At Danhostel Ribe we celebrated it by giving free bicycle rent and a map of the Wadden Sea National Park to all our facebook friends that visited us on the 22th – Earth Day. We had just bought 30 new bicycles, so we thought this was a fine way to celebrate both the day and the bikes – and at the same time let our guests experience this fantastic nature just outside our door.

Yahoo! News  celebrated Earth Day by interviewing Gaute Hogh, publisher of the book 100 Places to Go Before They Disappear.
The Wadden Sea in Denmark was the first place that came to Hogh’s mind of the 100 places to go before they disseapear. The Wadden Sea is a low-lying coastal zone in Denmark where visitors can “walk on water” to see varied landscapes and migratory birds. Hogh fears what the rising sea levels will do to this place and its dynamic ecosystem.

 
At the hostel and in Ribe we know about this fear. We have seen the water level rise and the meadow outside the hostel being flooded. We have experienced the water level being almost at the top of the dikes at the Wadden Sea Coast in 1999 – and the only reason that we were not flooded was that the storm surge came by low tide. Had it come a few hours later by high tides our town – not only the meadow but also the streets and houses in Ribe town had been flooded.
So YES come and see the Wadden Sea before it disappears, but better: Listen to Gaute Hogh’s message so that we can enjoy this beautiful place also in the future:
“The whole purpose of this book was to show my children the effects of climate change,” Hogh says. “People usually show someone suffering and I wanted to show the positive side of it: If we don’t do anything, we’ll lose some of these beautiful 100 places.”
“One of my missions with the book is to show teenagers, if you don’t turn off the water or turn down the heat, these places will disappear,” Hogh says.  “They may say, ‘Why should I do this?’ But if I show them these pictures, they start to see it another way.”

At Danhostel Ribe we were happy to notice that the interview sent a lot of people to our article about the Wadden Sea the last couple of days. We hope to see some of them at the hostel
The photo left shows the hostel when the meadow is flooded.

The blog travelandleisure mentions some of the 100 places and ask for more ways to celebrate Earth Day – but you could also comment on this article.

Danhostel Ribe is Eco-labeled with Green Key and mentioned among Best Green Hotels

Danhostel Ribe congratulates The Crowne Plaza Copenhagen Towers for having been named the greenest hotel in the world by the travel and tourist organization Skaal International.

The more green accommodation we get in Denmark the better. And the more focus we get on sustainable accommodation the better. At Danhostel Ribe we can learn from Crowne Plaza –  can they also learn from us? Maybe there are things we just should do different because Crowne Plaza is a hotel and Danhostel Ribe a hostel?

 But if you as a tourist would prefer to:

• get sustainable accommodation in Denmark’s oldest and best preserved town in the middle of the Wadden Sea National Park instead of in the middle of the busy city Copenhagen
• get cheap green accommodation because you travel on a low budget
• stay at a environmentally friendly hostel instead of a hotel
• get accommodation on the West Coast instead of the east coast of Denmark

Well, then you have the possibility to stay at Danhostel Ribe. You can read all Danhostel Ribe’s environmental policy on this link: Environmental policy at Danhostel Ribe.  Danhostel Ribe is Eco-labeled with Green Key and mentioned among Best Green Hotels. Danhostel Ribe cooperates with INNOTOUR  for education, research and business development in tourism. It is dedicated to innovation.

HRH Prince Joachim inaugurates the Wadden Sea National Park  Friday 16th October 2010

AND if you come to Ribe this Friday, you can participate in the inauguration of the Wadden Sea National Park just outside the hostel at 12 o’clock. The Wadden Sea National Park is Denmark’s third, biggest and wettest national park. HRH Prince Joachim will inaugurate the National Park and also Karen Ellemann, the Danish minister of Environment will be there. From 10.30am to 2.30pm it´s possible to join different activities and study local wadden sea products, enjoy Rod Sinclair quintet play the new National Park Song, watch the shepherd and his dog work, listen to the local stories about storm surges and pirates - and much more. Welcome.

Eco-labeled Danhostel Ribe, National Park, and Ribe Old town

The official opening will take place on the meadow – Hovedengen – outside the hostel. Hovedengen is part of the national park, and Ribe is situated in the middle of this big new national park, that in Denmark goes from the German border to Ho Bay. All ready now we know it will be a big celebration.

Of course this means now that Danhostel Ribe can boast of this fantastic situation right at the very heart of the national park – and with a panoramic view of both the national park and Denmark’s oldest and best preserved town: Ribe.
And at the same time we are the only ecolabeled accommodation you can get in Ribe and its surroundings, since we have received the Green Key and furthermore been mentioned in Environmentally Friendly Hotel´s list of “Best Green Hotels”.

Another day I will tell you the story of how Hovedengen got it’s strange name “Meadow of the Heads”

Danhostel Ribe had the pleasure of Claus Meyer and his crew staying at the hostel for several days
while they were filming this program in Ribe and the Wadden Sea. Some of the program was filmed on the meadow just outside the hostel with Ribe Cathedral and the River as background. In this trailer you can see the view from the hostel (06:59-7:01), and on the film photo over this text you can see Claus Meyer on Ribe River – with the Cathedral on the right side  (06:37- 06:59) (the hostel is situated on the left side of the river)

 
The last programs in the Scandinavian Cooking program were shown in more than 60 countries all over the world.
Probably these new programs with world premiere in 2010 will be shown in even more countries, because Nordic food has been even more popular since in 2010 the Danish gourmet restaurant NOMA with the chef René Redzepi and 2 Michelin stars  – and chef Claus Meyer as one of the co-owners – won the unofficial “world championship” for restaurants “the San Pellegrino Awards”. It is the first time a Danish restaurant wins the price in the magazine ahead of restaurants as Spain’s El Bulli and Britain’s The Fat Duck. To help elect the best restaurant in the world were 806 chefs, gastronomers and food reviewers.
The other chefs in the cooking series are Andreas Viestad, one of Norway’s most famous TV-chefs and a respected food writer and Tina Nordstrom, who is by far Sweden’s most celebrated TV-chef.
We hope you will enjoy the trailer – though it is in Danish – but if we find it in English we will let you know. And if YOU find out before us please let us know

If you don’t know: NOMA means Nordisk Mad (Nordic food)
Enjoy this new  film from  NOMA, the world’s best restaurant 2010 (this one is in English…) – and read about the Food Snob’s visits at NOMA 

29th of May. Guided tour in the Photo Exhibition “My Ribe and Wadden Sea” by Gudrun Rishede

29th of May we – and many others in Ribe and Denmark – focus on “Tourism Day”. We do it by giving a free guided tour in the Photo Exhibition from 11am to 12am.
At the same time it will be possible to see the facilities of the hostel, rooms, common facilities, sports hall and conference facilities – or discuss our work with sustainable tourism. See also the invitation on our facebook 
The photos are all photographed by me, Gudrun Rishede – one of the writers on this blog and married to the manager of Danhostel Ribe, Jens Philipsen. I have photographed since I was child, and have through the years sold photos to among others: Danish Tourist Board, Ribe Tourist Board, Norden – Nordic Council of Ministers, Pilotprojekt Nationalpark Vadehavet and Ribe Viking Centre.
I have also made postcards from the local area, Vadehavskort (Wadden Sea Post Cards), which are sold from the hostel, Ribe Tourist board, Ribe Viking Museum and a few other places in the Wadden Sea area. I have also been honoured to be artist of the month in Ribe Art Club a couple of years ago and have one of my photos shown at Ribe Art Museum the winter 2009/10.

We also have cuttlefish in the Wadden Sea, and now we have the chance to find out what is inside its brain. 
The Wadden Sea Centre in Ribe gives everybody the possibility to dissect a cuttlefish every day during week 7 and 8 (skolernes vinterferie). 

We went to hear the nature guide tell about the cuttlefish and to look inside it. And YES – It is true that the cuttlefish is very clever.  They can even be trained to open lids from jars etc. and in some exhibition aquariums in the middle of the night they can find out to crawl into the neighbor aquariums and help themselves to a stomach ace. Next morning they will be back in their own aquarium and behave as if nothing had happened.

We also had the opportunity to follow a guide through the exhibition and see the multimedia show about storm floods to understand the consequences for those of us, who live by the Wadden Sea, if the water level rises due to global warming.  We could see some of the small animals from the Wadden Sea through magnifying glass – and at last just sit down and listen to Anisette from Savage Rose’s music and see the beautiful photo show of Jan Kofod Winther.

Read about and see photos from the Wadden Sea National Park, storm surges etc. here

 
Here are some of the subjects mentioned and shown: Ribe River (Ribe Å) and the boat Johanne Dan at Skibbroen, Ribe Waterway Lock (Kammerslusen), storm surges (stormfloder), and the water level as tall as a man inside Ribe Cathedral (Ribe Domkirke) during the worst storm surge in history, the marshland and Wadden Sea (Vadehavet) and its wildlife and migration birds – also the several thousand starlings that “dance” and are making fascinating formations in the air every spring and autumn. In Denmark we call it Sort Sol (Black sun)

The first of February you can see all 3 TVSyd’s films about Ribe on: this link

Other places in the world the climate chance challenges are even bigger because of higher sea level, lack of rain, etc.

We hope you will make decisions that make a difference when you all gather from Dec. 7th to Dec. 18th 2009 in Copenhagen to United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15).
That you will take action in real solutions to bring down the world’s Co2 releases – and not just by selling CO2 quotas!
Our generation is obliged to think of the younger generation.

The 4th Dec. the Children’s Climate Forum 2009 with delegates from 44 countries finished their conference in Copenhagen with a declaration. The children emphasize that they will not sit back and watch. The time for talk is over.  They are committed to take action and they request the same of governments worldwide.
PLEASE don’t let them down.