Baguio Youth Join the Green Wave for Biodiversity

On 22 May, youth of Baguio City will join thousands of young people in creating a global "green wave" to celebrate both the International Day for Biodiversity and the International Year of Forests. All around the world, students, teachers and youth organisations will host and participate in special tree planting celebrations to increase awareness about biodiversity. Here in Baguio, around 50 youth shall join the celebration hosted by the Seven Healing Gardens of St. Scolastica’s Convent in Wagner Road and Tebtebba Foundation.

The Green Wave is a project designed to support the objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity, the world's international treaty that promotes the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits derived from genetic resources. The project aims to help raise awareness and educate young people on the loss of biodiversity that is taking place and the need to take action.

The "wave" occurs on the International Day for Biodiversity which, this year, focuses on the importance of forest biodiversity. Each year on 22 May, children and youth in participating schools around the world plant a tree at 10:00am local time, creating a "green wave" across time zones. Participants upload photos and text about their celebration to The Green Wave website to share their stories with others. An interactive map goes live in the evening at 20:10 local time, creating a second virtual "green wave."

"The Green Wave represents a fantastic chain of human solidarity around the epitome of life - trees - between the children of today and the responsible citizens of tomorrow" say Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive Secretary of the CBD. "This year's Green Wave events will be especially memorable because the United Nations designated 2011 as the International Year of Forests."

The Convention on Biological Diversity is one of the most broadly subscribed international environmental treaties in the world. Opened for signature at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, it currently has 193 contracting Parties - 192 States and the European Community - who have committed themselves to its three main goals: the conservation of biodiversity, sustainable use of its components and the equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources.

Earthworms eat their garbage

Jun and Christopher show off their vermicomposting site.

Organic wombok has replaced ornamentals at Good Shepherd.

Sister Guada of the Religious of the Good Shepherd (RGS) in Baguio City is happy these days. Their long-standing problem of a growing compost mountain, whose smell used to reach the quarters of the sisters, has now been solved.

Good Shepherd is famous for its Mountain Maid brand of ube jam, adobo peanuts, strawberry products, and cookies and such, which visitors line up for. Truckloads of ube, peanuts, strawberries and other produce, are processed into yummy goodies, proceeds of which go into an educational support program. Meanwhile, their composting efforts were not able to keep pace with the volumes of wastes produced.

Jun and Christopher of RGS attended the Vermicomposting training conducted by Tebtebba and Traditional Knowledge Network in June 2009. They received 4 kilos of earthworms in their starter kits. They made their first vermibeds, and started feeding them their accumulated organic wastes. Their earthworms thrived, multiplied and produced vermicompost, which they applied in their gardens.

Their initial success encouraged them to make more vermibeds and transform their previously ornamental gardens into vegetable gardens. Their wombok, pechay, and brocolli are thriving. RGS employees now have access to a supply of organic vegetables for their health and wellbeing. Now, their next step is to introduce vermiculture to their farmer-suppliers of strawberries, to encourage organic farming among them.

Now, RGS effectively manages its wastes, and their experience has made them into staunch advocates of vermicomposting for solid waste management and organic farming. They will soon host the next training on vermi-based technologies for organic farms.

If you go buy a bottle of their ube jam, visit their gardens and vermibeds for lessons in vermicomposting and nutrient cycling.#

IBALOI DAY

Solibao and Kalsa: Oil Painting by Sofia Olga Anton

Calajo!

Calling all Ibalois of Baguio city. February 23 has been declared Ibaloi Day by the Baguio City Council. Principally authored by Councilor Isabelo Cosalan, Resolution 395, Series of 2009, was passed to give recognition to the original Ibaloi inhabitants of what is now Baguio City.

On this day, all Ibaloi folks are enjoined to gather in Burnham Park for a solidarity celebration. On this day, the solibao, the kalsa, the pinsak, and the tiktik shall play our age-old ryhthm to call the descendants of Amkidit to meet, and tighten our bonds.

Meanwhile, it is time to prepare some tapey to share; to air out our devit, kambal, and sarong; to talk among the families who will bring the ava, the dukto, the black pig.

Bring our elders, ourselves, and our young ones to renew our Ibaloi identity, and recover our Ibaloi heritage.

See you there!

Baguio Vermi Growers

We are proud to announce the birth of the Baguio Vermi Growers, a group of earthworm enthusiasts, who put these creatures to good use for the environment.

Please click to view our brochure...

Urban farming, lessons from Cuba

Cuba's history of isolation from the mainstream has taught them to produce good food, in sufficient quantities and of high quality for their own people. This video shares a bit of how they do it.

What is not in the video is that they got a lot of help from the lowly earthworm in their journey to food security...

ORGANOPONICO! An Agricultural Revolution from Puddle Pictures on Vimeo.

Building Biogas in Baguio

Diony Cabatbat (right) from Laguna

teaches the ins and outs of building small biogas systems

Local builders of Baguio city learned the ins and outs of building small biogas systems last week. The training on biogas construction started at the height of Typhoon Isang, which did not dampen the enthusiasm and bayanihan spirit of the participants. Construction workers and organic farmers, were among those who volunteered their time and labor to learn the skill, by actually building a biogas digester in barangay Lualhati. This will serve as a demonstration site for interested people to come and visit.

Mr. Diony Cabatbat has built hundreds of small biogas digesters in his home province of Laguna, and generously provided expert guidance for the week-long hands-on training. The design used was developed and tested by the Cavite State University Affiliated Non-Conventional Energy Center (CvSU-ANEC).

Biogas technology, also known as anaerobic digestion, turns waste matter into energy. All kinds of organic wastes, including animal manure and garden wastes, are placed into a digester. There, the wastes are decomposed by bacteria, and the resulting methane gas is gathered and channeled for fuel. In this case, hog manure is utilized, and the gas produced is used for cooking fuel.

The multiple benefits of biogas technology include: savings on cooking fuel, turning refuse into resource, sanitation measure for backyard piggery, elimination of bad odors and pollution generated from raising animals, better relations with neighbors, and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

With the training, we hope to make this good technology accessible locally, and trainees are now confident that they can replicate this in other sites.

Thus, if you think biogas is for you, get in touch.#

Find your handful of worms

Introducing the African night crawler

Some complex problems have simple solutions, and a handful of worms may be the answer to the biodegradeable wastes of Baguio city.

On June 13 and 14, thirty people gathered at St. Scholastica Convent to learn the theory and practice of vermicomposting. We were lucky to have Michael Cagas as our teacher, who has built his expertise through seven years of focused practice, experimentation, and teaching of vermiculture and vermicomposting. Though some of us went to the training with doubts about caring for worms, we all left with our bayongs-full of worms, determined to start our own backyard and household vermicomposting, and do our share in solving the garbage problem in the city.

The African night crawler looks like our own native earth worm, in size and color. Unlike the native earthworm, it is flatbellied, which enables it to crawl on a flat wall. Also it does not burrow or bore holes in the earth, and prefers to stay on the surface. Thus, this worm is no threat to the rice paddies, like the giant earthworms now destroying the Banaue rice terraces. Michael allayed the fears of some participants that this worm would become a pest or invasive species, by explaining that it actually needs care and and protection from pests and predators like chickens, frogs, insects. Thus, they would not be able to survive and thrive, if they are not given the ideal environment and home.

One kilo of worms can eat one kilo of organic wastes in a day, and turn this into vermicast, which is a superior type of organic fertilizer. Furthermore, the organic waste is reduced to a fraction of its original volume. Thus, a handful of worms inside a sako, with appropriate bedding materials, can serve as a perpetual bin for household biodegradeable wastes. In other words, your trash bin does not get full because the worms are consuming them and processing them into smaller amounts of vermicompost. Isn't this a wonderful way to manage our organic wastes?

So, what can we put into the sako? All kitchen wastes, like fruit and vegetable peelings, garden trimming, banana stalks, sayote, even pig, chicken, and horse manure. This does not produce bad odors, because the good bacteria are able to fight the bad bacteria.

We learned about the needs, behavior, mating patterns of the African night crawler. Hopefully, this knowledge will help us culture the worms so that they reproduce, and allow us to share a handful of worms to our neighbors and friends. Participants to the training included indigenous migrants, urban poor, gardeners of several convents, NGO workers, and organic farmers.

Thus, if you want to join this worm initiative, ask around, try to find your neighbors who do not produce any biodegradeable wastes, and request a handful of worms for your own household.#