Island Press Field Notes

Author Darrin Nordahl's food blog Today is...Fava Beans highlights a different food everyday along with a creative way to easily add it to our everyday diet. Today's food changed the way I think about food, nutrition, and the environment. It is my epiphany food. And it is a pernicious, detestable weed. Today is purslane. Purslane (also known as pigweed) is a succulent that has naturalized in almost every garden in America.

Students at Pace University have produced this mini-documentary on sustainable shrimp farming. It tells the story of Linda Thornton, an aquaculture entrepreneur pushing the frontiers of sustainable shrimp farming in Belize. This is a great example of the action needed to raise awareness of the importance of mangroves, a delicate ecosystem at risk thanks to unsustainable shrimp farming and heedless coastal development in many areas of the world, including Belize.