 I'm in the Garden of Forgiveness when you show it, at the University of the Trees in Santa Cruz. This is a place where Ken Keesey and Alan Watts and those sorts of characters hung out. Yeah, for some reason my... It was the home of Christopher Hills. Just give me a thumbs up, Peter, when you've got it. Thank you, John. That was a very meditative way of starting this fireside chat session. I will share my screen with my presentation. Because I would like to welcome you all to this third fireside chat session. Let me click on slideshow. It will pop up in a bit. Yes. Yes, I would like to welcome you all to this third fireside chat session with the founder of Ecosystem Restoration Camps, John Dennis Liu. And Mubarak Abdallah, the founder of Camp Mangrove's Mombasa in Kenya. And I'm very happy that you are all here. I will shortly introduce myself. I am Inge. I'm one of the camp coordinators at Ecosystem Restoration Camps. And I'm happy to be your host for this fireside chat session tonight. Just some house rules. I would like to ask you to please hold your question until after Mubarak's presentation. We would like to have a sort of interactive Q&A session. So if you do have a question, please raise your hands and we will ask you to ask your question in person to Mubarak. So we can make it a little bit more interactive. This session will last for one hour. So you are free to go. But if you want to dive deeper into certain topics, then feel free to stay for an open discussion. I will first give you some camp updates from other camps. Last fireside chat, I explained that Camp Emberkhoen, Camp Mama Arma and Camp Versilei were planning on having their first camp experience in April. Unfortunately due to COVID, this is not able to happen yet. Camp Emberkhoen and Camp Mama Arma are deciding to planning an experience later on in the year. And Camp Versilei decided to offer a different kind of experience. You are now able to create your own personal experience up to maximum four people at the same time. You will first have a Zoom call with the camp managers and you can decide on your personal program. Look for more information on their camp page. I think it's very exciting. And then Camp Siota Kroi in Ireland, they're running two online courses. The first one will start this Saturday, which is the introduction to temperate foods. And the second one is partly online and offline, which is the introduction to permaculture and it will start the end of April. So you do need to be in the neighborhood of Ireland in order to participate. And then this weekend, Camp Hotlum offers a handsome workshop in biochar making and it's for locals only. So if you're in near Manchester, California, then feel free to go to their camp pages and sign up. And then other camp news. Camp Habiba is preparing to receive three master's students. They are studying in acroecology and they will be using our new monitoring and evaluation framework. Our intern Mick has improved our monitoring and evaluation framework and we are very excited that Habiba will collect the first data. So we hope to give you more insights on that later in the year. And then Camp Birdhouse is exploring new business models for their seven sites around Los Angeles. And so they're including green spaces for health and wellness and we are also very excited what kind of type of business models there will be working on and what we can share with the community. And then Camp Farm of the Future in Brazil is recovering from their wildfire last year and the natural forces regenerate itself luckily and the acroforestry system is being replanted. And they're also building jungle cabins in order to be able to host campers again in September. So that is the camp news. News from John. John, can you give us an update on. Sure. Well, it's spring here and it's a bit early. But and the moisture is only about 30% of what it should be at this time. So California looks to be worried about a really serious fire season this year. And I think that what Hotlum is doing, teaching fire ecology and preparation for that and how to protect property and also how to make the forest as resilient as possible. And this goes together with the group that's working on cultural competency, which is led by indigenous leaders in California, who are talking about their forestry practices over the last 15,000 years, because this area was totally populated. And there's a growing understanding that 95 to 97% of the climax forest is now gone. And there's also a discussion happening in Los Angeles Silicon Valley San Francisco and, and elsewhere. That's called land based healing for people in place. And the concept is to address the serious problems of homelessness hunger and unemployment, which is increasing now, because of the coven situation. And to connect that with the possibility of creating camps in farm communities for migrant farm workers, and also to train people in regenerative agriculture, so that the industrial type chemical agriculture can be replaced. And at the same time, there's another type of camp that's being discussed which is forestry camps to have homeless and hungry people who are interested in learning about how to reforest to transition toward forestry camps where they'll have jobs and income and be restoring the great forests of the Pacific Coast. So this is all in discussions, but we have a lot of Silicon Valley leaders and a lot of the media people in Hollywood discussing this. There's also a beautiful project happening in Oakland called Cobb on Wood, where they're building natural buildings for the homeless population and sheltered population. And they're going to have an event in April, where they're opening a new clinic, which will provide psychological and health support for those populations. So it's kind of interesting that the coven increased this population, but it also increased the awareness of this population. And now there are some practical measures that are taking place. There's also quite a lot of concentration on infiltration and retention of moisture and creating water retention landscapes. So hopefully that that will increase. There's one group, which is called the soil sponge initiative. And that one is, I think it's called the soil sponge collective, and they're working with the birdhouse, many of the birdhouse people are in that, and they're taking anybody who who has a piece of land that they want to have have processed, they have action days. And in these action days, they go to these places with truckloads of wood chips and straw and manure, and they process the soils and they're really thick with organic material, and then they seed it with cover crops. And then they, they do that two or three times until they put in the final things that it really works well it's fast it's a rapid thing. There's also some developments with farming, the land based healing for people in place is actually in the process of identifying land to purchase. And there's a number of places and a number of groups that are planning to buy property, which they will then transition into regenerative agriculture with those kind of camps. So that's what's what we've been working on and there's a lot of wildlife asking for help to. Thanks. Interesting developments thank thank you john for sharing. Okay, I'm going back to our presentation because I'm going to announce announce the guest of tonight. Yes, which is mubarak. I'm very happy mubarak to have you here. Mubarak is only in his beginning 30s and has achieved already so much. Mubarak is restoring the Tudor Creek Forest, which was 1641 hectares back in the days, but because of urbanization pollution, harvesting and climate change only 250 hectares is left, and their aim is to plant 14 million 260,000 mangrove trees, an amazing goal. And mubarak is working from the bottom up, working closely together with the communities, learning them about alternative businesses and support monitoring activities and also very important, providing training to the youth to make them rangers of the recovered forests so thank you mubarak and his ambition is reaching even further but mubarak will tell you in his own presentation I'm very excited to have you here mubarak and I would love to give you the word. Thank you, thank you. Thank you so much for this opportunity. I'm going to do my presentation and we will start with the first term that I hustle for my daily bread and thereafter I dedicated my time and effort from the remaining part of my data as mangrove conservation that mostly I just hustle in the village but I have reserved lots of time for the mangrove restoration and with my colleagues within the village and some others who are coming from outside the country and some are from outside the village like other region within within Kenya. And on my on a daily basis, if there is no planting activity, I walk around the mangrove forest observing and identifying areas that may need attention. This is monitoring as well as studying the ecosystem to understand the forest better. We have been doing is like going patrol of within the mangrove forest and to look for those trees we have planted the progress and through the walking along the show line and within the plantation, we can come up with the idea where to do the restoration and where to do the replacement or where we are supposed to increase our effort towards the conservation. Next. Yeah, I think he wants you to or Peter, I think he wants you to change the slide. Yeah, thank you for the community involvement. As you can see, we are holding a banner and during that time we were supported by the German based organization called claiming partners. Now we interact with the community on a daily basis. And most importantly, we involve them in planting activities. And through the planting activities, we are creating temporary jobs for the locals within the community who are leaving adjacent to the mangrove forest within to the creek area. And we are also working with like every day we are receiving new new people who are who they don't have knowledge and knowledge of the mangrove. They don't have an idea for the mangrove forest. So we are daily receiving a new people to the mangrove forest and we are teaching them and we also involve them for the entire activities for the restoration. Participation, participants are mostly women. We prioritize single mother youths, young mothers and widows for the earning for for the earning a living through the planting activity. As I said before, that when we involve the locals, those including young mother, single mothers, widows, when we have funding and we pay them some small amount so that when they go back to their homes, they can have something to put on the table and also to support them. For their other leaving coast in the houses. The fishermen and the other locals who are frequently on the ocean like those that catch crabs our immediately target audience whether whenever we create awareness on the importance of mangroves like at our project site we we have station for the local fishermen. So mostly we do a sensitization for the fishermen and because there was a there was a time the local fishermen they were just going to the sea and catching turtles and slaughtered for to give the meat and the oil the turtle oil so that they can sell it to the community. It's a it's a they believe that the turtle oil is more useful for those people who are having some pains inside the ears so you can just take some a few drops inside the ear then you get a relief so they when they get turtles from the ocean they just catch it and slaughter then they took the turtle meat and put it on the sun on on a wire mesh and so that the turtle it can drain the oil and they take it to the village for income they sell it and also they sell the meat to the local villagers so we have seen as a threat to the turtles and we have agreed as the community members of the forest group to sensitize them not to catch the turtles and they can join the the mangrove restoration and something for a living and the turtle it can be also a good starting point for the ecotourism activities and they have agreed to not to catch again the turtle from the ocean and we are happy for that next Peter we have been also working with school students from different schools within the village as you can see from the left side we were having some students from another school within the village which is called the Kadongo academy we believe that educating children is the best way to ensure environmental conservation will reach the future generation because if we try to concentrate on the adults then the adults it a bit challenge to convince an adult to leave the habitant that they are used to to do the activity but when you nature a kid then the kid will listen and will hope for what you are doing and then they will apply it and practice it until their future so that we have decided to involve the school students as a way of making sure that the schools that we are sharing with the local communities we are also sharing with the students so that they will be our future ambassador students as well as students in the local community they are normally invited in our planting activity to get them on a bank of conservation and environmental conservation from the right hand side you can see another school from they came for a mangrove it was a world mangrove day we invited them to come to participate for the mangrove planting so that when they grow old they can still use the knowledge to apply to the other areas and to continue with the reforestation activity and conserving our planet instead of leaving them and not educating them and they will go to the forest and destroy all the forest so that when we involve the school students we are on the right way of conserving our planet for the people and for the nature next I'm entering but yay I think we have it, yeah as you can see there is some kids holding up some mangrove ceilings with the kids who are living adjacent to the mangrove forest and some of their parents are members of members of the brain youth group Kampong Basin mangrove forest we intend to cooperate by the beach like footy ball using marines role play among other fun activities like creating art that resemble marine creatures decoration to make marine education and conservation fun and memorable to the children at the moment we have noted initiated the program but we have a plan of setting up the activity of creating some arts so that they I believe that children they love arts when they saw some cartoons they really enjoy it and when we continue the conservation works through this method we can motivate them and we can bring them together through the creating arts that resemble some marine creatures like fish swimming in the ocean like crabs walking on the mud they will be motivated and they will put that in the mines even the footy ball activities we are planning to have some matches with the students and this it will be done like every month we do it once with the kids even the planting with kids to do it once in a month every month we will make sure we have an activity for the students from the village to do the planting and also having some fun like playing footy balls singing the cultural songs so that we can motivate them next yes one moment I am pressing next but I think again it will take some time I'm not sure why it doesn't work it's unbelievable if you click on the slide though and then use it it might work I found it sorry everyone in our activity we are working with different people different organization and we are involving government we are involving government to work with us to foster brotherhood between the international community and the local community like from on the left hand you can see one of our international camper Martin Jacobsen from Denmark showing the local community on how to use the modern machine taking some pictures from the mangroves and we have been working closely with Kenya Forest Service as the government providing us with trainings and even the Kenya Police Service visiting the site with the genuine interest in mangrove conservation like at the moment I came to realize that the Kenya Forest Service when you report a case of a case of people going down to the mangrove forest cutting down cutting down of the mangrove trees then they took a lot of time and sometimes they don't have enough rangers to go all over the entire county to look for the mangrove forest so I decided to bring in the Kenya Police Service through the area police bus which is really impressed by what we have been doing on the ground and he has managed to send us some policemen and arrest several people and take them to the station and arrange them to court so we have a good networking with the government agencies and involving the government gives us the assurance that our activity will appreciate a local the importance of my work and local impact my main focus is to restore Chuda Creek to its initial state so to curb environmental degradation this is important as the outcome will not only benefit my community but also the whole world in carbon sequestration as we know there is a lot of pollution inside Kenya and outside so as long as we are planting the mangroves the mangroves will offset the carbon from the atmosphere and that's the one way of our program benefiting the entire world the mangrove cover has increased to more than 700,000 mangrove trees over the time as we continue to plant trees towards the restoration of 1,426 hectares of degraded mangroves out of 1,641 hectares we have planted the 700,000 mangrove since 2011 up to date with support from various donors including ecosystem restoration camps gone waste global idealized from California from California having support from the UNDP through their small grants program and the Trillion Tree campaign we have some individuals inside from Kenya and others are from UNEP and some are from outside Africa mostly from US individual members they have been supporting the brain youth group to plant at the 700,000 mangrove ceilings and this year we have planted 120 mangrove ceilings with support from one of our current donor who is currently on the ground the guy we have seen in the previous video teaching the local community he supported us to plant 100,000 mangrove ceilings he is called Martin Jacobsen from Denmark traveling back to Denmark end of this month of April we have noticed the gradual increase in the catch by the fishermen this is an opportunity for them to earn more and improving the condition of their livelihoods the local impacts other than the ecological benefits are hardly extend to meet or support projects in the local community that do not relate to mangrove planting we hope that donor may consider supporting program on marine education and conserving conservation for our children we have been receiving some support it has really made a big impact to the community because we have been working with more than 500 people within the community through those grants we have been receiving from our donors and we are still working to bring more partners on the ground including volunteers experts with passion for the mangrove ecosystem restoration funders to support the restoration work of the 14 1426 hectares of degraded mangroves next here you can see an image when I was doing some replacement with my colleagues but the camera he was favorable he just focused on me and that's a picture of me when I was doing the mangrove replacement I attended a workshop on environmental conservation in 2010 that seated on degradation I looked at my community to find out if there were activity at restoration there were few this drove me towards the initiative to start with the restoration of children mangrove forest restoration in 2010 I was invited by one of my colleagues to attend a workshop it was a community sensitization after I attended the workshop then I I was so inspired with the program and the impact of the program to the community so I decided to chipping and initiate a new program that I will do much better than the previous inspired me to chipping and I went to the village and started chatting one in one by some of my fellow youths and then we team up to set up the brain youth group and we started engaging Kenya forest service later we bring on board Kenya marine and fisheries research institutes later we proceed to course development authority ministry of fisheries which is now being called a state department of fisheries and later I proceed to national environmental management authority and Kenya wildlife service then I expanded the networking to local organization then I bring on board community action for nature conservation among other organization and they help us on technical issues towards the restoration and some trainings that we can so that we can we can all be equal to know the importance of the mangroves I'm an environmental conservation at heart and I'm working to ensure that I have contributed to the forest conservation and restoration worldwide to carbon environmental degradation by planting billion trees on this point I have beside the brain youth group which is currently working on Chuda Creek which is currently working on Chuda Creek mangrove forest restoration I have another organization which is called forest restoration agents and we are aiming to plant 3.5 billion trees globally but in Kenya we decided to give it more and we decided to start with one billion trees in progress of getting prepared to get to the ground and to start the restoration of to start my journey of 3.5 million trees and in forest restoration agents we are a global network we have members from different parts of the world and we have some members in Kenya who are some of the members of the forest restoration agents are the heads of Kenyan government agencies like three regional coordinators for Kenyan water tower agents the north rift valley eastern region we have the regional coordinators three ladies and I have one guy from Kenyan water service the head of mangroves along Kenyan coast is called Dr. Mohamed and I also have some other staff from Kenyan marine and fisheries research from the department of social economy who are also part of forest restoration agents and we have one member one staff from coast development authority is also a government institution the head of agriculture in coast development authority she is also part of forest restoration agents so we have we have some interested founders including some individuals from United Nation environmental programs some individuals from UNEP who has been supporting the brain youth group they have promised to help forest restoration agents to be part of the United Nation environmental program and also to link us with other funders who are working close with United Nation environmental programs and there is some other organization across Europe and US that they have shown interest on the hillion trees and forest restoration agents and everyone is happy with my idea of forest restoration agents and I welcome you all to join me towards fighting climate change through planting the hillion trees. When you join the restoration you can have a lot of fun like having jokes, joking to each other like on the left hand there are two people they are like joking the one is doing potting and the other lady is just trying to hit the guy with the bug of the politics bugs so in Kenya we say we say in Kenya we say when you go to the, when you are working you are not supposed to be a hunger person you have to be someone polite so that you can make the work easier and even others they will have memories and their activities not even on the right hand side you can see one of our member she got stuck in the mud during the planting this is the second picture it was during the world wetlands day we celebrated planting 7000 mangroves 7000 mangrove ceilings with support from Trillion Tree campaign not even when you got stuck in the mud team work has applied we are lucky to have each other no one gets left behind the lady who gets stuck in the mud she is called Masimo Gambi when you come to Kenya you will have a chance to meet with her face to face when we see one of us we have to help our colleague and make sure we are all safe and no one has left behind you can see our ladies the single mother doing the potting they are just having when you look at the picture you can see that the women they are just enjoying the work playing in the mud and you can see some some of our members climbing the mangroves trees doing the seed collection these are the fun activities through when you come and join the mangrove restoration along Shuda Creek and you can see our previous nursery for the 2020 we initiated nearly 28,000 mangrove seedlings last year and you can see my image I was doing potting the mangrove that's what I can say for the work that I'm doing for the Shuda Creek mangrove restoration thank you so much Mbarak it was an incredible presentation I really enjoyed to really get to know your story a little bit better I see we ran a little bit over time but that doesn't bother me because I really enjoyed it it really gave a good picture of what you are doing and what it looks like and are there any questions if you have questions please raise your hands to ask to Mbarak or John if you I see Erin I will ask you to unmute first Erin hi there can you hear me yes so Mbarak I have a couple of questions I have a question for you I know you were looking for one okay for the for the process of the propagules we do it in two ways the first one we just go to the mangrove forest and collect the mangrove seedlings then we do sorting of the matured and then we decide if we have planned for the mangrove nursery then we proceed to the mangrove nursery and if we have decided to do the direct planting then we do direct planting and for the mangrove nursery we are just doing it as a way of reserving seeds because there is a time when the season of mangrove seedling run out and we remain with only once fish the cereal and that's why we do the mangrove nursery for two reasons the first one to reserve the seeds season run out and the second reason is just to we do it as a way of income when we establish the mangrove nursery then we sell it and our community members they have something to look for their families but I remember that you were looking for an alternative to using the plastic bottles and I was wondering did you find something like paper cups or something that was a little more biodegradable so that you could plant them a little more easily or are the bottles the best you can do Thank you for the question at the moment we have a nursery of about 18,000 mangrove seedlings and the community they are just keep on raising the nursery and we are just going to the dumping site collecting the used milk sachets and the used water bottles and the sold sachets and then we prepare it for potting and we keep on raising the nursery Okay so you are still using the plastic bottles at this point Erin you are muted if you had another question I had another question was there was a conference last week at the World Ocean Summit and there was a speaker there called James Cairo he is involved with the Kenya Marine Fisheries Research Institute and I was wondering if you knew him because he was talking about the blue economy and he was on a board with a whole bunch of people who are looking at trying to facilitate companies to invest in blue initiatives of course are those related to the ocean and mangrove plays into that so there were people in there that I'm sure he could put you in touch with who are part of the international union for conservation of nature and other people who might be able to help you to get some of the funding that is out there for these blue carbon initiatives because you just have to be able to prove that you can that you're actually doing a project and you've got the work but I'm sure that that would be relatively simple and I don't know John within that group who's working either at the IUCN or with it but it seems to be a really global push right now to facilitate funding Mubarak do you know sorry do you know this gentleman James Cairo I know him but one thing I would like to put it clear that Dr. James Cairo he was a very good friend of mine but there was a time he was trying to play with my mind and I later came to refuse to work with him because there was a time he sent his guys and they were asking me for my email password and since I refused to share the password my password then they also refuse to when I try to call them then they say oh Mubarak we have a lot of words and even some stuff from the Kenya Marine Fisheries Research Institute they have won me several times not to full involve Dr. Cairo. Dr. Cairo is a well educated person when you go to the internet you can see great job that interacting with different organization but when you try to work with him you have to listen to him he will not allow you to talk anything he will just want to rule you and there was a time I told him if you try to interact with my work then I will take you to the national media I will call the national media station I will make sure I have destroyed your face national or global then he refused. Yeah brother John I think one thing might be helpful is for the ecosystem restoration camps movement to kind of advocate for Mubarak and the people in Kenya because it is going to be harder probably for him to ask but it might be easier for others to ask for him this is something that I noticed so if there are people on this call for instance who would like to join with him to advocate in their countries it probably has a bit more impact and then also I think we need to carefully monitor what is going on there so that is a great thing for the monitoring and assessment mechanisms that are being prepared and then we can see what is taking place and there is a lot of pettiness conservation and it is unfortunate it should not happen at all but there it is so very important to come together in the way he is talking about with joy and laughter and collaboration and there are things which can happen in other countries but they can't do for themselves because the level that many of the people are living at is not at the same level as in Europe or the United States Thank you John and maybe to go back to the joy and the collaboration that you do with your community I read in the chat that people are very interested in your community to join you in this restoration Thank you and I have seen that I have left the question hanging on the chat but the truth is at the community at the beginning they were not supporting my idea in fact some of the community they were just saying you have decided to go to the mangrove because we know the mangroves grow naturally in the ocean and then you have decided to come up with an activity of restoring the mangrove why not planting some cassavas inside but they were just talking and I wasn't listening to their thoughts I just keep on focusing for my vision then later we had the project from the World Bank the World Bank funded project through Kenya Marine and Fisher Research Institute then some staff from the Marine and Fisher Research Institute came to the village and asked the village elders to mobilize the entire village so that when they bring the money the job for protecting the mangrove it will not be for the members of the brain youth group but it will be the job for the entire community to protect the mangroves and they mentioned in front of the community that we have funded brain youth group with a worth of 5,000 US dollars and 100 people they will have job through this project then after the meeting some the same same people those who were against my vision they came back to me and say oh Mubarak we can see now you are now doing some great job and we have here from the meeting from the government officials that you will have an opportunity for 100 people to work for one week then please count on involve us in the list to plant the mangrove they have seen that it's not the way they were thinking and it's now a program that they will get knowledge and they will also get a small amount of money to help their families and it's also the project is also acting like a bridge that links the local community with the international community like previous we had some campers from ecosystem restoration camps the lady who is working with Agakan Kenya she came to the project site with kids and then some few locals they came to the project site saying what is going on we can see some white people coming to the project and then during that day we had like eight people they came to join us and plant the mangroves and then the lady she's called Natasha she asked me Mubarak are you also working with these guys they are known they have just seen you and they have come just a way of making friendship and they can't come direct and start talking with you so they have seen the planting of mangrove it will be bridge of connection for them and you so it's now like the center for interaction between the locals and international even Martin the current Danish guy who supported us to plant over 100 trees he now has a lot of friends from the village so the people it's like they are being motivated to see the international community coming to the project so they wish to have the opportunity to interact with them that's great so you're ensuring livelihoods for people who are planting the trees with you and there are also feeling of excitement and opportunity yeah and we have other two activities for the income generating for income generating activity we have two marine fishponds we are currently working slowly on renovation and we have six beehives at the mangrove forest as a way of income and also as a way of protecting the mangroves when someone goes inside the mangrove forest then you'll be chased out by the bees protection do you still see people harvesting mangrove trees not yet since i started involving the police then you know they are not like the international police like the day i during the area police bus there was a guy who took out his he wanted to cut the area police bus then he was beaten like an animal then martin was like oh this is not a humanity why the police are beating the people so they believe that when they come to the mangrove forest and cutting down the trees then they will be arrested and the canon police are very harsh when they get to any mistake then you will regret so people are like they have started fearing and they went in the middle of the forest and cutting the mangroves i have not seen such activity but maybe the current activity of cutting down frequently it has went down the activities that you were able to involve so many important people from your community it is a very impressive story john you have another question well i just wanted to say we haven't talked about tsunami yet and i think it is really important to realize the mangroves have this really important function which is to protect the coastal regions there are several aspects to this one is that there is an accumulation of organic material below the mangroves which actually raises the coastal soils so if that isn't there the coastal region is sinking at the same time that the ocean is rising this is very very dangerous and it is a life and death situation for the people there so education will help them to understand why they shouldn't cut down these mangroves and why it is really important since they have so little mangroves remaining that they get back the massive mangroves that they had in the past the value of the mangroves needs to be discussed because people are asking for tiny amounts of money in Kenya in relationship to what is happening in the rest of the world in terms of materialism but the value of those mangroves is vastly higher than anything that people have ever made so the economic evaluation is false and we need to and I think for those people in Kenya to advocate about the value of the mangroves is not going to be as powerful as the people in the developed world saying hey stop this all of the materialism is not worth as much as these huge mangrove forests and we have to stop giving pennies to these people and give them thousands and thousands of dollars millions of dollars potentially to help them raise their standard of living so that they're not forced to take things out that destroy the ecology is helping not only them but everybody and I think another thing that we need to concentrate on is that it's not simply carbon that is being discussed it's really the whole ecological functioning the rise of the coastal regions is critical now for the whole coastal regions to protect against the erosion of the continent so what's that going to do there are already these projections about how much of the earth is going to be all the people living in coastal regions and cities will be overwhelmed etc etc well that depends on our understanding because if you're subsiding the landscape at the same time that the ocean is rising that's going to happen but if you understand that over evolutionary time there's an increase by natural increase and if we can calculate the natural increase in the coastal regions and connect that to the inevitable sea level rise and balance that we're going to save all that infrastructure and all those people what's the value of that you know so when you start to consider these things from the ecological perspective and from the economic perspective you can see that there are different ways to approach this and the values now are wrong the idea that the commodities and the extracted materials are more valuable than the ecological function is just false and we need to forcefully say this at this time because it's going to determine over the next 10 years and 20 years it's going to determine the future for human civilization so this is I think for having studied this now for some time I'm frustrated that these very important points are not focused on making this more in a kind of earlier iteration where we're just thinking oh it's about other things it's about two things primarily one is these ecological understandings and the value of it and the second is justice you know this is connected to justice justice for all the people if people have lost access to their lands if people have lost their basic human rights then you know who's going to stand up and advocate for those people so those people now are in a sense they're impacted by historical so their position is not one of power it's one of an unequal relationship and what we have to do is we have to say no this is not right they're equal everyone is equal you don't need to buy your human rights you need to and we need to advocate for their human rights and I think we also need to say hey let's educate let's not just victimize the people who are perhaps afraid for their own safety and are trying to gather firewood or make a little bit of money or something they shouldn't be beaten by police either the whole thing and they should not be attacking police but the whole concept of this has to be put into a holistic context or you can't solve it it's not just planting mangroves that needs to happen here it's building a strong community that is knowledgeable and capable to advocate but they need other advocates as well thank you John very interesting point I think we do need loads of more education on this on different levels I was thinking maybe we can include it into our tree symposium to do an extra special part on mangrove forest but Mubarak maybe you can share something I have something to add regarding the issue that it has been raised by our brother John regarding the tsunami and the issue of the community being beaten by the police through my current work and the new title under wetlands international that I was being nominated as a youth ambassador for wetlands international in West Africa region I want to use this opportunity to make sure that I have raise awareness within my region on the importance of mangroves and also try to bring all the security agencies to bring them on the ground so that they can build friendship with the locals and not staying like enemies like the guy who was beaten by the police he was carrying some poles from the mangrove forest and I told him to leave the poles then he refused to to leave the poles he said I'm tired of I have used a lot of my time getting to the forest cutting these trees I want to sell it and have some money to cater for my living then I won't leave these poles then the area police boss shouted to the guy what? what are you saying? then I told the area police boss please wait I'm still talking with him then the area police boss he calmed down but the guy later he started shouting towards me then the area police boss then he refused and got anger and ordered the other junior police to handcuff him then he was resisting to be handcuffed and he took out the panga they want to cut the police then it was like you don't know who are you playing with then the area police boss took the plastic sticks and started beating him until he was handcuffed then taken to the police but the others in the same same day we arrested some other three and they were ordered by the police to take down the poles and they do so and they were ordered to take out the pangas and drop it down and they do so then they were told by the police go to the shed and wait us they were not beaten but for those they were trying to use force to show using force to the police then the police got anger and started reacting but they were not using any force to use the police to be the community for those who are being arrested when they surrendered themselves to police then they are taken to police peaceful Erin you had a question? You are muted there we go I was wondering Mubarak do you know of a red algae called asporagopsis taxiformis have you ever heard of that? it grows on the mangroves on the roots and it actually can be a really good revenue source because what it does it's the algae add to cow feed to cattle to reduce their methane if you add 2% of the dry weight it reduces 98% of the methane from ruminants so cows, sheep goats and so it actually is something that may be really up and coming and very valuable on so many levels because it takes the carbon it reduces methane, it can give you an income stream so many different angles to it I'll send you some research on it sure I will really appreciate it and I will start working on it with my colleagues just see if it will work for you because if it does there's honey and there are other things that you can incorporate as well and I think that that could be really interesting great idea Erin, Carrie you also raise your hand, sorry hi thank you brother for sharing my name is Carrie and I'm calling into the zoom from Portland, Oregon and USA I have visited two years ago and I was there with the Aga Khan Foundation taking a course and I had the chance to meet several local youth organizations, civil society organizations I've just read your website for Brain which I love the name Brain Youth Project Brain Youth Group thank you, hi I was just really impressed by your inspiration and having seen some of the extreme challenges that your age group 18 to 35 is facing in the Mombasa region it was a real situation for so many young people wondering what gave you the inspiration the seed back in 2011 when there was no international partners there wasn't a project already happening what gave you that seed of inspiration that you could make a difference in the world and that you could restore this ecosystem how did that happen for you the second question is how do you relate your story to your age peers and inspire them where is the meaning for youth in the effort to be an earth hero beautiful question Carrie thank you so much the guy who was doing this project in 2011 is a human rights activist he's called Lucas Fondo before we started the Chuda Creek Mongo forest restoration there were no activities being carried along the Chuda Creek community groups and later we started seeing some other small groups coming up from other sides of the creek but we still make it at the restoration and since I started doing the restoration there was a lot of government agencies coming to the project site and among other NGOs like UNDP among other international organizations coming with their big funds they started wondering what's happening and they started doing a follow up where the vehicles are heading to and what they have come to bring to the village and the one who have convinced the institutions coming to the village the community started chipping to the organization and continue with the Mongo forest restoration Carrie did that answer your question? I think in part I'm just curious given the enormity of the challenges and ecologically in that region how do you talk about conservation with your peers and the value of this work when also people are really struggling economically for their daily bread or all of the other enormous challenges how can conservation be a path for people when they're facing these kinds of issues and how did you see that in yourself? I think that's the question the dream comes from honestly when we speak for the community then everything went stranded and we were not actively participating on the reforestation we were just doing it but not like the way we are used to and we have been the community more communities when we have some grants we just mobilize the community who are living adjacent to the Mongo forest so that they can see the benefit of the Mongo forest and they come and participate on the awareness we have some small funding for community sensitization and sometimes we have some funding for mangrove reforestation so the community they gain knowledge for the importance of mangroves and they are also getting some money for their living that's very smart so it's just very practical actually if you have good donations then you can continue your work and offer more education and more trees are able to be planted definitely if anyone knows more donors then please tell Mubarak or us I know we ran a little bit out of time with the Q&A session I still want to leave this call open until for us 7 o'clock so for another 20 minutes but if you feel that you need to go I just wanted to tell you that you are able to of course but you are also welcome to stay for another 20 minutes are there still any questions that you would like to ask to Mubarak or maybe it is time to just say thank you thank you for everyone for joining this school and thank you Mubarak for your incredible story I hope you felt that we are all very inspired by you and it's just a great energy and you should be very proud of yourself John has something to share well I just wanted to ask Mubarak one question, what is it that you need the most at this time mostly funding because at the moment we have the knowledge on how to do the reforestation and we can also cut out the community sensitization without involving the experts from the government to sensitize the community so it's the many problem or issue with the work at the moment is just the funding bringing people to the project and leave them going back to their house without anything they might attack you and start beating what mechanisms do you have to receive funds so do you have a non-profit organization and do you have GoFundMe or some other Patreon or some other kind of thing where people could support at the moment we only have the Trillion Tree campaign which is actively supporting the project and we also have banking details for our organization whereby we have been receiving some funds from the ecosystem among other donors including individuals and foundations so I see that Peter and John Hine are on the call I wonder is it possible to create yes, Peter is saying there is it possible to create a special fund specifically for the camp in Kenya in Mombasa? People can always earmark donations by putting in a comment that would like to have a sense to a particular camp it's always possible and sometimes we run camp specific campaigns and we have the love amongst many camps so we are about to do a crowd fund for measurement systems and some of that will go to Mabarak but if you want to donate directly to Mabarak let us know we'll collect it and send it in one batch to save costs from bank charges and the other charges that you always get Another good question from Alice is do you need to help? The amount that we are currently looking? Yeah or maybe if someone maybe you could explain what you could do for a smaller donation because I think this is a private donation We can we'll be used to cater for the cost of running the restoration like when we we are doing the tree planting we have to buy some snacks during the plantation because the sun here is too hot and people are getting thirst and there was a time the Danish guy his body changed the color and it turns too red and the second day he went to farmers to get some medicine so we have to facilitate the participants for tree planting to give them some snacks we also need some tools like spades, ropes to do the lining, the mangroves and also paying the community so the amount it will it will work on the amount of money we have been receiving but we are in need of funding to plant the 14 million mangroves and so far we have planted only 700,000 mangroves ceiling so we need a lot of funding and we can't make any restriction to any donor that you have to pay this. Let the donor decide what the foundation they have and they contribute it or if the donor ask us to do a breakdown of a certain figure that it has been suggested by the donor then we can work on the figure. Any couple of hundred dollars would already make a difference for you right? Yeah definitely. John can I just ask how much do you give to individuals who join the planting for one day? If a person comes for one day to join the mangrove planting how much do they get? We give them ten US dollars per day, eight hours each and every one. So 100 dollars would help ten people one day. Right. That was a good last. Maybe I can put one thing clear like when we target the season for seeds we can do a very big restoration because when you go to the forest, people they have capacity of collecting up to 500 or to in between 500 to 800 seedlings per day and planted direct. But when we raise the necessary, a person per day he or she can plant up to 100 seedlings so if we target the direct planting the seasons and do the direct planting then we can do much better. That's a good point. That's a good point. Alright I think this was a very good topic to end of with so every support is needed. Thank you very much John also for your participation and your knowledge and thanks again everyone and thanks again Mubarak. I wish you all a very lovely day and hope to see you next time soon. I really appreciate it. Everyone that they have participated on this call I really appreciate their time, their idea and I wish them all the best and much blessing to them and those around them. Thank you. Alright we're waiting everyone for a good night or a good day. Bye. Thank you.