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Erle Frayne Argonza
Hola compadrinos y compadrinos del pais Chile! Que tal!
I do honestly admire the Chileans for their great drive to propel their country to economic prosperity. And I have no better wish than to see the Chileans let go of that Dark Age past of tyrannical rule by the barracks folks. Chileans might profit the better if they move on in their creative pursuits, undistracted by the impurities of barracks mindsets that they have acquired from their tormentors.
Chileans should in fact thank their tormentors, as the tempest they all experienced, which we Filipinos did pass through as well, have tempered them all for greater challenges, strengthened their collective wills-to-prosperity, and ascend the ladder of national success. Let go of that past, Chilean fellows, please.
Here is a good news from Chileans about the renewable energy potentials of the country.
[28 August 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila. Thanks to SciDev database news.]
Chile: alto potencial de uso de energías renovables
Paula Leighton
15 agosto 2008 | ES
[SANTIAGO] Las energías renovables no convencionales (ERNC) y el uso eficiente de la energía eléctrica podrían satisfacer hasta el 40 por ciento de los requerimientos energéticos de Chile en 2025.
Así lo demuestra un estudio de las universidades de Chile y Federico Santa María, difundido el pasado 8 de agosto, que estimó el potencial aporte de energías como la eólica, hidráulica, biomasa, geotérmica y solar en el país.
La cifra supera largamente las metas impuestas por la Ley de Energía aprobada en marzo pasado.
Según esta ley, entre 2010 y 2014 las empresas generadoras y distribuidoras deberán proporcionar cinco por ciento de la energía que comercializan a partir de fuentes renovables y llegar al diez por ciento en 2024.
En 2025 la demanda del Sistema Interconectado Central (SIC) alcanzará a 105.560 GWh. Para ese año, las ERNC y el uso eficiente de la energía eléctrica podrían contribuir con cerca de 40.000 GWh, estima el informe.
“Esto significa un mejoramiento de la calidad del servicio, disminución de la dependencia energética, aumento de la competitividad y productividad de las empresas y reducción de los impactos ambientales locales”, dicen los investigadores.
Así, el uso de ERNC reduciría la emisión de CO2 en 16 millones de toneladas por año, estiman los autores.
Según dijo a SciDev.Net Sara Larraín, directora de la ONG Chile Sustentable, incluso considerando que el potencial económicamente factible de las ERNC es de alrededor de 17 a 28 por ciento de los requerimientos para 2025, “el porcentaje triplica la meta obligatoria fijada por el gobierno en la ley de energías renovables”.
Por eso, agrega, “la legislación es el único instrumento que tiene el Estado para obligar a las empresas a desarrollar esta opción, que es a largo plazo más barata”.
Para impulsar el potencial de las ERNC, el estudio propone crear una Agencia Nacional de Energías Renovables autónoma.
Erle Frayne Argonza
Climate change is reshaping human engagements the world over. In Africa, observations have already been made before regarding vulnerabilities to climate change and related attendant ecological concerns.
Below is a report regarding energy interventions that could re-adjust the livelihood/economic engagements of peoples of Africa.
[09 August 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila. Thanks to eldis.org database news.]
A preliminary assessment of energy and ecosystem resilience in ten African countries
Authors: Connor,H.; Mqadi,L.; Mukheibir,P.
Produced by: HELIO International (2007)
Africa is vulnerable to climate change on two fronts: firstly, because of existing vulnerabilities and secondly, due to capacity limitations for disaster mitigation and inability to adapt to climate change. There is an urgent need to ensure that activities centring on adaptation to climate change and sustainable energy development are increased and maintained so as to generate sustainable livelihoods.
This paper is a preliminary attempt to identify points of vulnerability as they relate to climate change-related events and sketch out what changes are needed – both politically and programmatically – to increase resilience. It explores the current state of vulnerability and details potential for adaptation. Results are presented summarising the key vulnerabilities for eight sub-Saharan countries: Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda.
It is argued that energy development for Africa in a changing climate will require greater emphasis on small-scale, decentralised and diversified supply and increased distribution to households and enterprises alike. A diversified and distributed energy mix is identified as the best insurance policy against climate change. However, it is argued that adaptation of energy policies and systems is only part of the solution; building up the resiliency of local populations and energy systems is equally important.
Key priorities identified for policy are:
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- harness the value of indigenous knowledge to plan and achieve resilience
- mobilise adequate and stable financial resources
- mainstream adaptation and resilience in the development process
- develop policies to institutionalise and mobilise “social capital”
The authors conclude that, despite the obstacles facing Africa, hope is not lost. They identify a number of positive characteristics upon which successful programmes can and should be built, including:
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- culturally, Africa has strong social networks, which serve an important function in educating communities, disseminating information and serving as substitutes for collateral in micro-loans
- as primary collectors and users of biomass and water, women are well-placed to monitor and manage resources, spur innovation on adaptive techniques and experiment with new management approaches
- Africa’s decades-long experience coping with poverty that may be its strongest resource. By its collective survival, the region has shown itself to be adaptive and resilient despite enormous obstacles.
Available online at: http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/?doc=38442&em=310708&sub=enviro
Erle Frayne Argonza
Good morning from Manila!
If there is any thought that the islanders of Negros would want themselves to be known the world over, it is their being dubbed as the “Philippines’ organic island.” And rightly so, for they have, under the initiative of the governors of the island, been moving heaven and earth to get the entire island towards that goal since 2005 yet.
The provinces of Negros Occidental (West) and Negros Oriental (West) concurred over the idea around three (3) years ago today, to transform the entire island into an organic paradise. The island used to be almost exclusively planted to sugar, a pattern that had since been modified towards multi-crop and biodiversity enterprises. For sure, the organic initiative will lead the entire island towards biodiversity, even as it has become common policy in the two provinces to see to it that both farms and backyards (including middle class village homes) should cultivate plants.
I was privileged to be invited as a major guess speaker by the province of Negros and partner NGOs in 2005 on the occasion of the launching of the organic island project. I just concluded a book on fair trade & food security then for the KAISAMPALAD, the national NGO council for fair trade & food security, when I got the invitation to share notes about food security to the people of Negros. I found the enthusiasm of the people for the project very high, it was indubitably a very popular movement since even the radical groups there were enthusiastically involved.
I couldn’t forget that event as the organizers timed it with the Mascara Festival of Bacolod City/Negros Occidental. The pageant night, when the Miss Bacolod was chosen, was truly an enchanting night of performances by artists who were wearing the classic mask designs for that occasion, coupled with pyrotechnics and band performances. The occasion catapulted the organic movement to euphoric heights!
The news item below indicates that the organic initiative has been surging ahead, as local counterpart funding for its growth phase has been moving up too. May this organic experience light up the other islands of the blessed Republic so as to make the archipelago green again.
[ 13 August 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila. Thanks to yahoo.com database news.]
MANILA, Philippines – Negros Oriental province has earmarked an initial P3 million for popularization of the use of organic fertilizer in the province, an online news site reported.
Visayan Daily Star reported that NegOrganic NOW (Nutrients Of Worms) program is gaining headway through verme composting.
Provincial agriculturist Gregorio Paltinca also said the program is promoting the production of natural fermented solution.
He said trainings and seminars are being conducted for farmer beneficiaries before they are given 500 grams of worms.
But he stressed this is not a dole-out, as the recipient-farmer has to return what is given to him after six months, to be distributed to other farmers.
Government hopes to provide all farmers in the province with the needed worms and technology to produce organic fertilizer.
Paltinca said organic farming has been proven to increase the farmers’ yields, produce chemical-free vegetables and other farm products, as well as good for the environment.
Meanwhile, Gov. Emilio Macias II ordered Paltinca to come up with a time frame for the production of organic fertilizer. – GMANews.TV
Erle Frayne Argonza
Good afternoon from Manila!
Controlling or regulating biopiracy is among the toughest tasks regarding intellectual property. Currently, there is an ongoing research by a corporate group to map the genome of Indigenous Peoples or IPs in the Philippines, the results of which will redound to improving the survival chances of the human species in general. The research is so surreptitious, however, that nobody knows who are the data gatherers and how is data collected.
That behavior is tantamount to biopiracy. Incidentally, the United Nations released a roadmap recently, which has direct implications on improving regulatory aspects of biopiracy. The news is contained below.
Enjoy your read.
[27 July 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila. Thanks to SciDev database news.]
UN roadmap paves way for curbing biopiracy
Hepeng Jia
13 June 2008 | EN | 中文
Yading Nature Reserve, China
USDA/pirateparrot
[BEIJING] Countries have agreed a roadmap for negotiating an agreement for the sharing of genetic resources, following a UN biodiversity conference.
The two-week conference in Bonn, Germany, ended last month (30 May) with renewed promises from countries to substantially reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010.
The conference set out a roadmap for negotiations on access and benefit sharing (ABS) of genetic resources to help curb biopiracy. Delegates discussed and tentatively agreed a variety of options on elements for the future agreement that could be legally binding, non-binding or a combination of the two.
Participants hope to reach a global agreement on ABS at the next UN biodiversity conference in Nagoya, Japan, in 2010.
Xue Dayuan, director of the China Institute of Environment and Resources Protection for Minority Areas and a member of China’s delegation to the conference, says the roadmap anchors the diverse debates over the issues and narrows down action to a set of suitable options that could be further explored.
But environmental groups have expressed scepticism, saying developed nations have failed to offer enough financial aid to developing countries for biodiversity protection.
Xue says previous efforts for biodiversity protection focused too much on funding from the developed world, and that countries should develop their economy first in order to fund their own, more sustainable, protection measures.
“China, together with other fast-developing countries like India, could offer an exemplar in realising economic growth with relatively less destruction of biodiversity.”
According to the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection, China had established 2,531 natural reserves by the end of 2007, covering more than 15 per cent of its land.
China’s vice environment minister Wu Xiaoqing pledged a “strong commitment” at the conference to participating in global biodiversity protection.
Delegates at the conference also agreed action plans to expand nature reserves and launch the ‘Life Web Initiative,’ a network that aims to enhance partnerships to support the preserves. For example, an online database will help global funders match nature reserves to finance.
Germany pledged €500 million (US$775 million) over the next four years to aid global forest protection, particularly those in developing countries, and another €500 million each year after that.
Norway also announced plans to spend €600 million (US$936 million) on global forest conservation annually over the next three years.
BRIGHTER PROSPECTS FOR RICE CULTIVATION IN CHINA
Erle Frayne Argonza
Good day!
Let me now shift my attention a bit and diversify our BrightWorld updates with news from across the oceans.
Here is a news, culled from the SciDev Forum materials sent to its members. The search for high-yielding varieties of grains is a continuing one, and had definitely not reached a dead end yet in biotech innovations.
Happy reading.
[19 July 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]
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Scientists find ‘yield-improving rice gene’
Jia Hepeng
14 May 2008 | EN | 中文
The newly discovered gene may help improve rice yields
Flickr/Cbcastro
[BEIJING] Chinese scientists have identified a rice gene that could simultaneously control the crop’s yield, plant height, and number of days to flowering.
Publishing their study in Nature Genetics online this month (4 May), researchers from Wuhan-based Huazhong Agricultural University (HZAU) say the gene could play a role in improving rice productivity.
The scientists found that in individual rice breeds, the three traits appear strong –– or weak –– simultaneously.
“This fact makes us infer that the three traits were controlled by a single gene,” says Xing Yongzhong, one of the lead authors and a professor at HZAU.
Previous studies have found that a region on chromosome seven of rice can regulate all three traits but the specific gene involved had not been discovered.
The HZAU scientists mapped the relevant gene site on chromosome seven and located the specific gene named Ghd7. They discovered that shorter rice plants with fewer grains per cluster of flowers and earlier flowering do not have the gene Ghd7.
When they transferred Ghd7 into Ghd7-free varieties of rice, they found that time to flowering was increased by 105 per cent, they grew around 70 per cent taller, and the plants had more rice grains per cluster of flowers.
Numerous rice genes have been reported to control such traits alone, but Ghd7 is notable because of its large, multiple effects on an array of traits, write the authors.
Xing told SciDev.Net that the gene could be incorporated into varieties with traditional breeding. “Although we have used the genetically modified method in the study, we need not adopt this method in the practical seeding because the gene is identified from the rice itself.”
The team of scientists also studied the status of Ghd7 in 19 rice varieties from rice growing in a wide geographic range in Asia and found five different versions of the gene.
“We are exploring the subtypes of Ghd7-containing rice that are most suitable to their growing regions, so as to cultivate the most appropriate high-output rice varieties,” Xing adds.
Huang Dafang, former director of the Institute of Biotechnologies of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, welcomes the study as a major scientific breakthrough.
But he says that usually, multiple genes regulate the traits related to rice yields, and whether the Ghd7 could play its claimed role in promoting yields needs further research and seeding tests.
Erle Frayne D. Argonza
Perhaps the readers may recall that a couple of years back, Sec. Angelo Reyes of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) initiated massive tree planting and the constitution of ecology volunteers’ groups for the purpose. The trees were visibly planted along the pan-Philippine highway and strategic areas, for greater impact generation.
That project was very appreciable, but it was not the original thing. In the years 1979-81, the new Ministry of Human Settlements or MHS constituted village brigades comprising of volunteers, one such brigade being the ‘ecology balance brigade’. With ‘ecology balance’ identified among the ’11 Basic Needs of Man’, it was but proper to organize brigades and enact ecology balance via massive tree planting, biodiversity where appropriate, recycling or ‘waste utilization’ projects, and new laws declaring as mandatory in all new residential villages the allotment of 30% of land for parks & open spaces alone.
I joined the MHS in early 1981, then fresh from college, as a community services assistant at the Regional Liaison Office – Regioin II. I recall well that one of the first tasks I had to do was to monitor the brigades and town-level organizers (Human Settlements’ Officers). The ‘ecology brigades’, to my amazement, were at par in organizational development with the others (water, power, education, S&T, mobility…), its members actively engaged in localized projects.
But the most focal impactful project of that time was the massive tree planting, with the giant Ipil-Ipil serving as lead crop. The small native ipil was also massively disseminated, more so that it served as good input for livestock feeds. The miraculous thing about the giant ipil-ipil was that it grew so fast, its branches extending outward at rapid rates, and so it took no time at all to harvest them.
Unlike the Reyes-initiated project that concentrated cultivation in main arterial roads, the Maharlika tree planting (as the MHS dubbed the project then) cultivated in both the arterial and peripheral roads. And, in pioneer ipil tree farms inland, many of which took off and benefitted the small planters with great fulfillment.
It was during my monitoring sortees to the different towns of Cagayan Valley that I conducted the extra task of morale-boosting the ecology brigades and briefing the HSOs accordingly about the massive tree planting program. By the start of the 2nd quarter of 1981, we staff devoted succeeding days for immersing ourselves in the tree planting efforts, documentation and consultations with tree planters, and networking with state agencies that supported the project. We did the same thing again in 1982, and another session in 1983 (my last year in the MHS/Region II).
Seeing the success of the 1981 wave of ipil cultivation, the newly constituted livelihood program quickly caught the ecology fever and designed ‘tree farming’ and ‘dendrothermal’ projects, utilitizing ipil trees. They were circumscribed within the ‘agroforestry’ and the ‘waste utilization’ project modules (there were 7 such modules then). Seeing my acumen for project development, the new management pulled out pronto from community services and was directed to be among the pioneer staff for livelihood, which I so gladly accepted. I had many wonderful moments brainstorming and conceptualizing enterprise projects, from micro- to SME levels, including this wave of ‘tree farming’ and ‘dendrothermal’.
The seedling banks for ipil trees, both giant and small, were simply too many that they dotted the entire archipelago, including Manila. Likewise was the market for ipil so huge and well established, including the feed mills. It need not belabored that the giant trees contributed in no small measure to the oxygenation of the surrounds, and protective canopies for travelers and pasture breeds.
We volunteer and small planters than considered ourselves true ecologists. And, thanks heavens, there were no ‘environmentalist’ groups then, whose ceaseless sloganeering is so annoying they could have slowed down the projects altogether. I really have the great wish that these ‘environmentalists’ will immerse their hands in production and re-green the mountains, so they can join the true ecologists and exercise Oneness in spirit and action. It may not be too late for them to do just that.
[Writ 05 May 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]
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