The Netherlands: Rising water

We hear a lot of about global warming buy an entire country in danger of sinking? 

That's what they are worried about in the Netherlands, global warming is expected
to cause the sea level to rise between for inches and three feet this century, so it is
no wonder the Dutch take climate changes very seriously. The Dutch have long
been at war with water with half of their country below sea level, they've Built
elaborate dikes and windmill systems to preserve their farmland. But climate
change and rising seas are causing the Netherlands to sink even more and
scientists are worried that dikes and gates may not be able to hold the water much
longer.

J.H. Van Der Vliet

Because what we think that will going to happen is that there will be a climate
change, which now starts already a little bit, and this will cause not only the sea to
rise, but also give heavy rains in winter, but also drier summers.

 Well, imagine that the Dutch people, they already struggling for centuries with the
sea, the North sea, which is our border to the North Sea and we have experienced
many, many floods, taking away the lives of hundred thousands of Dutch people
so, coastal defense, it simply had to become a Dutch discipline, because even
nowadays, half of the country is below sea level. And that will become worse if the
greenhouse effect really takes place, as forecasted by the scientist.

Thirty of forty percent of the country’s land was created by man, pumping water out
from marshlands, but as water was pumped out, the land settled lower and lower.

Today more than ten million people live below sea level, on land that only stays
dry because of the constant work of pumps and dikes. One idea has been
radical.. instead of struggling so hard. Why not give some of the country back to
the sea?

We always struggled, we always fought the sea. But that might be quite stupid in
future. It might be necessary to give a lot of land back to the sea because the sea
and the rivers simply need space.

The idea is to let water back into hundreds of miles of the lowest-lying farm land.
These new flood control lakes could also be used for recreation and wildlife.
Dikes would be moved inland, opening large areas of sand dunes to the tides.

We have to be creative, it is possible to built floating houses. We do it now in

Ljberg, near Amsterdam, there´s a new part of city, and parts of it will be floating.
If you see it, you don’t see it’s a boat, it’s a big house, with a roof and
everything. People like to live near the water. But after all the work it took to get
rid of the water in the first place, there is resistance.

We have an old generation that has suffered flooding and that is convinced that the
only way to live in Holland is really flight the water and build dikes as hard as you can.

But Holland also has a younger generation who look at water as something which
brings pleasure and which brings a pretty landscape
 Faces of India - National Geographic

My name is Steve Mc Curry, I’m a photographer. I started photography career in college,

when I got out of school the first job that came along was working on a newspaper, but my
real ambition was to find a profession hopefully in photography which would allow me to
travel and see the world.

I've been working almost continually with National Geographic for thirty years.

There's no place in the world that has the depth of culture like India.

* For National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry India is one of his favorite
subjects. Full of color and culture, including some remote villages, Rajasthan is a
large Indian state north of Mumbai on the Pakistan border, home to some nomadic
shepherds.

It's really like going to another planet. The landscape, the way people dress, their
traditions, the religion, the music, the food. Almost everything about it is kind of
strange and also very wonderful. The people are very gentle and hospitable, so I feel
very comfortable in Rajasthan, I feel at home.

* Once the big excitement of Steve's visit dies down a bit, he is able to walk through the
streets and meet the villagers.

The people here are very interesting and very visual, some of the nomads are
entertainers, snake, charmers, they tell stories, they're fortune tellers, so that's their
job to amuse people, but now they're having to find new ways to make a living.

I think I'm naturally a shy person and my first choice is not really to go up and confront
people and talk to people and ask people if I can take their picture. But it's something that I
have to do and once I kind of get warmed up, once kind of the wheels start to move, then it
become very natural and I'm very happy and very interested in meeting people and talking
to villagers.

I want him to come to New York. I could be his agent. He tells fortunes, he does magic
tricks, he is a snake charmer.

I think we could work together.

I think it's the whole face that tells a story. It's not just the eyes or the other features; I think
it's the totality of the particular look. Somehow it all kind of works together to tell a story.
It's not one particular feature; it’s all of them working together,
 PERUVIAN WEAVERS

In a small village high in the Andes it all starts with the sheep just one that loses its warm
winter wool, first a few people from the village or villagers catch the sheep and
prepare the night then they carefully tie up the sheep so that it can’t move finally
they use the knife to cut the sheep’s winter coat of wolf after that one of the newest
and most important industries in chinchero begins the methods they use are
traditional but these villagers are part of something new the world they’re collecting
is for new and different business a Weaver’s cooperative that the women here
manage every Monday and Saturday 46 women and girls cut wool from their sheep and
llamas then they spin it into yarn for making cloth no the cai Anupa is the leader for the
center for traditional textiles which manages the cooperative.

Nilda: Any of my age in my town was learning to weave so it was kind of sad that the
beading was disappearing so because that I always my dream was that the younger
generation should learn so that we may in one day

Nilda grew up in the Indian countryside where many of the men are farmers.

Nilda: Chinchilla is a farming village where the best I’m the same because I am from
this village but we are best predictors of the potatoes how many beans like quinoa
barley

Farming has long been a tradition in chinchero many farmers here continue the
traditions of the Inca people who lived in the Andes for centuries however farming
no longer brings in enough money to support a whole family here so with the
changes in the economy traditional ideas are changing too until now it’s always
been the men who have farmed and the women, the men who have farmed and the
women who have cooked and cared for children they have also taken wool from the
Sheep and woven it into cloth it’s this weaving that’s now becoming more and more
important.

Nilda says that these women weaver’s are becoming the main economic supporters
of the family as an example, she tells of one woman whose husband has started helping
with the sheep she explains that this wasn’t very common in the past men only farm the
land didn’t help with the weeding Nilda: but today this group of the ladies you know can
make not a lot of money but a reasonable amount of money

now in chinchero weaving isn’t just a tradition it’s a way to make money and live
well weaving has also become more important for the culture of chinchero it has
become a way to make the textile tradition stronger and to keep a part of the past
alive
Guadalupe: I learned when I was in the third grade of school with very basic weaving
today read blankets shawls ponchos and prepare my own yarn older women

now teach the younger girls the goal is to bring back the strength of the textile tradition of
the past they want to keep the peruvian weaving traditions alive as the young women of
chinchero learned to leave they also learn to be self-sufficient they can sell the blanks and
clothes that they make in their free time

ñina: do my weaving in my house in the afternoons and early morning and here on
Monday and Saturday.

Weaving groups like the chinchero co-coperative are giving new life to the textile tradition
in the end their co-coperative may prove that many threads together are stronger than one
alone