http://eco-pioneers.org/

Thailand’s newest Permaculture Education Center – week one

Who Are The One Percent in America?

By Press TV

October 17, 2011 "Press TV"  –  The following are the largest full-service global investment banks which usually provides both advisory and financing banking services, as well as the sales, market making, and research on a broad array of financial products including equities, credit, rates, currency, commodities, and their derivatives.

1. Bank of America
2. Barclays Capital
3. Citigroup

4. Credit Suisse
5. Deutsche Bank
6. Goldman Sachs
7. JPMorgan Chase
8. Morgan Stanley
9. Nomura Securities
10. UBS
11. Wells Fargo Securities

Diversified Financials

The following are the top eight diversified financials in the U.S. in terms of revenue in 2010. Fortune 500

1. Fannie Mae ………. $153.82 billion
2. General Electric ………. $151.62 billion
3. Freddie Mac ………. $98.36 billion
4. INTL FCStone ……….. $46.94 billion
5. Marsh & McLennan ……….. $10.93 billion
6. Ameriprise Financial ………. $10.04 billion
7. Aon ………. $8.51 billion
8. SLM ………. $6.77 billion

Commercial Banks

The following are the top ten commercial banks in the U.S. in terms of revenue in 2010. Fortune 500

1. Bank of America Corp. ………. $134.19 billion
2. JP Morgan Chase & Co. ………. $115.47 billion
3. Citigroup ………. $111.05 billion
4. Well Fargo ………. $93.24 billion
5. Goldman Sachs Group ………. $45.96 billion
6. Morgan Stanley ………. $39.32 billion
7. American Express ………. $30.24 billion
8. US Bancorp ………. $20.51 billion
9. Capital One Financial ………. $19.06 billion
10. Ally Financial ………. $17.37 billion

Petroleum Refining

The following are the top ten U.S. petroleum refining firms in terms of revenue in 2010. Fortune 500

1. Exxon Mobil ………. $354.67 billion
2. Chevron ………. $196.33 billion
3. Conoco Philips ………. $184.96 billion
4. Valero Energy ………. $86.03 billion
5. Marathon Oil ………. $68.41billion
6. Sunoco ………. $35.54 billion
7. Hess ………. $34.61 billion
8. Murphy Oil ………. $23.34 billion
9. Tesoro ………. $20.25 billion
10. Holly ………. $8.32 billion

Oil & Gas Equipment, Services

The following are the top U.S. firms active in oil and gas equipment and services in terms of revenue in 2010. Fortune 500

1. Halliburton ………. $17.97 million
2. Baker Hughes ………. $14.41 million
3. National Oilwell Varco ………. $12.15 million
4. Cameron International ………. $6.13 million

Aerospace & Defense

The following are the top ten U.S. corporations in aerospace and defense in terms of revenue in 2010. Fortune 500

1. Boeing ……….. $64.30 billion
2. United Technologies ………. $54.32 billion
3. Lockheed Martin ……….. $46.89 billion
4. Northrop Grumman ………. $34.75 billion
5. Honeywell International ……….. $33.37 billion
6. General Dynamics ………. $32.46 billion
7. Raytheon ………. $25.18 billion
8. L-3 Communications ………. $15.68 billion
9. ITT ………. $11.15 billion
10. Textron ………. $10.52 billion

Motor Vehicles & Parts

The following are the top ten U.S. manufacturing companies of motor vehicles and parts in terms of revenue in 2010. Fortune 500

1. General Motors ………. $135.59 billion
2. Ford Motor ………. $128.95 billion
3. Chrysler Group ………. $41.94 billion
4. Johnson Controls ………. $34.30 billion
5. Goodyear Tire & Rubber ………. $18.83 billion
6. TRW Automotive Holdings ………. $14.38 billion
7. Navistar International ………. $12.14 billion
8. Lear ………. $11.95 billion
9. Paccar ………. $10.29 billion
10. Oshkosh ………. $9.84 billion

American Millionaires

The number of Americans who are millionaires is about one percent of the population. NPR

Of the 435 members of the House, 244 current members of Congress are millionaires – that's about 46 percent and that includes 138 Republicans and 106 Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan watchdog group that tracks money in politics. In fact, there are probably many more millionaires in Congress, since lawmakers don't have to include the value of their family home and other details. NPR

In 2010, the average winner of a House race spent $1.5 million for his/her campaigns. The average Senate winner spent close to $10 million. Closely contested races are much more expensive. And about half of that money, on average, comes from an elite group of very wealthy donors. NPR

Wealthy Americans have more access to lawmakers than most regular voters and constituents do, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. NPR

The median net worth for a current member of the U.S. House of Representatives was $725,000 in 2009, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, and the media net worth of a U.S. Senator was $2.4 million. Open Secrets

The richest member of Congress is Darrel Issa, whose net worth was valued between $156 million and $451 million. Open Secrets

Here is a list of the 20 wealthiest current members of Congress and their average net worth, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, based on their financial reports covering calendar year 2009. (The Center plans to unveil its analysis of lawmakers' 2010 financial disclosures later this fall.) Open Secrets

1. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) ………. $303 million
2. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) ………. $238 million
3. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) ………. $174 million
4. Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) ………. $160 million
5. Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) ………. $160 million
6. Rep. Vernon Buchanan (R-Fla.) ………. $148 million
7. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) ………. $137 million
8. Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho) ………. $109 million
9. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) ………. $98 million
10. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) ………. $94 million
11. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) ………. $77 million
12. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) ………. $76 million
13. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) ………. $58 million
14. Rep. Gary Miller (R-Calif.) ………. $51 million
15. Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) ………. $50 million
16. Rep. Diane Lynn Black (R-Tenn.) ………. $49 million
17. Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) ………. $43 million
18. Rep. Richard Berg (R-N.D.) ………. $39 million
19. Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) ………. $39 million
20. Rep. Kenny Marchant (R-Texas) ………. $38 million

Top Donors to Obama in 2008

The following table lists the top donors to Barack Obama in the 2008 election cycle. Open Secrets

1. University of California ………. $1.6 million
2. Goldman Sachs ………. $1 million
3. Harvard University ………. $0.85 million
4. Microsoft Corp. ………. $0.83 million
5. Google Inc. ………. $0.80 million
6. Citigroup Inc. ……….. $0.70 million
7. JPMorgan Chase & Co. ………. $0.69 million
8. Time Warner ………. $0.59 million
9. Sidley Austin LLP ………. $0.58 million
10. Stanford University ………. $0.58 million
11. National Amusements Inc. ………. $0.55 million
12. UBS AG ………. $0.54 million
13. Wilmerhale Llp ………. $0.54 million
14. Skadden, Arps et al ………. $0.53 million
15. IBM Corp ………. $0.52 million
16. Columbia University ………. $0.52 million
17. Morgan Stanley ………. $0.51 million
18. General Electric ………. $0.49 million
19. U.S. Government ………. $0.49 million
20.Latham & Watkins ………. $0.49 million

Top Donors to Bush in 2004

1. Morgan Stanley ………. $603,480
2. Merrill Lynch ………. $586,254
3. PricewaterhouseCoopers ………. $514,250
4. UBS AG ………. $474,325
5. Goldman Sachs ………. $394,600
6. Lehman Brothers ………. $361,525
7. MBNA Corp ………. $350,350
8. Credit Suisse Group ………. $326,040
9. Citigroup Inc. ………. $320,820
10. Bear Stearns ………. $313,150
11. Ernst & Young ………. $305,140
12. US Government ………. $295,786
13. Deloitte LLP ………. $292,250
14. Wachovia Corp. ………. $279,310
15. US Dept of Defense ………. $279,157
16. Ameriquest Capital ………. $253,130
17. US Dept of State ………. $225,330
18. Blank Rome LLP ………. $225,150
19. Bank of America ………. $218,261
20.AT&T Inc. ………. $214,920

American Billionaires

The following is a list of top 20 American billionaires issued by the Forbes 400 in 2011. Forbes

1. Bill Gates from Microsoft ………. $59 billion
2. Warren Buffet from Berkshire Hathaway ………. $39 billion
3. Larry Ellison from Oracle ………. $33 billion
4. Charles Koch from diversified ………. $25 billion
5. David Koch from diversified ………. $25 billion
6. Christy Walton from Wal-Mart ………. $24.5 billion
7. George Soros from hedge funds ………. $22 billion
8. Sheldon Adelson from casinos ………. $21.5 billion
9. Jim Walton from Wal-Mart ………. $21.1 billion
10. Alice Walton from Wal-Mart ………. $20.9 billion
11. S. Robson Walton from Wal-Mart ………. $20.5 billion
12. Michael Bloomberg from Bloomberg LP ………. $19.5 billion
13. Jeff Bezos from Amazon.com ………. $19.1 billion
14. Mark Zuckergerg from Facebook ……….. $17.5 billion
15. Surgey Brin from Google ………. $16.7 billion
16. Larry Page from Google ………. $16.7 billion
17. John Paulson from hedge funds ……….. $15.5 billion
18. Michael Dell from Dell ………. $15 billion
19. Steve Ballmer from Microsoft ………. $13.9 billion
20.Forrest Mars from candy ………. $13.8 billion

With meat that has been raised in a humane way in very short supply, my sweetie Taiga and I decided that we would experiment with growing three pigs this summer. 

We have been for some time now on a mostly vegetarian diet after deciding that we would try to eat only meat that we knew was grown in a humane way.  Our challenge with this project is to see if we can truly raise our pigs in a humane way, caring for them and giving them a great, albeit short, life with (as Joel Salatin says) "one bad day."

We got the little porkers when they were only 25 pounds each, back in May of this year.  In just 4.5 months these pigs grew to over 200 pounds.  At this moment, only one out of the three remains in the pen, and Prosciutto weighs in at nearly 250 pounds.

So, how has it gone with the slaughtering and the butchering of the last two pigs?

The First Day of Slaughter

After realizing that we were going to have too much meat to know what to do with, we decided that it would make more sense to slaughter one of the pigs early, at the beginning of September, so that we would have ham, bacon, roasts, pork chops, and other such enjoyments throughout the month of September.  We have had that, and quite a bit has gone into the freezer as well.

So we called up Derek.

Derek is the local small farmers' butcher.  After doing a four month apprenticeship at a butcher in New York, Derek came back to Teton County to set up his small business.  At any given time he seems to have a couple lamb, a couple pigs and a dear hanging in his wolk in fridge.  Derek makes a living helping small farmers like ourselves "do the dirty work." And he returns an amazing beautiful and tasty product.

So at 6:30am on Sunday morning, we awoke and put on our dirty clothes.  I have to admit I was a bit nervous and a little bit sad for Outlaw, who was the chosen pig to have her "one bad day." 

Outlaw had been our favorite pig. She was the only one with prominent black markings on her body, and seemed the most likely to come up to be scrathed.  She would also be the one that got the most frisky in the evening and would instigate a squeel and run playtime in the pig peg, where all three pigs would run around in the big clumsy way.  Quite funny.

Derek showed up right on time, and while we were trying to isolate Outlaw in a good hearted attempt to not have the other pigs witness her killing the other two pigs broke out of the pen.  So just as the tension was building, we had to chase the pigs around sing "Day-oh Me Say Day-ay-ay Oh, Day Light Come and We Want to Go Home." (Which of course is the Pig call that we chose to use with our pigs, and generally works.)  This morning, the call, and temping them with a bucket of food didn't work very well.  Delicious  went stright to our neighbors tree farm, where the sprinklers keep the grass nice and green.  She wanted to root around in there a bit, and Prosciutto made a B-line for the veggie garden.  With a little big of persuasion (and a big of embarrassment on my part in front of Derek), we go them back in the pen.  Derek told us that usually the pigs aren't separated and that it would be fne to do the deed right there in the Pen. 

So we enticed the pigs to a spot that was easily accessible by Derek, with his 22 and gave them some food. Out law looked about as happy as a pig could be,  Face down in the slop, occasionally looking up with a large mouthful of pasta or bread that she was enjoying.  One of these times that she looked up, POP! A 22 bullet (which was surprisingly not loud at all) was shot right into her forehead.  She immediately was stunned, fell to the ground, and her nerves started kicking in.  At this point, as we were told later, the pig is not dead, but is completely unconscious and nerves cause the muscles of the animal to kick quite wildly for about two minutes.  Right away, after shooting her, Derek grabbed his fillet knife, and got in there to cut the major arteries in her neck.  This would be what actually kills the pig.  He made a rough attempt to hold back her kicking legs, while he jabbed the fillet knife in to her breast bone, and pulled it up toward the chin.  I think he made two or three jabs like this and the blood came pouring out.  With the animal still kicking it made quite a mess, spilling a couple gallons of blood into the earth of the pen. 

After about 2 minutes, the carcass (I don't think of it as Outlaw anymore.  Outlaw is gone. RIP.) stopped kicking.  As quickly as we could, we pulled it onto a tarp and over to Taiga's shed, where we hoisted her up on a pulley.  It is important at this point to work somewhat quickly to clean the animal and get it into the refridgerator as soon as possible.

A dead weight 220 pound pig is not easy to move around, so we actually used a rope tied to Dereks truck to hoist the carcass up.  A slit the the achilles of each leg where a rod of somekind went through, was able to hold her weight.  With her hind legs lifted and her head down, she had a length of over 5 feet!

I won't go into to much detail about taking the guts out, but this was a pretty interesting biology lesson.  There is a lot there. It is incredible.  Using a fillet knife and a butchers hack saw, Derek was able to get the carcass into two halves, looking much more like meat now than an animal, in a little under an hour.  We hoisted the halves into his truck, and went down to his butcher kitchen, and hung them up in a walk in fridge.

It is important to hang the meat for a few days to let the meat firm up a big before butchering it into the various cuts.  Out of the stomach cavity, I kept the heart, and that day for lunch, I sliced it into thin slices and made a stir-fry out of it.  Heart has a distinct taste that is very different from the Pork of the muscles, but it was still quite good.  Taiga ate some, but decided not to go back for seconds, and I have to admit that it certainly didn't entice my taste buds like bacon or pork chops would.

The killing was certainly not fun, but it was interesting, and I felt okay about it.  I do feel that Outlaw didn't feel a moment of fear, suffering or sadness.  One moment she was munching on some of her favorite foods, looking as happy as could be, and the next, she waw totally unconscious.  The nerves kicking like they did was a little disturbing, especially once the throat was cut open, as then there was blood being thrown about, but after that was done, she seemed totally at peace.  In fact, I believe everthing that was the being Outlaw, was gone by that time.  (To where, I have no idea, but possibly Hog Heaven, where the streams flow with beer, the fresh watermelon is always pre-cut, and the Italian Restaurant Slop never stops being served).

By now, we have slaughtered two out of the three pigs. On this last one, I kept the liver as well, and made pork liver pate (which Taiga's Aunt and Uncle report is actually very good).  Again, liver has a very distinct flavor that is different from other meat, and it took a fair amount of spices, and culinary sauve to turn it into something you want to come back for!  But it actually turned out quite nice, and I plan to serve it today at the pig roast as an hors d' oeuvre.

Eating the Pork

We have eaten a couple pork chops, a couple of the roasts cooked in various fashions and a number of strips o bacon (we get our firsh 10 pounds of sausage delivered today).  In every case, we eat with full awareness of how wonderful it tastes.  The meat that was produced off these animals is of the highest quality, and to sit down and eat something that we grew ourselves has a quality to it that cannot be approached by buying something at the store.  Incredible.  I believe once a person experiences growing their own food, be it meat or veggies, it is tough to go back to fully enjoying store bought, mass-produced food.  There is so much more QUALITY to the experience of eating your own home grown food.  So much more enjoyment, appreciation, and attention giving to every bite. 

The Economics of Keeping our Pigs

$210 = $70 per piglet

$30 = materials for building the pen (we got most of them from a neighbor who used to run a junk yard. 

$216 = 12 bags of grain at $18 per bag (we needed to buy grain to supplement their feed, especially when someone else was feeding them, or when Pete had a number of days off from the restaurant.

FREE = Pete and Sarah each work at restaurants and probably brought home over $1000 worth of slop to feed the pigs, plus we got tons of produce from the local Grocery Store.

$600 = Slaughter and butchering $200 times 3 pigs

———-

$1056 Total or $352 each (120 pounds of meat, comes to almost exactly $3.00 a pound).

These economics show how hard it would be to be a small farmer and be able to sell your product at a "fair price."  If we had to pay for all of the food ourselves, this pork would have been more than double the above price, maybe even three times the price, meaning if we were trying to make a living from it, we would have to sell the meat for $15 a pound, which I would imagine would be very difficult to do!

Overall, its clear to us, if we don't have a free source for food, it wouldn't work for us to raise the pigs again.

*we did get lots of "waste food" from the grocery store.  Much of this was the kind of food that was easily eaten by us, not just the pigs.  Like apples that have one small bruise, or guacamole, which just reached its expiry date that day.  This kind of food is often called "Pre-dumpstered" food, and the amount of savings in money spent from that is definitely in the multiple hundreds of dollars, so if we count that in, it helps the economics look a little better.

The Meat you get from one Pig

26 pork chops

2 sets of ribs

Tender loin

Two large hams 15-20 pounds each

Two Sirloin roast

Two Butt Roast (which actually comes from the shoulders)

Two Rib Roasts

12 pounds of bacon

25 pounds of sausage

one heart

one liver

three pounds of fat for rendering

head cheese!

Quite a bounty.  We figure that a pig with a standing weight of 250 pounds has a hanging weight of about 200 pounds, and that is probably 150 pounds of meat.

Our pigs were a little smaller than that so probably 120 pounds of weight

As far as I know, the permaculture forum at the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia is the most active permaculture forum on the web.  I know that it is a great place to post questions, look for connections, and find courses and job opportunities related to permaculture.  To get there, go to this link:

http://forums.permaculture.org.au/

Have fun!

You'll find questions that relate to International Permaculture, Permaculture Thailand, SE Asian permaculture, tropical permaculture, permaculture jobs, organic farms, sustainable living, alternative energy, internships, permaculture course, PDC, and much more.  Have a glance and find what you are after.

This is one of the goals of Tropical Permaculture, Permaculture SE Asia and Permaculture Thailand.  Be productive and functional for people, while at the same time promoting sustainability and natural systems for the global ecosystem.  Organic gardening, troopical food forests, community living, its all a part of what is the answer to the worlds problems.

Similar to work that Terra Genesis is doing in the Philippines

Very in depth.

Check it out:

http://www.ecotippingpoints.org/our-stories/indepth/thailand-watershed-forest-agroforestry-community-management.html

To kick off the year of 2012, Panya Project is teaming up with Clown Zero for this five day intensive theraputic clowning workshop.

The workshop will delve into specific aspects of imaginative play, improvisation and basic performance territories to bring students into the realm of therapeutic clowning. Therapeutic clowning can be an intimate moment of compassionate and empathetic play between you and another, or it can be a way to share an empowering and enlightened moment with a group or an entire community.

As “clowns” we bring different abilities to a social or personal situation: An ability to partner with everyone and everything; an ability to acutely listen to our environments and the people in it; And an ability to recognize and act on opportunities for shared experience and humor. Our goal is to elevate the ordinary to the extraordinary and empower people to create their own realities while bringing a sense of ease and delight to those around us. We will move through various exercises that seek to ready us for a kind of fearless devotion to play for the benefit of the audience, or the child, or the parent or…(those we are serving.)

What we want to encourage and generate through this workshop are lifelong agents of play who can easily enter a difficult or unknown situation or environment with a sense of openness, resilience, wonder, and honesty.

This workshop will be a five-day training in therapeutic clowning culminating in a visit to local organizations in need.

Costs:

5 – day workshop …………………………12,000 Baht (US$400)

*This includes pick up and drop off in Chiang Mai, all food and accomodations for the duration of your stay.

Register Now!

Payment Options

Pay Deposit $200.00 Pay in Full $400.00

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask:

for questions about Panya, accomodations, etc, contact:

panyaproject (at) gmail.com

or for questions about the clowning, contact:

dan (at) clownzero.org

About the instructors:

Dan Griffiths and Danielle Conover

are founding members and co directors of ClownZero Therapeutic Clowning Unit in San Francisco California. ClownZero currently serves populations throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, in hospitals and shelters providing laughter, healing and transformation to communities in need.

Dan and Danielle are trained in physical theater, clown and mime. Dan studied and served as faculty at The School for Mime Theater at Kenyon College, under the tutelage of mime master Marcel Marceau and is a graduate of the Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre. He also worked as a performer and trainer for the Big Apple Circus Clown Care in Chicago and teaches clown at the San Francisco Circus Center Clown Conservatory. Danielle studied at the Jaques Lecoq International Theater School in 2006, and holds a BA in puppetry and Dance from Sarah Lawrence College. Both Dan and Danielle hold MFA's in Interdisciplinary Art from California Institute of Integral Studies. They are delighted to bring you this course in Therapeutic Clowning!

Hey panya supporters, here are some news from the front !

There is a big wave of protests happening in Europe, it all started in Tunisia, spread along Africa, through egypt up to Morocco, Greece, Spain, Portugal and now Belgium.

There is a time when people need to go down in the streets and claim their right to be heard and claim their right to live free. The fire started in egypt, in January 2011, thousands of citizens gathered to create a people's assembly in cairo claiming more equal rights, freedom of speech, food security, being unhappy about neo-liberal decisions and the global economy that is reducing local development and is draining the money out of the hands of all for going to the hands of a few.

A month or less after, the egyptian president gave his resignation after a few attempts of extreme repression, but the power of the people (more than 7 millions) was heard.

Today in Europe, our democracy is pulling us down, away from food security, social recognition, freedom of speech and therefore well being, so far 'europe' is a failure and the globalization strategy of the system is ruining some of “our” countries like Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain is close by just behind as well as Italy, where unemployment is at the highest and the people's struggle for access to a decent life rising everyday. The revolutionary protest started in Spain in early May where quickly in Madrid and Barcelona several thousand people gathered organizing their symbolic action and the life of the camps with tents, kitchens, toilets, gardens, workshops, art exhibition and people's assemblies. When the governments aren't helping anymore, we have to do something!

The permaculture movement enters the game, in belgium, where for 4 camps have started in four different cities occupying public spaces showing an exemple of an autonomous take over, no matter the color, the religion, the political views, we depave and replant together, we compost and re-use our loans for more useful purposes, we teach people about edible plants, and give workshops about useful knowledge.

Check out links: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9j3GNd0-ZfY&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOicGg3D74Y

To be continued…

It's me, Greg. Greg Crawford. Also known as Gregory, or that blonde that lived in that really cool house with the white rabbit . . .

Well, no; I am not at Panya anymore . . . after going to The Netherlands and hanging with The Beard in Belgium, then through France, stopping at infamous and multi-million Euro squats, I went to Damanhur, Italy (secret-temple-complex built into the mountain = GO). Then through the Balkans/former Yugoslavia, to Turkey. Then Brazil. 

Whew.

Now, in Mexico, I am planning on releasing all the information I was paid (through college via study abroad and independent learning contracts) to gather. 

I will be opening a 'transforming abandoned buildings publishing company'. The first item slated is the quasi-novel 'Fall Apart Park'.

THE AFTERWORDS ARCHIVE: Un-Ruining The World's Abandonments; Publishing Works of Dynamic Adaptive Re-Use

The lovely folks at Urban Ghosts Media wrote an article about me and my ventures better than I could; check it out.

I am working on an online database for 'approaching abandoned spaces' at appropedia.

If you feel like this is something worth your time, energy, attention, support, and/or $$$, I am trying to launch the project via Kickstarter. Kickstarter is a crowdsourcing platform. I am attempting to generate $4,000 by June 5. It's a tight run, and will definitely be a photo-finish. 

I can be reached at mrgregcrawford@hotmail.com & DOYOUBREAKGRIDS.com

I love you,

Gregory Crawford

MEDIA RELEASE

Foreign groups help PHILIPPINES to rehab forests

DAVAO CITY — Foreign groups have joined the Presidents call to a greener country by launching a P150-million permaculture project to rehabilitate Sarangani's remaining pristine rain forest.

The project is a partnership between Bentley House International Corp (BHIC), WeForest.Org, Terra Genesis International and Jimi Hendrix Foundation.

This, after BHIC received a letter from Datu Edmund D. Pangilan, provincial chieftain of the 74,000 hectare ancestral lands of the Blaan and Tagakaulo tribes requesting them to establish a project in his area to employ thousands of Lumads that live on the poverty line.

Jonathon Bentley Stevens, founder and president of Bentley House International Corp. (BHIC), said their project in Malungon Sarangani would reintroduce dozens of species of native bamboo, rattan and some varieties of fruit-bearing trees where At least 10,000 local residents in several villages in the municipality is said to benefit from the project.

"This is not another empty pledge. We have already received funds from WeForest and the Jimi Hendrix Foundation," said Stevens, who was baptized Datu Matatao ug Mabuligon (Chief who brings knowledge and assistance) into the Manabo Tribe in 1996.

Malungon was once one of the richest forests in the world. But today, logging and illegal deforestation has paved way for its natural resources to become very vulnerable to degradation.

The project involves initially planting five million endemic/indigenous trees within three thousand hectares identified in Malungon.

One of the objectives of this project is to work with the B'laan and Tagakaulo tribes to help them replant their native lands, said Stevens.

Permaculture, the rehabilitation approach that would be employed in the project, is geared to encourage the return of birds, animals and insects — providing the ecosystems services which set the stage for the natural regeneration of truly diverse and healthy forest.

"Creating and supporting opportunities for local people to recreate a balanced environment that support them in a myriad of ways is the objective of WeForest globally so it is an honor to become part of this wonderful project in Sarangani," said Christian Shearer, CEO of Terra Genesis International.

For reference:

Jonathon Bentley Stevens
President
Bentley House International Corp
0999-888-0850

Welcome to the Panya winery. This escapade has flourished over the last few months, and as a result, a fine array of interesting wines have been produced, to fuel our nights of frivolity. I wanted to try and share some of what I've learned, in the hope that ideally, a new long term member of Panya will honourably take up the wine maker’s torch, and ensure the safe continuation of wine production for many future generations of smelly permaculturists to come.

When the ginger has boiled, keep the fire going and add 5kg of sugar. Don't boil the sugar, as it might burn or caramelise. Just stir until completely dissolved and then take off the heat and leave to cool until the next day.

If you have one you should fit an airlock at this point. Airlocks are not essential, but are incredibly useful for a number of reasons. They prevent foreign bacteria in the air from contaminating the wine, while allowing the carbon dioxide to escape, preventing pressure from building up inside the bottle. They keep out dust and insects, because the ants love the sugary brew! Also once a wine has begun to ferment, which can take up to three days, you can time the gaps between the bubbles in the air lock, and use this time to gauge the progress of the wine. When it starts to ferment well, the bubbles will come around every 1 – 2 seconds. This will slow down as more alcohol is produced. I've been told that once the gaps in the air bubbles reach 20 seconds or more, then the wine is good to drink, but I've found that waiting until you have at least a one minute gap gives a far tastier wine. Be sure to check the airlocks periodically to make sure they still have water in them.

Once your wine is right near the end of fermentation, it is a good idea, though not essential, to rack the wine. This is the process of siphoning off almost all of the wine into a second bottle, leaving just the bottom layer of sediment remaining (known as the "lees"). This helps to make a cleaner, better tasting wine, as the dead yeast is removed from the brew.

The winery here has gone through many phases, and right now we seem to be at an all-time high of wine production. Panya has produced some fine wines over the years, which have been the driving force behind many a night of funky gyrational jiggling, and all kinds of jovial frivolity. We've had passion fruit-tamarind, ginger-chilli, banana, pineapple, galangal-lemongrass-chilli, roselle, lime, balefruit, and a whole host of other delicious beauties to delight and tickle the palette. But what next? Jackfruit wine? Mango? Durian wine? Ooh be still my dribbling tongue! And then what? Here's my thought: Each time we produce a wine here it costs about 150 baht, depending on the ingredients, and so it seems like at some stage a sensible idea would be to greatly scale up production and start to sell our wine to restaurants in Chiang Mai to start recouping our costs. This would require many more bottles, and a large platform for the wine to sit on, and could be one person's full time job. This would be a lot of work, but then maybe we could drink for free…

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