Speaker 1: Welcome. This is Marcia for RADIOI, and today I will
Speaker 1: be reading National Geographic magazine dated September twenty twenty five,
Speaker 1: which is donated by the publisher as a reminder. RADIOI
Speaker 1: is a reading service intended for people who are blind
Speaker 1: or have other disabilities that make it difficult to read
Speaker 1: printed material. Please join me now for the continuation of
Speaker 1: the article I began last time, entitled will Mexico's Train
Speaker 1: of the Future Leave its past behind? By Michael Finkel.
Speaker 1: This train is a wonderful gift, says Anna Danielli, who
Speaker 1: traveled across Mexico from her home in Guadalajara to experience trend. Maya,
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm royalty, like Lady Diana. I'm bursting
Speaker 1: with pride to be Mexican, says Norma villa Real, who
Speaker 1: drove more than a thousand miles from Monterey in the
Speaker 1: north with her ninety year old mother Concepcion, to ride
Speaker 1: the train. High school teacher, and I can't wait to
Speaker 1: tell my students about this. As for environmental concerns, Etienne
Speaker 1: ads many trees were indeed removed to make the train.
Speaker 1: The protesters were right, but a federal work program for
Speaker 1: rural laborers called Semburano Nida or Sowing Life, is in
Speaker 1: the process of planting five hundred million trees in the region,
Speaker 1: far surpassing the number that were cut. It's one of
Speaker 1: the world's largest reforestation endeavors. As part of the scope
Speaker 1: of trend Maya's construction, according to the Mexican government, the
Speaker 1: biosphere reserve of Calakmul, where the tracks passed by, expanded
Speaker 1: its protected area by over a million acres, making it
Speaker 1: the second largest natural sanctuary in the Americas, surpassed only
Speaker 1: by the Amazon. The intervention of the military, in Etien's opinion,
Speaker 1: was necessary. Mexico is littered with half finished projects, and
Speaker 1: if it weren't for military control, activists may have tied
Speaker 1: up trend Maya forever. There were previous passenger trains in
Speaker 1: the region privately run, but they disappeared decades ago for
Speaker 1: lack of profit. With the military in charge, Tranmya doesn't
Speaker 1: need to make money. It's a public good, and the
Speaker 1: train won't financially burden Mexican citizens as it holds no
Speaker 1: debt and is chiefly funded by a tax on tourists.
Speaker 1: Whether or not Tranmaya is an insult to the Maya
Speaker 1: also seems part of the hyperbolic vitriol flung from both sides.
Speaker 1: Ketzelt Saab, a well known activist who has consulted for
Speaker 1: the United Nations on Native rights, insists that ninety five
Speaker 1: percent of the indigenous people he knows favor the train.
Speaker 1: The tiny minority opposed, he concedes, is masterful at making
Speaker 1: itself heard. Condemnation of the archaeological rigor and the wilful
Speaker 1: wrecking of relics is addressed by Manuel Perez Rivas, head
Speaker 1: of the National Institute of Anthropology and Histories two thousand
Speaker 1: person team. Yes. Perez Rives said the project wasn't perfect.
Speaker 1: Some items didn't survive, but his team did register precisely
Speaker 1: eight hundred seventy one thousand, two hundred sixty seven pieces
Speaker 1: of archaeological significance, the most extensive rescue of Maya history
Speaker 1: ever collected, and possibly the largest dig of all time.
Speaker 1: The Yucatan is an evalving thing, not a museum, says
Speaker 1: Perez Rivas. You need to balance the living with the historic.
Speaker 1: If we preserved every artifact, we'd never build anything. The
Speaker 1: pieces found by the team in obsidian jade seashell clay
Speaker 1: and wood were notable because many weren't extraordinary, says Perez Rivas.
Speaker 1: They were everyday objects like knives, plates, and pipes. When
Speaker 1: fully studied decades, Hence, they will offer a more complete
Speaker 1: understanding of how common people lived in ancient times. He adds,
Speaker 1: the focus of the archaeology, like the train itself, will
Speaker 1: be on lives that are often overlooked. It's the early
Speaker 1: days of tran Maya, and no one knows where it's heading.
Speaker 1: Triumph for disaster in or between. Ridership did start slowly,
Speaker 1: but at t end projects a massive hit. The train
Speaker 1: may Feel could serve as a many feel could serve
Speaker 1: as a global template for juggling environmental concern and economic expansion,
Speaker 1: and for how to transform a local population that's minimized
Speaker 1: by tourism into one that reaps benefits. Detractors claim the opposite,
Speaker 1: that the only thing tran Maya will achieve is to
Speaker 1: show the world what not to do. The anti train
Speaker 1: faction tends to view the project as a new kind
Speaker 1: of threat, though this idea seems subverted at the renowned
Speaker 1: archaeological site Cheats the Niza, a couple of train stops
Speaker 1: west of Kankun. The ancient Maya constructed roads called sakboeb
Speaker 1: all over the peninsula, which were wide and slightly elevated,
Speaker 1: and often ran through the jungle plum strait. They look
Speaker 1: a lot like train tracks. There's one in chi Zanita,
Speaker 1: starting near the main pyramid, and something else is there too.
Speaker 1: In the center of the site is an area of
Speaker 1: giant pillars, lined up in rows of four, light colored
Speaker 1: at least above ground and extending toward the forest. Their
Speaker 1: similarity to the pillars that Rojo recorded is startling, except
Speaker 1: that these are a thousand years old. A train connecting
Speaker 1: Mexico and dividing it. When Tranmaya began running late last year,
Speaker 1: it established a nine hundred sixty six mile loop across
Speaker 1: five states in the Yucatan Peninsula. While the railway system
Speaker 1: promises to bring jobs and boost tourism by taking people
Speaker 1: to historic Maya sites in different cities, critics allege it
Speaker 1: destroyed forests, disrupts animal habitats, and potentially pollutes critical underground
Speaker 1: water stores called senotes, forcing a closer look at what
Speaker 1: has been gained and what has been lost. Formation of
Speaker 1: senotes around sixty five million years ago, a six mile
Speaker 1: wide meteorite hit the Yucatan Peninsula. Rings of fractured bedrock
Speaker 1: have effected where eroded chambers called Senote's form, many of
Speaker 1: which are interconnected and influence underground water flow to day
Speaker 1: vast reservoir below Senotes are conduits to an aquifer covering
Speaker 1: roughly sixty four thousand square miles, a key source of
Speaker 1: drinking water impacted by pollution from sewage and infrastructure projects.
Speaker 1: Tren Maya links many modern cities and makes ancient Maya
Speaker 1: sites more accessible. The addition of freight service in the
Speaker 1: coming year could also mean major economic expansion cutting through
Speaker 1: protected lands. A rail line linking the southern Yucatan also
Speaker 1: bisects UNESCO designated caloc Mule Biosphere Reservoir Reserve, a bio deserve,
Speaker 1: a biodiverse rainforest where deforestation has raised concerns over environmental impacts. Next,
Speaker 1: The Mystery of weed Sickness by Stacy Colino and Brian Kevin.
Speaker 1: Strong new strains and forms of cannabis are linked to
Speaker 1: a set of symptoms that of doctors puzzled, and diagnoses
Speaker 1: of the strange syndrome are on the rise. Sierra Calaham
Speaker 1: was twenty three When she had her first month long
Speaker 1: bout of daily abdominal pain, nausea, and cyclical vomiting, she
Speaker 1: was bewildered, but chalked it up to stress. Work had
Speaker 1: been rough and she was on the outs with her family.
Speaker 1: Anti nausea and anti anxiety meds got her through most
Speaker 1: days and in the evenings when she wasn't actively vomiting,
Speaker 1: she kept up her usual routine of smoking a little
Speaker 1: pot she wanted so badly, she says, to relax and
Speaker 1: not be as present in my body. Callahan lives in
Speaker 1: Washington State, where recreational cannabis has been legal since twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: and she had long been a daily, if moderate user
Speaker 1: a bit each night as a sleep aid. Before her
Speaker 1: first gastroetestrial ordeal in late twenty twenty, she was vaping
Speaker 1: concentrated cannabis oil from a battery powered pen. After her
Speaker 1: symptoms seemed to pass, she switched to smoking pre rolled
Speaker 1: joints for a few years before returning to vapes. Then,
Speaker 1: in early twenty twenty four came another weeks long attack
Speaker 1: debilitating stomach cramps and daily, uncontrollable vomiting that sent her
Speaker 1: choice to an emergency room on a visit to urgent care,
Speaker 1: a doctor asked if she used cannabis every night. Callahan
Speaker 1: said she was shocked when the doctor gave her a
Speaker 1: provisional diagnosis, Cannobioid hyperamasis syndrome c HS, sometimes simply called
Speaker 1: weed sickness. Recurring episodes of nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain
Speaker 1: are the classic symptoms of this puzzling gastro intestinal condition,
Speaker 1: which is associated with long term, frequent use of marijuana,
Speaker 1: particularly high potency products. Doctors in Australia first described cannabinoid
Speaker 1: hypermesis syndrome in two thousand and four. Cannabinoids are compound
Speaker 1: compounds like THHC or CBD found in marijuana. Emesis is
Speaker 1: the clinical term for vomiting. Just how many suffer from
Speaker 1: CHS is unknown, but one twenty eighteen study extrapolating from
Speaker 1: a survey administered to er patients put the number as
Speaker 1: high as two point seventy five million people in the
Speaker 1: United States each year. A recent research summary from the
Speaker 1: Journal of the American Medical Association suggests it is increasingly diagnosed.
Speaker 1: Er visits for CCHS doubled in the US and Canada
Speaker 1: between twenty seventeen and twenty twenty one. What's behind the rise.
Speaker 1: One factor, says Deepak Cyril Dusuza, a professor of psychiatry
Speaker 1: and director of the Yale Center for the Science of
Speaker 1: Cannabis and Cannabinoids, is the increasing potency of cannabis products.
Speaker 1: Three years ago, samples seized by the US Drug Enforcement
Speaker 1: Administration averaged four per cent THHC content by weight. As
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty two, that average is about sixteen per cent.
Speaker 1: The oil in vape cartridges like what calahamos using, can
Speaker 1: reach as high as eighty five percent. Research also points
Speaker 1: to the broadening legalization of recreational weed. In one characteristic
Speaker 1: study published in twenty twenty two in the journal American
Speaker 1: Journal of Gastroentrilology, researchers compared admissions for HS at a
Speaker 1: large Massachusetts hospital between twenty twelve and twenty twenty, noting
Speaker 1: a significant uptick after cannabis was legalised in the state
Speaker 1: in late twenty sixteen. All the same, HS is a
Speaker 1: frustratingly spotty affliction. Why some people seem to be vulnerable
Speaker 1: to this and not others really seems to be a mystery,
Speaker 1: Desuza says, most people who smoke cannabis dans don't get this,
Speaker 1: acknowledges Christopher N. Andrews, a gestro entrologist and clinical professor
Speaker 1: at the University of Calgary in Canada. Among those who do,
Speaker 1: the symptoms aren't constant. It comes and goes, and it
Speaker 1: happens in cycles, says Desuza. Andrews believes that if CHS
Speaker 1: symptoms were more consistent, it might motivate more patients to
Speaker 1: stop using cannabis. One theory about the cause of CHS
Speaker 1: involves the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal HPS axis, which regulates the
Speaker 1: body's stress responses by adjusting hormone balances. Chronic cannabis use
Speaker 1: makes that pendulum swing further one way than the other,
Speaker 1: Andrews says, perhaps triggering symptoms by abnormally stimulating the HPA axis.
Speaker 1: There may also be a genetic susceptibility at work, and
Speaker 1: depression and anxiety are common in people with the syndrome.
Speaker 1: The paradox is, we don't understand what's triggering this in
Speaker 1: particular moment, says David Leventhal, director of the neuro gastro
Speaker 1: Enterology and Motility Center at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
Speaker 1: Among the leading suspects, he says, our lack of sleep
Speaker 1: and intense stress. Another strange aspect of HS sufferers tend
Speaker 1: to spend a lot of time in the shower. People
Speaker 1: with HS often report temporary relief of symptoms from bathing
Speaker 1: in hot water, which may lead to compulsive bathing, says
Speaker 1: Maria Isabel Angulo, an assistant professor of internal medicine and
Speaker 1: pediatrics at the University of Illinois in Chicago. This suggests
Speaker 1: that the area of the brain that helps regulate body temperature,
Speaker 1: the hypothalamus, might be involved in the syndrome. Whatever the causes,
Speaker 1: the long term consequences of CHS can far exceed the
Speaker 1: lengthy stretches of intense discomfort. Complications can include severe dehydration
Speaker 1: and electrolyte imbalances, which can lead to kindy inner injury,
Speaker 1: heart rhythm abnormalities, and seizures. In rare cases, such complications
Speaker 1: can have can even prove fatal. As hard as its
Speaker 1: symptoms are to ignore, Accurately diagnosing CHS can be tricky,
Speaker 1: physicians say, partly because those symptoms mimic other gastro intestinal
Speaker 1: conditions and because patients aren't always straightforward about their habits.
Speaker 1: The way to make the diagnosis, Andrews explains, is to
Speaker 1: have the patient come off cannabis, proving retroactively that it's
Speaker 1: the cannabis causing the symptoms. Giving up pot is also
Speaker 1: the only known lasting CHS solution, and while the myth
Speaker 1: of non addictive cannabis persists, Quitting cold turkey from regular
Speaker 1: use can cause symptoms like anxiety, irritability, sleep disturbances, and
Speaker 1: loss of appetite. Relief moreover, can take weeks or months.
Speaker 1: Since it can take such a long time to get
Speaker 1: better once cannabis has stopped, Andrews says, many people often
Speaker 1: think that the cannabis has nothing to do with their symptom.
Speaker 1: Even the prospect of abstinence may make some chronic users
Speaker 1: reluctant to calm to terms with the condition. Not Calaham.
Speaker 1: When her urgent care doctor first handed her literature about CHS,
Speaker 1: she was skeptical. I was like, there's no way, I'm
Speaker 1: so intentional about how I consume, she says, But as
Speaker 1: soon as I read the materials, I thought, oh no,
Speaker 1: and that was the day that I quit. She's been
Speaker 1: weed sober ever since. It hasn't been easy. She's fought
Speaker 1: cravings and hadgy retrain herself to recognize what relaxation feels
Speaker 1: like when she isn't high, But it's easier when Callaham
Speaker 1: remembers what the depths of hyper hypermesis felt like. I
Speaker 1: was so desperate, she says, I was so desperate to
Speaker 1: feel better. Modern cannabis explained what else her. Scientists learning
Speaker 1: about the potential health impacts of high potency pot particularly
Speaker 1: among teens using marijuana in any form, comes with risks,
Speaker 1: but researchers i've raised particular concerns about how cannabis products
Speaker 1: with high THHC content might affect mental health in adults.
Speaker 1: Evidence suggests that users of high potency cannabis, particularly frequent users,
Speaker 1: have an increased risk of both psychosis and cannabis use
Speaker 1: disorder and inability to quit, even when the drug is
Speaker 1: causing health or social problems. Some studies have linked high
Speaker 1: potency cannabis to depression and anxiety, Although the evidence for
Speaker 1: increased risk is spottier. Health professionals sound even greater alarm
Speaker 1: when it comes to teenagers, early and frequent users of
Speaker 1: high potency cannabis products, such as those consumed by vaporing
Speaker 1: and dabbing are at risk of experiencing anxiety, depression, and
Speaker 1: suicidal ideation, along with impacts to memory, cognitive function, and motivation.
Speaker 1: Adolescents who use cannabis concentrates are at higher risk for
Speaker 1: substance use problems than those who use non concentrate forms
Speaker 1: of cannabis, and because teenager's brains are still developing, there's
Speaker 1: a real risk of life's lifelong damage. A relatively new phenomenon,
Speaker 1: concentrates have caught some parents, caregivers, and teachers off guard.
Speaker 1: Because vaping produces a fainter smell and is as simple
Speaker 1: as pressing a button, it's easy for teens to hide.
Speaker 1: A twenty twenty four National Institutes of Health report found
Speaker 1: that experimentation started early, with nearly six percent of eighth
Speaker 1: graders having vaped cannabis within a twelve month period. That
Speaker 1: number jumped to twelve percent among tenth graders and eighteen
Speaker 1: percent for twelfth graders. Fewer adolescents are dabbing, but the
Speaker 1: most recent National Survey on Drug Use and Health reported
Speaker 1: nearly a fifth of twelve to seventeen year olds who
Speaker 1: used cannabis had dabbed concentrates in the past year. Perhaps counterintuitively,
Speaker 1: concerns about high potency pot have prompted calls for the
Speaker 1: federal government to remove cannabis from its most restrictive class
Speaker 1: of illicit drugs. Legal limits on THHC content vari at
Speaker 1: state levels and moving cannabis from the Drug Enforcement Administration's
Speaker 1: Schedule one to Schedule three would allow for federal regulations
Speaker 1: on potency. This reclassification was initiated in twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: during the previous presidential administration, but it's now in limbo.
Speaker 1: A reminder that cannabis prohibition is not yet repealed. Next
Speaker 1: article How do you save the Evergrades from tens of
Speaker 1: thousands of rogue snakes? By Rebecca Renner. In Florida, non
Speaker 1: native pythons pose a huge habitat threat. Shrewd fashion designers
Speaker 1: are offering a novel solution. Just after midnight, l Barbieto
Speaker 1: drove her Dodge pick up deep into the shadows of
Speaker 1: the Florida Everglades after hours, navigating narrow marsh roads, past
Speaker 1: towering bald cypresses and racous shoots of romiliads. She suddenly
Speaker 1: pulled onto the shoulder and aimed a flashlight at a
Speaker 1: writhing patch of prehistoric looking ferns. Python, Barbietto shouted, pointing
Speaker 1: to a me talic sheen of scales glistening like silken
Speaker 1: chain mail in the moonlight. The next part would require
Speaker 1: her gun. No one can say for certain how Burmese
Speaker 1: pythons arrived in the Everglades in the first place, or
Speaker 1: how many there are today, though conservative estimates put their
Speaker 1: population in the tens of thousands. What we do know
Speaker 1: is that the voracious snakes are destroying one of the
Speaker 1: country's most important ecosystems by reproducing rapidly and feasting on
Speaker 1: just about anything they can fit their jaws around, from
Speaker 1: endangered wood rats to threatened wood storks. The snakes have
Speaker 1: few regional predators except alligators, so the only way to
Speaker 1: stop them is by culling them. Over the past twenty
Speaker 1: five years, more than twenty five twenty three thousand, five
Speaker 1: hundred pythons have been removed from Learned Florida's wetlands through
Speaker 1: organized annual hunts, eradication agents hired by the state, and
Speaker 1: volunteers like Barbietto, who help capture and kill them. While
Speaker 1: most snake hunters dump them or leave the carcasses to rot.
Speaker 1: Barbieto does things differently. After euthanizing the python, she carefully
Speaker 1: loaded its serpentine body into the back of her truck
Speaker 1: and took it home. The twenty nine year old, who
Speaker 1: comes from the world of New York fashion, hunts these
Speaker 1: enormous creatures and then repurposes their remains, transforming each one
Speaker 1: into a highly sought after python's skin accessory. I get
Speaker 1: to have this connection with my material that most artists don't,
Speaker 1: Barbieto says she's developed a cult following for her limited
Speaker 1: edition line of carefully sourced products, including bags and belts,
Speaker 1: which appeal to clients who want to wear reptile skin
Speaker 1: without some of the ethical complications. For years, animal welfare
Speaker 1: advocates have encouraged shoppers to steer clear of animal beas
Speaker 1: raised leathers, prompting fashion companies to explore synthetic or vegan
Speaker 1: alternatives derived from things like mushrooms and apples. Now, an
Speaker 1: increasing number of designers are recognizing how useful the leather
Speaker 1: of Burmese python skin from the Everglades can be. As
Speaker 1: brands raced to scale their ambition, Barbieta plays a unique
Speaker 1: role as someone involved in every step of the sourcing
Speaker 1: and sales process. Here is a beautiful material that's sustainable,
Speaker 1: and nobody was really doing anything with it, she says.
Speaker 1: It became this solution to a problem. For as long
Speaker 1: as she can remember, Barbietto wanted to make clothes. At
Speaker 1: age eighteen, she moved to New York City for fashion school,
Speaker 1: enrolling in classes like pattern making and interning for big
Speaker 1: time designers. She also helped stitch pieces for a collection
Speaker 1: shown at Paris Fashion Week, but each experience only made
Speaker 1: her more aware of the industry's environmental trade offs, like
Speaker 1: pollution from industrial manufacturing and tile textile waste. This is
Speaker 1: what I wanted to do with my life, she remembers, thinking,
Speaker 1: how can I pursue it without becoming part of the problem.
Speaker 1: During a trip home to Florida eight years ago, Barbeto
Speaker 1: joined her father, Mark Yon, a python removal agent for
Speaker 1: the state, on a job in the Everglades. Recognizing how
Speaker 1: beautiful the intricate tan and brown puzzled piece skin patterns were,
Speaker 1: she was shocked to see other hunters tossing their snakes
Speaker 1: into the garbage. Such a waste to have to remove
Speaker 1: these invasive species and then just throw them in the trash.
Speaker 1: She says, the material felt like an answer to the
Speaker 1: question I had been asking myself. Fashion school hadn't exactly
Speaker 1: prepared her to hunt pythons, so Barbietta moved back home
Speaker 1: and studied tracking and capturing techniques alongside her father. Since
Speaker 1: releasing her first collection on Instagram in twenty nineteen, she
Speaker 1: has continued to join him on countless midnight hunts while
Speaker 1: developing a deep appreciation for their urgent conservation work. This
Speaker 1: isn't something he does because he loves hunting and killing snakes,
Speaker 1: she says, he just loves the Everglades. If you have
Speaker 1: to destroy something harming the land, she reasons, why not
Speaker 1: find a way to recycle it and create something useful.
Speaker 1: It's a way to honor them, she explains, and I
Speaker 1: see that as a privilege. Rabietto repeats that mantra to
Speaker 1: herself in the back yard of her family's house in
Speaker 1: Cutler Bay, a half hour drive south of Miami, where
Speaker 1: in the second life of these animals begins. There, she
Speaker 1: soaks the hides in six gallon glass jars of water, glycerine,
Speaker 1: and alcohol for two weeks to preserve them before stretching
Speaker 1: them out on plywood boards to dry and tan. She
Speaker 1: then hand sows each accessory from her own customized patterns.
Speaker 1: Praises range from four hundred twenty five dollars for Cowboy
Speaker 1: boot straps two upwards of twelve hundred dollars for many handbags,
Speaker 1: and items often sell out within twenty four hours of
Speaker 1: being listed on social media. While Barty Barbietto will schedule
Speaker 1: more hunts for custom orders, she isn't interested in creating
Speaker 1: a backlog. I'm not Amazon Prime, she says. There's a
Speaker 1: reason why I don't have an inventory of stuff. I
Speaker 1: try hard to not be wasteful and to be as
Speaker 1: intentional as possible with every single thing I'm making. Requests
Speaker 1: now come in from all over the country and for
Speaker 1: customers in places like New York or Los Angeles. Barbietto
Speaker 1: says her designs sometimes double as conversation starters about Everglade's
Speaker 1: wildlife conservation. When I first started, I just saw it
Speaker 1: as this material I was able to utilize, she says,
Speaker 1: But it's also a form of being able to educate people.
Speaker 1: A recent small batch release was inspired by a visit
Speaker 1: to Florida's largest working cattle ranch, also located in the
Speaker 1: Everglades and includes Python's spur straps and a headstall for horses.
Speaker 1: As more people seek her out, she has saying how
Speaker 1: to scale up production and whether to collaborate with celebrities.
Speaker 1: I would love to see doitchi e in my pieces,
Speaker 1: she muses about the stylish singer. For a lot of
Speaker 1: fashion designers, that kind of high profile exposure is carefully
Speaker 1: orchestrated and primarily about building brand awareness. In Barbieto's case,
Speaker 1: she argues, the ecological impact is poised to blend the
Speaker 1: lines of what fashion and art can be. Barbieto isn't
Speaker 1: the only one who has noticed how sourcing Python's skin
Speaker 1: from the Everglades skirts many of the major dilemmas around
Speaker 1: using animal based products in clothing. Since late twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: a Miami based startup called Inversa has operated as a
Speaker 1: broker between independent Florida hunters or invasive removals specialists, as
Speaker 1: in Versa ceo A rav Chabda calls them, and high
Speaker 1: high end designers interested in using materials made of species
Speaker 1: Burmese pythons or lionfish, a similarly damaging animal threatening native
Speaker 1: fish populations and coral reefs along Florida's coasts. Barbieto runs
Speaker 1: a small, often bespoke operation. In Versa has a more
Speaker 1: industrial outlook. If we're going to tackle something as big
Speaker 1: as invasive species, we have to be thinking in terms
Speaker 1: of scale. Choptas says, we have to be removing tens
Speaker 1: of thousands, hundreds of thousands, eventually millions in order to
Speaker 1: really make a difference. So far, there's more than enough
Speaker 1: supply to satisfy the growing demand. In Versa recently partnered
Speaker 1: with acclaimed sustainable fashion designer Gabriella Hurst on a line
Speaker 1: inspired by the snake Goddess of Neolithic Europe, which included
Speaker 1: Burmese python pumps and bags. Like Barbietto, Hurst has never
Speaker 1: had never seen a textile that could have such an
Speaker 1: immediate impact on conservation. I was never a full subscriber
Speaker 1: to the Mushroom Leather because I knew that it wasn't
Speaker 1: going to have the impact that this leather could. Hers
Speaker 1: says it was exciting to work with something that is
Speaker 1: beautiful and also helping restore the environment. Katherine Holstein, founder
Speaker 1: and creative director of the New York based brand Kate,
Speaker 1: has also worked with Versa on a collection of made
Speaker 1: to order python skin handbags. In the meantime, Chabda's company
Speaker 1: has expanded to offer other materials made from environmentally devastating species.
Speaker 1: Beachwear designer Joanna Orties recently debuted belts made with scales
Speaker 1: of Asian karp, a ravenous fish threatening to destroy the
Speaker 1: delicate ecosystem of the Great Lakes after being introduced to
Speaker 1: help control algae blooms in aquaculture facilities, and Chava hints
Speaker 1: that several major fashion houses may be poised to debuted
Speaker 1: lines that include in versus materials at upcoming fashion weeks
Speaker 1: in Paris, London and Milan Beckon, Florida. Barbetta still feels
Speaker 1: satisfaction in staying connected to every part of production, even
Speaker 1: as her mission reaches larger brands that increase awareness of
Speaker 1: the problem she initially set out to solve. I don't
Speaker 1: want people to look at it as only closed, she says.
Speaker 1: One of the most important things to be is making
Speaker 1: something with purpose. This includes readings from National Geographic Magazine
Speaker 1: for to day your reader has been Marsha. Thank you
Speaker 1: for listening, Keep on listening and have a great day.