Tropentag

A quick note from a drizzling gray morning in the Rhineland.

I am preparing to leave Bonn once again and am breaking away to attend a conference in Hamburg before moving to Witzenhausen. I have been awarded CeTSAF support to attend the Conference on Tropical and Subtropical Agricultural and Natural Resource Management (Tropentag) Conference next week.

Tropentag is an annual conference for sustainable resource use and poverty alleviation. The style of the conference should be very interdisciplinary and involves people from a range of backgrounds addressing food security, sustainable land management among other things.

Tropentag has been called 'the most important International Conference on development-oriented research in the fields of Food Security, Natural Resource Management and Rural Development in central Europe' (CATST Hohnheim).

The DAAD Scholars (DAAD-lnternational Alumni Summer School) from the University of Göttingen will be there to present and take part after a semester long study focused on this conference.

Tropentag will be a great opportunity for networking with professionals in sustainable forestry and agriculture. learning the 'state of the art' and meeting many of my professors and colleagues from Witzenhausen, Göttingen and Kassel.

The News Today

My qualification as Master of Sail Steam or Motor Vessels is not proving that useful to me in my work with farmers and foresters so I have decided to go back to school and pursue a Masters degree. The program is in Sustainable International Agriculture in Witzenhausen, Germany as part of the Trans Atlantic Partnership between the Universities of Kassel and Göttingen, the Organic Research Center in the UK and the College of the Atlantic in the US.

Recent news has offered more inspiration for this masters program. Listening 'The Changing World' on PRI, Ayisha Yahya looks at life in the Namib desert. The Namib is world's oldest desert, the most stable arid area in the world, and it is going through some big changes. Namibia faces serious challenges in crop and animal production, coastal flooding and the consequential impacts on human and ecological health. Water scarcity, already a serious challenge, is likely to get worse in the near future.

Also in the BBC news today are reports on the farming and forestry practices in the Amazon. Many farmers in the Amazon are using recently deforested land for a meager cattle production of 1 head per 2.5 hectares cattle production, far below the global average. This system of production is a hard life for the animals, the farmers and most of all for the native forests.

This is an important time to pursue a sustainable way to to cooperate with the rest of the world - these studies should offer good connections and qualifications toward that ideal.

Read more about the Witzenhausen: Word Press Blog for the College of the Atlantic sustainableag.wordpress.com

Cory's Dr Green Blog Posts:
Small is Beautiful
Give Organic a Chance
Beekeeping
No Work Farming
Growing Organic



Visit Farmers for the Future

Carrot mob and International Day of Climate Change

'Wir drehen das Prinzip des Boykotts um und belohnen Unternehmen,
die bereit sind, etwas für die Umwelt zu tun!'

“We turn the principle of boycott around by rewarding enterprises
that are willing to do something for the environment!”

-Carrot mob

Carrotmob started in San Francisco last year. Born from the idea that the power of consumers can push businesses toward more environmentally responsible practices. Carrotmob interviews various business owners to see who is willing to put the most revenue toward greening their business. The business who offers to contribute the most gets rewarded by a mob of shoppers all making their weekly purchases together in that store.

Learn More about the Bonn Carrot Mob action at:

http://beta.greenaction.de/kampagne/carrotmob-bonn

Create your own: http://carrotmob.org/organize/

Cory's Dr Green Blog Posts:
Small is Beautiful
Give Organic a Chance
Beekeeping
No Work Farming
Growing Organic

Visit Farmers for the Future