They’ve arrived (via specialty delivery)! As usual, my household gets his and hers copies to prevent domestic disputes over first dibs. I hear @peterclines.bsky.social is on a West Coast book signing tour as I write this, so you can hunt him down in the wild.

I’m pretending it’s winter in L.A.

Anyone taken a gander at a government website today? This is on hud.gov

It’s hard to fathom that sometime right about now 17 years ago, I left LA on the first of several international travels that ultimately became The Peregrine Dame and led to a much more fulfilling life and career than I could have imagined. #solotravel #publictelevision

I know these things take time but California’s roll out isn’t fast enough. I’ll remember this the next time I have to interview someone terrified to leave their home, including to go to the doctor, when I show up without a fresh vax in the middle of a Covid surge at put them at risk.

Wasn’t this the title of an episode of Dateline? Or perhaps one waiting to happen?

Before I moved into journalism, I had a series that aired on public television. It was a pivotal moment in my career, and it would not have happened without public media. The U.S. is poorer today for this egregious decision.

I’m working on a climate change piece this week in the context of coastal rebuilding after the Palisades Fire in Los Angeles. As a community that’s the definition of coastal squeeze, Malibu is an interesting case study. Stay tuned.

10/10 Ed Barrett-Lennard, soil scientist and saline agriculture expert plucks some wild saltbush leaves from a giant specimen in a Spanish salt marsh near Valencia. Some of Ed's work focuses on saltbush as an animal feed in western Australia. Second image: Wild salicornia growing in the same marsh.

9/ The hardy sarcocornia, a versatile halophyte used in animal and fish feed.

8/ Multiple halophytic species are repopulating this patch of the Trebujena Marshes where Nara has entered into a partnership to restore the land and periodically top harvest plant matter. Read about halophytes' growing role in our food systems in my piece in the March issue of Scientific American.

7/ Yanik Nyberg, CEO of Nara Climate Solutions and Seawater Solutions, examines the halophyte Suaeda maritima growing wild in a salt marsh on the Atlantic Coast of Spain, part of a restoration project. The company plans to sell carbon credits and some of the plant material to biochem companies.

6/ Raphael nibbles on some fresh sarco. Locals look at us like we're from Mars when we eat what they think looks like "goat food."

5/ Raphael Ahiakpe, Ghana director for Seawater Solutions, a company helping Fiaxor to restore its mangroves and install the aquaculture project, shows me the massive plot of healthy sarcocornia that will be transplanted to the lot beside the village pond for use as fish feed.

4/ Fiaxor's fish pond, the inhabitants of which will be fed with sarcocornia from the salty patch of ground next to it creating a low-tech aquaculture system. Fishing is Fiaxor's lifeblood, but it has been dwindling in the lagoon next door for years

3/ In the Ghanaian village of Fixer, lifelong resident Doris Atitsogbui manages an artificial fish pond, the inhabitants of which will be fed with sarcocornia from the salty patch of ground next to it creating a low-tech aquaculture system.

2/ With generous support from the @pulitzercenter.bsky.social I spent months last year learning about what people in Ghana, Spain, Bangladesh, the Netherlands are doing about the problem of salinity. Many are incorporating halophytes, or plants that grow naturally in high-saline environments.

Nothing like seeing one's story in print. Grab your copy and read my latest in the March issue of Scientific American.
#salineagriculture
#halophytes