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Sustainability and Mobile Technologies, New Pathways Toward Conservation

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In April of 2017, Amaterra returned to the Seventeenth International Conference on Current Issues of Sustainable Development hosted at Opole University in Poland.

The theme of the conference was “Different views on sustainable development: what is really sustainable?”

The general aims of the conference were to discuss and analyse:

  • direct and indirect impacts of actions and tools aimed at sustainable development,
  • methods and tools which can be used to measure these impacts,
  • institutional and governmental framework for sustainable development, 
  • challenges for sustainable development in different sectors, e.g. transport, energy, waste management etc.,
  • the role of technology in building sustainability.

The conference hoped to address one of the most important questions: do efforts and actions aimed at sustainable development really lead to sustainability?

As a result, Amaterra prepared research and presented on the role of emerging technologies in development and conservation, and their impact on sustainability. 

Executive Director David N. Berger, presenting Amaterra’s research

Amaterra’s presentation abstract:

In today’s contentious political and economic climate, sustainable development initiatives are being both promoted – as a solution to decreasing funding levels and falling support for international development programs, and undermined – in terms of an assault on scientific methods, anti-climate change rhetoric, and reluctance to innovate because of risk aversion practices due to the same decreased funding. 

Amaterra’s research focused on the role of emerging mobile technologies to increase the validity, efficiency, and access to data, and the repercussions this increased access has on development programs. Further, Amaterra’s analysis and research explores the particular nature of opportunities presented by these technologies.  Ranging from data aggregation through the promotion of new economic opportunities, and production of and access to improved indicators in education and health care.

Despite challenges, and weaknesses observed in ongoing pilot programs utilizing mobile technologies, the promise of increased transparency, access, and validity of data offers an exciting opportunity. To not only analyze the direct impacts the technologies are having on sustainable development programs, but also to record and observe indirect impacts they are having through unexpected correlations and synergies across the private and governmental sectors (e.g. the advent of mobile money, and the use of forcasting and trend monitoring in analytics to predict/recognize vulnerability/crises based on financial behavior).

These synergies are helping us address the question of if sustainable development programs are yielding sustainability, and how we can utilize emergent technologies to support and enhance these outcomes.

Reception:

The presentations were well-received, and Amaterra’s research and exploratory presentation on the role of mobile technologies and the opportunities and pitfalls they bring with them, particularly in the aspect of monitoring and evaluation within the development world, encouraged deeper conversation.

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Amaterra’s Work Continues: Discussing Sustainability and the Environment

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Amaterra has recently attended the Sixteenth International Conference on Current Issues of Sustainable Development. The conference, titled “Generations for generations – priorities of sustainable development yesterday, today and tomorrow” in Opole, Poland focused on the need for a new perspective regarding sustainability and sustainable development from a generational approach.

Amaterra was drawn to the conference due to its focus on generational responsibility for the protection, and maintenance of the environment. The premise of the conference aligned with Amaterra’s mission, in that the environment was positioned as the basis for the subsistence of humanity, but more importantly as the foundation of natural capital from which all other socio-economic processes originate. Protection of that foundation, and initiatives through sustainable development to ensure its health, maintenance and enhancement are key to our future.

The stated primary goals of the conference were to discuss and analyze:

  • – the responsibility of young, medium and old generations in building capabilities for sustainable development,
  • – improving common, international dialogue for creating sustainable development patterns,
  • – institutional and governmental framework for sustainable development,
  • – challenges in developing sustainable consumption and production,
  • – challenges for sustainable development in different sectors, e.g. transport, energy, waste management etc.
  • – and the role of technology in building sustainability.

Sixteenth International Sustainability Conference

On the 25th and 26th of April, 2016, Amaterra’s Executive Director presented on the topic of “Sustainable development and community mobilization – through failure to success.” The presentation was designed to discuss the role of sustainable development, and specifically to address the necessity of a different view and approach to current and future development capabilities, primarily those of more contextual and comprehensive approaches to sustainable development. Approaching development not as sustained growth, but as a holistically sustainable closed system, which would allow for higher quality of life, while maintaining the health of the ecosystem and environment. The presentations were well received, and Amaterra’s perspective on sustainability encouraged deeper conversation and linkages and an invitation to collaborate with new partners and academics.

The presentation and resulting short paper were published in the Central and Eastern European Journal of Management and Economics Vol. 4, No. 1, 41-61, March 2016.

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2014: Grant to the Watershed Management Group, Tucson, Arizona

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2014: Grant to the Watershed Management Group, Tucson, Arizona

Watershed Management Group, Tucson, Arizona

WMG6workersPreparing the land

The specific project that Amaterra is funding is a green job training program that WMG is running in partnership with Goodwill. The funding will be used to cover the time of expert instructors working with the youth and for some project materials to complete the project. Over the next two months, WMG will teach how to create a food-producing rain garden.

We will start with facilitating a design activity, where young people will learn how to design a landscape and contribute their ideas. Once the design is finalized, they will help with implementing the garden step-by-step. They will create sunken veggie beds, work on soil enhancements, and create a surrounding rain garden with native plants to attract pollinators like bees to the garden area. They will participate in planting and caring for the garden as well. They will learn about water-wise gardening and desert appropriate food crops at WMG’s Living Lab and Learning Center. We will work with the youth weekly to implement sustainable features at the Living Lab, including rain gardens, greywater systems, native and edible gardens, rain tanks, and natural building projects at WMG’s Living Lab and Learning Center.

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Rain harvesting

WMG also has been working in Tucson neighborhoods (three currently) as teaching composting, demonstrating ways to capture runoff from rains and guide the water to tree wells (a really important project in areas where the streets regularly flood during storms), and encouraging the implementing of water storage tanks.

In addition to the strong local presence, WMG also has similar projects in foreign countries. Last year they partnered with Grampari, an organization in India, to give technical support and train new workers in the areas of sanitation and watershed management. This year they are shifting their emphasis to the Southwestern United States and Mexico.

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Another shovel full

The Mission Statement of WMG: “Watershed Management Group develops and implements community-solutions to ensure the long-term prosperity of people and health of the environment. They provide people with the knowledge, skills, and resources for sustainable livelihoods.”

Click here to view their excellent website complete with Youtube videos.

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Camp GLOW – Zambia 2013

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2013 Zambia “GLOW” Project

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Glow Camp staff

A $1000 grant from Amaterra has been provided to Peace Corps Volunteers (PVSs) for a program empowering young women in Zambia, Africa. The program focuses on 8th grade school students. Each Peace Corps Volunteer brought two young women and a mentor (one adult) from their communities, to participate in a week long empowerment camp. The camp focused on life skills, women’s rights, sexual health, nutrition, and leadership. Also the young women were taught about good food, the dangers of teenage pregnancy, communication, and good farming practices. Of special significance for the mission of Amaterra, each participant learned about home/kitchen gardens, composting, income generating agricultural activities focusing on sustainable practices, and food security.

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Glow Camp participants

After the camp the two participants and their mentor returned to their community with the Peace Corps Volunteer, over the next six months the young women and PCV formed a GLOW (Girls Leading our World) club in their community and recruited young women in each zone to share the lessons they’ve learned and help support each other. The goal is that by the end of six months a minimum of 300 young women will have been trained and receive support from this program across the province. Six months after (within a year of their initial training) the groups will be asked to coordinate with their Peace Corps Volunteer and host Learning Exchanges with local schools and nearby communities, sharing their experiences, lessons, and successes/failures.

Those young women they select in the community will be asked to form their own GLOW groups which will support each other within their WARD. The groups are encouraged to be self-sustainable from the beginning with the PCV’s acting as  mentors, co-facilitators and supporters, not leading or dominating the programs activities.   Amaterra Board Director, David Berger is in Zambia and has worked to help set up this program. We have been informed that, without our grant, the program could not have become a reality: a perfect partnership for Amaterra.

The grant is being monitored by the Peace Corps volunteers with oversight by Peace Corps Administration with David providing additional monitoring and oversight on behalf of AMATERRA. See the video montage of the training, featuring the young women, their mentors, and the facilitating PCVs.

Thank you Director David Berger for arranging this one.

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