In this post I’d like to introduce some ideas that I will continue to expand upon through this blog – the idea of local slow travel – what I call LoST. As a practice, slow travel entails those means of travel which allow us to experience a greater connection with the landscape through which we travel. These often include walking, cycling, sailing, canoeing.  But I would suggest as a practice, the journey and the destination are linked. So slow travel …

There has been a lively debate in the New York Times recently about how best to manage visitor numbers at Yosemite.  I mentioned in a previous post about the kinds of management issues which popularity brings at Yosemite.  But it isn’t only at Yosemite these issues arise. The old tension between protecting nature through national parks for people to enjoy, but also having to protect nature from people, has been around since Yellowstone was declared the world’s first national park …

Here is another amazing Yosemite video.

Yosemite HD from Project Yosemite on Vimeo. Here is a video I’ve just discovered of Yosemite National Park. To my mind it is a great example of the ways video and images are able to engage viewers and develop awareness of areas, their beauty and the need to protect them – even though the concept of national parks/protected areas as well as their management and the tourism/visitation which occurs are not always without problems. I was reminded of this when I …

I had a very quick field trip over the last three days – made a visit to a char (pronounced chore), which is like a temporary island in some rivers in this part of the world. The people who live on chars are essentially landless who have no where else to go. Because the islands are temporary, the people are also, in a sense, semi-nomadic – they stay on an island until they lose either their land or their island to …