Grey Whales and Dolphins feeding

 

This picture shows how the Grey Whales have made an amazing recovery since the ban on Whaling was introduced and now only have to run the gauntlet of killer whales in their migration from the Artic to the Baja Penninsula off Mexico each year.There is some debate as to whether they feed while in the lagoons where they calve and I have painted them indeed feeding while there. They are bottom feeders and scoop up large amounts from the sea bed and filter it to glean small crustaceans and other food through their baleen. A large eco tourism has evolved to allow people to have close encounters with these wonderful creatures, WDS should have lists of ones working within sustainable guidleines.

Marisa at Whale of a Time conference

http://www.whaleofatime.org/whalemail.php

The above large painting and other art work done for this conference at Birkbeck College, London about conserving oceans and rainforests. This was organised by “Whale of a Time”, a group that runs workshops on conservation issues, especially cetaceans.The films and lectures were both harrowing and inspiring leaving me with a sense of lots more needed to show that this century must be the one where we learn to care for our planet and to hope my art work can be useful in this aim. The link gives information on the lectures and group participating  and information from the conference

Floods in Pakistan

Hopefully will be doing something to help with “Other Asias” before the end of the month.It seems unbelievable that such an arid country could have such floods leading to such suffering and devastation.What could have caused them? Is it overlogging in the Himalayas? Climate change moving weather patterns?
There are floods also in China, could they be linked? We need to have a clearer idea of what has caused them in order to safeguard against re occurrence and then see what can be done to help prevent another catastrophe.
In Britain there are often yearly floods on a much milder level but both here and abroad it should not be beyond the environment agencies to study methods such as used in Holland in order to know how to build against disaster.
Could extra reservoirs be built with sluices that could open and run off an amount of flood water? We all need water and that would store it for future use.It would be great to hear comments from those working in the field.

Sustainableart is website of the month on http://www.cultureartist.org/

“What is a ‘Culture Artist?’
Deep Ecology is the principle that humanity cannot be separated from the environment; that human beings and nature are one and the same. Somewhere along the way, humankind seems to have forgotten that we aren’t separate from nature.

Since our culture at present revolves more around material wealth and accumulation than family, friends and the environment around us, some of us feel that we need to modify our culture to make room for nature; to return to our roots.

Those of us who use the principles of Deep Ecology to make cultural change are artists working with the medium of culture itself: we are Culture Artists, working to change the world for the better.”

This is a quotation from this interesting site where my site is featured. One often thinks that Americans are only interested in slash and burn but here one can see there are thoughtful ones too. Also the Solar Power Stations are set to take off in California if they can handle the rare animals that live on the projected sites. It is a great to be site of the month with Cultural Artist who share many of the aims of my own work.

http://www.cultureartist.org

London exibition 09

My work on Solar Power and the Indus River Dolphin has come to London as part of “Other Asias” and is being exhibited through;

http://otherasias.webnode.com/redo-pakistan-in-london/

snow leopards

New paintings on my web site;  http://www.sustainableart.co.uk

The Indus River Dolphin

The following two articles are from the conference held recently in Lahore Pakistan on “Re-doPakistan” ,organised through;

www.OtherAsias.com

The Indus River Dolphin

There is a wonderful rare dolphin in the Indus River that could become extinct as in the Yantese River in China. These animals are a good indication of the health of the river, if they die out it shows that too much water has been siphoned off and also that it could be polluted. They are also part of the heritage of Pakistan, a joy for our children to see and a source of pride and income from tourism for the local people. Various groups are trying to look after them and their web addresses etc are included below.

These paintings were inspired originally by a large work done for the group WDCS, in Speyside, where the indigenous dolphins that live in the Moray Firth in Scotland are at risk from drilling for oil in their habitat. My painting can be seen there and the charity uses the image to help raise funds. It led to researching the dolphins in Pakistan and hoping that people will want to preserve Indus River ones for future generations.

www.sustainableart.co.uk

Marisa Rehana Samiullah Mann

REFERENCES

Pakistan Wetlands Program:
http://www.pakistanwetlands.org

www.animalinfo.org/species/cetacean/platmino.htm -

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_River_Dolphin –

http://www.wdcs.org/submissions_bin/indus_river_dolphins_pakistan.pdf -

http://www.defence.pk/forums/general-images-multimedia/20511-indus-river-dolphin-endangered-freshwater-river-dolphin.html

http://indusdolphin.org.pk/about/

http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/freshwater/publications/index.cfm?uNewsID=21901

http://www.wwfpak.org/sc_indusriverdolphin.php

This group is helping people and dolphins showing how less water and agrochemicals can be used in growing rice and cotton

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.wildlifeofpakistan.com/indusdolphin3.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.wildlifeofpakistan.com/RiverDolphin.html&h=262&w=450&sz=15&hl=en&start=6&um=1&tbnid=3YTROa5u-FtbiM:&tbnh=74&tbnw=127&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dindus%2Briver%2Bdolphin%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26channel%3Ds%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-GB:official

an image and write up about the dolphin

Email: sajjad.musavi@gmail.com

An Urdu speaking group

This group helps local people ;

http://indusdolphin.org.pk/about/urdu/urdu_01.asp
[urdu version]

http://un.org.pk/undp/sgp/green-pioneers/chap-15.htm

http://indusdolphin.org.pk/river_dolphins/
[some also seen near Amritsar]

“Tragedy of the Yangtze Dolphin” New Scientist, 15 September 2007,UK,Lacon House,84 Theobald’s Road, London, WCIX8NS