Church Forest near Debre Tabor as seen in Google Earth
Church forest near Debre Tabor, Ethiopia. Google Earth 3D and Google Maps 2D view:
Church forest near Debre Tabor, Ethiopia. Google Earth 3D and Google Maps 2D view:

Short pictorial guide to our first “base camp”, Hotel Ghion, in the town of Bahir Dar in Ethiopia:

In the northeastern highlands of Ethiopia, agriculture and encroaching desert has replaced most of the original dry Afro-montane forests. These remaining patches of forest usually surround the Ethipian Orthodox Tewahido churches, since they are considered sacred and spiritual. Some of these church forests are over 1500 years old, and their size ranges from 3 acres […]

On Saturday, Ethiopians walk to market, to trade goods and to have social interaction. But for many , the walk is tens of miles — and conditions are dusty, hot, and rugged on the feet (especially without shoes). The scenery is breath-taking, but obviously no one is taking pictures or stopping to admire the view, […]
When my Ethiopian colleague, Dr. Alemayehu Wassie Eshete, visited me at New College of Florida, he made the amazing discovery of Google-Earth. Subsequently, he stayed up into the wee hours of the night, printing out Google images of many of the church forests for which he had studied. He was amazed, and we were both […]

The Ethiopians are ruggedly handsome, beautiful people. Here are some images of some of the wonderful people that I met during my first visit to meet with the Bishops and determine if we could work together on this important conservation project.

“… Conservation International currently estimates that one species is now going extinct every twenty minutes, which is a thousand times faster than the norm during most of the earth’s history. It is understandably hard to imagine what it means that we humans are causing something in the natural realm to happen a thousand times faster […]

Since March 2009, the study of insects that inhabit the forest canopy has a space in the Collserola Park, in the metropolitan area of Barcelona. As a pioneering study in the Iberian Peninsula, almost everything is a surprise in relation to phenology and composition of groups and species in the Mediterranean mixed forest. In addition […]