- TOP STORIES
- Media Center
- PROGRAM
- LEARN GERMAN
Learning German
German XXL
Community D
Deutsch unterrichten
Of Snakes and Men: On this program, we visit a community of traditional snake-catchers in India and show how they pursue their prey in the service of medicine. Then we go to Florida, where exotic giant snakes have reproduced to the extent that the diversity of the Everglades' ecosystem is under threat. And in Ghana, a university campus goes green.
Their leather is valuable, but their venom is even more highly prized, because it can save lives. India's cobras and vipers used to be hunted and killed for their skin, but today the poisonous snakes are protected.
The Irulas, members of a low-status caste in southeastern India, used to earn a living selling hunted snakes until the practice was forbidden by law.
Now they hunt the snakes for the Venom Extraction Center, which in turn supplies the entire country with anti-venom.
The world's most dangerous snakes live in Australia. Some produce enough venom in a single bite to kill 250 people.
Countless forms of animal life make their home in Florida's swamps. As well as alligators, the region has also attracted exotic species from other continents.
Giant snakes like the boa constrictor and the Burmese python have spread life wildfire and are becoming a genuine threat to the area's unique ecosystem. Several thousand giant snakes have already settled in the Everglades.
Valley View University in Accra has dedicated itself to energy and water conservation. Solar panels on rooftops provide electricity, rain water is collected and treated, and kitchen waste is used in the bio gas plant. The goal is to establish a self-contained recycling system.
Ghana's oldest private university has about 1,200 students. Previously the main areas of study were theology and business administration. But this summer, a new course was introduced: ecology.
Iuliana Rusu recently moved to an apartment in Bucharest.
