Wangari Maathai and the Green Belt Movement/ Samwell Naikada and the Maasai Herders

'As long as we think that the other forms of life are here for us
we cannot give them the respect they deserve'
-Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai

Just returing to the busy IFOAM Booth (H-017F for anyone who is around) after an inspiring but packed side event with Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai, Brighter Green , Nobel Womens Innitiative and a young Maasai herder.

Wangari Mathai has started the Green Belt Movement in 1977 in response to serious soil and water resource losses in her region. It all started when Maatthai decided that the way forward was for the women of her village to plant trees, she found some foresters to teach them how to do it and has since invigorated the land and helped her people through the many benefits of reforestation. Maatthai has since started the Pan African Greenbelt Workshops to encourage and support other communities around Africa to reforest and regenerate natural places in their countries. Maathai then asked for the help of the Kenyan army for reforesting the country. 'While you are protecting the country the country is disapearing' she told them 'To protect the country give it complete protection'. Her requests got the attention of the commander of the Kenyan army who has since had his troops plant many trees. 'They come in uniform' she said. 'Even the UN Blue Helmets should be involved in tree planting.'

Samwell Naikada is a Maasai herder who told us about the changes his people are experiencing in Kenya. The Maasai people (Maasai Association) have about 500 hectares of forest left. This loss of forests is being suddenly felt by the people there. There are now wild grassland animals grazing in the forests and orangutan coming from forests to feed on young goats and sheep in the fields. These are things the Maasai have never seen before. Naikada runs a small organization to try and encourage people to raise fewer animals and stop cutting the trees in Kenya. He says that when he tells the Maasai herders that the animals are part of the problem they tell him he is lying. 'You are not speaking the truth' they say.'When you are a man you need to have cattle' he told us 'not just a few cattle you need many of them. In my family we have five men' he said 'and we will need to have 500 cattle.'

Ultimately it was a packed event with a load of information about the benefits of community involvement, of a sensible agricultural policy, of good governance and of the necessity for giving access to carbon funds to communities, especially communities of women, and small scale community forests.

That is it for now from Hopenhagen.

Mor Useful Links:

Maasai Women Development Organization (MWDO)
ENGISHON
Ngoronogogo

FAO Climate Change and Food Security

Sacco vuoto non può star in piedi.
An empty sack cannot stand upright

Just returning from a workshop with the world agriculture leaders. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the US Agricultural Minister Tom Vilsack among others were there to discuss in a panel about the role of agriculture in these COP15 climate change talks.

Danish Minister for Food, Agriculture and Fisheries Eva Kjer Hansen spoke about agriculture as both a challenge and a solution in climate change. Agriculture produces 14% of Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG) with another 17% being produced through 'land use change' (converting land from forests and fields to agricultural lands - this contributes to 90% of all deforestation by the way). She went on to say that we need to address hunger and climate change simultaneously, that these are the same project and that organic agriculture can play a large role in this.

Next we heard from Director of Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE) Gilberto Câmara who spoke of the fact that with the projected climate change scenarios Brazil will have Savannah instead of the Amazon by 2050 - that the coffee will need to be imported from Argentina and that Brazil is doing everything it can to change that. He told us that Brazil will cut emissions by 20% below 2005 levels by 2050, that they will use 55% renewable energies (up from 46% today).

Ajay Vashee president of the International Federation of Agriculture Producers (IFAP) (600 million family farmers member organization) spoke about the problems of hunger, loss of biodiversity disease and the social and economic implications of climate change. He spoke about the importance of access to carbon funds to small producers (or conglomerates of small producers), access to capacity building and income improvement. He pointed out that 1 out of 3 people in the world are farmers and 1/3 of the land surface is agricultural land, farmers play the largest role in human impact on nature therefore the rights of farmers should play a big role in the talks about climate change.

Jaques Dioff of FAO spoke briefly about the agriculture situation in the world. 1 in 6 is hungry, the world population will reach 9.1 billion by 2050 requiring a 70% increase in food production and that means a 100% increase in many developing countries. Making this change, he says, will require many billions of dollars, maybe even tens of billions, but in a world where we spend over 300 billion on arms we ought to be able to find the money. He warns that we should steer away from this movement toward biofuels, the production of biofuels will compete with the need to produce food and conserve water.

US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack had a lot to say about agriculture from the US and agri-industry perspective. The party line here really seems to be that science and technology will save us, that we need more technological advancement and Dr. Norman Borlaug is our hero - and we should follow his vision so that other countries can have as much extra food as we do in the US. He did (possibly unknowingly) say some inspiring things about the need for more recognition of the role of soil in carbon sequestration. That is clearly in favor of organic.

So, that is it for now. The conference continues.

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

Visit Farmers for the Future

COP15 in Copenhagen

Now sitting over my morning breakfast and getting ready to head in for another day of the COP15 here in Copenhagen. The sun has not yet risen but the rest of the IFOAM staff is already huddled around the kitchen table working on the final draft of a guide to climate change and food security.

We are here selling Organic Agriculture as a viable, affordable, and realistic way for people to both mitigate and adapt to climate change. The guide is co-authored by IFOAM, FiBL and the Rodale Institute and is designed as a definitive work to describe the role of organic agriculture in the steps we need to take in the face of climate change.

The food served here at the COP15 is 75% organic which is already a big win for us and says something about the amount of understanding that people already have about the role of organic in climate change. However, few people know about the benefits of organic in sequestering soil carbon, increasing biodiversity and increasing food security. That is where we come in: networking, talking and generally making a fuss about the potential of organic agriculture.

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

Visit Farmers for the Future

Ideas about Web 2.0; Social Networking to Save the Planet: Facebook, Twitter and Couchsurfing

The problems left for this generation to tackle are paramount. The facts are clear: our species is using up more than our fair share of the natural resources resulting in a period of rapid global extinction. The fate of the current diversity of life on this planet is in our hands.

The dysfunctional relationship between people and nature is paradigmatic. It cannot be addressed by scientists or politicians but must be tackled by a whole community. Community building through the medium of social networking websites is one important way that the relationship might start to get better. Facebook and Twitter among the myriad others allows people to get informed about issues as they happen and as they relate to their social network through the so called web 2.0.

Since moving back to land I have spent some time dabbling with these tools for democratic and ecological action. One that I am particularly enamored with is the non-profit organization 'Couchsurfing Network' www.couchsurfing.org.
What is Couchsurfing?
Couchsurfing is a unique idea started, naturally, in San Francisco by a bunch of activists, party animals and college kids. It has grown to become a large and effective community of movers and shakers. Although the mission and vision have no direct link to environmental action I have seen and done some good things through connection with the membership.

I have the unique honor of volunteering for the Couchsurfing Network as a Nomad Ambassador. This means that I basically travel around, doing as I do, with the added responsibility of spreading the word and creating events and gatherings in the places where I travel.

Please check out couchsurfing.org and read the introduction to Couchsurfing pages and the mission. The benefits are great - the cross-cultural and inter-community exchanges are deep and rewarding.

Couchsurfing Mission Statement

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

Visit Farmers for the Future




Couchsurfing Vision Statement

To create a profile and make a donation visit www.couchsurfing.org.

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