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Living in the foothills of Africa's most active volcanoes
Doctor Charles Balagizi conducts an analysis of the status of the city of Goma in Africa's Congo, where people live under the daily threat of the effects of the Nyamulagira and Nyiragongo volcanoes.
Doctor Charles Balagizi, geochemist and researcher of geological hazards, kicked off Worldcanic with an X-ray of the volcanic area in the Great Valley of the African Rift, a huge geological fracture to the east of the continent, over a total area of almost 5,000 km from north to south. Specifically, Balagizi homed in on the southern section of the valley, in the province of Virunga, between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, "featuring two of Africa's most active volcanoes, Nyamulagira and Nyiragongo”.
“The city of Goma (the capital) has a population of more than two million people at risk, because the volcanoes erupt quite often", explained the man who is trying to warn the population on the effects of their eruptions. “We try to inform them of the dangers of the eruptions, but people go on building their homes in those areas, because the soil, it must be said, is more fertile and, when there are no eruptions, harvest work".
However, even if the volcanoes do not erupt, the area still has "real dangers" such as earthquakes; toxic gases, even on dry earth; abnormally high concentrations of CO2; ash floating around in the atmosphere, or the fact that the groundwater of Lake Kivu around the city and surrounding area "is polluted and contains too much fluorine".
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The volcanic island
Lanzarote and the Chinijo Islands form a geopark of oceanic volcanic islands with not only an internationally relevant geological heritage, but also of great worth and conservation values, where it is possible to observe the interaction, through more than 15 Ma, between the volcanic, erosive and sedimentary processes, on land and water.
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Worldcanic consolidated as the world's global community of volcanic societies
Arrecife's Islote La Fermina was the venue for the last day of Worldcanic 22, a congress making a stand for linking the primary sector to tourism through gastronomy.
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New solutions for new times
Lluís Pujol, manager of Saborea España; Eva María Masías, mayor of Ciudad Real; José Valle, president of the Chamber of Commerce of Lanzarote and La Graciosa, and Juan Carlos Clemente, gastronomy adviser, shared the Worldcanic table to discuss how gastronomy has emerged as an attraction for tourist destinations.
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Ketut Sri Gayatri Tata fills Lanzarote with spices and flavours
The chef at Pengalaman Rasa (Bali, Indonesia) explains what it is like to live amid 29 volcanoes, and fills the auditorium with colour by cooking up a recipe with a mixture of spices, "essential components of our cooking".
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Sylvain Chermette: “Volcanoes are dangerous, but they also have many benefits"
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“Bring back the spoon”
The manager of the Vegacosta Eco-estate (Tinajo), Toño Morales; a farmer ("only part-time"), José Domingo Rodríguez, and a journalist with a farming past, Salvador García-Arbós, describe the benefits of legumes grown in volcanic soil, and call for public appreciation of these foodstuffs.
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Lanzarote makes a stand for a state-of-the-art combination of tradition and modernity
The third day of Worldcanic began on Islote de la Fermina (Arrecife) in a totally Lanzarotean atmosphere. The first talk demonstrated the island's current culinary panorama through two new talents.
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"Papa" potatoes unite volcanic territories
Catalan chef Fina Puigdevall from Les Cols** (Olot, Girona) presents the recipe - stewed and "arrugada" potatoes - she has given to Lanzarote to put it on restaurant menus on the island's tourist centres' network.
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Les Cols: “We want to build a greener and greener horizon"
Fina Puigdevall and Martina Puigvert round off the talks on the second day of the congress on the subject of the philosophy of the restaurant, its recipes, and a new feature: the transformation of its plantation into a biological concern with three new employees, a biologist, a specialist in the retrieval of local varieties, and a geographer.
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The new culture of New Zealand is cooked up amid volcanoes
Chefs Kārena and Kasey Bird, genuine celebrities in New Zealand in the wake of their Masterchef victory, explain their culinary relationship with volcanoes. “They're part of our culture, and we use their power to cook".
