Is Humanitarian Design the New Imperialism?

Thanks to our friend and former Peace Corps Panama volunteer Matt Gilbride for co-authoring this post. Matt is currently finishing his graduate work in Industrial Design at NC State University. Check out some of his work.

As Planting Empowerment expands in Panama’s Darien province, we find ourselves examining the questions raised by Bruce Nussbaum in his July 7th, 2010 Fast Company article.

The author poses a powerful question to all those engaged in humanitarian development and design: “Is Humanitarian Design the New Imperialism?” As former Peace Corps volunteers ourselves (and two of us with design experience) we have some perspective on Nussbaum’s article.

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New York Times profiles African land grabs (1 of 2)

The December 21st New York Times story, African Farmers Displaced as Investors Move In, examines the trend of land acquisition in Africa by foreign governments and corporations.

This is a complex subject involving issues of food security, ethics, politics, and capital markets, among others. While Africa's situation is different than Latin America's, there are some parallels to be drawn from the story.

A topic as controversial as land rights merits two separate blog posts. Here in the first, we'll explore how land rights pertains to our business, and how that affects your investment with us. The next post will go into more depth as the topic relates to our indigenous partner Arimae.

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Planting Empowerment featured in UNDP Report

The UNDP recently released a report entitled Latin America and the Carribean: A Biodiversity Superpower.

The report aims to "... assess and communicate the economic contribution of biodiversity and ecosystems services to development and equity in the region."

One of the UNDP's case studies features Planting Empowerment's innovative tenure model for forestry and development.

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Update on the Small Grants Program Project

Liriano clears around one of the baby rosewood saplings that the community planted through the SGP program. One of the most exciting things I saw during my recent trip to Panama was the results of the United Nations Development Program's Small Grant Program (SGP) project that we helped Arimae receive and execute. With the financial support from the SGP, the community built a small nursery to produce rosewood, and then planted five hectares of those rosewood saplings with their own initiative. Another interesting part of the project is that the seeds for the rosewood came from their own reserve, so the saplings should be well suited to the local climate and soil conditions.

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Community Forestry Management, Indigenous Peoples, and REDD

I recently visited the community of Ixtpal de Juarez, an indigenous community in the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca, Mexico. The 19,000 hectares of forest that the community manages generates almost $2 million/year in revenue and more employment than the community can fill.

The heart of this operation is a forestry management unit that uses sustainable practices on the 3600 hectares. This timberland supplies their saw mill enough logs to produce 25,000 cubic meters of sawn lumber per year. While the lumber could be sold on the market for ~$1/ board foot, it is instead transformed into furniture that sells for the equivalent of $3/board foot.

The project started almost 25 years ago when the community took control of the timber concession previously managed by a private timber company.

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