Review in Foreword Reviews for Traveling the 38th Parallel

From Foreword Reviews, Spring 2013, pages 20, 21, review of Traveling the 38th Parallel written by Kristen Rabe: 
"David and Janet Carle illuminate an environmental discussion on waterways and wetlands with accounts of their travel across the Northern Hemisphere. The authors acknowledge the complexities of these issues while also recognizing the many like-minded people around the world who are working to address the issues in meaningful and sustainable ways. .
   The authors are passionate about preserving the diversity and richness of the natural world and are attuned to the complexities of related issues. ...[teaching] us much about what we need to be doing—and why it is vitally important to care.

"A Grand Adventure;" Book Review in Mammoth Times

With the title "A Grand Adventure," a book review appeared on February 15 in the Mammoth Times, written by Wendilyn Grasseschi, for TRAVELING THE 38TH PARALLEL, A WATER LINE AROUND THE WORLD.  Here's the Mammoth Times link  
From the review:

"Who would have thought something as seemingly mundane as a number could underlie much of the world’s most productive cultures?
   "That is what local authors and former Mono Lake rangers David and Janet Carle found when they set out four years ago to walk around the world following the same latitude that their home—Mono Lake—lies on—the 38th parallel.
   "It's a lucid, well-written book that moves the reader from the salty shores of Mono Lake to the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea with equal ease. It reads more like an adventure novel than a non-fiction travel book, and includes stories about people from around the world.
   "These stories remind the reader that humanity is related by more than just similar DNA, but also by dreams, worries, and challenges that are often mirrors of each other."

Many bookstores and online book vendors, around the world, now have our book in stock.

Audit, 1 year after completion of S. Korea's 4 Rivers Restoration Project

Another on-going story from the up-coming book (which is being shipped to warehouses and retail outlets now!):  An internal state audit of the 4 Rivers project (reported on January 19, 2013, at Donga.com), by the Board of Audit and Inspection, found that "16 dams that were the key parts of the restoration project had problems in durability and safety. The report also claimed that 'unreasonable management' caused fears over deterioration of water quality. Due to large-scale dredging work, the maintenance costs for the rivers are expected to reach 288 billion won (272.5 million dollars) a year, according to the audit. The findings suggest that the government rushed to complete the project before President Lee left office, causing breaches in quality control and exposing sign of shoddy construction."  The government disputed the findings, but scheduled its own audit.
       We wrote about this topic on July 1, 2010, but took down that post because it seemed controversial as we prepared to next travel to China.  It became a key chapter in our book.  Here is the original blog:

Dams and Dredging: Korea's River “Restoration” Project

Seoul is a city of 10 million people now, but hundreds of years ago, it was a newly founded village along the banks of a pretty creek called Chonggyecheon. As the city grew, the creek became a sewer and finally was covered over by concrete and a freeway. Until recently, that is, because Mayor Lee Myung-bak brought the creek back to the daylight and pushed construction of a semi-natural running water experience for the urban dwellers in Seoul. We were impressed with the creek walk as an urban park, though water from the Han River is pumped at considerable energy costs to enhance the flow.

Now Lee is the nation's president and he seems determined to re-design the nation's four largest rivers, an objective that seems much less wise. The Han is one of South Korea's four major rivers, along with the Nakdong, Geum, and Yeongsan . From a watershed that gathers runoff from mountains to the east, the great Han River passes through the capital city of Seoul (37°35'N), then turns northwest to enter the ocean at the northern boundary of the country at the Demilitarized Zone (37°46'N). Late last year, excavators began carving away riverside bluffs to as much as double the width of the channel, while also digging out miles of riverbed to deepen it by 12 to18 feet. On the two days we explored a 6-mile stretch along the south fork of the Han River near Yeoju, construction crews were at work on 3 dams (weirs) while trucks were constantly being loaded with riverbed sand and gravel to be added to mountains of material already piled nearby. We had never seen so many gigantic excavators at work at once.
Yet this is just one part of a much grander $20 billion project. A total of 16 new dams are planned on the main channels of the four rivers, plus 5 more on their tributaries, while enlarging 87 existing small dams and armoring over 200 miles of riverbanks. The big dams under construction were close enough together so that the series of excavated “water basins” and gates could conceivably become a continuous canal. Opponents of the project think that is exactly the point, as a navigable canal connecting the nation's rivers was a key objective for President Lee when he took office, until national opposition stopped that grandiose plan. The current effort is part of Lee's “Green New Deal,” with stated objectives to store water against the prospects of drought, prevent flooding, improve water quality, restore river ecosystems, promote river-related recreation, and stimulate the economy (read more about the government program here)

The goals sound commendable, but a closer look raises questions. Clearly, lots of money is moving toward jobs and construction company profits. But, as we learned from the environmental group KFEM (Korean Federation for Environmental Movement) (KFEM blog here) at their headquarters in Seoul, and then with others from the KFEM Yeoju office, who took us along the Namhan--the south fork of the Han River--the listed benefits seem exaggerated. This nation, though densely populated, has a good water supply; episodes of flooding occur primarily on upper tributaries, rather than the main channels where the work is focused; and the engineering approach seems likely to degrade water quality, because slowing the flow will increase accumulation of algae and pollutants. Most blatantly, the removal of natural wetlands and streamside vegetation is not “river restoration,” but rather destruction of habitat and natural processes.

The United States went through a river damming and channel straightening/concrete armoring stage in the last century. In California we lost 90% of our wetlands and riparian woodlands and our extensive list of endangered species is closely tied to that lost habitat. We, along with many other nations, learned that a more effective way to manage watershed systems is to protect and restore wetlands and allow floodplains to absorb high water episodes, regulating those flows while reabsorption and riverbank vegetation filters impurities.

So it was sad to watch the living river-bed being pulled out and lush riverside plateaus being excavated, to know that endangered plants and animals were being pushed even closer to extinction, and that small family farmers near the river were also being displaced. Though the construction destruction continues every day now, opponents of the project are determined that it must stop. On a poster in the Yeoju KFEM office, an excavator is being restrained by an aster plant, one of the endangered species being threatened by the project. Mr. Ma told us the words say, "Be Persistent, It is Your River."

The Mississippi River at the 38th Parallel

Another story related to our travels on the 38th Parallel (the book will become available in just a month, now) is about the regional drought that has Mississippi River flows so low that barge travel is becoming affected on the stretch south of St. Louis and north of Cairo...the 38th parallel section.  See this story at NPR in today's news: Mississippi Blues: When the River Doesn't Run

We blogged about the river back on October 17, 2009:  Down the Ohio to the Mississippi  and, in the book, wrote more about our visit with retired river pilot Charles Burdick and our impressions of the river.  UC Press continues to show February 11 pre-order delivery dates for Traveling the 38th Parallel, a Water Line around the World and the book is also available for pre-order at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.

On-going stories from the up coming book!

With our book TRAVELING THE 38TH PARALLEL, A WATER LINE AROUND THE WORLD coming out this winter, many stories we encountered and described in the book continue to unfold.  Here is the link to a story about the Las Vegas aqueduct and approval by the Bureau of Land Management for the route across federal land, in the 12/27/12 issue of the Las Vegas Review Journal: BLM Approves Las Vegas Water Pipeline Project

Many issues surrounding this decision are detailed in our book, as our travels along the 38th Parallel took us to Pioche, Nevada.  We blogged about that experience at:  Water Grab in Eastern Nevada

Description of new book

Here's the book jacket/UC Press catalog description for our 38th Parallel water book, which is to be published by UC Press in February/March):

Traveling the 38th Parallel
A Water Line Around the World
by David Carle and Janet Carle

Between extremes of climate farther north and south, the 38th North parallel line marks a temperate, middle latitude where human societies have thrived since the beginning of civilization. It divides North and

South Korea, passes through Athens and San Francisco, and bisects Mono Lake in the eastern Sierra Nevada, where authors David and Janet Carle make their home. Former park rangers, the authors set out on an around-the-world journey in search of water-related environmental and cultural intersections along the 38th parallel. This book is a chronicle of their adventures as they meet people confronting challenges in water supply, pollution, wetlands loss, and habitat protection. At the heart of the narrative are the riveting stories of the passionate individuals—scientists, educators, and local activists—who are struggling to preserve some of the world's most amazing, yet threatened, landscapes.

Traveling largely outside of cities, away from well-beaten tourist tracks, the authors cross Japan, Korea, China, Turkmenistan, Turkey, Greece, Sicily, Spain, Portugal, the Azores Islands, and the United States—from Chesapeake Bay to San Francisco Bay. The stories they gather provide stark contrasts as well as reaffirming similarities across diverse cultures. Illustrated with photos from the authors’ travels, Traveling the 38th Parallel documents devastating environmental losses but also inspiring gains made through the efforts of dedicated individuals working against the odds to protect these fragile places.

Progress toward publication!

Progress on production of our 38th Parallel book at UC Press: looks like the cover will have a Rick Kattelmann aerial photo of the Mono Lake basin; looks like the title will be Traveling the 38th Parallel: a water line around the world; a copy editor is working on the text during the coming weeks; flyers for the book (which will be out in February/March) may even be available soon!  On an opening page, this epigraph will appear, quoting David Gaines from a Mono Lake Committee newsletter in 1986:  "If nature can heal an injured land, it can heal our...souls as well.  That's why saving Mono Lake is a matter of saving, and healing, ourselves.  Let's not change the planet.  Let the planet change us."

Will Hasankeyf's Heritage be Lost to a Tigris River Dam?

Sunday, May 23, 2010 

(note, the original post was removed for awhile; we are reposting this blog on an important topic that has still not been resolved in July 2012)

Hasankeyf (37°42'N; 41°24'E) is an ancient city carved into the rocky bluffs along the Tigris River. The site has been continuously occupied for more than 10,000 years, and its setting among rolling hills and sheer cliffs along the river is breathtakingly beautiful. The town is threatened by plans to build the Ilisu Dam on the Tigris River, creating a massive reservoir that would drown all but the highest sections of Hasankeyf, along with 200 other villages, displacing at least 80,000 people.

Hasankeyf could be submerged to the height of the Mosque tower

It was sunny and warm the day of our visit with guide Ipek Tasli, the local coordinator for the Initiative to Keep Hasankeyf Alive, part of a a coalition of 72 groups which includes municipalities, environmental organizations, and “chambers of commerce” (www.hasankeyfgirisimi.com). She took that position two years ago, though the group formed in 1997 (the idea for a dam on the Tigris River has been around for decades.)

Hasankeyf may be one of the oldest continuously inhabited places on Earth. An article in Smithsonian magazine in March 2009, noted Hasankeyf's role as a commercial center along the Silk Road trade route from China during the early Middle Ages: “Marco Polo likely passed over its once-majestic stone, brick and wooden bridge, built around 1116 (only two massive stone piers and one arch remain).” From the newer bridge, we hiked uphill to where thousands of caves had been cut into limestone cliffs and used as residences and churches. A hilltop fortress included a secret stairway cut inside the cliff to maintain access to the river water during a siege. 

 

Returning to the riverside for a meal of barbecued fish, we watched as people played in the river shallows and young adults danced and sang in the street. There was a national holiday that day. We ate our Tigris River fish, seated around a low table on divans built right against the river edge, where we could watch fish down in the current nibbling at our crumbs.

International attention and resistance to the Ilisu dam project has grown because the reservoir will flood such extremely important historical and archaeological sites. Swiss, German, and Austrian underwriters within the European Union had funded initial work on the dam, but pulled out in December 2008 after so many issues emerged. A list of 150 World Bank conditions dealing with the environment, protection of heritage sites, relocation of residents, and impacts on Iraq, downstream, would have to be addressed if they were to provide funding. Turkey, however, is moving ahead with projected completion in 2017. The government vows it will fund the construction on its own. Ipek's coalition wonders what outside money is making that possible and the local Kurdish population is wary that this is part of on-going pressure against the region's Kurdish communities and culture.

The Tigris River here creates a unique canyon/riparian ecosystem. Fishing has been a major part of the human economy and also farming. With a dam, the fish populations will change and the river ecosystem will be gone. A local soft-shelled turtle (Rafetus euphraticus) has become a symbol of the environmental impacts for the Turkish environmental group, Doga Dernegi, which maintains an information booth within the town of Hasankeyf (www.dogadernegi.org). The turtle used to be found along the Euphrates also, but is nearly gone there now because so many dams have been completed. The effects of Ilisu could bring the species to the brink of extinction. But Turkey has no Endangered Species Act, nor, apparently, a public trust doctrine on which to rely for legal protection. Perhaps it would help if Turkey was accepted into the European Union, which has more progressive environmental laws. 

Ipek, though only 25 years old, is very eloquent and knowledgeable. We asked her what she hopes to see happen, and she answered that they will do their best to lobby internationally to, hopefully, bring pressure on the Turkish government. She said, “Hasankeyf does not belong to Turkey, it belongs to humankind. We will ask the people of the world to save Hasankeyf.” 

 

Should an ancient city that is part of the history of humankind be sacrificed for more electricity and water reservoirs? The eyes of the world need to turn toward Hasankeyf.

Japanese Crested Ibis: Back from the Brink

A smooth, silent high speed train carried us across the volcanic interior of Honshu Island to the west coast city of Niigata. With Japan's dense population and limited space, the forested mountains are a nice break from land otherwise intensely cultivated or inhabited. Ubiquitous rice fields, turning golden yellow just before the harvest, were especially beautiful along the edges of forest land.

   Before hosting us to a traditional Japanese dinner, Professor Tsuneo Sekijima of Niigata University described research supporting the breeding and reintroduction of Japanese Crested Ibis (called “Toki” by the Japanese). The Toki is very symbolic of Japan; its scientific name is Nipponia Nippon.  Once common across the nation, Toki went extinct after the last 5 wild birds (by then found only on Sado Island) were captured in an attempt to save them in 1981. Those formerly wild birds eventually died of old age, but meanwhile, a small remnant population was discovered in China.  The Chinese began a successful breeding program and gave Japan two Toki in 1999 for breeding on Sado, an island off the west coast that is bisected by the 38^th parallel.  Today there are 33 released birds flying wild, with 132 in Japan's captive breeding conservation center.  Though breeding has increased their numbers in captivity both in Japan and China, none of the released birds on Sado Island have yet been successful at hatching eggs.

    Professor Sekijima has a cadre of graduate students working on data collection, measuring food resources in the rice paddies, and daily monitoring the activities of the wild flocks. Seeing such a rare bird up close, in cages, was a pleasure, but then going out at dawn with the surveyors, to see wild Toki flying free, was an exceptional thrill.  Our escort was Dr. Endo, a post-doc student. The Toki's morning flight out of trees where they roost is fairly predictable, and they appeared right on schedule as the sun rose above the horizon.*  Later that morning, while Dr. Endo was showing us her methods for surveying insects, frogs and loach ( a small fish) preyed on by the ibis in the rice paddies, another Toki flew in, an unexpected delight for us all (they generally stay roosting in trees during the heat of the day).  “Toki need a certain landscape including rich rice fields with trees alongside to rest and preen in,” she explained.   “Just because there is a lot of food available in a place does not mean they will come.” As the rice matures, the birds cannot forage among the tall stalks. Sado Island farmers now leave water in fallow fields throughout the year to improve ibis habitat.

Yoishi Kawaguchi , a professor from Tokushima University, was also there studying the irrigation system's effects on Toki and their prey. Open connections between the rivers, water ditches, and rice paddies are critical to the small loach that need to enter the paddies to spawn. Toki cannot land and take off in narrow, concrete-lined waterways, so Dr. Kawaguchi has designed fish ladders and ramps to help the fish pass up from the ditches into the paddies, and urges farmers to leave water in dirt-sided ditches beside the paddy when they drain a field before the harvest.

   We spent an amazing day, moving from event to event on Sado with the National Park Senior Ranger Kei Osada.  “The role of a ranger in Japan is changing,” he told us. “Now we are encouraged to be involved in community conservation efforts as well as taking care of parkland.”

Our first stop on that busy day was a community work-project where local farmers, non-profit groups;, Sado City officials, and park staff were working outside, together, for the first time, to remove large mouth bass and blue gill perch (non-native species introduced from the USA) from local ponds. The fish were introduced for sport fishing, but devour the small native fish and frogs critically important to the ibis. The pond had been drained to strand the bass and perch in small pools. Under the eye of local TV cameras, a flurry of activity ensued, mud flying as men in waders netted the thrashing fish and heaped them on boats and rafts.   Hundreds of fish were caught that would be distributed to the locals to eat. Kei was in the middle of the action (in the yellow uniform shirt), scooping up fish and being interviewed for local television.

Next, we joined a group of local elementary school children a few miles away, who had caught creatures in the Ishida River for a wildlife survey. Though the channel was lined by concrete, the river was surprisingly rich with fish, insects and big, fuzzy crabs. This is part of the local effort to improve things for the ibis by improving conditions for “the small things,” and to involve all of the community in that effort, including children.

   We continued up a mountain in the island's interior to meet another group, this time students from Wasada University, who volunteered to come from their homes near Tokyo for four days. We found them energetically stirring mud in a rice paddy to enhance oxygen flow in the “biotope” -- one of many small wetland habitats rich in food for the endangered birds, newly built throughout the island close to rice paddies.

Finally, Ranger Osada took us to the breeding center, including the “training cage,” where 18 of the birds could fly and get ready for their transition to the wild, later that month. Our busy day continued into the evening, as Ranger Kei escorted us to a dinner with the university students and local residents. The students enthusiastically practiced their English by telling us about their 4-day adventure on Sado. The evening culminated with a performance of traditional dancers and drummers.

    In late September, 18 more Toki will be released on Sado Island and join the 33 birds already flying wild. These large pink birds are a symbol of hope and renewal for all of Japan.   Sado Islanders, especially, have embraced the effort and are committed to making the changes necessary to their human system that will help sustain the birds. The mayor of Sado City, Koichiro Takano, has written: “Our effort ...is a direct response to the biodiversity crisis that confronts humanity, and our efforts to bring back the Toki through nurturing the small creatures on which it thrives is an attempt to restore the environment that is worthy of world wide attention."

*A volunteer with the ibis survey team allowed us to use his photo of a Toki in flight; we thank him, a Sado Island carpenter who prefers anonymity. 

Recovery on Japan's Tsunami Coast

On the morning of March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake, with an epicenter at 38°19'N; 142°23'E, created a tsunami that reached the east coast of Japan in 30 minutes. A 30-foot wave struck Sendai (38°15'), the largest city near the epicenter. The tsunami caused much more damage than the quake itself or its many strong aftershocks. Over half a million people were displaced and more than 20,000 died. The quake also damaged several nuclear reactors south of the line, most critically at Fukushima (37°19'N) where reactors lost cooling capability and experienced meltdowns.

We arrived in Japan in early September, after postponing plans to visit in April. Japan is a land of contrasts: quietly speeding bullet trains, carefully tended gardens, clean well-kept cities, but also bright flashing lights, Karaoke bars and pinball machine gambling halls. It is a traveler's dream country of order, efficiency and politeness.

   In Tokyo, we met with six National Park administrators in their offices on the 26^th floor of the Environmental Ministry building.  They intend to create Sanriku Fukko (Recovery) National Park by combining existing local, regional and national parks and connecting them with a long trail the length of the affected coastline. They told us: “At first, we were overwhelmed by the earthquake disaster.  We were here in Tokyo, but wanted to help those people because the National Parks there are a key to their local economy and the most significant features in much of that area. We have staff in several parks now, but hope to expand and create a new type of park.”  Their goals are to increase tourism, provide employment and honor the victims of the tsunami with interpretive information.  The new trail system will also provide escape routes to higher ground for future tsunamis. Though only at the vision planning stage, Tsunao Watanabe, the Director General of the Nature Conservation Bureau, said this was now the agency's most important national effort.

We traveled by bullet train to Sendai, the city where the massive tsunami wave swept across the airport, shown again and again in video news coverage of the earthquake disaster. Sendai is on the western edge of Matsushima Bay at the south end of the Tohoku region. North of the big city, at Matsushima, is Japan's oldest “Natural Park,”operated by the Miyagi Prefecture. Over 200 small islands topped by Japanese red pines are famed as one of three best visual features in Japan. We had a morning tour boat to ourselves; tourism has not fully recovered since the March disaster. Matsushima remains a magical place. Six months after the March 11 earthquake, the clean up already accomplished was impressive, but piles of debris remain and there were several wrecked boats on the beaches. Some pine trees were broken and brown, killed by waves and salt water, but trains and tour boats were running on schedule. 

With the help of an English-speaking woman at the tourist information office (whose house was one of 200 in Matsushima destroyed by the quake -- already rebuilt), we asked local park administrator Hiroya Miura about the new Recovery Park idea being planned in Tokyo. He told us, “It will be difficult to coordinate so many different levels of national and local park operations but, yes, it could be a way to increase tourism and provide jobs.” 

Though Matsushima Park still has bridges and walkways to repair near the main information center, the town bustled with Japanese tourists. Souvenir T-shirts were for sale everywhere, proclaiming: “Never Give Up, Japan,” and “Go For It, Tohoku.” Those words are being put into action.

That night, at our hotel in nearby Sendai, a magnitude 4.7 earthquake shook us awake – an insignificant aftershock, one of hundreds that size or bigger that still rock the region.