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Portfolio, R. White 1
Portfolio of Written PublicationsRebekah WhiteCurrent as of September 2012
 
Portfolio, R. White 2
Magical KenyaPublished in
Swara
, July 2012Rebekah WhiteA day of wandering through the small city of Karen, just outside of Nairobi, reveals a culture
largely exploited by tourism. “Traditional” wares such as blankets and jewelry are sold at less than a
thousand Kenyan shillings each (equating to less than ten US dollars). When I was visiting Kenya for a
study abroad program through St. Lawrence University, a fellow student purchased an “authentic” and
handmade Maasai sword. Upon closer inspection, he realized that the sword was, indeed, handmade, butit was created with a piece of molded sheet metal
 —metal that could have easily been part of a car’s
bumper. It was not made of the obsidian that would have been used by traditional hunters.This false authenticity is everywhere because it is what tourists expect. It is easier to avoid the
 problems of the country and view it as a paradise when we’re delivered information that suggests just
that. A flight on a Kenya Airways jet includes a streaming video of Maasai, dressed in traditional attire,smiling and dancing before the camera. These individuals were not just caught in the moment of intense
 jubilee. Rather, they have been paid to stand around in their traditional garb all day to promote “magicalKenya.”
Magical Kenya is found not in what is bought in Kenya, but what is seen. My most prizedpossessions from my stay in Naivasha will not be the souvenirs or photographs I carry home. I value mostthe bus rides in and out of town, watching the cities and villages pass at a bumpy twenty miles an hour. Itis only looki
ng out a grimy bus window that I see the true people of Kenya. They aren’t trying to sell me
things or to demonstrate their culture. They are walking to work, playing in the dust, tending their cattle.They are sometimes dirty and they are not always aesthetically beautiful.What is important is not always beautiful. Vultures, for example, are not generally as appreciatedin Kenya as are birds such as the African fish eagle. Vultures are homely creatures. Yet they are crucial toecosystems as recyclers of nutrients. They have a purpose, and they are part of what is natural. By onlynoting what is beautiful, it is easy to miss out on what is important, and what is real. I like to see Kenya asI imagine a bird flying overhead would see it: as a full image of both dark and light, not as fragmentedbits and pieces of beautiful pictures.
That is nature at its finest. The course I am enrolled in, “Conservation and the Media,” addressesthe issues facing Kenya’s environment and how the media can broadcast these is
sues to the generalpublic. These problems are not uncovered by looking at the lighter side of Kenya, or by strolling in thenational parks. That is because nature is not solely found in the outdoors. It is in the innate behavior of others when they think 
we aren’t looking. A child throwing a stick at his brother in front of an acacia is
 just as natural as the hippopotami on Lake Naivasha. In this reality is magical Kenya.On the second day of our visit to Kenya, we visited Simon Thomsett, a lifelong resident of Kenya, who works to rehabilitate raptors in Naivasha. He appreciates the interest tourists have in his
country, but told us, “I try to knock the awe out of visitors.” Kenya is not a place of perfection or a paradise. You can’t appreciate a coun
try if you only see its beauty. You need the ugly for authenticity.
 
Portfolio, R. White 3
Conservation in the Adirondacks
 — 
with the Help of a Smelly FrogDue for Publication in
 Adirondack Life
, May 2013Rebekah White
I’m standing outside in a light drizzle, staring into what looks like a kiddie
-sized swimming pool
filled with detritus and algae. I can’t see through the murk to the bottom. An
energetic scientist in hikingboots bounces from pool to pool, searching for frogs.Dr. David Patrick is a professor at Paul Smiths College and director of the Center for Adirondack Biodiversity. His most recent project utilizes these nine cleverly downp
layed thousand gallon “cattletanks”, each of which are inhabited by twenty mink frogs. While removing excess leaves from the pools,Patrick admits, “They like to hide on me.”
This game of hide and go seek is nothing to new to Patrick and his team of five undergraduatestudents. With a research grant provided by the Northeastern States Research Consortium, and under theheading of the Center for Adirondack Biodiversity, the group spent the summer of 2011 searchingAdirondack waters for these elusive amphibians.The frogs,
 Rana septentrionalis,
are rarely seen, but often confused with their close relatives,green frogs. Sporting blotchy jackets of green and brown, both species are small, at around three incheslong. The key to identification rests in differentiating spot patterns on the legs, and, of course, the smell.
Mink frogs, in accordance with their namesake, give off a musky, “mink”
-like odor when handled.Because little is known about mink frogs, much of the summer was spent in an attempt at figuring
out the basics. “Our key questions we
re, where are they, and why? After that, we wanted to figure out if we could link water temperature to their growth and survival, anticipate where they were expected to be
vulnerable, and how we could focus our conservation efforts.”
 This study fell perfectly within the mission of the Center for Adirondack Biodiversity. TheCenter, launched in 2009 by Paul Smiths College, collaborates with other organizations to research andrecord the plant and animal life within the Adirondack Park. The Center is currently working on projectsinvolving issues such as habitat destruction, pollution, and overharvesting.The goal of this particular project was to gather information about mink frogs in order to providerecommendations for proactive management and resource allocation. This would allow conservation
agencies to, as he explains, figure out what to “do in the short
-
term to get in gear.” Although mink frogs
are abundant in New York, especially within the Adirondacks, they are listed as threatened in Vermontand New Hampshire, states which may benefit from the results of this study. He notes that the semi-
isolated ecosystem of the Adirondacks is advantageous. “The conservation issues in the Adirondacks are
quite different, and beautiful, because the environment gives you the opportunity to look for long-term
solutions.”
 The Adirondack population is mostly isolated, due to anthropogenic causes such as agriculture, aswell as natural land formation. There is a good chance that this population may be unique from those inmore northern climes. Climate change, which has severely impacted amphibian species elsewhere, would
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