The Philippines present a microcosm of global woes facing mankind. Subsequent to a consulting role 15 years ago, I made a recent visit to evaluate initiatives planned to kill two birds with one stone. (Apologies for an inappropriate analogy by an ecologist dedicated to preservation of flora and fauna!!) The area targeted is farms of small land-owners adjacent to forested mountain ecosystems in Negros Occidentale Province in the Visayas Region.

My career goals involve promoting community forestry, a process of identifying and harvesting resources on forest lands for sustaining livelihood for rural inhabitants. The goal is true stewardship of resource lands by and for community. In a third world context especially, the first rule of community forest implementation is provision of benefits for the residents, financial and social.

In Negros, the planting of a little known tree (Jatropha cursas) results in a crop of nuts even in the first year after establishment. Nuts contain 38% oil which, when crushed, yield a liquid useable as cooking fuel or for lighting. The oil can also power small farm implements, replacing costly imported fossil fuel. The residual mash is an excellent fertilizer. Sale of excess nuts can provide cash flow for landowners. Alocal enterprise, Biofuels Internatinal, purchases nuts primarily to be sown for growing nursery stock. Eventual supply of nuts will be the basis for local refining of biodiesel fuel.

The national government has initiated propagation of Jatropha in support of massive reforestation and poverty alleviation programs. The policy goals include commercially produced biofuels to minimize the nation's dependence on expensive imported fossil fuels. Biofuels International Inc. has been promised access to over 3000 hectares of public lands too poor for agricultural production. The local program proposal contributes to 3 goals, local self sufficiency, poverty alleviation and ecological rehabilitation.

Jatropha is a tree species adaptable to poor quality conditions including mine spoils, sandy, gravelly sites and possibly desert reclamation. When burned, the oil produces a fraction of the emissions so common with fossil fuels. Areport from Nicaragua indicates that Jatropha prefers marginal and eroded lands, lands that have been exhausted and no longer serve agricultural purposes. Trees of the species can grow in areas of minimum precipitation, 200 - 500 mm annually, and can endure in flood or drought conditions.

Globally the planting of Jatropha is creating considerable interest in the oil industry. As noted in Newsweek International (The Cinderella Tree. Karen Palmer, Feb 19, 2007) British and Indian oil companies are purchasing or leasing large tracts of land in Africa. U.K. based D.Fuels has bought 20,000 ha in Malawi and 15,000 in Zambia. Worldwide Bio Refineries has 40,000 ha. India's I.K.F. Tech is seeking government leases for 150,000 ha. in Swaziland, Mozambique and South Africa. It has been suggested that southern Africa has the potential to be the Middle East of biofuels.

Recent articles in this space have been based on "The Long Emergency" (Kunstler, J.H. 2005), which records the rise (and ultimately the fall) of our industrial era based on fossil fuels. Supply of oil for heating, transportation and industrial growth is doomed to decline as yields of fossil fuels, being non-renewable, are bound to run out. There is every indication we have passed the peak in the world's capability to supply our energy needs, though consumption continues to increase as if sources were inexhaustible. It is essential that renewable alternative sources such as Jatropha be developed.

The world's worst problems stem from poverty. Data from Nicaragua indicates that permanent employment potential will accrue in planting, harvesting and processing crops such as Jatropha, initiatives which will benefit local communities. Their expectation is that thousands of seasonal jobs can be generated, doubling income compared to current minimum wages.

Hence economic gains will result from increased employment and reduced costs of importing diesel fuel. At the same time ecological benefits throughout the tropics will accrue from rehabilitation of marginal lands through establishment of forest plantations of Jatropha.