Earth Touch Blog

From the field

Decompression depression Apr 9 2008

Hatched turtle eggs?

No. Imploded ping pong balls. Another one of my “home-cooked” inventions went wrong yesterday as I landed on the sand next to the Black Coral tree in 30m (98ft) of water off Sodwana bay.

From the field

Into the future with a ping Jan 30 2008

Can you imagine my alarm when I was recently informed that I would have to know how to “ping” a satellite as part of my job description?

My friends know that if it was left to me to invent the wheel, for example, humankind would have to wait for many more centuries. I am one of those people who are good at using technologies once I have been given the “know-how”. But I’m not good at inventing anything myself, nor do I have the patience to spend hoursworking out how to engage these systems.

So I was relieved to hear that I would be trained and equipped with the skills to do the pinging.

Earth-Touch in-house

Earth-Touch is on YouTube Oct 1 2007

Did you know there’s a way you can get even more out of Earth-Touch? On YouTube you’ll find preview video clips made by the Earth-Touch crew in their various locations, such as the Cuyabeno Reserve in Ecuador’s jungle, the Kalahari Desert in Botswana and along the coast of South Africa.

Did you know?

Did you know? Amazon Basin Sep 28 2007

The Amazon Basin in South America covers some 6.7-million square kilometres (2.6-million square miles), which is more than two-thirds the size of the USA. It produces about 20% of the world’s oxygen.

Featured on Earth-Touch

Tropical rainforests of Ecuador Sep 14 2007

We welcome footage of tropical rainforests shot in Ecuador, broadcast on Earth-Touch for the first time today.

Featured on Earth-Touch

Coming soon: Scenes from Ecuador Sep 13 2007

The culturally and environmentally diverse country of Ecuador in South America is the next location Earth-Touch will be screening footage from.

From the field

Do or die? Sep 10 2007

By Andy Crawford, field crewNature is harsh. Sometimes exceedingly so. This is obvious to anyone who has seen the Earth-Touch video clip of the nesting skimmer colony in the Okavango Delta, Botswana, entitled Tension mounts on skimmer bank. The seemingly senseless killing of a two-day-old skimmer chick by an adult skimmer is difficult to watch, and even more difficult to comprehend. Since mentioning this incident to a few people, the question most often asked is, “Why didn’t the film crew help the chick?”

Earth-Touch in-house

What’s in a name? Aug 31 2007

By Reina Luck, editorial team

One of the challenges the editorial team faces on a day-to-day basis is to get our heads around some of the strange and confusing names that we humans have given to the various species which our film crews encounter.

From the field

Hiding out Aug 27 2007

By Andy Crawford, field crew

Filming wild animals is often difficult as they tend to react to a human presence. In order to capture their ‘natural’ behaviour, one often has to find inventive ways of going unnoticed.

Wildlife news from around the world

New footage from Florida, USA Aug 15 2007

Earth-Touch now has a crew in the United States of America. Yes, we have a field crew in the States who have already started delivering beautiful footage all the way from Florida.

Earth-Touch in-house

Different by nature Aug 6 2007

By Reina Luck, editorial team

Just as the locations where Earth-Touch’’s field crews film are cross-sections of nature’s diversity, the Earth-Touch team is a microcosm of human diversity. We have an assortment of personality types working on the project. Daily we run the gamut of interacting with anxious over-achievers, cool-cat creatives, adrenalin junkies (the film crews), thinkers, doers, drivers, followers and the good old plaintive perfectionistas who keep us all honest and in line.

Admittedly this sounds like a bit of a motley crew – but, as in nature, it’s the very diversity of the team in this unique human ecosystem that is our biggest asset. One person’s weakness is another’s strength: together we are far more than the sum of our parts.

Earth-Touch in-house

Another world Aug 2 2007

By Richard Frank, editorial team

It never ceases to amaze me how different life is under the water. Except for the effects of global warming, over-fishing and the odd shipwreck, the underwater world is untouched by humans. We are mere observers and are likely to always be – it’s just too difficult to colonise the oceans. Thank goodness.

Earth-Touch in-house

Earth-Touch field crew VS the crew of the Black Pearl (Pirates of the Caribbean) Jul 23 2007

By Brian Palmer, head honcho

They might look pretty similar, and smell the same after a month or two in the field, but there are some essential differences:

Earth-Touch Field Crew
Crew of the Black Pearl

Featured on Earth-Touch

Sardines canned for this year? Jul 23 2007

By Reina Luck and Tara Turkington, editorial team

Sardines? What sardines?

It looks as if for the second year in a row, the anxiously-awaited sardine run up the east coast of South Africa is doomed to become a non-event. While the water stays stubbornly warm, the sardines stay put.

From the field

Feeding time Jul 5 2007

By Graeme Duane, field crew

Hmmm, time to feed, are we talking about lions, sharks or satellite dishes here? I guess all three if you’re in the field. For me the great whites are easier to deal with than Jacque’s dish, which I have to use to serve my footage.

From the field

On not using deodorant Jul 5 2007

By Pierre Minnie, field crew

It took me a while to realise why I had felt uncomfortable on my first filming assignment to the raw and natural environment of the Okavango Delta in Botswana.

Earth-Touch in-house

Welcome to Earth-Touch! Jul 4 2007

By Richard van Wyk and Brian Palmer
(Earth-Touch head honchos)

It’s taken many years to finally arrive at this point – the test launch of Earth-Touch.com, to a group of 100 friends, relatives and generally clever people we’d like to associate ourselves with, and whose opinions we value. Earth-Touch strives to connect people better with the natural world as it is now so that they can marvel at its beauty in a medium - the world wide web - that is more immediate, personal and interactive than a TV set or a cinema screen.