Deep inside a 1,300-hectare rainforest reserve in Ecuador, mere three hours northwest of the equator, you will find Mashpi Lodge, an eco-friendly hotel bursting with activities to teach you about this unique mountain bioclimate and its wildlife – which include cycling along a high wire, listening to frogs and making chocolate.

This being Earth Month, it’s only appropriate that the lodge opened this week for the first guests to enjoy the rich flora and fauna of the bioreserve: colorful butterflies, monkeys, birds, pumas, and orchids galore.

To experience the forest first hand, you can travel along the forest canopy in the “Aerial Tram” – an open-air gondola car – giving you a monkey’s eye view of the treetops and their inhabitants. As you sit in a swiveling chair, for a 360-degree perspective, you can listen to the resident biologist make sense of it all.

Or, for those preferring solitude, climb a ladder and sit on a forest platform, or check out the hummingbird viewpoint (blink and you’ll miss them – they’re the smallest animals, and fastest birds, in the world). Adrenalin junkies can take a zipwire ride through the primeval landscape, or ride an aerial bicycle, designed for two, along a 655-foot-long cable; then cool off in a waterfall. Creatures of the night can go on a nocturnal safari (guided; you don’t want to get lost in the dark jungle). Reptile lovers can learn about frog songs and snake secrets. Or you can just sit in bed and watch it all.

The 22 guestrooms are furnished in a simple, contemporary style, with warm tones, wood and floor-to-ceiling-windows looking onto the rainforest; all have WIFI; suites and bathtubs with views (other rooms have showers). All are TV-less; it’s in a communal area – after all, you’ve got a live-action nature film going on outside your room. There are also outside terraces to tune into the jungle sounds, with secluded yoga-perfect areas; and an extensive library, where you can hear talks from experts.

In the restaurant, ingredients used are garnered from the forest – plantain and chocolate – or locally-grown organic: mandarinas, guavas, naranjillas, squeezed into freshly-made juices. You can gather your own, too – yucca, bananas, palm hearts and coffee, or make cocoa beans into their end delicacies, ripe for eating. After all that culinary excitement, you’ll need to chill out. The spa has a jacuzzi open to the outside and a massage room with treatments featuring jungle ingredients such as earth, stones, herbs and leaves. Swimming is wild, in the rivers.

Mashpi Lodge is working closely with the local community. A quarter of the staff (80% from the surrounding area) will own a stake in the project. As well as being socially responsible, hydroelectric power will be used soon.

Rates from $1,296 per person including tax, transfers from Quito with visits to archaeological sites and museum, and lunch at a volcanic crater, en route; all meals at lodge; guided daily excursions and activities within reserve; rubber boots, rain ponchos and binoculars for your jungle walkabouts (this is a rain forest, after all).

Photos: Mashpi Lodge

Places & Spaces is a travel guide that will inspire you to carve out a vacation on your calendar. All of the gorgeous locations and accommodations in our guide share our concern for the environment. From tent glamping to lavish built environments, fair warning, you’ll feel compelled to pack your suitcase.

The post Places & Spaces: Mashpi Lodge, Ecuador appeared first on EcoSalon.

Beneficial bacteria and other microorganisms that make the world go round.

Our planet is home to about 5 trillion trillion bacteria, a number that seems too huge to contemplate. That may sound scary to people who think of bacteria as nasty little bugs that just want to make us sick, but the fact is, tiny organisms like bacteria, fungi and protists are absolutely essential both to the health of our bodies and to that of the entire planet. Unseen and under-appreciated, these organisms play a huge role in marine food chains, the growth of forests, climate change and our own digestive systems.

Lactobacilli in our digestive systems

We’ve got ten times more bacterial cells in our bodies than cells of our own. In fact, fully 10% of our dried body weight is made up of bacteria, and most of that isn’t the harmful sort that causes infection, illness and tooth decay. Scientists are only just beginning to explore what they’re now calling the “human biome,” and they haven’t yet identified most of the bacteria that our bodies host. But we do know that over 500 species of bacteria take up residence in our intestines alone, and these microorganisms may just be the most important ones in our bodies.

It’s hard to narrow down just which species of gut bacteria is the most important, but there’s one that stands out for its sheer bad-bacteria-fighting power: Lactobacillus acidophilus. This acid-resistant bacterium colonizes the lining of the small intestine, and also covers the lining of the vagina, cervix and urethra. Producing lactic acid, L. acidophilus helps our bodies fight virulent strains of E. coli, Staphylococcus aureas, Salmonella, Candida albicans, Listeria and other types of bacteria that we really don’t want getting comfortable in our bodies. This is exactly why you should be eating foods that contain live probiotics, like yogurt.

Marine bacteria that produce oxygen

Likely the most abundant photosynthetic organism on earth, Prochlorococcus is a genus of tiny marine cyanobacteria with an especially high concentration of chlorophyll. In fact, though you’ve probably never heard of it before, this microorganism may be the most plentiful species on earth, with 100,000 cells found within a single milliliter of sea water. Amazingly, these microscopic bacteria account for an estimated 20% of the oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere, so they provide a lot of the air we breathe. Prochlorococcus are also among the beneficial marine microbes involved in oceanic nitrogen cycles, fixing nitrogen in the water so that the entire food chain can flourish.

Mycorrhizal fungi help feed plants

Nearly every plant growing on this earth is host to parasites called Mycorrhizal fungi. Forming an extensive network of pseudo-roots attached to the plant’s actual roots, these fungi can increase the plant’s water and nutrient uptake between 10 and 1,000 times. Plant roots can’t always take up certain minerals own their own, especially in alkaline soil, but the fungi can access the minerals and make them available to the plants.These fungi can also help protect plants that are rooted in soils with high concentrations of toxic metals, probably because the metals bind with the fungi instead of being taken up by the roots of the plants.

Bacteria that create rain and snow

Microbiologists recently made a very surprising find: living microorganisms that get blown into the sky, including bacteria, fungi, diatoms and algae, can be used by clouds as precipitation starters. One researcher at Montana State University discovered that bacteria was highly concentrated in the innermost core of hail stones, learning that the bacteria allowed the ice to form at warmer temperatures than normal. This discovery will likely spur more research into just how big of a role microbes play in weather cycles.

Protists at the bottom of the food chain

Mostly unicellular, protists have evolutionary histories that stretch back at least two billion years. While some protists aren’t seen as beneficial – like the genus Plasmodium, which causes malaria – these microscopic organisms are a critical part of marine food chains. For example, diatoms, a type of protist, serve as the main base of the food chain in both fresh water and ocean habitats, supplying calories to larger protists which are then eaten by small animals, and so on.

Moss bacteria that help forests grow

Ancient trees aren’t just beautiful examples of the natural world. They’re also hosts to species of moss that contain crucial bacterial which are twice as effective at “fixing” nitrogen as the species that live in the soil. Highlighting the importance of maintaining old-growth trees, especially those in coastal temperate rainforests, a study on these cyanobacteria found that they take nitrogen from the atmosphere and make it available to plants in a highly efficient way that few other organisms can match. That means that old growth trees covered in moss can actually help the forests around them grow.

Bacteria and fungi that break down organic matter

Decomposition is a complex process involving hundreds if not thousands of different organisms, like earthworms, millipedes and maggots. But behind the scenes, it’s really the bacteria and fungi that do most of the work turning dead organic matter, from wood to human bodies, into nourishing soil. Consuming the dead organic matter for energy, bacteria help to recycle nutrients like nitrogen and carbon back into the life cycle.

Microbes that help regulate climate

Aside from seeding clouds with precipitation, microbes play another role in weather and climate: storing and producing even more carbon dioxide than all of the earth’s trees and plants. Microbes help the world’s soils store more than 2.5 trillion tons of carbon, while photosynthetic bacteria in the oceans pump 55 billions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year – eight times the amount we humans produce through fossil fuel burning and deforestation.

But as the Arctic tundra starts to melt as a result of climate change, microbes have been able to flourish in a previously inhospitable region, breaking down organic matter and releasing even more carbon dioxide. Scientists are still studying just how this will affect the pace of climate change.

Photo: Colin-47

The post 8 Tiny Organisms We Can’t Live Without appeared first on EcoSalon.

As you grow Forever 21, we are watching you and guess what? Most people aren’t. So let’s do a closer inspection and not only ask why consumers still think it’s fun (and okay) to buy throwaway clothes in your fluorescent jungle, but just why you, Forever 21, have slipped under the radar unlike your sister stores H&M, Target, Kohls and Wal-Mart.

First dear reader, I want you to Google, “Forever 21 + environment,” and see if anything good comes up.

Maybe some new eco-initiatives? A juicy sustainability program? Donations to a green charity? You’ll find nothing but bitching about working there and lawsuits.

Is it just me, or does the environment at Forever 21 mean you can expect large areas for shopping and a candy-coated atmosphere filled with knock offs from hard working designers who actually design for a living?

And it gets worse.

According to the Wall Street Journal, one of the newest Forever 21’s located in Times Square (which opened last Friday), “will be the brand’s biggest location, taking over the space of a former Virgin Megastore. The store spans four floors and the equivalent of 1.5 football fields. The modestly sized street-level entrance gives way to three sprawling subterranean floors, with 151 dressing rooms and 32 cash registers.”

It’s hard to make out what we’re supposed to do with you, America, waiting in lines like cattle to be let in the glossy new Forever 21 doors rife with VOC paints and lead-tainted clothes manufactured in places that aren’t so much gushing oil into the ocean as discharging gallons and gallons of toxic effluent into delicate ecosystems daily with every dyed shirt and distressed denim micro mini.

If you thought about Forever 21’s impact on the environment with distaste like you do for a BP spill, that store would never have opened.

And that’s how dangerous it is. Maybe that’s all the Gulf needs, just a little neon to divert you.

Image courtesy of The Wall Street Journal

The post Forever 21 Super Sizes (And We Let Them) appeared first on EcoSalon.

Put a cork in it! That’s the old school way of bottling wine, one that benefited our environment in a variety of ways. But synthetic corks and screw tops were introduced so that getting to that yummy grape was more convenient, and to prevent the wine from spoiling. Some three percent to 15 percent of all bottles sealed with corks go bad due to a naturally occurring chemical compound called trichloroanisole (TCA).

To save the billion dollar industry, wineries around the globe transitioned to synthetic corks made form plastic and now, user-friendly screw caps.

In 2004, Corbett Canyon, the largest producer of U.S. wines adopted easy-to-use screw seals, mostly to respond to the perception of cork causing tainting. But the synthetics are not limited to cheapo wines. RH Phillips and Whitehall Lane converted, as well as Washington’s Hogue Cellars. And it’s not just the inexpensive ones. Napa’s PlumpJack Winery sealed half of its 2000 Reserve Cab ($100 a bottle) with plastic caps.

The threat to the cork industry pits the European farmer against U.S. corporations like Dow (the maker of Agent Orange, pesticides and PVC plastics) which heads a plastic cork research and development group called Neocork, that is backed by California wine makers and reported investors like Bill Gates.

Why the environment is getting screwed:

The Trees

No trees are cut down to make the cork for stoppers. Instead, bark is stripped every nine years or so with hand-held axes and grows back to fortify a thriving ecosystem. Cork oak trees can yield material for up to 200 years if stripped of bark to maintain their health. The cork oak forests offer considerable shelter to plant and animal species in the Mediterranean, including endangered Barbara deer, the Imperial Iberian eagle and the Iberian lynx. Working the land provides jobs for some 100,000 people in Spain, Algeria, Morocco, Italy, Tunisia, France and Portugal. The regeneration of the trees is also effective in absorbing millions of tons of carbon dioxide, thereby offsetting greenhouse gases that are blamed for global warming. The cork industry group APCOR estimates the amount of CO2 emissions soaked up in each summer harvest in Portugal equals the emissions of 185,000 cars.

Emissions and Reuse

Cork has emerged as a popular green material for chic flooring and wall covering, fashion bags, pens and mini boards. It is easy to recycle and re-purpose and inexpensive to produce.  Meantime, synthetic alternatives are difficult to recycle and require much more energy to manufacture. Cork has been widely embraced by green designers and artisans for products that are easy to manufacture and install in our homes. Aluminum screw tops are often tossed out. At one UK site, blog visitors recommended these uses: Cookie cutters for dough, donations to schools for arts and crafts projects, or drill a hole in them for crazy jewelry. In other worlds, the upcycling is slow on the uptake.

Wine preservation versus earth preservation

As Grist so aptly points out, the environmental impact of the plastic screw top has less to do with leaching plastics and dangers to the grape than with “overall manufacturing footprints.” From the health of the trees, to the sustainability of the ecosystem and livelihood of tree farmers, plastic bottle tops are barking up the wrong tree, just as all the plastic conveniences that came before the newest darlings of the beverage industry.

Images: TheBusyBrain, Panda, Atlantawineguy, The Nibble, Corkfloor,

The post Taming of the Screw: Will the Planet Mourn Sustainable Cork? appeared first on EcoSalon.

Remember Tom, as in Tom’s Of Maine toothpaste? Well, Tom got tired of the same old, same old and decided to do something else.

He and his wife, Kate, bought a sheep farm, named it Rambler’s Way and while watching all the pretty sheep with their soft fur a grazin’, got inspired to create an eco-thermal-wear line. Once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur.

It actually took him some time between selling Tom’s of Maine to Colgate in 2006 to now, but he’s back and providing us with more products that have been created with a conscience. In fact, at the Rambler’s Way website we learn that:

• They use organic, no-till, and best management practices.
• They protect wildlife habitat and preserve critical ecosystems.
• They use gentle combs and humane handling systems when shearing and sorting.
• Their environmentally-sensitive enzyme wash is a chlorine-free and patented treatment.
• They use minimal packaging, made from reclaimed materials that are compostable and recyclable.
• They generate their own renewable solar and geothermal energy.
• They use bio-fuels in our trucks and tractors.

Okay, we get it! We’re sold, Tom.

Now comes our giveaway that includes one of these beautiful tops and one of these pairs of bottoms (you choose the pairing) made from Rambouillet wool from the sheep farm in Maine (or from one of the collaborative ranches in Colorado, Montana, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas or Utah). I just got a Rambler’s Way sample the other day to feel and the quality is wonderful.

For complete giveaway rules go here, and you’ll find FTC guidelines here. Good luck!

The post Rambler’s Way Wool Apparel Giveaway appeared first on EcoSalon.

I recently attended the Ethical Sourcing Forum in NYC to gain a deeper understanding of what big businesses are doing in terms of corporate social responsibility (CSR), particularly as it relates to their supply chain.

During the forum, I participated in panels and workshops with the likes of Wal-Mart, L’Oreal, Hudson Bay Company, Eileen Fisher, Jones Apparel, Ralph Lauren, and Nordstrom to name a few. These are all companies who for many years have been manufacturing goods – some domestically, some overseas, and some use both methods. And when it comes to labor rights and ethical sourcing, most of them don’t have the best track record. We all remember when the curtain was pulled back on Nike in the late “˜90s.

Regardless, I admit there was something special about the event, like witnessing collaborative efforts by activist groups like the Maquila Solidarity Network, and government bodies such as the U.S. Department of Labor working with large corporations to solve their really big problems.

You may have gathered from my writing thus far, that there are some things I feel troubled about. Although my attempt to get closer to the truth around ethical sourcing was not in vain, a whole new set of questions came up for me during the forum.

1. Should I applaud these companies for finally getting around to cleaning up the very messes they created?
2. Do their efforts now absolve them of past actions?
3. Can I (and others) truly forgive and forget their history?

It is clear these companies aren’t doing enough. Not when you consider how much power they actually have to affect real change. On the other hand, they are the first to admit that they can be doing more. They just think this is a good place to start. Do you agree?

I would like to see more discussion around environmental impacts.

Let’s talk about deforestation and pollution, waste, the use of toxic chemicals, destruction of entire ecosystems and communities. When is that conversation going to take place? And what about that third, and lesser known “R” called reduce? Obviously this is not a word or topic of discussion at forums like the ESF, because at the end of the day, these corporations want us to do the exact opposite. They want us to consume more and more of their products.

I remember reading, “You can’t have a sustainable world without a sustainable Wal-Mart”. And while I totally get this statement, I’m not entirely convinced. A big part of me dislikes the fact that the Wal-Mart’s of the world exist in the first place.  But the reality is they do. And unfortunately, millions of people shop there every year.

Images: Mountain Top Removal Mining and kevindooley

The post A Sustainable World = A Sustainable Wal-Mart? appeared first on EcoSalon.