Yes indeed, a fantastic and charming speaker, with funny jokes every now n then, to lively up the audience partecipation, harnessing attention.
Yes indeed, a beautiful story of faraway lands, exotic people and striking colours.
Yes indeed, a noble message, broadcasting all of the good-doing of the National Geographic.
Yet, what about your connection to the environment? what about you, as a western world inhabitant, whose mother and mother’s mother lived on a land which no longer is considered wild?
What about the connections you as a ‘non-native’ have with your surroundings.
This speech is brilliant in its simplicity, missing the point that we all are natives, indigenous, inhabitants of the world, diverse and ever changing, different and bracketed.
Much gets lost, yes, but hardly ever the idea that remoteness means purity, denying the fact that immediacy is where you can act.
Maybe you’re just barking at the wrong tree
This shrub was introduced to me by my daughter, who swear by it as it grows proficiently on her school grounds.
still haven’t found a proper naming of it, yet, i’m happy she shows a knowledgeable connection with er immediate surrounding vegetation
on a side street in Surry hills, Sydney.
The tree planted by the council is a Golden Robinia, a cultivar grafted onto a Robinia pseudo-acacia root system.
The suckers coming from the roots is then the original plant.
extremely tall, carving away concrete in an abandoned courtyard.
Would be interesting to find a study on the remediation capability of this plant, a truly pioneer when it comes to overcome concrete and tar.
The Facebook intervention is building up, with some plants getting more friends than other’s..
Interesting is that one in particular, Bidens pilosa (search for it on Facebook) is proving true to its vernacular name in Australia, Farmer’s friend, sticking to people and propagating from one friend to another in a viral mode.
So lately you have been interacting with a new found friend, Hanako, from Phuket, Thailand, who jolted you into some research about the distribution of the specie in her’s environment. Sure enough, the plant is there, in large numbers too, according to the Invasive Species Database, and according to a particular study on the feasibility for biological control of the plant in the Thai agricultural environments..
Below is a PDF of the study:
Both of the links are put together by scientists concerned with the impact the plant has with commercial crops, listing all aspects of possible prevention of further spreading of the plants.
Read that in conjunction to an earlier post on this blog, here.
So, this post will be a personal rant, which is no different from the rest of the postings on this blog,
yet, this very one comes along as a side stepping exercise.
This coming Sunday will be the 10th year you and a bunch of collaborators put on a short film festival: SquatFest.
The event started 10 years ago in a highly publicized and political environment, the Broadway Squats..
Lots have been written and said about what happened there in a brief 6 months of ‘public’ occupation,
but to keep the subject to SquatFest you paste down here the Media Release as it was readjusted
from Mickie Quick last week (the one you got ready was deemed, rightly so, a bit too ‘militant’,
nevertheless it got some media response last year, like this article on the Sydney Morning Herald).
But anyway, here it is below:
MEDIA RELEASE
SquatFest the “anti-Tropfest Fest” celebrates 10 years!
This Sunday! Secret Exciting Location!
What begun in 2001 at the infamous Broadway Squats as a singular act of defiance against the scale and commercialism of TropFest, SquatFest – the “anti TropFest Fest” – has continued to run every year since, always on the same night as TropFest
Utilising a different empty building in Sydney each year, SquatFest has reached its 10th anniversary, with organisers promising a special daring venue for this year’s event!
Last year’s SquatFest saw 400+ eager underground film buffs crammed into an empty warehouse in Annandale, and organisers are anticipating an even bigger crowd for the 10th anniversary this year.
The event has grown so big, that the SquatFest website now claims “the wave of anti-TropFest feeling is almost as big as TropFest itself”.
The organisers of SquatFest are particularly critical of the way that TropFest lost touch with its origins as local community event held in the close confines of the Tropicanna Cafe, in Darlinghurst. Unlike the behemoth TropFest event, there is no selection process of films shown at SquatFest, film-makers simply bring their film along on the night.
“Just before each film we get the filmmakers to stand up from their seat and identify themselves, and maybe even say a few words” says Mickie Quick of SquatSpace. “Members of the audience usually crane their necks to lay eyes on the film-maker, and we believe this acts as the best defence against film makers submitting bad films!” Quick adds that, “You see, if the film is bad, that filmmaker has to suffer in the silence punctuated by groans, with everyone knowing whodunit!”
But now that SquatFest has itself become quite large, and sometimes unable to screen all films brought along on the night, has the “anti-Tropfest Fest” become a contradiction of itself?
“Well perhaps it has”, admits Simon Daring also from SquatSpace. “In fact, we have a radical proposal to put to our audience and participants this year, as to the future of SquatFest”. He adds that, “after-all, we know of weekly and monthly film-nights being held in squats around Sydney, and we are a bit reluctant to be seen as the glammed-up, scaled-up cousin of that kind of community event, so we are going to do something about it.” However, Daring admits, “but not until we glam it up one more spectacular time!”
SquatFest is held on the same night as TropFest, this Sunday Febraury 21 at 7:30pm, at “a secret exciting venue”, to be announced on the day at www.squatspace. com/squatfest
Contact: Mickie Quick on xxxx xxx xxx
Other details:
WHY?:
The films at Tropfest are bad and you have to sit through countless offensive ads and embarrassing b-grade celebs, desperately trying to come up with something good to say about rubbish attempts by misguided young filmmakers eager to claw their way to the bottom rung of the Hollywood sweatshop. Fah-geddaboudit! You know you want to, so tell your friends:
“Sorry guys, this year it’s SquatFest for me!”
HISTORY:
SquatFest happens every year at the same date and time as TropFest. While the hopeful entrants for TropFest are fretting about whether they’ll get the chance to move up a rung in the Hollywood Sweatshop, artists and activists from ’round Australia are living it up, projecting films and videos in an inspiring squatted venue.
SquatFest began at the Broadway Squats in 2001, and has since made appearances at the Midnight Star Social Centre, the Sydney Park Brickworks, the Sydney Dental Hospital, under the grandstand at Erskineville, and many other amazing venues! Our film programmes have toured to Newcastle, Melbourne, Perth, and Indonesia, Italy and Canada
10 years
As far as anniversaries we should also talk about 10 years of Indymedia, read a fantastic article by Zanny Begg here speaking of the media phenomenon which erupted in the hey-days of No-Corporate-Globalisation movement, starting from Seattle, November 1999.
Those years shaped a generation, who found themselves in the streets with protective gear marching towards Riot Police Units..
Seems out of time nowadays to talk about protest and civil disobedience, yet those bursts of common goal, direct action and down right defiance against the imposed decision-makers shaped much of what you still doing here, now.
Despite the retaliation that happened soon after, with the terrorists years, when all at the sudden all demonstrations were outlawed and new laws and limitation put in place, we still kept going.
To this date, 10 years on and we still put together a film festival in a reclaimed space.
Find out where by subscribing to the free messaging system, go to http://squatspace.com/squatfest/sms.html.
Have a browse through a selection of previous years entrants on Engage Media.
You have been walking around, and traveling the world lately, so that you could compare the spontaneous vegetation in different parts of the globe..no not that many, but a few.
You came across this Bidens pilosa on The Domain, Sydney, and posted it on you flickr page.
While doing a bit of research in trying to answer a few comments you came across this list below, from an respectable scientific site, Metafro:
Metafro – Infosys is also the Digital Information Centre (DICE) of the Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA). As such, all our data set focuses on Central Africa (including Angola, Burundi and Rwanda). We also provide a Content Management System to help our researchers (and members) manage and publish their content on-line.
Now, while you in your research found a fantastic list of the vernacular names for the cosmopolitan plant, on the wikipedia page:
The fantastic find came when you discovered the Metafro site, which will be discontinued sometime in the near future, to be integrated into
a new internet site for the Museum, www.africamuseum.be
Whatever will happen to this information you don’t know, most probably would be replicated and buried into a new virtual castle, as often happen in those enormous sites, incredibly full of information, and yet amazingly hard to navigate.
So you paste it below.
Bidens pilosa is present in most temperate and sub tropical soils of the world.
2 reference(s) for Bidens pilosa L.
Official name: Bidens pilosa L.
Family: Asteraceae
Pictures: Bidens_pilosa2.jpg , Bidens_pilosa1.jpg , HA05Bidens_pilosa.jpg
Reference HB 01
Author: Baerts, M. & J. Lehmann
Title: Guérisseurs et plantes médicinales de la région des crêtes Zaïre-Nil au Burundi.Musée royal de l’Afrique centrale, Tervuren, Belgique.Ann. Sc. Eco., Vol. 18, 214 p. , (1989)
Symptoms: H(001), H(003), H(004), H(005), H(006), H(008), H(012), H(013), H(018), H(022), H(034), H(046), H(051), H(068), H(082), H(091), H(100), H(126), H(158), H(172), H(201)
Recipes: H(001), juice leaves Bidens pilosa, drops in eyes
H(003), H(012), stems with leaves of Bidens pilosa of Commelina sp. of Plectranthus barbatus of Sida cordifolia, to pound, local application
H(003), H(012), local application stems with leaves pounded of Bidens pilosa of Chenopodium ugandae of Oxalis corniculata of Spilanthes mauritiana
H(004), juice leaves of Bidens pilosa of Ageratum conyzoides, local application
H(004), VO., decoction (H2O) leaves of Bidens.
H(004, 2), local application, juice leaves of Bidens pilosa
H(005), H(012), local application stems with leaves pounded of Bidens pilosa of Commelina sp. of Plectranthus barbatus of Sida cordifolia
H(005), local application leaves pounded of Bidens.
H(005), ashes stems with leaves BIdens pilosa of Biophytum helenae, leaves of Vernonia amygdalina, scarifications
H(005), local application leaves pounded Bidens pilosa of Chenopodium ugandae of Rumex bequartii, stem with leaves of Cynodon nlemfuensis
H(006), stems with leaves of Ageratum conyzoides of Bidens pilosa, leaves of Drymaria cordata, decoction (H2O), enema
H(006), enema, decoction (H2O) stems with leaves Bidens pilosa
H(008, 2), VO., infusion leaves of Bidens.
H(008), leaves of Bidens pilosa of Rumex usambarensis of Dichrocephala integrifolia, decoction (H2O), enema, VO.
H(013) dermatosis, skin eruption, leaves Bidens pilosa of Caesalpinia decapetala, decoction (H2O), enema
H(018), VO. + frictions, decoction (H2O) leaves Bidens pilosa
H(018), VO. decoction (H2O) leaves Bidens pilosa
H(018), decoction (H2O) of leaves of Rumex abyssinicus of Bidens pilosa of Dichrocephala integrifolia, VO., enema
H(022), leaves of Bidens pilosa of Chenopodium ugandae of Indigofera atriceps of Veronica abyssinica, decoction (H2O), enema
H(034), juice leaves of Bidens., VO.
H(034), VO. , leaves ashes, Bidens.
H(034), leaves of Bidens pilosa of Berkheya spekeana of Sphaeranthus suaveolens of Senecio maranguensis, stem with leaves of Hygrophila auriculata, to carbonize, VO.
H(034), leaves of Berkheya spekeana of Bidens pilosa, to carbonize, VO.
H(046), decoction (H2O) leaves, enema and bath
H(051), leaves Bidens pilosa of Guizotia scabra of Dichrocephala integrifolia of Leonotis nepetifolia, decoction (H2O), VO., enema
H(051) child, leaves Bidens pilosa of Guizotia scabra of Dichrocephala integrifolia of Leonotis nepetifolia, decoction (H2O), VO., enema + bath
H(051), leaves of Bidens pilos of Helichrysum schimperi , stem with leaves of Guizotia scabra, infusion (H2O), friction, enema
H(068), enema + bath, decoction (H2O) stems with leaves Bidens pilosa
H(068), stems with leaves of Bidens pilosa of Cynodon nlemfuensis of Helichrysum ceres of Opilia celtidifolia of Pentas longiflora of Polygonum setosulum of Veronica abyssinica, leaves of Clausena anisata of Faurea saligna, to carbonize, VO.
H(068) intestinal parasitism, stems with leaves Bidens pilosa, leaves of Cassia mimosoides of Dipsacus bequaertii infusion (H2O), VO.
H(082), juice leaves of Bidens., VO.
H(091) anemia, leaves Bidens pilosa, roots of Tylosema fassoglensis, decoction (H2O), VO.
H(091) anemia, leaves Bidens pilosa, decoction (H2O), VO.
H(091) child, VO., decoction (H2O) leaves of Bidens.
H(091) kwash, VO., juice leaves, Bidens pilosa of Ageratum conyzoides
H(091) to anticipate child deseas, leaves of Ageratum conyzoides of Bidens pilosa, decoction (H2O), VO.
H(091) kwash, VO., juice leaves, Bidens.
H(091) kwash, leaves of Bidens pilosa of Erlangea cordifolia, decoction (H2O), VO. + enema
H(091) kwash, leaves of Bidens pilosa of Caesalpinia decapetala, decoction (H2O), enema
H(091) to anticipate child deseas, juice leaves of Ageratum conyzoides of Bidens pilosa of Dichrocephala integrifolia, VO.
H(100), decoction (H2O) leaves Bidens., enema
H(100), leaves of Abrus precatorius L. subsp. of Bidens pilosa of Erythrina abyssinica, enema, decoction (H2O)
H(126), leaves of Bidens pilosa of Guizotia scabra, barks stem, branch, trunk of Erythrina abyssinica, decoction (H2O), VO.
H(126), leaves. of Bidens pilosa, barks stem, branch, trunk of Erythrina abyssinica of Tamarindus indica, decoction (H2O), VO
H(158), VO. decoction (H2O) leaves of Bidens
H(158), leaves Bidens pilosa of Erlangea spissa, decoction (H2O), VO.
H(172) elephantiasis, leaves Bidens pilosa of Erlangea cordifolia, decoction (H2O), enema
H(201), leaves, Bidens pilosa, decoction (H2O), VO.
H(201) again a spell, bewitchment, leaves of Basilicum polystachyon of Chenopodium ambrosioides of Bidens pilosa of Lantana trifolia of Maerua angolensis, decoction (H2O), enema, steam bath
H(201), steam bath, enema, decoction (H2O) leaves Bidens pilosa
H(201) again a spell, stems with leaves of Bidens pilosa, leaves of Commelina africana of Guizotia scabra of Lantana trifolia, barks stem, branch, trunk of Parinari curatellifolia ? subsp. nobola, decoction (H2O), steam bath
H(201) bad spirits, leaves of Ageratum conyzoides of Bidens pilosa of Hibiscus fuscus, decoction (H2O), VO.
H(201), H(008), H(018), infusion leaves of Bidens., VO.
Region: Central Africa
Country: Burundi (Zaïre-Nil ridge region)
Vernacular name: icanda (Kirundi)
You also starting a new project, with FaceBook, making individual profile pages for the most common weeds, the most common botany which surround us, in an attempt to elevate them with their social status.
Readers can become friend with Bidens pilosa here.
More to come..
In the 1940’s a farmer north-west of Sydney devised a new way to interact with the landscape in order to minimize the loss of topsoil due to erosion, store water and enhance the ability of the soil to regenerate and keep healthy.
The farmer was P.A.Yeoman, and is regarded by many as a pioneer in sustainable farming.
Yeomans developed the Keyline sustainable agricultural system and built the first on farm irrigation dams in Australia.
Recently the property where he developed the system has been sold to a developer, who eagerly wants to turn it into a housing estate.
A group of locals, scientists and heritage officers set off a campaign to prevent such development.
Below is a video of the group itself from ABC’s 7:30 Report, who aired the story in December.
You can also read an article from the local press here, and get in contact with the opposing group here
The United Nations declared 2010 to be the International Year of Biodiversity. It is a celebration of life on earth and of the value of biodiversity for our lives. The world is invited to take action in 2010 to safeguard the variety of life on earth: biodiversity
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