Penguin power: "My goal was to dig from the ice a story which has never seen the light of day for want of a teller," said Luc Jacquet, the French film director whose documentary of the emperor penguins' annual epic journey to their inland breeding ground will be released in Ireland on Friday.
The crew who filmed March of the Penguins set up camp in Antarctica for over a year to capture images never seen before of these extraordinary graceful, determined birds. The release of the film will no doubt draw more attention to conservation issues. The number of emperor penguins living in a colony near an Antartctic research station has dropped 50 per cent in the past five decades. The onset of the population decline coincides with a regional warming trend in sea ice that started in the 1970s. Scientists say that increasing temperatures may have reduced the number of krill, a food source for penguins, seals and whales. Quark Expeditions is one international tour operator offering emperor penguin safaris in October and November next year. See www.quarkexpeditions.com
For peat's sake
Irish peatland conservationist Patrick Crushell is in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina this week to advise on how best to set up peatland conservation programmes in the region. Crushell will draw on the Irish Peatland Conservation Council's wealth of experience in running peatland conservation campaigns to discuss how issues such as overgrazing, peat cutting, drainage and visitor access have been dealt with. He will also present research work on Ireland's most important peatland at Clara Bog in Co Offaly. Crushell will give a lecture and slide show on the peatlands of Tierra del Fuego at the Bog of Allen Nature Centre early next year. For more information tel: 045-860133 www.ipcc.ie
No mystery tour
Demystifing ecotourism was the aim of Jamie Sweeting, an ecotourism expert who spoke last night to participants on an ecotourism certificate course run by Sligo Institute of Technology and The Green Box, Ireland's first ecotourism region. As a director of the Centre for Environmental Leadership in Business based in Washington DC, his brief is to engage with tourist operators to limit their ecological footprint and maximize their contribution to conservation. "Any form of tourism which helps improve the standard of living of the local community while protecting local natural assets is eco-tourism," he said. "It's important that tourism adds value to the culture rather than detracting from it which ultimately erodes the experience and nature of the place." See also www.celb.org and www.conservation.org and www.greenbox.ie
Green gifts
Cultivate, the sustainability centre on West Essex St, Temple Bar, Dublin is the venue for a Christmas Art and Eco-Craft Fair tomorrow from 11am-6pm. The centre has teamed up with NCAD students to offer green gifts that are locally produced or fairly traded. Admission free. A 'Green' Santa will be in residence from 2pm-4pm.