August Newsletter

Project Lifecycle

Five More Villages to be Included in Project Lifecycle

Meaningful Volunteer is expanding its Project Lifecycle initative into five more villages on the island of Tablas in the Philippines.

The expansion will be led by Eden C. Navia - the new district manager for Meaningful Volunteer, and Alicia Grant - a Meaningful Volunteer from Australia.

Project Lifecycle has already finished implementing the SDM method of family planning in six villages and succefully trained thirty-six local healthcare workers in its use

Many lessons were learnt by Meaningful Volunteer during its initial foray on Tablas.  These are all documented in our ever-expanding Project Plan.

The Meaningful Shop

Craft Days

The Payawpao Orchids recently promoted their crafts during a market day that was organized by the local government.

The Orchids took turns selling items throughout the day.

A total of 500 pesos was raised ($US 10.46).  This was quite a bit lower than what was hoped for.  It highlighted for the Orchids that San Agustin in not their target market.  Selling items to their fellow Filipinos helps a little, but the real gains are to be made in the international market via the soon-to-be released Meaningful Shop website.

In other related news, Vivina Bance - a Payawpao Orchid - recently demonstrated how to make the paper beads to a livelihood project mini-conference. 

The Orchids have a philosophy of sharing their knowledge to as many people as possible, even if it means some of these people end up becoming their competitors.

Project Mangrove

Mangrove Nursery Lessons

Meaningful Volunteer and CERV Philippines runs a mangrove nursery in the Barangay of Cabolutan – just off the main road between Long Beach and San Agustin on the way to the Cabolutan Elementary School. Currently there are about
5,000 Rhizophora seddlings (propagules) waiting to be planted. But as we don’t know where to plant them yet, they need constant maintenance and monitoring in the nursery. This document provides volunteers some general information on the nursery, the tasks that have to be done, the problems we are facing and the lessons learned from previous failures.

What has to be done in the nursery?

• Water the seedlings!
  Especially during dry season and periods with alack of rain the plants should get water at least twice, better three times a week.
   
• Clean up and keep weed away!
  Weed is a constant problem that can only be solved by picking it out of the mangrove cups regularly. They extract the nutrients from the soil and grow faster and even bigger than the actual mangrove seedlings.
   
• Look for diseases!
  Some mangroves are affected by diseases you can easily spot on the propagules. Separate these seedlings from the rest, clean them and monitor them regularly.
   
• Separate seedlings turning black!
  Propagules that lost all their leaves and start to turn black also need to be separated from the healthy seedlings. Small ants colonize them and live in the inside of these dying mangroves. However, when the propagules are still green, there is a little chance for them to recover.

The obvious reason for a mangrove nursery is to get the seedlings being planted when they are big enough. There is no reason to keep them in the nursery for too long. They will even stop growing at a certain point due to bad conditions (lack of sunlight, small cups). But mangroves cannot be planted anywhere on the shoreline – this is especially true for Rhizophora. More things have to be done outside the nursery:

• Find appropriate planting sites!
  This is a difficult task and needs a lot of time, monitoring and measurement. Find out about the specific needs for this Rhizophora species and look for places on the shoreline with the best conditions for the seedlings (soil, low tide and
  high tide etc.) before planting them.

• Talk to people!
  Some locals are very interested and even enthusiastic about mangrove reforestation projects. They might also suggest planting sites. Tell them about the problems to face and have a look at the planting site before offering seedlings for planting.
   

What are the problems we face?

• Mangrove seedlings stop growing
  The small cups prevent the seedlings from growing further. Propagules in bigger cups grow faster and higher at the same time. More and more seedlings even die! They lose all their leaves and start to turn black. They might develop new leaves, but ants obviously claim these struggling mangrove seedlings as their habitat.
   
• Where to plant the mangroves?
  Still it is hard to find out the best places to plant the seedlings with the appropriate conditions for Rhizophara. The Carmen Marine Sanctuary is an example for a badly chosen planting site. Most seedlings already died, the still existing ones struggle to survive.
   
• Concentration on planting
  Although planting mangrove seedlings is obviously a major step in every mangrove reforestation project, it is not the only one. Mangrove seedlings are requested for planting from time to time, but without knowing the planting site, constant monitoring and protection of the planting site as well as the communities’ active involvement it is just a question of time until when these seedlings will be washed away by the sea or die like most of them before.

• Lack of community involvement
  This is actually the most important point to keep in mind: Involve locals! Whatever you do, you do it for the coastal communities in San Agustin. There is no reason for not involving them in every stage of mangrove reforestation. Especially students are excited to learn more about mangroves and will be happy to support you. Measuring, monitoring,planting, cleaning up – get people involved andexplain why it has to be done! This will also raise
  awareness for the mangrove ecosystem.
   

What lessons can be learned?
 

Based on our experience from the work in and outside the mangrove nursery there are many lessons that have been learned already. There will be more to come as volunteers will experience new problems and learn about various other important aspects.

Here are some points to keep in mind:

• The bigger the cup, the better will the mangroves grow!
• The nursery needs constant maintenance (think of weeds, diseases, mangroves turning black)!
• The seedlings need a lot of sunlight to grow and should be watered regularly!
• Rhizophora needs certain conditions to grow up. Seedlings cannot be planted anywhere!
• Planting of seedlings without further monitoring is waste of time and resources!
• The community needs to be involved in every single step of the project!
   

Mangrove Education Kit

“When planning for a year, plant corn. When planning for a decade, plant trees When planning for life, train and educate people.”
Chinese proverb

Meaningful Volunteer is delighted to announce the release of its Mangrove Education Kit.

The kit was developed by German volunteer Jens Marquardt with support from Malcolm Trevena.

The kit itself can be downloaded here.  There are also teacher manuals for high school and elementary levels and an associated Powerpoint presentation.

The manual is jammed packed with great info for both teachers and students as well as some excellent interactive activities and excercises.  See below for a sample excercise.

Introduction

Once in 1918, the Philippines’ coastal line was covered with 500.000 hectares of mangrove forests. In 1995 only 117.000 hectares remained. This massive decline had negative impacts not only on the environment, but also on the people’s communities near and around this unique ecosystem. There have been many attempts in mangrove reforestation in the Philippines, but unfortunately most of them failed due to various factors, primary technical and social in nature. One of the most crucial barriers for successful rehabilitation projects is their lack of community involvement and a missing understanding for the importance of mangroves due to a lack of environmental awareness.

With this education kit we want to support your efforts in raising awareness in school for the need of mangroves. We will provide you with information on the nature and benefits of the mangrove ecosystem, introduce an example of a reforestation project and offer methods and ideas for teaching the issue in elementary and high schools.
This guide follows three major objectives. It is designed:

• to raise awareness for the need and benefits of mangroves,
• to support student education by providing ideas for learning exercises and
• to mobilize coastal communities to get involved in mangrove reforestation.

The project that will be introduced in this manual is based around the town of San Agustin on Tablas Island, Romblon. Like in many other communities in the Philippines, San Agustin’s major economic activity depends on traditional fishing grounds. But these already show significant signs of fish stock depletion. The establishment of a marine sanctuary between Carmen and Long Beach should help to improve the situation – with positive effects both on the food security of the local communities and the protection of the marine ecosystem. We will introduce the project activities as well as the failures, successes and the community involvement to you.

So why do we actually need mangroves? What are their benefits, and which threats are they exposed to? Why is it important to protect this marine ecosystem – especially for the coastal communities? And what do the project activities around San Agustin look like? All these questions are important not for the people in and around San Agustin, but to the whole coastal environment and the communities living there.

In this manual we will address these questions. We want to discuss them and present answers in an understandable, practice-based way. This education was created together with the people, teachers and students of the Barangays around San Agustin. It provides information on how to implement mangrove experience in schools. The overarching aim is to raise greater awareness for the benefits and goals of the reforestation of mangroves.

We hope you will enjoy reading and this guide will be helpful for bringing the issue of mangrove forests into your classroom.

The authors

Any parts of this manual may be reproduced and cited freely to widespread the information on the unique mangrove ecosystem. Help us to raise awareness among young and old to stop the fate of the last mangrove forests. References to other sources have been made where necessary.

Exercise 05 Everything is Connected

Objectives
This game is used to raise awareness for the interconnectivity between and within ecosystems. It shows how easy the ecological balance can be disturbed by destroying only one organism. Every species plays an important role in the web of life and change affects others drastically.
 

How many people and what material do you need?

• For at least a small group of participants and open space
• String straw rolls (depending on the number of participants)
• Paper, pens, scotch tape, pins

Description
Instruct the students to create big circle using themselves and give them an individual name that connects them to the mangrove ecosystem, e.g.:

• air, brackish water, sun, fresh water
• insects, birds such (kingfisher, woodpecker...), mudskipper, land animals
• mangrove trees and other plants, sea grass
• various species of fish, shellfish, crabs, octopus, shrimps, lobster, star fish

It is important to have at least one mangrove tree within the group of students! The teacher will give the string to anyone within the circle. She/he will start the game and pass the string to the part of the environment which she/he knows is needed by this organism (which is the second student) or the second organism needs him/her as well. The second person will then choose an organism inside the cycle of life which she/he believes that he/she needs too to survive. The string needs to be hold tightly at any time. Assist here as a facilitator. This is a sign of a balanced ecosystem. Forwarding the string is a continuing process.The string may also go to any organism more than once. When all organisms hold the string together, the destroyer of the environment will appear. Her/his task is to create an imbalanced ecosystem by cutting down mangrove trees. For this the facilitator taps the back of a “mangrove” that is a part of the circle. You should make a story, telling, what happens to the mangrove. This organism will then lose the string in his/her hands as a sign that she/he is no longer part of the web of life. Whoever is connected with his/her string will die or collapse, until the rest who are connected with the web of life will also be diminished.

Make sure to explain “ecosystem” and “biodiversity” before playing this game.

Sources: Palawan Conservation Corps: “Ang Magkakaugna” (in: Berger / Otto / Wichern / Ziegfeld / Magpayo 2008)

Relevance and learning effect
The students will see that extreme changes in an ecosystem affects more than only one organism and that all live depends on each other.

Good for teaching 

• 2.1 Coastal and Marine Resources in the Philippines
• 2.2 The Mangrove Forests Ecosystem