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Images 2006

Images from some of the activities and projects that Supras was involved in this year. These activities and projects are presented in section Portfolio.


Lake Chad Basin (incl. Cameroon, Chad and Nigeria)   (February 2006)
Project preparation for the UNDP GEF “Reversal of land and water degradation trends in the Lake Chad Basin ecosystem: Establishment of mechanisms for land and water management.” The project covers the whole basin, and include parts of the riparian countries Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria. The team did fieldwork throughout northern and north-eastern Nigeria and had discussions with project staff in N’djamena, Chad. [more] [access]
Ubud, Bali, Indonesia   (June 2006)
Conference. Presentation of a paper on local agreements in Mauritania, co-authored by Karl Peter Kirsch-Jung (GTZ, Mauritania) and Lars T. Soeftestad, at the 11th biannual conference of the International Association for the Study of Common Property (IASCP), 18-23 June 2006. Karl presented the paper.
[access]
Meulaboh, Sumatra, Indonesia   (July 2006)
Reconnaissance and study mission. Upon the invitation of Church World Service (CWS) Indonesia, Lars T. Soeftestad traveled to the small town of Meulaboh on the northwest coast of Sumatra to see and study various recovery and reconstruction activities that CWS Indonesia has been implementing since the December 2004 tsunami. He visited several small projects in and outside of Meulaboh that organize groups of people – men and women, fishermen and farmers – in groups that are given training and inputs. The activities include fishing (fishing boats were constructed with support from the Norwegian Church Aid (NCA)), organic farming (a group of women producing small red chili’s was, in particular, interesting), fish tackle production, and sowing. In discussions with the local people and with CWS staff, he presented constructive – and at times also critical – views on the activities, and also suggested alternative approaches and new foci. [more] [knowledge]
(On a personal note, Lars writes: a good part of the daily production of red chili that is documented in some of the images was brought back to Norway. In dried form they are sure to spice up southern Italian dishes like arrabbiata sauce and pasta all’aglio, olio e peperoncino, and preserved in olive oil they will add special taste to pizzas and dressings. In both cases, as the first crop after the tsunami, they will provide unique cultural flavor and serve as testimony to the incredible resilience of environment, cultures and people.)
  1. Organic farming. The Indonesia NGO KPPL is contracted to organize farmers in groups and provide training and give inputs in organic farming. The images are from an all-day training session, and from field visits to some of the groups. [access]
  2. Fishing boats. Groups of fishermen are operating small inshore boats built with funds provided by the Norwegian Church Aid. The organization of fishing, internal to the group, appears sound. They did not report any conflicts, but they also had no idea of how to handle conflict when and if it should occur. The integration in the market economy is such that they sell the products directly to purchasers or middlemen. The exception are some incipient efforts at drying shrimp. The fishermen argued that, given the availability of capital, they would be able to produce products that would fetch higher prices on the market. The operation of the boats are somewhat limited in their handling of the sea, or else the fishermen do not know how to operate them properly. [access]
  3. Fishing tackle. A whole fishing village south of Meulaboh was completely destroyed by the tsunami, and the whole population was resettled inland, several kilometers from the sea. Today they still live here, in tents. A group of industrious women, wives of fishermen, is operating a small out-of the-home (read: tent) fish tackle production scheme. They sell their products wholesale, and for a pittance, to a man that runs a tackle shop down by the coast. I argued that, if they had capital, they could set up their own shop and sell directly to fishermen. They agreed, after visiting the usual issues of what-would-their-husbands-say and who-should-care-for-the-children-while-they-were-away. As can be expected, however, they lack the initial capital to implement such a scheme. (On a personal note, I purchased several of the tackle they produce, and aim to try it out in Norway.) [access]
  4. Production of rubber. This is another good example of an activity and a trade where the producer is completely at the mercy of the wholesaler and middlemen. The latter makes an enormous profit upon selling this amount of rubber on the market in Medan. By the same token, a group of rubber collectors and producers that could pool resources and transport their product directly to Medan would make a much higher profit than they do today. This is another case of how small-scale and revolving credit schemes can make a big difference to the local people. [access]
  5. Housing. Speaking generally, housing is increasingly becoming a contentious issue. This is so partly because the time schedules do not hold, and partly because it appears that there are wide differences in the architecture, standards and sizes of the various projects, which appears unavoidably to lead to animosity between different population segments, and possibly, in the future, to conflicts. A developmental approach to this would involve focusing less on actual attaining production targets than on how this interfaces with and affect local culture. I should add that there is no implied critique here of CWS’s housing project. The house on the image, by the way, belongs to a family involved in producing red chili’s under the organic farming project mentioned above. [access]
  6. Effects of the tsunami. Some of the effects of the tsunami on 24 December 2004 are still visible, although, overall, it appears remarkably “normal” on the surface of things. However, at the level of culture and psyche it is anything but normal. Please note that the white spots on some of the images are caused by very heavy rain and wind. [access]
Santiago, Chile   (November 2006)
9th International Conference on Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI-9) and a USAID/FRAME-sponsored workshop on Environmental Trends Analysis. Presentation of a paper on the Mauritania project “Technology Fosters Tradition” by Lars T. Soeftestad.
[more] [access]
Comment: Images from extra-curricular activities in Santiago and a subsequent hike in the mountains southeast of Santiago are also available.