The idea of this session is to move on from some of the policy discussion that we had this morning and the big picture around Paris, to dive a little bit more into the detail about what's happening on the ground and what individual participants in the private sector are actually engaged in. And I think as Minister Friedenberg said in his speech this morning, part of the original initiative of the Asia Pacific Rainforest Partnership was to really try to start to engage with the private sector. And as part of that role, Minister Hunt set up what is the Asia Pacific Rainforest Partnership private sector roundtable and that roundtable was really to bring private sector into the discussion. I think this is a very important point because a lot of the work around forest conservation and around red has been government led or through the multilaterals. And quite often it doesn't interface with those individuals on the ground doing either agroforestry or doing conservation type projects and there is a gap between those two areas of activity. And so in many ways the roundtable was to really focus on how to bring the private sector into the discussion and that's what's been done. And so Minister Hunt set up the roundtable and as chair of that roundtable he appointed Ada Greenberry who's the Manager Director of Sustainability and Stakeholder Engagement at Asia Pulp and Paper. Ada has taken a lead role in running that roundtable and bringing it together and will tell us a little bit about what the roundtable has produced. Next to Ada I've got Mary Kate Bullen. Mary Kate is Associate Director at New Forest and has been a contributor to the papers that have been produced. Also from PT Rima Mirtima we have Desana Hatano. Desana has been very active in doing a conservation project, a large project on the ground of which there is also a policy paper written in the documents which you'll hear a little bit more about. And I think Desana is very important because he will talk today as will Ada about actual conservation projects and how you finance those separate from sort of financing sustainable agriculture type projects. And then finally we have Miss Perchua George, who's the Assistant General Manager for Sustainability at Wilmar and welcome. And so with our four distinguished guests welcoming you all today onto the panel. So what I'd like to do is to start off by just asking Ada to begin by talking a little bit about the roundtable and what we were trying to achieve and also perhaps introduce the papers that have been done. And then I'm going to go through and get each panelist to talk a little about what their activities have been. So Ada, over to you. Thank you. Thank you, Martyn. Good afternoon, everybody. So the private sector roundtable was set up, as Martyn said, with the previous Environment Minister of Australia, Mr. Minister Hunt, and requested us, myself and Martyn, to chair and co-chair the private sector roundtable. So as the chair of the private sector roundtable for the last couple of months I would like to highlight the role that the private sector is already playing in forest restoration and conservation. The projects put forth by the members and many more who are not here are already evidence of our role in forest conservation. There are remain challenges that we are facing, such as scaling up efforts, which is why we have tried to outline our recommendations for addressing a few of these key challenges in the policy briefs that we put forward for discussion. We launch it today. I'm sure some of you can have a copy of this upfront. If not, the private sector roundtable and the secretariat will be able to give you the soft copy. There are a number of key challenges that we need to resolve if we want to make the Paris Agreement a reality and arrest deforestation. And the Asia Pacific and also in the region. Number one, how do we incentivize business when participation in the carbon market is voluntary and the carbon price are very low? Secondly, how do we actually monitor progress? What baseline are we working from? And most importantly, how can we organize finance mechanism so that the cash actually reach the forest? Based on my own experience in the company I'm working for, this Asia Palvin Beaver Group, we launched our forest conservation policy in 2013 as our landmark policy. It consists of key building blocks that we used to create, hopefully, a more sustainable business model, including halting all natural forest clearance, more responsible management of peat, resolving social conflict, informed concept and etc. The overarching principle behind all of our management and conservation efforts, the landscape approach, in principle, it is the principle that the conservation efforts goes beyond administrative boundaries and will only succeed if the sustainability of the whole landscape is taken into account and all the stakeholders within that landscape work together towards very similar goal. The initial step of the implementation of our landscape approach is the integrated sustainable forest management plan and through this process we have increased the conservation areas across our supply chain from previously 383,000 hectares to more than 500,000 hectares, while area to work together with the community has increased from 370,500 hectares to 420,000 hectares. So as part of our best practice management for peat strategy, for example, more responsible peatland management to re-wet the area, we also managed to conduct a lidar mapping across 4.5 million hectares for peatland in Sumatra and Kalimantan and building more than 5,000 dams in the canal perimeter. So those are just a few examples of the progress on the ground in our times. Thank you. Could you just talk to us a little bit about, I guess the journey that APP has come on from being traditionally more forestry company to embracing sustainability and how that has come about and how that has led to forest conservation? Could you tell us a little bit about how the journey that APP has come on, which you have overseen, to look more at forest conservation to digest forest production? Because we see forest conservation actually as an investment with the launch of our forest conservation policy, for example, we have infested in the last three years, we have invested more than 200 million dollars for three years in the implementation of forest conservation policy and why? Because it's not just we want to be green or we want to be environmentally friendly, we want to treat it as an investment. The return of investment that we are measuring right now is basically three-fold. One is definitely commercially, return of customers, of course. Now environmentally friendly procurement is basically the new business as usual. You cannot survive in the market without implementing a good, robust environmental policy. And secondly, of course, the return of investment from the landscape itself, restoring forest and conserving forest is basically a risk management for our natural resources, which is the plantation, reducing risk of pests and diseases, reducing risk of fires and also encroachment. And the third one, which is a much longer term, is, of course, the greenhouse gas emission itself. Martin, can I provide the POM perspective? So a very quick introduction to Wilmar. So Wilmar again is the world's biggest edible oils trader. We were in the same boat as APP in the early 2000s. So if any of you remember from the 2005 to 2008, nobody would touch Wilmar. We were so bad. We were so bad in the POM sector. That made us very quickly realize that that wasn't a good way to sustain business. So much like APP's model, in 2013, Wilmar also adopted a no-deforestation, no-exploitation policy, very much mirroring around the New York commitments. And again, but the point, the reason why Wilmar is doing this is because it is good business. And the role of the private sector, I believe, not just for forestry but for the POM guys, agribusiness, is to ensure reduced impacts on deforestation or reduced impacts on forests is good business. And that's the only way to make it work. Okay, well, we might now hear from Mary Kate just because you also are running a business that has its revenues primarily from undertaking timber activities in a sustainable manner. Do you want to just run us through what New Forest are doing in their philosophy on this? Sure. Thanks, Martine. I think I'll start off by explaining quickly who New Forest is because I think we're a different type of participant at this event for most people. New Forest is an investment manager and we manage funds that invest in sustainable forestry and conservation assets. I don't think there's actually a lot of capital providers or finance side folks in the room, but it's a very important segment of what the private sector is doing here. And I think what Pep said and what I'd have said have mentioned the external pressures and that relies, impacts us as well as an investor and what are the expectations from our clients and broader stakeholder groups. So our clients are primarily pension funds, some sovereign wealth funds, reinsurance companies, very large institutional investors. And as we heard this morning from Minister Friedenberg from Australia, institutional investors have woken up to sustainable development and that's come from the Paris Agreement, it's come from the SGGs and it's come from a momentum that's been growing over I'd say the past decade and really strengthening in 2015 to a good culmination in Paris. So what we have as a duty, as an investment manager is to be a steward of that money and to make sure that it's invested for both a financial return, but also to make sure that we're protecting our clients' reputation, protecting our own reputation, controlling for environmental and social risk, but also increasingly it's not just about risk, it's about looking to see what are the proactive values that we can get out of environmental and social management. One thing about the type of investments we do, we're not investing in companies that are on the stock exchange, we're not looking to turn a dollar quarter to quarter a day to day, we're actually buying forestry companies or land or forests and looking to manage them well over the long term so that they get increased in total value and are also providing income from revenue from timber products, rubber, other products. That's really important because if we think about long-term perspective, we're not going to be cutting today just to have a dollar today, it's about the total package of that value and so I think that's one thing that helps us address the lack of value that's in natural capital today. So while we do lack a carbon market incentive in this part of the world, while we lack biodiversity, monetary value or a way to understand what biodiversity is really worth to a business like any of ours, we do know that over the long term these things matter and that managing them can help produce that total long-term value as well as reduce risk today and tomorrow. Okay, so all three of you have touched on the fact that you're all in the private sector businesses that are basically in the timber parmol. You're in the business of producing products that produce an economic return. Desana, we're going to turn to you now and have you talk about, you're at the other end of the spectrum where you are in a business that is basically conservation, where you produce a product which Aida's already told us there isn't a market for the moment. So I'd like you to just talk us through what it is that you're doing and the economics of that. Thank you, Martin. I'm glad that actually I'm the last one to speak with these outstanding ladies next to me. Well, for, in this case Wilmore and APP, conservation is good for business. For us, it's our business. So it is a different business plan here. So just to give you a little bit of a background, I founded this company about my own company seven years ago with the idea when Dread Plus was sort of like a the hype of Bali Cobb then. I actually came back from New York and I worked for JPMorgan. So I'm a banker in my previous practice and I came back and I realized there is, there should be a value for us to invest in conservation and restoration. So we're sort of ahead in our time seven years ago. But I think the lesson learned over that seven years of time are probably the most valuable time in terms of my experience as an entrepreneur in this space for a few reasons. I think the first one is to start saying that there has to, there's probably a new business model that has to be implemented by, you know, by the world nowadays. And I think there should be a way we can do this sustainably while, you know, we are preaching for protecting the forest and conserving the forest seven years ago. At that time Wilma was still sort of like in the production side. And now we actually converge where, you know, you have agriculture company, pop and paper company start talking about protection where I start talking about protection seven years ago. Now, you know, they used to do production now talk about protection. Now actually we are doing protection and we're actually going to production. But I think to answer your question Martin in terms of the financial, any project developer like us in Indonesia because there is no sign of financial incentive. I have been doing this for seven years and our company have not received any revenue. So that's a challenge itself. I mean somebody, my colleague from JP Morgan in New York asked me, Darsono, why do you even do this? You know, you underwrite risk all the time. You know how we think. We keep on telling people that we think long term but it's always about short term benefit that you can get yourself. You know, that's a, for me it's about doing something right. It's about, at least there's an idealism and dream part of it but I think what make me more in, you know, open my eyes is actually the way we do things. Because when we started seven years ago we started seeing the benefit of this from a climate perspective getting the carbon revenue. But I think we also realized that it's actually good for the communities. You know, that's how we've been working very hard in terms of getting you know, all these activities before we get our license, like we're getting the participation map exercise for 10-year-old rights. I personally go to the village myself to talk to the people but in the end, the finance, you know, my company have been putting a lot of money out. There's a lot of outlay money has been putting out and we're still hoping for the market to come. And I really think that there has to be a way to get this the fact to get this thing solved in a way. Otherwise we've been talking again, you know, the last 10 years we've been talking about this carbon credit, the RED Plus and it never materialized. So this is something that I think we have to look into in terms of how we private sectors, private sectors think differently to get the financing because there's a lot of initiative, like the Norway initiative with 1 billion dollars. But I think, you know, the fact is there's a you have to be more practical because we as a project developer have been talking to you what we have been doing for the past 7 years how it's that give benefit to the communities it's good for the climate and there has to be somehow compensation being given to, you know, people, the private sector who wants to engage then you can actually scale up because everybody's looking at D'Arsono and say, hey, we're just waiting for you to come and if you start making money we'll jump into it but again, there's a lack. I mean, the lesson learned from this experience of 7 years is it's really take a long time to get the funding from some communities. So to actually start a red plus project takes some time too. So can you just describe to the audience your actual project? Can you just actually explain what it is? So basically, the company that I formed, we actually protect and restore about 150,000 hectares of peatland in Santa Calimantan. So this is quite intact, 90% intact, 10% need to do some kind of restoration but I think our business model is not just about restoring per se the environment. I think it's about looking at the communities surrounding that area. How can we actually engage communities because we know that the cost of deforestation or illegal logging all these fires are actually based on communities. Then how we can actually enhance their livelihood, make them sustainable to look into that on a very long-term basis. So my company has been engaging community from day one. We worked with 34 villages. We have all these activities that we have and I think our company has even signed MOE with all these villages. But I can tell you, it takes some time to start this process. You really need two to three years. You really have to really go to the field. And the reality is you can actually it's not good for business. It's our business because for a project like us to be verified you need all of that ingredient to make that happen. So not only that, it's an open book. So it's a very transparent process. I think that's something that we can learn over time because people are always questioning whether Red Pass Project works. But there's a mechanism that you actually can look into it and be transparently and say that yes, the project that Arizona working on in Santa Calimantan is benefitting the communities, also benefiting from the climate because the fact is even last year when during the COVID-19 pandemic, we had a lot of challenges. We had a lot of challenges and we had minimal hotspot and fire. So those are the things that we nowadays we can prove to the world there's a project, existing project that can have that kind of achievement. So I hope that this also opened a lot of eyes for people in terms of getting where the market is because I know for sure my project will survive. But in order for us to scale up and the outcomes it is producing. So now I'd like to ask all the other three panellists, would any of you invest in or buy from Desano's project? Now, Mary Kate, you're representing institutional investors. Can you convince your institutional investors to put $10 million into his project and buy his carbon and his biodiversity benefits? That's a good question. Probably when D'Arsono was starting his project we also started looking at Red Projects in Indonesia and we don't have them today. So on behalf of dedicated institutional clients and when the regulatory framework wasn't there the clear market signal wasn't there they decided not to proceed. And so we have to honour that and from an investment perspective we weren't able to continue. Fortunately it's been a long eight years for some people and I think things are getting to the point where we could start to look at them again. We managed the Tropical Asia Forest Fund which is $170 million fund sustainable forestry in Asia and within that we are able to do Red Projects alongside other investments so a bit of the protection production sort of combination that D'Arsono's mentioned is becoming increasingly looked at. We haven't been looking at standalone Red Projects for quite some time but if there were the right signals we absolutely would in response to California creating a cap and trade system that includes forest carbon as offsets. We've now got a dozen projects that interact with landowners including four Native American tribes across the country and more than 100,000 hectares lined up in those projects and that's what happens when there's effective regulation that provides a clear incentive to groups like ours we can take that to landowners we can explain it even within a Native American tribal situation how this works, what the benefits are and that we can put the dollars to work and investors like that we've got a very happy client in that project so on that point I'd like to ask you what do you think then to move money into that space is required in order to make that happen and do you think the current approaches are working? I don't want to say too much about Red Plus but I just get it, I need to get it off my chest. We all know the actual number of deliver payment is just a fraction of many of us already hope. Hundreds of Red Plus pilot projects in 2007 and according to the report analysis I received it's only about four had sold carbon credits this leaves the large majority of Red Plus project hanging in balance with no predictability or stability on how that might change in years to come. This is not a combination which market for us more available standing in fact it creates an environment where Red Plus style investment are seen as increasingly and many players have back away from the market. If the goal of Red Plus is truly to keep the forest standing we do need to make some changes. The issue of timing is critical if Red Plus and other donor funded schemes must stick to the payment bear result mechanism then more needs to be done to channel funding towards supporting communities involved in Red Plus project to meet their short term needs while they wait for the forest to grow. We are working with very similar programs in our supply chain with our agro forestry program as part of which we are supporting small holders to build capacity for developing alternative livelihood and intercropping to provide them with short term sources of cash flow and food while also keeping existing forests intact. It will stop them for further encroachment or destroying the forest. So a better framework would establish the level of payment up front if certain parameters were included with indicators for short term performance on carbon and non-carbon benefits. I have a direct example working with some organization working with the community for this agro forestry program. Communities simply will not have anything based on promises. They do need to see, they need to believe in, they need evidence, they need to be shown that this new system works. They need to see evidence that this new system actually give them crops or food and then they will commit to that. So we need to invest up front first and then yes we do have to have a clear indicators and care MRV system and everything else but we do need to invest in the agro forestry program that we are trying to do here with every members on this panel and we need to come up with a better finance mechanism to upscale these efforts. I think from the palm sector we would echo that. I think the complication again is if you look at the agro business sector it's not really set up for red plus. Simply because look we are not in the forest business, we are required to look at quite complicated structures of projects. I think it's beyond the capability of a lot of planting organizations or planting companies. Willmar being one of them. We have a very good conservation, a forest conservation team but again they are quite limited in terms of trying to put together very complicated CDM projects and so the rhetoric from the palm companies will basically be well if the big boys are growing guys. So the complication is a major factor and I think in the fact that essentially we are not seeing the money. The money is not coming down to the ground and I think that's a reality. And again the community is it's almost like playing a rerun of the Wendy's commercial where's the beef but where's the money. You can't get them on board. There is a certain limit to what you can say oh there is a limit. So it's an important point and particularly I think in Indonesia the discussion has to a certain degree I think excluded forests that occur on lands that are not gazetted forests that are not a permanent forest state. And I think there needs to be some recognition from not just Indonesian government but essentially the Southeast Asian governments in general around forest that are under pressure that are not gazetted as forest state. And I think a lot of governments including my home state of Sabah in Malaysia are only just getting on board with the fact that look okay we have to deal with forests and emissions from those outside of the permanent forest state. So these are I think a lot of the major issues in particular affecting the palm sector guys or the other countries which do need to be addressed at a very top level in these countries. But you know essentially the reality on the ground is there is no money. Maybe. I think I want to basically share the experience. This is exactly the point of our company you know we're willing to take the risk to put the money up front. That's what we do. For example to see real example you know after we basically we have been working very hard with the community in terms of identifying what the livelihood program that they have. So our company through a process of very bottoms up village planning process you know to actually start identifying what are the alternative livelihood and we have a program that we have. So we not only that we create a program we also help them working with the local NGO to identify what are the alternatives and then basically channeling the money. So in this case where we do we the company our company actually give them a grant. We give a grant to all the certain villages and then those money are being given to a microfinance to certain group and the good thing is you know we've been finding about I think the reality on the ground is you have to also look at the capacity. If you start throwing the money and the good news is we started this last year in May we signed an MOU with 13 villages. We're finding on average about $10,000 per villages for all this alternative livelihood. So we are doing a lot of microfinancing involving up to a thousand people and then you know all of basically about $120,000 that we spent for this and we you know for fishery program, for cow breeding, for this party all this agroforestry all the activities that we have and the good news is I just got a report few weeks ago that $120,000 that we invest actually now it's worth $150,000. So there is really a value if you invest in communities they are willing to work hard for it and then they are being part of this. So it is proven that we you know we take risks but the risk that we're taking is actually benefit to the market. If there is no if my project in the next two years we are not going to find buyers it's very hard for us to be sustainable because we are in the business. We already invested north of $5 million in this project if we have to continue to fund all these activities we have a staff, well before we get our license I'm the only employees of RMU but once we get a license we have for example during the high level we have to take the employees because we do all this prevention program all this kind of things but this needs this operating cost that has to be covered by the revenue. But I cannot give excuses that the fact is our project just recently got validated in the VCS. We should be proud because it's the biggest RAT Plus project registered in the world in terms of number emission reduction but hopefully by the end of this year we're going to have our credit verified so then we have our credit to be sold because right now I cannot complain because I have no product to be sold yet but let's see by next year maybe in the next 12 to 24 months we'll see how this market react to the project that we have on the pipeline. So we heard in the previous session about how Norway in working with Indonesia has a very high level government to government approach which is a young conservation approach which you as a company are committed to. The rest of you also have organisations that are very engaged in sustainability because it's good for business. Whose responsibility is it to conserve forests? Is it a government responsibility? Is it your responsibility as a private sector? Who do you think should really take the lead on this or how do you think people should work together on this? I guess from the palm sector very quickly I think for us it's it's not as clear because we don't, we theoretically especially if we're in Indonesia we're not technically allowed to keep forest in areas that are set aside for agriculture so for us it's slightly more complicated I'll give you an example of work that we're currently doing in South Sumatra in South Sumatra Wilmar has assisted with this group of independent small holders so this covers around 6,000 hectares and 3,000 small holders. Now part of that project is to go ahead with replanting and essentially the idea is we're going to work with financial institutions, pull up the downstream partners up front to share the risk of that and essentially go through the process of financing that replanting process to ensure that the replanting is done reasonably. Now the question mark then becomes how much forest can you claim that you've saved with the replanting of very good seedling material so for example if you're continuing to plant high performing or high yielding materials how much can you prove the additionality of what you've saved, the indirect part and I think for the palm sector where we have zero control because essentially what it is is the farmer from buying say another 10 hectares to plant but you can't prove that because it hasn't happened yet, he doesn't own that 10 hectares so the way we see it is the only way to make it work is essentially it's going to be a mix of governmental and private and that is essentially the jurisdictional approach so in this particular case what we would hope to see is once we've gone through with the replanting then that area saved if that's a region of South Sumatra then that could provide an impetus to say well okay we've saved this much and how much are we going to get in terms of red financing but without that that link to the government it's very difficult from the agriculture side to even begin to say whose responsibility is it because if we don't plant it and Wilmar has had a very bad experience of this in 2010 we set aside about 300 hectares of high conservation in the forest in at the time an area in Central Kalimantan where we had an initial license of permit that area was taken away from us and the permit was redone because we had essentially not met what the government had asked us to do and that 300 hectares essentially has then been cleared by a small company so again was that the fault of Wilmar I don't think it was to the RSPO but again it's not our responsibility because we are agriculture it has to come back at the end of the day to the government in this scenario well that raises I just want to go to one question with you that raises a question about leakage so one of the arguments against the sort of projects that Desano is doing is that if you do a project there forest just gets chopped down somewhere else so I might just ask you if you've got any thoughts about that based on your own conservation efforts your previous question was a little bit strange whose responsibility to protect forest whose responsibility is it to protect the planet is everybody's responsibility is not just responsibility of the government or private sector or NGOs or scientists everybody's responsible to protect the forest and the planet go back to leakage I think right now a lot of people think too much about leakage think too much about potential instead of focusing in helping or supporting actors doesn't really matter who they are to actually do the real action now on the ground and protect forest I just want to use one example about the jurisdictional approach work that we have been doing with the South Sumatana governor and also recently with the West Kalimantan governor where the jurisdictional approach is really good it brings in a range of actors it brings together a lot of actors to work collaboratively on land use planning toward a very similar goal or common goals in South Sumatana for example and also West Kalimantan is to support green growth so growth without destroying the environment and APPs probably to be part of that movement together with other actors and this is one way to address leakage at jurisdictional level we cannot address leakage anywhere I would argue that it's impossible to measure much less prevent leakage beyond jurisdiction and so we need to basically work on ways to do so to work on ways on how to avoid leakage with the boundary that we can do for example with APP we try to use the jurisdictional approach to prevent leakage let me add in terms of leakage I think for us the fact is as a project developers we have to basically have a verification every year when all the credits is being issued but I think from a project perspective you can actually look into this as a look at the demographics you look at the communities we do well, we get a lot of benefit and you have more and more people going in so the argument of leakage is less because technically these are the people that might be deforesting somewhere now they come in so I think that's from a project perspective but I agree with you the fact is it's better to do jurisdictional but the reality is in the jurisdictional then you get into the bureaucracy again it's like we should be thinking more creative there has to be a stream where we can do it on a jurisdiction level on a project level working with donors so it's all everybody's responsibility whether it's government, private sector, NGO because we are fighting with time the fact is if we make it more and more like somebody mentioned it's just getting more and more complicated it's always harder because down the road 5, 10 years from now there will not be any deforestation issue anymore because there's no forest left to be deforested and in the last 8 years of this when we start learning about red plus we become more we become smarter in terms of how we do things we look at it and then I think you also have to look at in terms of the donors maybe they have to take risks I think just like Mary said it's about signal if there's a market signal private sector will come in just like her, she has a fiduciary responsibility if there's no signal for example mortgages, underwriting, selling buildings that's what we do and I think my boss always say do you want to lend $50 million to this company do you have a comparables what are the rent the reality is in our space there's no comparables so no banking, no financial we're there to make a risk to take that kind of risk because they can just say let's see if I go to the bank and ask them $50 million and they'll come to me and say this is great I love this asset is there any historical sales in this no is there any comparables anywhere else something like this ever been sold no so what are you selling me I don't understand this so they don't find it because of that reason I'll just add a little bit to this although enough has been said about leakage it's a frankly boring topic and I think that's definitely through the UNFCCC through VSBCS and so many other groups we have methodologies we can trust and that are going to account for this in a way that the rest of us can just kind of move on with getting the job done on the ground and I think that's the benefit of the private sector is we can act where we have responsibility and you ask question ago Martin who has the responsibility everybody's got responsibility it's definitely shared responsibility but we have different opportunities to act and that's what's important I think one thing that unites probably all four of us in the types of work we do is that we're all facing a mix of land use we're all facing a mix of actions we can do to use that land to restore it to conserve it to enhance productivity to intensify production in the right places and that's what we need to be focusing on we need to be taking this integrated approach that was discussed this morning looking at land use planning saying what is the best use for this area how do I plan for the needs of this landscape the functions of this landscape and that's not business as usual it is a change for all of us it's something that we're all moving forward with just to give an example I was out at our investment in West Culley, Montana last week which is a rubber plantation project 100,000 hectare concession around a quarter of that is high conservation value or remaining forest that will be conserved through the project with a great deal of that that's 25% HCBA I should say and another 20 to 25% which won't be used for production based on the way to maintain and recover forest across that landscape now out in the field looking at potential rehabilitation sites with the local team they've got a great environment manager a great social manager GIS plannings are the high level managers who are showing us around for three days you get out in the field with the division manager who is responsible for that block of land and he said through translation to me you know what do you think about this land what do you want to do and we talked about the fact that it was wetland which had been impacted there was not proper drains but some drying drains put in there's roads through the middle of the wetland these roads are going nowhere because this land is not going to be planted because it can't sustain rubber it's far too wet it's a silly road in the first place so we talk about maybe you can decommission this road how to restore water flows going through and what's it going to take to replant and he said this is really interesting to me because in all my old jobs my job would be to get this land as dry as possible as fast as possible so that it can maybe get a tree to stay alive on it so this isn't just about change at the top or convincing the companies and you know all of us sitting here what we need to do that has to filter down through layers and layers and layers of management there's 36,000 workers at that plantation right now so our challenge is how do we get them to understand the difference we're trying to make the different model we're trying to aim for and that we're not about eking every hectare into plantation cover that we can but we're about using that land wisely and redirecting it to the best use and that takes a lot of effort it takes a lot of science it takes a lot of engagement and it's the challenge I think we have in all of our businesses right now So there is an interesting common denominator here which you have touched on the jurisdiction approach each one of your companies does projects you basically do large scale investments either in conservation or agriculture you manage them as a business you run them and you do that at an infrastructure level so how how do you see if it requires a very sophisticated approach of a company or a conservation company to actually run a large scale activity how do you see a government what role do you see of the government playing such as in these larger national jurisdiction type approaches how do the two work together effectively to deliver conservation it's got to be led by the government there's no other way around it's got to be led by the government for jurisdictional for example jurisdictional approach for example the leader has to be the governor so the governor have to have a good team technical team funding team and also implementation partners and a group of stakeholders in that particular jurisdiction and give them a clear roles and responsibility to be the government and when you say lead what do you actually mean by lead because they're not going to be developing the project they'll be providing some of the governance frameworks but that could take 5-10 years so you at the moment as a company are leading the conservation efforts through the foundation of the things so when you talk about leadership what do you actually mean by that involving the input from the stakeholders underneath I'm just using the South Sumatra jurisdictional approach as an example because it's been there for a year so when the governor is designing the land use plan for the term they use the eco region so they want to develop the whole province to be in an eco region so everything they do the development they do is minimize the environmental impacts as much as possible so when they do that for example if they want to develop land in one particular district in South Sumatra then they will consult with the partners in that South Sumatra district what is the input from them and then incorporate all the input and then implement it in sort of just one way directive instruction so that's what the structure is looking right now so right now what APB is doing in that particular area is focusing a lot more on forest restoration and conservation and protection a lot of works on the peat land as well so that is reported to the district level to the provincial level we reported and embed our system into their system but so then when the governor is designing the whole province they will look at the progress made by the stakeholders in particular districts so involvement of stakeholders incorporating their input and transparency embedding the system into the government system those are our four keys and why jurisdictional approach need to be done and just to add to that I think the for us and again using the just to be a little bit different not I mean South Sumatra is great but we also have a good example of Malaysia with Sabah and I think for the Sabah jurisdictional approach it's not just planning but it's also about the land authority so it's an opportunity to really look at landscape approach to land use so essentially for example the government is the only one at the end of the day that can say okay so if we've got small holders that have been for 20 years planting in this national park or planting in this forest zone or forest estate let's dig into the conservation area so it's all about making that work at sort of a wide level and that I think essentially at least for the Sabah view that's really where the government is coming in I mean we're quite lucky in Sabah that we have total commitment from the Chief Minister through the Sabah Forest Department and so it's a combined I guess target of achieving full FSC certification for all the forests by 2017 forestry certification for all palm production in the state by 2025 so it's a combination of both the forestry and the palm and also looking at how you fix some of the fundamental problems with the small holders at one go but essentially as Aida says it's all about regulating certain components so if you've deforested there is going to have to be a requirement to provide compensation for that and then that's sort of that and also projects such as that Darsono is doing so that I think is where the beauty of the jurisdictional approach really takes into consideration I think the question is who should lead this I personally think that there should not be a leader I personally think it's a collaboration of everybody it's very hard when you say a leader then you have I think one thing that I would like to see is to have a collaboration basically collaboration between not only typically in Indonesia it's between private sectors and government because they are the given the license giver and license taker but I think you also have to start involving the people I think in order to get this work all this conservation effort and restoration effort is first you have to make sure there's a benefit to the communities if it's a financial benefit all environmental benefit but I think you also have to start teaching the community's accountability you cannot just say that that's why we work on the ground we really teach them, we socialize all this effort in terms of teaching them this is good for your health but also benefit we try to find all options in terms of finding an alternative livelihood that is more sustainable than they have so I think every time I go to the village that money is not money from heaven that can be taken just like that there is accountability we are private sector, we work hard for it it's a community, we also have to earn this this is something then we can start changing behavior because if the community start feeling this is just money from heaven we don't have to do this there's no accountability then they always feel it's their right to do for us again I think that's something very important that we have to work between public which is government private sector is a company and people to have that change basically change of the way we do business is something that we have to move forward I'll just touch on one example that we've got from Saba as well we're in a joint venture partnership with Sifoda the Saba Forestry Development Authority and one of the great things about having a government partner is that they become a true stakeholder in the business and what you're trying to achieve so they're not only aligned from the larger Saba Forestry objectives that they have but they also want to see the business succeed so that creates a really interesting opportunity for us to work through some of the challenges we have in that particular region one of them is there's 64 communities in a 25,000 hectare gazetted area it's quite packed there's a lot of people and increasingly there's people coming from the outside there's a village okay great we've got about 10 minutes left so I'm just going to open it up to questions from the floor so is there someone who would like to kind of microphone and ask a question I'm sure somebody has a question we've solved everything here we go hey my name is Sam and I'm an intern at the Centre for Advanced Research in the local university here we heard a lot from big scale like large companies such as all of yours as you have mentioned earlier but what about smaller and medium enterprises such as like which are very essential to smaller economies such as Brunei's economy or Malaysian economy what role do you think they could play in the preservation of rainforest as well thank you I can speak to one side of scale but I suspect my agribusiness partners will have more to say for us you know we're looking to encourage more small and medium enterprises within the areas in which we operate one of the best things we can do is to look at those alternative livelihoods which Darsona mentioned to see what it means to perhaps develop your own contracting business to get the community involved in that way in planting and harvesting in restoration projects and also to look at true partnership so in Indonesia working in an HTI concession at Hatei we have a requirement for Tanaman Kohidupen which is livelihood plantings that's a great opportunity for new development of cooperatives at the village level where you can engage with those communities ask them what their interests are let them go away take the time to develop their own objectives and then see how the company can support them maybe it's a profit share maybe it's a provision of a concessionary loan which I'm not a huge fan of to plant something in the first place there's all sorts of models that we can look at and when you're talking at a certain scale within some of these larger operations if we have 100,000 hectare project if it's going to plant 30,000 hectares of rubber that means we've got an obligation for 6,000 hectares of livelihood plantings that's several good small and medium enterprises that can be developed within it so that's where we can play a part but otherwise there's a great role for NGOs and civil sector to really support those types of enterprises in developing I do have an input and it's very clear and I think I stated earlier there's a problem with trying to get medium and smaller guys on board because if you look at comparative value so let's say you've got two hectares of I don't know, native title example because my family has some native title with a little bit of rubber doesn't make a lot of money but every time I broach the topic of something like this to my dad, my dad says well how much are you going to get a bit per hectare and I basically say well maybe $1,000 and that's really not enough if you're telling a small company that essentially they're going to have to think about the difference between the average value versus potentially oh I don't know you go through a lot of hoops do a lot of documentation stuff and maybe you'll get $1,000 I think it's a really hard decision but the challenge here is really to get the government and again sorry governments but you know it is part of your role to be looking at well why don't you look at subsidizing very much in the way that agriculture is subsidized if countries are serious about it let's look at subsidizing conservation but there's no quick and easy answer to that I mean small and medium companies I think are very much outside the discussion because they're not really plugged into the whole red plus sort of discussion and it's very complicated for them I guess I always consider myself to be small company because I guess three four years ago I was an employee of my company so I am a small company so I think the fact is of course we're not even close to APP and Wilmar the reason why we manage such a big land is because of the the landscape itself so what I'm trying to say is even somebody like me seven years ago can actually starting to do it if we have become successful there will be a lot of entrepreneur small and medium companies if they see they want to do the right thing I mean there's a lot of newer generation in Indonesia right now in the 40s and 30s and 40s and they see this as an opportunity and they're willing to take the risk as an entrepreneur unfortunately there's no signal to follow me I'm still a lone ranger out there it's like Darosono is still there but I know for sure if you become successful in terms of implementing this and start making money this is a totally new business for a lot of people I will not call it Wild Wild West but I think it's a new territory for a lot of people to be in because it's a sexy thing to be involved now you're talking about giving prosperity to the people to the company and to the planet so everybody, all this younger generation wants to be part of this but we just need to have a market signal that we can do it let's just try to sum up we've just got a couple of minutes to go is that right Howard? so I think it's been a very useful discussion today I think one of the points that Osano made was while for three of our panellists conservation is good for business he made the point that conservation is his business I think a lot of business now have hit that point and investors understand that conservation is critical for business and what we're trying to move is to also get support from the finance sector and the capital markets for conservation as a business and that's critically important to do this we've heard that the governments play a very important role in land use planning and there's a lot more focus now on how do you plan large landscapes that they're both productive as well as conserved and also this concept of collaboration between governments and private sectors is very important ultimately the private sector will deliver government support to do that and I think the final point among this is also that the timing is key we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good and if we design a lot of schemes for a long period of time the forest will just continue to disappear so having some of that investment in the important initiatives that the APP's foundation is doing and the others on the panel are doing is critical and in that regard the papers and the projects that have been produced as part of the Asia Pacific rainforest partnership which again there are copies of this publication floating around run you through some of the thinking that the organisations are doing and some of the policy papers about what's required so I encourage you to get a hard copy of that today or alternatively go online and get a copy of it but a lot of effort went into that under Ida's leadership and thank her very much for doing that and I'd encourage you to read through the issues that have been raised today so in concluding I'd ask you to thank our panellists and we'll have a small break before the next session. Thank you.


Good morning to the world out there. This is the House Human Services Committee on Wednesday, May 5th. And this morning, we're joined by Patricia Johnson, a nurse from Bennington. And we are taking up JRH 6, a joint resolution relating to racism as a public health emergency. And Patricia, welcome to our committee. I think this is your first time at our committee. And we'd love to welcome you. And I'm just going to call on people so they can introduce themselves quickly around. So you know who's at the table since we all know who you are from Bennington and why you're here. So Topper, could you go first and represent McFawn? Yes, I'm representative Francis McFawn. I represent Ferry Town. I represent Rosenquist. Thank you. Carl Rosenquist, I represent the town of Georgia. I represent Bromstead. Jessica Bromstead, and I represent Shelburne and St. George. Welcome. I represent Noyes. Good morning, Dan Noyes. I represent Wilkette Hyde Park, Johnson and Belvedere. I represent Whitman. Dan Whitman of Bennington. Good to see you, Patricia. Welcome. I represent Small. I'm representing Patricia Taylor Small, representing Winiski. And represent Payala. Good morning, Kelly Payala, representing London Dairy, Weston, Stratton, Jamaica and Winhall. And I'm Teresa Wood. I'm the vice chair of the committee and I represent Waterbury, Bolton, Beale, Score and Huntington. And our committee chair is slightly delayed this morning. And we have a couple of other committee members that will be joining us during your testimony. So my apologies for that. But hopefully in Zoom, it's a little less confusing because people can kind of pop on in the committee room. It's like people opening the doors and shutting the doors. And so welcome, Patricia. We are happy to have you here this morning. And I'm going to assume that you've you've read the joint resolution and are here to offer some testimony with regard to that resolution. And the floor is all yours. First of all, I wanted to say that it's a complete honor to be chosen to testify today on behalf of Vermoners and those people of color nationwide. It's no surprise to anyone. But we have had racism has been around since day one. And unfortunately, racism in the health world has been magnified by COVID. So what that means to me is that there have been a lot of health inequities. And we've been kind of slowly trying to chop away them. But COVID has magnified that and has shown how disproportionate health equity and the care that we provide is really a systemic issue here. And it's a serious public health threat. And it directly affects thousands of Vermoners here. Racism is not just discrimination against one group of person because of color, but it creates structural barriers and impacts the way that people make decisions. And we all know that you can only make informed decisions and knowledgeable decisions about your health if you're educated about your comorbidity or what could potentially happen if you continue to smoke cigarettes or have substance misuse issues. Social determinants have lifelong effects and can often be generational. And I think we're seeing a lot of that as you look at the physical and mental health of individuals. Generational, meaning mom is struggling, children begin to struggle, and then so on and so on. And the programming that we have is great, but we can do better. We need to meet people where they're at. I do not like ending a sentence in the preposition at, but it's very important that we start knocking on doors again, directly talking to people, not people with white coats and stethoscopes around their necks. I mean, that's great, but we need people to walk the beat, people to go into homes, people to make themselves available to have face times or to be available over the phone or have little groups where they're giving out little bits and pieces of education but making it fun and making and tailoring it to the person's gender, identity, racial, or cultural choosing. And that's where you're going to capture people. They're going to listen to their elders and they're going to listen to what the church says. They're going to follow the guidelines of a person of color who is educated and working in the system. It's not uncommon for people to say to me when they see me as a nurse, you live here? And I'm like, yes, I've lived here my whole entire life in Vermont.  And then that breaks down barriers. They feel a little bit more comfortable getting information directly from me if they're a person of color, especially seeing when we publicize me getting the vaccine, that it was OK, that health-wise I was OK. We were able to then create BIPOC clinics that were specific to the needs of people of color. And that was only able to happen because it was driven by people of color. Everybody wants to be cared for by someone who looks like and thinks like them. And unfortunately, there's not a reflection in the state of Vermont of people who look like and who look like me.  There's data that shows that ethnic groups and minorities in the United States are experiencing higher rates of illness and death. Examples are heart conditions, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, asthma, and even the life expectancy is four years lower than the average white American. Four years. That's our own government statistics. So the data is there. We need to make a commitment to start evaluating policy in our system to make sure that we're using a health equitable lens. Make sure that we're using a diverse lens. And like I said, the pandemic just magnified the disproportion and the impact. We have had these things happening for many years prior. So it's very important that we confront the system, confront the policies, stop being a yes man or yes ma'am, and demand that things change. And I would like to have funds not trickle down through other governmental agencies. I would love to have funds come directly to me or directly to my counterparts that I'm working with or the agencies that I'm working with so that I can use the money for what I feel fit for my agency. We lose time and energy writing all these grants and explaining and scoring. And I know that's important, but we have a faster way of doing that now. Let's just make check marks. $5,000 is given to launch a healthy walking program. OK, great. Take a few pictures and get some testimony from a few people that are in the group and send it back to the government and say, this is what we're doing. This is how it works. Let's move on. We are being indicted by paperwork and that cuts down on the hands on work that we're able to do as nurses. And as nurses, we are the eyes and the ears of our patients. We're in the trenches working with people on a daily basis. We know what we need. We know what we want. We just need it now and we need it fast. Patricia, thank you. I should have perhaps asked this at the beginning because I don't know this personally and that means that probably other people do not know it either, but I know that you're a nurse, but are you a nurse at the hospital in Bennington? Do you work for Home Health? Or could you maybe describe a little bit about what your experience is? And that helps us give context to some of the comments that you just made.  I am a registered nurse in the emergency department Southwest Medical Center Dartmouth-Hitchcock. Excuse me. I am also the nurse manager at Recovery House, which is a substance misuse treatment facility. So I'm doing emergency medicine and addiction and they both go hand in hand and they both have spiked immensely during this pandemic. So I'm able to see multiple ways that funding in a more streamlined way directly to us would have a great benefit for both of these programs, whether it be the emergency room and crisis care with kiddos getting placed or food and housing resources. It's also hard for people, we're expecting people to do all these things, but when you are worrying about where you're gonna get your next meal from or when you don't understand the medications that and why they're so important for you to take on a daily basis and that they'll save your life and help you to live longer, it's difficult for you to focus on obtaining a job and making your preventative healthcare visits and being conscious of your blood pressure, et cetera. And having healthy coping skills during the pandemic has been really important to prevent relapse and there are a lot of people of color who do not engage in substance misuse treatment because of the stigma here in Vermont. That's very helpful to understand and as we all do, we all bring personal experiences to this and I just have to say that my dad received excellent care in the emergency room at your hospital and who knows, you may have even helped take care of him, I don't know, but and I know that the nurses there at your hospital have been recognized several times for the excellent quality of care that you have provided and have received national recognition and in terms of awards. So thank you, thank you for being here and I see we have a question from Representative Small and then Representative Rosenquist. Thank you, Madam Vice Chair and Patricia, thank you again for joining us this morning. Speaking of accolades, Representative Wood, I also believe that Patricia recently received an accolade in her own department for the work that she's doing at Southwestern Medical Center. And so once again, just recognizing the expertise and work that you are doing in the state and really appreciate that. I'd love to dig into, as you were talking about COVID in the way that it's illuminated a lot of these inequities when we're talking about health and specifically when we're talking about people of color. And wondering if you could talk more about that impact of having folks in communities see you take the vaccine and why that was so important for folks in your community. Sure, so thank you for the question Representative Small. So people of color and minorities were and still are considered to be essential workers. There were essential workers though that were not necessarily able to be frontline workers first in line to get the vaccination. So we had people of color who were working jobs that put them at risk for getting COVID-19 but were not vaccinated. And that's a health disparity. That's just disproportionate health access. That's a barrier. So me being able to say that the vaccine was created by people of color. The trial had people of color who voluntarily wanted to be a part of this. It helped to calm people's fears, ease their anxiety that we would be guinea pigs, that we were not receiving the full strength or the full dose and that we would in fact be getting the same vaccine that other people were getting. So by educating myself and educating others on the importance of vaccination, the makeup of the vaccination, letting people see that the people that helped created this vaccine and it wasn't just created overnight or during the pandemic, it's been years that they've been working on this helped to reassure people. And that sometimes you have to give a little bit of more information to people in small doses that they can understand and doses that are tailored specifically to them. So the message is that vaccination is gonna help get life back to the way it used to be. And then that message is gonna look different for everybody. You can't put everybody in a square peg. We might have some triangles, some circles, some octagons, some rhombuses.  These are all things that I did not consider when the vaccine was coming out. I assumed that I would be getting the full strength. I assumed that it would be to benefit my health. And so why does that exist within black communities or within people of color communities around this version two vaccines or a thought that they might not be getting the full strength? So it's no secret. People of color have been marginalized, abused, and used without consent in many, many medical experiments, trials. It's more than just the Tuskegee syphilis trial. It's the procedure of the C-section was done on African-American slave women, perfected, so to speak, on African-American slave women. You know, people have Henrietta Lacks, her heel cells are still growing to this day. We're taken without her consent. And these are things that aren't that long ago. These are things that are within our generation. These are things that are within our parents' generation. And when you see these happening, you need to pause and discuss how does this make you feel? And why do you feel this way? And then educate, educate, educate, that we have things in place, checks and balances that make it illegal for people to do these things anymore. And so the health benefit of you getting the vaccine and really talking about the benefits of it. You know, I even showed a group, LL Cool J, on Cirrus XM Radio, did a show on why it was so important to get the vaccine. I was able to capture the attention of some people of color just by promoting that video, because why? It was a person of color, and it was also a person who they had a lot of respect for and he's a musical icon. So we have to change the tune, we have to change our language. And I was afraid that maybe something might happen to me, but I also knew that in order to protect my parents and to try to help with the herd immunity, that it was my part as a healthcare worker to get the vaccine and then use my experience to help educate others who had vaccine hesitancy. Thank you so much. Thank you, Representative Small. Representative Rosenquist and then Representative Whitman. And I just want to point out that we're closing in on 9.30, I want to allow plenty of time and allow Patricia to have a little bit of a break between now and when she has to, go on to her next obligation at 10. So Representative Rosenquist. Thank you, Madam Vice Chair. Excuse me, and good morning, Patricia, and thank you for coming. My concern with this resolution is the term racism as the central focus on this.  And I believe that is what we're concentrating on and then we need to address. And so by saying racism, it seems that one, we're using a term that has a lot of extra baggage and gets people more separated than it does bringing them together. And I was just wondering, you used many of the terms I used there in your introductory comments and I was just, would appreciate your reaction to that. In other words, I would change racism to racial, cultural, ethnic, and situational disparities must be addressed as a priority in our state. That's what I would suggest we do with this resolution. Thank you. So Representative Rosenquist, I apologize. I didn't hear part of your question, but are you asking for my feedback on the word racism in? Yeah, I mean, pretty much overall. I'm sorry, hold on one. I'm sorry. It looks like Patricia is trying to do this at work. So I'm so sorry. Yeah, go ahead. Yep. So Patricia, so I mean, basically what I was asking is, to me it's a broader issue in one way than racism. There are cultural issues. There are ethnic issues and I call it situational issues like people coming to this country that are trying to survive as they come to this country having nothing to do with race, but the fact that they are non-citizens possibly or whatever. So I just think it's a broader issue and should racism for one thing, as I say, it divides us more than it brings us together to try to solve these disparities and the disparities are alarming. There's no two ways about it. And as you said in this COVID pandemic days, it brought more of these to light than I think some of us realize, but thank you. So I guess I was just asking for your reaction to changing the word racism to something that's more inclusive. So racism is not just discrimination. It's structural barriers that have been placed up by society to prevent people from getting access to the healthcare that they're entitled to or the housing that they're entitled to or the food that they're entitled to as a human being. So racism is killing people. Racism creates inequities. And when we as a culture acknowledge that systemically, racism is holding us back and dividing us, then we can change the language. But right now we haven't dug deep enough into our policies and procedures to comfortably make that change because we're still pumping out policies and procedures that do not reflect health equity. People are dying. People are trying to conduct daily routine, activities and might not come home. There is a real sense of... There are some things that some cultures and families and ethnic backgrounds do not have to experience, but there are some things that I carry with me every day that others do not have to carry with them. So when I'm a nurse and I'm working with a patient, I have yet to see a patient say they don't want the white nurse, but I have as early as two weeks ago had a client spit in my face and call me a neighbor 30 times and tell me that she did not want me to be her healthcare worker. So racism is a serious public health threat. Racism, racial slurs are fighting words that invoke someone to become defensive possibly or have to defend themselves. And until we have systemic policy and procedures in place that protect people of color or help elevate them to the level of others and the healthcare that the others are receiving, then we can't change that language because we would be dismissive. It would be sweeping it under the rug. I have fears that other moms don't have necessarily because my children have black and brown skin and are driving, are they more at risk to be pulled over? Yes, what data shows us that are Vermont state data and what is that called racial profiling falls under the category of racism. But I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. No, you're fine. I do, I want representative Rosen quest one day soon we will be able to take that word out of the health threat and I look forward to that day with you. Thank you very much, Patricia. I appreciate it. I just wanted to thank you for being so clear and succinct, Patricia. It was, I've written down your words as fast as I could because I felt like they were just so on point and clearly understood. So thank you for that. I represent Whitman and then I think that we should let the witness have the final words if she has any additional final words and appreciate that. So represent Whitman. Thank you, Madam Vice Chair and thank you so much, Patricia for being here and speaking really appreciate all of the work that you're doing. So thank you. I just, you answered most of my question just now. So thank you for that. And I just wanted to go back really quick to one point and that so sometimes people talk about, you know seeking equality within our services versus you mentioned in health equity lens. So I think we're kind of dealing with this question about to what extent to acknowledge racism and the importance of racial identity. And you said that actually tailoring to racial identity would begin to help us with some of these discrepancies in health outcomes. Is that correct? It's correct. So health equity means making sure that people have what they need when they need it and giving them what they need to get there. And that might mean if I give everybody in this room an apple representative Whitman, your apple might need to be peeled because you have an allergy to the pectin in the apple skin and representative Ren quest, you Rosen quest you might need your apple to be sliced because you have peanut butter that you're gonna have with yours and that's how you're gonna best digest it. And representative Bromstead, you might just want your apple whole but need help twisting off the stem, the stem. So as you can, as you can see everybody in the room was given an apple but we all had maybe some, we needed more support in order to enjoy the apple. And if we can help each other by peeling the apple, taking the peel off, cutting it up so that he can eat it with peanut butter and then twisting the stem off we're all able to enjoy the same things and be healthy. But we've had to do a little bit more work to make some things happen but we're all ending up with the same thing in the end, the apple. Thank you so much. Is that, do you have any other questions to represent Whitman? No. I use the apple because my dad is pruning all his fruit trees now. Well, what you might not know about representative Whitman is that he also works on landscaping. Oh, nice. So Patricia, I just wanted to so sincerely thank you for what I know is taking a significant chunk, a valuable chunk out of your very, very busy work day and so appreciating the direct perspective of a healthcare professional who is a woman of color working in our state and living in our state who's a mom who you carry so many things on your shoulders. So I just so very much appreciate the time that you've taken in our committee to share your experiences and to share your wisdom with us. It's been very valuable this morning. We can't hear you, Patricia. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Thank you for being so flexible and willing to work with me. This is another example of how some people might need a little bit more support in order to make things happen in life. And I appreciate you being able to work with me and around me so that I'm able to speak with you guys today. If you need anything or would like to contact me, please feel free to reach out to me. I'm on social media. I have email and my cell phone. The texting is the best way. I'm learning how to prioritize emails and I have not successfully done well on that task yet. But feel free to call or text me. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for being here and have a great rest of your day. Thank you. Same to you. Alrighty. Bye-bye. Bye.


Hey guys, we are here for another episode of the Four Faces Journal. So we are going to do a quick review of what we've done so far in here. We did this one. All pen work. This one, all pen work, but water-soluble pen, so we added a little water. This one, which was pen over paint, basically. And then this one, which used crayons and markers and some things with some paint. So this time we're going to do something new. I'm going to put our little hard sheet in between to protect the next page and also again to give us something firm to work on and push against. I'm going to use a binder clip or one of these little, I have a lot of these around the art room, these to hold the pages open. We call it the Four Faces Journal for those who are new because it is using a journal creating faces different ways using this stencil I've created as a guide for doing just that. This stencil has four faces on it, four basic face shapes, no hair, not a lot of features, just really just the basics to give you a guide. That's all it's intended to be as a guide. It is four in one to give you more options, but also if you're working in a smaller journal, which I is my preferred way to work, this is the perfect size for that and you can leave it as is and use them on a stencil all together like this, or they've been spaced in a way that you can cut them apart, which we've done here. So we are going to do another face today and to start with we are going to put this aside and I'm going to get this piece of mail. I ordered something. What did I order? Washi tapes it says from Japan, some stationery from Japan, and it came in this envelope to my old PO box. I don't live in California anymore and I saved this because I thought it was interesting, which it is. So we're going to use part of it to create our face today. I think I'm going to use this green customs label. I think I want to go back to using the square face. I'm going to lay it on the customs label and yeah, I think I think I'm going to cut the whole label out because I think I'm going to want to use the whole label. Let's get some scissors. I'm not going to go too far with this envelope, piece of the envelope, because I think there's some other elements on here I might want to cut out. But we'll see. So we'll put that aside. Okay, now you could just trace your face guide on here and then glue it to your page or you could cut it out. I'm still debating about what I want to do. Well, let's get it traced on here regardless. Let's just center our face shape here and we're going to use a pencil. This is just... This is actually from a cruise I took. You know, it's from probably the bingo table or something. I have a few of these from Ikea. But it's just basically a basic number two pencil and I'm going to use it to trace our guide on our piece of paper. I'm going to trace all the shapes like that. Can you see that? I don't know. Can you see that on there? Oops, shaky camera. Sorry. Okay. So then the question becomes... Now that we've got that on there. Do I want to use this as a whole or don't want to cut it out? Because you totally, now that you have the basic shape on there of the face, you totally could cut or tear this out and maybe I want to tear it. You know, I'm really, I'm really tempted to just leave it whole. I think I'm going to go with my first instinct here, which wasn't what I was intending. But let's do that. We are going to get out some tacky glue and glue this to our page. I was going to go a different direction with this, but I guess I'm not going to. My muse is telling me not to. We'll try to do it on the next one. All right. So I'm going to put this down. I'm also going to give it a little wiggle and try to spread some of that glue out on the bottom. Between the two pieces of paper. And then I'm going to take an old gift card or hotel room key. Push it down. There's some corners sticking up. So I really want them stuck down well. So we're going to put some more glue up there. And we'll do the same thing to the bottom because it's sticking up a little bit down here. That'll work. Now, we need to bring out our face. Somehow, before we put anything else on here, I need, I need to make it stand out from the background of this shipping, this customs label. I'm going to use black. It's kind of been my go-to color so far. But the question becomes, do I want to use my standard black ballpoint? Do I want to use a black paint pen? Do I want to use something else? Oh, there's black. So, test paper. All right. So here is a black paint pen I have laying around. It needs mixing. It's not bad. I also have my favorite big crystal pen. It does come in a broad tip. So this is the regular big pen. That's the size of line work you get with it. This is the broad, which is darker and thicker, a darker and thicker line. We may just want to use the broad pen and then I might want to highlight with a paint pen. So let's give that a try. It's much like sewing and other creative endeavors. If you start out with less, you can always add more. With sewing, if you start off bigger, you can always make it smaller, right? But you can't really go backwards. So it's hard to make something smaller bigger. It's also hard to make something that you've already put down there in ink in a big, bold line, make it thinner. It's easier to start out a little thinner. Get my drifter. Was that confusing? Okay.  I'm lifting the pen up a bit, but not too much. I like the messy look on my faces. She didn't know that already. If you haven't been following me long or you're new to the channel, I'm not really a big fan of realism. It's not really my bag. I like messy, expressive, sort of abstracted work. That's my thing. It's my jam. And the guide is intended to help you express who you are and what you're feeling with your faces, but to do it in a way that it still looks like a face. All right. Do I want to put any marks for the hair? Because I have some other idea. Yeah, let's put a few marks, but not too many because I have some other ideas. Okay. We're going to take our black paint pen now, which is probably almost empty, and I haven't used in a while. Let's use it to just make a few darker places. I'm barely, barely, barely touching the pen to the paper. Oh, we're going to give this a dry and I'll be right back. Okay. So you have your interesting background. I ran a piece of paper and it could be a piece of newspaper. It could be like this, a piece of an envelope, a magazine page, a sheet music, anything. You've created your face on top of it in an abstract, messy, interesting way. This could be done. You could be done with it this way, do a little journaling around it or something. She's cute, but we all have stickers around in our art room. Some of us from the scrapbooking days. I also have stickers in my Etsy shop. So let's use a combination of these to add to her and add some hair to her. So I want to sort of, the idea is to do something like that. And I've got all these sort of sticker flakes. I think that's what the current term is.  Whereas these are printed on white paper, so it covers up whatever's underneath it. But at the same time, they're going to sort of highlight or accent hopefully what's already going on on the page. That's the idea anyway. Sometimes the hardest part about using these is getting the backer paper off. I like these sort of sticker flake things, but yeah, getting the paper off the back sometimes is the hardest part. Now you notice I'm using these just like it would any other collage tissue over newsprint. And I've covered up these. You can still see them through the background, but I've added this to the top of it to just give something different. That's totally intentional and on purpose.  It may not work and it may create something that you don't like, but you never know. It might create something wholly unique and different and interesting. My goal is to use all of these ones that I pulled out and then I'll show you what we're going to do next. Now I have these birds that I found and there's four birds on here all together, but I don't want to necessarily use them together, so I'm going to cut them apart.  And of course I'm doing this without my reading glasses on, so that's an extra challenge, right? Before I think I'm doing pretty good though. Well, until this one. I like these sticker flakes, but they're kind of a pain to peel. So then you'll notice that we lost a little bit of the work that we did. That's okay. We're going to bring it back a little bit. So we're going to go in here with our pen and we don't even have to put the marks where they originally were. We can just add new marks. That was the black, bold, big crystal pen. Here is the black paint pen. So you'll notice so far in this book working with the faces, I haven't added words to anything. Normally in my work, I am more of a visual storyteller and I usually incorporate words into all of my work. But in this instance, I really want it to be about experimenting, creating faces in new and different ways with the guides and playing with all of the possible opportunities we have for creativity with them. So this is our current one. I hope you like it. I hope it gives you some ideas of just simple, quick things you can do to create an interesting face you can use in your work. This is nothing that was complicated. This was super easy. If I can do it, you can do it. Give it a shot. That's it for right now. If you don't have the guides, you don't have the funds for the guides, there's lots of different things you could use in place of these. Maybe you already have a face stencil in your collection that you could use as sort of a guide, quote, unquote, to create your faces. You don't have to paint through them, although you can. You can use them like we did with a pencil. So look and see what you have in your stash. You can also probably take a magazine image and I'm showing these against white paper. You can't see that. You can also maybe take a magazine image of a face that you like and just use carbon paper to trace that onto your page too. So there's lots of different ways you can do it. If you have something new and unique and clever, a way you can do this, do share it in the comments below. If you have a way of creating faces you want me to try using the guides, leave that also in the comments below. Let's start a discussion. All of the different places you can find me on social media, Facebook art groups, places to support the free content here on YouTube by shopping in my Amazon affiliate store, in my Etsy shop and all that other stuff is in the video description. So check it out and don't forget to like, share and subscribe and above all, go out and have a great day everybody and do something nice for yourself because you deserve it. I'll see you later. Bye guys.


TLO what's poppin We are on twitch. We are not live, but you can leave a like comment subscribe turn on your post notification bells Well, let's continue to grow the family from Chicago to the UK Don't forget. We are partner with respect my blueprint. We did do the group round table over there, man. We got You know the usual suspects we just be over there talking man. It'd be a good time man Links down in the description remember all my videos are gone off this YouTube channel because of you know If you don't know there's a video on it on my page But this is where they are located if you are wondering this link is down in the description as well Let's get into this man, this is the Gravitaya Gravitas Gravitas The UK is no more a great place to live That's a bold statement, ain't it? It's my educational Tuesdays man. Gotta make this a day educational Tuesday I don't know if it's gonna be Tuesdays man because I'm going back to documentary. Was it documentary Monday? Or was it documentary? We got to do documentaries on Mondays Because I'm either picking my daughter up or I'm dropping my daughter off and I'd like so it's like I don't have her that day So we're gonna do documentary Mondays and educational Tuesdays I like how that rolls off the tongue Anyway Let's get into this man. I started the show by telling you about the crying Prince the Prince who cried wolf Time and again, we have questioned the monarchy in England and how it's fooling the British people But before I end the show tonight I have some more bad news for those living in England The UK is set to be on course to be one of the saddest places to live stay with me, and I'll tell you why But I'll have to rewind one of the saddest places to live It I don't know who is this lady like she might see is this a show in England? I mean in the UK Or she outside of the UK looking in and it wouldn't make sense that she's outside looking in She's got a bit this is a report from nearly a decade ago It describes the United Kingdom as one of the best places to live and work its quality of life education sense of community environment Healthcare services all these made it a paradise for most. I'm not saying this the organization for economic cooperation And the development or the OECD said it For years the British have been perceived as excellent in communication language at times over polite and discreet friendly clean air and water was Perceived by the world is that as well is everywhere earlier surveys showed friendly Clean air and water was everywhere Earlier surveys showed that the British had faith in their public institutions in their democracy of fondness for their monarchy Oh, yeah, people are content. I know more all this was three prime ministers and in six months will let you know The trust is dwindling. It's recorded in surveys, but from decades ago All in all England was loved by tourists and immigrants for its happy peace-loving environment Cut to 2023 take a look at these scenes Do y'all see the bottom ticker? Okay This is where really be at. They really be talking crazy on this bottom ticker down here That we're on a platform There we go England was loved by tourists and immigrants for its happy peace-loving environment Cut to 2023 take a look at these scenes. Okay Divorce to hit 50 year high in the UK. What is this supposed to mean like people leaving or something? There is anger on the streets of London. There is frustration. There is acrimony It's a season of strikes in England so much so there's a strike calendar in the UK No way nurses ambulance drivers, but no, there's a strike calendar like okay. This is a serious subject I'm sorry for smiling. I just be smiling a strike calendar is crazy because there's a festival calendar in Chicago festival carnival in Chicago calendar, there's a food truck calendar in Chicago nothing like Nothing like this A strike calendar. That's crazy. You got so many strikes. Well, you got it you got a Designated calendar that's tough bus drivers highway workers teachers the border force University staff Royal Mail workers. They're all going on strikes They're demanding more pay. They're sick of the cost of living crisis which has crippled the economy just talked about that Remember these services form the backbone of any country. They ensure smooth functioning during calm and chaos Imagine if there is an emergency a medical emergency a natural disaster an accident. What happens then? It's a scary thought This cost of living crisis is creating friction not just between the government and trade unions But also between couples take a look at this headline now Diversaries in the UK are said to hit a hot get money money money. It's crazy how they say money Money don't make you happy But not having money make you this unhappy so happen it gotta make you happier. I Don't I don't believe that money don't make you happy man money makes you happy money makes things smooth Money gives you confidence like money does something for you. I Don't want to say I will do anything for money because all money is not good money, but money Earn the proper way It does something for your mental And I don't care what nobody say we can debate it in the comments if y'all want to Because it's educational Tuesday, and I'm down for a debate debate team one-on-one at me gangie at me at The lit one in the comments if we want to debate about this divorce rates in the United Kingdom are set to hit a 50 year High British couples are I'm sorry. This is not funny To a deaf-duo as part, but do y'all see the picture that they use Sorry My bad My bad This is serious. Okay are unhappy in fact. This is the most unhappy. They've ever been since records even began Skyrocketing inflation has turned bedroom banter to raging arguments They run Who is this lady? She is at the top of her game Bedroom banter into arguments This is W reporting turn bedroom banter to raging arguments They're unhappy because of the cost of happiness.  I'm pausing but Places big cities in the in the United States big cities We've come to we've come to we've come to We've come to a realization that no matter what level of job you have No matter what level of job no matter how How How much you've made it in your mind you got to have some type of side hustle I'm not saying nothing illegal. I'm saying you can have a legit side hustle that gets you money like in America Sports betting is legal sports betting side hustle You can be a registered tax agent on the side and do people's taxes You can be you can you can you can custom make benches or something Just some type of side hustle to get money in your pockets We've come to realize that we've made it like a thing like it's a natural thing You know just dream is crashing and with that so a house prices Add higher taxes to the heap of troubles and you'll find we just talk plenty of bitterness in the air It's pushing more couples to call it quits. You think I'm exaggerating Did you know I actually do not think you're exaggerating because you haven't There your facial expression ma'am has not changed one time. So no, I don't think you're exaggerating Couples to call it quits You think I'm exaggerating did you know the first working Monday in January is dubbed as divorce day? So what what in January is dubbed I Think I'm exaggerating Did you know the first working Monday in January is dubbed as divorce day the first working Monday in January is? dubbed divorce day So while Prince Harry is crying wolf attacking the royal family holding tear jerking interviews chatting with ghosts of the past the British have bigger fish to fry They're seeing essential services collapse around them right In the middle of flu season winter illnesses They're seeing acrimony between trade unions and their government and not to forget they've seen a revolving door of prime ministers They're fighting over budgets in bedrooms Putting their dreams and hopes on the back burner as they battle soaring costs Remember a time when the British monarchy was once a symbol of stability in turbulent times, I ask you tonight Where is the stability a? Crying prince is calling out the royal family. He's washing his dirty laundry in public and we're all feasting on gossip What way so what's going way? What's going on with Prince? I'm gonna look it up You got an interview bet they'll react to it not to forget a new king is said to be coronated and While the royal rift has got tongues wagging. What about the rift on the streets of London? The unhappiness taking root in British life No book release will resolve that We on what? This isn't she's one of the best reporters I ever heard this straight face. That's crazy anyway I'm still I would still move there With my side hustle mentality, I'm gonna make it till I leave a like comment subscribe turn on the post. I'm done legit side