Motley Moose – Archive

This was posted on the Moose in November, 2008. I decided to repost it after reading about today’s announcement of President Obama’s mandate on hospital visits. Hopefully, the scenario in the story will now be a thing of the past.

Friday, April 16, 2010

President Obama mandated Thursday that nearly all hospitals extend visitation rights to the partners of gay men and lesbians and respect patients’ choices about who may make critical health-care decisions for them, perhaps the most significant step so far in his efforts to expand the rights of gay Americans.

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The Death of a Love Story

Life is often like a smooth flowing stream. Day follows day with only small ripples to disturb the surface and then, unexpectedly, a large rock breaks the current. Sometimes that rock is more like a surging rapid and at other times, it takes a sudden plunge over a waterfall. We have little control over the current. We can only ride out whatever the stream brings our way.

When Jim and Reggie awoke on that quiet Wednesday morning, life seemed tranquil and serene. As on any other weekday, Jim prepared for work while Reggie set the table for their shared breakfast routine. There was little to indicate that this day would be any different from the days that had come before it. Unfortunately, unknown to this loving couple, a waterfall loomed ahead.

Reggie, as a self-employed writer, spent the day in front of a computer while Jim went to work as an accountant at a large corporation. The two loving partners had played out this same routine for nearly thirty years. They both agreed that life had been good to them.

Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet.

In this regular series, we profile advisors to the Nourishing the Planet project. This week, we feature Jacob Wanyama, coordinator with the African LIFE Network.

Name: Jacob Wanyama

Affiliation: African LIFE Network

Location: Nairobi, Kenya

Bio: Jacob Wanyama is a coordinator with the African LIFE Network in Kenya, an organization that works to increase rights for pastoralist communities. He has been working for pastoralist peoples for nearly two decades with organizations such as Practical Action (formerly ITDG) and Veternaires Sans Frontiers (VSF).

What is the nature of the problem that you and the LIFE Network are dealing with in pastoralist communities? Pastoralists mostly depend on producing livestock. These communities have produced certain breeds for centuries. These animals are suited to the environment and they are critical to the cultural and economic survival of the pastoralists in these harsh environments. But because of conflict, drought, and other environmental problems in the area, it is becoming harder for pastoralists to maintain their way of life. There is a lack of services and infrastructure in these communities. They are very low on the opportunity ladder, and in Kenya especially the pastoralist communities don’t get government services or support.

Another problem is that government programs in these areas have often discouraged or destroyed what communities have been doing. Because of the need to produce food quickly, many governments have promoted replacing indigenous breeds that are considered to be inferior because they don’t produce a lot of meat. The government has encouraged pastoralists to breed local breeds with exotic breeds or to just replace the local breed. The problem is that the new breed is not used to the region. This has gone on for many years, so now many indigenous breeds are disappearing. The world is losing roughly one livestock breed every week.

This is the case in many areas where livestock are kept. In Africa, India, Mongolia, pastoralists are not given a chance to maintain their breeds of indigenous livestock, and therefore the world is losing many sources of animal genetic diversity. These animals are the only way of using these very dry and harsh areas, which otherwise could not support communities. So, many pastoralists are giving up their way of life. They can’t feed their families anymore.

What are some of the grassroots strategies the LIFE Network has used to help these communities? We try to create awareness among pastoralists. They have been getting misinformation and discouragement from the government. So we spend time with them and tell them, “what you have and what you had is very valuable. You are providing an important service not just to yourself but to the world. You have the right to demand recognition.” We also tell them that they should base decisions about what types of livestock they breed on knowledge. We need to strengthen these communities and give them the tools to make their own decisions. We also assist pastoralists in documenting what they have and then we work with lawyers to formulate statements that demand government development in their communities.

How do you attract national or international attention to these issues? We try to raise this issue with different governments. We’ve been able to speak to the governments of Kenya, Botswana, and Uganda. These governments, though, don’t seem to understand the unique position of the pastoralists and where they need to be. Some countries have moved a step forward, though. Kenya, Uganda, and India have developed institutions and ministries that are mandated to address pastoralists. But that has not meant that things have changed in terms of food and conservation. These governments are still focused on settled people. In Tanzania, the situation is even worse. The Tanzanian government says that it is difficult to provide services to pastoralists, since they move around so much, and encourages pastoralists to settle. But, if you settle them and reduce the number of livestock they have, you have a situation in which pastoralists have nothing to do. A lot of them end up destitute.

But we look for ways to ensure that people’s rights are assured. We want to facilitate the market for livestock keepers and figure out how to document their breeds as a way of making the governments pay attention. One of the things communities need to do is set up their rules and demands to their countries and the international community. They need to say what action they think is appropriate for these communities to be respected.

Thank you for reading! If you enjoy our diary every day we invite you to get involved:

1. Comment on our daily posts-we check comments everyday and look forward to a regular ongoing discussion with you.

2. Receive weekly updates-Sign up for our “Nourishing the Planet” weekly newsletter at the blog by clicking here and receive regular blog and travel updates.

Abandon hope, all ye who enter here:

Not like the brazen giant intellectual men of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs wisdom astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A(n) mighty woman ignorant American with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning will scorch all reason, and her name

Mother of Morons Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome STOOPID; her mild blank eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame Birthers, Tenthers,

Paultards, Militias, and a veritable mob of simpleton Patriots.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp soshulizm!” cries she

With spittle spritzing lips. “Give me your tired gullible, your poor obtuse,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free fail basic mathematics,

The wretched shortsighted refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless dumb, tempest-tossed imbecilic to me,

I lift my lamp corndog beside the golden door!”

Bonus: we have Sarah Palin.  Also.

Here’s the thing: 98 percent of Americans — all but the top 2 percent of earners in the nation — have received a tax cut as a result of the actions taken by his evil Kenyan holiness, Presidente Adolf Huzzien Obama. Despite the fact that nearly all of us will see as much as a 10 percent increase in our federal tax refunds, a February poll found that just 12 percent of Americans think they’re paying less in taxes. Today, a full 34 percent think that they’re paying more.  The rest think the Usurper-In-Chief has increased or kept taxes the same.

Cross posted form Border Jumpers, Danielle Nierenberg and Bernard Pollack.

In Accra, Ghana, most homes do not have indoor plumbing or sewage systems. Instead, households dispose of waste into the same ditches and streams that urban farmers use to irrigate the crops they sell at local markets. The use of wastewater on farms presents a significant health risk and has been banned by the government. But because many farmers don’t have access to clean sources of water, they lack other options for irrigating their crops.

In 2005, the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), a non-profit organization working in Asia and Africa to improve water and land management for farmers and the environment, received funding from several groups, including the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) initiative Challenge Program for Water and Food, to work with urban farmers in Ghana to develop improved farm wastewater management.

“Ideally we would start at the city level to address wastewater treatment through infrastructure,” says Ben Keraita, an irrigation and water engineer and researcher with IWMI. “But there is no money or support for a big project like that, so we start with the farmers to find affordable, small, and simple ways to reduce the risk of contamination.”

Starting with the farmers is critical for another reason, Keraita explains. “There are too many different kinds of interventions when it comes to reducing the risk of contamination from waste water, and farmers do not react well to having new techniques pushed upon them.” Instead, Keraita and other project coordinators used their existing relationships with local farmers to call a meeting to discuss the problem and hear potential solutions from the farmers themselves. “Farmers know that the waste water is a problem and have lots of their own ideas about how to address it.”

Keraita and his colleagues created a list of innovations suggested by farmers and then introduced a few of their own, exposing the farmers to best practices from around the world. “Nothing we introduced was invented on the spot, and many are simple enough to be adopted immediately, like avoiding stepping into irrigation water and stirring up sediment that might contain contaminants by putting down a plank to walk on instead,” Keraita explains. Farmers are then asked to volunteer to adopt the practices that they think will be most effective, keeping track of their work daily so that an assessment can be made of the innovation at harvest time.

“If farmers don’t like a technique then we suggest doing another trial with a new technique,” Keraita says. “And we invite other farmers to view the harvest and the weighing of the crops so that they can give each other feedback and learn from the experiments of others.”

Based on these group discussions and trials, urban farmers in Accra are now irrigating with water collected in “waste sedimentation ponds”-ponds built specifically to allow sediment to sink to the bottom so farmers can irrigate with the cleaner surface water-and with simple containers of filtered water. Some are now also using drip irrigation from kits produced by International Development Enterprises (IDE), allowing them to use water more precisely and to conserve clean water (see also Slow and Steady Irrigation Wins the Race).

To read about more innovations in irrigation and reducing the risk of contamination from waste water, see: Getting Water to Crops, Access to Water Improves Life for Women and Children, and ECHOing a Need for Innovations.

Thank you for reading! If you enjoy our diary every day we invite you to get involved:

1. Comment on our daily posts — we check for comments everyday and want to have a regular ongoing discussion with you.

2. Receive regular updates–Join the weekly BorderJumpers newsletter by clicking here.

3. Help keep our research going–If you know of any great projects or contacts in West Africa please connect us connect us by emailing, commenting or sending us a message on facebook.

It was unusually sunny this morning at the Central London polling station when I voted in the UK General Election. If the steady stream of voters I saw is anything to go by, turnout looks to be high – up to 70 per cent from the 60 per cent turnout in 2005. There are many reasons for this… and not of a few of them connected to Obama’s campaign in 2008, which not only re-energised my interest in politics (and the left wing blogosphere) but captivated the country.

But the kind of change the British General Election has ushered isn’t that obvious, as can be seen from thee front page the Murdoch-owned best-selling conservative leaning Tabloid this morning.

Yes, you got it. The people who supported John McCain, the company that brings you the 24 hour asinine right wing ass-hattery of  FOX TV, have the temerity to use the Obama Change image as their crucial headline.

‘It was the Sun Wot Won it’ was the famous refrain after the tabloid claimed it swayed the last close election – in 1992 – for the Tories. Recently, the Political Editor of The Sun told some journalists recently that his job was ‘to win the fucking election for David Cameron’ (one of his predecessors on the Sunday Murdoch Tabloid is none other than the Conservative Campaign Honcho). There are several transparent  financial interests that the Murdoch Empire has in a Conservative election victory in the UK, as the spoofters have already spotted..

More of these to be found here. But the bigger question is – how can a Conservative candidate be an avatar of change? And what kind of change is the UK looking for?

As I thought about Florida Rep. Ted Deutch’s quote in my previous post this morning, I also recalled a discussion I heard either on Olbermann or Rachel Maddow last night ( I really wasn’t looking at who was talking, but was lying flat on my back after taking a pain killer for my cracked ribs) in which a Republican said he was really in agreement on the nuclear decisions that the President had come to, but in terms of voting for the  treaty with the Russians he would probably have to vote NO. The reason? Because the Party Leaders are insistent on not supporting anything the President does prior to the November elections.

The goal is, still, to make the current Administration a failure.

Fla. Rep Ted Deutch and constituent

We loved Southern Africa, and we hope this diary is helpful for those planning a trip by air, land, and sea. Yesterday, we did a similar post for East Africa that you can visit by clicking here. Cross posted from Border Jumpers, Danielle Nierenberg and Bernard Pollack.

If you haven’t seen our 1,000 words about each country series, you can read more about Johannesburg, Durban, Mozambique, and Botswana. In the coming weeks, we’ll write 1,000 word diaries about Cape Town and Pretoria.

From the United States, the best point of entry is the Johannesburg airport, which runs direct flights from Dulles (DC) and JFK in New York (via Dakar, Senegal). You can find flights as low as $1,100USD round trip per person round trip on South African Airways. Just like Nairobi, people will try to scare you about Johannesburg. Yes, crime is a real problem – but don’t let that stop you from seeing this incredible city.

After a terrific meeting with Africa Harvest, we spent a half-day visiting the Apartheid Museum. This is an unforgettable stop and deserves a solid four hours to really absorb the incredible multi-media exhibitions. Also, check out Soweto, one of the most infamous ghettos in the world. If you can, take a small group tour by bicycle or by foot. We were rapt as we absorbed and listened to the incredible stories of struggle, including the amazing student revolts against Apartheid. On the fun side, the SAB beer museum is a must-do experience.  We loved it so much we even blogged about it.

A safe budget place to stay in the heart of the bustling area of Melville is a small bed a breakfast we found called the Sunbury House  – make sure to avoid Bob’s Bunkhouse.  The Sunbury can also hook you up with a cheap and affordable cab driver named Derrick, who will get you safely around town.

Lots of domestic and international bus companies operate in South Africa. We took them all. In general, our recommendation is to use Intercape. The buses generally left and arrived on time, their offices are safe places to wait, your bags are secure, the air-conditioning works – and they had a working bathroom on every bus we took. FYI, we heard only nightmare stories about SARoad.

In terms of getting to Swaziland, Baz Bus is your best bet, and they will pick you up from most hostels in Mbabane. They are also a good company to use for meeting fellow travelers in South Africa, and continue all the way to Cape Town.

For Botswana, use Intercape, from J’burg to Gabarone. Botswana is a must stop on your journey, and if you can’t afford to Safari in Kruger or Chobe, an affordable option is Mokolodi Nature Reserve  in Botswana – where in addition to an awesome permaculture garden, you can go on private walks or jump on a 4X4 to see some incredible wildlife for a fraction of the price. We stayed at the Gabarone Hotel and Casino.

For Mozambique, also use Intercape, from J’burg to Maputuo. Get a visa in J’burg before leaving, because without it, most bus companies won’t let you on board (costs a hefty $100USD pp). Maputo is a vibrant city, filled with terrific places to eat and incredible live music. A good budget option is Base Backpackers if you don’t mind sharing a bathroom. For those with a little more disposable cash, check out Ibis Hotel. For fellow vegetarians, Maputo is even surprising vegan friendly.

For those who love long bus rides, we took Intercape from Maputo to Durban via J’burg. The whole journey takes about 18-hours, but is doable for those who’d rather not spend a small fortune on flights. Durban is a very interesting stop on your journey with lots of things to do. Make time to enjoy a picnic and free live music at the Botanical gardens. For great organic, vegan, and locally grown food, check out a restaurant called EarthMother. Don’t stay at Gibela backpackers, trust us, lonely planet is wrong.

To get to Cape Town you can easily find affordable flights (provided you aren’t trying to fly during the World Cup). Discount carriers might be your best bet, such as Kulula. But if you want to reduce your costs, carbon footprint and see the incredible sights from the ground – we recommend you take the Sleepliner on Intercape from J’burg to Cape Town.

In Cape Town, book online in advance and plan a visit to Robin Island. A central and fun place to stay for tight budget travelers is Carnival Court on long street (Note: very loud on weekends). If you have a little more cash to spend (and want a more relaxed, less party-like atmosphere) then book at St. John’s Waterfront Lodge.

If you plan on visiting South Africa during the month around the World Cup, make sure to quadruple most prices listed in Rough Guide or Lonely Planet. With that said, some tickets are still available on the FIFA website, but to find a place to stay and bus transportation – you’re running out of time.  

We could easily write another 1,000 words, but feel free to email us for any advice at borderjumpers1@gmail.com.

Stay tuned for more ground travel advice in the coming weeks. Next up: getting from Malawi, to Zambia, to Zimbabwe, to South Africa by bus.

Thank you for reading! If you enjoy our diary every day we invite you to get involved:

1. Comment on our daily posts — we check for comments everyday and want to have a regular ongoing discussion with you.

2. Receive regular updates–Join the weekly BorderJumpers newsletter by clicking here.

3. Help keep our research going–If you know of any great projects or contacts in West Africa please connect us connect us by emailing, commenting or sending us a message on facebook.

We are going to try to write the article we wish we had been able to read before attempting to bus our way across Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Uganda (December 2009). Cross posted from Border Jumpers, Danielle Nierenberg and Bernard Pollack.

First things first: this will be one of the most worthwhile experiences of your life. Start by flying into Nairobi, Kenya (huge and somewhat affordable airport hub for international flights). More than 30 airlines service flights into Nairobi Embakasi Airport including British Airways, EgyptAir, Emirates, KLM, Virgin Atlantic, and tons of others.

Take your time to enjoy Kenya. People will put the fear of god into you that you are unsafe in Nairobi (they call it “Nairobbery”)-but just ignore the hype and check out this amazing city full of incredible food, nightlife, and energy. We traveled all over the country but an especially worthy stop is El Doret (it is on route to Kampala, Uganda) where tea is produced in fields that stretch as far as they eye can see.

We took Kampala Coaches from Nairobi to Arusha, Tanzania. We hated the bus company so much that we wrote a blog about them. Not much competition, even Scandinavia Express discontinued this international route. A spin-off from Kamapala Coaches was in the works and might be a good option, but if Kampala Coaches is your only choice, don’t take it all the way to Dar es Salaam. We suggest you go halfway to Arusha and switch companies.

Arusha is a tourist trap. You will be harassed from the moment you arrive to the moment you leave. With that said it is a great place to launch a 4-day trek at Mt. Kilimanjaro with loads of Safari providers. Make sure you stop by The Patisserie (near the clock tower) for the best chocolate croissants on the continent and hi-speed wi-fi. For budget hotel options we recommend “the Tourist Hotel” (pretty central, $30 USD/night for a double with TV, and a affordable restaurant and bar in the lobby-especially good for vegetarians). Skip the Arusha Naaz hotel, despite what Lonely Planet says.

To get from Arusha to Dar Es Salaam use the bus company “Dar Express” which provides a safe, reliable, air-conditioned bus service. Just a warning: on the buses we took they played Christian videos the entire way, but feeling confident your bags are traveling with you makes up for the attempted “conversion”

When you are in Dar es Salaam, stay at the Jambo Inn Hotel (about 30USD a night for a double with air-con, hot water, and cable TV). The hotel is in a safe, functional area with lots of restaurants, internet cafes, and local shopping.

From Dar Es Salaam you can head to Zanzibar. It is a truly magical place . Stay in Stone Town and pay 12pp for the terrific value “spice tour”. Just ask a taxi to take you to the public beaches, no need to shell out for a tour. We spent 20USD night and stayed at the Jambo Guest House, a very basic but clean hotel in walking distances to everything. Tip on the ferry to Zanzibar- it is worth it to pay a little extra for the VIP tickets-especially for those who might get sea-sick. The ride is only ninety minutes, but felt like a lot more. Don’t let this deter you, the ocean and sunsets are well-worth the bumpy boat ride

Best way to travel by bus (and the only way) to Kampala, Uganda is via Nairobi. You can take the Dar Express to Arusha and find a bus company that heads to Kampala via Nairobi. Try to arrive in Nairobi during daylight hours. Alternatively, Precision Air flies cheap from Kilamanjaro (an hour bus from Arusha) to Kampala and might be worth the splurge. Precision Air has an office by the clock tower in Arusha.

Kampala is a terrific place. We recommend staying at the Aponye Hotel at approx 30 USD per night with great showers, air-conditioning, and a great central location (you can walk to restaurants, markets, etc). Ironically some of the best Indian food we’ve ever had was at a restaurant in the Kampala mall. If you go white-water rafting at the source of the Nile, Adrift is a reliable, safe company. While expensive (we had to give it a pass), everyone we met that went Gorilla trekking and said that it was worth every penny.

In terms of busing from Kampala to Kigali, Rwanda, it is extremely safe. The best company we found was Starways and the service is reliable, reasonably clean, safe, and air-conditioned. Many other companies use this route, again, try to avoid Kampala Coaches.

When you get to Kigali, spend a day at the Genocide Museum. It will be an unforgettable experience. You can sometimes catch an affordable flight from there to Nairobi. Keep in mind that Rwanda and Kenya are more expensive than Tanzania and Uganda. Kigali has few solid budget hotel accommodations (and none that we can personally recommend). If using Lonely Planet’s Africa book, add approx 50 percent to all listed prices for Kigali.

So, are you ready to rock Eastern Africa by land, air, and sea?! People will think you are crazy but the experience is fun, rugged, and totally unforgettable!

Thank you for reading! If you enjoy our diary every day we invite you to get involved:

1. Comment on our daily posts — we check for comments everyday and want to have a regular ongoing discussion with you.

2. Receive regular updates–Join the weekly BorderJumpers newsletter by clicking here.

3. Help keep our research going–If you know of any great projects or contacts in West Africa please connect us connect us by emailing, commenting or sending us a message on facebook.

I’ve really only been to Los Angeles to spend time once, but during that time one of the most important things for me was to visit the Watts Towers, the folk art monument  and masterpiece in one of the city’s worst neighborhoods. The Watts Towers have been on my interest list since I first read about them in the early 1960s while a student at Northwestern (I got interested in them after seeing a black and white photograph on the cover of a paperback volume of poetry), and I have been monitoring their condition and appearance ever since.

Co-written with Dr. Jacob Wanyama and originally featured in the Mail & Guardian. Cross posted from Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet.

Maralal, Kenya, is mostly known for its wildlife. And as we made the seven hour, bumpy trek from Nairobi – half of it on unpaved roads – we saw our fair share of water buffaloes, rhinos, impala, and giraffes. But we weren’t here to go on safari. We were here to meet with a group of pastoralists – livestock keepers who had agreed to meet with us and talk about the challenges they face.

We met in the community primary school and it was humbling to see so many people – many wearing traditional Maasai clothing, brightly woven clothe, beads, elaborate earrings – come through the door to greet us.

Over the years, pastoralists like the well-known Maasai here in Kenya have been pushed out of their traditional grazing lands to drier and drier regions, places where it was easy to ignore them. But as the effects of climate change, hunger, drought and the loss of biodiversity become more evident, it’s increasingly hard to push livestock keepers’ rights aside. Governments need to recognize that pastoralists are the best keepers of genetic diversity.

Anikole cattle, for example, a breed indigenous to Eastern Africa, are not only beautiful to look at but they’re one of the “highest quality” breeds of cattle because they can survive in extremely harsh, dry conditions – something that’s more important than ever as climate change takes a bigger hold on Africa.

Although most of the people we met don’t have access to cable TV or even radios, they do have a good sense of the challenges their fellow livestock keepers face all over Kenya. They are aware that climate change is likely responsible for the drought plaguing much of East Africa, killing thousands of livestock over the last few months. They know that conflict with neighbouring pastoral communities over water resources and access to land makes headlines in Kenya’s newspapers. And they know that many policy-makers would like to forget they exist, considering their nomadic lifestyle barbaric, as our guide Dr Pat Lanyasunya, a member of the Africa LIFE Network, explained.

Unfortunately, governments and agribusiness don’t share the same viewpoint. They’re increasingly promoting cross-breeding of native breed with exotic breeds – breeds that were designed to gain more weight and produce more milk. The problem is, however, that these newer breeds have a hard time adapting to sub-Saharan Africa’s dry conditions, as well as the pests and diseases present here. As a result, pastoralists who adopt these breeds have to spend more on feed and inputs, like pesticides and antibiotics to keep cattle healthy.

One of the most serious problems we heard about was the effects that replacing indigenous breeds of livestock with mixed breeds of more exotic cattle have had during the drought. These livestock keepers began replacing their indigenous Zebu cattle with mixed breeds about 15 years ago after missionaries introduced them to the community. While the new breeds were bigger and could potentially produce more meat or milk, they aren’t as hardy as native cattle that can travel long distances without much water.

According to one of the community elders, the “old breeds could go 40km [for food and water] and come back,” but the new breeds can’t tolerate the distance or the heat. In the past, water sources could be much farther away and the cattle could thrive, but now they need to be much closer.

That’s one reason different pastoralist communities sometimes clash – when cattle can’t travel far for water, livestock keepers have to find it elsewhere, often at sites that are traditionally used by different communities. A man wearing a Harley-Davidson hat along with his Maasai shawl acknowledged that although they fight with other communities over resources, “they’re just like us”, trying to survive with very little support from the government or NGOs. The conflict has not only effected the raising of livestock, but also forced schools to close and created more internally displaced people as they are driven off the land.

What surprised us most about these livestock keepers is their understanding that the world is changing. They know that many of their children won’t live the same kind of lives that their ancestors lived for centuries. Many will choose to go to the cities, but they said if their children become “landed”, they want them to maintain links to the pastoralist way of life. And they said that for some of them, livestock is what they do best and what they have a passion for – and that they should be allowed to continue doing it.

Dr Jacob Wanyama is a veterinarian and coordinator for the Africa LIFE Network.

Thank you for reading! If you enjoy our diary every day we invite you to get involved:

1. Comment on our daily posts-we check comments everyday and look forward to a regular ongoing discussion with you.

2. Receive weekly updates-Sign up for our “Nourishing the Planet” weekly newsletter at the blog by clicking here and receive regular blog and travel updates.