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Als je veel aan je verleden gaat denken, wordt het je heden en kun je je toekomst niet meer zien

29/07/2024

It's at this point is where Fukutsu's story takes a different turn. Elsewhere, this tourism success might have ended in hordes of visitors and piles of litter, such as the beaches in the Mediterranean, or the 11 tonnes of rubbish at the top of Mount Everest. But in Fukutsu, locals prioritised keeping their beaches pristine, and rallied to protect their natural environment from selfie seekers and Insta tourists.
Today, a visitor to this stretch of coastline will likely only see an endless stretch of sand, windsurfers and locals taking their daily walk – along with tourists trying to get the perfect shot. What they won't see is plastic bottles piling up, or crisp wrappers flying through the air. Any stray piece of rubbish will quickly get spotted and picked up.

24/07/2024

While it was just a local secret when she was growing up, in recent years that striking reflective phenomenon, called the Fukutsu Kagami no Umi (Fukutsu Sea Mirror), has become famous far beyond the region, bringing swarms of visitors to this small coastal city.
The area of Fukutsu had already made a name for itself domestically for the beautiful scene of the sun setting over Miyajidake Shrine, which in February and October creates a perfect line of sunlight over the road connecting to the sea. But in trying to find new ways to bring visitors to the area, in 2021 Nakamura and the tourism board began promoting the area in a new way: namely, in encouraging visitors to take and share pictures of the Fukutsu Sea Mirror.

17/07/2024

When the tide is out and the weather conditions are just right, the shores of Fukutsu transform into a 3km, crystal-clear mirror.

"Every morning when I come to work, I look at the ocean and think, 'How is it doing today?'," said Rumi Nakamura. "If the ocean is a beautiful blue, then I feel happy, and if the waves are rough, I feel a stirring in my heart. We [locals] take a lot of pride in the sea, and it's like a part of our family."
Nakamura grew up in Fukutsu, in Japan's southern Fukuoka prefecture, right on the coast. The ocean has always had a special place in her heart; it's where she would play in the sand with her friends and splash around in its waters. But having now spent time on beaches elsewhere in the world, she realised there's something that makes Fukutsu's coastline even more special: the stunning mirror effect that is created along its 3km sands.

02/07/2024

From the Great Stack, I watched as the mainland beaches of Oldshoremore and Polin – 11.5km away as the crow (or rather, the skua) flies – were obscured from view by the haar (sea mist) rolling across the water. By the time I'd walked to the cliffs at Geodh' na Goibhre, 600m further on, the thick white wall of fog had reached the island and I had just long enough to locate the orange flash of a puffin beak before the haar played a magician's trick and made the cliffs disappear from sight.

26/06/2024

Accommodation is in bunk beds in a simple, two-roomed mixed-sex hut, set some distance from the paths visitors use. Volunteers have to bring enough food with them to the island to cover at least their first two weeks; the nearest shop is in Scourie, which can be reached on a 3.5-mile walk across rather rough moorland, but being able to do so relies on the weather to be good enough for the ferries to run.
While I was on the island, Higgins-Washbrook was busy training up the newest volunteers so they could help with the ferry unloading and loading; volunteers also monitor the seabird populations, clean the beaches and maintain the boardwalks.

21/06/2024

At Puffin Bay – a misnomer, given it isn't where those little birds nest – on the north coast, the land suddenly gave way to sheer, rocky cliffs of dark Torridonian sandstone, carved out into caves and skinny sea stacks and constantly circled by shrieking kittiwakes. A golden eagle soared overhead, pursued by a raven and seemingly unaware of the small crowd gawking excitedly up at it through binoculars.
It is, however, the promise of puffins that brings many visitors out to Handa. Just 400m west of Puffin Bay is the more appropriately named Great Stack, a large sandstone tower just offshore where many of the island's migratory birds come to live and breed. Even though it was early in the season when I visited, its ledges were already filled with countless squawking seabirds: kittiwakes, guillemots and razorbills, for the most part. But it wasn't long before a ripple of excitement travelled through our group of spectators when someone spotted the tell-tale orange feet of a puffin.

17/06/2024

Every spring, almost 100,000 seabirds – guillemots, great skuas, razorbills and puffins – descend on the small island of Handa, just off Scotland's far north-west coast.

Handa Island can be glimpsed from many points among the coastline of far north-western Scotland, but its proximity to the mainland means that unless you know what you're looking at – or have a map to hand – you may not realise it's actually an island. At its nearest point, just 300m separate it from the rest of the country; close enough that you might be tempted to think, on a sunny day, to swim out to it, were it not for the chill of the water.

10/06/2024

Through her social enterprise Majik Water, co-founder and chief executive Beth Koigi manages about 40 atmospheric water generator units across arid and semi-arid regions across Kenya, using a cooling and condensation-based techniques to capture moisture from the air.
Founded in 2017, Ms Koigi was inspired to start Majik Water after experiencing water scarcity for the first time during a drought when she was studying in Nairobi in 2016.
While many visited a nearby river to fetch water for cooking, drinking and washing, Koigi says she couldn’t bring herself to drink the contaminated water.
“It made me realise that you take for granted water as it’s always there.”

04/06/2024

Water shortages are not new, but many countries, especially in the global south, are experiencing climate change-related intense drought and flooding that contaminates water sources.
More than 50% of the global population – four billion people - experience water shortfalls at least once a month, while by 2025, 1.8 billion people are expected to be living in countries or regions with “absolute” water scarcity, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Could atmospheric water generation technology be the answer? Energy efficient – it can be powered by renewable sources – it’s one way of providing a fresh source of water without the need for traditional water infrastructure, making it an attractive option in remote locations.

29/05/2024

When a severe drought hit the Indian city of Kozhikode, also known as Calicut, in 2016, residents including student Swapnil Shrivastav had access to a limited amount of water each day.

“We were rationed to two buckets of water a day, which we collected from water tanks,” he says.
While he says it’s not uncommon for water supply issues to impact parts of India, it was a tough month for Mr Shrivastav and others in the region. “It was a very humid area; it was unmanageable.”
Mr Shrivastav was already interested in water scarcity having won a student competition in 2012 on imagining the future of water in cities, but the experience pushed him to explore solutions.
“One element of inspiration was from Star Wars where there’s an air to water device. I thought why don’t we give it a try? It was more of a curiosity project.”
Several years later, in 2019, that idea led him, Govinda Balaji and Venkatesh Raja to set up Uravu Labs, a Bangalore-based startup.

24/05/2024

Tech giant Google will soon begin making its Pixel smartphones in India, sources aware of the development have told the BBC.
Google is set to manufacture the phones at an existing Foxconn facility in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.
The firm is also set to independently manufacture drones in the state.
India has emerged as a key destination for global firms looking to diversify supply lines outside China in the midst of geopolitical tensions with the West.
Last year, Google had announced plans to make Pixel smartphones in India, beginning with the Pixel 8.
"India is a priority market for Pixel smartphones, and we’re committed to bringing the best of our hardware and underlying built-in software capabilities to people across the country," it said in a blog post.

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