The Agroforester

Solutions to Global Warming

 

MATCH CHILDREN FROM THE FIRST WORLD WITH THE FORESTERS OF THE THIRD WORLD AND REVERSE CLIMATE CHANGE.

The following is A RECENT SUBMISSION TO GLOBBALL AGAINST GLOBAL WARMING GROUP

"I am new to the group and so a bit clumsy about starting a discussion and making it appropriate for the children who will become Climate Heroes. We hear and read daily about the problems of global warming. On the other hand the prospective solutions that reach the news are the extremes, using new technologies that are in the conceptual stages. Some of them are so extreme that they will not be off of the drawing boards for another decade and each is so expensive that funding avenues are not feasible. Talking about money first, sorry to mention a political figure as an example for fund raising, but Obama raised more money for his campaign in a shorter time than any other candidate ever. He accepted $3.00 contributions over the Internet. Now for the solution: Forest degradation is rampant and it is said to be the largest single contributor to GHG emissions. Our Foundation reverses deforestation starting at the grassroots level.

OK, now you have it. Money in tiny donations from lots and lots of contributors, and the planting of trees by millions of people at the grassroots level. Where do the children become heroes? Public Awareness is key. We have branding for this which we can license to the children for the price of a smile and the willingness to adopt it in your campaigns. Our logo is iconic representing "Less than 2 degrees centigrade". Please review the blog http://josephreynolds.typepad.com/blob/ . In the Philippines we are taking the same principle of tiny, but multiplying it by a big number to reach the goal of replanting 7% of the Philippines. This project needs public awareness and will be a great one for the children to support. Just imagine supporting reforestation in a country that used to have more than 95% of the land mass covered with trees and now that is down to 2.7%. The people are cooperative and want to reforest, we have the plan, are gaining support and now we need public awareness. Thank you."

• We have millions of children who can become Climate Heroes by practicing the correct energy conservation methods.
• The millions of children can MATCH WITH MILLIONS OF GRASSROOTS FORESTERS. 
  
• THE RESULT IS BILLIONS OF NEW TREES, THEN HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS AND THEN A TRILLION NEW TREES GROWING AND CLEANING THE AIR within five years.

Now go join this wonderful movement in the Netherlands that will help bring public awareness worldwide: 

Join Public Awareness, BE A PARTICIPANT, annonymously if you like 

Sustainable Reforestation Requires Thinning

 

Watershed trees that are about 14 years old, never fertilized, however holding the soil and retaining water which is absorbed and released to adjust to climatic and soil conditions.  It is the lateral roots that hold the leaves and humus.  Their layers protect the soil from erosion.  However, it takes more than a decade for the leaves to pile significantly enough to do their soil protection duties because  the decaying of the leaves is constant and a source of nutrients for the trees. Nevertheless, the soil in which these trees were planted was in terrible shape after 34 years of being barren.  These True Mahogany grow well under such conditions making way for the reintroduction of local species of Producers (fruit, nut, sap, fiber, medicinal, herbal and biomass).  This soil now supports earth worms, a sure sign of soil rehabilitation.  When thinning these trees only five percent will be cut in rows that stretch East and West so that the daily path of the sun will cast its light upon the Producer saplings.  The remaining mahogany will provide protection against typhoon winds and will continue to hold the soil during torrential rains.  The next year will see another transformation of five percent, but in terms of board feet and not numbers of trees.  Each year the trees add three centimeters to their girth and therefore to obtain the same number of board feet actually requires the thinning of fewer trees, thereby making the process easily sustainable. 

Indigenous or Endemic

Many environmentalists espouse leaving a forest completely indigenous or endemic.  Their desires are understood and there are some areas of the world where it is practical to have pure wilderness.  Unfortunately, very few.  We should find all such areas and plan for their protection.  Instead of vast areas in most parts of the world it is only possible now to find small primary forests.  In the Philippines we can still find tracks of primary forest that are from 500 hectares to 10,000 hectares, usually upland covering the upper most portion of the mountainous regions.  In a few selected areas there are some lowland and midland primary forests remaining, but all-in-all what used to be 95% is now 2.7%.

In most areas of the tropical regions where natural forests used to flourish there is now barren land.  Upon site inspection it is even rare that there is a visible relic of the former forest.  Stumps are gone, logs left behind are fully decayed and eroded away.  The primary proof of a forest of yesteryear is in talking to the seniors who can still recall how vast they were when the seniors were yet still in their youth.

There are also those who further espouse openly that when replanting a forest that only "endemic" and "indigenous" flora be planted.  The job of reforesting the barren land is faced with having to successfully plant and grow out trees to three years before they can maintain themselves, after that mortality declines from 50+ percent to less than 1%.  Most of the soil in which the seedlings must be planted has long been over-exposed to ultra violet rays.  The microbes are long gone as is the humus.  This planting environment is as close to being a desert as you can come to without actually being one.  They want flora, which is a system of biodiversity.  From a very practical standpoint restoration of flora in most areas cannot be considered feasible until the soil is rehabilitated and the harshness of the UV is utilized in photosynthesis by trees that are capable of growing in such harsh conditions, providing shade, moisture barrier and a habitat for insects and birds.  Following such a grow-out the thinning process may accommodate the further design and development of endemic or indigenous planting to begin a flora system. 

The area in need of planting exceeds two billion hectares in the tropical and subtropical belt around Earth.  No government can achieve such numbers successfully in such a way as to benefit the locals.  It is the locals, however, who can grow the forests provided they get a little help from either the government sources and or private.  It is their children and grandchildren who are the beneficiaries.  However, the growing of a new forest also provides the grower with opportunities to grow special varieties of trees and plants that can yield revenues within a matter of months instead of decades so he too can be a beneficiary. 

Adel and Leway DeClito, IVAFMS Foundation, Inc.  This photograph reflects 10 years of growth of the very first True Mahogany that they planted in 1994.  Although the couple had returned from working as foresters in Japan and could  not afford the fertilizer during the first three years of growth, they were able to afford the seeds however and were able to protect their watershed.  Had they used fertilizer this already beautiful tree would be significantly larger.  This area is the watershed for the DeClitos and it was they who first figured out that without the trees the stream of water dried before the end of the dry season each year.  Now the water flow to the underground well is more constant and longer lasting, however not yet back to what it once was when this was still a rain forest in 1960. 

Biochar in Forestry, Reducing Global Warming ... Do We Fertilize the Forest?

This information is prompted by the recent posting of "Biochar Explained ...", wherein the excerpt from Victoria Kamsler, D. Phil, Chief Ethics Officer and Research Director, Greeninfiniti was provided to explain Biochar.

Do we fertilize our gardens? 

Of course we do, and because we do they grow better than if we ignored them.  When we read a gardening book about our plants there is a full section on what, when, where and how to fertilize our plants. 

Do we fertilize our forests?

What forestry book have you read where there is a chapter devoted to fertilizing the forest?  Perhaps there is a section about how the trees obtain nutrients naturally, but nothing on fertilizing unless it is a very unusual text.

As a result, the forestry texts base how fast a species of tree will mature on the mere observation of its development inside the natural forest.  For example, True Mahogany has been observed to take 15 years to mature.  This is empirical, it can be published and it is.  Students of forestry read it and it becomes the standard used by regulators and forestry experts memorize it as a fact and use it authoritatively.

 

Rainwater Retention Tanks at the Foundation's Prototype Project, Ilin, Mindoro Occidental

An Experiment in Practicality

Ilin Value Added Forestry Management Services Foundation experimented with fertilizing a selected group of newly planted Mahogany seedlings within its forest.  It constructed 6,000 gallon rainwater retention tanks and built a simple sunshade over the otherwise open tank. 

The sunshade was inviting to the native chickens each evening when looking for a place to roost.  Their droppings would enter the water below where swimming were Talapia, a local freshwater fish (escapee).  The fish consumed the chicken droppings and in turn they did their thing as well.  The nutrient rich water was used to drip irrigate twelve seedlings year-round for two years, even during the rainy season.

Native Chickens fly and roost in trees or other areas where they feel comfortable and secure.  These in particular are roosting in nearby trees but the Foundation enticed many of them to roost over the rainwater retention tanks.

When first planting Mahogany seedlings the agroforester should not forget that cross cropping is a natural event. 

The irrigation tubes seen here run to seedlings.
This drip irrigation system brings the nutrient rich water from the nearby rainwater retention tank to the seedlings.

The experiment survived two of the worst typhoon seasons in 54 and 53 years when hit in successive years.  Blown over were  several of the test trees.  In the fifth year, however, one of the six remaining trees had five seed pods.  The following year the same tree had more than 23 seed pods and a second tree had five seed pods, and the following year the second tree had more than 23 seed pods.  That is how a "normal" 15 and 16-year old tree acts as well.

  
Five-year-old Mahogany with five seed pods.  One is visible here.

Maturity in 30% of the Normal Time

The two Mahogany trees that produced seed pods in only 5 years were able in their sixth year to produce sufficiently that more than 6,000 seedlings were produced.  

Hypothesis: 

The introduction of Biochar to the new forest floor where these seedlings will become saplings, juvenile trees and finally mature seed bearing trees will significantly decrease the "normal" amount of time to achieve maturity by 30% to 60%.

Of course, this is a back yard type of experiment since a control group is not being used nor are we starting with fresh seeds that did not come from the original test trees.  Unfortunately, we do not enjoy the time nor the budget for pure science.  Let the real scientists see this and design their own scientific studies, using grants.  In the meantime we are moving on while the Earth gets warmer.

Biochar is next.

These findings are sufficient for the pragmatist of forestry management to be worthy of further work and expansion.  The drip irrigation is costly and limited in scope.  However, the application of Biochar is feasible on a large scale.  The Foundation will be extending its experimentation using Biochar regarding larger applications at negligible costs.  The agricultural community has already shown conclusively that the application of four tons per hectare of Biochar to the farm soil increases production significantly.  It is believed that half that quantity spread over the forest floor will be sufficient, since the forest is sustainable and does not require multiple and routine planting and harvest cycles, which disturb the soil.

Please do not forget... if this information taught you anything of value please make your donation at the button on the top right margin.  Thank you.

Biochar and Charcoal Briquettes Made from Forest Trash

Reforestation, its benefits and responsibilities are for everyone.  This article is one in a series that is written for the average person so that he or she can easily learn a role.  An informed public is more likely to become active.  Deforestation must be overcome through reforestation and that is something that can be accomplished more by average people wanting to participate than by scientists who merely examine, it seems.  Let's make it happen.  Remember:  Reforestation is a social event first and without those at the grassroots the newly planted trees will not survive beyond their first three years.  Help the locals to help the forest and we all will benefit.

Why Briquettes?

The briquette process that our Foundation utilizes works very well even though it is a very small operation.  It shows that the cutting of trees to make charcoal can be replaced by the making of charcoal from forest trash.  Furthermore, the process actually produces Biochar which can then be used for beneficial purposes within the forest, farm and garden.

The cart in this photo has wheels, the charcoal sleds do not.  To transport the charcoal is hard work.

Our purpose was to stop regular charcoal making from trees, which is laborious and costly to the charcoal maker.  

1. First they have to negotiate with the tree owner who will get a share of the charcoal. 
2. Second they have to cut down the tree and cut it into uniform pieces. 
3. Next they must stack it in the proper way.
4. Then they must cover it with soil and mud. 
5. • If it is the dry season making the mud is a lot of added work. 
6. Once the preparation is completed they have to light the wood and monitor it while it smolders for around a week. 
7. • All of this process is equal to time and money, it is a business that they engage in to make a meager living.  
8. After the charcoal making is complete they must bag it into cavans (sacks), about 50 to 60 kilos each. 
9. Then they have to rent a carabao (water buffalo) with a sled,
10. They load the sled.
11. Then they transport out of the forest to the water's edge and unload. 
12. Next they have to hire a banka (boat).
13. They load the cavans of charcoal onto the banka and ride to the nearest market several kilometers away to the mainland. 
14. Once at the market they are at the mercy of the buyer and they sell at a low price. 
15. The proceeds pay for production, the tree, the land transportation, the water transportation and to themselves.
16. Now they buy supplies at the market and return home with almost no money, ready to cut another tree.

Erosion is controlled by the leaves on the forest floor so it is important that we not clean the forest floor of leaves when looking for forest trash from which to make charcoal briquettes.  It takes years for the forest floor to be adequately covered by fallen leaves, so be careful.  Only use trash other than the leaves.  The spreading of Biochar, from the residue of the briquette making process, on the forest floor should speed up the forest growth, the recapturing of airborne carbon and enhance the forest overall.  This process however, remains in debate amongst the scientists.  The Foundation monitors the debate so it can move rapidly when there is consensus about these issues, but for now all of the significant indicators are very positive for the use of Biochar.

From Charcoal to Briquettes

To get the charcoal makers to switch to the Foundation's  briquette process was not so difficult. 

• We designed the 55 gallon drum as the slow high heat furnace and placed a cone shape top on it. 
• We explained to them that the two to three weeks that they spend making charcoal can be shortened and they would not have to buy any more trees. 
• We continued the explanation that they would gather forest trash from the forest floor and segregate it into piles. 
• • The palm frawns in one pile, the coconut shells in one,
  • the husks in another,
  • the whole nuts in even another,
  • tree limbs and branches in another. 
  • Then they would buy from us for 50 pesos ($1.00) they furnace.  By selling, even at a modest amount, the pride of ownership is present. 
  • We taught them how to load the furnace and to carbonize the forest trash.  
  • They now bring to us the cavans of carbonized matter and we purchase it. 
  • Their only cost is the one-time purchase of the furnace, the transportation of the cavan to the Foundation where the briquette press is located. 
  • That's it and it is easier and quicker, they net the same amount that they did when making charcoal and are able to complete the process in about 1/3 the time, with a fraction of the work.

1. The Foundation then takes the carbonized material and mixes it with a fixer such as casava and then emulsifies it with water. 
2. The last process is the pressing and our machine makes twelve at a time, which is plenty. 
3. • It takes two laborers to press and handle the briquettes which must be placed out to dry before being boxed. 
   • They require boxing in order to protect them from being crushed. 

The University of the Philippines at Los Banos studied the BTU output of the briquettes made from all kinds of forest trash.  They found that the poorest quality of forest trash produced briquettes with greater BTU output than the highest quality of charcoal.

The local municipal government agreed to pass and ordinance prohibiting the making of charcoal if the briquettes are sufficient in supply to replace the charcoal.
 

In a future article the author will produce a series of photos depicting the complete process of making charcoal briquettes. For now, this is one of two presses that are in operation.

The Machine

Our briquette machine was fabricated locally in Luzon and we shipped it to our site several hundred miles south and onto our island for a total cost of $622 equivalent.  There are sophisticated presses that can produce commercial quantities for around $10,000.00 equivalent.

The local municipal government has promised to require use of briquettes in lieu of charcoal at such time that the supply is sufficient to replace charcoal.

This photo depicts slash and burn which is different than just the cutting of one tree at a time in order to make charcoal, however, this is representative of what the cutting of merely 100 trees can do to a standing forest.  On the other hand charcoal makers cut one tree at a time in most of the 42,000+ barangays or on the average of about 1 tree per day per barangay each year, which if clumped together would represent an area of more than 170,000 times the slashed area in this photo.

Remember:  In the Philippines 17 million trees are cut yearly to make charcoal, the leading cooking fuel.  Briquette making from forest trash can replace the tree cutting.

A Little Help will Go a Long Ways

We will continue our small efforts, but with your help we will expand them. You may contribute at the top right margin of this page.

Sincerely, Joseph J. Reynolds, President, IVAFMS Foundation, Inc.

ERADICATE POVERTY! IS IT POSSIBLE? THE UN SAYS IT IS, SO DOES THE ADB, BUT HOW?

 

Without discretionary income the locals wait for infrastructural improvements, seemingly forever.

This article is very short because the cause is so profound and the answer is so simple.

·            The absence of food, shelter and clothing were the earliest measure of poverty. 

·          Possession of them meant the family was not poor.

·          The ability to produce any one of them in greater abundance than the family needed was wealth building.

    In the beginning man achieved by concentrating on food production, but not mass production.  He simply met his family’s daily needs.

Poverty was on its way to becoming an institution nearly 10,000 years ago.  How can we possibly change it now?  Why did it develop, mankind is older than that?  Was poverty in the would-be dictionary then?  Mankind’s refrigerator and kitchen cabinet were the living forest or other aspects of Mother Nature’s kitchen, but that kitchen has long been closed or abandoned, ignored or destroyed in favor of something more  modern and practical to our new ways and demands of living.  We all know that whatever system makes it to market first is most likely the one that we are going to use and eventually institutionalize.  

·      Why do we use alternating current instead of direct current that is cheaper, safer and simpler to use?

·      Why do we use fossil fuel instead of biofuel for our internal combustion engines when the first successful fuel used was biofuel?

·      Why do we use the most popular computer operating system, which we know is not the most efficient?

·      Why do we continue using the existing agricultural system, when there are better systems that even predated but we abandoned in favor of perpetuating poverty as a tool, sort of replacing the warlords?

Poverty is an Institution.

The list can go on and on but the core question is about poverty and can it be eradicated?   How did it become so widespread and accepted that it has become an institution.  There are families that have been in poverty for generations, it is a system that people are born into and die there without ever having escaped it; they cannot pull themselves away from its holding powers.

The social countermeasures to poverty consist of so many that in order to list them would be easiest by merely referring the reader to the blue pages of the municipal telephone book. 

Entire college curriculum is devoted to the subject.  Outside of national defense budgets in most First World countries the largest budgets are devoted to the question of either poverty prevention or support to the poor or the reduction of poverty through various social approaches, many disguised as if doing some other public good.  Unfortunately, few of the programs actually do more than perpetuate poverty.

The Agricultural System is the “Key” that needs to be changed.

When the warlords built the agricultural system and put it into action it was done on the backs of the cheapest labor possible.  They had slaves.  Food and water was the main expense.  The land was available and all other needs could be supplied merely by directing the energy of the slave force.  The production of food was meant to feed the army and cost was the concern. 

Keep the cost down. 

This system was never designed for the farmer to be anything other than a slave.  No farmer was intended to create wealth; that would be punishable.  This is the system that made it to the market first and although it has been modified throughout history it remains so true today that any reader of this would be hard put to find farmers in this world who, without government subsidies, do not remain poor.  Before you run off to prove to the contrary please note that about half the world's population are farmers of one type or another.  So to be significant in your findings please find at least 60 million exceptions out of 3 billion or about 2%.

Agroforestry is the New Key.

New and innovative practices must utilize everyday technologies that are modular, carbon neutral, locally based and conservatories of renewable consumables. 

“Producers”, fruit, nut, sap, fiber, medicinal, herbal and biomass must come from the forest, that we rebuild, rather than from plantations. 

Mother Nature’s formula is bio-diversity and in rehabilitating barren lands to forests this process must be the recipe and the local farmers the beneficiaries.  Their massive numbers at the grassroots level is the formula for volume by “lots of little bits” rather than a “few’ (plantations) ‘with a lot” each. 

Bio-diversity, probiotics and forest-based processing are not only carbon neutral, it is a tremendous sustainable carbon sink that produces wealthy agroforesters in a major departure from tradition.  To do this successfully requires consultation to bring the reader to a new mind-set.

The Foundation is working with government and non-government alike to bring about this new wave of thinking.  This entire Blog is devoted to agroforestry and it is suggested that you open the articles listed in the left margin and see how change can be made and poverty can actually be eradicated.  If you do not find the answers then send your comment and question and the Foundation will provide the answer.

The Foundation has systems:

·      to get the displaced urban poor to return to the provinces and enter agroforestry,

·      to create wealth at the grassroots,

·      to train and educate the next generation to be the “Commerce Matrix”,

·      to work with the landed gentry and the poor to benefit both,

·      to create urban vertical farming,

·      to create organic production as the standard,

·      to use probiotics for living soil,

·      to produce, process and use at the local level using new discretionary funds, and

·      TO ERADICATE POVERTY OF AGROFORESTERS AND THOSE WITHIN THE COMMERCE MATRIX.

OUR GOAL IS TO REFOREST 7% OF THE PHILIPPINES.  THE FIRST 1% IS PROGRAMATIC AND THE OTHER 6% IS THROUGH VOLUNTARY REPLICATION. 

PLEASE SEND YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS THROUGH ANY OF THE DONATION BUTTONS ON THE UPPER RIGHT COLUMN. 

Slash and Burn, Indonesia and the Third World, can Biochar help?

A discussion leader of a significant Biochar discussion group very recently asked me to educate more about Biochar regarding the Slash and Burn issue in Indonesia.  My thankful response to Trevor Richards follows.

Sierra Madre, Aurora Province, 2009.  Part of the remaining 2.7% of the originial forest that remains nationwide.

 

I'm heading back to the forest in April for several months and will be working the Biochar during that period and will report the results through articles.  Regarding the persistent slash and burn problem, not only in Indonesia but around the tropical world, my observations in the Philippines seem to be common to the others.  I've consulted to "expert" consultants of the major development bank here and found that the proximate cause is generally overlooked in favor of more complicated indirect causes, such as alternative crop selection. 

The Proximate Cause

Simply put, farming is hard work.  The farmer prefers that his crops be close to his home and he does not want to climb a mountain.  He does not want the extra work that it takes to clear a new patch of land.  Why then does he go to so much effort to slash a forest that is farther from his home and higher up the mountain?  Why does he then burn the forest that he just slashed rather than utilizing it productively and sustainably?  He has to eat and make a living.   The crops that he grows require fertile ground.

The Solution

Biochar can be a solution to the problem because it is the need for fertile land into which the farmer must plant his crop that he chooses this laborious route to growing his next crop.  As we know the forest yields fertile land for no more than three years before it plays out.  Fertilizers, whether commercial or organic are either not available or are too costly to obtain from long distances and therefore the least costly approach that the farmer sees is to clear more land.  The logging bands prevent the sale of the logs and the wasteful and harmful burning of them is their solution, i.e. Singapore is covered with smoke and the GHG emissions continue, not only in Indonesia but throughout the Third World.

Teach the making of Biochar from forest trash to replace

the making of charcoal from cut  trees.

The Methodology

The use of Biochar should be a system that involves the farmer.  He must know about the forest, which most farmers have little knowledge about.  He must be taught about organic trash, how much to harvest, how much to leave on the forest floor.  He must be taught how to convert it properly into Biochar and how to spread it onto his fields. 

One series of lessons will produce such positive results that the teachers will teach more teachers and the slashing and burning will stop simply because it is less work and more productive to continue farming the same piece of stationary property that is no longer moving farther up the mountain and farther from home; and now his crops remain closer to the market.  Less work for higher productivity is what the farmer will see.  

After this is accomplished we can teach the use of organic and probiotic methodology in combination with the Biochar to make living soil for sustainability and the diminished need of traditional fertilizers.  After that we can teach Agroforestry for sustainability, biodiversity and locally based economic development which eradicates poverty.  Biochar is the best and least costly beginning point.

The Cost

The cost is minimal for the return.  For less than one thousand dollars for equipment plus the cost of training more than 100 hectares can be saved and the GHG emissions stopped.

Please help by sending your three (3) dollars at the top right of this page.  Tell your friends and ask them to contribute as well.  Thank you, Joseph J. Reynolds, President, Ilin Value Added Forestry Management Services Foundation, Inc.

Tradition ... Less than 2 Degree Centigrade, Is it Possible ... One in a series

The author grew up in a super conservative family and political environment, one steeped in tradition.  

Tradition is so pleasing to us. 

Especially when learning within the public schools.

To teach non-traditionally is a teacher’s career choice.  

To learn non-traditionally is to score low on the standardized tests.

Within the work place the 'bankable" business models are traditional, otherwise unfunded start-ups. 

To design non-traditional business models is to be outside of the system.

The establishment sustains tradition.

Tradition is great, but it slows progress.

Doing things the way that our parents and grandparents, even great grandparents in some cases, are comfortable and familiar to us.  We are slow to change because what we are born into we accept with few questions that are quickly answered by that very system.   We then become the system's own mechanism for sustaining tradition.

Example:

• Ten thousand plus years ago agriculture was invented by warlords to feed thousands upon thousands of their hungry soldiers.  The only economy at the time was stealing by force from the neighboring warlord.  The clearing of land of trees and the like in order to grow crops was a totally new concept.  Circumstances required that in order to be successful the army needed to be fed.  Agriculture was a new idea, who would fund it?  Since it was the warlord's idea funding it came from his pocket.  No respectable citizen would be convinced to go out into the hot sun, clear the soil of trees, weeds and other ground cover and then place into the soil a seed, which would require daily watering and personal care until it would grow; to wait months before being able to eat from that plant must have been a ridiculous thought.

Mankind and Mother Nature, A Departure

To understand Mother Nature is not a difficult concept, however the actual understanding tends to escape us.  Why?  Because our present day reference is the result of change gone array.  Mankind has a tremendous ability, greater than any other of Mother Nature’s creatures, to think freely and to act on those thoughts to change the order of nature.

Without Mankind’s ability to change Mother Nature her present day appearance would be different than what we now see.  Diversification is the key to nature’s plan.  Mono species is the key to Mankind’s plan.  Nature’s key uses bio-diversity to make the entire ecosystem function on its own.  Mankind uses mono species and artificial additives. Mankind creates economies of scale and business efficiencies through the removal of the ecosystem, concentrating on one particular species at a time, such as corn, wheat, oats, soy and a thousand more.  Again, why? 

Who is to say that man was meant to live in small or large groups, or both?  The fact is that biodiversity on the “farm” used to exist when there were more people living in small rural groups than people living in large urban groups.  With the reversal of that ratio the rural existence changed into a basin of high-tech business growing the food for the high-density populations to consume. 

The artificial applications and its logistical support have moved mankind to upset nature’s plan so extensively that Man has actually changed the weather cycle and put it on a catastrophic course that may become unstoppable.  Mankind is facing its most critical choice ever.  Its mere existence is now another example of Darwin’s theory of evolution, only the fittest survive.  We have the ability to realize our poor choices thus far and to change them.  Don’t forget that Mother Nature considers extinction of some of its parts as an ongoing process.  We have chosen to be nature’s competition rather than assistant, which of us do you consider the fittest to survive on our current path? 

What is the solution?

This lesson is the first in a series that identifies the problem and presents the solution that will become reality.

Traditional Practices, Agriculture and Forestry … The Proximate Cause, Two in a Series

The author finds that being in the field teaches far more than an armchair existence.

Traditional Practices

The practices that perpetuate tradition are “acceptance” and “fear of change”.  When we, individually, no longer accept the customs of tradition we still must face the fear of espousing change.  Society reluctantly accepts defiance but certainly imposes penalties for making unwanted change.  The fear of how those penalties may change a person’s remaining life, life style and that of loved ones and associates is an overwhelming barrier. 

 

Proximate Cause, an example

Throughout most of the world the practice of slavery is no more, it certainly is not internationally condoned.   The United States required the outcome of civil war to actually stop its legalized total ownership of another, an industry that had so strongly existed throughout mankind’s history; even regaled by civilizations as a positive part of their GNP.  Who would dare to challenge such a public policy, imagine the consequences, such as was evidenced by the civil war deaths of hundreds of thousands.  The costly changing of which took tens of thousands of years, was in one moment of history, the actual proximate cause of change.

 

Is there a similar issue today, sort of a “Today’s Slavery”?

What is as important now for change as slavery once was, something that grips us with the same economic force?  Will this change bring consequences?  What will be the proximate cause for such change?

Given today's standards Brazil is doing a great job.  Are "today's standards" the answer to perpetuating traditional forestry and agriculture ... mono, mono, mono? 

Agriculture and Forestry

These two august systems could not be less regal today than slavery ever was in its day.   The inherent negatives of slavery were visible to so many but the fear of change was too dampening to allow it for thousands of years.   Today, agriculture and forestry are part of our civilized fabric and most of the negatives are not visible.   Agriculture and forestry are embraced nearly everywhere that modern man exists. 

 

Climate Change and Greenhouse Gas Emissions

The examination of carbon foot printing, carbon sinks, carbon sequestration is visible to the scientific community that studies molecules and atoms.

  

The caption for this mono-farm:  "The mosaic created by terracing hills to plant the golden crop of Malaysia, palm oil." 

    Malaysia has perfected mono-farming in direct conflict with Mother Nature's plan for bio-diversity.  These plantations make the CPA's very happy, but it is only a matter of time before Mother Nature rebels and conquers the intrusion at the expense of the investors and demise of the former flora and fauna as natural diversified systems that are (were) carbon sinks beyond comparison.  Mono-forestry and agriculture are not bio-systems; their mono-benefits are dwarfed by the loss of the flora and fauna ecosystems.  Big business can make even more money through bio-diversity projects, but it is "harder", at first.

Need for Change by the Layperson

Years of scientific studies have been reduced to simple-enough-language for the layperson to understand, interpret and finally come to believe we need change.

 

Instruments of Change, Alternatives

Mankind faces another battle in the face of the fear of making change at a time when it is easier to advocate the spending of trillions of dollars to place trillions of mirrors into outer space to reflect the sun’s rays than it is to advocate the changing of agriculture’s negatives.  Or, is it?

What is the solution?

This lesson is the second in a series that identifies the problem and presents the solution that need be  reality.

 

Altermatives toTraditional Agriculture and Forestry, Third in a Series

The author sees first-hand at the grassroots the necessary natural and human resources, it just needs help organizing, training, maintaining, monitoring and implementing.

Organic, Probiotics, Biochar

When we buy organic fertilizer it is more expensive than the chemical fertilizers.  There is no reason why a farmer need go to the farm store anymore, organic is already on the farm.

Probiotics brings the soil to life using friendly bacteria and a little technology.  It continues to live and give to the plants, sustainably;  no need to visit that farm store either.

Biochar is the product of turning biomass into gas or oil and adding it to crop and forest production systems as a soil amendment.  It has the potential to produce farm-based renewable energy in a climate- friendly manner.  If carbon offset markets develop, biochar can provide income for farmers and ranchers who use it to sequester carbon in soil.  (Victoria Kamsler, Chief Ethics Officer and Research Director at Greenfiniti, March 2010)

Instead of charcoal from trees, biochar can be made in a similar way from trash found on the forest floor.

Bio-diversity

More than 300 kinds of edible fruit grow in the Philippines but traditional mono-farming principles have developed fewer than fifty.  Many of the not so popular have excellent qualities.  The entire diversified forest prospers based upon the inherent benefits of its complex relationships between the two systems of fauna and flora interacting 24/7.

Sustainable Grassroots Economic Development in the Third World

The traditional rice farmer only nets annually about US$800 on one hectare that is for commercial  production.  Conversely, with diversified and sustainable producers (fruit, nut, sap, fiber, medicinal, herbal and biomass) grown organically using agroforestry, he may sustainably net ten times as much within seven years and 10 times that amount in 22 years.

Eradication of Poverty

It took Singapore nearly 30 years to progress from the lowest of Third World countries to First World.  Twenty-two years to progress to First World in the Philippines using agroforestry is not a long time.  Agroforestry can be implemented in each of the 42,005 barangays (villages) eradicating poverty at the grassroots level within 25 years.

Climate Change Mitigation

Everything about agroforestry is a practice in mitigating Climate Change through the carbon sequestration inherent in the process.  Forest carbon sinks will return to the land.

Beautiful sunsets usually mean the air is abundant with particles that belong on the ground, rather than in the air.

Growing Your Own Mini Sustainable Forest Using Biodiversity and Agroforestry – The Tree

1 in a series

The author is speaking from experience and not from the classroom.  There are certainly better ways, especially theoretically, but this system is working within the Third World framework of the Philippines.    

Which Tree?

The Broad Leaf Mahogany is also called the True Mahogany.  It is classified as the American genus Swietenia and belongs to the family Meliaceae.  It is an endangered species in its place of origin of Central America, however it is not endangered in the Philippines.  The tree was introduced by the Spaniards hundreds of years ago and then in 1917 the Americans began an expansion of its propagation and today it is one of the most prevalent species found in the Philippines.  The Department of Environment and Natural Resources recommends its use as its reforestation tree of choice.

Pioneer Tree

True Mahogany is a “pioneer” tree.  It grows where less rugged trees cannot yet adapt to the harsh conditions of barren land that has poor soil.  The Philippines only has 2.7% of its original forest with most of the deforestation having taken place 50+ years ago.  Conservatively, at least one third of the deforested lands remain barren.

Soil degradation results when the ultraviolet rays of the sun constantly beat down upon it and during the seasonal changes between wet and dry the soil erodes, cracks and looses its beneficial microbes.  The remaining soil becomes all but useless.  A pioneer tree, such as the True Mahogany will grow in such soil. 

Why Plant Mahogany, won’t Others Do as Well?

The first forest that we grow is for the primary purpose of soil rehabilitation.  The Mahogany is planted high density, about one meter apart.  They grow quickly and the competition between them for sunlight makes them reach upward.  The leafy portion of the tree is dense and condensed resembling more of a ball of leaves at the top of the trunk rather than a spreading and sprawling tree.  By planting them close together the leaves of each reach the neighboring tree and a canopy is formed within three years.  Although it is only ten feet above the ground it is nevertheless a canopy.

Moisture barriers form underneath the canopy and near the ground.  This is caused by the hot sunlight above contrasting with the cooler air within the shadows below.  The temperature differential is 20°F causing moisture to form along the forest floor only after three years.  This new environment is conducive to the return of the beneficial microbes attracting the insects and they in turn attract the birds which fertilize as they move about.  The older leaves fall from the trees to the floor and begin to decompose and that is food for the earthworms, which return as well.  This cycle takes about seven years to complete. 

Why Not Commercial Fertilizers, etc., Why wait 7 Years?

Traditional methods that are ordinary and customary have been employed in every major development bank project to rehabilitate similar barren lands and each has failed.  Each with feasibility studies volumes thick to support the hundreds of millions of dollars spent.

How Long? How Large?

It took mankind thousands of years to kill the forests and now that we have a method that works and only takes seven years why should we question that?  (This tree is only 12 years old, but well nurtured.)  The Italians grow vineyards for their children and the Greeks grow olives for their grandchildren. 

Why shouldn’t the Filipinos take a generation to build back their forests?  After all that would be faster than any other country, most of which think that a project of a hundred thousand hectares is large. More than 27 million hectares of land used to be forested in the Philippines.  What would a few hundred thousand hectares mean overall?  Not much, less than 1% and using traditional methods, even well funded, such a project is doomed to failure. 

On the other hand, each farmer family with one hectare of barren land can learn how to grow a mini-forest.  It is not grown to replace the famer’s existing cash crops, so why be concerned about earning from the forest during the first seven years?  No need, the land would remain barren otherwise and no income would be produced otherwise.  Why create an issue that does not need to be created?  There are more than two million of these opportunities in the Philippines, now we are talking about reforesting more than 6% or around 2 million hectares and doing it in a way that works.

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