Life Below the Surface
If you don't have access to a vehicle that can navigate the mud road from your stilt-house on the beach of Mapan-Mapan Village, most of the time you simply don't get medical treatment. You endure the pain or wait for help.
And help was what a group of physicians, dentists and dental assistants brought to this isolated fishing village near Pitas. Led by Rotary Club president Mahmud Tahir and past president Datuk Dr. Ganesh, free medical checks, medication, dental treatments, food, clothing and toys were delivered on Sunday 28th November 2010.
A fisherman whom we interviewed told us that the catch is considerably smaller these days, compared to several years ago. Not many young people stay around in the village. Under the sparse economic conditions, they are forced to seek work in large towns and cities.
Meanwhile, deforestation for a growing rash of palm oil plantation inland, notorious for abundant use of chemical fertilizers, cause runoffs into the sea. The over-fertilization of beaches cause oceanic dead zones where proliferation of micro-plankton take up oxygen needed by krill and smaller fish (food for bigger fish).
Converting fishermen to land-based agriculture, growing food cash crops such as organic rice, other cereal and vegetables, will be worth trying especially if they can make use of good intuition about life below the surface of the sea. In this case, it would be about developing an appreciation about soil biodiversity below the surface.
But at the same time, agriculture has to find ways to reduce its environmental impacts — including lowering its own greenhouse gas emissions and chemical runoffs that cause oceanic dead zones and damaged coral marine life — without compromising food security and rural development.
Farmers need to adopt new, climate-smart practices that are environmentally friendly – more ‘agro-ecologic’ in nature. And these may require considerable investment in filling data and knowledge gaps, research and development of appropriate technologies, and incentives to ensure adoption of climate-smart eco-friendly agricultural practices.
But at the same time, agriculture has to find ways to reduce its environmental impacts — including lowering its own greenhouse gas emissions and chemical runoffs that cause oceanic dead zones and damaged coral marine life — without compromising food security and rural development.
Farmers need to adopt new, climate-smart practices that are environmentally friendly – more ‘agro-ecologic’ in nature. And these may require considerable investment in filling data and knowledge gaps, research and development of appropriate technologies, and incentives to ensure adoption of climate-smart eco-friendly agricultural practices.
But at the same time, agriculture has to find ways to reduce its environmental impacts — including lowering its own greenhouse gas emissions and chemical runoffs that cause oceanic dead zones and damaged coral marine life — without compromising food security and rural development.
Farmers need to adopt new, climate-smart practices that are environmentally friendly – more ‘agro-ecologic’ in nature. And these may require considerable investment in filling data and knowledge gaps, research and development of appropriate technologies, and incentives to ensure adoption of climate-smart eco-friendly agricultural practices.
