Photographer Handa Yasushi talks about the risks and reality of climate change (1)
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COP26, which was held in Glasgow, England, has closed, but countries are not in line with climate change. Meanwhile, the global environment is deteriorating every day. As a photographer, Mr. Handa Yasushi, who has witnessed the devastation of global warming in the polar regions, describes what is happening on the earth now.
(Handa Yasushi: Photographer)
“Where are we from? Who are we? Where are we going?”
This is the title of a painting by the French painter Paul Gauguin in 1898 as his culmination. Gauguin, who was tired of the hustle and bustle of Paris when the Industrial Revolution began, which was almost half a century behind Britain, moved to Tahiti in hopes of returning to nature. Completed this huge masterpiece.
More than half a century later, in 1959, Kenyan-born English scholar Louis Leakey and his wife Marley took the footsteps of three parents and children about 350 years ago from the valley of Olduvai near Savannah in Tanzania, East Africa. And the fossils of our direct ancestors, the monkeys 2 million years ago, and the originals who used the tools 150 years ago, were discovered.
Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, the birthplace of humankind
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The reason why human beings were born here is deeply related to the change of this place from jungle to savanna.
The crustal movement called the mantle plume that occurred 30 million years ago pushed up the entire East Africa region, and as a result of the large tearing of the ground surface, a 50km wide and 6400km north-south uplift zone (Great Rift Valley) was formed. rice field.
The massive volcanic ash produced by this rift volcanic eruption cemented the soil, and the mountain ranges formed by crustal activity began to block the moisture that the Atlantic had previously brought. As a result, the forests have declined, and only the acacia, which is resistant to drought, and the grasses of the Gramineae family, which have strong regenerative power, have gained power without rooting deep in the ground.
In this way, the savanna, a vast grassland that extends to what is now Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda, was born on the eastern side of the Rift Valley.
And the blockade of the humid climate caused by crustal movements has strengthened the power of trade winds moving north and south through Africa, and the weather has changed from the past to the rainy season and the dry season.
This encourages herbivores and carnivores that constantly seek fresh grass to circulate clockwise, regenerating grass that has been consumed while they are changing feeding grounds. Created a virtuous cycle.
In this way, Savannah became a “cradle of life” that never runs out of food throughout the year.
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