Community Forestry in the NY Times

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Planting Empowerment employee Liriano Opua demonstrates the growth of a 1-yr. cocobolo tree.Planting Empowerment employee Liriano Opua demonstrates the growth of a 1-yr. cocobolo tree. Click for a larger view.A couple of months ago we did a post on a Mexican indigenous community, the model of well-managed community forestry and business in Latin America.

The New York Times did a profile on the same community the other day. The long term vision of Planting Empowerment is to replicate this model not only in Panama, but throughout the rest of Latin America.

We are making progress towards this goal, as we have seen our indigenous community partner of Arimae take increasing ownership of the UNDP-GEF SGP funded project.

Planting Empowerment takes audience favorite

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As part of its "Global Sustainability: Central America" series, Green Living Project was in Washington, DC last Wednesday to share the videos they produced during their recent expedition through Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Panama.

We're excited that ours was voted audience favorite!

Many thanks to everyone who came out to support us, and to Green Living Project for a great job telling our story.

Update on the Small Grants Program Project

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Liriano clears around one of the baby rosewood saplings that the community planted through the SGP program. One of the most exciting things I saw during my recent trip to Panama was the results of the United Nations Development Program's Small Grant Program (SGP) project that we helped Arimae receive and execute. With the financial support from the SGP, the community built a small nursery to produce rosewood, and then planted five hectares of those rosewood saplings with their own initiative. Another interesting part of the project is that the seeds for the rosewood came from their own reserve, so the saplings should be well suited to the local climate and soil conditions.
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Field Update - October 2010

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Field report from Chris, from a recent visit to the plantations.

Planting Empowerment employee Liriano Opua with an 18' tall yellow-wood treePlanting Empowerment employee Liriano Opua with an 18' tall yellow-wood treeThe trees are growing well. Our Forester Jose Deago made a small change in managing the trees that has paid big dividends: allowing the lower branches on the the trees to develop more before pruning them. In the past, we pruned the saplings a bit too early, which we now understand can slow their development. The effectiveness of this approach is apparent because we see second years trees that are surpassing three year old trees which were pruned under the old system.

Check out photos of the trip

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Join us on Nov. 10th!

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We're excited to be a part of Green Living Project's "Global Sustainability: Central America" video series. The DC screening is happening November 10th at 7pm at Eastern Market - hope to see you there.
 
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**Special DC Premiere**
 
"Global Sustainability: Central America", Presented by Amazon Conservation Association
Featuring Special Guest Speaker Jonathan B. Tourtellot, National Geographic Fellow and Geotourism Editor, National Geographic Traveler
 
Please join Green Living Project for its newest multi-media event showcasing cutting-edge global sustainability stories!
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