July 6, 2009 Ciudad de Panama
The city is noisy as most cities are, morning brings a steady flow of traffic past the window and the sun just keeps getting hotter, we are practically equatorial. Panama, Polonia, Estadas Unidos, we live in a car driven world.
There's a certain hum to the passing of automobiles that seems to imply money: the passage of cars is money. Being spent, being made, the earth being transformed, the entire industrial military complex is audible in that seemingly simple flow of money; traffic.
Mix automotives with construction and you have civilization. Construction with computers and air conditioning and you have the 21st century. Add a little business suave, space exploration , information technology and a planet with 2/3 of the populace living at or below the base of the capitalist economy and our world starts to take shape. The truth is though, the capitalist system is not based upon people as much as we would like to think it is. There exists no grand conspiracy to capture all of humanity in a giant pyramid scheme (at least not one all encompassing scheme). Our mode of life depends mostly on the abundant riches of the planet itself. We are the planet's children and we have hacked our life out of the flesh and pulled our wealth from metal ore, the river's clay, and the ocean's bounty.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Thursday, July 2, 2009
a few more days in Bocas
After a 15 minute experiment with my underwater camera, it appears I will be out of camera posts for a while, pending its return to functionality.... A friend told me to try some rice, so i guess Ill give it a shot...
otherwise,,, Things on the project are moving forwards, we are in the process of getting some aerial photos with which we (at this point I) will be creating maps of the community in which we are working (the community centered around Dos Bocas) in Bocas del Torro, Panama. The project is currently a preliminary study of the willingness of people living in the Comarca Ngobe to participate in a Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degredation (REDD) project. Wee are traipsing across the extant beaureaucratic framework, tenous as it is, in Bocas del Torro, getting information, maps and coordinating activities across different government departments. The process is resulting in getting a fairly clear image of the social forces active in the area, as well as complementary and competing economic interests that manifest in different attitudes and relationships with the environment. For instance, the main economic drivers in the area are agriculture (welcome to the home of Bocas Fruit Company, a major piece of Chiquita Banana), tourism, and a large marine fishery. Tourism and the marine fishery depend on the conservation of marine resources, whereas the fruit companies, think at least, that they need to fertilize, and apply aerial pesticides to their banana plantations to maintain a high profit margin. Should those practices change, i.e. responsible and ecological methods of agriculture being practiced, everybody stands to benefit... the trick of course being, a willingness of the agrigiants to change their practices. As is the story the world over, the paradigm of higher yield reigns supreme, though the alternatives, of ecological land management, have yet to be practiced on an appreciable scale (although they are being tested in some places). Thus we are faced with a choice resulting in definite environmental benefits and uncertain economic ones, can we really afford to not make that choice?
otherwise,,, Things on the project are moving forwards, we are in the process of getting some aerial photos with which we (at this point I) will be creating maps of the community in which we are working (the community centered around Dos Bocas) in Bocas del Torro, Panama. The project is currently a preliminary study of the willingness of people living in the Comarca Ngobe to participate in a Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degredation (REDD) project. Wee are traipsing across the extant beaureaucratic framework, tenous as it is, in Bocas del Torro, getting information, maps and coordinating activities across different government departments. The process is resulting in getting a fairly clear image of the social forces active in the area, as well as complementary and competing economic interests that manifest in different attitudes and relationships with the environment. For instance, the main economic drivers in the area are agriculture (welcome to the home of Bocas Fruit Company, a major piece of Chiquita Banana), tourism, and a large marine fishery. Tourism and the marine fishery depend on the conservation of marine resources, whereas the fruit companies, think at least, that they need to fertilize, and apply aerial pesticides to their banana plantations to maintain a high profit margin. Should those practices change, i.e. responsible and ecological methods of agriculture being practiced, everybody stands to benefit... the trick of course being, a willingness of the agrigiants to change their practices. As is the story the world over, the paradigm of higher yield reigns supreme, though the alternatives, of ecological land management, have yet to be practiced on an appreciable scale (although they are being tested in some places). Thus we are faced with a choice resulting in definite environmental benefits and uncertain economic ones, can we really afford to not make that choice?
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