Earth-Touch in-house

Coming soon to Earth-Touch Jun 19 2008

So here’s the plan, we’re going to be merging the blog into our main site http://www.earth-touch.com

What we’ve found over the past few months is that our users are really interested in all the stuff that we do, not just the videos or the behind the scenes stuff, and moving between the blog and the site was just making things a bit too complicated. Our developers are currently locked up in their offices wrestling with bits of code and drinking lots of coffee in order to have this job done in the next 2 weeks.

So until then blog publishing will be a bit thin - but soon we should be able to give you the complete Earth-Touch experience over on our main site.

If you have any suggestions or feedback while we’re doing the build - please drop us a comment.

Earth-Touch in-house

Earth-Touch podcasts chosen as award finalist Jun 10 2008

There’s great excitement in the Earth-Touch camp this week, with the news that Earth-Touch weekly podcasts have been selected as a finalist for a prestigious film award.

The podcasts are competing in the Panda Awards section of Wildscreen 2008, an international wildlife and environmental film festival being held in the UK. They are one of three finalists in the ARKive New Media category.

Earth-Touch editor Brenda Spaan, who submitted the entries, was thrilled to receive the good news. “This is so amazing for Earth-Touch. Wildscreen is like the Oscars of wildlife awards,” she said.

The New Media award “will be given to the project that best explores the interactive potential of digital technology including websites, podcasts, internet TV, DVD special features, mobile technology etc to raise awareness and understanding of the natural world.”

The podcasts entered were Week 39-40 (2007), Week 45-46 (2007), Week 49-50 (2007) and Week 3 (2008). The footage in these packages includes swimming with a southern right whale, wildlife in Ecuador, a flock of colourful bee-eaters in Botswana, African wild dogs, snakes in Thailand, a turtle laying eggs on a beach in Mozambique, dung beetles, sharks, elephants, coral reefs and much more.

The Earth-Touch podcast is a package of digital media automatically sent to subscribers at no cost, showing highlights of the website’s content that week. You can play this selection of top-quality stories on a portable media player or on your computer. The podcast is available in three formats: HD (high definition), SD (standard definition) and iPod. You can subscribe from this page or from the Earth-Touch home page, where the latest weekly selection is featured.

With a record number of 440 entries received from 43 countries, the 2008 Wildscreen event promises top-quality winners.

Film entries have increased dramatically this year, with a wide variety of wildlife films being submitted. The inclusion of two new categories, Environment and People & Animals, has generated added interest.

The Wildscreen awards have replaced the former One Planet Awards, giving filmmakers the opportunity to enter their work in more specific categories.

The full list of finalists in various categories is on the Wildscreen website.

Wildscreen 2008 takes place in Bristol in the UK from 19-24 October. Winners will be announced at the awards on 22 October.

Image © Earth-Touch 2008

Earth-Touch in-house

World Environment Day Jun 5 2008

Today is the United Nations Environment Programme’s World Environment Day – a good opportunity to reflect on the mission and achievements of Earth-Touch.

Earth-Touch is both a company and a concept. We aim to film quality wildlife footage in high definition from the most spectacular locations around the world, and to bring it to our users as soon thereafter as possible. We want to show people the truth and beauty of nature and inspire them to look after the precious yet dwindling natural resources of our planet.

Life on Earth is not a documentary. The Earth is a living organism that responds to each day with a different subtlety. At any moment in time, a complex natural cycle is playing out somewhere on this planet. Earth-Touch strives to capture the best of this activity every day.

We are committed to respecting the environment and we avoid harming or disturbing our subjects or their habitats.

Visit our main website to see the powerful images, sounds and activities we have been privileged to bring you from four continents so far.

The diversity of creatures and habitats in our footage is extraordinary. Here are just a few examples:

Dolphins swimming in the rhythm of the Indian Ocean swell, on South Africa’s coast
Lionesses in Botswana’s Moremi Game Reserve setting off to hunt, leaving their cubs with the male
A pack of African wild dogs moving through the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Game Reserve in South Africa
A male hornbill feeding its nesting mate in a park in Thailand
Elk in the Grand Teton National Park, in the USA
A giant anteater in Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands
The amazing adaptations of creatures on a South African coral reef
The beauty of a dry Namibian landscape

Image © Earth-Touch 2008

Earth-Touch in-house

Out of power … and excuses May 21 2008

I often leave my boss’s office after having a “little chat”, feeling elated, excited, ambitious, like I could possibly make some life-changing statement that would end world hunger. 

I work for Earth-Touch. We are people who simply want to celebrate the beauty of our natural environment, except it isn’t really all that simple. We capture this beauty on film in the field, we edit it as fast as our perfectionist standards allow and then we get it out to the public in real time, a very “what you see is what you get” approach. But that does not even begin to describe what goes on inside our office.

What you don’t see is the editors pacing around like expectant fathers waiting for either the promised power cut (South Africa has been experiencing power shortages), which is running suspiciously behind schedule, or for the kettle to begin boiling again so that the natural order of the office can be restored.

My unnaturally optimistic boss seems to feel that power cuts are a blessing in disguise. He believes they are symbolic of a new era that is being forced to emerge, and after spending half an hour talking to him I am tending to agree. How ironic that we are using energy powering the tools that are allowing this communication to happen, and the faster our global community emerges, promising to enlighten us, the faster we are plunging ourselves into darkness.

As always, there are lessons to be learned from history. In the 1990s Cuba was cut off from the oil market as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union and continued US embargo. Cuba faced food shortages and a transportation crisis. This national emergency could have led to the complete destruction of the economy, had there not been a few dreamers in the crowd.

There was an almost overnight shift from agri-business to small, organic community gardens. Food now had to be grown where the people lived. These individually run gardens actually proved to be more productive per hectare than the large governmental farms, and dramatically decreased pesticide pollution. In three years, 50-70% of all the food cultivated in Cuba was being grown in the cities, in people’s back yards. The lives of the average Cuban actually improved as a result. The quality of food is now better; it is organic and pesticide-free. There is a sense of community. And the land is fertile because of the diversity of crop production.

Granted, I am using one of the boldest social movements in recent history as an example. And yes, clearly I haven’t yet wheeled myself away from my Apple Macintosh and decided to pen these thoughts on a napkin instead, so some of this will smack of hypocrisy.

I am immersed in the capitalist system, conditioned to want more all the time. It’s scary, but it’s not irreversible.

Consumer capitalism is not imbedded in my genetic makeup. I adapted to this, and we are finally coming upon a day of reckoning. We have run out of excuses. Those who have chosen not to care that the demands we are placing on the world are too great are now being forced to care. Yes, architects, automobile manufacturers, cellphone companies and others are all scrambling for greener, cleaner ideas.

So, if power cuts are going to bring South Africans to the realisation that they are connected to everything and everyone by a delicate thread, then let the darkness be the most enlightening period in history! 

– by Leah Buckwalter, Earth-Touch

Image of Earth-Touch staff unplugged © Earth-Touch 2008

Earth-Touch in-house

Earth-Touch launches TV show in South Africa Apr 7 2008

This morning, Earth-Touch launched its first ever TV offering, a wildlife programme called Wild-Touch, on South African television station SABC2.

The programme will air Monday to Friday at 10.30am, and strives to bring viewers beautiful footage of wildlife in its natural environment, filmed in Southern Africa and around the world, within 48 hours. We want to show our viewers the beauty of nature, and to inspire them to protect the natural heritage of our planet.

The programme went live after SABC2’s morning news programme, Morning Live, broadcast live from the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Game Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal, in honour of the launch. World-renowned conservationist, Dr Ian Player, who was a guest on the show, said of Wild-Touch, “This is one of the most important programmes the SABC will ever do.” Player said the programme would help to inspire people to visit national parks and to preserve their natural heritage.

The footage is derived largely from the wildlife footage that the Earth-Touch film crews send in to us daily. This morning’s show featured buffalo in Botswana, geometric and honeycomb moray eels , clownfish and anemones in the Indian Ocean, chacma baboons in Hluhluwe-Imfolozi, and a tarantula spider in Ecuador, South America, among other species.

Catch the show from tomorrow and onwards and let us know what you think by posting your comments here, or emailing us at .

Earth-Touch in-house

Meerkats as social media in action Apr 4 2008

In all of my years in the wilds of the world, and especially in the African bush, I have never encountered a creature that more embodies the idea of a “social media strategy” than the meerkat.

If you look at a group or band of meerkats as a single living organism, you see the constant balancing of powers and position – a self-regulating mechanism which expresses the collective instinct of these remarkable little creatures.

See it for yourself in these Earth-Touch clips:
Meerkats test the boundaries
Meerkats huddle and bond in early evening
Meerkats in motion

– Paul Myburgh, Earth-Touch crew

Image © Earth-Touch 2008

Earth-Touch in-house

A tough day at the office Apr 2 2008

It’s official: I have the worst job in the world.

As a video editor I am required to sit in air-conditioned comfort and view the world through the eyes of the Earth-Touch crews.

I am duty bound to learn about whale sharks, meerkats, carmine bee-eaters and everything else that walks, crawls or swims on this planet.

And when this becomes too much I am forced to stare out of the window at the really shabby view from the South African Earth-Touch office: the Indian Ocean in all its moods.

Nobody said it was going to be easy.

– Kevin English, Earth-Touch

Image © Earth-Touch 2008

Earth-Touch in-house

Downloadable screensavers now available Mar 31 2008

Earth-Touch is now offering visitors downloadable screensavers, featuring the best of our high-quality photographs.

Each month we will be compiling a collection of photographs and converting them into a screensaver, which will be hosted on the blog. March and April’s offerings are already available.

The screensavers, comprising a pick of our favourite photographs from our crews around the world, are available to download for both Mac and Windows computers.

Image © Earth-Touch 2008

Earth-Touch in-house

SA Blog Awards 2008 – only 2 days left to cast your vote! Mar 17 2008

The Earth-Touch blog has been nominated in three categories of the South African Blog Awards 2008 – best SA podcast, best group blog and best green blog.

Please consider voting for us. There are just two days left for you to vote.

Click on the Vote button above or go directly to the voting page.

Earth-Touch in-house

Earth-Touch Flickr group growing rapidly Mar 13 2008

Last month Earth-Touch.com started our own Flickr group, with a design to connect with other wildlife enthusiasts and photographers all over the world.

We have been blown away by the growth of the group. Just 16 days later and we already have nearly 150 members, and 800 photographs added to the group pool which is growing every day.

The group members have contributed more than just images. We also have several discussions on the boil, including one on the controversial topic of animals in captivity.

The quality of images submitted has prompted us to start a “picture of the day” section of the blog, where we feature an outstanding image from the group on a daily basis. Check out all of the “pics of the day” posts.

To see all the pictures contributed, visit our photo gallery.

For social media fans, there is also the Earth-Touch.com Facebook group.