Financing sustainable energy, waste and water systems is one of the challenges faced by Puravida. Charitable donations are one way – (and very welcome indeed!), but to finance the project for the long term and to help support projects that can benefit the wider community there needs to be another solution. An evolution of carbon offsetting may just be one way to do it- bring on the dawn of Carbon Onsetting. Carbon Offsetting has become a well established method of generating finance for carbon mitigation projects. These projects include energy efficiency, renewable energy, sequestration or reforestation schemes. These are projects that claim to make exact carbon reduction for another carbon emissions. These are projects that otherwise would not go ahead. Carbon Onsetting also finances carbon mitigation projects that would otherwise not be able to go ahead. These projects however do not claim to make any exact reductions; estimates are made. People can chose to onset an estimated about of carbon dioxide to fund only projects that have an additional community or environmental benefits; there is a need for the project regardless of the carbon reduction that results. Onsetting is honest & upfront; Onsetting is low cost and ensures that more money goes into the projects. Blue Ventures Carbon Offset (BVCO) holds the basic principle of onsetting true in its current community stove programme in SW Madagascar. Puravida will now be linking with BVCO to fund Carbon Onsetting projects in Brazil. These projects will range from Biogas units, to water pumps, to solar lighting schemes, to solar stoves and fuel efficient stoves. This will launch on www.bvco.org.uk in the coming month. We will keep you posted. Then all can onset any carbon guilt they have through carbon mitigation projects that will truly benefit the people and environment of the Itacare region. Email ellie@blueventures.org for further information. Posted by ellie (disguised as Elin)
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samzinho said,
September 23, 2007 at 7:04 pm
There are three types of infrastructure activity that it is imagined PURAVIDA will be engaged in. The first is any activity that concerns just us; very local projects such as a small solar PV system to provide very localised lighting and suchlike. The second involves anything intended to benefit the people living on the farm that might have slightly wider benefits. The projects that fall into this category are those that are probably of most obvious immediate concern. They include such projects as a large-capacity sewage treatment facility. This will provide immediate sanitation provisions for those of us based on the farm, but also for the families living around that have no access to sanitation facilities other than a hole dug in the forest. The intention is to build something with enough capacity to be able to deal with the any future anticipated people staying on the farm. If, in the future we will be running courses and having larger groups of people staying on the farm we will need suitably sized facilities. It makes sense to build to this capacity from an early stage.
There are a number of ways of achieving this, and all will be done to provide as little environmental impact as possible. All of the solutions involve some manner of anaerobic digestion, the process by which naturally occurring micro-organisms digest waste in airless conditions. The advantages with these processes are that almost all pathogens are destroyed and what is left is clinically sterile fertiliser perfect for gardens. A bi-product of this digestion process is methane gas which it is possible to capture and use for cooking. What might be simpler to achieve is a multi-baffle weir system digester terminating in a reed-bed polishing tank, which uses reeds and sunlight to absorb toxins and kill any pathogens. The choice of system will be determined by the available materials and local conditions.
Another project that will fall into this second category is the installation of ram pumps; pumps that use a large flow of water to lift a small amount of water a great distance. This will provide a continuous source of water at the top of the hill which it is imagined will be the focus of all activity on the farm. Ram pumps can be installed to provide water to any of the houses on the farm.
Also included in the category are solar powered water pumps to pump clean drinking water from the springs to the top of the hill.
The third category of projects is those that do not directly benefit the farm, but people living in surrounding areas. These projects will be continued indefinitely and will involve such activities as suitable training workshops to teach people amongst other things to build and repair their own ram pumps for local installation. It is hoped that the creation of local co-operatives will be facilitated to enable the purchasing of things like solar PV panels and suchlike, circumventing the need for locals to buy things like diesel electricity generators.