stephen blyth’s blog

Conservation scientists are trying to ensure mala or the rufous hare-wallaby as it is known to it’s friends, does not become extinct (pictured right). The small mammal, whose habitat once included the desert of Australia’s dry centre, is the focus of a recovery effort by the Australasia Conservation Breeding Specialist Group (CBSG).
Focusing on the mala [...]

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View Community gardens in Aotearoa New Zealand in a larger map
See the map above, well I’d like your help to add to it. As part of some research I’m doing for an article on community gardening I want to know what is happening around Aotearoa New Zealand.
By the looks of things there is a lot. [...]

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Most of the activist and grassroots community organising I’ve been part of has struggled with some of the basics. It was something that took up a surprising amount of effort. Where are going to meet? Are there enough chairs? Can we make a cuppa after the meeting?
I don’t remember a time we ever had chardonnay [...]

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In preparation for my presentation on “Spreading the word” at the Engage your community conference, I’m demonstrating how you can embed YouTube into a blog or a webpage.
I get pretty enthusiastic about sharing knowledge and trying to rouse people up by sharing stuff online. Using YouTube dramatically lowers the cost and technical complexity for [...]

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I generally cross to the sunny side of the street when I can. It’s an attitude that I try to cultivate generally, not just during this bleak, long winter. Given the deluge of facts about human impacts on the natural world it’s not always easy.
When someone argues convincingly we’ve got a 100 months before runaway [...]

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Even before George Monbiot started his interview with Sean Plunket as part of the 2008 Readers and Writers week, the British journalist and climate activist had made a big statement.
Monbiot declined to travel to Aotearoa to speak. Instead, he agreed to participate only by a video link. This decision was based on his conviction that [...]

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Everyday this week I’ve bumped into references to environmental websites. I can’t help wondering if this is meant to mean something.
I chortled when I saw the reference to Unscrew America. I imagined a website all about people challenging such things as climate change denial, the Iraq war, etc. The zany, psychedelic website is actually about [...]

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I can’t decide if I liked the crumbed Plichard skewers with their strong oily flavour, or the ever-so tender seared Skipjack Tuna with mild wasabi. These fish, along with a couple of others, were served up by chef Martin Bosley at the launch of the 2007-08 Best Fish Guide today.
The guide ranks 75 fish species [...]

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After reading today’s announcements of the Webby Awards I’ve become the 45,297th subscriber to Greenpeace’s emails about their Green My Apple campaign. Not only that, but I’ve engaged in a cheeky bit of cyber activism by hugging my mac (which I could do from the comfort of our lounge). You can see a dodgy photo [...]

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Yesterday deja vu struck me as Environment and Conservation Organisations of NZ (ECO) hosted a website launch. In the same room as the new SeaNet was unveiled, three years ago ECO launched a similar webite focusing on the resource management act.
The new website has been set up to “help people and communities and environmental [...]

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