Before we broke ground, we had to ask nature for access. This entailed offering prayers to ancestors and the Gods of the land to seek their permission and blessings. This is an important practice because they are the roots of the land and you can't do anything without seeking their permission. It's similar to entering someone else's home without permission. "knocking." Respect for local norms and traditions is a must when entering foreign lands. Moreover, people in this region are very spiritual.
Clearing and widening the roadway
After the prayers, we brought a bulldozer to clear two acres...
We did this to understand the layout of the land better and have space to do our planning.
Clearing the region around the bridge
We had to clear the new entrance and roadway to the site because it is about half a kilometer off the main road. So, we had to widen the roadway into the site. So, we have our civil engineering team working on designs and everything per the planning.
This is the first clearing work that we did to understand the land. It allowed us to do all the other planning that we needed to do. So, when we come back we can naturally develop the land incorporating this like biodiversity to have good waterways and everything that supports the farm ecosystem.
On our site, we planted boundary lines of coconut trees, dug compost pits, pruned the trees, constructed a temporary roadway solution for access during the rainy season, slashed weeds, planted additional crops for use during our future operations. The goal at this stage was to get as many long-term components in the ground as we continue with the other areas of the project's development.
Best practices
In the early stages, control or oversee as much work as possible or outsource it to someone you trust. It will feel like micro-managing at first, but you have to set the tone for your workers to know exactly what you will tolerate and what you will not. They will push the limits to see what they could get away with. “Verify then trust.”