Dong Na Tam Community Forestry Network 12/27/06

While in Ubon I also wanted to get the NGO perspective on the project I was researching and upon arriving in town I quickly learned that Nature Cares Foundation was the focal point of environmental NGO work in the region. The organization's history is interesting as it was started 10 years ago by Ajarn Suvannee and a Canadian Buddhist abbott from the nearby International Temple called Ajarn (professor, respective title) Passano.

Ajarn Suvannee has a health background and worked on poverty alleviation and health issues in the area at times with UNICEF and knew Ajarn Passano who noticed when he would go out to the forest to meditate that the forest was being degraded. So the two of them put their minds together and slowly built what is today Nature Cares Foundation. This organization for over 10 years has worked with local communities to help them form forestry committees and has assisted in connecting these committees together to form what is now a community forestry network.

Ajarn Suvannee knows the region well and has volunteered a lot of her time to see Nature Cares and the Community Forestry Network develop. Another amazing Thai woman! She is also working with a friend in Vermont to coordinate a program that brings US high school students for a one month homestay in the countryside. Now she would like to find a way for poor kids from these remote Ubon villages to travel to the US on a cultural exchange program. I am hoping to help her form a Rotary connection to investigate if there may be a way to find funding and visa support in Rotary's generous educational programs.
















While in Ubon I also had the opportunity to travel with Ajarn Suvannee and some of the Nature Cares staff to observe a multi-stakeholder gathering of the Dong Na Tam Community Forestry Network, lucky me!