Biodiversity Buffers

August 6, 2011August 7, 2011 / Seth Inman / 3 Comments

Private reserves have been established in many countries around the world, dramatically expanding the conservation provided to biodiversity in public parks by voluntarily protecting buffer zones. Despite their smaller size (relative to public parks) on an individual basis, in aggregation these private reserves are significant providers of environmental services.

So far the Nicaraguan Red de Reservas Silvestres Privadas includes 50 private reserves that protect 7,467 hectares—18,453 acres—of various ecosystems. Each one has renewable status as a reserve for ten years at a time, and is exempted from income taxes for ten years, property taxes for whatever amount of time the land is a private wildlife reserve, and retail sales taxes on goods that contribute to the reserve.

The Nicaraguan Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (MARENA) supports certification of conservation activities, includes the private reserves in sustainability workshops, and helps bring teams of scientist investigators to the reserves to conduct studies like the one done at Morgan’s Rock/El Aguacate. Among other things, the reserve owners must make a yearly management plan, comply with environmental norms, and protect the wildlife inside their property. Some of the required contents of a management plan include Continue reading →

In Conversation with Team Sustain

August 6, 2011November 2, 2023 / Gourvjit Toor / 1 Comment

Over the past week our team at Cardamom Country has been in conversation with another team working for a brighter and better future for Planet Earth called Team Sustain. Founded in 1994, Team Sustain is based in Kochi, India and provides cost effective logistics and infrastructure solutions for sustainable resource utilization, engineering green solutions for the modern world. Mr. George Matthew, the founder of Team Sustain, spoke with me and explained that his main goal was to reduce the carbon footprint of as many people and organizations as possible. Mr. Matthew especially said he wanted to increase the benchmark and accepted levels of energy efficiency and encourage further sustainability-oriented social projects with minimal environmental costs. Continue reading →

Profile: Varghese & Resource Management

August 5, 2011November 2, 2023 / Gourvjit Toor / Leave a comment

A few days ago I spoke with Varghese, the restaurant manager and head of the food and beverage department here at Cardamom County, who prides himself in running a tight ship and making sure that guests are at their happiest. Varghese is another long-time member of the Cardamom County family, originally arriving here eleven years ago, in 2000. Having taken a two-year hospitality course in Ravipuram in Ernakulam (the same district housing Cochi), at a school that has now shifted to become the Fort Munnar Catering College in the misty mountains of nearby Munnar, and training with Taj Group of Hotels, he arrived to fill the role of a restaurant supervisor.

Varghese told me about his Uncle Phillip who was one of the many well-educated people from Kerala who went over to a Gulf country, in this case being Bahrain. We talked about this brain drain, which Varghese mentioned had been going on since as early as the 1970s. The highly educated people and professionals of Kerala go in search of new opportunities, higher living standards, and money to send back home. Varghese also talked about Arabic being a language that is not too difficult to pick up, especially because of the difficulty and speed with which the native tongue of Malayalam is spoken. However, what is interesting to note is the stark contrast of climate between the Gulf countries and Kerala, the former being very dry, arid, and hot with the latter being humid and comfortably cooler especially at higher altitudes near the Western Ghats such as here in Kumily, Idukki. Continue reading →

Reserve @ Morgan’s Rock

August 4, 2011August 6, 2011 / Seth Inman / 1 Comment

El Aguacate, the protected forest at Morgan’s Rock, is part of the Nicaraguan network of private reserves, or La Red de Reservas Silvestres Privadas. Over the past two days, a team of three biologists (one botanist in this forties and two zoologists in their twenties) has been walking through the reserve, photographing and documenting the wildlife they encounter in order to perform a sort of valuation study of the natural resources at El Aguacate. For the past week this team has been in the Rivas/San Juan del Sur area qualitatively assessing the floral and faunal density and diversity at around thirteen different private reserves; similar teams around the country are doing the same according to region.

Gecko; species to be identified

José Gabriel Martínez Fonseca, one of the zoologists who also sports a Nikon camera that seems to have a telephoto lens (it looks almost a foot long), calls his photography enterprise Svaldvard Ink., after watching a show on the Svalbard archipelago in Norway on the Discovery Channel as a kid. Interested in the polar bears, he wrote down what he heard and years later preferred his own spelling of the word, adopting it as a username/alias for business. With his camera and skill as a biologist whose job it is to document species of reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals, José was able to photograph animals that have evaded my lens during my time at Morgan’s Rock. He was happy to share his images with me, so now I can share some of the best of them: all the photos in this post are his. Continue reading →

Careful What You Fish For

August 2, 2011August 5, 2011 / Martin Smith / 1 Comment

A recent article in TIME Magazine alerted me to how easy it is for us as consumers to shrug off the warnings of a changing world. I am guilty of it and I have caught myself, and hope that with this change I pledge to make, you might think about it too…

I’m humbled by the cognitive dissonance of knowing how sensitive the planet’s oceans are while hungrily indulging in sushi and fish filets with a comfortable negligence regarding their origins. Food choices like these, the effects of which are typically underestimated as a mere drop in the ocean, are proving to have a bigger ripple effect than we’d like to think. And it’s high time we all thought about the fish on our dish and just how it got there.

The article in TIME by Bryan Walsh reminded me of a memorable excerpt from a conversation between some friends of mine:

Q: “So what did porcupine taste like? Does it taste like chicken?”

A: “It tastes like… have you ever eaten donkey?”

As hysterical as it was for me at the time, it made me think, is the sometimes absurd variety of the human palate an evolutionary response to a scarcity of resources?

Ok so there’s no imminent extinction of livestock; there is many a happy cow in California, the UK alone consumes nearly 30 million eggs per day, and just look at New Zealand’s sheep-to-people ratio. But what about the animals we still hunt for sustenance? Continue reading →

A Lesson on Conservation Tourism- the Case of Nairobi’s Animal Orphanages

August 2, 2011February 14, 2012 / Katrina Lee / 2 Comments

Yesterday morning, I attempted to visit the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, but thanks to Tripadvisor, my taxi driver couldn’t find the location of the elephant orphanage. Instead, I found myself at the Nairobi National Park’s animal orphanage. Surrounded by a swarm of Kenyan school children (who seemed to be more interested in me than in the wild monkeys), I observed the establishment with slight disappointment. The orphanage seemed more like a mediocre zoo than a safe haven for its animals. I was disappointed with the lack of educational materials, tour guides, or remotely enthusiastic staff. Even as I paid my $15 entry fee (which is quite expensive for Nairobi standards), the clerk was rude and could not provide me with any information; he just scurried me along so he could attract more tourists to the booth.

I proceeded and moseyed around, reading the “Educational” signs that hung on the cages and learning a bit more about some of the animals, like the zedonk (zebra/donkey hybrid) or the cheetah. I was curious as to why some of the animals had been there for so long and why they hadn’t been brought back to the wild. Although I know the Nairobi National Park’s Animal Orphanage must do a lot of good for wildlife rehabilitation, I had trouble seeing tangible evidence of it. Unfortunately, the profitability of tourism had clouded the conservation vision and potential education opportunities that Nairobi Animal Orphanage could offer. Sustainable and nature tourism should educate the tourists not hustle and ostracize them.

Laying aside my disappointment from yesterday, I was able to find the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust today! Since 1987, The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust has hand-reared more than 90 newborn elephants and released 150 elephants back into the wild at Tsavo National Park. The charity was founded by Continue reading →

Wordsmithing: Resort

July 29, 2011August 24, 2011 / Organikos / 2 Comments

We do not take the word “resort” lightly. In fact, we have studiously avoided it. Common usage in the past century has gravitated to the sprawling hotel complex associated with mass tourism. But deep down, we love the word and its etymological roots. We hope to liberate it from its lingual prison.

As a noun, this word is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary (hereafter OED) as “something to which a person has recourse; an expedient, a measure.” As a verb it is defined in that dictionary as “recourse to a person or thing for aid, assistance, or the attainment of some end…also from a previous state or condition.”

Raxa, derived from the Sanskrit word (pronounced in that language to sound like “rock-shah”) — defined by the Cologne Lexicon to mean “guarding , watching , protecting , serving” — is a cousin of sorts to the word resort (in its older English usage). So, in the spirit of our commitment to entrepreneurial conservation, we are always on the lookout for innovative resorts by which communities nurture their traditional cultures and are stewards for their natural environments–quite a feat in this modern world, and worthy of celebration. Such resorts are at the heart of our mission–both a means and an end.

How Smart Can Wood Be?

July 29, 2011July 29, 2011 / Seth Inman / 2 Comments

Yesterday I met with Javier López, the forestry engineer for Agroforestal, S.A. This company covers the tree plantations at La Cumplida, Ecoforestal/El Aguacate (Morgan’s Rock’s finca), and El Eden; it is not to be confused with Cafetalera Nicafrancia, which manages the coffee (and the planted trees growing in the coffee fields) at La Cumplida, or MAPIINIC S.A., which administers the forests felled by Hurricane Felix in 2007 at a finca called Rosita.

Javier, often known simply as “Prófe,” [PRO-feh] which translates as “Prof” (a nickname for Professor), has worked to get certification from Rainforest Alliance’s forestry auditor SmartWood (and by association the FSC and RA itself)

In 2009 Agroforestal became certified for forest management. To do so the company had to go through the same continuous improvement process that I described a bit in my post about coffee certification. An initial evaluation is made, and subsequent audits over the next 5 years that the certification is valid provide the certifier with evidence of progress and room for improvement. From what I saw of a couple examples, SmartWood seems to emphasize explicit documentation, which makes sense given the nature of the forestry industry: extractive at its most basic, but also focusing on replanting trees as long-term investments.

Some of SmartWood’s requirements are as simple as Continue reading →

Profile: Mereena & Sustainable Housekeeping

July 28, 2011November 1, 2023 / Gourvjit Toor / 1 Comment

A couple of days ago I had the pleasure of speaking with Mereena, the head of the housekeeping department at Cardamom County. Mereena has been here since 2003, and started from the bottom rung of the housekeeping department ladder. Mereena explained to me how she was successively promoted six times.

She began as a trainee housemaid, and then progressed to official housemaid and then to senior housemaid. Next she became housekeeping desk assistant, then trainee housekeeping supervisor, and then housekeeping supervisor and finally Room Experience Officer and head of housekeeping. Taking full charge of the department required thorough and extensive knowledge of housekeeping but maintaining that authority has required managing responsibly. In multiple senses of that term.

Continue reading →

A Voice from Africa

July 28, 2011July 28, 2011 / Katrina Lee / 1 Comment

Jambo! Greetings from Nairobi, Kenya. I am pleased to join the other Raxa Collective contributors and share some wonderful stories of entrepreneurial conservation from here in Eastern Africa! However, before I jump into it, you may be wondering how a little Asian-American girl from New Jersey ended up in Africa. I’ll tell you about myself before jumping into my first blog post!By way of background, I recently graduated from Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration with a minor in Urban and Regional Studies. I’ve spent most of my academic and professional career in the hospitality industry. However, during my junior year at Cornell, I embarked on an adventure that would find me exploring an atypical “Hotelie” path.

I spent the winter of 2009 externing at the Tribe Village Market Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya, where I was exposed to the dynamic Kenyan culture. Nairobi was my pit stop before studying abroad in Barcelona, Spain. I had always held a keen interest in sustainability, I took a Sustainable Tourism class at Ramon Llull University, Turismo Sant. Ignasi, which raised my interest in this sector. While abroad, I was fortunate enough to do a bit of traveling throughout Spain, Italy, The Netherlands, and Morocco. The travel bug led me to a summer that changed my life and perspective on the meaning of sustainability and conservation.

Last summer, I interned at Panigram Resort, a socially and environmentally responsible boutique resort located in south-western Bangladesh (currently under development). For 60 days, my fellow interns and I were immersed in the beauty of rural Bangladesh’s vibrant culture, community, and natural beauty. As the sustainable hospitality intern, I worked on a host of project during the summer. For example, I helped develop a local community’s recycling business, oversaw the construction of a bamboo mud visitor center, modeled a carbon footprint calculator, and taught English classes to Bangladeshi children. Continue reading →

They’re Real, Not Plastic

July 27, 2011July 27, 2011 / Meg Chatham / 2 Comments

Earlier this year I would have thought blogging about plastic bags would be boring and quite redundant. I have heard and read of the dire effects plastic bags have on the environment countless times. And I am well versed in the “green tips” of bringing my own bag that are so prevalent. Intellectually, I realize that plastic bags…well, suck.

I heard the implications and I pride myself to be eco-savvy yet I still would often be caught red-handed with those pesky plastic bags on a few desperate occasions. Continue reading →

Nicaraguan 1st Graders Book It to 25wpm

July 26, 2011July 26, 2011 / Seth Inman / 3 Comments

The José Dolores Estrada School, named after one of the military heroes who fought against William Walker’s army in the mid-1800s, is located only five or six kilometers away from Morgan’s Rock. JDE is a small public school with three teachers and around sixty to seventy students (the numbers vary widely each year or even by semester) that sit in mixed-grade classrooms to learn from whatever textbooks become available. On the walls, hand-made posters read, “What is a fable?” or give the definition of “traba-lenguas” (tongue-twisters) along with several examples. Cut-outs of volcanoes, whales, and ducks rest above a student’s project on “The Land of Lakes and Volcanoes.”

The three teachers responsible for the colorful and educational decorations came with José Tomás Gómez Valdivia (Nicafrance Foundation) and other teachers from La Cumplida for three days in Managua to attend the congress. I joined the delegation in their final day of sharing and learning and took notes on the conferences.

“The Situation of Reading in Nicaragua and Initiatives for Improvement” was the title of the first talk that José Tomás and I attended (the teachers went to whatever conference or workshop was most interesting or valuable to them). It was given by Vanessa Castro, a PhD from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Dr. Castro has worked alongside the World Bank, IADB, UNESCO, and AED, and is now one of the leading investigators for the Nicaraguan group CIASES (Centro de Investigación y Acción Educativa). Continue reading →

The Transparency Paradox

July 26, 2011November 1, 2023 / Martin Smith / Leave a comment

When I lived in Singapore to do an internship aimed at rolling out the sustainability road-map of a major service solutions and facilities management company, my building neighbored “Singapore’s first eco-mall,” a beacon of consumerism just like any other mall, but with one main difference: an exclamation point punctuating its statement of eco-friendliness.

A true comrade of the Earth according to its interior walls and eco-kiosks, this mall was built with technologies that will likely soon become architectural norms. Its urinals are water-free, its windows let in natural light but with minimal heat, its roof harnesses solar power and rainwater, its lighting uses minimal wattage, it is constructed of environmentally safe materials, the list goes on and on… and is painted all over the walls. You get priority check-out if you bring your own bag and priority parking if your car is a hybrid. But for some it’s not clear whether the priority really lies in being an eco-mall, or in making sure you know it’s an eco-mall.

One of the challenges that experts and champions in the field of sustainability and corporate citizenship face Continue reading →

Latin America Reads

July 25, 2011July 25, 2011 / Seth Inman / 2 Comments

Several hundred teachers sporting green canvas bags filled an auditorium at the Central American University (UCA) of Managua. The bags bore the Nicaragua Lee (Nicaragua Reads) and International Reading Association logos under the inscription, “Cantar Palabras, Dibujar Textos,” or, “Sing Words, Draw Texts.” A large banner across the top of the stage welcomed teachers to the eleventh Latin American and second National Congresses on Reading. The teachers were mostly from Nicaragua and Central America, but many South American countries, as well as Puerto Rico and USA, were also represented.

I was there accompanying the delegations from schools supported by Fundación Nicafrance. As I mentioned in a previous post, this foundation sponsors schools with other members of its social enterprise network: Morgan’s Rock Hacienda & Ecolodge, La Cumplida/Cafetalera Nicafrance, and Exportadora Atlantic, S.A. These are all intertwined with the Simplemente Madera Group.

The great highlight of the day’s proceedings was the eagerly-awaited arrival of Sergio Ramírez, who was vice-president of Nicaragua just after the revolution (86-90) and is probably the most celebrated poet and author of Central America since Ruben Dario, who still has a historic importance to Nicaraguan culture. Scores of teachers had copies of his latest book, La fugitiva, which they would ask him to sign at the end of his speech about the importance of reading to future generations of Nicaraguan society. This tall man and his deliberating voice, which rang across the auditorium, actually inspired me to wait in line and ask him to sign my shirt. This was the first time I’d ever asked someone for their autograph.

To find out why I had my shirt signed rather than a piece of paper or a Congress program (see the first link for an Excel sheet), stay tuned for the latter of my next two posts about this Congress and what I learned about the state of Nicaraguan literacy today.

Equitable Origin–Certified Responsible Oil Production

July 23, 2011September 1, 2015 / Crist Inman / 4 Comments

Whether one believes that oil is the lifeblood of our modern society, or that we need to rapidly transition to more sustainable forms of energy, it is clear that society will be using petroleum for decades to come. In this post and in those that follow, I’ll describe my present work as well as underline the importance of responsibly produced oil. As it stands, despite the ubiquity of petroleum products in our global economy, there is no internationally implemented standard to monitor the social and environmental impacts of its exploration and production. Through a collective effort that brings together petroleum exploration and production companies (E&Ps), NGOs, academics, governments and indigenous and local communities, my company, Equitable Origin LLC, has created the first stakeholder-negotiated rating system for the oil and gas industry that is objective and verifiable.

Our standard, the EO100 recognizes and rewards world-class performers in the oil and gas industry while ensuring transparency as well as environmental and social accountability. It also allows certified operators to differentiate themselves quantifiably, based on their social and environmental performance, and to realize the added financial and brand value associated with certification. By developing this standard, EO is also creating a new marketplace for responsibly-produced oil and its derivatives, akin to those created for FairTrade Certified coffee, Kimberly conflict-free diamonds and Forest Stewardship Council Certified paper products.

If you’re interested in the work of Equitable Origin please visit our website.

Back to Nature

July 20, 2011July 20, 2011 / Meg Chatham / 1 Comment

I was recently walking around in a neighborhood park, and I saw birds splashing in a pool of water. I watched a pair of squirrels play tag up and down a large oak tree, and I admired an elderly couple walking hand-in-hand in a flower garden. Then, I heard a car door slam and my eyes beheld children entering the park hardly lifting their gaze from their electronic devices as debris flew from their car. As I raced to retrieve and dispose of the litter, my mind quickly volunteered pieces of itself to give to them and their parents. How could this world’s future generation be so oblivious to the natural environment? And especially when global climate issues are so prevalent? Continue reading →

Certification of Sustainability

July 19, 2011August 2, 2011 / Seth Inman / 1 Comment

Unlike most of my other posts, practically all the hyperlinks in this post link to an aptly corresponding webpage instead of a picture I took. Also, please note that my previous post on the reserve at La Cumplida has been corrected. You can find the corrections in bold at the top of the post.

La Cumplida’s coffee farm is accredited by UTZ CERTIFIED and Rainforest Alliance. These two organizations are worldwide leaders in assessing and monitoring sustainable practices. UTZ is solely concerned with agriculture—coffee, cacao, and tea farms, mostly. The group states that through their standards, farmers see increases in productivity, efficiency, and quality:

Productivity

“In 2007, before being certified, my farm of 2.1 hectares produced 7,000 pounds of parchment. Now, in 2009, I have a productivity of 11,000 pounds. That represents an income increase.” (Cooperativa San José El Obrero, Guatemala)

Efficiency

“Before certification I fertilized 3 times a year with 80 grammes per plant, now I fertilize two times a year and apply 100 grammes per plant; with this measure I saved labor and fertilizers, while farm productivity has not been affected. Savings have been US $39 / ha”. (Cooperativa Anserma, Colombia)

Quality

The percentage of Class 3 & 4, which fetch better prices, has increased above 80% since certification, unlike 2006/2007 when they only produced 26.1% of class 4. (Rianjagi Coffee Farmers Cooperative Society (RFCS), Kenya)

Continue reading →

The Organic Solution

July 18, 2011July 18, 2011 / Meg Chatham / Leave a comment

When rain seems like only a dream, taps are turned and water begins to flow from sprinklers onto family lawns across the U.S. In many areas, water has not been given the value it deserves making this precious resource easy to take for granted. As the global population and industrialization and urbanization increase, the rising demand for water will only cause more harm to the environment.

The UN estimates by 2025, a combined population of 2.8 billion people across the world will face freshwater drought or “scarcity,” and according to water.org, about 70 percent of all freshwater withdrawals go to irrigated agriculture; with these statistics, turning the water tap on to quench the backyard will soon no longer be an option.

Water is important to just about every natural phenomenon and artificial activity. The more I think about water the more I realize the countless times I use it throughout my day. I mean it is my drink of choice…and the main ingredient of many other favorites.

So, as water conservation becomes increasingly more urgent, I began to research some efforts geared to the alleviation of the largest use of freshwater—agriculture. The media is saturated with advertisements of drought-resistant and other GMo and hybrid plants. And in response to the ever-changing climate, chemical-producing companies are racing to release the first species of drought-tolerant corn. They claim these genetically modified and hybrid plants may be the answer to a potential food crisis, but they also seem to have an ulterior motive of extorting millions of already economically drained farmers.

While these developing drought-tolerant plants may be one aspect of reducing the stress of water conservation, another solution has already been proven and researched that farmers can do instantly without paying for special seeds from these mega producers. Continue reading →

Solar Powered

July 17, 2011November 1, 2023 / Gourvjit Toor / Leave a comment

Over the last couple of days solar panel engineers have been arriving at here in Kumily to gauge the possibility of installing solar panels as well as examining the solar tubing water heating system to increase its efficiency. This involved the measuring and examination of various areas including the open rooftop of the All Spice Restaurant and the wide expanse of organic plantations, including the area cultivating ginger root, turmeric, and two varieties of yam: the typical sweet potato and the elephant yam.

Our team of engineers including Suresh and Santosh listed the various outlets of energy in the resort to help the solar paneling engineers estimate the input that could be provided as a supportive energy source. This included the fans, plug outlets, and the CFL or compact fluorescent lamps that are a very low 6W (watts). The solar paneling engineers mentioned that the last project that they had worked on was quite a large one, which involved a 65kW power source that took approximately six months to complete. As a reference, the nearby 25 meter high power line, which is provided by the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB), is an 110kW power source. It has not yet been determined how the space can be utilized here and how much wattage it will be able to harness from the power of the sun because as I’m quickly learning, it is a long and complicated process.

Continue reading →