Melbourne, Florida. Photographer and conservationist Cristina Mittermeier has outdone herself again with the release of Oceans: Heart of Our Blue Planet.  The book is the latest in the CEMEX Conservation Book Series, for which Mittermeier serves as series editor and includes some 19 titles such as Megadiversity and Hotspots Revisited.  The book is a stunningly visual testament to the beauty of our global ocean and is adorned with world-class images of iLCP and National Geographic photographers.  It is also an eloquently written clarion call to our common need to protect the ocean’s wild nature.  The book is a collaboration of many of the world’s leading scientists and ocean advocates, including 7 chapters by the head editors, influential scientists Dr. Greg Stone and Dr. Russell A. Mittermeier.

Although my part was small, I was proud to contribute to the making of this book. Working with long time friend and colleague Roderic Mast and other ocean experts, we present a chapter dedicated to Marine Flagship Species.  For anyone familiar with Rod’s work, the chapter naturally has a strong emphasis on our ocean’s charismatic sea turtles!  But of course, it doesn’t stop there. We cover the gambit of underwater favorites and even talk about uniquely iconic planktonic invertebrates. I hope you get a chance to peruse this beautiful book. In the meantime, check out this highlight reel:

Hollywood, California. Arlo Hemphill played John Needham in the 2008 History Channel documentary How Life Began. Directed by Luke Ellis.

Berkeley, California.  Arlo Hemphill played Adolf Hitler in the 2008 film: National Geographic Ways to Kill Hitler directed by Jon Taylor.

Photo by Rodolfo Werner

Baltimore, Maryland. Is it possible to be happy with this life?  If Gnarly Bay Productions has anything to say about it, true happiness can be found in the wilds of Chile, from the great Atacama to the Pacific coast and remotest Patagonia. In their short film A Story for Tomorrow, we join an adventurous young couple on a epic journey through this South American wilderness, only to learn that it is life’s journey we are actually on.  Our very future poses them the questions that will someday be posed back to us, “Is it possible to be happy with this life?” and “Did you Enjoy your Story?”.  The film is a powerful reminder to embrace this life while we have it, to share it with those we love and to value the wild places of this world that connect us all.  The couple in the story spent 5 weeks exploring Chile and chose to share their private moments with us through this medium.  I for one am glad they did.  I enjoyed their story.  But more so, I am inspired by the wilderness that was their back drop, and in fact the setting for the stories of us all.  This is filmmaking at it’s most powerful, when it moves us beyond ourselves and connects us back to the natural world.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

a story for tomorrow. from gnarly bay productions, Inc. on Vimeo.

Amy of the Tank Bangers. Photo: Tank Bangers

Baltimore, Maryland.  “I wake up every morning thinking of my blue.  No matter where I’m going, I’m headed straight to you.”  So begins the tribute to Our Blue – our watery mother ocean. Created by a team of Red Sea divers known as Tank Bangers, the melodic compilation is the latest in a series of underwater musical videos from a team that has generated a substantial online following on YouTube and Facebook.  Unlike their prior videos, Our Blue is more than a fun video to watch, it’s a promo for an entire record by the group, the proceeds of which go towards ocean conservation efforts.

If you have any connection to the sea at all, I think you’ll find something of yourself in this short piece.  I sure did. I’m hoping to see it as a finalist in this coming summer’s 2012 Blue Ocean Film Festival. Until then, enjoy the video:

Arlo straddled with a peccary kill on a hunt with the Huaorani. Ecuadorian Amazon. 2003.

Beyond all else, exploration is my greatest passion.  It is the process of discovery with risk. It provides the opportunity to experience what few others have and the potential to witness that which no one else has.  It is both the hazy cloud of the unknown and the shining beacon of enlightenment.  And to me it is worth any cost.

Exploration is an art.  Like all forms of art, it is a means of self-expression, discovery and a reflection of reality.  It is also the tool by which I paint the picture of my life. The means through which I tell stories in written word and film.  It is an ever-changing landscape on a kaleidoscope of color, culture, geology, climate and biodiversity.  It is a deep crevasse of self-awareness, the mechanism for finding one’s own place in this world and understanding the texture of our souls.  Nothing shows you who you are quite like that which you are most not.  Exploration places you in intimate proximity with your counterbalance.  It entwines who you are with who you are not, with who you may be and most of all, who you appear not to be, but in fact share almost everything.  In doing so, exploration catalyzes the creation of something new.  This creation is artistic expression of life in its purest form.

A blind river fish of Rio Bameno, Ecuadorian Amazon. Called "Wiami" by the Huaorani.

The Exploration Section of my website is here to further highlight some of the exploratory work that I have been involved with. Some of what is found here may be under represented or not represented at all on my primary curriculum vitae.  Exploration does not always fit into the context of defined work positions or occur on an easily definable linear path.  For example, some topics covered here occurred over the course of years and may span my involvement in a variety of formal positions.

My interpretation of exploration reflects The Explorers Club criteria.  To paraphrase, exploration must entail the process of unique discovery.  It may occur in remote polar regions or in a sterile laboratory, but most importantly is a conscious effort to learn something new on behalf of humanity.  It does not include standardized course work or tourism, as exotic as a trip may be.  Travel must include an applied element of discovery to qualify as exploration.

Unidentified mantis at the Bilsa Biological Station. Mache-Chindul Range, Western Ecuador

Thus, although I have hiked jungles in Thailand and Madagascar, and have dove with great white sharks in South Africa and on coral reefs off Borneo, you will not find mention of those experiences here.  However, you will find a couple topics, such as surfing, which may surprise you.  Surfers are, in my opinion, some of the most under regarded yet most intrepid explorers of our time.  The quest for the perfect wave – or at least a good ride away from heavy crowds – has brought surfers of all nationalities to venture off the beaten path of international travel to go where few others have gone before.  I am proud that a close group of buddies and I have been able to be a very small part of that global adventure.

Please explore the posts in this Exploration Section to learn more on individual topics of which I have had the privilege to be involved in.

Arlo on satellite phone during a 1998 AquaRAP expedition to the Brazilian Pantanal. Photo: Jed Murdoch, Conservation International

White Sands National Monument, New Mexico. Desert terrains often have an other-worldly character to them, but White Sands in southern New Mexico is in a class of it’s own. Ever-moving dunes of pure gypsum sand cover an ancient lake bed for some 275 square miles of desert basin. And these dunes are white as snow. Impossibly white. The snow comparison is an unserving understatement. But what’s whiter than snow? Light and spirit. And the spiritual is what comes to mind watching the sunset over the San Andres Mountains, the last rays of which cast a pink hue to the silky rolling dunes spread out in all directions. A Sahara for the soul, there is an energy here that lies just out of reach, tempting visitors to venture further into the sandy abyss, and luring them to come back.

White Sands at Sunset. Photo by Arlo

This is what happened to me. I first visited White Sands in 2006 with my father on the drive west that brought me to California in the first place. I have wanted to return ever since. To walk barefoot on these cotton dunes, and to take the time of day there to simply breath. To be. And also, as a naturalist, to hopefully observe some it’s unique and cryptic desert fauna. But even the best laid plans can falter.

Boca and I had intended to camp at White Sands National Monument, and actually sleep on the dunes themselves beneath a starry desert sky. The night prior we explored a prehistoric forest where dinosaurs once roamed, the rocky remains of the Petrified Forest National Park strewn haphazardly across the Painted Desert.

After overnighting in a small town called Eagar in Arizona’s White Mountains, we decided to drive south through Gila National Forest. And this was our mistake. The roads were narrow, winding, and poorly marked. We took a wrong turn and ended up on a half day detour, lost amongst the high altitude pine lands of Apache National Forest.

Desert plants at sunset

We didn’t make it to White Sands until just before sunset. We were refused a camping permit. We were too late. But we were also right on time. In time for what nature had intended all along. A spectacular light show for our benefit. Alone and desperately tiny on the mammoth dunescape, we witnessed our solar system’s fiery center dip beneath jagged dry hills, casting a Santa Fe water color mural across the sky and dunes.

Here’s a few photographic remnants of what we saw. The top photo, taken by Boca, is a postcard made with the new Gogobot iphone app. Gogobot CEO Travis Katz liked it so much, he shared it on Facebook. Enjoy what we saw. But what we felt can only be experienced firsthand.

Desert plant at sunset. White Sands. Photo by Arlo

Bighorn sheep at the Grand Canyon. Photo by Arlo

Bighorn sheep, Grand Canyon

Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona. Sure-footed, graceful and family-oriented, the bighorn mountain sheep (Ovis canadensisis) is an iconic image of the American west. Associated with durability and ruggedness, the sheep are nonetheless not always easy to observe in the wild. Regular residents of the Grand Canyon, the sheep are only infrequently seen by park staff and seldom so by visitors. So, when I walked out of the Kachina Lodge on the Canyon’s South Rim Sunday morning and saw a large sheep, I was elated. The animal was not just in plain sight, but was actually standing on the Rim Trail’s stone wall, basking in the morning sunlight.

Boca and I had stayed at this rim lodge the night before and were thus able to spend a good deal of time with the sheep and her family that morning. A herd of roughly a dozen or more made there way from east to west just below the Rim Trail. They would stop to sun, feed, rest and socialize along the way, always precariously balanced between solid rock and a harrowing drop to the Canyon floor. One large ram led the herd and showed nearly constant interest in the hind quarters of a particular, but seemingly unintrested ewe. The other females led the young, consisting of four or five mid-sized juveniles and one small kid that seemed newborn, exhausted and bewildered with life on the edge of the Canyon. It was a beautiful fall morning well spent in the company of the Canyon wall’s wild masters.

A bighorn ram. Photo: Arlo

Rock formations in Mojave National Preserve

Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona. Today was a day of crossing deserts and state lines.  Parched, dry landscapes and obscure Americana dominated our voyage east on this leg of our cross-country journey.  Escaping California offered little relief in terms of change of barren landscapes, although the appearance of giant solar farms was a welcome first.  From the Mojave to the Hoover Dam, and finally the Grand Canyon, some of the south-westernmost stretches of the United States are as filled with historic iconography as they are beautiful expanses of desert wilderness.

Arlo treads safely on the Nevada side of the border

We awoke before dawn in Barstow, California.  I was restless with the presence of the Mojave wilderness all around us and needed to set out early and fast into her dry expanses.  Boca and I choose Historic Route 66 as our path, and journeyed through space and time with near constant reminders of both American and planetary history all around us.  We passed through ghost towns of the 1800s, abandoned highways, boom towns that went bust, and through geologic features that pre-date the dinosaurs.  We witnessed fields of black lava rubble, ancient Joshua trees within high altitude deserts, scattered cacti, and a watery oasis by the name of Lake Mead, of which our own kind has caused to flood the lower end of the ever Grand Canyon.

Moving on to Arizona, we stopped in Kingman, yet another former Route 66 town that has seen better days.  The people there are into their msucle cars, their military and their American flags.  We walked through the old town amidst classic cars and their aging enthusiasts. We stopped in for dinner at the Redneck BBQ, where a live country musician serenaded us to a basket of brisket and the only place I’ve ever witnessed to actually replace “french fries” with “freedom fries” on their menu.

It was dark when we arrived at the Grand Canyon, but that did not inhibit the joy and giddiness of winding down along the rim of such a magnificent hole in the Earth.  A mule deer wished us goodnight, as we now wish to you.

Boca at the Hoover Dam

A Joshua tree in Mojave National Preseve. Photo: Arlo

Big horn sheep crossing sign outside Lake Mead. Photo: Arlo

Sunset over the Mojave. Photo: Arlo

Barstow, California. Today’s theme was energy. The first day of our cross-country road trip started with high hopes and enthusiasm along Monterey’s verdant Pacific coast. It ended in fatigue in the Mojave’s brown and bone-dry desert expanses. Boca, who’s doing all the driving on the trip, didn’t make it onto the Monterey Peninsula until around 3am. Although his flight from Florida landed on time – just before 10pm in San Jose – a fatal highway accident kept his shuttle transfer in gridlock for hours on end. I waited up for him, catching up on writing and trip planning, and we both ended up with less than desired sleep before our first full day of driving.

Oil rigs in Lost Hills, California. Photo: Arlo

Today was also focused on energy because of what the California landscape had to offer us. Driving along back-country roads through California’s central valleys, we passed through a town called Lost Hills, which seemed to be nothing other than one large oil field. Oil rigs littered the landscape as far as the eye could see, north and south across the pancake-flat valley floor. It was a harsh and uninviting landscape, but what seemed most odd about was its proximity to rich agricultural lands. The oil fields were surrounded by almond groves and dairy farms, which gave way in each direction to other crops such as cotton, leafy greens and vineyards full of wine grapes. In some areas, mounds of freshly harvested almonds seemed literally piled up alongside oil wells – something to think about next time you bite into a plate of almond-crusted halibut.

Wind turbines litter the hills east of Bakersfield, CA. Photo: Arlo

As dramatic as the oil fields were, so was California’s next big display of energy. Just east of Bakersfield, on the mountain pass into the Mojave Desert, lies hills littered in wind turbines. Thousands of them dot the landscape, twirling away in the breeze while providing a hopefully cleaner alternative to the State’s energy needs. We were joined on Twitter at the time by Tom Gray, who informed us that the two distinct types of wind turbine we were seeing represented varying stages of technology. The smaller, meshed looking turbines have been in place since the 80′s, while the larger, more cost effective jumbo-size turbines are the industry standard today.

Margarita at Los Domingos, Barstow. Photo: Arlo

Somewhat ironically, the contrast between these two forms of energy was reflected in the environmental health of the State’s ecosystems we passed through. Whereas the clear and sunny day on the Monterey Bay revealed forest-covered hills, rich marine life and unpolluted skies, the air above and around Bakersfield was the exact opposite. A thick smog hung over that city like an evil gloom, and the entire ride through smelled of fumes and toxins. And then in the end we escaped that foul air, into the crisp, dry and mystically beautiful wilderness expanses of the Mojave, where we sleep tonight. Resting peacefully, looking forward to more of Big America tomorrow.