As we count down to the 2008 Rolex Awards for Enterprise, Earthwitness takes a look at three winners from the past: Brad Norman, Chandra Shroff and Zenón Porfidio Gomel Apaza
In 1976, to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of its greatest innovation, Rolex established the Rolex Awards for Enterprise. The awards’ aim is to encourage a spirit of enterprise in visionary individuals worldwide. The Rolex Awards for Enterprise are now held every two years, the thirteenth such ceremony to be held in Dubai on 18 November 2008.
The Awards are open to everyone, regardless of age, country or background, who can make a submission of their own ideas and proposals. Ten Awards will be made by an independent jury of experts. Five will be named as Laureates, those who present the most exceptional projects, and they will each receive USD100,000 and a specially inscribed gold Rolex chronometer at the official awards ceremony in Dubai. The next five best projects will be awarded Associate Laureates, receiving USD35,000 each plus a steel-and-gold Rolex watch. These awards will be made separately in their home country.
BRAD NORMAN - AUSTRALIA LAUREATE
Establish a global photo identification network to help conserve the whale shark, the world’s largest fish
Impelled by a love of the sea and its largest fish, the elusive whale shark, marine conservationist Brad Norman has created a photo-identification system to assist its conservation. Based on a pattern-recognition method originally invented to study constellations in the night sky, the system will soon enable scores of coastal communities and thousands of individual divers to gather information about this gentle giant of the seas. The images they provide will help scientists understand its mysterious way of life and protect this charismatic species.
STARS IN THE OCEAN
Before the swimmer’s eyes, glowing flecks shine like stars eerily transposed into the depths of the sea. Through a dark-blue veil of water, a huge shape gradually resolves itself, rising slowly and majestically towards the surface. After hundreds of sightings, Brad Norman’s blood still thrills as the great, spotted whale shark comes fully into view, gliding effortlessly forward, its pale, metre-wide mouth agape to scoop up thousands of litres of protein-rich sea water. “When they are down deep, they look like a star field under water. As you swim above, the shark’s body seems to disappear and its white spots light up like stars in the night sky. It’s an awe-inspiring sight.”
The imagery illumines the abiding passion of this 38-year-old Australian naturalist who has dedicated most of his adult life to the pursuit, identification, understanding and protection of the world’s largest fish, Rhincodon typus, the aptly named whale shark. Reaching 18 metres in length, the huge beast resembles nothing so much as “a bus under water”, Norman says. Yet an animate, placid, occasionally inquisitive bus, pursuing its mysterious life across tens of thousands of kilometres of open ocean.
First recorded in 1828, only 350 whale-shark sightings were recorded in the ensuing 150 years. Recent growth in underwater tourism has brought a surge in sightings. Yet the whale shark remains elusive, and the World Conservation Union (IUCN), which engaged Norman to assess the species, regards it as “vulnerable” to extinction. It is protected in only a handful of countries.
The whale shark is one of only three sharks that are filter-feeders, using gill rakers to scoop up krill (shrimp), small fish and other tiny ocean life as its sole source of sustenance. It has never been known to attack humans. Tagged individuals have been tracked for 13,000 kilometres across the Pacific, and 3,000 kilometres in the Indian Ocean. It has an uncanny instinct for locating food concentrations. It is sighted at more than 100 places around the globe – including the Philippines, South China Sea and Indonesia, off India, Australia and Africa, off Mexico, the United States and the Galapagos Islands (Ecuador). Yet it remains so scarce almost nothing is known of its abundance, breeding or habitat preferences. It has few natural enemies, though orcas and predatory sharks may attack young whale sharks. Now, however, the whale shark has joined the long list of species to suffer the ravenous human appetite for seafood. Its flesh, fins and body parts are appearing in growing quantities in Asian markets.
Brad Norman is determined to find out far more about these fish. His visionary plan to involve thousands of ordinary people worldwide in the photo-monitoring and conservation of whale sharks, significantly enhancing knowledge of this elusive species, has earned him a Rolex Award for Enterprise.
Since his first awed encounter in 1995, in Western Australia’s Ningaloo Marine Park, Norman has striven to uncover all he can about this lordly animal, whose ancestry extends back 400 million years. “My first encounter seemed quite surreal. There was this huge, living thing coming directly towards me. My eyes were popping out of my head. I almost ‘swallowed my snorkel’. I was screaming silently to myself in excitement,” he recalls. “Yet, oddly, I wasn’t afraid. I just floated there, too amazed to swim after him.”
As his encounters multiplied, Norman grew to appreciate many features of the whale shark. Its economical 1-to-1.5 metres per second cruising speed was perfect for observation. Though able to dive as deep as 1,500 metres, it often cruised conveniently near the surface. Its placid temperament made it safe compared with other big sharks. Yet it could also be dynamic, “I once observed seven in an area where there was a huge swarm of krill, a real soup of food in the water. They were charging through it, mouths open, thrashing around. That was a big adrenalin rush. I never felt frightened, but I did keep my arms down and made myself small.
“Even with something as big as a whale shark, you’re not afraid – and nor is it. It is a calming experience. You feel at one.” Swimming alongside its head, Norman has seen its little eye turn, observing him – perhaps a glimmer of acknowledgement. “Maybe it just thinks I’m a big remora (sucker fish),” he laughs. Nonetheless, he respects the shark’s brute power, and has assisted in the drafting of guidelines for divers and tour operators worldwide on how to behave around whale sharks.
Norman’s love of the ocean was born on the golden beaches of Perth, on Australia’s Indian Ocean coastline, where he body-surfed as a youngster. This led to diving and, via a science degree, to a deep interest in marine conservation which he has pursued as a researcher and fisheries management consultant.
His encounter with the whale sharks of Ningaloo was a life-altering experience. The shark was an unknown, and there was little money for its study or conservation. Norman survived hand-to-mouth on sporadic grants, and funded much research himself. Burning the midnight oil, he mounted national and international campaigns for the whale shark’s conservation, emerging as a global authority on the animal and its needs. He helped authorities develop plans for its protection, wrote scientific reports and information for visitors.
Many mysteries are yet to be resolved. While young male sharks gather at Ningaloo, no one knows where the females collect or where the sharks breed. The key to studying their thin, dispersed and cryptic demographics lay in identifying individuals. Norman’s painstaking research proved each has a pattern of white spots on its body as distinctive as a human fingerprint. This gave him the idea of using underwater camera images as a practical, non-invasive way to identify individuals. In 1999 he set up the ECOCEAN Whale Shark Photo-identification Library on the Internet, a global project to record sightings and images.
Despite the growing body of information, Norman had no efficient way to compare shots of whale sharks taken from different angles, under varying conditions and fish postures. In 2002, American computer engineer and fellow diver Jason Holmberg contacted him. After discussion, Holmberg agreed to help organise and automate the ECOCEAN database. He explained the photo-ID problem to a friend, NASA-affiliated astronomer Zaven Arzoumanian, whose colleague Gijs Nelemans brought to their attention a technique used by Hubble Space Telescope scientists for mapping star patterns, known as the Groth algorithm, which the team then adapted to map the patterns of white spots on the shark’s hide. It took many months of intense mathematical calculations and computer programming to refine the algorithm for use on a living creature – but in the end they gained a breakthrough for biology, a reliable way to identify individuals in virtually any spotted animal population. In 2005, the three described their findings in the Journal of Applied Ecology. More than 500 whale sharks have been identified and added to the database using the technique.
For survival, whale sharks depend on huge bursts of tiny sea life which reflect the condition of the oceans and their bioproductivity. Since whale sharks travel immense distances to collect food, the demographics of these fish can be an indicator of ocean health – and of the human impact on it.
Divers worldwide can now follow Norman’s simple guidelines for photographing whale sharks and log their images, activities and locations on the ECOCEAN site, where they are automatically catalogued, matched and, if possible, identified as belonging to a known individual. Each new image will help Norman compile a map of where whale sharks live and their migratory patterns. And contributors receive notification of all past and further sightings of the sharks they photograph. Together, the images are helping to build a global picture of the abundance, health and fluctuations of the whale shark population. “Just about anyone with a disposable underwater camera can now play a part in helping to conserve whale sharks, and so monitoring the health of the oceans,” Norman explains. “It gives people a direct stake in its stewardship.”
With the Rolex Award money, Brad Norman is devoting two years full-time to his project, training local authorities, tourism operators and 20 research assistants around the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans to observe, record, and protect whale sharks. In this way he will develop whale shark photography as a significant tool for conservation.
He will also explain to those who hunt the shark that there is more to be gained by leaving it alive. Ningaloo’s whale sharks draw more than 5,000 visitors a year, mainly from April to June, generating ecotourism worth an estimated USD10 million. A live whale shark earns far more than a dead one. “The whale shark is worth saving – and we can do something about it,” says Norman. “It is a big, beautiful and charismatic animal, and not dangerous. It is a perfect flagship for the health of the oceans.”
CHANDA SHROFF - INDIA LAUREATE
Revive the craft of embroidery to create a sustainable income for rural women in Kutch, India
In a remote part of India, one woman has established a movement to revive a local form of artistic expression, hand embroidery, creating a sustainable means of income. The region of Kutch once had a long and rich tradition of embroidery which made a welcome contrast to the region’s austere landscape. But, from the 1960s onwards, synthetic materials and machine work pushed this craft close to extinction. Acutely aware of its cultural, social and spiritual value, Chanda Shroff is preserving this unique heritage while promoting an exquisite art form and empowering women in highly conservative societies.
STITCH BY STITCH, AN ART IS REBORN
The painstaking and beautiful craft of hand embroidery dates back several thousand years. One of its traditional homes is Kutch, a corner of the Indian state of Gujarat. Known for its intricate and diverse styles, Kutchi embroidery has, since the 1960s, suffered a decline due to a modern emphasis on speed and profit, and a growing reliance on machinery and synthetic fabrics. An Indian woman, Chanda Shroff, aged 73, has worked tirelessly and voluntarily for almost four decades to reverse this decline.
Determined that the traditional techniques of Kutchi embroidery will be handed down to future generations of women, Shroff will use the funding from the Rolex Award to create a mobile resource centre to promote the embroidery. This constitutes the second phase of a two-phase project, aptly called “Pride and Enterprise”, which has its roots back in 1969 when Shroff set up Shrujan – Sanskrit for “creativity” – a non-profit organisation dedicated to helping the drought-afflicted communities of Kutch. Virtually an island, Kutch is bounded to the south by the Arabian Sea and to the north by immense salt deserts. Descendants of immigrants and invaders, its 1.2 million people represent a highly diverse range of ethnic groups and cultures. Yet all these cultures share a rich tradition of embroidery.
For the people of Kutch, embroidery is more than just decoration for household goods, it is an important means of personal, social and spiritual expression. Each piece of intricate embroidery brings creativity and beauty into daily life, providing a welcome foil to the harsh climate and austere landscape. Traditionally, embroidered articles formed an integral part of a girl’s dowry, while for royals and nobles these articles were symbols of status and wealth.
Today each ethnic group and community retains its own distinctive motifs and lexicon of stitches, handed down through the generations in 16 distinct styles of embroidery. While many of the stitches are universal, the craftswomen create unique combinations with a great degree of complexity. Rabari embroidery, for example, is vigorous, with bold shapes and designs taken from mythology and inspired by the desert surroundings. Ahir embroidery is curvilinear in style, animated with motifs such as peacocks, parrots, scorpions, elephants and flowers. Soof embroidery, on the other hand, is a counted thread style which uses a single stitch to create highly geometrical designs. Other styles use mirrors or a form of quilting, and colour selection also differs, Rabari embroidery features earth tones and white, while Ahir embroidery is characterised by dark violet, gold and red.
Shroff, who has a teaching diploma in crafts, started 38 years ago by providing 30 women from one village with raw materials and assistance with designs. With the establishment of Shrujan, women who had never had occasion to mix began working together; over time they found common ground, initially in the sharing of embroidery techniques and designs, and later in shared personal experience. Today Shrujan, based near Bhuj, the capital of Kutch, has directly benefited more than 22,000 women from 120 villages and all castes across Kutch. “Little shoots of inter-caste acceptance have begun to sprout,” Shroff explains. “Just a few years ago, Rajiben, a master craftswoman from the Dalit community (previously considered to be ‘untouchables’) would not have been allowed to step into the homes of the higher-caste women of the Ahir and Sodha communities. Today, after a painful struggle on both sides, Rajiben is accepted as their teacher. Today, they all sit and work together in their homes, exchanging ideas and even food.”
A cornerstone of Shroff’s vision has been an unswerving commitment to the quality that is central to the Kutchi embroidery tradition, despite the conditions in which many of the people live. “I was deeply shaken by the plight of the Kutchi people and especially the women,” she says of her initial encounters with them. “Here were a people reduced to utter helplessness and dependency, even while they possessed in their hands and minds skills such as few others could claim.” Rejecting the modern preference for synthetic materials, the craftswomen primarily use silk and cotton to create high-quality products for fashion and decoration. Each craftswoman is encouraged to stitch her name into each piece of embroidery, and, in doing so, her role as artist and guardian of a unique cultural heritage is reinforced. The national recognition they now receive and the income from the sale of the embroidery have brought them deep respect in their communities. The steady flow of revenue from outside customers whom Shroff has found to buy the products is slowly uplifting the status of women, allowing them to invest in land, pay for health care and improve their families’ nutrition levels.
Pride and Enterprise was conceived when Shroff realised that Shrujan would be short-lived if she could not inspire younger craftswomen to recognise the richness of this ancient craft, “I needed a big idea, an idea at the intersection of conservation, education, enterprise and empowerment; an idea that could light a fire, especially in the hearts of the younger generation.”
The first phase, completed in 2004, was the creation of 1,200 hand-embroidered display panels representing the different styles and carefully stored in the basement of Shrujan’s headquaters. About 600 rural craftswomen took part, creating 90-centimetre by 120-centimetre display panels, each designing between one and four panels. The artists included 85-year-old Parma Balasara, one of the first craftswomen of Shrujan, and about 400 women under 30, with the older artisans mentoring the younger ones.
Each panel took between three months and a year to complete, depending on the complexity of the design, with some incorporating long forgotten motifs. This resource is a celebration of the skills of the craftswomen, a mirror within which they can see themselves as custodians of an artistic heritage.
Richard Franklin, a former head of design at the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of Asian Art in Washington D.C., said of the panels, “These are works of great artistry, and the collection is a breathtaking testament to the aesthetics and vision of the artisans who created them and the tradition they embody.”
The mobile resource centre that Shroff is setting up will take selected panels to the craftswomen, many of whom are not permitted to leave their villages. Trained facilitators will accompany the unit, and videos, photographs and monographs will be prepared for each embroidery style, including demonstrations on how to execute the designs, explanations of the natural and cultural influences that inform these styles, and biographies of the craftswomen.
A preliminary collection of 50 panels has already been taken to nine villages. “This seemingly ordinary act has had a dramatic – almost explosive – impact on the village communities.” Shroff explains. “Exhibiting the panels led the women, both young and old, to look at themselves and their skills in an entirely new way. That Kutchi embroidery could be so rich and diverse in expression, that such exquisite work is possible in present times, that women like themselves could produce such high-quality work – this has been a revelation to the villagers.”
Shroff is also organising self-help groups to train the craftswomen to gradually assume the roles of designers, saleswomen, entrepreneurs and teachers. To date, there are 19 self-help groups made up of 380 women. “I am convinced of the need to develop systems that will eventually allow for the decentralisation from the mother organisation Shrujan,” says Shroff. “I would be most happy if there were no longer only one Shrujan, but instead many mini-Shrujans all over Kutch.” Informal craft schools also feature in Shroff’s plans to overcome the social isolation of the women and to stimulate innovation in the craft. Groups of 15 young women attend the schools for a three-month cycle.
Shroff, who was chosen as a Laureate of the Rolex Awards for her plan to ensure the survival of an exquisite art form in a way that creates a sustainable source of income for the women of Kutch, recognises that her vision is an ambitious one. But, having spent more than half her life working with the craftswomen, she speaks confidently of what they can achieve. “The women of Shrujan are like my own family. We have been through so much together – a war, cyclones, droughts, and most recently, the earth-quake (in 2001). We have learned from one another and always we have found solutions together.” She is determined to make Kutch once again a rich source of traditional embroidery, to bequeath a legacy that will survive for thousands of years to come, a magnificent art form that provides, in her words, “a support system for home-based women, as well as a reminder of the creativity and potential inherent in all women.”
ZENÓN PORFIDIO GOMEL APAZA – PERU
ASSOCIATE LAUREATE
Revive traditional Andean agriculture to enhance food security and strengthen ties between communities
Peruvian agronomist Zenón Gomel Apaza is convinced that modern agricultural methods and technology are reducing biodiversity, depleting the soil and undermining community life, particularly in harsh regions like the Andes where he grew up. He is using ancient skills and know-how from the region to ensure food security in rural communities and guarantee future generations’ access to their rich natural and cultural heritage.
WISDOM OF THE ANDES
Zenón Porfidio Gomel Apaza thought he knew all about farming in 1994 when he packed up his books and returned from his university studies in agronomy to his village in the Peruvian Andes, 60 kilometres north of Lake Titicaca, where his ancestors had tilled the fields for generations. Yet in the harsh Altiplano, almost 4,000 metres above sea level, he realised that the modern agricultural methods he had studied so diligently had often produced a legacy of failed crops, depleted soils and dysfunctional communities. “That was a turning point for me. My professional education didn’t match the reality of the Altiplano,” Gomel Apaza says. “So I decided to unlearn everything in order to let the daily experience of Andean life teach me where to go.”
As he listened to his Quechua neighbours and walked with them through their fields, Gomel Apaza became aware that much of what he needed to know to improve crop yields was present in their ancient culture. This belief was confirmed when he gave courses for Chuyma Aru, an indigenous organisation near Puno, and realised that agriculture could be based on local knowledge. In 1995 in his home village of Pucará, he launched the Asociación Savia Andina Pucará to promote the cultivation of a wider variety of potatoes and other native plants.
For a decade, Gomel and his neighbours demonstrated that diversification of seeds and tubers, along with traditional methods of preparing the soil, enhanced crop and grassland yields. Although the region is economically impoverished, he showed that by reviving the diversity of their natural heritage, rather than resorting to imported chemicals and technology, all farmers could produce enough to feed their families.
Gomel has been selected as an Associate Laureate in the Rolex Awards for an ambitious project to encourage more than 500 families in the areas around Orurillo and Pucará to broaden the genetic variety of their crops. More than 100 village gatherings and other public events will be held for Gomel and his team to share information with farmers. Encouraging agrodiversity, Gomel explains, is a key to combating hunger, “A diversity of plants has more possibilities of surviving adverse environmental conditions. We have very extreme weather in the highlands, and if it gets very cold and you only have one type of potato, you could lose everything. But when there is diversity, some types may die, but not others.”
For example, while most varieties of potato grown around the world belong to a single species (Solanum tuberosum), in the Andes – the potato’s birthplace – about ten different Solanum species are cultivated, and wild potatoes provide over 200 additional species. About 5,000 potato varieties have been identified by the Peru-based International Potato Centre, and scientists say no other major food crop enjoys such genetic diversity. Behind the sturdy tuber’s multiplicity lies the ingenuity of Andean farmers, whose intimate knowledge of mountain agriculture has constantly produced new diversity, allowing them to plant potatoes chosen for the soil’s quality, temperature, inclination, orientation and exposure. For more than 10,000 years, they enriched their genetic stock by swapping seeds. Yet the same farmers who used to harvest several dozen varieties have for years been pressured by agricultural technicians and agribusiness to reduce the types they cultivate. The “Green Revolution” of the 1960s, with its focus on pesticides, machines and highyield hybrids, increased the vulnerability of Andean people by narrowing the genetic base of once self-sufficient farming communities.
For many years, Gomel Apaza’s father grew dozens of potato varieties, some for baking, some for soup, still others for medicinal purposes. But, Gomel says, he embraced the “fad of modern technology and the Green Revolution”, and cut back, cultivating only five varieties. Gomel is undoing the damage of recent years by diversifying what is cultivated, as well as by setting aside natural reserves containing plant varieties, many of which may one day cure diseases.
Like the potato, other tubers such as ocas, izanos and ollucos, as well as grains such as quinoa and cañihua, are also being researched in the Pucará and Orurillo regions, and the project will protect 22 hectares of microhabitats of native plants. Hillsides eroded by inappropriate agricultural techniques will be recovered for use in traditional, environmentally sustainable ways. Gomel is helping to restart regional fairs where farmers gather to exchange seeds and discuss their crops. Besides promoting agrobiodiversity in farmers’ gatherings, Gomel is extending his advocacy into other public realms, using radio spots and working with educational institutions to promote agriculture suitable for the Andes. He is pushing primary schools to expand class curricula and to synchronise school calendars with the long-established, agricultural calendar.
Gomel’s work has attracted support from organisations enthusiastic about his use of traditional methods to solve pressing problems. Heliodoro Díaz Cisneros, a former director for Latin American and Caribbean programmes of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, which supported Gomel’s project in Pucará, says that by encouraging farmers to rely on the knowledge inherited from their ancestors, Gomel “encourages cooperation with neighbours and respect for the environment”.
Embracing the lessons of the past will, Gomel Apaza is convinced, produce more than just more potatoes – it will transform how communities are governed, as neighbours relearn the respect for the earth and each other that local culture emphasises. “Andean agriculture is not a substantial modification of the landscape, but rather a kind of beautification of it,” Gomel Apaza explains, adding that, for him, “the relation between people and nature exists within a framework – based in caring and ritual – of feeling that you belong to all that exists.”
