Philippine upland summers are the worst times for mountain dwellers' kids who have to trek for hours over mountains to get mere jerry cans of drinking water at the nearest spring. The tragedy is prevalent among isolated settlements in the Philippines' 18 million hectares of uplands where mega co-ops should build their agro-forests. Where will the thousand-hectare agro-forests get their water? Here's the modeling scheme:
A group of five mega co-ops managing 15,000 hectares of agro-forest sets up a company that will partner with several 1st World corporations (including one water equipment manufacturing company) in order to provide irrigation and potable water supply systems for the entire area, its processing factories, its employees' villages, and small farms and towns adjacent to the area. Capital is 60% co-op and 40% foreign partners to comply with Philippine law. Green Funds and 1st World Aid agencies provide 75% of project cost thru equipment loans at low interest. Local construction companies are contracted to provide labor and local materials to build and assemble the water supply facilities and equipment.
The Philippine uplands (average height 1,500 meters) are inundated with rain water during the country's six-month rainy season. Unfortunately, illegal logging and slash-and-burn farming removed some 85% of upland trees and plants that absorb water, thereby creating landscapes of browning mountains, dried-out waterways and landslide sites during the six-month dry season. Logically, even if only the dried-out stream banks get initially reforested at some 100 meters width for both banks during one or two rainy seasons, upland stream waters will already flow year-round. Mega co-ops may hire 'armies' of idle or student youths supervised by foresters to reforest bands of stream and river banks during the rainy season to create 'instant' rainwater absorbers within entire upland regions all at the same time. Rainy season water should then flow towards the joint venture's newly-built chains of mini-dams, catchment ponds, springs and concrete cisterns located at mid-height of mountains and down to bottom river areas, ensuring perpetual water supply uplands-wide despite occasional abnormal summers. Well-placed perforated steel pipes thrust into the slopes and drained into concrete canals that lead to the impounding cisterns will help prevent rainy season landslides and topsoil erosion that currently occur too often in Philippine uplands.
Considering the soundness of mega co-ops' profit-making schemes, which include billion-dollar export sales thru ASEAN Festival Malls and other world markets, and knowing that the co-op and water-supplying joint venture will be managed by top local and foreign skills, the lenders mentioned should have little fear of non-payment. Their courage will yield large additions to their climate change funds if they use part of their billion-dollar assets to finance thousands of mega co-op agro-forest water supply systems in the Philippines and later the rest of the tropics.
The mega co-op may initially revive its dried-up stream and river nets by planting bamboo, deep-rooted fruit trees, tree forages, rubber, palm trees, hardwoods and softwoods at both banks of all streams and rivers, their harvests sold to the co-ops' joint venture processing factories. The profitability of the harvests will ensure that the plants will never be cut except upon reaching unproductive age. Mega co-op management should set up permanent tree nurseries for immediate sapling replacement after such cuttings. The deep-rooted trees and bamboo groves will hence serve as ground storage for rainwater. Gravity will trickle said waters towards streams and upland cisterns and down to mountain-base rivers, ensuring year-round water for the agro-forest, its serviced industries and its employees' villages. The mini dams and cisterns will also help prevent flash floods in mountain base rivers. By enlarging and deepening such rivers while shoring their banks with interlocking concrete beams and slabs (thru other joint venture arrangements), co-op employees will easily access their upland agro-forests' work and residential areas thru motorized boats. Sets of scenic upland elevators in strategic places should facilitate agro-forest work and encourage joint venture or BOT arrangements with other foreign companies for building riverside valley resorts and mountaintop campgrounds for hordes of tourists. Boat rowing, kayaking, hook and line fishing, cliff climbing, scenery boat tours, resorts hopping, ecology and Biology tours for Pacific Rim grade school groups, and serviced inns should become standard tourism offers for all mega co-ops' Tourism joint ventures. Cargo boats and loading piers should facilitate delivery of needed materials to the agro-forests and their processing factories, as well as ease the transport of harvests and finished products towards co-op warehouses at land and sea pick-up points. River-use fees should help pay for maintenance of concrete shoring blocks, ports and boat loading facilities for all time. Concurrently, the mini dams, cisterns and river networks should serve as sources of water for fighting forest fires which have devastated half of yearly Philippine reforestation efforts these past decades.
As the mega co-ops do their part in reforesting 90% of their upland use rights, their joint venture furniture factories should in due time produce bamboo, rattan and wooden furniture and panels, floor parquets, lumber, rubber items, bio-chemicals, activated charcoal, etc. Joint venture sweets factories should concurrently produce dehydrated fruits, fruity snacks, canned fruits in stevia and sweet sorghum syrup, soursop and mango purees, berry wines and juices, chocolate bars, etc., out of co-op harvests of mangoes, rambutan, longgan, jackfruit, palm fruits, soursop, cashew nuts, berries, pineapple, cacao, etc. Forage tree harvests should be sold to the co-ops' joint venture livestock feeds pelleting plants (products exported) and livestock feedlot divisions which handle contract-raising of cattle, sheep, and goats in their thousands for foreign ranchers and food companies. The entire setup depends upon perpetual maintenance and judicious use of water management facilities operated by the joint venture water company. Without such joint ventures spread out all over Philippine upland regions, our entire mega co-op scheme and its planet-scale benefits (when copied throughout the tropics) will simply remain as pipe dreams.
The joint venture water supply company's profits should largely come from payment of water bills by the five or so mega co-ops and their factories which together should sell millions of dollars' worth of agri-products in ASEAN Festival malls and other export markets worldwide. All joint venture water supply companies should include in their bills an installment provision for capitalization of new sets of water and power supply systems to help build other mega co-op agro-forests in the Philippines as well as throughout the tropics, with further help from the climate change and Aid funds. Joint venture investors and lenders should hence be rewarded with perpetual dividend and interest income.
The social benefits? The Philippines' Elementary level upland bottom poor who survive on garden-size, rain-dependent swidden farms should become regular, well-paid employees of the agro-forests and processing factories. Their children will no longer need to walk for hours to fetch water in far upland streams as they have been doing for centuries. All former Elementary level bottom poor upland families will afford distance study education in Science Colleges for promotion, team inventions (which yield licensing income), and purchase of mega co-op shares. As employees, they will qualify for four-month salary loans every two years for purchase of mega co-op shares, as provided by a Loans for Mass Entrepreneurship law. Their income tax due will also be re-channeled by an Employee Income Tax to Mega Co-op Shares law towards purchase of more mega co-op shares, All such schemes should help ensure that the redeemed upland bottom poor will never revert to poverty. Concurrently, 18 million hectares of thick Philippine greenery will absorb thousands of tons of CO2 each day on perpetual basis, and the volume will expand to billion-ton levels each year as mega co-ops' agro-forests spread out tropics-wide.
A group of five mega co-ops managing 15,000 hectares of agro-forest sets up a company that will partner with several 1st World corporations (including one water equipment manufacturing company) in order to provide irrigation and potable water supply systems for the entire area, its processing factories, its employees' villages, and small farms and towns adjacent to the area. Capital is 60% co-op and 40% foreign partners to comply with Philippine law. Green Funds and 1st World Aid agencies provide 75% of project cost thru equipment loans at low interest. Local construction companies are contracted to provide labor and local materials to build and assemble the water supply facilities and equipment.
The Philippine uplands (average height 1,500 meters) are inundated with rain water during the country's six-month rainy season. Unfortunately, illegal logging and slash-and-burn farming removed some 85% of upland trees and plants that absorb water, thereby creating landscapes of browning mountains, dried-out waterways and landslide sites during the six-month dry season. Logically, even if only the dried-out stream banks get initially reforested at some 100 meters width for both banks during one or two rainy seasons, upland stream waters will already flow year-round. Mega co-ops may hire 'armies' of idle or student youths supervised by foresters to reforest bands of stream and river banks during the rainy season to create 'instant' rainwater absorbers within entire upland regions all at the same time. Rainy season water should then flow towards the joint venture's newly-built chains of mini-dams, catchment ponds, springs and concrete cisterns located at mid-height of mountains and down to bottom river areas, ensuring perpetual water supply uplands-wide despite occasional abnormal summers. Well-placed perforated steel pipes thrust into the slopes and drained into concrete canals that lead to the impounding cisterns will help prevent rainy season landslides and topsoil erosion that currently occur too often in Philippine uplands.
Considering the soundness of mega co-ops' profit-making schemes, which include billion-dollar export sales thru ASEAN Festival Malls and other world markets, and knowing that the co-op and water-supplying joint venture will be managed by top local and foreign skills, the lenders mentioned should have little fear of non-payment. Their courage will yield large additions to their climate change funds if they use part of their billion-dollar assets to finance thousands of mega co-op agro-forest water supply systems in the Philippines and later the rest of the tropics.
The mega co-op may initially revive its dried-up stream and river nets by planting bamboo, deep-rooted fruit trees, tree forages, rubber, palm trees, hardwoods and softwoods at both banks of all streams and rivers, their harvests sold to the co-ops' joint venture processing factories. The profitability of the harvests will ensure that the plants will never be cut except upon reaching unproductive age. Mega co-op management should set up permanent tree nurseries for immediate sapling replacement after such cuttings. The deep-rooted trees and bamboo groves will hence serve as ground storage for rainwater. Gravity will trickle said waters towards streams and upland cisterns and down to mountain-base rivers, ensuring year-round water for the agro-forest, its serviced industries and its employees' villages. The mini dams and cisterns will also help prevent flash floods in mountain base rivers. By enlarging and deepening such rivers while shoring their banks with interlocking concrete beams and slabs (thru other joint venture arrangements), co-op employees will easily access their upland agro-forests' work and residential areas thru motorized boats. Sets of scenic upland elevators in strategic places should facilitate agro-forest work and encourage joint venture or BOT arrangements with other foreign companies for building riverside valley resorts and mountaintop campgrounds for hordes of tourists. Boat rowing, kayaking, hook and line fishing, cliff climbing, scenery boat tours, resorts hopping, ecology and Biology tours for Pacific Rim grade school groups, and serviced inns should become standard tourism offers for all mega co-ops' Tourism joint ventures. Cargo boats and loading piers should facilitate delivery of needed materials to the agro-forests and their processing factories, as well as ease the transport of harvests and finished products towards co-op warehouses at land and sea pick-up points. River-use fees should help pay for maintenance of concrete shoring blocks, ports and boat loading facilities for all time. Concurrently, the mini dams, cisterns and river networks should serve as sources of water for fighting forest fires which have devastated half of yearly Philippine reforestation efforts these past decades.
As the mega co-ops do their part in reforesting 90% of their upland use rights, their joint venture furniture factories should in due time produce bamboo, rattan and wooden furniture and panels, floor parquets, lumber, rubber items, bio-chemicals, activated charcoal, etc. Joint venture sweets factories should concurrently produce dehydrated fruits, fruity snacks, canned fruits in stevia and sweet sorghum syrup, soursop and mango purees, berry wines and juices, chocolate bars, etc., out of co-op harvests of mangoes, rambutan, longgan, jackfruit, palm fruits, soursop, cashew nuts, berries, pineapple, cacao, etc. Forage tree harvests should be sold to the co-ops' joint venture livestock feeds pelleting plants (products exported) and livestock feedlot divisions which handle contract-raising of cattle, sheep, and goats in their thousands for foreign ranchers and food companies. The entire setup depends upon perpetual maintenance and judicious use of water management facilities operated by the joint venture water company. Without such joint ventures spread out all over Philippine upland regions, our entire mega co-op scheme and its planet-scale benefits (when copied throughout the tropics) will simply remain as pipe dreams.
The joint venture water supply company's profits should largely come from payment of water bills by the five or so mega co-ops and their factories which together should sell millions of dollars' worth of agri-products in ASEAN Festival malls and other export markets worldwide. All joint venture water supply companies should include in their bills an installment provision for capitalization of new sets of water and power supply systems to help build other mega co-op agro-forests in the Philippines as well as throughout the tropics, with further help from the climate change and Aid funds. Joint venture investors and lenders should hence be rewarded with perpetual dividend and interest income.
The social benefits? The Philippines' Elementary level upland bottom poor who survive on garden-size, rain-dependent swidden farms should become regular, well-paid employees of the agro-forests and processing factories. Their children will no longer need to walk for hours to fetch water in far upland streams as they have been doing for centuries. All former Elementary level bottom poor upland families will afford distance study education in Science Colleges for promotion, team inventions (which yield licensing income), and purchase of mega co-op shares. As employees, they will qualify for four-month salary loans every two years for purchase of mega co-op shares, as provided by a Loans for Mass Entrepreneurship law. Their income tax due will also be re-channeled by an Employee Income Tax to Mega Co-op Shares law towards purchase of more mega co-op shares, All such schemes should help ensure that the redeemed upland bottom poor will never revert to poverty. Concurrently, 18 million hectares of thick Philippine greenery will absorb thousands of tons of CO2 each day on perpetual basis, and the volume will expand to billion-ton levels each year as mega co-ops' agro-forests spread out tropics-wide.
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