environmental brigades
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Global Environmental Brigades (GEB) develops sustainable environmental solutions to mitigate ecological degradation in bio-rich, but economically disadvantaged communities in developing countries. Environmental Brigades develops strategies to address the socio-economic challenges that link to resource depletion and by providing education to community members on the importance of preservation while expanding their farms or businesses. Projects include native species reforestation, energy-efficient design, environmental curriculum implementation, eco-tourism and organic agriculture extension.
about us
Environmental Brigades was established at UC Santa Cruz in the Fall of 2010 by Rameet Brar and Tenzin Norsang in order to add to the hollistic model approach to empower community in global health and sustainable development.
Panama is home to some of the poorest communities and richest ecosystems in the world. Without environmentally sustainable development initiatives, the balance between environmental conservation and exploitation leans dangerously in favor of the latter. Environmental degradation also negatively affects the health of our own species. Unfortunately, occurrences such as improper waste management, water and air pollution, a lack of environmental education, and a 66% of global forest cover loss occurring in Latin America affect rural and impoverished communities most directly. However, several efforts to change this are happening right now.
In Panama, Environmental Brigades complement Business, Law, and Architecture Brigades by focusing on socio-economic challenges linked to resource depletion, and implementing environmentally sustainable strategies for development. Projects include native species reforestation, conducting studies, recycling efforts, waste management, organic/sustainable agriculture capacitation, and the building of an environmental education curriculum. Volunteers work in a variety of landscapes, ranging from virgin rainforests to urban beaches, each presenting different challenges for the survival of the environment and future generations.
An important feature of the brigade is the ability to leave behind both immediate and long-term impacts. After each brigade, you leave knowing your left both immediate support (the trees you planted, the service you provided) and long-term support (the educational workshop you conducted, the study you set up). Brigades also build on each other, continuing projects through successive phases, year after year.
Photos by UCSD GEB
sustainability
Our student-led environmentally-sustainable development model is based on three principles:
1. Eco-system services such as water-purifying mangroves and carbon-absorbing rainforests are invaluable resources that sustain all life forms and are an irreplaceable platform for human development and longevity. Environmental Brigades work to support life-sustaining ecosystem services by preserving natural systems, protecting biodiversity, and recuperating degraded environments.
2. Human health and development challenges, such as epidemics and poverty, which arise out of the mismanagement or indiscriminate exploitation of natural resources, must be addressed through environmentally-sustainable strategies. Environmental Brigades support medical, dental, water, law, architecture and business brigades to develop solutions that also protect natural resources.
3. Local communities and organizations are central players in Brigade efforts to promote environmental health. Environmental Brigades work alongside community members and network with Central American organizations to promote environmentally sustainable practices that are culturally appropriate, community-based and participatory.
faq
Q: How did the Global Brigade integrate environmental protection into its mission?
A: Global Brigades integrate the mission of environmental preservation and conservation into its mission throughout all of its programs and its overall infrastructure. We also have a program very specific to environmental preservation that we conduct in Panama, where we currently mobilize hundreds of students interested in environmental studies and environmental preservations to work with micro-enterprises and under-resourced communities on teaching them the importance of environmental preservation, conducting reforestation projects, and delivering an outline map, environmental map of the communities to be able to protect biodiverse regions of the communities. Global Brigades work in the author has chosen Panama as one of the most bio because of its one of the most biodiverse regions in the world, with beautiful, lush rainforests and ecosystems unparalleled within the world. Students would be able to travel and live in these rainforests for their environmental brigade, to work on reforestation projects and other environmental projects in conjunction with other international development organizations, to get on-the-ground field experience in the field of environmental advocacies, and work and be able to work hand in hand with other community members, and be able to be within the natural beauty of the environment and the community itself.
Q: I dont have any prior experience in environmental protection. What will I be able to do as a volunteer for the Global Brigades?
A: If you dont have any experience in environmental studies or protection, you will still be utilized a great deal within our programming. Our program is meant for someone who is only just passionate about environmental preservation. Our programs are very sophisticated to be able to take any volunteer interested in this, and apply them and make them useful on the ground, and get hands-on and gain the hands-on experience that they want in that field. Any capable person can go into the field to understand the issues and help perform educational workshops on environmental preservation. If your body is capable, you can go into and perform environmental reforestation projects, working with community members to replant trees and other natural plant life. These projects are extremely important to empower the communities to be able to start preserving their land, and so that they know not to start overgrazing, overeating it for cattle, that it currently has been devastating the rich biodiverse regions of Panama over the last 100 years. Our goals as an organization is to provide them not to eliminate development, but to offer alternatives, and to provide educational-based, environmental advocacies, so the people are aware of the rich resources that they currently have, and not just cut them down for short-term profit.
Q: Im excited to be doing more in terms of education for environmental protection. Can you give me some examples of how the Global Brigades is educating local farmers to farm in a way that is environmentally sensitive?
A: Global Brigades works with other international development and environmental organizations on the ground such as Earth Train, Peace Corps, many others who have hundreds of, or decades of years of experience in environmental preservation, and education of alternatives to sustainable farming and development for these villages. They develop workshops in conjunction with our in-country directors that students will be able to[inaudible] translate and give to the community members to provide them with these types of alternatives, and also become aware themselves of the many alternatives to agritourism, to sustainable farming that are available out there, that communities need to be educated on implementing
Q: How receptive are local communities to the ideas of reforestation and environmental protection?
A: Well first, we dont go into any community that hasnt invited us into. We do not push our agenda or our solutions onto anyone. We work through an RFP process where either the community has already identified the need for this environmental education, or is working with another international development organization or environmental organization that has identified it. The agency the other international organization will have approached us through our RFP process, and we count on our volunteers to mobilize, to bring resources, and to host community meetings, and be able to also raise funds to add and to implement the reforestation projects in the communities. We also work with organizations that already have bought the land to preserve, that just need now people to come back in and to help reforest, and to help educate the other communities in the outlying areas on the importance of the preservation of the land.
Q: Can you give me a real-world example of how the Global Environmental Brigade is partnering with other organizations? What kind of projects are you currently implementing?
A: The current one of our largest projects that weve been undertaking is in conjunction with the organization Earth Train, which was founded by Nathan Gray, one of also the co-founders of Oxfam North America. Nathan and Earth Train have purchased more than 10,000 acres of pristine rainforests in Panama, where they are currently struggling with educating the people on the land about the importance of the preservation of it, and then providing them alternatives to cattle ranching and environmentally unfriendly business practices. So our environmental brigade students will actually get to go and live in that rainforest and work with the local communities, teaching them alternatives to the micro-enterprises, and also conducting reforestation projects in conjunction with Earth Train and their community leaders and their staff.
dates: june 18, 2011 - june 25, 2010
location: panama, c.a.
accomodation: panaminian commuity
cost: $850 plus airfare
click here to register
media
Rameet Brar
rameet_globalbrigades.org
Tenzin Norsang
tenzin.norsang_globalbrigades.org
www.environmentalbrigades.org
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