Why (a Lot of) Small is Beautiful....and How a Triple Bottom Line Will Save the World.

A Special Installment from Director FRANK COSTANZO-CONNELLY in advance of PGI's UNGC 2011 COP:

The remarkable thing about business consulting in India is the incredible opportunity to observe humanity as a collective democratic society transitioning on an epic scale. The flip side is watching-in real time- the natural resource security of a Nation erode. For our U.S. readers, imagine waking up tomorrow and the landmass of US shrank by two thirds and the population tripled. That’s India. In previous news we’ve covered the critical issues of food security, increasing scarcity of potable water, drastic inflation in food prices due to broken and antiquated supply chains and farmer-market trade inequity. We’ve examined the social impact of these basic critical issues as it relates to endemic farmer suicides, GOI policies to gloss development imbalance and some fine people and organizations that have proved that positive change can be made no matter how big or small. Over the course of the past several months the entire PGI team has been where we love to be – in the field. We’ve applied our brand of triple bottom line (3BL) business planning and implementation and we’re pleased to say they are being well received. Having stopped for a breather before the facility of three major projects, we can report that we have some solutions to offer that we and many like us believe can lead to sweeping change. In a word, the solution is integration. More accurately, a multi-criteria de-compartmentalized approach to development as a vehicle of commercial –human – ecological symmetry. And it’s a model that works anywhere, whether India, U.S.A. or Burma. In essence the asymmetric growth of enterprise and human development indicators are a result of: 1) disintegrated public policy; 2) misapplied intel and resources; and 3) failure to adopt correlative systems of 3BL and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

Although this seems a daunting list to achieve change, we also found it can be done very simply. Many small changes lead to mass movement. Ultimately it requires like minded people – and there are truly no shortage of same in India and elsewhere. What is needed is a clarity of mission, delivery and measurable outputs so others can join the movement and know the likely outcome.

INDIA: A PEERLESS 3BL-CSR LAB

From a feasibility and facility perspective, sustainable business planners can gain experience rapidly. Based on the law of frequency, variables and scale of enterprise, India simply creates so many opportunities to witness the very best and the very worst of human potential. It’s often been said that India is a land of contradictions. It’s not. It is a land of multi-dictions. PGI has been intimately involved in top-down problem approaches; bottom-up problem approaches and sandwich approaches. The sum of all these experiences has taught us a valuable lesson that is imperative that we share to as wide an audience as possible. It is the paradigm of many small actions can result in massive movement. That’s not to say scale is not unimportant, the influence of many small projects spread over a wide footprint create greater 3BL efficiency, scale and returns than a mega project.

Think about this analogy: A government decides it wants to increase national green cover. They decide that 1 billion trees need to be planted. Is it easier for a government to organize and facilitate the planting of a billion trees? Or would it be easier if one billion people planted one tree? We’re witness to analogous examples playing out the world over: the Arab Spring, the facebook factor, the Anna Hazare movement, cheap mobile technology that has connected rural farmers with meteorologists, market updates, cooperatives. The power of technology has delivered to people a tool for change.

FIRST THINGS FIRST: HUMAN DIGNITY

The one maxim that we can confirm through our work in rural and marginalized India is that human dignity has real and measurable value. Our nature as humans is to be equal and interdependent. This statement is easy to accept, however until one actually witnesses the many disguises of oppression, one cannot fully appreciate the value of equality. We at PGI have seen many examples. We’ve worked with communities labeled by industrialists as inherently ‘lazy’; which upon closer examination proved to be a blind-eye label given to a community that refused to be oppressed. It is therefore critical that those in the sustainable facility industry use PGIS and other integration building systems to learn what values and inputs are necessary to empower project sector communities and assure they remain culturally intact; connected to their environment. Only then can this world of ours begin enjoying the gold standard of the human-nature paradigm- a triple bottom line global network of millions of local economies.

FORGET MEGA – THINK AND DO A LOT OF SMALL

Which leads us to the point: Lots of small is so incredibly beautiful. There is no better joy than to create an facilitate the networks for replicable integrated systems that connect and empower the historically oppressed, marginalized and insecure. To not merely throw money at a problem or a people as a means of development. To form specialized teams dedicated to the hard work, the coalition building and problem solving. It’s the kind of effort that results in equitable and perpetual relationships; and create social/ gender empowerment and natural service security. It’s the solution that ends the subsistence and bonded labor paradigm of rural farmers through myriad relationship linkages and genuine triple bottom line planning. It requires no official policy (although policy can and should be a platform toward solution) but relies instead on using inter-and extra- organizational vertical expertise that is linked to the ground, working with Nature and each other.

INTEGRATED PEOPLE NETWORKS WILL MAKE CHANGE; GOVERNMENT IS A SUPPORTER NOT AN AGENT OF CHANGE

And this is do-able when networks build capacity and the necessary verticals are crosscut and harmonized. And this is not going to be delivered by Governments, or inter-governmentals or public policy…(they will support and provide medium service) but the work –the heavy lifting-must be done by all of us –from end-to-end. If there are those that need a different motivational tool to become aware, then think about this: TISS just released a study on the “Indian Approach” to Sustainable Development. It promotes the theory that every human is entitled to an equal share of the global atmospheric carbon sink. For example, the per capital ‘equity’ based emission entitlement for each American is 30.95 giga-tons, however US has emitted 81.57 giga-tons per person. In India, the per capita entitlement is 112 gigatons, however India has emitted only 25.28. The sum of the paper is that developed nations either compensate developing nations to the tune of $707 billion for their over-emission; or (as PM Singh suggested) each person in India is entitled to as much emission as anyone in developed country. (That would be 1.2 billion people entitled to 86.72 gigatons of carbon.) So, if climate-apartheid reparations versus per capita development parity (an apocalypse) are the only two options, then we need another option that comes from outside the policy box. It must spring from the ground. It requires a global paradigm shift that redesigns developed country norms and designs-right-the-first-time the norms of developing countries.

The TISS paper provides a good example of the policy paradox that finds equity though dividing groups rather than unifying. Unifying policies tend to emerge only when a crisis is immediate and defined in scope and need. In those cases policy is useful for rapid and joint response. Like a hurricane or an earthquake. But when given an incremental crisis like climate change, policy seldom reaches the critical mass needed for consensus; and if by chance consensus is reached, there is always the question of ephemeral sincerity and eye-wash. It is therefore up to each of us – an IT enabled collective of humanity- to change and turn the tide of climate change, natural resource security, human equality and sustainable development. This era is ours and it’s actually much easier to claim than you may think.

THE EVIDENCE OF CHANGE

What has given us at PGI much hope recently, is the universal message that is beginning to get traction and go ‘100th monkey.’ In many ways PGI itself was steered by gravity from its beginnings as a sustainable energy consultancy, to designing sustainable ag-businesses, and more recently CSR perma-economic 3BL planners. The transformation has been intuitive and directed by our mission-culture. Each project delivery resulted in deeper networks and mission focus. Our organizational focus has been influenced through particular revelations about the most efficient manner to winning the evergreen revolution. India –as noted above- presented the target rich environment and a cultural ground network (that is in many ways as effective as the internet but has been around long before its invention) that assists facility of replicable models and attracts likeminded strategic alliances. When good models work in India, the word spreads and the traction necessary to scale small-beautiful 3BL projects blossoms and achieves ‘viral’ potential.

PGI is convinced that the way to environmental remediation and widespread social adoption of 3BL models is the performance metrics that come from combining timeless wisdom (Vedic sacred gardens, Black Elk’s vision of a 4th Way and Mollison/Holmgren’s permaculture eco-synthesis, etc) with best practice technology and CSR systems. Obviously, the key is that all the bottom lines perform and are profitable. For this reason, PGI adopts an inter-disciplinary approach to produce holistic integrated ag-business-models each geo suited but with replicable core systems so they can be adopted and linked on a broad scale. This is how we will win the evergreen revolution.

3BL AND CSR VERSUS THE TIPPING-POINT:

The power of what Gandhi described as India’s nine lakh (900,000) villages, empowered and interdependent can alter the course of development and steer India away from its current collision course with natural service breakdown. The saathi haath badhana is alive and growing in India and has the potential of avoiding immanent food/water security collapse. The current path is simply the result of 19th century notions of development process and lack of good governance. It has resulted in critically uneven, disintegrated and wholesale unsustainable development. PGI tweeted in January 2011 that this year would be the year that India’s development story collided with natural service security. It has sadly come to pass as predicted. For those who need to use commercial economic metrics as the measuring stick, witness then the rampant inflation of food and resources, manufacture and market drops, spiraling petrol prices, crash of cotton market, off-monsoon climate anomalies, the Anna Hazare movement that have made 2011 the most precarious year for India since 1998. Single-bottom-liners cry for a return to protectionist policies as a ruse to distract from the actual economic flaw- sustainability and linkages to its heart, rural India. Most striking is the recent statement of Home Minister Minister Chidambaram at the 28, September 2011 All India Management Association:

“We must raise the tax revenue to defend (‘the expected aggregate decline of resources’). I know many people won’t like this. But I think, I can summon the courage to make the statement.” Chidambaram also said that poverty must decline rapidly and at a higher rate than the current 1%, if the country has to achieve inclusive growth in the future.

Like the Chipko women who guarded their sacred trees, the people of India-and the world as a whole- must activate and make significant change in norms to protect natural resources and economic security. Chidambaram’s stark assessment is unsettling but a realistic step in the right direction that requires fuel.

It is time for all- from every profession- to leave their comfort zone, cross-cut and make the connections with those engaged in the work of adopting the right plan at the right place through an integrated network of 3BL CSR objectives. Participate. Activate. Make a small difference in a big picture. It doesn’t matter if you are in India or not, India’s development is affecting your world, your climate your future. If in a developed country then it is even more incumbent to reboot the paradigm to offset the effect of a crowded ever-developing world. To recognize that ‘development’ need not be measured in terms of tons of carbon and CO2, there is another way.

The evergreen revolution is winnable. Triple bottom line companies and networks are not some lofty ideal, they work. Permaculture on a community-commercial scale, forest farming on a community-commercial scale is not only possible, it’s proven and profitable and simply requires mass adoption and proliferation. The greatest irony shall be that in the end analysis those who historically remain connected to the Earth –the billions of SME farmers and foresters- will be owed credit for saving the planet and humanity. PGI professionals have always found SME farmers the most receptive agents of sustainable models…because we weren’t teaching them anything they didn’t already indigenously know! In fact we learned their TIK! They are the bearers of the flame of ancient practices that kept them connected to Nature. They maintain a wisdom immemorial… before humans began to believe that technology had relieved us the need for Nature.

MOBILATION IS KEY

Lastly, the evergreen revolution will not be televised. But our technology will assist us. The ability to network has never been so easy and pervasive. The dissemination of ideas has been the agent of change like never before. It is almost too coincidental that our ability to network with each other coincides with our critical need to modify our own behavior to save Nature and thereby ourselves. Like the Arab Spring proved that the collective can topple any regime no matter how large and brutal, a global collective is ushering in a new paradigm of equality and empowerment, harmonically connected to Earth and each other.

Next year is a very special year for PGI. It is our 5th anniversary as an Indo-US sustainable business systems consultancy. November will be the one year anniversary of our membership as a UNGC company and we’ll publish what we hope to be a broadly useful COP. This is all in the lead up to the 2012 UN International Year of the Cooperative which we look forward to sponsoring. We’ll continue to evolve as an organization and will continue to focus increased attention to the mission critical issues of global rural sustainable development and how you can be participant. Namaskar, Aloha and Cheers! –PGI

Thanks for reading, and go make some change!

FRANK COSTANZO

Director PGI

Join us on Twitter and keep your Green Eye opened!

info@peerlessgreen.net

ww.peerlessgreen.net

Twitter: @peerless_green

Fair Use Notice: This post contains copyrighted material that has not been authorized by the copyright owners. PGI believes this educational use on the Green Eye Web-blog constitutes a fair use of the copyrighted material (as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.) If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Fair Use notwithstanding we will immediately comply with any copyright owner who wants their material removed or modified or wants us to link to their web site which we routinely do as a business practice notwithstanding.

A Sincere Congrats to PGI Fellow 2010 Biodiversity Partner MS Swaminathan: Times Social Awards

The India Green Revolution is well documented, and at the rate its going the history books will cite India as the champions of the Evergreen Revolution. And among its score heros will undoubtedly be Dr. MS Swaminathan, fellow UNEP 2010 Biodiveristy partner. He's an incredible warrior and his organization provides daily inspiration and value addition to PGI's plans and project facilitation. 

What separates Dr. Swaminathan from the rest of the pack is his ability to shine in the lab, at world conferences and connect with the people who count, the SME farmer.  If ever there was a road map for cross cutting and integration and GIS and network mobilization, just follow in the good Doctor's shadow.  A hundred more like him and we've won the Evergreen Revolution.

The advantage he may have -other than his experience and situational omnivision- has to do with the relatively short amount of time between Ag Revolutions.  The metaphorical cement had yet to dry. In the U.S. for example, commercial/industrial scale mono-cropping and customs and practices of till and fertilise farming goes back generations and you'd be hard pressed to find an old timer who can remember a time when farming didn't involve eco-productivity destroying practices. In the case of U.S. the cement is hard and thick, and convincing -en mass- a change toward scaled commercial sustainable ag-business that involves companion cropping, stacking, eco-synthesis, is a hard sell. The scale of failure is much bigger and much more disastrous for the US farmer. Government safety nets need to usher in the new era of evergreen farming if U.S. food security is to be assured.

In India, the farmers are in numbers that are hard to comprehend...100's of millions...each with a small holding of a few bigha (acre or two) and have been only recently doing anything other than subsistence farming.  Therefore, when word spreads that a small farm operation is producing double or triple output at half cost inputs, the bandwagon fills faster. With the support of coops and organizations such as BAIF-DRF can get fast traction, wide-spread acceptance and a full band-wagon of other farmer coops wanting in on the wind of change.  In this case, the recent development of farming has not allowed the 'cement' of bad practices to set, and as such the develop-it-right-the-first-time can rapidly usher in change that will secure India's food security (which is in critical condition) and needs pulled back from the brink.

One critique (which is very much a bi-line re the news editor of the article herein below), is the failure to describe the project for what it is: a "permaculture".  The politics of semantics (particularly in the research and institution fields) is a barrier to cross-cutting and necessary networking.  I should hope this was the oversight of the writer and not another example of rebranding an internationally recognized format. If so it is at the expense of the proliferation of a critical global message and a much needed signature example of success.  The risk of failing to use uniform and established terms (in favor or regionally invented terms for the same thing) is that is prevents the spread of information and the likelihood that cross border, cross culture networks can be formed. The global lexicon must be uniform because the challenges are global and common.  This is not for sake of convenience, it is critical that all communicate and use the vast information networks effectively, and without ego, to advance humanity's evergreen development and retreat from the current race to tipping point. If one were to google permaculture news...this fine and necessary news -as well of those involved-would not produce a hit. That's dangerous. As such we tagging this installment in order to effect network awareness.

The other critique is the repeated failure to attach economic meaning to scientific programs. Science for the sake of science is fine if it isn't key to our survival. In order for a finding to gain traction is must prove in the commercial market. Farmers must feed their families and develop out of subsistence. Whether any of us like it or not, or it offends our 'green' virtue or scientific ethic, the hope of economic sustainability is an important a component of any plan. As important as equality and ecology. All three must balance. Period. Full stop.  Media must adopt a 3BL approach and Social Impact awards such as one sponsored by (of all entities) JP Morgan should insist that Social work produce three pillar results...The market is the proving ground and is where we as humans live.  We as humans trust in numbers, and again this is a common and persuasive tool of communication that must be included, lest the news becomes a 'feel good' piece. PGI, as a private business development consultancy has been viewed with a jaundice eye at times from those who question why it is not an NGO or charitable organization. The mental wall that separates the interests of commerce and environment and social welfare must be destroyed in favor of 3BL CSR approaches to the world's problems and solutions. Life with each other and with nature cannot be divided like a newspaper into sections 'Business' 'Life' 'Environment', they are all one and in time it will bedevil editors as to what story goes where. In the interim, journalists should include economics and performance metric information in their stories as an agent of change and public awareness of the evergreen paradigm that is upon us.

C O N T R I B U T I O N TO E N V I R O N M E N T

Preserving nature and helping farmers at one go
Vishwas Kothari & Vijay Pinjarkar
TNN

Akole (Ahmednagar district)/Etapalli (Gadchiroli district): Until a few years ago, farm yields in the tribal areas of Akole tehsil in Maharashtra’s Ahmednagar district were very low and people found it difficult to make ends meet. Since then, they have had their own little White Revolution, a success story in sustainable rural livelihood that has worked wonders for the environment.

This turnaround was the result of an initiative led by the Pune-based BAIF Development Research Foundation (BAIF-DRF).

Elsewhere, in the Naxalite-dominated Gadchiroli district, villagers say their income almost doubled after they took up sericulture, honey collection, chestnut farming and lac harvesting, all of which BAIF-DRF (formerly Bharatiya Agro Industries Foundation) facilitated. The projects were launched in Etapalli, Bhamragarh and Aheri tehsils. At Etapalli, over 22 self-help groups now work in seven villages in a 24km radius.

BAIF-DRF’s approach was to ensure sustainable livelihoods without increasing pressure on natural resources. It initiated a multi-pronged strategy to increase crop yields, water management, livestock development and supplemental income activities like silk and lac production. Instead of chopping trees for fuel, they are now used to produce lac. For

sericulture, plantations have further enhanced green cover.

BAIF-DRF interventions in two Ahmednagar district clusters are part of a programme under the National Agricultural Innovation Project (NAIP), promoted by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. Called the Sustainable Rural Livelihood Security in Backward Districts of Maharashtra, it is being implemented at Yavatmal, Chandrapur, Gadchiroli and Nandurbar, covering 76 villages, including 12 from Akole tehsil.

“This NAIP component has been getting Rs 22.46 crore from World Bank for a five-year period (2007-2012),” B K Kakade, vice-president of BAIF-DRF, says. A 14-member board drives the body, currently headed by Mafatlal Group’s Arvind Mafatlal. Scientist M S Swaminathan, Rajashree Birla and Sudha Murty are the other notables on the board. Day-to-day affairs are run by a 25-member committee, led by Girish Sohani.

From livestock and crop management to marketing and water resource development, more than 1,000 tribal families from 12 villages of Akole are now doing things they never knew they were capable of.

Deothan and Samsherpur clusters have achieved an average 54% increase in the yield of paddy, wheat and gram over the past three years. Nurseries, sheds for horticulture and protective farming, fodder cultivation and artificial ponds for fish farming have come up across these clusters. “Last year, we got 3,000kg of fish from the fish pond I built with BAIF-DRF assistance. We earned an additional Rs 18,000,” Geeta Darade, a farmer in Deothan, says.

In the last three years, 627 families benefited from improved crop yields in the Ahmednagar clusters. Paddy yield, on an average, increased by 910kg/ha through traditional farming, better seeds and best agriculture practices, Preeti Karmarkar, BAIFDRF social development group head, says.

The most dramatic results came from the cattle-breeding programme. Karmakar says local breeds usually have far less milk yield per lactation. But with BAIF-DRF’s cattlebreeding services, starting with awareness camps to animal health check-ups, consultations for crossbreeding, artificial insemination, calving and preventive healthcare, milk yields hugely improved, she says.

It’s not just about higher milk yields but also ensuring good returns to the villagers. “Each village now has a mini collection centre from where all the milk goes to bulk milk coolers at Hivargaon in Deothan and Kalirumalwadi in Samsherpur. Each of these collects 2,000 litres every day. This goes to a bigger milk cooperatives in the region at Akole,” says social worker Ramchandra Patil.

At Etapalli in Gadchiroli district, 310km from Nagpur, BAIF-DRF focuses on forest and agriculture-based activities. Under NAIP, 950 families from 12 Gadchiroli villages have directly benefited.


BAIF-DRF
In 1989
BAIF shifts focus to sustainable rural livelihood, development and research. Name changed from BAIF to BAIF Development Research Foundation Foundation works
In 12 states, projects originate from its Pune headquarters

Key field of work
Ensuring sustainable livelihoods without increasing pressure on natural resources














Fair Use Notice: This post contains copyrighted material that has not been authorized by the copyright owners. PGI believes this educational use on the Green Eye Web-blog constitutes a fair use of the copyrighted material (as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.) If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Fair Use notwithstanding we will immediately comply with any copyright owner who wants their material removed or modified or wants us to link to their web site which we routinely do as a business practice notwithstanding.

INALIENABLE: FOOD, WATER, SHELTER, EQUALITY

It is truly amazing that in a world filled with such incredible technology, that the major crisis for a third of the world's population are the basic requirements for life: food, water and shelter.  Add to this list human equality, and you both identify a crisis and the reason why certain sectors of our human population are denied the other three basic requirements for a sustainable life.  The 'bottom of the pyramid' as it is referred by economists, is populated by the marginalized, the exploited, sets outcast by other sets. Within this population, the plague of gender-bias and dowery systems further interfere with the progress of development. As draconian as it may seem, the reality is that the women of the world are victims of unspeakable atrocities and violations of basic human rights.

From the India perspective, like so many other issues, India wears many faces.  In a country of over a billion, there is a bell curve wherein women populate the role of President and captains of corporate enterprise; relatively populated by a (fortunately) growing set of educated young urban female professionals (albeit many suffering from glass ceilings); the massive center of the curve comprises of women who from casual glance may seem socially equal but are in fact in downtrodden, in constant risk of exploitation and cultural ostracism.  The bottom of the curve is a gallery of horror and despair that tears at the very fabric of human decency.

No one factor can be blamed, and certainly the Government of India has only limited reach to play moral police and activist.  Change can only come from ground swell and rejection of ancient practices such as 'honor killings' and female infanticide.  The book by Mala Sen's  Death By Fire* is a must read for any who wish to be awake to gender bias reality.  http://www.amazon.com/Death-Fire-Female-Infanticide-Modern/dp/0813531020  PGI has staunchly advocated that CSR is the solution as opposed to the lip service of legislation and reliance on the mandates of an already stressed judiciary.   Only through the consumer demand that corporations abide by a standard of equality, will the atrocities of female injustice be curbed and eventually reversed.  Corporation that establish a CSR regime that actively monitors its upstream and downstream equality policies can expect brand equity returns and workforce improvements that come with community relations and social development.  This integrated returns paradigm (corporate and community) if adopted by 10 companies, 100 companies, 1000 and so on would have the desired effect of geometry and lasting revolution and change.

PGI is presently endeavoring on a bold campaign through the design of a commercial scale 3BL pro-woman/CSR forest farming initiative.  We are hopeful the plan of action will be facilitating before the end of this year. In the State where the sometimes scoffed 'treehugger' movement started, the genesis for which can be found in the daring and inspirational story of the Chipko women who unflinchingly encircled the trees in passive protest of their sacred forest to save it from the axe. The Uttarakhand forest-farming plan will be revolutionary and a measurable step forward in the evergreen revolution. The legacy of the Chipko women and the conservation of their precious forests will again regain significance and relevance through an inspired 3BL-CSR plan of action.

The scale from the India perspective the work is daunting. The following example is one we use at our CSR seminars to illustrate the scale of a nation of a billion.  It also demonstrates the challenges that the Government...any Government would have managing and legislating basic human right issues: 

Think about the human resource assets required to undertake the census of India.  Counting 1.2 billion people.  If you hire 1000 people to do the job, and you assume they could complete the census data of 100 people per day, it would require each worker to count a million two hundred thousand people (12 lakh people) and would take over 32 years. In reality, the Government has hired 2.5 million (25 lakh) workers to do the job. (TOI) That's more people than the entire country of Slovenia and nearly that of Jamaica. Even with this army of workers, each worker must gather data on 500 people, 80% of whom reside in the massive unorganized rural sector.


If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. -JFK

IN THE NEXT INSTALLMENT :  WOMAN DATA

This issue is particularly sensitive to PGI's core team. By and large PGI's research expeditions result in finding deeply disturbing trends and witnessing the cold realities of gender inequality. PGI will pre-publish its COP here on the Green Eye News in advance of its submission to UNGC. All comments are welcome.





* At the time this was written we did not know that our friend Mala had passed away in June. The world and women in particular had lost a champion like no other. Our senior consultant Frank and Mala were phone friends through their common friend Adam in Kodai and had a common connection in having known the same beautiful and strong women described in her book when they lived at Roseneath..although at different times. Her rasp laughter and genius will never be forgotten by any of us. We love and miss you Mala. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/13/mala-sen-obituary

Fair Use Notice: This post contains copyrighted material that has not been authorized by the copyright owners. PGI believes this educational use on the Green Eye Web-blog constitutes a fair use of the copyrighted material (as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.) If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Fair Use notwithstanding we will immediately comply with any copyright owner who wants their material removed or modified or wants us to link to their web site which we routinely do as a business practice notwithstanding.

Was Someone in Assam Listening?

Assam:   It was a bone jarring 15 hour trip from Demow, Sivsagar District, East of the Kaziranga Nat'l Park, to Guwahati along the ‘Golden Highway’ aka ‘King’s Highway (depending on to whom you’re talking). Part well constructed highway;  poorly engineered highway; washed out highway, and plain off-roading, it is the life line that runs laterally through Upper and Lower Assam. Thereafter, one can reach Siliguri, gateway of the NE and mainland India. Mid-way- at a well earned tiffin stop- Peerless Green Initiaitves Director Frank Costanzo sat with his hosts for tea and respite.  It was November 2009, and Frank was being escorted by his hosts to assess feasibility of a commercial scale bamboo based forest-perma-culture. Always famous for saying what other’s only think about saying, Frank gazed out to the road at the omni-present AK-47 brandishing IA soldiers milling about in the afternoon sun.


“If you want to develop this State and not just occupy it, you can begin with those GI’s putting away the military hardware in favor of civil hardware.”

Frank’s hosts were a mix of local leaders and Delhi policy-wonks and they sat motionless at Frank’s frankness.

“I mean, look at them, they’re bored witless. You give those and the rest of your army a shovel to fix Assam’s roads or plant a tree and you’ll find the gun no longer necessary.”

Frank’s hosts turned their eyes to the sentries; the silence broken by one wonk’s reply, “Yes, it is complicated and must change.” The Assamese ethnic-Tai member of the group, said nothing but wore a wry look of pleasure at the notion and the discomfort it had created.

Maybe someone was listening?.... See below:

Charge of the Green Brigade in Assam
Sept 27, 2011
Naresh Mitra
TNN
Bishmuri (Kokrajhar): On a hot Friday afternoon, Colonel Naveen Sharma and a clutch of jawans troop into Owaguri, a nondescript village on the fringes of the Chirang Reserve Forest in Kokrajhar district of western Assam. The villagers, spending a lazy afternoon chatting under the shade of a tree, remain unfazed by the sudden appearance of the uniformed men.

The Owaguri villagers warmly receive the colonel and his men, quickly arrange for comfortable seats and the women offer cool water to the profusely-sweating jawans.

Sharma is here to find out why Owaguri residents aren’t participating in the area’s reforestation. “We’ve been busy tending to the paddy crop in our fields. Once we are done, we’ll join the plantation work,” villager Mangal Narzary explains. Following the assurance, Sharma leaves the hamlet to inspect the progress of sapling plantation at Jharbari block.

He reaches the forest fringes. About 130 Bodo men and women are clearing weeds and digging pits to plant saplings at Jharbari and other severely-deforested reserved forest patches.

He spots many Army men toiling with the villagers, also guarding them from insurgents. In April this year, National Democratic Front of Boroland’s (NDFB) anti-talks faction gunned down eight BSF men at Ultapani, barely 10km from where the plantation work is on.

The plantation effort at Jharbari is part of the 135 Infantry Battalion of Territorial Army’s — also known as 135 Eco Task Force (ETF) — twopronged war in Assam’s Kokrajhar. Apart from rejuvenating the forest, Sharma as commanding officer, ETF, is trying to stop the timber mafia from mowing down the woods.

“We are waging a war against destruction of forests,” Sharma says. The Chirang Reserve Forest, which spills over into Bhutan, has lost nearly 30,000 ha green cover of its 59,526 ha spread, in almost two decades of insurgency in Kokrajhar district.

Sharma’s task force consists of 275 ex-servicemen, Bodoland Territorial Areas District (BTAD) forest department personnel and locals.

Since the 135 ETF was raised, 24 sq km of the deforested Chirang reserve has been reforested. About 2 million saplings have been planted since the battalion began field work in 2008.

Livelihood incentives offered by the task force inspired people to undertake afforestation and help rid the reserve of encroachers. Daily wages offered for the job helped drive the villagers.

“Earlier, we had to fell trees and sell the timber for a living. Now we earn our living by planting trees,” Chingring Narzary of Mainapur village says. She is one among many women planting saplings at Jharbari. Each such person earns Rs 120 a day for the job. Last year, the task force ensured daily work and income for villagers.

This year, the Power Grid is funding the plantation drive. “The labourers’ wages are coming from Power Grid,” Lieutenant Colonel S S Dagar, ETF project officer, says.







Fair Use Notice: This post contains copyrighted material that has not been authorized by the copyright owners. PGI believes this educational use on the Green Eye Web-blog constitutes a fair use of the copyrighted material (as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.) If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Fair Use notwithstanding we will immediately comply with any copyright owner who wants their material removed or modified or wants us to link to their web site which we routinely do as a business practice notwithstanding.

A DIFFERENT KIND OF RED PANDA

China’s Appetite for Bamboo Is Damaging Forests

Published August 12, 2011

Sean Gallagher, for the Pulitzer Center, China

The sound is deafening as metal strikes metal, battering my eardrums. Wood chips whizz past my head and the temperature seems to be rising in this small and dusty workshop. Amid the haze of sawdust, which seems to be enveloping everyone in the room, a team of workers stands over a series of archaic machines.

"Business is getting better and better each year," explains Kuai Liangyou, taking a moment of temporary silence as an opportunity to talk. "We get through nearly 800 bamboo trees a day. That's about 20 tons. The demand is very big. In the peak season, we cannot meet the demand."

Kuai is the manager of a relatively small but highly productive bamboo factory in Changning County, in southern Sichuan. This basic but efficient production line churns out a constant stream of refined bamboo, either being made into furniture or being split into new sets of disposable chopsticks. The factory is one of hundreds in the region that are trying to satisfy the appetite of the Chinese market for this new in-demand resource.

"Sichuan is one of the most densely populated regions in the country," explains Li Yanxia, Sichuan program officer for the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR). "The rapid growth in demand for bamboo resources over the last two decades has caused excessive exploitation of forest resources in the province. This has resulted in serious disturbance and destruction of the biodiversity of ecosystems in natural bamboo forests."

In 1998, China introduced a widespread logging ban in the southwest of China, severely restricting the amount of timber cut in the region. As timber is increasingly felled in other countries to meet China's demand, domestically, attention has swiftly switched to bamboo. It's an incredibly versatile type of wood that can be made into not only chopsticks and furniture, but can also be used in construction and consumed as food. The logging ban has not been applied to bamboo, resulting in a sharp rise in demand for bamboo products.

China produces 57 billion pairs of disposable chopsticks every year, which requires over 1.18 million square meters of forest, according to the Forest Ministry's statistics from 2004 to 2009.

The UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization reports that "the Chinese bamboo industry created a value of $5.5 billion in 2004. The bamboo-based GDP grew by 120 percent from 2000 to 2004, while export earnings reached $600 million, a 20 percent increase." Bamboo removal in China has grown from 260 million tons in 1990 to 1.2 billion tons in 2005. As population rises and economic development continues at a breathtaking pace, heavier pressures are being placed on the forests, continuing this trend of consumption.

"Demand is bigger than supply,” says Li Yugang, the head of Jiulong village, a typical rural hamlet in southern Sichuan which is encircled by bamboo forests. He seems optimistic about the newfound potential of bamboo to bring income to his community. "The first policy was 12 years ago, which said, if you grow bamboo, the government will give you more money. Now, bamboo is 70-80 percent of income in the area. The government has encouraged local people to 'do better', to plant more bamboo in the same area."

This encouragement from the authorities, coupled with the obvious financial gains from planting and harvesting bamboo, has led to widespread over-harvesting and intensive monoculture plantations in many parts of southwest China in recent years. Unbeknownst to many locals, this has resulted in serious negative effects on local ecosystems, worrying environmental and scientific observers.

"During the past 15-20 years, a vast area of natural bamboo forests in many counties in the province has been turned into monoculture forests," says Li of IBAR. "There is an urgent need to demonstrate long-term technical and policy strategies to halt and restore the degraded biodiversity and the natural productivity of the damaged forests. The trends of monoculture forests leads to biodiversity loss and ecosystem service decrease. Local communities believe that monocultures can bring more income. To change this strong belief is the main challenge."

As demand continues to rise, the future seems decidedly uncertain for the bamboo forests of southwest China. This iconic symbol of China, a recurring feature throughout Chinese art, writing and history, is unwittingly involved in a new and impending ecological crisis that is silently gripping this region.

http://pulitzercenter.org/node/9958

Fair Use Notice: This post contains copyrighted material that has not been authorized by the copyright owners. PGI believes this educational use on the Green Eye Web-blog constitutes a fair use of the copyrighted material (as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.) If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Fair Use notwithstanding we will immediately comply with any copyright owner who wants their material removed or modified or wants us to link to their web site which we routinely do as a business practice notwithstanding.

A BIG CONGRATS TO MYSS: RAM & PADMINI ARE WHAT IT IS ALL ABOUT

A school that children call “theirs”

Padmini and Ram Mani tell SOMA BASU how socially and economically disadvantaged children discover the magic of education in their vibrant school free of cost

Photo: G. Moorthy 

COMPASSIONATE Padmini with her wards and staff members and with husband Ram Mani.

When I walked into the little red brick building called “My School Satya Surabhi (MYSS)”, it looked like a summer camp, set among lush green trees and buzzing with activity. The school was awash with cheer and laughter. Smiling children in bright red uniforms played energetically, practised yoga, sang songs and attended their classes. Vivid art and posters hung along the walls. In the midst of the cacophony of a school, there was a silent discipline and order too.

A shy but confident class VII boy welcomed me to his school and village, and presented me a sapling explaining its special features. “He is an electrician's son,” someone whispered.

Padmini Mani, greying and elegant, emerged with folded hands. Her entrance ushered in a flutter of activities and loving ebullience. The smaller ones hugged her and clung to her and a few dragged her to a cardboard train to sing with them.

When her friend Mark Antrobus fixed up the interview, he had said I would not find a scrap of litter in the school campus. “Neither will you find another school of this kind in the region which has opened its doors only to the children of the toiling and ignored from surrounding villages.”

Unassuming

I knew I was here in Attuvampatti Village, seven km outside Kodailkanal, to interview Padmini and her husband Ram much against their wishes. They wanted only the school to be featured, not them, so that others would be inspired to start similar schools elsewhere.

“We have a wonderful atmosphere here. We take pride in our school and its environment. All children are encouraged to keep the school grounds clean and litter free,” says Padmini, having steered the school through a period of growth in the last decade.

Sitting on two acres of greenery and cooled by the breezes of Palani Hills, MYSS maintains a low profile. There are 102 students enrolled at present, from nursery to Class VIII. The school started 12 years ago in a temporary shed with 20 children of farm workers, petty vendors, daily wagers and migrant labourers. Today, it has come to be the envy of even schools for the well-to-do.

When Ram, a management professional, first came to Kodaikanal in 1993, he fell in love with the verdure. Padmini, then heading the Department of Foreign Languages in The British School at Delhi, came to the town as vice principal of Kodaikanal Christian College. Six years later, the couple's vision for “equality and education, and the right of every child to call a place ‘my school” took shape.

“During a casual conversation, a milkman told us the village needed a school,” says Padmini. “This appeal coupled with the influence of my parents, who taught us service without reward, propelled us into action.”

Starting the school, she admits, was easier than running it.

They put out pamphlets highlighting the school's core values and got 40 applications, but in the first year they could take in only 20 children given the space and availability of teachers. Now, the school's links with the local community stretch beyond Attuvampatti to neighbouring Pallangi and Vilpatti.

The couple asserts their school is “not a commercial venture”. They consider it a secular non-profit educational institution. They charge only one time admission fee of Rs.25, and work to provide quality education, books, class materials, uniforms, noon meals, and extra-curricular activities absolutely free of cost.

A dynamo of energy and ideas, Padmini puts enthusiasm into her students and teachers: “I keep communicating with them and run a continual training programme that ratchets them up.”

Ram is heartened with the many successes of students who integrated into other mainstream schools after class VIII. “When children spend years here playing, learning and relating, they have had a great childhood,” he says. “Examinations become secondary. Our kids are self-assured with a positive outlook.”

Padmini adds that most of the students are doing well either academically or in sports and other fields. “The values we teach them here, they carry through their lives and are equipped to face challenges. Our teachers together ensure that the children gain maximum academic and social benefits from their time at the school, where they develop long-lasting friendships.”

While the students are challenged academically through a range of projects and classwork, sports is also a big part of school life. Chess, yoga and athletics champions have already emerged from the school. The teachers emphasize language and learning through song, dance and drama, and they follow a philosophy of “thematic teaching”, where there is a connectivity between subjects.

This couple, silently trying to change the face of India in one remote corner of the country, are delighted at the decision they made 18 years ago. “We have to build up the institution, individuals do not matter. For us, it is like culmination of life experience here by making an impact,” says Padmini.

But for her and Ram, these children would never have got a chance. Indeed, it has become a different world out here.

Sailent Features

MYSS was declared one of the top 100 schools in India in a national contest called Design for Change last September. The students helped clean and beautify the Vilpatti bus stand and the nearby rural settlement Kota Teru. The school also bagged a special prize in the INTACH Heritage Club competition 2010 and the Bisnoi Trophy for environmental awareness and preservation 2010.

Up to primary level, MYSS is recognized by the Tamil Nadu State Education Department. For middle school, it is under the Open Basic Education Programme of the National Institute of Open Schools, Union Ministry of Human Resources Development.

Raison d'etre of MYSS is value acquisition. Emphasis is on life values like basic hygiene, civic sense, environmental sensitivity, honesty and on becoming a good and responsible citizen.

MYSS is run by the Satya Surabhi Trust. Among the six trustees are Padmini's elder sister Mohini Giri (founder chairperson of National Women's Commission and daughter-in-law of former President V.V. Giri) and Kathak exponent and author Jigyasa Giri.

Fair Use Notice: This post contains copyrighted material that has not been authorized by the copyright owners. PGI believes this educational use on the Green Eye Web-blog constitutes a fair use of the copyrighted material (as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.) If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Fair Use notwithstanding we will immediately comply with any copyright owner who wants their material removed or modified or wants us to link to their web site which we routinely do as a business practice notwithstanding.