The western gorilla, a Chinese dolphin and even coral are all at the top of the World Conservation Union’s (IUCN) priority cases, according to the organization’s Red List released Wednesday.

Furthermore, one in four mammals, one in eight birds, one third of all amphibians and 70 per cent of the world’s assessed plants are also endangered.

“This year’s IUCN Red List shows that the invaluable efforts made so far to protect species are not enough,” said Julia Marton-Lefèvre, the IUCN’s director general in a news release. “The rate of biodiversity loss is increasing and we need to act now to significantly reduce it and stave off this global extinction crisis. This can be done, but only with a concerted effort by all levels of society.”

source.
From the Red List.

And places in your country where you can volunteer and help can be found using this tool from IUCN.

Shortly after my return to my working vacation, Eugenie rolled into port with the J 120 and a bunch of younger, tan, happy students who had been aboard since Cabo. She had spent a month and a half with students on the boat sailing all the way down much of the coast of the Americas from San Francisco. She had fog, sun, doldrums, wind, and caught a bunch of mahi, dorado, bonito, and tuna from which she made sashimi for the students. Since San Diego she had given up on wearing her top…French. The mostly male crew did not complain.

On our first day off we went house scouting. I decided we needed a surf break so we headed 35 minutes north to Sayulita. As soon was we drove in she said ‘I want to live here,’ and I said ‘Done.’

A few days later we came back and hit the streets asking locals about renting a casita. Eventually we found ours and jumped on it. We live at 14 Calle Pelicanos and it is about a 6 minute jog to the beach. We have a beach cruiser bike that this guy has loaned us for surf checks and other miscellaneous errands. I have a 6′8” and a 7′8” and Eugenie has two 8′6′’s and this other guys leaves his 9′0” in our house so we have plenty of boards to choose from.

The gringo castillos are up the hill and we are on the edge of a solidly all Mex barrio. Across the street there is a sketchy open air pool hall on the second floor of a buidling that looks out on the jungle, where you can bring your own beer and play for 16 pesos per hour — we plan on becoming locals there.

The house itself is charming, now that we have it set up, and there is a pull out couch for visitors.

Sayulita is definitely a longboard wave but it has its days when the Norths push in, and there are plenty of nearby spots to hike or drive to that are pretty high quality.

The town is pretty trendy and sports the ‘I just took a semester off college to learn to surf’ girls in place of the white whales at the resort I work out of. The local surfers absolutely rip and 2 Mexican national champs live here. So you have all types in the line up and two places to buy espresso in the town square. Luckily, it really retains most of its Mexican charm despite the tsunami of Norteamericanos.

Lying in bed at night in our house you generally hear at least 4 or 5 dogfights per night, along with the local fiesta or blaring music (that does in fact shut down at a reasonable hour) and roosters which start at about 3 am. I have finally managed to tune it all out though and sleep like the dead.

We did find a scorpion in Eugenie’s shower, rather disconcerting. We named him Oscar and kept him in a tupperware feeding him moths and grasshoppers until we set him free in the bushes in order to maintain good scorpion karma. We are not in the resort anymore I guess.

I can surf everyday if I want to before and after work. So most of the time, living here is like a dream. Usually when there is a swell I get up at 6:30, make coffee, bike down to the wave, watch the sun come up with my coffee, then go home to grab my board and hit it for an hour before leaving for work.

A cool breeze blowing off the Bani River descends upon Mopti, softening the brutality of the mid-afternoon heat in the ancient town. Two men dressed in Tuareg attire – flowing robes and protective turbans – huddled in the shade playing a game of Wali to pass the time, engaged but silent, as words required more effort than their effectiveness warrants.

A voice echoes from the stairwell: « Tout de suit, tout de suit », instantly disrupting the lethargy of the heat-plagued afternoon. « Tu dois partir tout de suite. J’ai trouver un Pinasse Marchandise pour Timbukto. Le bateau t’attends. »

The men look up slowly. Then towards each other. “Holy dirt! Dude! Giver’”
Unceremoniously, the robes are discarded and exchanged for matching Ho-chi Min T-shirts; ‘Faux Tuaregs’ exposed and familiar heroes emerge.

Cast of characters:
1) PEI Mike, resident of Bamako formerly of Oslo, expert moto driver.
2) TN Dave, resident of nowhere, drinker of enormous amounts of wine and coffee.

Stage left, enter ‘Palmo’ an excessively large jug, bright yellow, container of water, and soon to be basis for measurements of volume, height, weight, value, and general nimiety (Latin root word for “excess” as many of you will recall).

Scene ends as Michael, Dave, Palmo and two Malian friends run out into the streets towards the port in a frenzy that only the urgency of an imminently departing boat demands. Four hours later, Michael, Dave and Palmo are all aboard enjoying the sunset view of Mopti harbor as offered by a still anchored pinasse.

And so began the Nimiety on the Niger. Shortly after sunset, the pinasse departed from the harbor, entering into the main current of the Bani River, main tributary of the legendary Niger. Five minutes later, the pinasse pulls to shore for evening prayers and remains anchored there until two in the morning.

For three days and two nights, the pinasse served as home; a merchandise ship full of charcoal, watermelons, flour, and about twenty residents, only two of whom slept in Gortex bivies and used an unleaded fuel-powered Whisperlite stove to make morning coffee. The river itself ran a sublime, meandering course, nourishing the riverbanks sufficiently to allow green agricultural fields and mud villages amidst the encroaching sand dunes of the Sahara.

But this little river journey was but the first leg of the now infamous epic journey of The West African Shakedown. To describe this experience in its entirety would require a short novel, so for now we hope you will be satisfied with the following list of journey facts, highlighting some of the key aspects of this P’tit Tour du Mali:

Consumption:
# of meals involving rice and sauce: 59/63
# of meals involving rice and sand: 59/63
# of beers enjoyed over sunsets on the Niger: 5
# of gag reflexes while attempting to show respect by eating local millet based delicacy called toh: 3

Adventure:
# of “Welcome To” videos filmed with Michael’s digital camera (i.e. Welcome to the Sahara, Welcome to Sheep Transfer, Welcome to Couper Decaller etc): 17
# of fanciful stories proposed starting with the line: “When we buy those camels…”: 4
# of times seminal techno track “Brother’s Gonna Work It out” is heard while riding a camel through the Sahara: 2
# of nights slept at the highest point in Mali after a stunning sunset rock climb: 1

Travel:
# of people who vomited in our mini-bus ride into Dogon country: 4
# of flat tires on said van ride: 2
# of dudes who decided to move up to the top of the van halfway through the ride: 2

Palmo:
# of liters held by Palmo: 20
height representation: 1 Palmo = 2 ft
weight representation: 1 Palmo = 20 kilos
monetary representation: 1 Palmo = 4,000 CFA (8 dollars)
actual value of Palmo: apparently only about 400 CFA (80 cents)
percentage of people who asked for Palmo as we walked by them on our 4-day trek through Dogon Country: 100

Beasts of Burden (and other exciting fauna) sightings:
# of hippos: 1
# of horses: ~ 100
# of camels: ~ 1000
# of sheep: ~ 10,000
# of goats: ~ 10,000
# of donkeys: ~ 10,000,000
# of pigs: 4

Live and love life.

Dave and Michael

The surf jail guy was a carpenter from Montana named Cole. He called it surf jail because the only less than filthy cabanas for rent on the beach had four concrete walls and no windows. Who cares when there are glassy aquamarine bombs peeling into the front yard? It really was like jail. There were so few people there that you knew when everyone came and went, showered, slept, and surfed; and there was little to talk about except what the other inmates were doing and women.

5 days passed. Wake early for offshores. Drink cowboy coffee with Cole. Surf. Eat. Read. Eat. Siesta. Surf evening session. Eat. Drink some beers or rum. Sleep.

Repeat.

The waves turned brown then green again. The swell dropped then rose again. I feared for my life a few times and got held down a few times. Surfed some little waves and some big waves.

Nothing really broke this cycle except skinny-dipping with German backpacker girls (some of the only women in jail) and nearly getting destroyed by some 30 stampeding cows running down the beach at night. We still don’t know who the cows belonged to.

After the cow incident I awoke feeling really unhealthy but blamed the rum, drank some coffee, sucked it up, and paddled out.

(Merry Christmas)

by LK

As the bus entered this region, I noticed a wild growth of beautiful flowering bushes everywhere giving the air a sweet and fresh smell. The legend of Manitos was in the back of my mind.

We wound upward through gnarly coastal mountains looking thousands of feet down on yes, more azure sea. Reminiscent of California´s Big Sur. White waves were breaking everywhere down there. The swell exposure of the coastline there is excellent and whatever is out in the water piles in hard. It seemed as if there were thousands of rideable waves down there, and there probably were. I started freaking out and hung my head clear out the window for the rest of the trip. I wanted to howl but refrained from being that gringo.

We reached a peak and rounded a point where I could see an amazing palm covered point, way down, created by a rivermouth with waves peeling cleanly on either side. The stuff surfers dream of. I hopped off the bus and hitched a ride in the back of a pickup with one of the locals to a spot where I could hoof it the last click with my board. The little river was crystal clear with a tiny settlement around it.

I had heard about this region that the Aztecs called ¨The Place of the Masters of the Fish¨ in their language. More recently it has been known for marijuana cultivation, narcotrafficking of other sorts, highway robbery by armed groups of banditos and downright remoteness. The tropical mountains come right down to sea in much of this area, so the roads have been historically horrendous, making it a case of severe arrested economic development. A drastic reduction in dusty roadside villages occurs as you work South.
No gringos in sight. I am OUT HERE.

next Chapter: The Legend of Manitos.

I decided to let Cloey rest in Nuevo as her transmission is questionable. I was on a chicken bus with my board and a few other basic necessities by the end of the last work day, Southbound. Out of the resort and back into the Latin America I remember. Heat. Waiting. No space. Friendly people. Homicidal bus
drivers.

I made it to a pretty well known beach town before crashing for the night. I befriended some British girls and was really bummed to find no wave breaking where it was supposed to. I stayed in a really sketchy hotel the first night which makes my shortlist of all time dives including hotels in the sub 3 dollar range in Guatemala, Peru, Bolivia, etc.

The beach was gorgeous in this place, a giant half moon shape with lush headlands at either end, and because of this, a small swell exposure. They have so many sting rays in the crystal clear water you have to shuffle in and out to avoid stepping on one.

I spent a day checking out the set-up, hoping for waves, and hanging with the Brits, after moving into a much nicer little hotel. The set-up looked right for a West swell but thats about it, so I was on the next bus South after gathering some local word of mouth beta from the local surfistas about a break further down the coast.

Miles and miles of banana plantations rolled by. The smell of burning brush and garbage omnipresent. More hot sun. More dry heat. More suicidal bus drivers pulling hairball passes around overloaded banana trucks on blind curves. More tropical mountains. More dusty roadside towns.

My next door neighbor’s dogs, little rabbit sized things, are always barking. Footsteps in the hallway or quiet talking, any hardly perceptible sound can set off the yapping. But I don’t mind the barking so much as the man bellowing “QUIET!” every time they do. Despite their size, they’re fully grown and I would guess they’re past the ability to absorb that kind of mild behavioral training. If I drop a fork in my kitchen, the dogs will bark, but the man snapping at his dogs is more unpleasant to hear. The strange old man’s bite is much worse than their dogs’ barks; in the end, dim sounds set off the man.

Joanna Newsom’s relatively recent song “Bridges and Balloons” recognizes this nicely.

The sight of bridges and balloons
makes calm canaries irritable;
they caw and claw all afternoon:
“Catenaries and dirigibles
brace and buoy the living-room –
a loom of metal, warp – woof – wimble.”
And a thimbles worth of milky moon
can touch hearts larger than a thimble.

Needless to say, when you’re on a boat, you tend to notice things that populate your field of vision, that break up the monotony. Especially bridges, to say nothing of balloons. So it’s not only or primarily the canaries who caw and claw at the sight of bridges and balloons. The mariners are just as excited: the song squeaks and chirps as much as the birds do. And of course, that is precisely what this verse is — the human way of telling the same story.

Here’s a more agitated version of the same thing. The dogs are irritated by the sounds of trains, planes, and automobiles, but it’s really the human — and his/her “birdie brain”:

I hate the steam train that whistles woozy my bird brain,
That sends my spaniel insane…

I hate the livery cars that have my bird brain seeing stars,
That drive my Doberman to drink in bars.

It’s fairly common to often turn to others to mark a moment: it’s helpful to round up a bunch of impressed surrogates to emphasize your accomplishment, for instance. One might think of Keats’s famous sonnet —

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star’d at the Pacific—and all his men
Look’d at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

But it’s especially true of animals, who often perform this job of certifying what we sense in the first place. Dog-whistles and ghosts: surely some things set off the animal and not us. But more often than not, we call on animals and pets to confirm what we already know.

To end, here’s a short poem from the opposite perspective: James Tate’s “The Promotion”

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