Green Options

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How many heroes can create a revolutionary gadget that has changed the lives of poor farmers and costs only $28 and refuses to get rich from it? In the life of Jock Brandis, just a cursory look at the bloody fingers of women peanut shellers in an impoverished village in Africa is all it took to create the universal nut sheller from locally available sustainable materials.

A Canadian of Dutch descent, he has since passed on the skill to local farmers in Mali, where he first presented his model, and elsewhere on the continent where he trains them for free and still refuses to patent the cheap gadget which has impressed even infamous peanut farmers like Jimmy Carter. A Gift to the World, he calls it.

Mama, I promise to look this Brandis guy up for you and bring him to our village. My mama, in her 55 years, still finds time from her teaching job in the village school to employ farm hands to shell peanuts for her. And she reaps an impressive twenty 50 kg sacks a year. Not bad for her agrarian moonlighting, hmm…

Feted as a CNN Hero for his innovation, Brandis has worked with communities in 17 countries across four continents through his Full Belly Project to make hundreds of machines locally at minimal cost resulting in health benefits and increased family incomes.

The people of an impoverished southern African nation have everything to thank the Sun for; because a new revolution is sweeping across rural Malawi, lighting up village communities with cheap solar lamps that almost everybody is now able to afford.

The problem has been that access to modern electricity is but a privilege for the few who can afford it, and the majority are burning kerosene for lighting, a practice known to be expensive, dangerous and harmful to health.

An initiative run by Solar Aid, in partnership with the UK non-profit, TRAID, the project is geared toward protecting the environment and reducing poverty by introducing simple, locally assembled, affordable LED solar lanterns to the poorest communities, providing residents with a cheap alternative to kerosene while also generating employment opportunities for the underprivileged and ill.

A safari adventure to Africa to view corals? This might sound interesting to many people including eager adventurers like myself.

I have always marveled at the wonders of the sea; beautiful marine creatures that are awe-inspiring to watch. But one trip on a glass-bottom tourist boat a few months ago made me promise to go back for more, and I hadn’t found the time until now. I wanted to see the coral bed under the cool waters off the Indian Ocean coast again.

Coral reefs are among Earth’s most diverse, productive, and beautiful ecosystems, and have become exciting spots for tourist who admire water life and sports. Its now not uncommon to see tourists in glass bottomed boats being ferried to coral gardens for viewing.

On April 25, 2008, designated the first World Malaria Day, 3,000 children or more in sub-Saharan Africa, majority of them under the age of five years, will die from malaria, one of the deadliest preventable diseases on the planet, global health data indicate.

Malaria, the dreaded and life-threatening disease continues to kill between 1 million and 3 million people each year, many of them pregnant women in Africa.

A two-month long 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles) expedition on the Zambezi, one of Africa’s longest rivers, that begun on 29 March 2008 led by two adventurers, Helge Bendl, a journalist, and Andy Leemann, a boating enthusiast, partnering with the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, covering six nations in southern Africa aims to put a spotlight on the plight of malaria-stricken communities on the continent which contributes 90 percent of the global annual death toll.

For every Muslim, Halal or ‘permissible’ in Arabic means that it passes the test, as far as food is concerned. This will certainly include correct handling procedures and many more practices.

But the question that has dogged Muslims for centuries has always been how to catch fish, using permissible methods that do not damage the environment.

“Lawful to you is the pursuit of water-game (fishing) and its use for food, for the benefit of yourselves and those who travel” (Surah Al-Maida, v. 96)

Dynamite fishing, cyanide fishing, and bottom trawling are all fishing techniques that may cause habitat destruction. A 2006 article in Science magazine said bottom trawling, the practice of pulling a fishing net along the sea bottom behind trawlers, removes around 5 to 25% of an area’s seabed life on a single run.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, so goes the old adage. But in Africa, green innovations by very creative and eco-imaginative minds seem to be turning this adage around, and perhaps we will soon hear of: “All work and play combined sustains a green Africa”.

It all started with the PlayPump, the water system that is a children’s merry-go-round attached to a water pump and storage tank that featured on Ecoworldly a while ago.

A see-saw that generates electricity when played on by children? Now there is this simple looking see-saw which when played on by children in Africa, generates electricity to help power up their school. It has no name yet but if this trend continues, it looks like Africa will be one very big playground for green play, literally.

You wanna play, somebody?

Water in Africa is precious, like life itself. Women and children, in most rural and poor urban communities all over the continent, trek tens of miles daily or pay dearly for a gallon. But an innovative pump is giving children in South Africa a more definitive role in bringing clean, sustainable water to their communities.

Powered by play, the PlayPump water system is a children’s merry-go-round attached to a water pump and storage tank. It provides easy access to clean drinking water, brings joy to children, and leads to improvements in health, education, gender equality, and economic development.

Hailed by the World Bank as “one of the world’s most innovative designs capable of providing self sustainable free clean water to poor communities, as well as being an effective delivery system for social messages”, the PlayPump system is a merry go round that pumps water from a ground source as children spin, and they like working hard at it. Talk of ingenuity! What’s more, it is a wonderful social media project: adverts are placed strategically on the equipment to warn on dangers of disease, including HIV/ Aids.

Country Home magazine has released its 2007 list of Best Green Places in America, and Burlington, Vermont has taken top honors.

Cited for its many unique green attributes, Burlington was noted for its advanced community compost facility and it's Eco Info Project.

Country Home examined 24 data metrics in five major categories to determine which of 379 metro areas are best for those wanting to live a

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