Your Backyard is the Original, Not Alternative Pharmacy By Michael A. Bengwayan

Your Backyard is the Original, Not Alternative Pharmacy

By Michael A. Bengwayan

The Siberian cold is here until February next year.  As a result, cough and colds will be common and likely to stay. But don’t run to the nearest drugstore.  The remedy may just be in your backdoor.

Many traditional cough syrups from medicinal plants are effective and have a long history of just being there in our homegardens. They are not alternative medicines, they are original medicines.

Take the case of lagundi (Vitex negundo). Our ancestors have used it for a thousand years. Now it is being marketed by money-crazed businesses as Ascof Forte  tablet and RM Stop cough syrup.

Using cuttings, stick them to the ground and in two months, you have leaves for cough syrup. Boil ten leaves in two cups of water for ten minutes, cool it, transfer in a clean container and take 5 tbsp of the juice twice a day against cough.

Ginger (Zingiber officinale), also being sold in different brand names, is another cure for cough and colds..Ginger rhizomes and leaves may be chopped and boiled for 15 minutes,  the extract allowed to cool, divided  into three parts, to be thrice in a day.

You can also use sampalok (tamarindicus indica), Yerba Buena  or spearmint (Mentha spicata) and Eucalyptus globules are also effective traditional medicines. Their leaves can be boiled either fresh or dry for ten to fifteen minutes. They can be taken in with dosages ranging from one to six tbsp, for each part drank three times a day.

Normally, the younger the user, the lesser dosage is required. Oregano, Yerba Buena and Eucalyptus leaves, however, have no specific dosages for small children.

Leaves of Mango (Mangifera indica), Alagaw (Premma odorata) and Balanoy  or Basil (Ocimum basilicum) leaves, boiled for ten minutes are proven good for children.

Our country is blessed with hundreds of medicinal plants and commercial production from these is being given importance even by Western health practitioners. Poor families must be encouraged and trained to plant and use these so that they will not fall prey to biopirates that produce medicine out from these for mere profit-sake.

Traditional cough syrups are easy to prepare and most are expectorants, thus having an edge over commercially produced  medicines from non-living sources, which are mostly depressants./30

Michael  A. Bengwayan is  a journalist and social entrepreneur, fighting environmental decay and poverty in the Cordillera region of the Philippines by creating local solutions to solve some of the world's environmental problems. He is introducing nitrogen fixing trees to enrich soil fertility, provide livestock forage, and enhance soil and water conservation. He discovered and is teaching people about making biofuel from petroleum nut for cooking (as a replacement for LPG), lighting, heating, and drying as well as running small gasoline engines. He is promoting rainwater harvesting for household and farm use, and he is training farmers, women, and youth on environmental enterprises and organic gardening. Michael holds postgraduate degrees in environmental science, rural development, and development studies and is a past Fellow of the Ford Foundation, European Union, Reinhard Mohn, and the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) in the US, Ireland, Sweden and Belgium.

http://www.echoinggreen.org/fellows/michael-bengwayan

Dengue Can be Fought with Newly Discovered Damselfly Found in Threatened Rainforest By Michael A. Bengwayan

Dengue Can be Fought with Newly Discovered Damselfly Found in Threatened Rainforest

By Michael A. Bengwayan

MANILA, Philippines, October 18,  - The vanishing damselflies and dragonflies in the Philippines, considered by ecologists to be nature's best predator of disease bearing mosquitos, are stronger by one with the discovery of a new damselfly species.

The insect, never before seen by scientists and totally unknown to the world of science, was discovered clinging to life in a rainforest threatened by logging in Cebu, an island province of the Philippines.

The new damselfly, temporarily tagged Cebu recionemis, was discovered in the Tabunan forest by Teobaldo Borromeo, a Filipino entomologist and lepidopterist who works as a research aide with the Germany based Senckenberg Museum. He is also known for having identified as many as fifty butterflies in Cebu.

Damselflies and dragonflies, in the order Odonata, are considered the most important predator of mosquitoes including some of the most dangerous ones such as Aedes aegypti which spreads dengue fever and the Anopheles mosquito which is responsible for malaria.

In the Philippines damselflies have become increasingly rare due to widespread agricultural insecticide misuse and abuse and unabated destruction of ponds and swamps which are the insects' natural habitat.

The discovery, now confirmed by entomologists like Dr. Franz Scheidenshwarz of the University of San Carlos in Cebu, has yet to be recorded in the "List of Odonata of the World," a universal documentation of damselflies and dragonflies being compiled by entomologists Martin Schorr and Martin Linbeboom of Germany and American Dennis Paulson.

The World Dragonfly Association (WDA) and the International Dragonfly Fund (IDA), agencies created to protect and conduct research on damselflies and dragonflies, have yet to receive an official communique of the recent discovery.

No photographs are available of the newly discovered damselfly.

Worldwide, there are 29 known families and 5,000 species of dragonflies and damselflies. In the U.S. alone, there are 11 families and 407 species.

In the Philippines before l980, some 23 families and 689 species were known to exist. The discovery of the damselfly in the Tabunan forest of Cebu would now increase the number of species nationally to 690 and worldwide to 5001.

Professor Bony Ligat, a University of Queensland, Australian-educated entomologist says the insects' existence is of great economic importance. Regarded as beneficial insects, they feed largely on mosquitos, gnats and flies, consuming them in great numbers. With eyes having as many as 28,000 facets, they can spot mosquitos 25 feet away and travelling at the speed of 60 mph, can home on their prey. Swarms of them can rid a pond of mosquitos effectively, Professor Ligat says.

Since 1960s, in its effort to get rid of malaria carrying Anopheles mosquitoes, Philippine health officials bombarded ponds, lakes and swamps with DDT, unaware that in doing so, not only did they kill Anopheles mosquitos but many beneficial insects like dragonflies and damselflies as well.

Today, health authorities are doing the same thing, fogging water holes with deadly chemicals to rid the Aedes aegypti that spreads dengue, Ligat laments. Dragonflies and damselflies are the first line of defense against mosquito build-up, Professor Ligat says. They are even more effective than frogs and spiders, because of their mobility. Even their naiads (hatchlings) feed on mosquito larvae in the water.

The World Health Organization (WHO) in its most recent Dengue Information Report says it is trying to identify fish species that can eat dengue mosquito larvae. The late Dr. Charles Cheng, an award winning medical researcher and director of the Filipino Chinese General Hospital in Baguio City said, dragonflies and damselflies are better alternatives to fishes. He recommended a program which can reintroduce the damselflies in existing freshwaters in communities where dengue exists.

Based on reports from the Philippine Department of Health, Dr. Cheng estimated that dengue fever has killed 1,656 people and infected 32,887 in the Philippines from 1995 to 1998.

Globally, WHO says there are 50 to 100 million cases of dengue fever, two thirds in South Asia and the Southeast Asia region. The global prevalence of dengue fever has grown dramatically in recent decades, and epidemics are larger and more frequent, Dr. Cheng said.

Dr. Tony Bautista, a regional director of the Department of Health who heads the anti-dengue program, said he welcomes research that would look at the breeding of dragonflies and damselflies and the re-introduction of them into freshwater areas.

But reintroduction would not be easy, Professor Ligat says, since these insects breed in freshwater ponds and swamps, which are rare nowadays in the Philippines, because of pollution and deforestation.

Damselflies belong to the suborder Zygoptera and dragonflies to suborder Anisoptera of the order Odonata. Damselflies are smaller and slender compared to dragonflies. They are sometimes called "snake doctors," "devil's darling needles" and "mosquito hawks."

 ------

Michael  A. Bengwayan is  a journalist and social entrepreneur, fighting environmental decay and poverty in the Cordillera region of the Philippines by creating local solutions to solve some of the world's environmental problems. He is introducing nitrogen fixing trees to enrich soil fertility, provide livestock forage, and enhance soil and water conservation. He discovered and is teaching people about making biofuel from petroleum nut for cooking (as a replacement for LPG), lighting, heating, and drying as well as running small gasoline engines. He is promoting rainwater harvesting for household and farm use, and he is training farmers, women, and youth on environmental enterprises and organic gardening. Michael holds postgraduate degrees in environmental science, rural development, and development studies and is a past Fellow of the Ford Foundation, European Union, Reinhard Mohn, and the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) in the US, Ireland, Sweden and Belgium.

http://www.echoinggreen.org/fellows/michael-bengwayan

The Quiet Revolution

The Quiet Revolution

By Michael A. Bengwayan, Ph. D. (Echoing Green Fellow) The writer lived in New York City, Stockholm, Jakarta, Taipei, Kathmandu, Leuven, Pune, Brussels and Dublin. He was a former World Vegetable Center Training Specialist.

The Big Apple is not all concrete jungle as often portrayed. There is a quiet revolution stirring the urban food system. Hidden by towering skyscrapers are resident blocks where Earl Girl and Celebrity tomatoes hang ripe and heavy in ready clusters. Along Lexington Avenue, there is a corner  where Lima beans drape profusely while deep orange shoulders of carrots line up in long rows buried in the ground.

Over in Los Angeles, at 103^rd and Grape in Watts, two of the city’s most violent blocks, small  residences proudly showcase Milpa corn, dry beans, hot chili peppers, epizote, alfafa, vedulaga and pumpkins.

The food growing activities are far from the farms that still provide majority of the food.  Yet it is fast spreading like wildfire .  In populous Jakarta, Bangkok, Manila and Taipei, the same events are unfolding.  Because of the basic  need that every person have to grow their own food, know their food and have a sense of control over its safety and security.

It is a revolution that is providing people, especially the poor, with an important safety net where they can grow some nourishment and income for themselves and their families.  And it is providing an oasis for the human spirit where urban people can gather, preserve something of their culture through native seeds and foods, and teach their children about food and earth.

The revolution is taking place in gardens, small backyards, rooftops, verandas,  once-junkyards and gang hangouts. It is a movement that has the potential to address a multitude of issues—economic, environmental, personal health and culture. It is especially important for the 

world’s poor.

Hundreds of millions of people worldwide are receiving at least some of their nourishment from urban gardens. In Pune,  Maharahstra, India, 9 percent of the vegetables consumed in the city are urban-grown.  In Sweden, 30 percent of the urban families  farm  a million plots and in Netherlands, 40 percent of the total agricultural production is from urban lands.

Survival

A majority of the world’s poor currently lives in cities. Hunger and malnutrition effect approximately one billion worldwide Earth’s capacity to feed exploding populations is reaching its limits. Current grain reserves are at all time low and steadily declining agricultural yields are a sobering reminder that food scarcity is increasing.

In Calcutta, India, the composted soils of old garbage dumps are being  used  for food production, providing employment for close to 250,000 people. In the US, urban farms produce 20 times more per acre than their agricultural counterparts. Small plots in the most rundown neighborhoods in America’s cities are producing herbs, flowers and specialty vegetables that are being sold to upscale restaurants and farmers’ markets.

Creating Nutrient Cycle

Urban waste is creating severe ecological and health problems while the cost of transporting and dumping it erodes precious financial resources. Through waste segregation, much of organic wastes from cities are being used in a sustainable system wherein food is grown. This provides nutrient recycling because organic matter is converted into soil-enriching compost.

Feeding Body and Soul

Along with the economic and nutritional safety nets that growing food in the city can provide, the exploding movement towards urban food production promotes personal health.

Even greater is the potential for urban plots to provide much-needed psychological boost to people living in areas devoid of trees, plant and soil.  Reconnecting to Earth and to the natural process of growing food has a balancing effect on the human psyche. Having personal control over the source of one’s nourishment is also empowering to urban dwellers.

Urban gardens provide a critical link to culture through seeds that have been passed down and through the cultivation and preparation of traditional foods that have graced tables for centuries

Stopping Erosion and Building a Forest

Five years ago, this part of Mankayan, Benguet eroded and began sinking due to mining operations of Lepanto mines. I was invited   to stop the erosion. I and my ATAD volunteers did slope stabilization measures and planted trees for 5 years. This is how it looks now.

.

i'll never know

i'll never know who will pass by here
it does not matter and i'll never know
but they'll have shade, a fruit or two
a shelter for the night if they so decide
what matters is we planted trees
and no one will ever know

God smiles to treeplanters

a beautiful feeling can always reward a treeplanter, you share in caring for God's creation, you know somewhere, God smiles at what you do.

thank you to my co-tree planters

my grandson Seth asked me one day where do all the people who plant trees with me come from. truth is i don't know. they have been coming from different towns, provinces and far away countries. i'm sad i never got to talk to all of them personally, but deep in my heart is a wellspring of gratitude.

The Habitat

A habitat is a natural dwelling of flora and fauna and aves. I started creating MY HABITAT to bring back wildlife (trees, plants, small animals, insects and birdlife in Tublay, Benguet, Philippines since 25 years ago. Today, I train my environmentalists here.

https://web.facebook.com/ipsum.novus/media_set?set=a.1710620425646805.1073742456.100000965926072&type=3&pnref=story

https://web.facebook.com/ipsum.novus/media_set?set=a.1710620425646805.1073742456.100000965926072&type=3&pnref=story