STATE OF THE ELEPHANTS

Liberia home to these African forest elephants, has lost 95% of its elephant population in a few decades. Only 1,000 remain. Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Elephant poaching levels are the worst in a decade and recorded ivory seizures are at their highest levels since 1989, according to a report (PDF) published two weeks ago by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

According to data from the Elephant Trade Information System (ETIS), three of the five years in which the greatest volumes of ivory were seized globally occurred in 2009, 2010 and 2011.

In 2011 alone, there were 14 large-scale ivory seizures—a double-digit figure for the first time in 23 years, when ETIS records were first compiled. They totalled an estimated 24.3 tonnes of ivory; more than in any previous year.

1.5 tons of ivory were seized in May 2012 in Sri Lanka

Large-scale ivory seizures (those involving >800 kg of ivory in a single transaction), typically indicate the participation of organised crime.

China and Thailand are the two primary destinations for illegal ivory consignments exported from Africa according to the seizure data. Seizures of large ivory consignments in Malaysia, the Philippines and Viet Nam since 2009, were believed to be in transit to China and Thailand.

Most of the ivory smuggling containers leave the African continent through Indian Ocean seaports in East African countries, primarily Kenya and the United Republic of Tanzania.

“Evidence is steadily mounting which shows that African elephants are facing their most serious crisis since international commercial trade in ivory was generally prohibited under CITES in 1989”, said Tom Milliken, TRAFFIC’s Elephant and Rhino Programme Leader and the Director of ETIS.

Poaching levels are increasing in all countries where African elephants occur, and may be leading to dramatic declines in some populations, but particularly in Central African countries, where poaching levels are highest. This was brought to international attention earlier this year by the killing of hundreds of elephants in Bouba Ndjida National Park in Cameroon.

There are also disturbing indications that the illegal killing of elephants has increased in recent years in Asia too, although data are hard to obtain.

HOW MANY ELEPHANTS ARE LEFT?

The most recent continent-wide compilation of African elephant (Loxodonta africana) numbers dates back to 2007, when there were at least half a million elephants in Africa, and perhaps as many as 700,000, spread over some 3.3 million km², an area slightly larger than India. New survey data on African elephant populations are currently being analysed and an update on elephant numbers is expected later this year.

The global Asian elephant population is estimated at around 30,000–50,000, with a geographical range of around 878,600 km² (an area smaller than Pakistan), which is only 10% of the historical range.

Source: The Wildlife Protection Society of India. Graphic found on Travelmride.com

Source: TRAFFIC

Support: BLOODY IVORY

READ THIS VANITY FAIR ARTICLE IN FULL

Agony and Ivory

Highly emotional and completely guileless, elephants mourn their dead—and across Africa, they are grieving daily as demand from China’s “suddenly wealthy” has driven the price of ivory to $700 a pound or more. With tens of thousands of elephants being slaughtered each year for their tusks, raising the specter of an “extinction vortex,” Alex Shoumatoff travels from Kenya to Seattle to Guangzhou, China, to expose those who are guilty in the massacre—and recognize those who are determined to stop it.

http://www.ifaw.org/united-kingdom/our-work/protecting-elephants

CURIOUS FACTS: DOLPHIN & WHALE BUBBLE RINGS

One of the many intriguing curiosities of the natural world is the creation of bubble rings by dolphins and beluga whales, which has been observed in dolphinariums and in the wild.

Interest in this phenomenon was created in the late 1990s when photos and videos of this  behaviour first appeared in the media.

The main source was the Sea Life Park Hawaii and the Project Delphis laboratory attached to it, run by the NGO Earthtrust, founded in 1976 to promote the conservation of marine mammals.

An article, Ring Bubbles of Dolphins written for Scientific American in 1996, by two scientists from Project Delphis (which researched dolphin self-awareness and intelligence), a fluid dynamics expert at NASA’s Ames Research Center and Earthtrust’s founder Don J.White, remains one of the few scientific papers available on the topic. [Marten, K., Shariff, K., Psarakos, S., & White, D. J. (1996, August). Ring bubbles of dolphins. Scientific American, 275, 83-87].

‘In recent years, researchers at several oceanariums around the world have reported that a variety of marine mammals can blow smooth, stable rings of air that linger in the water for several seconds… these bubbles are clearly not a spontaneous response to alarm or a standard part of communication.’

The dolphins were observed entertaining themselves by either blowing bubbles from their blowholes  - which, as they rise to the surface, expand in radius and decrease in thickness to form a ring -  or swirling the water with their find or tail and then blowing bubbles into the resulting vortices.

‘[We] believe ring blowing is more common at Sea Life Park Hawaii than at other aquariums; the dolphins here appear to have created a “ring culture” in which novice dolphins learn to make rings in the presence of experts that, in a sense, pass down the tradition.

‘Ring making is a leisurely pastime, so the animals generate rings only when they want to — not on command or for a reward of food. Furthermore, ring making does not seem to be associated with functional behaviors such as eating or sexual activity. ‘

THE BEST VIDEOS ON THE WEB:

http://youtu.be/wuVgXJ55G6Y

http://youtu.be/YqeQMLbkciU

http://youtu.be/iwwXkf_RW4s

A magnificent shot of a beluga blowing a bubble ring. The provenance of this picture is unclear. It is on two sites http://explow.com/bubble_rings and www.ooodd.com

More pics of belugas blowing bubble rings here.

 

 

Divers have learnt to do the same thing. Great portfolio here: http://www.deepocean.net/deepocean/index.php?science09.php

Three other blogs have written on this topic from different angles and contain further links and videos:

Discovering Animal Behaviour 2012

The Gleaming Retort

Ecology.com: Dolphin Bubble Rings

See also: Bubble Rings on Wikipedia

‘Bubble ring play of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus): implications for cognition’ by McCowan B, Marino L, Vance E, Walke L, Reiss D. J Comp Psychol. 2000 Mar;114(1):98-106. Get pdf here

SEE PREVIOUS RELATED POSTS ON THE GENERALIST:

Dolphins: The Cove & The History Behind It

Dolphins Revisited

GABRIEL OROCZO

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Call me ignorant but I was unaware of the extraordinary and diverse work of the Mexican artist Gabriel Oroczo. This beautiful piece is entitled ‘My Hands Are My Heart’ (1981). So simple yet so powerful. Happily you can see a wide range of his work on this wonderful interactive exhibition on MOMA’s website. Its inspiring.

EARTHED: URBAN AGRICULTURE

Source Front Studio Architects

FSA propose 'Farmadelphia'  - a transformation of urban Philadelphia by introducing farmlands into the city's abandoned plots. On the architect’s site they say "The ‘Farmadeliphication’ of once decrepit buildings into farm structures allows for an organic transformation of history that contributes to the present day fabric. The irony of the farm and the city ceases to be a paradox as both function as one integral machine, combining the pleasure of open sky and land with the richness of city living."

 

Back in March 2010, The Generalist reported on Julien Temple’s documentary on Detroit which featured a story on how urban farming was transforming the city and how this movement was spreading across America and the world. Returning to the topic two years later, its clear that its accelerating. Interestingly, the western world is learning from the developing world, where urban farming is more prevalent.

My first impetus for this post was reading in Green Building about ‘Carrot City’ – the brainchild of Dr Mark Gorgolewski and colleagues at Ryerson University in Toronto. He writes:

‘Carrot City is an initiative…that aims to highlight the overlap between local food systems and urban design. It includes a [travelling] exhibition, a book and a website. They all address how the design of cities, urban landscapes, buildings and gardens can facilitate the production and processing of food and the impact that food issues have on the design of urban spaces and buildings. A series of conceptual and realized projects are feat5ured that enable urban food production, helping to re-introduce growing food to our cities.’

There’s a mass of material on the site including 80 of the exhibition boards in three languages.

This led me to a another fantastic resource on the subject: the 2012 issue of ‘Leaf Litter’ the journal/newsletter of Biohabitats, a US-based organisation involved in conservation planning, ecological restoration and regenerative design. There special issue ‘Thoughts on Urban Agriculture’ gives a brilliant overview of the various issues and global state of play with a lot of carefully selected and graded web resources but also two long interviews with Dr Mark Gorgolewski and Novella Carpenter whose book ‘The Essential Urban Farmer’ is a key text as is her best-selling ‘Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer’. The opening essays begins:

‘Today, although more than half of the world’s people live in cities, most of their food is produced elsewhere, often through energy intensive, resource draining, and unsustainable industrial agriculture. Despite the high yields of “factory farms,” many cities now grapple with food security and hunger. With worldwide urbanization increasing, along with concerns in many cities about urban heat island effect, social justice, poor nutrition, declining natural resources, and struggling economies, one has to wonder: can urban agriculture reclaim its significance to life in the city? In many places, it already has.

‘The United Nations Development Programme estimated that 800 million people worldwide were engaged in urban agriculture and related enterprises in 1996, and that number has increased. In Africa, 40 percent of urban dwellers are said to be involved in some form of agriculture, and this figure rises to 50 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean. To quote the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, “Urban agriculture needs to be recognized as an important and increasingly central phenomenon of urbanization.”

The images on this post come from a great set of examples of Urban Agriculture on Inspiration Green, which does what it says on the lentil.

 

Source Photo: Business Week, Japan.
The Toyota Roof Garden. Toyota is also marketing grass covered roof tiles.

There’s a very useful Wikipedia entry too.

CULT BOOKS: BLUE HIGHWAYS & CRAZY WEATHER

Travel literature is one of my favourite forms of reading and they don’t come much better than ‘Blue HIghways’ a book to savour and linger over.

Its author William Least Heat Moon sets off in his camper van Ghost Dancing to make a lengthy and eccentric journey travelling the blue highways (B-roads) of America, recording his experiences in meticulous and luminous prose. He has a penchant for towns with bizarre names (his favourite is Nameless, Tennessee) and for diners and bars that have been untouched by the modern world.
 



In the process he meets more than a hundred characters who he profiles (and in many instances photographs)with great vividness and skill, capturing their life stories and conversation. He is a consummate stylist as well as a fine observer of nature and landscape, bringing to life the unbelievable diversity and vastness of America’s great landmass.



The story behind the book is interesting. William Trogdon, born 1939 of English/Osage ancestry was in a hole. He’d acquired a doctorate in English literature but had lost his job and his marriage had broken down, which meant he’d also lost the house he’d just rebuilt. So in the spring of 1978, he set off to escape, to find himself and a new angle of vision. He took only two books with him: Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass and Black Elk Speaks.

In the latter, Black Elk talks about the blue roads of a person’s life as being ‘those roads that are destructive to human understanding and human co-operation..largely travelled by people preoccupied with themselves.’

On his three month 13,3889 mile journey, William Trogdon rediscovered his Osage heritage and reverted back to his Least Heat-Moon birth name. For him the journey became an Indian vision quest in which he became less withdrawn and opened himself up to the world and the people he found there.

‘Blue Highways’ was his first book and took eight drafts and four years to write. It was widely rejected by publishers but it entered the New York Times best-seller lists shortly after publication in 1983 and has subsequently sold some 2 million copies.

ADDITIONAL SOURCES

The Road to Serendipity: An Interview with William Least Heat-Moon by Hank Nuwer.

‘In Depth with William Heat Moon’ is an excellent and lengthy video interview, conducted in August 2005

List of books and other audio interviews on Wikipedia.





‘Crazy Weather’, originally published in 1944, was the only book-length piece of fiction written by Charles L. McNichols, a former naval aviator in World War i who later worked in the movies and wrote for magazines. Often compared to Huckelberry Finn, its a great tale of South Boy, a sensitive young mixed-blood who goes off on a great four-day adventure with his young Mojave friend Havek to prove their manhood as warriors. Its a beautifully written tale which gives great insight into Mojave culture as well as conjuring up breathtaking landscapes and intriguing plot turns.




The beautiful cover of this University of Nebraska Press edition is a section from this amazing ‘Cloud World’ painting by Maynard Dixon. See more of his works here.

EARTHED: THE AIR-CONDITIONING CRISIS

Over 500 air conditioning units are attached to the windows of the Fuzhou Dalijiacheng Building in China.Apparently, the building’s planners and designers didn’t consider installing a central air conditioning system. The locals refer to the facade as the “Air Conditioner Wall.” For more pics and video see Buzzaurus

Twenty years ago, a Cambridge University anthropologist became the first to sound the alarm.

'In 1992 he wrote the paper "On Condis and Coolth" in the academic journal Energy and Buildings, slamming air conditioning addicts. He labelled them "condis", and their preferred refrigerated climate, "coolth", arguing AC was the ultimate example of needless luxury in an already gluttonous society. In an elegant, influential tirade, Prins warned of worsening "global warming", a term so rarely used at the time that it still warranted inverted commas.


'Prins...once compared the Western world's AC addiction to drug users' crack cravings. "Once one's body has become addicted to air-conditioned air, one has extended one's range of basic, physiological human needs beyond food, shelter and warmth to an acquired need: Coolth," Prins wrote.'

This I learnt from an excellent article by Rob Sharp for The Independent entitled 'Air Conditioning: Cold Comfort, published in 2010 to coincide with the launch of  'Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World ' by Stan Cox which brought wider public attention to the problems associated with the increasing use of air-conditioning units in the US but also globally - particularly in India and China.


Cox revealed that 20 percent of electricity consumption in U.S. homes  - half a trillion kilowatts per year - is being used for air conditioning. This is as much electricity as the entire continent of Africa uses for all purposes. But the real problems now lie in Asia.


Cox told WBUR that there would be a 12-fold increase in electricty consumption for air conditioning in India from 2005-2020. He said in Mumbai alone, they are already seeing 40% of the electricty generated being consumed for air conditioning.


The latest figures show that air conditioning sales in India and China are now growing at 20 per cent a year. In 2011, 55% of new air-conditioning units were sold in the Asia-Pacific region which is now the industry's new production base. In 2011, China was buiklding more than 70% of the world's household air-conditioners for domestic use and export.


As if all this was not enough cause for concern, the New York Times has revealed a far more urgent problem than energy use. The most common coolant used in air-conditioning units - an inexpensive gas HCF-22 - has an effect on global warming which is 2,100 times that of carbon dioxide. [The Washington Post says 4,470 times]

As you may recall, concerns about the damage to the ozone layer led to the 1987 Montreal Protocol which succeeded in virtually eliminating the use of chloroflourocarbons (CFCs). [See Previous Post: Montreal Protocol: The World We Avoided]

 As a result, CFCs have been replaced in air conditioning units and many other appliances by HCFCs which are only mildly harmful to the ozone layer. Sales of these and similar gases have doubled in the past 20 years.

According to the New York Times, 'leading scientists in the field have just calculated that if all the equipment entering the world market uses the newest gases currently employed in air conditioners, up to 27% of all global warming will be attributable to those gases by 2050.'


The full and more complex version of this story is here:
'Cooler Homes, Hotter Planet' by Elisabeth Rosenthal and Andrew W. Lehren. INew York Times 1 July 2012]

See related and earlier story: CFC Replacements Intensify Climate Concerns' by David A. Fahrenthold [Washington Post. 19th July 2009}


Additional sources: Here is an interesting 40min radio interview with Stan Cox on Boston's WBUR station in May 2010. Read a good Q&A interview with Cox by Dan Watson, published in Grist: 'How Air Conditioning is Baking Our World.'

SILVER SCREEN: FILM/A VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION

This is the 300th title in Oxford University Press’s excellent ‘Very Short Introduction’ series of pocket books. [Have previously reviewed MEMORY and am planning to tackle ISLAM next]I have been fidgeting with this book for several weeks. Initially I found it strange and bewildering, pretentious and exasperating. I have ended up full of admiration for what is one of the most unusual books I have ever read on film.

Its author Michael Wood is Charles Barnwell Straut Professor of English and Professor of Comparative Literature at Princeton University. He has form in this field having previously authored ‘America in the Movies’ and a book on Luis Bunuel.

SILVER SCREEN: PALERMO SHOOTING

Occasionally a movie comes along that switches on a light in your brain. ‘Palermo Shooting’ is, for my money, Wim Wenders greatest movie to date – or is his other greatest movie along with ‘Wings of Desire’, to which it forms a companion piece. Its dedicated to the memory of Bergman and Antonioni. Its about photography and death amongst other things.

What makes it good? A strongly constructed original story, gripping, deep, profound and unexpected. Fantastic cinematography and extraordinary visual treats, wonderful colours, powerful imaginary sequences interspersed with lovingly constructed views of the city of Palermo. Powerful characters, great performances. Fantastic technology. Amazing soundtrack. Its a summary of all Wenders’ key fascinations – a maestro stroke.

Released in 2008, it is for some reason not out on DVD (in the UK at least) until later this year. I saw it as free streaminga video on LoveFilm.

NME ARCHIVE: MIDNIGHT EXPRESS1

Back in 1978, ‘Midnight Express’ caused a sensation and a great deal of criticism over its negative portrayal of the Turkish people who, in the film, are all ugly and sadistic. This set of posts reprints articles I wrote at the time for the NME and tells you what has happened since. There’s also some interesting history stuff about what was going on in the background.

MIDNIGHT EXPRESS 2: INTERVIEWS

This is the first reprint of a piece that ran in the NME on August 19th 1978 under the headline ‘The Long Road From Turkey to Hollywood’ for which I interviewed Billy Hayes and the actor Brad Davis who played him in the film. Present on that day were the director Alan Parker, the co-producer David Puttnam, the film critic Dilys Powell and other luminaries.

MIDNIGHT EXPRESS 3: DRUG PRISONERS

In the following August 26th issue of NME I wrote this piece which looked at the plight of British drug prisoners in foreign jails.  For this reprint I have added photos and other material to make it more understandable to modern day readers:
 

MIDNIGHT EXPRESS 4: ALAN PARKER

This interview with Alan Parker was conducted in July 1978 by my friend and colleague David Brittain, who has given his permission for its publication. It was recorded at a time when the film was already causing considerable controversy. Aspects of this are reflected throughout the conversation in which Parker contradicts himself on the issue of the film’s anti-Turkish sentiments. The interview has been edited to improve clarity and readability.

MIDNIGHT EXPRESS 5: UPDATES

Billy Hayes is now 65  and has made a career as an actor/writer/director. See IMDB for details.
During the 1999 Cannes Film Festival, Alinur Velidedeoğlu, a Turkish advertiser, met Billy Hayes by chance and interviewed him on the film Midnight Express.

• Interview on YouTube  
• Interview on YouTube Part 2 

MIDNIGHT EXPRESS 6: DRUG GEOPOLITICS

This remarkable document by Jorrit Kamminga gives a detailed view of what was going on behind the scenes of ‘Midnight Express’ between the US and Turkey during the 1970s concerning the struggle to control the opium trade. What follows is a broad brushstroke summary with some material from other sources. You can download a pdf of the full report here.

BIT TRAVEL GUIDE: OVERLAND TO INDIA – AND BEYOND….

ON THE HIPPIE TRAIL is an excellent site by Hans Roodenberg

Regular readers of THE GENERALIST will know we have been drawing together information on the BIT Travel Guides produced in the 1970s. [See PREVIOUS POSTS below]
We are happy to report that we now have the April 1972 edition of ‘Overland to India – and beyond…’ thanks to Generalist reader Gian Paolo Chiari. Its a 20pp mimeographed and stapled document dated April 1972 which was available at the ‘RIP-OFF PRICE’ of 50p.

70s CULTURE: BITMAN1

THE GENERALIST ARCHIVE has also received from Gian Paolo Chiari a rare copy of BITMAN 1, dated May 1970 – a 40pp mimeographed and stapled publication. The intro explains all:
BITMAN is the degenerate offspring of BIT which disclaims all parental responsibility.
BITMAN is sure that words are confusion but will not fight off words that go to make up necessary bits of INFORMATION such as those which help make contacts & build circuits & blow minds & get projects off the ground.

THE GENERALIST IS 7

 

THE

GENERALIST IS

SEVEN YEARS

OLD THIS

MONTH!

Thanks to all my readers worldwide for your continued support. Heading for 100,000 hits this year.

INSIDE DOPE: MIKE JAY - DRUG HISTORY AND THE AIR LOOM

There is a huge literature on the history of drugs yet little of this knowledge has permeated into the mainstream drug debate, which remains locked into emotional polarised discussions between prohibitionists and libertarians, between those who believe in criminalising drug users and those who believe that addictions should be treated as a medical issue. All parties would benefit greatly from reading these two books by Mike Jay.
Mike Jay is an author and historian who has written widely on the history of science and medicine, and is a specialist in the study of drugs in all cultures through time.

EARTHED: STREET LIGHTING

Back in 2008, I briefly became a 'virtual expert' on the subject of energy-efficient lighting when I was hired by the Professional Lighting Designers Association (PLDA) to work on a campaign to question plans by the EU to ban incandescent light bulbs. [See Previous Post: ENERGY EFFICIENT LIGHTING: THE INCANDESCENT STRIKES BACK]
My interest in the subject has been revived following conversations with independent lighting designer Graham Festenstein who has introduced me to the work of another UK trade body  The Institution of Lighting Professionals (ILP) whose members are principally concerned with street lighting. Graham also lent me copies of their official quarterly publication Lighting Journal which makes interesting reading. Here are some of the things I learnt from it.

THE THOUSAND HUTS CAMPAIGN + CABIN PORN

  It was a chance meeting with Bernard, who lives in his own cabin up near the tip of north-east Scotland (as do his kids), which led me to the Thousand Huts campaign – an inspiring initiative, launched in June 2011 by Reforesting Scotland to revive and expand Scotland’s ‘modest’ hutting culture. They believe this campaign could become a social revolution.

‘The aim of A Thousand Huts campaign is to promote huts and hutting - the building and enjoyment of simple structures (usually wooden) for living, working and recreation in the countryside. This will be achieved by securing a change of culture and attitude and reform of the law so as to permit those who wish to build huts and pursue hutting to do so freely and within the law.’

On 23rd June 2011, Alison Johnstone MSP tabled a motion in the Scottish Parliament in support of the campaign

S4M-00380 Alison Johnstone: Thousand Huts Campaign—That the Parliament welcomes the Thousand Huts campaign launched by Reforesting Scotland on 15 June 2011; supports the campaign’s aims – to celebrate, expand, protect and enjoy the use of huts in Scotland for living, working and relaxing in; celebrates the cultural heritage of hutting communities such as that at Carbeth; considers that having access to a hut brings many benefits in terms of physical and mental health as well as spiritual and emotional wellbeing; notes also the recreational and play benefits that the experience of using huts brings, particularly for people on low incomes; supports calls for changes to the planning system to support hut building; endorses the campaign’s call for better security of tenure for existing hutters; deplores the eviction of hutters such as those at Barry Downs, Carnoustie, and calls on the Scottish Government to support the aims of the campaign and to explore ways in which land owned by it can be used to expand hutting.

The roots of hutting in modern Scottish history stem from an early 20th C working-class movement when small holiday huts began to be built on land close to the industrial cities. In time, some of these traditional sites became hutting ‘colonies’, the best known of which is Carbeth in Stirlingshire.

Hutters also include: individuals who build a hut as a quiet retreat; others who build alternative full-time homes (huts or dwellings) of uncertain legal status; and urban hutters (allotmenteers).

A Huts and Hutters in Scotland research study carried out in 2000 by the Scottish Executive identified a number of structural weaknesses in the sustainability of traditional hutting including an ageing population and poor legal safeguards. Their survey identified just 629 ‘huts’ on 37 sites.

(See: Huts and Hutters in Scotland, Scottish Executive Central Research Unit, 2000.)

To understand the bigger picture, turn to ‘Scotland’s Missing Huts’, an excellent piece by Lesley Riddoch, who did (or is doing) her Ph D contrasting the cabin traditions of Scotland and Norway. Here follows a brief summary:

* Norway has one of the highest second-home ownership in the world with a holiday home for every ten Norwegians.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:Giklingdalshytta_1991.jpg

* The Norwegian ideal is to lead a simple outdoor life and the hytte is central to that. Its is made possible by the ‘historic absence of aristocratic estates.’

* The same attachment to cabins is found in the rest of Scandinavia and across the Northern latitudes. Cabins are also part of the culture of Germany, Czech Republic, Spain and other central and southern European countries.

*By contrast, Scotland has the lowest rates of second-home ownership in Northern Europe – one holiday home per 173 Scots. Lesley writes:

‘There is enough land to accommodate far, far more people in all sorts of huts, cabins, mountain cottages and seaside shacks. So why won't Scottish landowners sell small patches of land? Why won't Scots demand it? Why do Scottish councils discourage hutters? ‘

CABIN PORN Inspiration for your quiet place somewhere.

It may sound like a bad joke but it contains some 40pp of beautiful pictures sent in from all over the world. This pic by Greg Brown shows a hiker’s hut near Arthur’s Pass, New Zealand.