1,000 Bagels a Night

or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love NYC Garbage

In 2006, I was an intern working with a major conservation organization in one of the most prestigious natural history museums in the world. It was a dream internship, and I, in the spirit of those Broadway musicals I love, felt I was making it in New York City. I was going to survive the Big City, and love doing it. I thrived on the culture, the people, the noise, the work.…
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by: coyotl – Spring 2008

Appetite for Profit

by Michele Simon416 pages, paperbackNation Books, 2006 The battle of the bulge, being fought in all industrialized societies, is currently being lost. According to American Sports Data, nearly two thirds of all Americans are overweight, and childhood obesity in the US has more than tripled in the past two decades. And, according to the US Surgeon General, obesity is responsible for approximately 300,000 deaths every year. So who’s at fault for this…
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by: coyotl – Spring 2008

Harvest of Suicides

How Global Trade Rules Are Driving Indian Farmers to Despair

In the 21st century, India is often portrayed as a software powerhouse, a key part of the engine that keeps our wired world running. Yet this essential cog in the global information economy does not collect data on crucial social indicators, such as the number of Indian children engaged in child labor, or how many people are displaced from large dams. There is, however, one important statistic that the Indian government is…
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by: coyotl – Spring 2008

Paradise in No Man’s Land

The Korean DMZ Is One of the Most Heavily Fortified Borders in the World — And a Sanctuary for the Peninsula’s Flora and Fauna

Istockphoto.com The dragon does not usually receive visitors in winter, but we went anyway. We left the jeep parked at an empty guard post on a dirt road edged with barbed wire. Landmine warning signs hung on the fence. The five of us hiked downward in knee-deep snow into the bowl-shaped valley, then passed through a thicket of royal azalea and Mongolia oak heavy with hoarfrost and last night’s snowfall. We emerged…
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by: coyotl – Spring 2008

“From Heresy to Conventional Wisdom at Blinding Speed”

A History of Earth Island Institute’s 25 Years

International Rivers David Brower, the first executive director of the Sierra Club and the founder of Earth Island Institute and many other organizations, had many passions. He loved books — the writing, editing, designing, and production of them even more than the reading, or so it seemed. He loved music. He had a passion for mountains, and the sea, and the canyons, and the prairie. Also, Tanqueray martinis and the Biltmore Hotel…
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by: coyotl – Spring 2008

Learning to Observe

The Practice of Natural Agriculture

Lisa Hamilton Yasuo Tarumi will kneel by the computer when required, will sit at the dining table when politeness demands. But the truth is, he would rather be on his couch. As soon as allowed, he’ll return to the indentation he has made in the flower-patterned cushion and resume gazing out the window. The floor-to-ceiling glass frames a view of the house’s flower garden, but he is looking beyond. He is a…
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by: coyotl – Spring 2008

Fields of Plenty

In the summer of 2003, farmer-writer-photographer Michael Ableman and his son piled their belongings into an old VW touring wagon and set off from their farm on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia on a journey to talk with the most cutting-edge vegetable farmers, orchardists, grain growers, dairy farmers, and cheese makers in the US. For Ableman — who is probably best known for establishing Fairview Gardens in the suburbs of Santa…
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by: coyotl – Spring 2008

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