Tag Archives: environmental portrait

If I had to choose one word to describe the Mursi people of Ethiopia’s Omo Valley, I’d have to say “proud”. There are roughly 7,500 pastoralist Nilo-Saharan Mursi living across approximately 1900 square kilometres of semi-arid land in an isolated corner of southwestern Ethiopia, close to the border with South Sudan. A tall, good-looking people, […]

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Today is Holi: the much-loved Hindu ‘festival of colours’. In India and Nepal, Holi is celebrated for a night and a day: starting on the full-moon evening of the month of Phalguna or Phalgun on the Hindu calendar. This usually falls somewhere between the end of February and the middle of March, according to the […]

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I love Europe! I love the history in the stones and buildings. I love the food and wine. I love how every place is so different from its neighbour. I love how accessible those places (generally) are by rail, and how train journeys are (usually) clean, safe and efficient. Of course, we were travelling the […]

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Kumbh Melas are among the largest religious gatherings in the world. According to the BBC News, which published pictures of the 2001 Allahabad Kumbh Mela taken from space, that particular mela was “probably the largest human gathering in history”. The more recent mela in Allahabad (Prayagraj) in 2013 attracted an estimated 120 million devotees over […]

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“Development” in Papua New Guinea is a double-edge sword. It is hard to imagine how the country could be more diverse! This rugged land of rivers teeming with crocodiles and jungle-clad, mosquito-infested mountains, is home to about 8.5 million people. Predominantly Papuans and Austronesians, the population also includes Negritos, Micronesians, and Polynesians. Papua New Guinea only gained […]

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