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13 items tagged "Environment"

• July 29, 2009
• 13:43

  Land Grab Right on The Green Belt?

   » ‎ Afromusing

  Tags:  Environment  

  Spring Valley Nairobi – An area that was supposedly protected by the Green Belt Movement is now being built up by a developer. The Green Belt Movement is the organization founded by the venerable Prof. Wangari Maathai, a nobel laureate and actually a heroine of mine. I ask about this because there are more questions than I have answers, when I drove by this area in late 2006 and late 2007 my impression was that the whole valley around the signboard was part of the Green Belt Movement protected area. At the time the whole place just had trees and a few vegetable gardens. Am I mistaken?

  

  The sign board is now an exercise in utter irony

  

  Fence around the property

  

  view from the road

  

  view from the side.
  All pics taken June 28th 2009.

  Anyone with more info, please comment.

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• June 01, 2009
• 4:09

  Distilling water from volcanic steam vents

   » ‎ AfriGadget

  Tags:  Environment  

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  A unique water harvesting method has been devised in the drought ridden crater of Mt. Suswa, which is dotted with continuously puffing scorching steam vents.

  

  Tapping steam for condensation

  Taking advantage of the steam vents that dot this landscape, local Masai have ingeniously tapped the vents for steam that is condensed on long plastic pipes that drip continuously into drums. The local Masai claim that these vents can fill half a drum (approx 30 lt) per hour (though it seemed very unlikely to us). The water is sweet and apparently it feeds a community of several hundred people and their cattle with fresh and clean water.

  We saw at tens of these contraptions in a particular zone within the outer crater of Mt Suswa. All were protected from animals by thorn bushes. There seemed to be an ownership structure amongst the users, some were better constructed, had longer pipes, were better protected and maintained. We were told that the systems were installed fifteen years earlier and it did not look like any modifications had been done since then.

  

  The water distilling system used here is permanent and produces a continuous supply of clean water that is collected regularly by the local community. The system we observed was in the area called Kishalu – just beyond a school. The system could be more efficient at trapping condensation – much steam was wasted as pipes were quite short, and collection drums were left uncovered and open to evaporation. The beauty of the system is that it works overnight. These water distilleries were introduced to enable the community to survive the dry season when rain water catchments had dried up.

  The Suswa system is infinitely better than the water distilling process on the edge of Lake Elamentaita. Here the local Masai Women daily place a piece of zinc sheeting over a steam vent to capture condensation. They produce only 2 liters per day; a days work to produce enough drinking water for a small family for one day.

  If there’s an Afrigadget award out there, the Suswa water distilleries deserve it.

  

  For more information about Mt Suswa check out Roving Rasta, and Wild about Africa for satellite images and details about hiking and caves

• May 29, 2009
• 9:13

  Tree Planting After Rhino Charge - Kenya

   » ‎ Afromusing

  Tags:  Environment  

  The Rhino Charge event is an offroading and camping event that raises money for Rhino conservation in Kenya. It is an event that many in Nairobi look forward to every year. A group of Kenyans have taken the initiative to plant trees after the event. It is one thing to complain about deforestation, and quite another to come together and do something about it.
  Below is a picture of the saplings prepared for planting at Narasha Forest. How neat is that!!
  

  If you are attending the Rhino Charge, its not too late to RSVP on the Facebook event page,, kindly do so as the number of confirmed attendees will determine how many saplings will be made available. The District Officer has pledged to provide a sapling for each person who RSVP’s and shows up.
  DATE: 1st June 2009
  TIME: 10:30 am – 01:30 pm
  LOCATION: Narasha Forest right behind the district forest office at Eldama Ravine.
  DIRECTIONS: At the town, turn right after the Kobil gas station (DO NOT proceed towards Maji Mazuri – Timboroa – Eldoret Rd), through the town along the Ravine – Kamwosor – Kaptagat – Eldoret Road. After the river/bridge drive about 0.7 kms from town center on your left sign board, M.E.N.R. Eldama Ravine Forest Station.

  I applaud the organizing team, lead by Gerald Chelelgo, the contributions of Kipkorir Chemirmir, and last but not least, the District Forest Officer Timon Mboga.

  The idea of coming together during social events to do something positive for the environment is so inspiring to me, and I hope to join Gerald for the next excursion, and to incorporate this in future events i am involved in.

  

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• October 27, 2008
• 17:27

  Geo-Engineering - A Big Ridiculous Idea?

   » ‎ Afromusing

  Tags:  Environment  

  In the September 10th 2008 issue of the Economist, there was an article about Geo-engineering, describing the ‘Transactional Analysis’ document from the Royal scientists…
  In the paper, the idea of planting trees was was ‘alluded to but not discussed’.

  A second idea for scrubbing excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, alluded to in the Transactions but not much discussed, is to plant more trees. In principle, any old trees would do—although they die and rot, more forest cover would lock up more carbon dioxide. However, genetically modified trees might grow faster. Such trees are being developed to help the lumber, pulp and biofuel industries. But fast-growing forests could also be planted in order to capture carbon dioxide quickly.

  Funny, this is the idea that seems doable yet it is not given much attention. Amongst other benefits, trees would help reclaim water catchment areas that are dwindling as we speak, and while we are at, why not encourage planting indigenous trees to enhance plant diversity?

  

  It warms my heart when right wingers like Pat Robertson can sit with Al Sharpton on a setee by the beach, and proclaim that they see eye to eye on the climate crisis. The ads just point people to visit wecansolveit.org. A website will not a crisis avert. Granted they are are trying to create a community/movement, but that wont do much in my opinion. The ads would have been more effective if they pointed out one demonstrable action that people can take (I’d suggest urging people to plant trees) AND visit wecansolveit.org. Al, I love you, but please find a more practical way, or change ad agencies.

  Planting trees; though quite obvious seems to make much more sense to me than giant rotating cylinders that create the ‘magnus effect’. It makes more sense that putting sulphur in jet fuel, flying in high altitudes and polluting the atmosphere so the sulphur crystals can reflect the sun’s rays off the earth. Don’t get me wrong, I would really like to believe that I am open-minded the big ideas put forth in the transactional paper. I do agree that the climate crisis is one big ginormous problem that threatens the future stability of the world, heck my grandma told me climate change is real. What is being done NOW to adapt to climate change? What are we doing to reclaim our rapidly deforested areas? Big questions. Yet, we can start with simple, yet obvious actions like planting trees.

  In the quest to make it a cool thing to do (Gardeners and tree huggers are hardly rock stars) perhaps borrowing an idea from Joi Ito, he tags photos on his flickr stream with ‘freesouls’ How about we begin a tag ‘greensouls’ where you take a picture of someone/yourself planting a tree, upload to flickr, tag it and if you can, geo-tag it as ‘greensoul’?

  Oh, if you can find a trader who can help monetize the tree planting to carbon credits, I would very much like to assuage my carbon guilt. I seem to have added it to my catholic guilt so now I have much more guilt than I know what to do with. It does not help that some friends keep chiding me about my carbon footprint.

• October 06, 2008
• 5:03

  Monkey see Monkey do

   » ‎ AfriGadget

  Tags:  Environment  

  When you visit Diani Beach, Kenya’s version the Florida keys, look up and you’ll see 20 rope bridges swinging over the highway - what’s that little bulge with a tail? Before you flash by, you will realise that it’s a monkey sitting up there. Yes it’s watching you! And then, a burst of action as an entire troop of black and white might start galloping across the wildly swaying bridge!

  

  Colous on the Bridge

  Colobridges were built by the Colobus Trust to save the rare Angolan colobus monkeys from road traffic accidents

  

  Colobus road kill.."What's black and white and red all over" ... ok I agree, it's not funny.

  Faced with a crisis that could eliminate the species in Kenya, innovative solutions were tried from Lollipop stick men at major monkey crossing points, roadsigns to slow down the speed, and education for taxis, stickers in matatus (local buses).

  

  The Angolan colobus is one of Kenya's rarest and most beautiful monkeys found only in the forests of the South Coast

  The bridges were the most successful. Designed locally and made of cable, rubber and PVC, each bridge takes a day to erect and costs about $500. The bridges connect two of the monkeys favourite trees on either side of the highway.

  

  Watching the world go by

  Being naturally shy, the colobus initially stared at the bridges gadgets with disdain until the more inquisitive and daring Sykes monkey began to see the logic. Once the Sykes and even vervet monkeys started using the bridges, the colobus followed suit, and are now very comfortable with their arboreal walkways.

  This is an Amazing video of Colobus crossing a “colobridge” (Warning this video is GREAT but the link take you to another site - so read on first or you”ll miss the Australian madness)

  There are now 23 ‘Colobridges’ and it’s estimated that they are used 150,000 time a year by at least three different species of monkeys! Amazing because there are only 300 of these Angolan colobus monkeys left in Diani where road kills are now rare.

  Not for everyone: Bridges have also been deployed in Zanzibar to save the crazy looking Kirks red colobus but it looks like they aren’t clever enough to use them (some species are just slow)! Check out the photos of a confused monkey here
  

  

  Confused monkey crossing on the road instead of using the bridge!

  

  My plug for my favourite primate “Hug a colobus today”.

  Colobridges go global or ‘Australia steals our African ideas’: Though they don’t admit it, the “colobridge” innovation inspired rope bridges to save freaky creatures in Australia too

  

  No, not rats, but a family of ring tailed possums crossing a rope bridge (they look like a pack of terrified rodents to me)

  Of course the Aussies always do things bigger and better… check this one out!

  

  Mega rope bridge in Australia - it might help a koala, but not kangaroo's (I hear that road rage against roo's isn't uncommon over there)

• September 25, 2008
• 8:29

  Nairobi: Recycling center overwhelmed

   » ‎ Afromusing

  Tags:  Environment  

  The Karen Langata District Association (KLDA) runs a bottle bank at the Langata Link complex where residents of Karen and Langata can drop off empty glass bottles for recycling. Lately they have been receiving huge amounts of bottles and the glass company responsible for collecting these is not able to cope. They are looking for groups / organizations interested in collecting the bottles to contact them on tel. 891784 or 020-2304844.

  (Hat Tip B - From Kenya Buzz)

• May 06, 2008
• 20:56

  Pic of the day

   » ‎ Afromusing

  Tags:  Environment  

  

  This picture was taken by Adriankoto, who writes on the blog Harinjaka [Malagasy]. He is the founder FOKO madagascar initiative which has been active in planting trees particularly in rural madagascar. More on his awesome work here[English].

  PS: I know i haven’t been blogged about solar energy for awhile, doesn’t mean i have lost my mojo, I am just re-charging. ha!

• January 31, 2008
• 16:15

  A Brief DEMO Redux

   » ‎ Afromusing

  Tags:  Environment  

  I am honored to have been part of the Africa Panel at DEMO 08 which happened yesterday. Erik and Mike did an awesome job of blogging about the sessions. My sincere thanks to Chris Shipley and Erica Lee for having us.

  There were so many interesting exhibitors, you can explore a full list and find more information about the cool stuff that launched. I will highlight just a few of the products and services that stood out for me.

  The first one is Green Plug - A charger that can be used for multiple devices. Their tag line is “One plug, one planet”. Think of the many chargers you have to carry with you, and when you abandon a device, that charger ends up in a landfill somewhere. The Green plug eliminates the need to carry multiple chargers. The small chip pictured here makes it all happen.
  

  Asankya Hypermesh Network
  Forget the current OSPF and BGP routing of packets, this company optimises content delivery by in their own words…

  …Using a breakthrough technique for transporting packets over multiple network paths, it enables delivery of real-time content consistently and at a high quality over the Internet.

  It is geared towards ISP’s and larger content delivery companies, but from their demo it seems their products could useful for those building new networks and want higher quality video delivery than is currently being offered. I thought of the now delayed EASSYproject that would have brought fibre optic backbone to Kenya…:( and to step back to something i had written last year about building network of networks, in time, it would be great to revisit how this new technology could help in low bandwidth areas or in new network systems being implemented in Africa.

  Celsias
  “Cooling the planet one project at a time”

  Celsias is all about doing something practical to reduce climate change
  On Celsias, you can read a widely-recognized climate change blog, review practical projects from all over the world and meet the coolest people who share your passion for stopping human-induced global warming. If you want to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty, register on the site, create a project, then recruit people or funding to get your project off the ground.

  I think i may have taken too many pics, you can browse through them on this flickr set.

• December 11, 2007
• 13:15

  Script Writing Competition for Sub-Saharan Africa

   » ‎ Afromusing

  Tags:  Environment  

  If you know people in Radio, this would be an opportunity to pass along to them.

  The Developing Countries Farm Radio Network (DCFRN) and the Technical Centre for Agriculture and Rural Cooperation (CTA) have launched the African Farmers’ Strategies for Coping with Climate Change, a scriptwriting competition for radio broadcasters. Deadline: March 15.

  The competition is open to all African radio organizations, including broadcasters, production organizations, NGOs with radio projects, and farmers’ associations with radio shows. Submitted scripts may cover themes such as water and soil management, cropping strategies for drought-resistant plants, livestock management practices, fisheries and agroforestry, among others. Scripts must be between 500 and 2,000 words and must include background notes and production notes, in addition to references to information sources used to prepare the reports. Input from local people, especially farmers, must also be included.

  More information is available at Scriptcompetition.net

  Thanks Solana.

• November 17, 2007
• 11:33

  Solar Taxi

   » ‎ Afromusing

  Tags:  Environment  

  Via Digg
  
  *Vid is abit grainy but not too bad, there is another one here.
  This team is on a mission to showcase solutions to global warming…by driving a solar taxi. They are currently in India, where they spoke with the chairman of IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Mr. Rajendra Pachauri. Incase you’ve been living under a rock for the past several months, IPCC were co winners of the Nobel Peace prize with Al Gore. The Solar Taxi team will be making their way to the United Nations conference on Climate Change next month in Bali Dec 3rd - 14th. How about a stop in Africa sometime in the future? They could even attend the Zero Africa Rally
  Cool stuff.

• November 05, 2007
• 7:49

  Organic Farmers Market - NBI Dec 8th

   » ‎ Afromusing

  Tags:  Environment  

  ***Please note that the event is for December 15th. and not dec 8th. Thanks.
  The latest Globalvoices environment post is on conservation efforts in Zambia, South Africa and D.R Congo. It also includes some links from Phil in Kenya and Mr. SSerwanga in Uganda, writing about carbon footprints and land rights respectively.

  While I was writing that roundup I came across the Kenya Organic Agricultural Network. They’ve got an excellent event planned for Saturday December Dec 15th .
  You can find more details here. I sure hope the Kwani folks make it there, because that would be just wonderful. A combination of great organic food, music, poetry and exhibits showing renewable energy services in Kenya! Excuse me while I figure out a way to teleport myself there.
  Check out what is planned…

  Farmers Market and Regional Trade Fair
  This area will consist of 25-25 tents (10 x 10 ft and 25 x 25ft), where local organic
  farmers and retailers will display and sell their produce and products, including at
  least one tent devoted to information about organic food and farming run by the
  Kenya Organic Agriculture Network (KOAN) and its members. Partners from East
  Africa and beyond will be invited to give the market international flavour, offer
  consumers a wide variety of choice and help stimulate regional trade.
  Green Christmas Shopping
  Purveyors of other types of environmentally friendly products and services will be
  invited to exhibit at the market: natural health and beauty products, green crafts,
  renewable energy services, recycled products, ecotourism, etc.
  Organic Catering
  Bridges Restaurant will provide fully organic catering services at reasonable prices.
  Kamsitu Msituni
  This nursery and garden centre will sell a variety of indigenous and useful exotic
  trees, as well as organic gardening inputs such as compost and natural pest control
  products.
  Art Gallery
  An art gallery will display and sell paintings and sculptures, focusing on smaller,
  lower priced pieces to make art more accessible to the public.
  Solar Cinema
  A 50-seat cinema tent with projector or TV powered by solar PV will show
  environment-themed films and documentaries for free. A solar cinema at an
  Arboretum event in June 2007 featured the Academy Award-winning documentary
  An Inconvenient Truth. Other films will be solicited from UNEP, KIFF/Alliance
  Francaise and ZIFF.

  Also from the same site, you can download the Bio Safety Bill, which I don’t know if its been passed or deffered till after the elections.

• October 14, 2007
• 22:19

  The Flow of Flotsam

   » ‎ Afromusing

  Enclosure: [download]

  Tags:  Environment  

  I was wondering what to write about for blog action day…Deforestation? possible land grabbing in Kenya? The need for recycling bins in apartment communities? the politics of climate change…many options to choose from. I happened watch wired science tonight, and they had a fascinating yet disturbing segment on ‘the garbage patch’. A flowing mass of garbage that goes with the currents spanning several oceans. Cargo that ended up in the seas, such as 80,000 pairs of Nike shoes gave the researchers some information about the flow of trash. Weirdly, a left shoe would end up on one shore and the right shoe on an entirely different shore. Intrigued? Below is the video from PBS.
  

  As its mentioned in the video, perhaps if we see the sheer amount of plastic that is ending up in oceans and inside the bodies of countless birds and animals, we just might think twice about how we dispose of our plastic bottles.

  Habib Koite of Mali has a beautiful song that captures feelings of concern about the environment and industrialization. Can we keep chugging along on the path to the new African Century without wrecking our environment?
  Listen/download ‘Kumbin’.

• October 11, 2007
• 8:08

  3 days to go: Blog Action Day, Join in and plant a tree!

   » ‎ Afromusing

  Tags:  Environment  

  
  On Monday October 15th, bloggers will be writing about one topic for one day…the environment. My idea for this day is to appeal to my fellow African bloggers to help make this a fun day in the African blogosphere. The idea is to make it even more special by not only talking about the environment, but by doing something, one thing. So please,

  - Plant a tree
  - Take a picture or have someone take a picture of you planting the tree
  - Please post on your blog

  I will be checking the African blogs starting on Sunday, to compile a feature for global voices online.
  - Please leave a comment if you will be participating (though you don’t have to, you can tag your post with Africa + Blog Action Day)
  Pass the idea along. If we can get one blogger from each country featured on Afrigator, Kenyaunlimited, Amatomu, mashada blogs etc planting a tree, we would really appreciate it.

  *Incentive for the first Kenyan blogger to commit to participating: Airtime for you purchased through mamamikes!