To see the good side of things

Ricki's Ego Soup (The Supa-Soup)

YOU HAVE TO TRY THIS! This is the best soup in the world, brought to you by Ricko Suave. I first tried it at his place in December, and Ricki has made it on several occasions since then. It is really delicious and quite simple to prepare. You just need A LOT of ingredients! I'm not sure how much soup comes out of this recipe, but you do need a fairly large pot.

THE SECRET INGREDIENTS - in order of utilization

- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 4 stems of celery
- 5 cloves of garlic
- 3 big carrots
- 1 giant purple onion, or 2 small
- 1 large butternut squash

- 2 cans of diced tomatoes (or fresh chopped)

- 1 can of tomato sauce

- 1.5 L of water
- 2 habanero peppers or 6 thai red peppers

- 2 large limes
- 1/2 cup of soy sauce
- 1 big red bell pepper
- 1 can of baby corn, rinsed
- 1 teaspoon of salt
- 1 tablespoon of black pepper
- 1 bunch of cilantro
- 2 cans of coconut milk
- 1 bag of shredded coconut

RECIPE INSTRUCTIONS

1. Chop thing up to the way you want them to feel in your mouth

2. Fry celery, garlic, carrots and onions in olive oil for 8 minutes in a large pot

3. Add squash, tomatoes, sauce, water and hot peppers

4. Boil until squash is tender enough (20 minutes)
5. Add limes, soy, red bell pepper, baby corn, salt & pepper, cilantro, coconut milk and coconut shavings
6. Bring to boil again and cook for 5 minutes
7. Serve hot and ENJOY!

Biodiversity Offsets

Last week at work I came across the concept of biodiversity offsets. I found the concept very interesting. Particularly because of 

the implications these ideas bring to the table for companies that have replaced in the past, or are thinking of replacing, native forests with other land uses, such as plantations or real estate... There are many things to think about here, and there is this report called ¨Biodiversity offsets: Views experience, and the business case¨ that explains what this is all about. It's by Kerry ten Kate (Insight Investment), Josh Bishop (World Conservation Union IUCN) and Ricardo Bayon, and it syntheses and interprets with a relatively objective view a series of interviews about biodiversity offsets conducted in 2004 with 37 people from the private sector, government organizations, NGOs, and academic organizations. 

Here is my two-page, super concise summary of it, so you don't have to read the 90 pages :) 

I. BIODIVERSITY OFFSETS (chapters 1 and 2) 

Biodiversity offsets are off-site conservation actions for the compensation of unavoidable harm to biodiversity caused 

by development projects. They are meant to ensure no net losses, and even achieve gains, in biodiversity. These 

activities should be quantifiable and should complement, not substitute, the strategies to avoid, reduce and rehabilitate 

harmed biodiversity areas, in that hierarchical order. In other words, they should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, 

Relevant and Time-Bound (SMART). 

II. MOTIVATIONS TO UNDERTAKE BIODIVERSITY OFFSETS (chapters 3, 4, and 5) 

i) The conservation case. If adequately designed, implemented and enforced, biodiversity offsets could result in 

1) more conservation, 2) better conservation (i.e. with geographic flexibility beyond on-site restoration, 

conservation can be directed to areas where long-term conservation benefits are more likely, such as large 

areas instead of isolated smaller areas), 3) more cost-effective conservation (i.e. conserving areas of high 

biodiversity value and developing areas of high real estate values), and 4) value creation for undeveloped land 

(i.e. the creation of a market for biodiversity offsets could turn environmental liabilities, such as endangered 

species that are always accompanied by land use restrictions, into a financial asset that can be sold and 

traded). 

ii) The regulatory case. Developers use offsets for legal compliance: in some cases there are legal regulations 

that mandate offsets, while in others the policy framework facilitates them but doesn´t require them. In either 

case, this has caused the mitigation and conservation banks that sell biodiversity credits (which can be species 

or habitat specific) to needy developers that have to fulfill legal obligations. 

iii) The business case. In the absence of legal requirements for offsets, the business case is the motivation for 

companies to voluntarily offset their unavoidable harm on biodiversity. Reasons include an enhanced 

reputation (¨social license to operate¨) and regulatory goodwill, which lead to faster permitting, access to 

capital, and competitive advantage that facilitates future business by saving time and money. There is also 

employee satisfaction, sense of pride and retention, and the fact that offsets are practical tools for managing 

liabilities, especially through outsourcing. 

Challenges to voluntary offset implementation include the risk that the voluntary offset efforts will be 

unappreciated given the high levels of suspicion of the companies´ motives (public notion of ¨false altruism¨); 

risk of offset project failure, and new risks and liabilities created in the new offset areas. With no legal 

requirements, voluntary offsets are often the result of local, small scale initiatives from passionate individuals. 

Also, they are often only aspirational goals (often dismissed as ¨greenwash¨) with no clear back-up of 

strategies, targets and routine implementation.  

III. IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGES (chapters 6 and 7)

Unlike CO2 and SO2, for which there are already well-established markets, biodiversity is a difficult thing to measure 

and commoditize. Quantifying ecosystem services is complex, and it requires prioritization of ecosystem services to 

establish an appropriate currency system encompassing values such as ecosystem functions and quality and quantity of 

flora and fauna. 

Defining the extent of biodiversity compensation is also problematic, as indirect damage is often not considered in the 

equation (i.e. the damage caused by workers moving to an area to work on a development project). There is also a lack 

of consensus about the equivalences needed in order to have ¨no net loss¨ of biodiversity, and we go back to the 

currency problem.  Equivalences are measured through ecological equivalence or economic equivalence, with the 

former being the most commonly used and the most accepted. 

Low flexibility of regulations that require offsets might be problematic, and a process that allows for site-specific 

solutions would work best. For example, it is usually a good idea to use ecological equivalence for really rare habitats 

that are being harmed, but conserving another type of habitat could be more effective with damage done to standard 

habitats. Public acceptance, however, is better when the conserved area is similar to the damaged area and the distance 

is closer.  In terms of timelines, offsetting should occur before the development project takes places, which creates 

high up-front costs, and it should also last at least for the duration of the expected impacts.   

There is also the problem of defining what counts as legitimate offsets, and this should be resolved on a case-by-case 

basis. For instance, we have additionality (when it is unclear whether an offset is really a contribution or if the action 

would have taken place anyway) and companies using offset funds to meet the costs of existing conservation projects 

that need funding (although this might be better than starting a new project from scratch). There is also the question as 

to whether other forms of investment are acceptable forms of compensation, such as capacity building (e.g. support for 

conservation agencies, environmental education and research) and social community development projects instead of 

direct conservation. These have many criticisms and low credibility when used as offsets, and a solution might be to 

invest only a percentage of the budget in capacity building in order to secure the long term success and longevity of 

conservation activities. 

Adequate participation, expertise, support and commitment from all stakeholders involved is key for successful 

biodiversity offset implementation. Environmental Impact Assessment and biodiversity offset implementation should 

be done by third parties to avoid underestimation of damage. Success is judged formally (by government and third 

party company audits) and informally (by local communities, NGOs and media), but the lack of biodiversity expertise, 

the lack of baseline data and the expense gathering it makes it important to define objectives and indicators of 

performance beforehand. 

IV. CONCLUSIONS (chapter 8) 

Biodiversity offsets offer a practical tool for managing social and environmental risks and liabilities without 

necessarily requiring elaborate new legislations. They have the potential of benefitting companies, government, 

conservation groups, and communities affected by development projects. Including biodiversity offsets as part of 

development projects is becoming increasingly accepted as best practice, and the number of biodiversity offset 

projects is growing, particularly thanks to the business case of voluntary offsets. However, even when properly 

designed, biodiversity offsets are likely to be controversial and the subject of disagreement.  In many cases, 

development projects are simply not appropriate and offsets should not even be considered.  

Despite the many issues, the concept of biodiversity offsets offers endless possibilities for conservation if a market 

mechanism with appropriate governance, transparency, participation from all stakeholders (including local, national 

and international discussion, co-ordination and dialogue to define and develop concepts and shared vocabulary, such 

as ¨biodiversity offsets¨), and accountability is created. It should therefore be further explored through dialogue, pilot 

projects and case study documentation, which would help gain practical experience and facilitate the development of 

guidelines and methodologies in the future.  

Chile - Mexico translation

Aquí hay algunas palabras y expresiones nuevas que estoy aprendiendo en Chile!

- palta - aguacate
- frutilla - fresa
- jaiba - cangrejo
- porotos - frijoles
- po - pues (esto es una MEGA muletilla, los chilenos la usan cada tres palabras)
- ave - pollo (cuando se usa en sandwiches)
- choclo - maíz
- huevón (pronunciado hueón) - wey
- ají - chile
- guatear/dar jugo - chafear/valer (e.g. Maná ya guateó)
- carreteado - gastado
- carretear - salir de fiesta/parrandear
- seco - bueno (e.g. ese profesor es bien seco)
- al tiro - inmediatamente
- gallo - tipo
- filete - bueno (e.g. ese gallo está filete)
- fome - aburrido, chafa
- la sandía con más pepas - para acabarla de fregar
- una luca - mil pesos
- taco - embotellamiento
- el computador - la computadora
- pega - trabajo
- comfort - papel de baño (comfort es una marca, en México es como decir kleenex para los kleenex jaja y pritt para pegamento en barra)
- mina - mujer
- la dura/la ura - la neta, en serio??
- la pasé la raja - la pasé muy bien (no confundir con 'la pasé raja', que es como pasársela dormido)
- cuático - asombroso, increíble
- es un pastel salir con él - es divertido salir con él
- tirar la cadena - mandar por un tubo
- irse por un tubo - emborracharse
- pucho - cigarro
- cocina - estufa y también el cuarto cocina
- fósforo - cerillo

- cachar - captar (aqui cuando los verbos son conjugados en 2nda persona, cambian la s por la i: como estai, donde vai, etc. y otra MEGA muletilla es 'cachai')
- echarse un ramo - reprobar una materia
- hacer una vaca - hacer colecta de dinero
- plata - dinero
- patear la perra - estar enojado
- sapo - mirón
- chao pescado - see you later alligator
- arriendar - rentar
- chancho - puerco/cerdo/marrano/cochino
- lo pasamos chancho - lo pasamos bien
- bacán - chido
- cesantía - desempleo
- te tinca - te late
- echar la foca - echar bronca
- entre las patas de los caballos (creo) - meterse en problemas con ganas
- se me echó la yegua - estoy agotado
- no por una yegua se para la trilla - no por un aguafiestas se para la fiesta
- hablar pura cabeza de pescado - hablar puras idioteces
- plátano - plátano (SIII!!!! estoy muy contenta que se diga igual. En Guate al platano le dicen banano, y luego hay un platanito y un plátano para freir o algo asi.. super complicado el asunto)
- palomitas - palomitas (igual que en México. Guate es poporopos, Peru canchita, etc.)
- flaite - algo como asi como naco con estilo chicano...
- harto, caleta - mucho
- que choro - que chido
- jotiar - ligar
- pololear - andar de novios
- polol@ - novi@
- novi@ - prometid@
-  pendejo - niño
- me carga - me choca/caga
- juajuajua - jajajaj (en Chile, he notado como muchos - no todos - escriben juajua o jaojao en vez de jaja. Se ve HORRIBLE)

Algo que me saca de quicio es como la mayoría de las personas pronuncian la ch como sh y la sh como ch. Shile, suchi, osho. "Cuánto valen los shicles y el champú?" "Dos mil oshocientos"
Y que pizza se diga pisa.

Half a month in Chile!

That's the amount of time I've been here. The first week in Santiago, the second in Concepción. This time has been AWESOME!

What am I doing in Chile to begin with?
I'm completing my second co-op work term. At UBC, and Canada in general, doing co-op is pretty popular. When you do co-op, you complete five four-month work placements during your degree doing something related to your field of study. The pros? You get all the tools to learn how to look for and apply for jobs successfully; you typically make a lot of money; you graduate with a better idea of what you want to work in, and with tons of experience; you get the constant support of your co-op advisor; you get access to all the co-op job postings; you get incredible opportunities, like this Chile one or my friend Lise in South Africa. The cons? You have to pay the equivalent of one credit for every work term you do, and you have to prepare some sort of PPT or written report of what you did. Last summer I worked four months in Port McNeil, Nothern Vancouver Island, doing mostly silviculture surveys for a forest products company. This year, thanks to my forestry co-op supervisor, this Chile opportunity came around and things just happened, and here I am! This is the first time someone from UBC comes to Chile, and I think the plan is to start establishing a connection between UBC Forestry and the company here.

What's my job?
The company is trying to get FSC certified (really cool, I'm learning SO MUCH about this!) and if it does get the certification, Chile would become the country with a highest percentage of it's forests certified! For the certification, one of the main things is for everything to be participative, to have the public's input about things such as the already-identified Areas de Alto Valor Ambiental. I will be working on collecting all the information spread around the company related to biodiversity in the over 300 000 ha of native conservation forests in Chile, which will be displayed in a brand new biodiversity webpage. This is why I'm in Concepción right now, because here work most of the people that do stuff related to the environment. I have been shown many of the conservation research that goes on, such as the PIMEX program (Programa de Investigación Marina de Excelencia) that has a sea lion monitoring project in Cobquecura. I will be here one more week, and then back to Santiago. I will blog more details about the cool things I do later!

Cobquecura panoramic shot. That's the sea lion island right there.

The Apple Incident: A True Story
My lovely Nichole prepared me a Travel Pack for the trip to Chile, which included some candy, stuff to read, an apple.. I put this in my carry on bag, meaning to eat the apple and read the newspaper while waiting for the plane. At check-in, the lady said I could check in two bags, not only one. So I did, and got rid of the carry on bag. An hour before landing in Chile, I filled in the declaration form, ticking the NO check box for everything, as per usual. No, I'm not carrying with me diseases from a pig farm. No, I'm not carrying animal products. No, I'm not carrying vegetable products... I totally forgot about the apple. In Chile they are pretty strict about this not declaring thing - they even show a five-minute video before landing on the importance of declaring. You can get fined big time and you're screwed if you don't declare something. An apple is 1400 bucks. Yeah. That much. Luckily for me, I never handed in that lying declaration form when I went to get my luggage in Santiago because there was no luggage! It got stuck in LA, and arrived in Santiago later that day. Phew...

The GlobeTrekking Summer Notebook Project
Speaking of stories that involve Nicks, there's this really cool project we started inspired by BOOK, check it out. It will be a notebook we send back and forth throughout the summer, and in it we will draw and write stuff to keep in touch in an artsy way. Stage one has been completed, and our book is crossing the continent at this very moment flying from Chile to Canada. So excited to receive it once Knickers sends it back!

My chilean experience so far
So far, I've loved Santiago and Concepción, the largest (~6 million) and second-largest (~1million) cities in Chile. They are both really nice and they remind me in many ways of Mexico City. In Concepción I'm staying in the very centre. The area where I'm staying in Santiago is called Providencia and my favourite thing about it are the streets.  The sidewalks, I mean. They are really big, allowing for people to hang out, sit down at the many pubs, restaurants and ice-cream places, and chat. This creates a nice atmosphere, reminds me of Cremona in Italy. You will find a lot of (in order of abundance):
1. Banks and ATMs - seriously, I've never seen so many. They are EVERYWHERE. Every two shops there is a random bank you've never heard of with five ATMs in it.
2. Pharmacies - again, the number of pharmacies is crazy. One in every ten stores is a pharmacy. And pharmacies with ATMs INSIDE them? Yep, that too.
3. Ice cream places (sign I will get fat #1) - this is mostly in Concepción, but in Santiago too. There are tons of ice cream places, it's like being in Italy. Same style of ice cream shop too, with the square batches and glass window and stuff.

Some things are really expensive compared to Vancouver or Mexico, but some are cheaper. 1 000 chilean pesos are like 2 CAD. To appreciate how much I'm paying for something, in my mind I always convert chilean pesos to dollars (*2 / 1000) and then to mexican pesos (*12). It's hard dealing with thousands, especially when things cost something like 3 120 and the coins are a mess (they are changing them so there are two types of coins going around) and then it's embarrassing staying more than 60 seconds figuring it out at the counter. More expensive: food. A simple fast food meal consisting of a sandwich or a burger or an individual pizza is like 3 500 pesos, or 7 dollars. Cheaper: art supplies (not the best brand quality but regardless). A really nice set of 18 large tubes of watercolours + set of 5 awesome brushes of the kind I've always wanted + watercolour palette = 4 dollars. A set of 6 wood-carving tools = 2 dollars. No way! That's what I thought.

Building in El Golf

In Santiago, the office where I work is really nice, in an area called El Golf. Like Santa Fe in Mexico City kind of. The elevators are the best. You press the floor number BEFORE getting on the elevators and the screen tells you which elevator to take. This way the elevator takes the best possible 'route' to the different floors and everything is more efficient.

Entrance to the building

We get this card that we can use for a drinks vending machine and a coffee vending machine (which makes cappuccino, hot chocolate, latte...and you adjust the levels of coffee, milk and sugar with the touchpad), and the same card gives us access to the building and the cafeteria, which is called 'casino'. This is really funny here in Chile. Usually large companies provide food for the workers, so they usually have casinos at every level of the operation, from the corporate offices to the pulp mills to the logging operations. So at lunch, you just scan your card and you can eat all you want at the cafeteria-style buffet, which is DELICIOUS (sign I will get fat #2). They have salad bars, soups, at least three different fancy desserts every time (and I looooove desserts!!) And eating like that is just like school, well it reminds me of eating at Vanier in the sense that you eat with friends and everyone eats together. This concept is really cool I think. In Canada, people always take their own lunch to work. I remember how my lunch last summer was the cheese or PB&J sandwich I made myself in 10 minutes before leaving for work, and compare that to the three course meals workers get here...

In Santiago I moved around with the metro. It's 560 pesos to ride the metro (and you can also take two buses) if you're not a student. If you're a student it's only 180. I will go first thing back to the office to see if I can get the student discount. Well, it's fast but it's PACKED all the time. Everything is very busy in Santiago, let's not even start with supermarkets.

Park in front of the office

One thing EVERYONE warned me about in Santiago was theft. I had never had so many people telling me to be careful and to leave the jewelry in the hotel and my purse in my hands whenever I went somewhere. My objective is to avoid theft for the three months I'm here! The centre of the city looks a bit like the centre of the city in Mexico City, but line-ups are really really long to do administrative stuff. Also, despite what chileans say, I find Santiago to be more polluted. At times visibility is terrible, and I've never seen Mexico City like that.

Street in El Golf

In Santiago I'm staying at something called apart hotel, which is like an apartment/hotel. It's super cute and comfy, you can look at pictures here. The best thing is the location. In Concepción I'm staying at a hotel which is one block away from the office, a three minute walk. Extremely convenient. I love it here, my room's the best. The best thing, however, is breakfast (sign I will get fat #3). There are TWO different cakes they make here everyday, cakes I've never had before. So I have to have one slice of each of course. Plus all different beverages, breads, cheeses, fruits, cereal... I look forward to breakfast every day!

Ok, I will write details about what I have done at work on a separate post!

Pre-summer days: last days in The Van

Today Sunday makes it two weeks since I arrived in Chile! I will write all about it in a bit, but I remembered I had written this stuff below while I was on the plane two weeks ago, but had forgotten to post it:

Kiki getting her tattoo!

Here I am on another plane. Going to Chile now, though.  Wow, the entertainment on planes has improved considerably in the last couple years. Now we all have an individual TV where we can select movies, TV shows and music as we please. You can even make playlists with the songs you like from the different albums. This is LAN airlines, which apparently travels all around South America. Very exciting to be in my first South America trip. This particular flight goes from Los Angeles, to Lima, to Santiago, to Buenos Aires.  From LA to Santiago it’s 13 hours, so it’s like going to Europe.

Seeing how I won't be going back to Vancouver for a year (sigh) I will write about some fun things we did our last days there. So these are eating chocolate and live music. In terms of eating chocolate, we went to an all-you-can eat chocolate fondue place, Capstone Tea in Robson Street (which, unless you’re a huge person that eats a LOT, is actually cheaper if you buy individual platters…) For our live music of the month we went to 560 to Five Alarm Funk. They were not as good as the band before them but the night was so much fun! Anyway back to now---> The last 48 hours were so intense… I had my last final on the last possible day, Thursday. Finishing the exam, I had several things to take care of before leaving for a year, and we also had a magic show to go to, so we didn’t start pacing until 11pm. Ok, so just a quick note on the magic show (which I had already mentioned in another post). It’s this guy from Colombia called Camilo The Magician, and he does mostly card tricks, which are crazy! He has a song written after him, Camilo the Magician by Said the Whale. So the trick that blew my mind was one where a guy picked a card, a girl picked a card, they showed them to audience, cards back in the deck, shuffle shuffle, Camilo took one card from the deck, tore it in two, and it was half and half the two cards the guy and the girl had picked! All of this with intensive shuffling involved in between. No idea how he did it. 

So after the show we came home to pack , and we packed and packed and packed all night long! We watched the Royal Wedding, of course. I watched because I was up anyway, but it’s not like I would have woken up at 2 am to watch the live streaming, unlike my mum and sister who did do that. I thought the dress was beautiful, and that the cameras shouldn’t have filmed William’s head from the top that much, focusing on his bald spots. It’s weird that we still have royalty now… a king, seriously??

I hate packing. It’s so stressful, especially getting rid of stuff. I never want to get rid of anything, what if I will ever, maybe, potentially need that thing I’m throwing out one day. This is stupid, but I can’t help it. Especially books. Plus I had a keyboard and the stand and a Christmas tree and the drying racks…  so much stuff. After an all-nighter packing, I transferred all the boxes to my neighbours’ place, because they were scheduled to leave the next day while I was scheduled to leave at noon. I went to work, to give my last tour. So the other day Vale and I got sick at the same time, and lost our voices at the exact same time too, so I had no voice for the tour But I did it with Quinn which was awesome. It was sad saying bye to my Friday team mates, our Friday tour groups were so much fun.

After I got back, there were already people in our place. Housing didn’t clean before the new residents moved in, so they got a mess of a house, ew, I sure wouldn’t want to be them. On the plus side, though, they got all the cool stuff we left, such as an awesome NY poster on the stairs oh yeaahhh and food and shampoo (unopened). I spent all afternoon with my neighbours and then Nicki let me store ALL of my boxes in her storage space in her Marine Drive apartment, so I transferred everything from Fairview to MD in a taxi van at 11 pm when Nicki got home. Then we slept for like 2 hours and the taxi came at 3 am to take me to the airport as my flight left at 6 am. And Sharon went to the airport at 3am to say goodbye too, she's such a sweetie. 

Now that I have like 5 hours until we get to Peru I will go to sleep. 

Mexico, I love you

Here are some pictures of my beloved country.

Zihuatanejo, Guerrero. December 2007. I spent Christmas here with my family for three consecutive years. The sunsets were incredible, full of beauty and colour. One day, we saw greens, electric blues and violets in the sky, but we didn't have the camera with us to capture that magical moment. 

Chamela, Jalisco. April 2007. This is the UNAM (Mexican National University) Biological Research Station in Chamela. Stunning sunsets too, and an amazing region to visit. One of the most biodiverse in the country!

Chamela, Jalisco. April 2007. This is was taken around 6 am. I remember how the birds used to wake us up, and then you would get out of your room, barefoot, careful not to step on any of the beetles that walked tirelessly across the halls, and then, once outside, you would smell the cold air. It was awesome! Not cold, but FRESH.

Isla Pajareira in Chamela, Jalisco. This island belonged to the birds! Rocks were unnaturally white.

UNAM, Mexico City. 2008. An adorable grasshopper that allowed me to photograph him. 

Canon del Sumidero, Chiapas. 2009. This is one of the most amazing places I've ever been to. It felt like being in Jurassic Park somehow. Look at how tiny the boat looks! Someone told me recently it also looks like a scene from 'The fellowship of the ring' where they travel down the river and pass two HUGE statues. Kind of.

And a video a friend posted

DeforestAction

I made it to the Top 50 finalists for Borneo in 3D! If you want to learn more about the buyback land project of DesforestAction, log in to my personal Action Agent Hub to join the network and support a great cause by buying land for conservation in Borneo.


More info coming soon!