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Vote Andaman Discoveries for the BBC World Challenge!

Hi CNR Students and Alums,

I started a non-profit in Thailand back in 2005, and it has gone on to do great things. Recently, we were chosen as a finalist for the BBC World Challenge. If you can, please take 30 seconds to vote for us at their website, so we can keep up the good work! The website is The BBC World Challenge.

Our connection to the villages comes from rebuilding our lives together, and our projects focus on the big picture, empowering people to define their own future. This means that, along with responsible tourism, we also support scholarships for 120 kids, reforestation, a community development network, and a lot more. Pardon the spiel if you've already heard it, but it's the real deal.

Winning the World Challenge would mean a lot: the award will underwrite our projects, and the publicity will help us spread our message, which is always a challenge with a miniscule PR budget :) If you are excited by all this, feel free to post this message on your facebook account, blog, or email lists.

With thousands of nominations annually, the World Challenge recognizes innovative business projects that increase investment into the local community and take a responsible approach to the environment in which they are operating. We were chosen by a jury of high-level executives from Shell, BBC World, the World Bank, IUCN, and Newsweek.

So, if you could be so kind as to follow the link and vote for us, it would be of great service to our projects and the people they serve.

Bodhi Garrett
Director, Andaman Discoveries
Coordinator, IUCN North Andaman Network
Founder, North Andaman Tsunami Relief

Link to Andaman Discoveries on the BBC World Challenge


Press Release (PDF)

Bodhi Garrett
posted October 14, 2009 8:27 AM

What I Learned From Training Farmers in Tanzania

We read a lot about sustainable agriculture on our multi-acre farms in the USA and the rest of the developed world. What makes them sustainable? The most common farm inputs and farm capital assets tied into sustainability are

But there is nothing more sustainable than a small farmer managing to eke out a living by producing food and a bit of cash for the family on one to two acres in a sub-tropical highland in the mountains of Eastern Tanzania.

Take a look at this picture of a randomly planted tract, straddling a small creek and looking like a dense and healthy backyard garden. It's a bit hard to pick out all the crops, but there are bananas, pineapple, mango, taro, cassava, chick peas, coconut, cloves and oranges. Their produce is either consumed over the year by the farmer and family or sold for cash to local brokers. It's been recently weeded so the fertile, dark red, volcanic soil is readily exposed.

continue reading "What I Learned From Training Farmers in Tanzania" »

John Casazza
posted August 7, 2009 9:18 PM

From ES to Oxford

Hello interested blog readers. I was asked to give a quick profile of what I've done since graduating.

UNDERGRAD

continue reading "From ES to Oxford" »

Josh Fisher
posted June 9, 2009 11:46 AM

I never imagined what a degree in CNR would lead to in my career!

All through my youth I had a passion for the natural sciences and I wanted to follow it in college. During my first two years at Cal I took the prerequisite courses for Biology major, which were just about the same as for any science degree. When trying to decide on what major to declare I looked within the life sciences and earth sciences departments and within the College of Natural Resources (CNR). What attracted me to CNR was the opportunity to learn in a small class setting and have more contact with the professors, and be associated with the college that through its programs was studying the science issues of the day; like the energy crisis, food safety and security and environmental degradation and pollution. Sound familiar! I chose the Soils and Plant Nutrition major because of its overlap with both the life and earth sciences. So in 1977 I graduated from UC Berkeley with a B.S degree in Soils and Plant Nutrition from the College of Natural Resources.

How did my years at Berkeley prepare me for the future? Besides the courses within the major, like soil classification, soil chemistry, soil microbiology, and plant physiology and biochemistry, I was able to take courses in geology, forest influences and forest soils, ecology, botany, mycology and ag economics. All of the courses included classroom lectures and either lab or field work or both.

One of the best courses offered in the department was a summer field course. Over a six week quarter, UC Berkeley and UC Davis professors covered the study of soils within many of the environments of California for students from both schools. The major offered opportunities for independent study where I worked on the impacts of fluoridated water on the environment in conjunction with the Sierra Club, and the issue of herbicide usage in the Viet Nam war. I conducted trials in the Oxford Tract greenhouse and I worked at the Oxford Tract organic garden. Because of the close contacts with the department and its professors we could access their latest analytical equipment for our work and study. I even found time to work at the US Forest Service Labs in Berkeley and had a small landscaping business in the community. It was a great time to be a student at Berkeley.

continue reading "I never imagined what a degree in CNR would lead to in my career!" »

John Casazza
posted July 14, 2008 3:34 PM