Yesterday my classmates and I visited a town in Nicaragua called Daria where we painted the school and did a party for the children there.  We also raised money for the school and purchased school and medical supplies for them.  It was amazing what a small group like us was able to accomplish in just a few short hours of our time.  We started painting around 11 and finished by 2!  The children took us on a tour of their community, where many of my classmates saw for the first time what poverty is like.  I lived in towns like these when I used to live in the Dominican Republic and it brought back a lot of memories.  The shower was just a concrete slab with a curtain around it and a bucket to pour water into.  The houses were surrounded by all kinds of fruit trees and the society there was very close-knit.  The children were very active and full of life in spite of the hardships.  I am glad that we had the opportunity to spend a day in this community and give back at least a little to this beautiful country. 

If I have a business, I hope I will be able to contribute back to the community in ways that will affect our future for the better.  I am especially interested in providing education in the area of literacy, environmental sustainability, and financial management.

Some farms are more concerned with economic sustainability so they focus on seeking the most economically-efficient practices, which in turn save energy, which in turn helps the environment. However, they might not care to avoid chemicals to fertilize or fumigate their trees because it maximizes production, at least on the short-term. It all depends on what the interests of the farm are. Some farms are motivated by producing simply organic coffee, while others care about nature, while others worry about production, while others want the best quality coffee, and that is just a tenth of a percent of the different interests among coffee producers. That is why it is important to have standards and regulations in order to ensure that these producers have concern for the environment, society, quality, and the economy, among other important issues.

Some of these standards include the ISO 9000 which is for protection of the environment, another is ISO 14000 which is for quality. Some farms exceed the minimum standards and go beyond obeying regulations by incorporating more responsible business practices, such as offering scholarships and other educational opportunities to the communities surrounding their farms or even to the workers on the farms themselves and their families. Some non-governmental agencies contribute to promoting higher standards, such as Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance, and C.A.F.E. Practices.

ISO 9000 specifically addresses waste water on coffee farms and how it is disposed of. This is in response to the past common practice of dumping the waste water from the coffee processing directly into the rivers, which contributed greatly to polluting the water. Now, many more coffee farms have purification plants of different types in order to comply with ISO 9000.

As we were approaching the property we saw literally an ocean of glossy Arabica coffee trees growing in orderly rows like ripples of waves throughout the green mountain region. When we arrived at the farm, we all gathered under a big mango tree just next to the coffee plants. Unfortunately, the tree had been neglected so the earth below the tree was heavily littered with rotting mangoes. The stench of the mangoes was unbearable, but thankfully my scarf served as a face mask which helped mask the smell. The ground was also infested with every kind of insect you can imagine from beetles and ants to ticks and wasps and even jumping spiders and we could feel the mangoes squishing under our feet like a wet shag carpet. It seemed that this did not bug the facilitators of the group so we had to stay there among the bugs and stink for what seemed like forever while he gave us the introduction about their farm. It was hard to concentrate on what the speaker was saying but fortunately I filmed it so I could watch the talk again from the comfort of home.

Each student in the group is focusing his study on a different aspect of coffee. I am using coffee to study the concept of holistic sustainability and sustainable business practices. After the first few farms we visited however I soon realized that it would be very hard to make one blanket definition for holistic sustainability as each farm has many different factors affecting the coffee and so different levels of practices work for different farms. Holistic sustainability includes environmental, social, and economic factors.

One factor that I learned about at the Naranjo farm was about the social sustainability, such as how they made a road through the coffee trees so as to allow for trucks to pass through carrying the bags of coffee so that the workers no longer had to carry them for long distances on their backs. Another factor related to holistic sustainability is diversification which contributes to social, economic and environmental factors. For example, this farm is planning a hotel on the property. They also created a botanical garden.

Before beginning this coffee program, I had no idea how complex coffee would be. It seemed the more questions I asked, the deeper and more complicated it would become. As it was my first time on a coffee plantation since I was a child, I was curious about how shade relates to coffee cultivation. All I knew was that shade helped promote biodiversity and protected bird life in the region. I also wondered what other effects it had as well as how it worked. I noticed that this coffee plantation in particular did not have as much ¨shade¨as I would have expected. There were some trees sporadically growing among the coffee plants but in my opinion that did not constitute what I would call shade. I asked the staff member of the farm about it and he said that they preserved enough trees so as to keep the birds coming which in turn provide fertilizer to the coffee plants. He also pointed out that they have conserved a large portion of their outlying land to primary forest instead of using it to plant more coffee trees. I asked him what kind of trees they choose and he told me eucalyptus and some other varieties.

I found it strange later when I went to another farm and they were explaining that eucalyptus trees are so bad for the coffee plants because of many factors including the fact that they are not a native species of plant to Costa Rica (well coffee is not either actually), they have a pH level that is not right for the soil near the coffee trees and they are a very aggressive plant that compete with the coffee trees for nutrients and water.

I soon realized that shade is not a black and white topic, and that the type of shade and how it is applied can vary from farm to farm depending on location, climate, and many more elements. At another farm, one farmer explained that they cannot use a lot of shade on their plantation because the climate in their region is so humid and if they have too much shade then the coffee trees will develop a fungus and die.

It would be hard to label one coffee farm as sustainable and then another not based on one set standard for shade or other factors because as you can see that the shade that works for one farm may not work for another, so it is hard to judge if one farm is more sustainable than another simply on the amount of type of shade available. The photo in this post for example is of a traditional coffee plantation in a mountainous region of Costa Rica called Monte Verde. As you can see there are some trees there among the coffee plants but not too many.

I realized very quickly that just knowing Spanish I already had a great foundation in Arabic, as the Spanish language contains at least 10,000 Arabic-derived roots and words. It has always been a passion of mine to build bridges of understanding between people. I hoped to find a way to celebrate this link that exists between these two cultures in order to increase understanding about the Middle East in other parts of the world and to promote sustainable growth and greater exchage and cooperation.

I found one tool to do this through coffee and matte as both of these products are a big part of both of the culture and history of both regions in different ways. Being from Guatemala, which is a producer of some of the best coffee in the world, and the number two exporter of cardamom (which is mixed with coffee) to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, I already had some background in coffee as my family was involved in the coffee business at one point and it was a big part of our culture. I knew that coffee would be a great industry to learn more about and find a way to promote sustainable business practices in the Middle East while at the same time increase understanding and relations between the Arab and Latin American regions through commerce.

I decided I would enroll in a program about coffee studies throug my university which would take me to two countries in Central America, Nicaragua and Costa Rica, to learn more about the coffee industry in order to see if this idea of mine would be feasible. I have only been in Costa Rica for about 10 days for this program and I have already learned so much about coffee and how it relates to sustainability.

It is a very complex industry and product, which I hope to elaborate upon more over the coming weeks and will be the focus of most of my entries. I have to get back to my home stay family for my traditional Costa Rican dinner, so I must end here, but please stay in touch I hope to post again later this week. PURA VIDA!!!

When I began my study of Kuwait and the environment and my internship with Equilibrium, (www.eqcco.com), I quickly discovered that in spite of Kuwait’s wealth and the great development in Kuwait and throughout the Gulf region, there was a large gap between the problems Kuwait is facing with regards to environmental issues and true steps of action by the government in addressing them. However, I have noticed that recently, the amount of articles related to environmental issues has greatly risen. One article in particular that struck my attention was regarding the governmental body of Kuwait, the Environmental Public Authority.

I agree that the establishment of the authority was a great step taken in the right direction with regards to Kuwaiti policy, however there is still a lot of room for development and improvement. The EPA is limited in what it can do with regards to enforcing action against companies and individuals exploiting the environment. I posted earlier suggesting some steps towards improving the situation, but I also came across another great idea suggested by a senior official of the EPA. It was encouraging to find an article about someone thinking in this way within the leadership of the EPA itself. It unfortunately helped further confirm my concern that the EPA is not yet where it should be. While EPA seems to be doing a lot for the environment if you look at their web site and you read everything they have posted there, there is little concrete information regarding actual changes they have made in addressing the environmental issues in Kuwait, and possibly because of lack of authority because of lack of sufficient environmental legislation among other factors.

One of my suggestions with regards to Kuwaiti Environmental Policy was building more bridges between the public and private sector and finding ways to promote the private sector and sustainable growth in terms of the environment. The General Maanager of the Department for Monitoring Air pollution, Dr. Saud Al-Rashid was the one who proposed that the EPA become privatized and independent of the government so that it can play a “more effective” and complete role. He also suggested similar to what I did earlier that the government create a department such as the “Ministry of Development, Panning and Environment,” although I think there should also be a permanent Environmental Affairs Committeee in the National Assembly.

He stated that the problems that he saw with the EPA at present were its “lack of clear organizational structure and lack of regional and strategically located offices for monitoring the situation in Kuwait properly.” He also gave a great suggestion with regards to involving youth, and it would be excellent if someone could come up with an actual implementable plan to get more youth to join the efforts of the EPA and even become an active part of it.

Another suggestion he made was to increase the budget so they can buy the equipment and technology the EPA needs to properly monitor and assess the situation of the environment in Kuwait. I think this would be something that could connect with promoting the private sector. I have met a few people who have created innovative tools for waste management that would help to turn the situation around for Kuwait and even all of the Gulf countries. The doctor was also concerned that the EPA lacks a strong foundation with regards to strategy and addressing the environment, and he also stressed that the last time the committee for environmental affairs was last active in 2006 as well as the Higher council for the Environment, which is a great concern in itself.
Source:
Al-Sayed, Hamed, Al Watan News, May 25. 2006