TED Fellows

It’s been almost a year since Madagascar was turned upside down by political turmoil. Please, forget the kids' movies with crazy penguins and lions for a minute, the situation is particularly worrying in here.

Presently Madagascar is sitting without any legitimate government and on the verge of anargie !!! This is the Africa that we are trying to change.Criminal politicians and Criminal gangs are stripping our poorly-protected country and it's peoples.

According to a Mail & Guardian Online report, 'Timber traders in Madagascar have effectively bought the right to pillage the country's protected forest area with impunity. They are extracting up to $800 000 a day worth of timber,' said Reiner Tegtmeyer of Global Witness. Some reports announce a figure of $460 000 a day.

In the other side, farmers reaction is immediate: loggin but also Slash and burn agriculture ...

To get an idea of the phenomenon, my friends and I developed a system based on Google Earth 3D map plug-in, which lets you see the fire overnight. Fires are detected by NASA satellite, so it's fairly accurate.

What we can do is to replant the trees and restart again and again ... with more attention on the human need (reforestation for food, reforestation for energy ...)

I want to share a small organisation that we have started named VAKANALA (NPO). Vakanala aim to act for nature and contribute on the reforestation and the conservation of the planet .

Earth's Christmas is one of the vakanala project.

Earth's Christmas

The idea is simple: When you buy your Christmas tree, please consider Madagascar. with a small contribution of $1, we plant a tree for you and you are offering a tree to the world.

May be a "classic idea" for you but IMPORTANT for the planet.

The tree (for this project) will be planted in the south-west Madagascar; to restore the cleared space between forest fragments of virgin forest still exists.

Halting forest degradation and forest restoration are on the agenda in Copenhagen. We also need to protect our intact ecosystems, which is by far the least expensive of all the solutions for climate change.

Bellow is the design of the project (fr)

Our ultimate goal is to preserve the most valuable ecosystem in the world and what they contain, restore missing forest tree species endemic to the region, and also restore ecologically (through the trees that produce organic fertilizer ) specific areas included in the future complex forest for agriculture.

We have created earthschristmas.org to receive the beautiful gift you will give to our planet. Please also look at our Earth's Christmas Facebook Application to Get trees planted in honors of your Facebook friends. On this application, a Google Maps can show you where the trees will be planted and we will us this technology to monitor your gift as the trees grow.

We have a few hands and we can plant trees for all "flying" TED conferences Attendees and all Technology Entertainment and Design lovers who mind their CO2 footprint.

Contact us through our email: contact@vakanala.org

Visit our web sites (fr) www.vakanala.org | www.earthschristmas.org | http://apps.facebook.com/earthschristmas/ |www.fire.vakanala.org

Follow us on twitter at http://twitter.com/vakanala

We wish you Merry Christmas and Happy New Year :)

Photo courtesy: TED 2009 Fellow Andriankoto Ratozamanana - Reforestation Activist | anti-deforestation crusader | Madagascar

Filed under // Africa Andriankoto Madagascar TED 2009 Fellow cop15 environment green reforesation

Posted by Andriankoto Ratozamanana

Comments [4]

What Do Farmers Want To Know?

October 24, 2009

The Grameen Foundation shares some of the findings of their pilot with us (TED Fellows Rose Shuman and Jon Gosier) at Question Box in Uganda. You can find similar data at our sister website http://worldwantstoknow.com.

Between April and September, the hotline received almost 3000 calls from CKWs and our analysis of the questions provides great insight into the questions that are of greatest importance to rural communities. Roughly 2/3 of all questions asked focused on agriculture, with health, education, and news being the next most popular subject areas. Diving deeper into the data we are able to learn more about what, specifically, farmers are asking about agriculture. The following table provides a breakdown of the agriculture-specific questions:

Content area Percentage of calls Example

Crop problems related to pests, nutrients, and diseases 42% “What is the cause and control of spotted leaf disease?”
“What type of fertilizer should I use in my coffee garden, which is one year old?”

Crop production techniques 15% “Is it OK to intercrop coffee and maize?”

Agricultural product prices 12% “What is the price of rice in Bushenyi?”

Health problems related to animal husbandry 17% “What is the cause and cure for diarrhea in goats?”

Enterprise development for animal husbandry 6% “How do you rear or manage rabbits?”

Other 8% No pattern

via grameenfoundation.applab.org

Filed under // Africa agriculture farming grameen green health solar

Posted by Jon Gosier

Comments [2]

Content area	Percentage of calls	Example
Crop problems related to pests, nutrients, and diseases	42%	“What is the cause and control of spotted leaf disease?” “What type of fertilizer should I use in my coffee garden, which is one year old?”
Crop production techniques	15%	“Is it OK to intercrop coffee and maize?”
Agricultural product prices	12%	“What is the price of rice in Bushenyi?”
Health problems related to animal husbandry	17%	“What is the cause and cure for diarrhea in goats?”
Enterprise development for animal husbandry	6%	“How do you rear or manage rabbits?”
Other	8%	No pattern

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World Environment Action _ in 30 seconds

It's Christmas, offer a tree to our Planet

What Do Farmers Want To Know?