How to be friendly with your surrounding environment

We will enter new year. What is your resolution for the coming 2009? Everyone of course needs a better life. More income. If you haven't find a soulmate, you hope to meet a nice prince or princess for your heart. Listen all your dreams or hopes are closely related to how you interact with other people, God and Nature. The followings are my tips to live a friendly life with nature.

1. Don't litter. A simple example, every time we go to a supermarket, we receive plastic bags where we put our goods in. When arrived at home, we throw these plastic bags into the garbage bin. More often these plastic bags fall on to the front yard and blown away. They then end up on the ditch and block the flow of water. When water cannot flow it will spill over the road. Later these plastic bags gathered at a river and run off to the sea. They cover to coral reef and block the sun light which is needed by the corals to carry out photosynthesis. When this happens the coral reef will die and the fish will leave the area. Your plastic bags have caused the death of corals and the fish. My solution, when you go shopping at a supermarket, bring your own basket so you do not have to bring plastic bags which would later become additional burden to our nature or universe.

2. Don't kill animals even though they are only insects at home. One day, your kitchen floor is covered with a lot of ants. Many of you will kill these ants. It is wrong. You are the ones who has to be blamed. Why you dropped food leftovers on the floor. The leftover attract ants. If you clean your kitchen or isolate your table by putting water in small containers at all four feet of the table, then the ants will not gather or occupy your kitchen. They will live on a tree outside your home or in little holes under ground. When a squad of termite come to eat wooden beams and pillar of your home thus bringing down the entire construction, then the ants will eat them. Ants as insects are natural predators for the termite. This is similar to lizard which is the natural predator for mosquito.

3. Buy products that are environmently friendly. Environmentally friendly products are products that can unite with nature when they are returned or thrown away to the nature. For example: wooden spatula, cotton cloths and wooden chair. When you don't use or want them anymore, you can burry them into the ground and then they will decay and unite with the nature. Don't buy too many plastic things.

4. When you have a picnic, don't litter. This point No 4 is similar to point No. 1. More often when we have an outdoor picnic, we bring food and drinks that are kept in plastic or metal packaging. After drinking softdrink we just throw away the cans, or plastic bottles. Don't do that. Bring the plastic packaging and the metal cans back home. Put them in the garbage bins where they can be recycled. By doing that you have lived in a friendly life with the environment.

5. Don't just cut the trees or bush around your home. If there is a tree in front of or next to your house, consider it as a blessing from the nature. If it blocks sunlight into your house, just prun one or two of its branches. The green leaves emits positive energy into your house. Sometimes in the mornings or in the afternoons, birds stop by at the tree branches for a short brake before flying again to their homes. It is a natural blessing for you.

There are still many ways which you can do to live a friendly life with nature. You can do it. when you have done it, believe me, all your plans, works and efforts in your daily life will totally be supported by the whole universe.


by Charles Roring in Manokwari, Indonesia

Girl on Cool Floor

This beautiful girl is sitting on a cool floor. I tried my best drawing her. This girl lowered her head closer to her knee in nude position hiding one of her breasts. Only one that could be seen. The inner thigh area cannot also be seen due to the long leg which half stretches to the right side of the girl. Drawing this skecth is not difficult. I only need to balance the proportion of the body, leg and head so that I can obtain a perfect and beautiful picture. I have many drawings of girls, nature, birds, and anything that I see beautiful to be drawn or painted. I will show some more on my next postings.

Figure Drawing Study: Beautiful girl sitting nude on cool floor

I use a 3B Staedtler pencil to draw this beautiful girl sitting nude on cool floor. The sketch paper is made by Xue shan. I don't know whether it is a famous brand or not but I just use it when I want to draw or make sketch. I am very fond of art, especially drawing. You can send me your pictures if you want to be drawn. After drawing it, I will post it on this blog. I will not mention your name as the model except if you allow.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Tomorrow is Christmas. Here in Indonesia we call it Natal. So, I will also need one or two days off from blogging.

Marry Christmas 25 December 2008

May God Bless You All

This is the time when we celebrate the direct intervention of God in human history by becoming human to redeem our sins. This is the faith of Christianity.

again

Selamat Natal 25 Desember 2008

Export of Non Wood Products from Papuan Forest Should be Encouraged

by Charles Roring

Theoretically, Papua has 31.5 million hectares of forest area. This figure is getting lower day by day due to irresponsible deforestation and conversion to palm oil and rice field.

In my previous article, I mentioned about the need to certify Papuan forests for carbon capture so that the carbon offsets from this island can be sold to global carbon market.

It needs experience company such as Global Carbon to help the indigenous people to achieve this goal.Other scheme which is possible to be implemented in Papua is the harvesting of non wood products such as masoi and kulilawang barks, red fruit, sarang semut and rattan, and gaharu. These commodities can provide sustainable economic improvements for most of the villagers living near the forest.To optimise the harvest of the products, we must help them in improving their products quality, harvesting practices that are not harmful to the environment. In addition, the non wood products which these indigenous people harvest from their forest should sell in good price. It means the distribution chains from the producers to consumers should be as short as possible.Papuan villagers can be organized to form community cooperatives so that all their non - wood products can easily be collected for export.Most of the complaints which I found among the villagers are related to the selling price which commodity traders gave to them for the masoi, kulilawang, and gaharu wood that they sell. They said that the price is low.On the other hand, commodity traders who came to Papua complain that the quality of the products the villagers sell are not high enough. They need to re-process them. For instance a very good quality Masoi oil is worthy of 200 US dollar/ kilogram. Such price is better than the recent leasing price of a hectare of tropical rainforest for palm oil plantation.

BP LNG Tangguh, Doubling Natural Gas Reserve Doubling Green House Gas Emission

by Charles Roring, Manokwari West Papua

Papua island has one of the most important last remaining tropical rainforests in the world. It is located in the Pacific region between Asia and Australia. This forest works as "respirator" that absorbs or captures huge amount of world's CO₂ emission produced by human activities. While it is shrinking rapidly due to irresponsible logging, in recent years, the burden the Papuan forest bears is getting heavier. It has to neutralize additional CO_2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) emissions from Berau bay.

The Location of BP LNG Tangguh Project

Source: Tangguh LNG Commercial Success in a Challenging Environment

One of the most important mining projects in West Papua - Indonesia is BP LNG Tangguh. It is located in Berau bay of birds head region of the island. Next year, it will begin exporting LNG to China, Korea, Mexico and probably other emerging markets in Asia. Although there are many problems related to environmental issues, and claims from indigenous tribes living around the bay over a fair compensation, BP considers this project a commercial success. This can be read in a paper written by Jim Egger, Vice President of Tangguh LNG Marketing entitled Tangguh LNG: Commercial Success in a Challenging Environment.

Source: Tangguh LNG Commercial Success in a Challenging Environment

In August 1998, subsidiaries of BG plc and ARCO announced in a press release that the proven gas reserves in three Production Sharing Contracts had more than doubled. From the previously certified 14.4 trillion cubic feet, the additional proved and probable reserve was 18.3 tcf. But this huge amount of natural gas stream contains approximately 12.5% or 4.08 tcf CO_2e.

When the LNG plant in Berau or Bintuni bay starts to produce LNG, it will have to separate the CO₂ from the natural gas stream. According to AMDAL study document, tens of thousand tons of CO₂ will be released annually by the project into the atmosphere. This green house gas will spread to the surrounding tropical rainforest of the island. When high concentration of carbon dioxide is found in the atmosphere, it will raise the temperature and create acid rain that may be harmful to plant leaves and animals in the region.

There has to be a win-win solution to this problem. There are several options which BP can choose, some of them are re-injecting the carbon dioxide to the ground or to deep sea; capturing the CO₂ for growing algae that can be used for making bio-fuel, or buying the carbon offset from the indigenous tribes who are the real owners of the forest around the LNG plant. The cheapest option will be purchasing the carbon offsets. The money that the indigenous tribes receive can be used to improve their education and health facilities or run businesses that are not related to logging activities thus preventing deforestation. Therefore, it is the moral obligation of the British Petroleum to help the local people in the bay certify their forests for Emission Reductions. Purchasing carbon offset from the indigenous tribes living in the Berau bay is a win-win solution or the most acceptable scheme which BP should do to answer questions related to its CO_2e emissions in Papua.