UBI 350 Black is the new Green First biochar site

Aloha kakou!
We are happy to announce the establishment of our first official UBI 350 “Black is the new Green” site. The site has been initiated by Mrs. Byatshandai , Director of the Women Farmers Association (WFA), in conjunction with Bulganmurun, Dolgor, and Narmandakh of MoBI (Mongolian Biochar Initiative). One of the WFA projects is to train rural women in Mongolia in making small vegetable gardens for improved family nutrition and added family income. Since these women come from a nomadic herding tradition with no experience in farming, this includes lessons in composting to improve the dry, sandy soils common in Mongolia. The experience gained at the WFA Ulaanbaatar UBI 350 site will be used in developing low tech biochar production by these women to improve the quality of their mulch and we look forward to many more biochar ovens joining this site as the women begin applying what they have learned.
This is a good example of the objective of UBI 350 – to join in 350.org’s efforts to alert the world to the magnitude of the global warming crises while mitigating that crises through low tech biochar’s potential to positively affect the nexus of sustainable rural development, endurance of local cultures with a high satisfaction quotient, developing local economies, and global warming amelioration.
But you don’t need to be in such serious circumstances to join UBI 350. Even if it’s just to make a small test oven to try it out or join in solidarity with the network of UBI 350 sites – please - E hele mai! – come and join us!

Fore more information email us at pattamo_kop@yahoo.com

Photo 1: Making a test model biochar oven. Holes being punched in the bottom of a 5 l cracker tin. The tin, filled with dry biomass, will be set upright on the grill to the left, over a fire with the lid securely in place. The gases driven off during the process (hydrogen & methane) exit the holes into the fire and add to the heat driving the process.

Photo 2: Biomass to be turned to biochar. Mrs. Byatshandai , Director of the Women Farmers Association, brings dry grass and weed stems to fill the oven.

Photo 3: The biochar produced. When the gases are finished being driven off, the process is finished and the carbonized biomass (charcoal) remaining constitutes the biochar that will be granulated and added to the mulch to improve the quality of the soil.