Where Did the Money Flow?
Your search for Biodiversity found 24 result(s)
Oakland Institute (633)
http://www.oaklandinstitute.org
United States - California / $400
Flow Funder: Malaika Bishop
Year Funded: 2010
This policy think tank increases public participation and promotes fair debate on critical social, economic and environmental issues in both national and international forums, through working in coalitions and networks to strengthen social movements, especially multi-cultural, cross-border and cross-class alliances. The Institute engages in three main areas of interrelated program work: Bringing a social and economic human rights lens to organizing and policy work; Reframing the debate on security; and Building strategic alliances to strengthen popular struggles nationally and internationally.
Documentation of Herbal Medicine (517)
Myanmar / $1,000
Flow Funder: Anonymous
A Gift was given to an activist who has been involved in promoting and preserving traditional culture and literature of the Shan people in Burma. He is a teacher and a Buddhist lay priest, quite well known and respected in many parts of the Shan State of Burma. His long term dream is to establish a farm and ashram where people can come and learn about various aspects of Shan traditional wisdoms, Buddhism, and the interconnectedness between people and the environment/ecology. This project promotes and preserves Shan traditional wisdoms by creating a book containing photos of different herbal medicine plants and descriptions of their usefulness in medical and health purposes.
Christa Mueller's International Gardens (501)
Germany, United Kingdom, France / $2,000
Flow Funder: Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen
A gift was shared with Christa Mueller to found this organization promoting international gardens in cities and regions of Germany and Europe. Through her organization, immigrants from all over the world come together and garden a plot of land. Through this collaborative work, they learn from each other by planting vegetables and flowers from their place of origin. This gift also helped recruit volunteers and philanthropists to obtain land, tools, and plants to create international gardens worldwide.
Pun Pun Center for Self-Reliance (480)
http://www.punpunthailand.org/
Thailand / $2,440
The Pun Pun Center for Self-Reliance is a small, organic farm, seed-saving center, and sustainable-living and learning center. They cultivate their own food, build their own natural homes, and experiment with low-tech technologies. They are striving to bring back the tradition of seed-saving amongst farmers and growers by collecting, propagating, and exchanging indigenous and rare varieties, and therefore bringing back indigenous and rare species of all kinds of vegetables, fruits, and medicinal herbs. Each year, Pun Pun holds workshops on earth house building, permaculture and sustainable living for both Thai and international participants. A Flow Fund Gift was shared to help with these trainings.
Full Spectrum Project (458)
United States - New Mexico / $1,500
We chose this project to share a gift with, because of their dedication to restoring health to the Santa Fe National Forest. Our gift funded a forest ecosystem seed mix, which was planted in sites in need of restoration in the Santa Fe National Forest.
The Alliance for Sustainable Forests & Communities (427)
Thailand / $3,000
Year Funded: 1999
A Flow Fund Gift was shared for the initiation of the first coalition of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) - agencies and individuals - who are working on Thai tribal issues. This Alliance is dedicated to supporting the health of the forests of Thailand and the survival and well-being of forest-based communities. In the midst of ongoing conflicts between the government and local peoples, the Alliance: creates opportunities for dialogue and cooperation regarding government policies and land use by tribal communities, deepens understanding in Thailand and throughout the world of the sustainability of traditional forest communities, and works to eliminate discrimination against indigenous communities in Thailand. The gift was used to set up the Chiang Mai office, establish contact with relevant groups, organization of a "Festival of the Forest," training for tribal peoples displaced by a dam in Ubon Ratchathani, and initiating a process among Karen leaders (the largest indigenous group in Thailand) to write a Declaration of the Rights and Responsibilities of Forest Communities.
Julia Butterfly Hill & The Circle of Life Foundation (370)
United States - California / $2,000
A gift was shared to provide a foundation to work with people across the world in developing a sustainable culture of life on Earth rooted in love and respect for the interconnectedness of all life.
Castle Valley Collaborative (317)
United States - Utah / $1,000
Flow Funder: Vijali Hamilton
The Castle Valley Collaborative is a Utah Residents Group that is trying to preserve the natural environment: "We are dedicated to the process of listening to the land and each other, exploring what we want our future to be, working together to minimize the pressures of growth, and ensuring the health and majesty of this pocket of peace we call home."
Noppanun Anuratana's Green Politics Studies (252)
Thailand / $1,000
Noppanun Anuratana has been working with alternative media for many years, producing programs that raise public awareness about the environment. A Flow Fund Gift was shared with Noppanun, for his continuing Green Politics studies. With this gift, he is doing research, and compiling and translating what he finds into Thai. He also attempting to synthesize postmodern green ideas with Buddhism.
Youth Network for a Sustainable Watershed (247)
Thailand / $2,400
Huai Kha Kang National Park is full of biological diversity with thousands of species of flora and fauna. The people who have settled around the forest and depend on forest products (the Sagagrang Watershed) are concerned about the danger of depletion of forest and are respectful of forest values. They have decided to organize a conservation project entitled "Youth Network for Sustainable Management of the Watershed." The main objectives of this project are to support and develop the youth network, community organizations, and other watershed networks by setting up a learning process that is open for every sector in the community. They will participate in analyzing and planning the process of resource conservation. They also wish to enhance community organization through a "Learning by Doing Strategy." Villagers will also be educated regarding sustainability and traditional methods to conserve their natural resources. The youth have been encouraged to participate in the entire conservation process as they are the new generation who are going to be affected by the natural condition later on.
Community Forestry at Tab Lan National Park (245)
Thailand / $2,400
The villagers in Khonburi and Suengsang, Thailand, have decided to preserve and revive the national resources in Tab Lan National Park by applying local wisdom after the failure of the governmental conservation plan. As the government continues to mis-manage the forest resources without the villagers' participation, local people are asking to be more involved in conservation strategy. A project entitled "Community Forestry at Tab Lan National Park" is set up to increase and conserve the forests found there.
Salvadores de Semillas (244)
Argentina / $1,064
A gift was shared to expand this Argentinian network. With this funding, they were able to: buy sieves to speed up the cleaning of the seeds; buy paper bags for isolation of flowers (for pure seed production); build isolation cages to work with more species and varieties; build a small-scale seed cleaning machine; and improve storage conditions. They were also able to encourage and improve their volunteer work and make a local manual to promote their work and teach new techniques.
Red de Guardianes de Semillas (243)
Ecuador / $1,773
Flow Funder: Jude & Michel Fanton
Year Funded: 2003
A gift was shared to expand the existing Seed Savers Network in Ecuador.
Seed Banking & Training (242)
Solomon Islands / $709
Flow Funder: Jude & Michel Fanton
Year Funded: 2005
Tikopia is one of the most isolated and smallest areas on earth to live. It is 1.8 square miles with no airport, and it takes ten days to sail there from the nearest island. Only three boats visit the island in a year's time. While the island is a paradise, it is quite crowded with 1,200 Tikopians who have been growing their families for 3,000 years. We met Antony Rotu, an elder Tikopian, who had plans to reconstruct Tikopia, which included educating his fellow Tikopians on the superiority of traditional food and the dangers of the Western diet. We connected Antony with an administrating organization, The Planting Material Network, based in Honiara, which does trainings on the importance of traditional food throughout the Solomon Islands. With their broad expertise in conservation of food plants they advised the Tikopians to preserve local varieties of food crops such as bananas, taro root and other staple crops, and taught them how to inventory their food plants.
Seed Savers' Seed Care Packages (241)
Zambia, Solomon Islands, India / $1,773
Flow Funder: Jude & Michel Fanton
The Seed Savers' Network receives a steady stream of requests for advice and information from many worthwhile individuals and organizations that do not have access to literature in general and especially on seed production. A Flow Fund Gift was shared to send out 75 boxes containing the Seed Savers' Handbook, other resource books, moisture-proof seed envelopes, prompts for recording information, and posters on how to save seeds. These seed care packages find their way all over the world.
Training for the Planting Material Network (PMN) (240)
Solomon Islands, Australia / $709
Flow Funder: Jude & Michel Fanton
Year Funded: 2005
The Planting Material Network (PMN) is a project funded by the Kastom Garden Association in the Solomon Islands, which acts as a clearing house for agriculturally-useful seeds, which are sourced from local farmers and are grown and multiplied. Long-time staff member, Nancy Oelo, was chosen to attend a seed-saving training and conference in Australia in October 2005. A Flow Fund Gift helped pay for her travel expenses.
Farmers' Meeting & Spice Farm Visit (238)
Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands / $2,128
Flow Funder: Jude & Michel Fanton
The Melanesian Farmer First Network, in the words of its Network Coordinator, Tony Jansen, is: "a network of grassroot organizations focused on improving sustainable agriculture and community health for the rural people of Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu." Pacific Islanders are mostly geographically-isolated, so for spice farmers to meet other spice farmers and see each farmers' growing style and utilization of their spices (like cardamon, pepper and vanilla) is extremely helpful. Spices are just becoming known in most Melanesian countries, as they have previously been imported at high prices from Asia via wholesalers in Australia. With the tour of the spice farms, we hope to encourage more production and utilization of fresh spices in Melanesian countries.
Parbhani Seed Savers, (236)
India / $496
The project promotes growing of native vegetable varieties in home gardens by women in efforts to improve the nutritional security of women and children. Apart from conservation of traditional vegetable varieties, the project helps revive the tradition of backyard home gardens and also make a significant contribution to the food and nutritional security of poor families.
Training community seed bank worker, Green Foundation, India (235)
India / $709
This grant was for the training of a community seed bank worker to attend the International Seed Saving course, the Local Seed Network Coordinators' Course and the annual conference He is in charge of fourteen seed banks in the community.
Production of Seed-Saving Publication in Spanish (234)
Cuba / $2,482
Flow Funder: Jude & Michel Fanton
This book is a very important teaching tool for the how-to and why of seed conservation and translating and distributing it in Spanish will reach areas where there is little to no information available.
Julia Desbrosses & Seed Networks (233)
Brazil, India, New Zealand / $1,419
Year Funded: 2005
A gift was shared with Julia Desbrosses, a biochemistry graduate, who went on to work and volunteer as a Seed Saving Trainer in Brazil, New Zealand and India. She has returned to Brazil to run intensive Seed Saving Training and aid the establishment and expansion of a Seed Network there. Here is what she says about her work: "I established Seeds for Life in the Maquine area which is subtropical with steep mountains and both flat and narrow valleys. I have personally collected traditional seeds of food plants in the valleys both from farmers and even from plants growing wild. So fertile is the soil that maize can be found growing wild. I have grown out the seeds with community groups in our large seed garden. Seeds for Life has liaised with local peasant groups and activists against globalization and has so far involved dozens people from many walks of life. We use participatory methods when giving training. Local knowledge about food growing, and the traditional varieties that are at its core, is very rich in this area but there are temptations to forgo a garden plot in favor of working on plantations. We have provided training to several hundred farmers in why they should look after their traditional varieties, swapped techniques and enthusiasm for producing one's own food and seeds and recorded traditional ways of exchanging seeds. With our continuing promotion, meetings, discussions and practical work, we have inspired many people to recommence saving seeds of traditional varieties".
Book for Teachers on Seed-to-Seed Food Gardens (232)
Australia / $1,419
Year Funded: 2006
A gift was shared with artist, Geoff Williams to illustrate and a graphic designer, Glenn Dare to layout this book, which is aimed at teachers and school communities to teach them about seeds, and how they are central to a food garden. Rather than buying seedlings, children are encouraged to grow from seed-to-seed. Through the book, they learn the skills needed to sow and save seeds, which helps them to develop an understanding and appreciation for the entire life-cycle of the plant and the source of our food. Seed-to-seed gardening teaches self-sufficiency and reaffirms the abundance that is available from seeds. Growing from seed also gives children the opportunity to interact with the seasons and to experience the excitement of sprouting and harvesting seeds. Besides eating well from the garden, the process of planning and creating the garden provides an opportunity for the whole school community to work together to foster a sense of care and involvement with one another and the source of their food. In the seed-to-seed food garden, children are encouraged to be resourceful by using what is around them to create low-input and low-maintenance gardens. This approach provides the opportunity to think creatively and teaches the importance of treading lightly on the earth.
Community Food's Food Footprint Calculator (230)
Australia / $2,128
A gift was shared with Community Foods to develop a "Food Footprint Calculator." This project is an extension of the Community Foods website, which provides access to information on local farmers, farmers' markets, community gardens, seed-saver groups, and other consumers. Community Foods developed a public user interface that allows people to measure their environmental impacts based on the input of their food-buying habits. This project brings together current research and data associated with energy costs, environmental service multipliers, and local impact models to deliver a tool of specific relevance to local food systems. The calculator is localized to two regions: Byron Bay NSW and Alice Springs, Northern Territory Australia.
Seed Saving in the Czech Republic (211)
Czech Republic / $3,156
Flow Funder: Richard Douthwaite
Year Funded: 2003
A gift was shared to spread the world about Seed Saving in the Czech Republic. This includes publication and distribution of pamphlets, and running meetings with growers across the countryside. At these meetings, seeds and seedlings are exchanged, and growing expertise is shared with all. This gift also helped purchase a digital camera to enable better documentation of the plants grown, as well as the printing of posters touting "old varieties are beautiful."