NISP is a free business opportunity programme that delivers bottom line, environmental and social benefits and is the first industrial symbiosis initiative in the world to be launched on a national scale.

‘Diviner than the Dolphin is nothing yet created, for indeed they were aforetime men and lived in cities along with mortals, but…they exchanged the land for the sea, and put on the form of fishes; but even now, the righteous spirit of men in them preserves human thoughts and human deeds’
- Oppian, Halieutica

Young aulos-player riding a dolphin: red-figure stamnos, ca 360-340 BC

the cove official trailor

japanese news

sea shepard

los angeles time the cove oscars red carpet

Dolphins in Mythology

Dolphins appear in a number of Greek myths, invariably as helpers of humankind. Dolphins also seem to have been important to the Minoans, judging by artistic evidence from the ruined palace at Knossos.

A dolphin rescued the poet Arion from drowning and carried him safe to land, at Cape Taenarum, now Cape Matapan, a promontory forming the southernmost point of the Peloponnesus. There was a temple to Poseidon and a statue of Arion riding the dolphin. (Herodotus I.23; Thucydides I.128, 133; Pausanias iii.25, 4)

The Greeks reimagined the Phoenician god Melqart as Melikertês (Melicertes) and made him the son of Athamas and Ino. He drowned but was transfigured as the marine deity Palaemon, while his mother became Leucothea. (cf Ino.) At Corinth, he was so closely connected with the cult of Poseidon that the Isthmian Games, originally instituted in Poseidon’s honor, came to be looked upon as the funeral games of Melicertes.

Young aulos-player riding a dolphin: red-figure stamnos, ca 360-340 BCE, found in Etruria, (National Archeological Museum, Madrid)

Phalanthus was another legendary character brought safely to shore (in Italy) on the back of a dolphin, according to Pausanias.

Many seals and coins show a man or boy riding a dolphin.

Dionysus was once captured by Etruscan pirates who mistook him for a wealthy prince they could ransom. After the ship set sail Dionysus invoked his divine powers, causing vines to overgrow the ship where the mast and sails had been. He turned the oars into serpents, so terrifying the sailors that they jumped overboard, but Dionysus took pity on them and transformed them into dolphins so that they would spend their lives providing help for those in need.

Dolphins were also the messengers of Poseidon, Greek god of the sea, and sometimes did errands for him as well.

Dolphins were sacred to both Aphrodite and Apollo.

In Hindu mythology the Ganges River Dolphin is associated with Ganga, the deity of the Ganges river. The dolphin is said to be among the creatures which heralded the goddess’ descent from the heavens [1] and her mount, the Makara, is sometimes depicted as a dolphin [2].

The Boto dolphins in the Amazon River are believed to be shapeshifters, or encantados, who are capable of having children with human women.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolphins_in_mythology

A sketch of the goddess Ganga on her Vahana (mount) Makara

It’s the beginning of the wet season. It’s staggering how fast this place greens up with a bit of rain.

Green Hills of Uganda wet season

I walk through the village seeing every spare piece of ground is being tilled for growing maize. There are no fences and the animals still roam free. Luckily the grass has also started to grow rapidly. The dry stoney ground is now a new lawn. If these people knew how to use this growth energy they could transform their communities into paradise. The Green Warriors will show em!

My experimental garden at HQ.

Only 2 weeks to go before the first phase is finished on my project. We drive to the 5 km village just on the edge of Abim. It had rained so now the brick hard earth has turned into a soft dark loam. The womens group is waiting with their tools under the shade of a large tree. Fruit is laying on the ground under it. I pick one up and sniff it. Smells ok so I taste it. I think its a Noni fruit or something related. Santos gives me the thumbs up which means it’s ok to eat. Too late if it was poisonous!

I see I’ve got about 50 people, mostly women, ready to work. I know most of their time is taken up milling around. I decide to show them how to use labour effectively. No stuffing around. I grab a hoe off the ground and walk into the field they have cleared. A pile of stumps lays on one side of the thorn fence. The women have chopped out all the scrub with primitive African axes. Hard work. They’ve built a rough fence out of thorny shrubs. The thorns are like short porcupine quills. Effective. I whistle loudly with 2 fingers in my mouth and hold my arms out to show I want them to form a line on both sides of me facing up the hill. Ram, my interpreter rounds up the women like a sheep dog and gets them into line. Many of them are laughing at this new method the Muzungu is using. OK, go!, I yell and start hoeing a trench. Everybody joins in, copying my actions. When I see the trench is dug I step forward a meter and turn around facing the mound next to the trench. Ram barks a few commands and the group copy me. We go again. In a few short minutes we have a raised garden bed 30 meters long. I get the extra people with no tools to come from behind and pick out the grass and weeds. Others I show how to flatten the top of the bed by running a hoe handle accross the top.

Baked bricks made from topsoil. Wood used is chopped from remaining trees standing.

We do the same drill 6 times and end up with a sizable chunk of the community garden finished in 30 minutes. I change the workers over every 2 beds. The leader woman watches and learns. It’s her turn. She takes control and gets the same result. Everybody is happy. It would have taken them all day to do the same in their usual way.

After the 6 beds I take them up on the slope above the garden and we dig a swale. Everytime I grab a hoe, an old man muscles in besides me and trys to out compete me. He’s got only 2 teeth like a vampire and he grunts as he slams the hoe into the ground. I’m fit, I can hoe all day if I have to. Finally he gives up and falls back as somebody takes his place. Later I find out he’s the local school teacher and he knows a bit about farming.

Its rest time. We all move to the big tree. A wooden seat magicly appears. I’ve a box of non-hybrid seed in cans I unpack in front of the group. Dont eat the seed I tell them. Wash your hands after handling the chemical coated seed. They nod. I pass a few cans around. Many of hese people have never seen more than 5 vegetable types in their life. There’s a colour picture on the front of the can. I put the school teacher in charge of seed distribution and seedling production. Using 2 interpreters, I give them all an hour lesson on planting and integrated pest management. I tell them to use the children as pest control. Kids have little fingers and sharp eyes. A group of children in a garden of this size can squash the pests manually in no time. At the end of the session we say goodbye and the women make the leeleele noise. I do a yee-ha! as a reply. They all laugh.

Local mud hut made with no windows for security not comfort.

We drive to Irriri following a military escort. Im in an official car now as the batmobile is in for a rebuild. Having a logo and a white landcruiser means we need an escort to protect us from Karamajong raiders. The new rules out say the escort sits on 50 kph. It takes us 3 hours to get to the ex-warrior farm. Bloody slow!

The farmer group are sitting under a mango tree on the side of the road. There’s a few mud huts and a kind of shop that sells the basics, washing powder, biscuits, coke and flour. The whole of the shops stock would fit into my suitcase. The chief thanks me for the tools we gave them the previous week. He asks if I could give them a tractor. I tell them I have no tractor only training to make them better farmers. These guys are all hard bitten ex-warriors that have given up the gun for a new life. So far they have planted 400 acres of casava with the help of World Food Program. I’m helping these guys because they run the risk of losing everything if the casava gets a disease.

Suddenly there is a commotion. A guy staggers out of a hut yelling abuse and crying. He’s agro! He runs up to a village fence and begins breaking off a big stick to use as a weapon. The farmers try to calm him down but he’s going off big time! One of our escort soldiers ends up holding him at gunpoint until he calms down and runs off. Ram tells me he was wrestling. Later I find out it was a woman who beat him. He was a big bloke so she must have been an amazon! Fun on the farm…

At the prison the Green Warriors have built several raised beds ready for planting. They are happy. I have places for the 2 guys getting released in a month on my program. The farmers at Irriri have agreed to give them an acre of land if they want to start a new life. How cool is that! We do a bit of classroom work under the huge fig tree near the prison garden. The dude with the dreadlocks has got me interested. The guard tells me he’s a music artist. They’ve allowed him to keep his mop hair. I ask him if he can write some Green Warrior songs. With a big grin he agrees and shakes my hand. “Call me Ziggyman!” Music is a big part of Ugandan culture. Ziggyman’s got plenty of time on his hands to write the Green Warrior top ten.

My time is almost up before I take a break. I’ve learned so much being with these people. In the west we have more money and better infrastructure but these guys have something we don’t. Our “stuff” keeps us entertained and too busy to really know each other. These guys only have each other. These Ugandans have extended families and clans where we have sole parent families and single people living alone, watching “Neighbors” on TV and not even knowing their real neighbors. Our old people are wharehoused in “old peoples homes”, while their old people are called “elders” and play a role in community life…They’ve got hardly any food and they live in dirty mud huts, but for some reason these guys smile a lot more than us! Mmmm…

Avatar - Jake Sully , Na’vi hero , sent you a message to fight for our Earth

Avatar - Jake Sully speech.
Maybe one day , someone leade us to fight for our mother Earth.

Formal and Informal Permaculture Cooperation to Save the World

The Food Forest is being developed by Annemarie and Graham Brookman and their children Tom and Nikki, to demonstrate how an ordinary family, with a typical Australian income can grow its own food and create a productive and diverse landscape.

Source: Food Forest

Sustaining Our Suburbs Event: Global Sustainable Solutions in Your Backyard

Presented by Permaculture Hunter Region & Transition Town Newcastle

A Workshop of “Permaculture Across the World”.

Nicholas Roberts, Founder of Permaculture.TV & Permaculture Cooperative researcher, who recently returned from a Permaculture world tour will present “Formal and informal Permaculture Cooperation to Save the World”.

Dr Terry Leahy, Senior Lecturer in Humanties and Social Science & Food Security researcher will launch his book “Permaculture Strategy for the South African Villages”

Brett Cooper will present his incredibly productive, but small, Mayfield garden in “An Organic urban Squeeze”

Tricia Hogbin from Transition Newcastle will present “The Greater Waratah Wellbeing and Sustainability Project”