According to research from the Nature Conservatory, if the current rate of destruction continues, an estimated 70 percent of the world’s coral will be gone by 2050. The implications of this trend are significant not only to the environment but also to the people who rely on marine resources for their livelihood. Coral reefs are home to 25 percent of the fish species. If coral reefs disappear, 500 million people will need to look for alternative sources of livelihood and food; some of them might not have alternatives.

Conceptualizing Reefballs

Todd Barber, together with his marine-biologist father, sat down to find a solution to this complex problem. Together, they came up with the idea of using concrete shaped like a beach ball to replenish the diminishing number of coral reefs around the world. It took another three years of constant research, prototyping, and testing to develop the first Reef Ball.

Barber said that their goal is not to dictate nature, but to imitate it. Reef Balls are hollow spheres of concrete designed to last for over 500 years. The hollow circular structure serve as the base habitat upon which natural coral reefs can grow. Reef Balls are inexpensive, portable, and easy to produce. In fact, the Reef Balls can be created anywhere to rehabilitate different forms of reefs such as oyster, oceanic, and coral reefs. In addition, they can be used to stabilize shorelines and minimize erosion.

The Reef Ball Foundation

The Reef Ball Foundation was established by Barber in 1993. Its main purpose is to put Reef Balls in various parts of the world where there is dire need of coral reef restoration. The organization works with community grounds, non-profit organizations, environmental groups, and corporations. This way, local communities are empowered with the capability to rebuild their own marine ecosystems.

According to Todd Barker, Reefs have an incredible bearing on human life…without conserving these resources, they’re going to be all gone before we even know what we’ve lost.”

At West Coast Green, Deb Berman, Managing Director of Justmeans, gives an overview of the world’s largest online community for socially responsible business.

Help Kenya Project trades computers for trees. Old computers are sent to schools   in Kenya; in exchange, students plant 100 trees for each computer they receive.   The project’s founder, Jude Ndambuki, a high school chemistry teacher from Kenya who now lives in New York City,   spends much of his free time dumpster diving for discarded computers and computer parts.   Mr. Ndambuki refurbishes computers, gadgets, printers, and other educational devices that are otherwise headed for the landfill. Once functional, these computers are sent to Kenya to students who would otherwise be unable to afford one. According to Ndambuki, Help Kenya Project is close to his heart, the children in Kenya have very few resources; even a pencil is very hard to get.” He grew up in dire poverty himself in Kenya and even timed moonlight so he could study after dark.

Ndambuki’s Background

Jude Ndambuki knows first-hard how hard it is to grow up poor and receive an education in Kenya. As the second among eight children to a widowed mother, Ndambuki’s education came at the expense of his elder brother’s schooling because their family was unable to send two boys to school. Later, he was appointed principal at a Kenyan high school where he met an American student, who helped Ndambuki further his education in the United States.

The idea of starting the Help Kenya project started when he was walking home late one night after his continuing-education classes. He saw a computer that was thrown out for garbage collection. He decided to bring it home and he discovered that the computer was fully functional. That’s when he realized that the discarded machines in the US could be salvaged as life-changing tools for kids in Kenya.

Modernization through Environmental Conservation

Ndambuki is well-aware that his country has a lot of catching up to do when it comes to technology. In fact, most of the schools he sends the computers to have never seen computers before. Without his help, it would be another 20 years more before these schools would ever get a hold of a computer.

Every year, Ndambuki sends a 40-foot container filled with refurbished computers to his home country. Each school recipient gets average of five computers. Rather than receive money for the time, expense, and dedication he pours into the the program, Ndambuki asks the recipients of the refurbished computers to plant trees. As of July 2009, The Help Kenya Project has shipped over 2,000 computers, 15,000 books, and approximately 20 pieces of medical equipment. In return, beneficiaries have planted over 150,000 trees.

The Equilibrium Fund’s aims to improve rainforest conservation, food security, women’s income, status and self-esteem through production, consumption and sales of Maya Nut. The Equilibrium Fund operates in Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, and their programs teach women, communities, NGO’s, governments, landowners and other stakeholders about the uses, recipes and processing of the Maya Nut. Since 2001 The Equilibrium Fund and its partners have trained more than 10,000 women from more than 700 rural communities about Maya Nut for food and income.

History of the Maya Nut

In order to fully appreciate the potential of the Maya Nut, it might be a good idea to look into its history. The Maya Nut has always been an essential food source during ancient Maya times. The Maya Nut is also highly nutritious and can be stored for up to five years. For rural communities, the Maya Nut is a stable drought and climate change-resistant food source. During times of famine, when other crops failed due to drought and other weather-related problems, villagers turn to the Maya Nut as a life-saving food resource. According to the New Agriculturalist, “Entire villages have survived by eating Maya nut; the flour was used as a valued emergency food in Guatemala after Hurricane Stan (October 2005) and after Hurricane Felix in Nicaragua (September 2007). But in many areas, the nut is considered only as a ‘famine food’ and consumption has dropped to less than five per cent of local diets.”

Because the Maya Nut also has a high nutritional value, it is an excellent food staple that can address the chronic malnutrition that plagues Central American communities. Like other nuts, the Maya Nut is protein rich, and also an excellent source of Vitamin A, C, E, several B vitamins, iron, and calcium. The Maya Nut is also highly versatile and can be incorporated into a number of delicious recipes. It can be mixed with corn to create tortillas or it can be cooked on its own. One notable dish that can be produced with this ingredient is the Maya nut soup. People looking for alternatives to caffeinated coffee may also have stumbled on a solution. The Maya Nut can be used as base for caffeine-free coffee. Several women’s cooperatives, with the help of Equilibrium Fund, have already begun exporting the commodity in countries where demand for these drinks exists.

Healthy Kids Healthy Forests from the Equilibrium Fund

The Equilibrium Fund is finding creative ways to encourage rural communities to cultivate Maya Nut trees and to incorporate the Maya Nut into their daily diets. The Equilibrium Fund’s Healthy Kids Healthy Forests Program is aimed at providing lunch based on Maya Nut recipes to school children. The meals became very popular among the kids and their parents. Children loved the taste of their food while parents were happy that their children are being fed. The Guatemalan government planted 250,000 seeds and the project is fast becoming fully run by Guatemalans.

The benefits of The Equilibrium Fund’s initiatives are threefold: their programs saves rainforests, feeds the poor, and creates women entrepreneurs. A native Maya Nut tree rainforest can alleviate poverty and provide a stable food source for the rural population. The Maya Nut trees have the capability to provide hundreds of pounds of food each year. Nutritious and delicious nuts can be made available to the people who need it most. By combining the needs of the local population with a native nature-based solution, the Equilibrium Fund’s Maya Nut programs provide long-term benefits to the environment and to the local population.

Likewise, contaminated water is the cause of 4 billion cases of diarrhea each year. An estimated 1.8 million will eventually die from easily-preventable illnesses that can be life-threatening with complications from diarrhea. HIV-positive individuals who get diarrhea are particularly vulnerable because of their weakened immune system. In fact, it is estimated that 6,000 people die each day from drinking contaminated water and its related illnesses.

These concerns make access to clean drinking water a top priority among social welfare organizations and international development agencies. While significant development and aid resources have been allocated towards water infrastructure in developing countries, solving universal access to clean drinking water at a systemic level is complex and expensive. The invention of LifeStraw, an inexpensive, portable water purifier, can now fulfill the need for clean drinking water in areas where infrastructure is lacking.

LifeStraw Technology

Where the work of government and international aid agencies ends, innovative social enterprises can step in. Vestergaard Frandsen, a Swiss company, developed LifeStraw in 2005 with the intent to make dirty water drinkable, anywhere. Forbes Magazine listed LifeStraw as one of the 10 things that will change the way we live.

The design is relatively simple and the device is easily portable. The outer layer of LifeStraw is made of durable plastic. The tube is approximately 10 inches long and one inch wide, with a string attached on one end that enable users to wear it on their neck. A person simply needs to place LifeStraw directly into the contaminated water and drink from the tube. After usage, one can blow air through the device in order to clean it. It takes eight minutes to completely filter a quart of water through LifeStraw.

LifeStraw’s Filtration Process

LifeStraw’s water filtration process is as follows:

• Contaminated water goes through a mesh filter that is 100 microns in diameter
• A polyester filter that is around 15 microns catches bacteria and other remaining impurities
• Then, the water passes through iodine-coated beads. Any remaining bacteria, parasite, and virus will be killed during this phase.
• Finally, the water is sent into an empty chamber and then it will be pulled through a carbon filter to eliminate the remaining taste leftover from the iodine.

The LifeStraw technology is also available in another version. The LifeStraw Family unit is a larger version of the LifeStraw Personal. It is designed to clean contaminated water for several people at once, and is a great solution for families.

Kenya-based entrepreneur Jon Bohmer invented the Kyoto Box Solar Oven – a $5 solution to climate change. The Kyoto Box Solar Oven was the winner of the FT Climate Change Challenge, beating out 300 other entries to for an estimated $75,000 in prize money. The Kyoto Box Solar Oven is simple in design and relatively easy to construct. It is made of two cardboard boxes, with one placed inside another, with an acrylic cover.  The cover allows the heat of the sun to pass into the interior of the box. The interior is painted black and lined with silver foil on the outside, which serves to focus the sun’s rays onto the item placed within. Meanwhile, newspaper or straw is placed in between the two boxes for insulation.  Simply put, the Kyoto Box Solar Oven is an extremely low-tech, yet remarkably effective approach to addressing climate change.

How effective is the Kyoto Box Solar Oven?
The trapped heat within the box is hot enough to enable people to bake bread, cook casseroles, and boil water. Its ability to boil water is especially useful  because it can potentially save millions of children from diseases and death related to drinking contaminated water.

Aside from its practical benefits, the Kyoto Box Solar Oven will drastically reduce the need to cut down trees for firewood in developing countries. With 3 billion people who still rely on firewood for cooking, the solar oven presents an affordable and compelling way to reduce deforestation on a global scale.

Solar Cooking
Although Bohmer’s Kyoto Box Solar Oven received enormous media coverage as the winner of the prestigious FT Climate Change Challenge, it should be noted though that the concept behind solar cooking is not new at all. Sherry Cole and Barbara Kerr were previous champions of solar cooking back in the 1970s. Together with other environmentalists, they founded the Solar Cookers International in 1987. Even before the two American women came into the picture though, the concept of solar cooking was found in a book published in the 1960s by the Peace Corps.

While many scientists, environmentalists and entrepreneurs obsess over complex solutions to to the  extremely complicated problem of climate change, the Kyoto Box Solar Oven is remarkable its simplicity.  Bohmer invented the cooking box during a weekend and it worked on his first try. He said, It’s mind-boggling how simple it is.

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