Green Options

I’ve worked in the conservation profession for a long time, and when I was in college, I took three courses on animal behavior, in addition to many other environmentally-themed courses. In those classes we read countless research articles and also talked about numerous fascinating and endangered species around the globe.

Recently in a cafe I saw a copy of a well-known edition of National Geographic. This issue had featured Africa’s wild dogs on the cover. I pointed it out to my wife, who promptly told me that Peru had wild dogs too, and that they were endangered. Really, I asked? Why hadn’t I ever heard of the Peruvian wild dog before?

Paso del Istmo is a 20 kilometer-long land bridge in Nicaragua. Conservationists believe that the narrow strip of tropical forest could absorb some 170,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases over the next 40 years. What’s more, carbon offsets might make these forests worth more as trees than as lumber.

For millennia, the land bridge has been a corridor allowing animal migration between North and South America. It now has some of the most highly concentrated biodiversity in Nicaragua. Conservation group, Paso Pacifico, wishes to permanently protect the land bridge from developers, but where could they find funding to make this dream a reality?

Enter the carbon offset company, CarbonFund. In league with Paso Pacifico and the Rainforest Alliance, carbon offsets offer the funding to make conservation of the Paso del Istmo land bridge a reality; and they’re not stopping at just conservation.

Editor’s note: Our friends at Eco-Libris are in the business of preserving forests by “offsetting” books. Today, they bring you a profile of another organization involved in forest conservation, and one of that organization’s success stories. This post was originally published on Friday, March 28, 2008.

We bring you from time to time stories and updates from our great planting partners, and today we have a mini-documentary about Honduran farmer Don Cheyo, who grows organic crops and lives sustainably thanks to help from our planting partner, Sustainable Harvest International (SHI).

SHI works in developing countries in Central America - Nicaragua, Honduras, Belize, Panama. Central America has lost more than half of its rainforests in the last 50 years, contributing to mass extinctions and global warming. Rainforest destruction also wreaks havoc on local populations who depend on the rainforest for their survival.

SHI helps many farmers like Don Cheyo in nearly 100 struggling communities across Central America to reverse rainforest destruction with sustainable land-use practices that allow them to take control of their environmental and economic destinies. SHI is involved in many activities - from trees planting and restoration and preservation of degraded land to educational programs and community loan funds.

Mbutu’s Mangos by Zaccai Free and illustrated by Vidya Vasudevan is another excellent book by Solar Publishing (see My Mom Hugs Trees). The story is a reflection of Zaccai’s experiences living in Central America, in which he learned about “plants, people, and the simple life”. Mbutu’s Mangos also comes with a CD of Zaccai reading the story.

Mbutu loves mangos, just like my children. He notices that when the mangos are ripe, a lot of fruit is wasted rotting on the ground below the trees. He pledges to stop this waste and not let a single mango rot. I’ve had similar thoughts when I see the rotting apples below my fruit trees. Mbutu devises a “mango saver” by assembling fishing nets under the branches to catch the fruit before it hits the ground. His mango saver is a great success; however, the mangos begin to rot on the bottom of the net. Eventually, the mangos all fall on Mbutu’s head when the net breaks, much to the laughter of my children when we read this story. Mbutu feels disappointed, until his father teaches him about the cycle of life:

Mbutu, that’s part of life. A mango starts off as a seed, and then it builds up flesh and skin to attract birds, animals, and people like us. We eat the sweet, juicy fruit and throw away the seed, which soon sprouts and becomes a new seedling. Some of the seedlings mature into new trees. We can’t eat all the mangos, so some of them have to rot. After the flesh rots, the seed has a chance to become a new tree. See Mbutu, everything in life goes in a circle. The fruit must rot so a new tree can begin.

Latin America has only established two LEED certified buildings so far but due to progressive trends it appears that this number will grow. In 2004, Mexico established its own Green Building Council called MexicoGBC. This is the first in Latin America. “Mexico’s building and construction industry is just waking up and realizing that we are big players,” says Cesar Ulises Previno, MexicoGBC president. “We have a lot of potential to make a difference.” Now, the government is showing interest and the MexicoGBC is creating their own LEED program called SICES that will be specific to the countries climate, available materials, and other related conditions. Among the most critical aspects are site management, water conservation, energy efficiency, materials selections and interior air quality