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The Accidental Empire
Globalization may not be intended to create an empire based on Western culture, but it is having that effect all the same. A look at the past gives us insight on how cultural diversity weathers hegemony. by Nini Bloch
Almost Indian
At the turn of the last century, upper-class Peruvian women took on the trappings of Quechua culture. Photographs from that time help clarify whether their fervor went more than skin deep. by Dr. Michele M. Penhall
The Clan of the Clam
Having the technical answer to saving an endangered species is useless unless itâs integrated into the culture responsible for protecting that species. An Earthwatch scientist offers a case in point on Tonga. by Dr. Richard Chesher
Buffalo and Thunder
In the 1970s, biologist Lyall Watson was exploring Indonesian islands in the Banda Sea when he encountered a people with a radically different way of experiencing the world, one that forces us in the West to question our own understanding. by Dr. Lyall Watson
A Loss for Words
Over half of the worldâs 6,000 languages will not survive our childrenâs generation. Can we protect our cultural diversity? by Dr. Michael Krauss
RoundTable
Brutes or Brothers? Are Neanderthals evolutionary dead ends or our long lost relatives, and what do the answers say about us?
One Thousand Years of Solitude
The Lord of the Flies would have us believe that human nature tends to violence, that a group of people isolated on an island will break into factions, fight over limited resources, and destroy themselves. But Easter Island gives that idea the lie, Chris Stevenson is finding out. by Suzanne Powell ð Photos by Owen Jones
One Weird Elephant
Isolation breeds speciation. The cause may be rising seas or a major extinction event, but it always prompts a burst of genetic creativity, since any adaptation might work. Hereâs one one that didnât stick. by Dr. Larry Agenbroad
Opinion
Conserving Environments Past
by Karl Laumbach
 
       Click a number in the globe to read about each section below.
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1.  Teams in Romania Unearth Christian Martyrs
Earthwatch teams excavating with historian Dr. Mihail Zahariade at the site of Halmyris, an ancient Roman fort in what is now Romania, have helped rewrite the ancient history of the lower Danube River. Not only have they unburied a basilica, confirming that Halmyris was a bishopric, but last summer, beneath the basilica, volunteers discovered a two-chambered, stone tomb with the physical remains of two legendary Christian martyrs. Epictet and Astion were said to have been martyed under edicts issued by the Roman emperor Diocletian at the end of the third century a.d., but historical references to them were contradictory. Unearthing their tomb dispels centuries of debate over the whereabouts, even the very existence, of the two martyrs, elevates the importance of Halmyris in Christian history, and confirms the key literary source, Passio Epicteti et Astionis, which records their torture and martyrdom. The tomb harbored a fresco with Christian symbols and the name of Astion, and the remains of two men, one in his sixties and one in his thirties. Both skeletons show damage consistent with torture and decapitation. http://www.earthwatch.org/pubaffairs/news/zahariade.html

2.  Navy Admits Role in Whale Strandings
Almost two years after a mysterious mass stranding of 17 cetaceans in the Bahamas, a joint report issued by the Navy and the National Marine Fisheries Service marks the first admission that sonar tests caused fatal trauma in marine mammals. On March 15 and 16, 2000, 14 beaked whales, 2 minke whales, and 1 spotted dolphin stranded in the Bahamas Islands, within hours of intensive Navy sonar exercises in the area. Six cetaceans died, but Ken Balcomb and Diane Claridge, from the Center for Whale Research, and their Earthwatch volunteers on Dolphins and Whales of Abaco Island helped return ten whales to the sea alive. Balcomb and Claridge forwarded tissue samples from the dead whales to Harvard Medical School. Here scientists revealed that the strandings were due not to disorientation but to trauma to the inner ear and part of the brain. ãThereâs actually hemorrhaging going on in these cases,ä said Balcomb. The Navy is revising policies to prevent such injuries, and is increasing funding for marine mammal research. http://www.earthwatch.org/pubaffairs/headlines.html

3.  Turtle Scientist Wins Climate Change Award
Biologist Dr. Joan Whittier, co-leader for Earthwatchâs Green Turtles of Malaysia project, was winner of the CGNU/Earth- watch Award for Climate Change Research. Funded by the U.K.âs largest insurance group, Whittier (University of Queensland) received the £6000 (approximately US$8,500) award at the Royal Geographical Society in London for her discovery that global warming and the clearing of beach vegetation make Malaysian beaches too hot to incubate green turtle nests normally, resulting in unhealthy hatchlings and a sex ratio skewed toward females. Whittier has been working with Kamarruddin Ibrahim, a Malaysian government marine turtle researcher, to improve hatchery performance. http://www.earthwatch.org/pubaffairs/news/whittier.html

4.  Historic Bolivian Photos Exhibited
The first photographic exhibit mounted outside of La Paz of Boliviaâs life, customs, and rich cultural heritage from 1910 to 1940 was part of Houstonâs huge Fotofest 2002 this March. All 90 prints were made from glass negatives in the Julio Cordero archive, which Earthwatch teams scanned in the field last summer under the direction of Michele Penhall (University of New Mexico) and her colleagues on the Earthwatch project Portrait of Bolivia. ãThis exhibit is a huge step in beginning to understand life in this country,ä said Penhall. http://www.earthwatch.org/pubaffairs/news/penhall.html

5.  Oiled African Penguins Stage Bold Recovery
Last year, a shipwreck off the coast of South Africa caused an oil spill that ãoiledä 20,000, subsequently rehabilitated nesting adult African penguins (Spheniscus demersus), forced the temporary evacuation of 20,000 more birds 800 kilometers up the coast, and killed thousands of chicks. Dr. Peter Barham (University of Bristol) and his colleagues from the University of Cape Town (Penguins of South Africa project) expected the disaster to have further repercussions on this already vulnerable population, which has declined by 90 percent in the last century. Instead, they and their Earthwatch teams found the penguin breeding population at Robben and Dassen Islands had increased by roughly 20 percent, due to abundant fish stocks, an increase in first-time breeders, and the return of de-oiled and evacuated birds. Teams charted the penguinsâ dramatic recovery while testing the efficacy of a revolutionary new flipper band. http://www.earthwatch.org/pubaffairs/news/barham.html

6.  Hummingbirds Find Diversity in Adversity
Hummingbirds are the only vertebrates capable of sustained hovering, yet they are abundant and diverse even at elevations of 3,900 meters, where the thin air poses severe challenges for such demanding flight. Earthwatch teams working in Peru with Dr. Douglas Altshuler (University of California at Berkeley) and flight physiologist Dr. Robert Dudley (University of Texas) investigated hummingbirdsâ flight performance to assess their adaptation to mountain environments. Their Flight of the Hummingbird project found that many combinations of morphology and physiology can produce a hovering bird. These many possible configurations allow the birds to compensate for increased elevation. ãBut the birdsâ reserve capacity for such maximum performance did vary and thus affected speciesâ interactions and dominance relationships across elevations,ä said Altshuler. http://www.earthwatch.org/pubaffairs/news/altshuler.html

7.  Snakes Warm up to Female Mimicry
Some male animals mimic the appearance, behavior, or smell of females to obtain secretive matings or avoid rivalsâ aggression. However, Bob Mason of Oregon State University and colleagues working with garter snakes in Manitoba have found that males produce a female pheromone not for any sexual advantage, but merely to warm up faster after emerging from hibernation. In a Nature article, researchers showed that the advantage of mimicry lies in becoming the object of ãmating ballsä of as many as 100 amorous males that transfer heat to the female mimic, or ãshe-male.ä http://www.earthwatch.org/pubaffairs/news/mason.html

8.  Book Highlights Tanzanian Diversity
In Conserving Biodiversity in East African Forests: A Study of the Eastern Arc Mountains, Earthwatch-supported scientist Dr. William Newmark (Utah Museum of Natural History) tackles the greatest challenge facing conservation biologists: stemming the decline of global biodiversity. Although the book focuses on one of the worldâs 17 most threatened tropical biodiversity hotspots÷the moist montane forests in Tanzania and Kenya, the solutions discussed are relevant to tropical forests around the world. For some of his findings, Newmark relied on data his Earthwatch teams collected while exploring the effect of forest fragmentation on birds in the rugged Usambara Mountains. http://www.earthwatch.org/pubaffairs/books.html

9.  Earthwatch Data Prompts Elephant Relocation
Last July, 56 elephants÷including 5-ton bulls÷were transported in family units from Sweetwaters Black Rhino Reserve to Meru National Park, Kenya, the largest elephant move in one operation in East Africa. This colossal undertaking aimed to check environmental degradation and conflicts with humans neighboring the reserve. The move followed analysis of data that Earthwatch volunteers collected at Sweetwaters, the site of Kenyaâs Black Rhinos. ãEarthwatch data and the model predictions were crucial in convincing reserve managers, the Kenya Wildlife Service, and other funding bodies that the elephant damage was significant and that the move was necessary,ä said biologist Dr. Alan Birkett (Manchester Metropolitan University). http://www.earthwatch.org/pubaffairs/news/birkett.html