving NATO and the OECD).  If you knew your BATNA, you could always stick to your guns, knowing that if consensus on the agreement in question was not achievable, you could walk away.

But if you wanted to return to negotiate with the same people (representing the same countries) another day, you didn't say, "Sure, I'll join the consensus," only to take it back when the session was over.  That would be called negotiating in bad faith.  Like the Boy Who Cried Wolf, like the apostle who denied his master, like all those good folk expressions ("cheat me once, shame on you; cheat me twice, shame on me"), who is going to trust the American Delegation next time?  On Climate Change.  On missiles in Europe.  On anything where the good name of the United States is the one thing that counts.

With his "signing statement" post Bali, President Bush has effectively done what he has already done vis-a-vis Iraq: "It's over to you, Hillary (or Barack, or John, or whoever inherits the Oval Office in 2009).  The list of major issues to be resolved by that lucky person has just gotten longer.

Amidst Eco-Gloom, Cause for Optimism

It's easy enough, with our collective ADD and the 24 hour news cycle, to forget that the end of the world is nigh.  Yesterday the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), meeting in Valencia, Spain in preparation for the December meeting in Bali, released yet another devastating report on the need for immediate action to stave off disaster.  For the few who even bother to listen/watch/read the news, this dire headline quickly gets swept away by the latest juicy news on a celebrity or presidential candidate.

Usually dollars-and-cents arguments have a better chance of appealing to skeptics who see environmentalism as a brake to ever greater growth and return on investment.  The UK government put out a useful antidote to this ostrich-like view last year, when it calculated the costs of waiting until things are really really bad, compared to the relatively inexpensive (compared to, say, the costs of the Iraq war so far) approach of starting to stem climate change now.

Sniffing out business opportunity, the Belgian electricity provider Electrabel and the French utility EDF have come to see the benefits of green sources of energy.  "Le Soir," Belgium's leading French-language daily, reports that Europe's electricity utilities have been investing heavily in what previously had been derided as "'Quixotic" windmills.  To people who have passed near these giants, they bear little resemblance to the quaint Cervantes era structures that are prized tourist attractions.  They are industrial-strength, but mostly silent dynamos.  They are capable, when clustered into hilltop parks or arrayed offshore, of capturing the wind and turning it into profit.

Europe's energy companies have seen the handwriting on the wall, and have begun to sink hundreds of millions of euros into these energy sources of the future.  The European Union has set a goal of 20% of renewable energy by 2020.  Meanwhile, in the waning months of the Bush Administration, climate change denial is still the order of the day.  "‘Dangerous’ Warming Still Undefinable to White House," writes the NYT "Dot Earth" blogger Andrew Revkin, detailing an interview with White House official James Connaughton.  I'm so glad that I'm not a member of the US negotiating team on climate change:  "US delegates say dangers of climate change unclear."  What do they want: sea water lapping at the White House portico?

Okay, now for the optimistic part of this post.  In addition to the European energy utilities seeing green, we have the image of the Belgian Green Parties ("Groen" for the Dutch-speaking north; "Les Verts" for the francophone south) meeting this weekend.  Unique in language-ridden and regionalist-reft Belgium, the Greens form a country-wide political party.  The youth wings of the two communities met, speaking each other's languages, in a picture of the kind of cooperation that the so-called adults of the other parties would do well to emulate as they dicker over the political minutia of forming a coalition.

One young green activist said "what's the point of all this focus on the trivia of linguistic borders etc., when the really important question - for Belgians but also for the rest of the world - is how to work to save our planet?"  Hear, hear.  In our own family, we are very proud that our son and daughter have studied and worked in key sectors of the future, respectively agriculture and energy/environment.

The other day I fabricated a subject "tag" for this blog, to capture what I think needs to be the central focus of the chanceries of the future: "eco-security."  A couple of hundred years ago, America's second president, John Adams, wrote

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.

If Adams were writing today, I suspect that he would drop the part about tapestry and porcelain and substitute agricultural engineering and environmental planning.  This trajectory - from fathers and mothers who studied politics and war to sons and daughters who will help get us to a safer future - is what I would wish for other families.  As the young Green party worker said - all the rest is trivia.

Eco-security: A New Tag, a Nice Link, and an Absolute Necessity

Oops, actually "Eco Security" looks like it's a burglar alarm company.  Don't Google that.

Well, my understanding of the tag I've just added is that all the national security-ism (NSC, CIA, NATO, MAD, NPT - the alphabet soup of the national security priesthood) of the last half century is useless unless we come to grips with the perfect storm of climate change, peak oil, and overpopulation.  And now there's a nice site to illustrate that concept, thanks to the good people at the Center for Defense Information and the World Security Institute.  Here's eco-security in a nifty world map, chock full of credible scenarios.  (You should wait a couple of seconds for the interactive mouse-over to work).

I think they've done some interesting homework on the scenarios.  Here's the one on Algeria:

ALGERIA

Islamic militants adapt to agricultural declines by providing free public services. They gain sufficient public support to reinvigorate revolutionary movement.

That's pretty close to what the Islamists actually did back in the early nineties, when they won - overwhelmingly - Algeria's only free elections since independence, before the army canceled everything.  Hearts and minds, the way to success at the ballot box.  And it's a classic approach, used in other places where political Islam has made headway.

There should be a way to combine the word energy with eco-security, but in many ways, it's just a subset of the ecological whole.  We can dig up all the expensive-to-find and non-renewable carbon fuel we want, but it won't do us any long term good - in fact, it will only do us harm - until we find sustainable ways to live on this planet.  That should be the new (inter)national security "paradigm."