Agroforestry, Community Development Training, and beautiful Myanmar

By: Jonathan Rhodes
Co-contributor: Green Communities Consulting

Chan Nu Nu and her amazing mother

Project 1:

Chan Nu Nu’s agroforestry project

cutting bamboo free of the tangles (2 1/2 stories up)

In early July, GCC received the request to visit Chan Nu Nu’s property and begin work. Chan Nu Nu was the project leader and a local Karen youth. She was able to find local plant experts who could assist in our search for shallow rooted plants and will begin using them in conjunction with the pineapples already planted prior to our arrival. I arrived in Hpa-An on July 10^th and remained for 11 days commuting to her village 20mins outside the city. We were unable to secure permission to stay outside of Hpa-An because the region is still considered a black zone on the Myanmar government’s list. 

 

harvesting local bamboo

Chan Nu Nu ran the project smoothly and GCC was able to offer assistance in building designs, land use planning, and materials selection. GCC did not provide financial support and did not function as project leaders. This ensured the responsibilities remained the project leaders' and thus ownership of projects were  entirely theirs.

July 14^th through July 20^th GCC assisted with the construction of a pigpen and manure composer as well as a chicken coop. We were unable to assist with the living quarters due to time and their current financial capacity. The materials included recycled wood, concrete, sand, stone, wire mesh, and nails for the pigpen/compost structure as well as locally sourced bamboo, bamboo ties, bamboo woven mats, thatched teak leaf and palm leaf roofing, and plastic joint ties for both structures.

building pigpen

     Both structures were placed in the north east portion of the property to prevent contamination of the well water via seepage, underground water movement or run off from compost and feces.

chicken coop

The concept of free range pigs and chickens was accepted by Chan Nu Nu. They will be purchased in the second half of August. The chickens will help mitigate pest insects. We have also determined that the pigs will not damage the pineapple plants because of the variety of pineapple selected. The leaves are large and barbarous and thus a deterrent to foraging animals.

thatched roof of pigpen

                

I spent a good deal of time meeting and learning about Chan Nu Nu's family and village. Her village is a small Christan community, which is not unusual for ethnic minorities in the region. Even knowing this, I was not prepared for the the contrast between this village and surrounding Buddhist villages.

Project 2  

NEED-Myanmar trainings

NEED-Myanmar Eco-Village Foundation

GCC also conducted community development trainings for Burmese students in Hmawbi, Yangon Division, Myanmar (July 21^st through July 27^th) and in Chiang Mai (July 29^th through August 2^nd). The purpose of the trainings were to reinforce basic theoretical and practical concepts of community development and community engagement for the Eco-Village Foundation school in Burma and the Land, Law and Economic Training in Chiang Mai. The course was designed as a 5 day crash course with the following objectives:

• to develop one’s own working definition of development, community development, and sustainable community development
• methods of engaging the community
• why engagement with national and international actors is important

Jon with the NEED Director Khaing Du Wan

One of NEED's new buildings and one of their new cows

Foreign Investment, the Extractive Industry, and Burma

"The following content was contributed by a guest blogger. The opinions expressed or implied herein may not be the opinions of Green Communities Consulting." 

By: Ellen Bryna

 http://www.ogj.com/articles/print/volume-96/issue-14/in-this-issue/petrochemicals/thailand-rules-yadana-pipeline-must-proceed.html

A few weeks ago, Revenue Watch Institute released The 2013 Resource Governance Index, which measures the quality of governance in the oil, gas, and mining sectors of 58 countries, including Burma. Burma received a failing grade, falling in last place among all the countries surveyed in the index. Burma’s composite index score of 4 is based on scores in four main categories: institutional and legal setting, reporting practices (such as revenue and contract disclosures), safeguards and quality control, and the broader governance environment (rule of law, government effectiveness, corruption, and democracy).[1]

Burma’s abysmal ranking comes as no surprise to those who have even casually followed Burma's extractive industries, which are notoriously opaque and riddled with corruption. Burma does not require environmental impact or social impact assessments for extractive projects, and it does not require the disclosure of revenues or contracts, making it very difficult for communities to understand the potential impacts of projects and hold anyone accountable for those impacts. In addition to problems with cronyism, opacity, and poor regulations, extractive projects in Burma have also been blamed for land grabs, loss of livelihoods in affected communities, massive environmental damage, egregious human rights abuses, and for exacerbating of conflict between the Burmese military and ethnic militias.[2] 

The gas, oil, and mining sectors are crucial components of Burma's national economy, accounting for 39 percent of exports in 2010. With its offshore oil and natural gas reserves estimated at 10 trillion cubic feet, and large amounts of untapped mineral resources including precious gems and industrial minerals, the extractive industry is expected to expand its contribution to Burma’s gross domestic product from $8 billion in 2010 to $21.7 billion by 2030.[3] 

The vast majority of Burma’s population lives in rural and impoverished conditions, depending on small-scale agriculture to make their livings. Only about 26 percent of the population has access to electricity, and even those with electricity access experience consistent blackouts.[4] Some argue that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Burma’s vast natural resources can help decrease poverty rates and improve infrastructure and access to services. Burma’s score in the Resource Governance Index, however, suggests that it is unlikely that the people of Burma will benefit at all from this investment unless the government makes sweeping reforms in its policies surrounding oil, gas, and mining. 

The government has recently made small moves to improve transparency in the sector, such as stating its intent to join the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI – a voluntary reporting and transparency standard for countries and companies involved in extractive industries), but ongoing projects, such as the Shwe Oil and Natural Gas Pipelines and the Letpadaung Copper Mine, suggest that business in Burma’s extractive industry will continue as usual for the foreseeable future. 

[1]See http://www.revenuewatch.org/rgi/ 
[2]For more information on abuses and conflict associated with Burma’s extractive industry, good places to start are: http://www.shwe.org/ and http://www.earthrights.org/campaigns/burma-project 
[3]“The Rush to Tap Myanmar’s Energy Promise” in Bloomberg Business Week, June 7, 2013, at http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-06-07/the-rush-to-tap-myanmars-energy-promise 
 [4]Myanmar In Transition: Opportunities and Challenges, Asian Development Bank, August 2012, pg 22 available at http://www.adb.org/publications/myanmar-transition-opportunities-and-challenges?ref=countries/myanmar/publications

GMOs: A Different Debate part 2 of 2

GMOs: A DIFFERENT DEBATE

Part 2 of 2 

 

By: Jonathan Rhodes
Co-contributor: Green Communities Consulting

Please see GMOs:A Different Debate part 1

By Minouto via Wikimedia Commons

The GM topic continues to reach headline news and remains a topic of discussion for health.  GMOs are perceived in the western world as having serious potential health risks. To date the jury is still out on direct links between health issues and GM foods. However, like so many things in this world, health is only one face to this mammoth of an issue that is GM crops. A much larger focus should be placed on the effects of GM farming in developing nations - issues such as biodiversity and livelihoods should be of larger focus.

Biodiversity

By Christian Ziegler. via Wikimedia Commons

 Every healthy ecosystem is robust and diverse, and through species diversity comes resiliency towards both natural and anthropogenic disasters. Take plants for example, if disease reeks havoc on a healthy ecosystem, there is enough biodiversity for the system as a whole to bounce back. Minimal loss to plant life and animal life results from a large pool of genetic diversity. In other words, humans will continue to have an alternative food source when one crop is lost.  However, when one species dominates an ecosystem, there are system wide risks - species extinction, livelihoods, and food security to name a few.

 

This is where GMOs can have devastating consequences to the natural environment. GMOs are designed to out compete naturally occurring relatives. If and when they are released into the wild these advantages disrupt the biodiversity of a system. The research published by the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. shows how GM salmon would cross bread with wild trout in closed conditions. Their offspring out competed both GM salmon and wild trout. This effectively created a super species and posed risks to biodiversity.

By Christian Ziegler. via Wikimedia Commons

 Livelihoods

Throughout SE Asia, I have come across many development practitioners and farmers who are proponents of GM crop. Farmers who wish to use them argue the benefits to job creation and food security. By successfully growing GM crops business can expand and create new jobs. This will also increase food stores that could provide income for poorer regions. This is a win right?

There is a darker side to this. GM agriculture lends itself to mono-cropping. This in turn restricts competition and reduces job creation except through expansion. All those jobs created by micro farms are suddenly lost. Small farmers’ inability to compete means loss of sales, loss of land, and loss of jobs. Additionally, the cost of investment is out of reach for the majority of farmers. Those who can afford GM crops aren’t necessarily the same people concerned about creating them. An example of this problem is in Burma. A majority of farmers are unable to support the expenses of GM crops and associated fertilizers/pesticides needed. Those who could afford GM crops tend to be large business owners or government officials from the Junta regime.

In many developing nations biodiversity and livelihoods are related. Utilization of a diverse ecosystem helps fuel livelihoods creation; weavers with their harvested fibers or silks, craftsman using wood and bamboo, or farmers and fisherman selling a range of produce are all examples of this interconnectedness.

For GMOs to have a positive impact on developing countries they must first overcome these obstacles. Until GMOs minimize threat to biodiversity and livelihoods they will continue to be a false hope for development.

poverty in a different way

"The following content was contributed by a guest blogger. The opinions expressed or implied herein may not be the opinions of Green Communities Consulting."

By Emma Moonlight

In September 2012 I went to teach in one of the nine refugee camps on the Thai-Myanmar border. The last few days before I went to camp I was, I have to admit, incredibly nervous. Not of the people, not of the language barrier, not of the living conditions in general, but mainly about whether I would get drinking water. Whilst I knew that thousands of people lived in the camp and had done for many years, so logically my fears were unfounded, I was still worried.

What strikes me now, though, is how quickly I adapted to my new life. To me, the living conditions weren’t that bad. Or at least, I’d expected worse. But then again, I am one of those people who are perfectly happy trekking through jungle or up mountains and spending three weeks in a tent. That’s just me, though.

No, what I experienced wasn’t people starving, children wailing, or complete destitution. It was poverty in a different way.

While I was there, one of the teachers at my school found out that she was pregnant. When she told me, she had a smile on her face but was struggling to hide the tears in her eyes. I was later told that, as a refugee, she didn’t want to bring a baby up. She wanted to be able to offer her child a future. She wanted knowledge that her child would be able to get a decent education, have the opportunity to find work, and, most importantly, live a life free from persecution. As a refugee, she couldn’t guarantee her child any of that stability.

The majority of refugees I worked with had enough food (don’t get me wrong – it wasn’t necessarily always healthy or varied, but it was food), they had a roof over their heads, and they had access to education. For adults, though, there was a void. There was absolutely nothing to do. People left the camp’s school system (if they’d entered it in the first place) and entered the kind of dull, endless vacuum that comes from years of living in limbo, waiting for something to happen. They had no way of knowing what that something might be, or when it might come; let alone who might make that decision for them.

Some of my English students were working as primary teachers in the camp. The wages were pitiful and they detested the job – they had never had any aspirations to become teachers. One of them had started a law degree at university before having to flee Myanmar. Teaching, however, was pretty much the only thing to do during the day and the only way to guarantee that they would have something on their CVs if and when they can eventually leave camp. 

This wasn’t poverty the way the Western media portray it when running news stories or charity campaigns. These were people who simply exist, carrying out their daily activities with a complete lack of control over their lives. They had no choices whatsoever to make about their future, no options or decisions to make. The future, when it was discussed, was done so in terms of ‘in an ideal world…’ and ‘if I eventually leave here…’ These were big ‘ifs’; many others chose not to openly voice their fears.

Will China take the rest of the world out of poverty?

Will China take the rest of the world out of poverty?

Part 1.

By TUBS [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

            According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, China's largest oil fields, upon which they have been relying since the 1960's, have reached peak production in the past few years.  Anticipating the fact that these mature fields will be unable to support the rapid increase in oil demand, China has been increasingly importing its oil from abroad.  Crude imports now account for over half of China's annual oil consumption.  As of 2009, China is the second-largest importer of oil, trailing only the United States. 

            Securing oil from abroad has proven to be relatively easy for the Chinese, especially with their implementation of the so-called oil-for-loan deals, which have been made with Ghana, Angola, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Kazakhstan, and others.  These deals essentially trade oil for access to Chinese investment dollars.

            Another method of accessing imported oil is through pipelines, which China currently uses to get oil from Russia and Kazakhstan, and will in the near future through Burma.  These pipeline projects require international teams and vast investment capital to complete, and create an entire infrastructure around them in order to be maintained into the future.

            Given the vast amounts of capital delivered through the oil-for-loan deals and pipeline construction projects, many nations stand to profit a great deal from China's incredible rise to economic dominance.  Because of Chinese investment dollars, it is now possible for third world countries to build an infrastructure capable of sustaining long term development which, in theory, would take them out of poverty and into the 1st world. 

            While China certainly benefits from the increases in oil imports from abroad, the countries doing the importing stand to gain quite a bit themselves, if they handle the investment capital carefully, and ensure that is their workers, and not the Chinese, who are being educated to work in the developing industries.  For if all of the majority stake holders and all of the skilled laborers within the developing industries within a country are of Chinese background, that country stands to lose its status as autonomous, and instead becomes a true puppet. 

            Part two, soon to follow, will discuss how a country should properly use Chinese investment capital to guarantee its future success.

Zachary James