Vision and Goals

Merrin Pearse and Louise Taylor
Their Lifetime Goals and Vision

Passion Statement
We love being outdoors amongst nature, experiencing its marvels, learning from its examples and sharing these experiences and learning’s with others.

Purpose Statement
To connect people with the natural environment through providing opportunities to experience the wonders of nature first hand and how their daily lives (both work and private) can help support nature.

Personal Vision/Mission
To ensure that there is a worldwide network of nature reserves freely available for all people to visit. Imagine if you could not get to a park to hear birds singing happily from trees or to watch water cascading over rocks with fish swimming in the pools?

Why be involved initially in Asia?
As the world’s largest population centre, the mindset and respect for nature by people in Asia will have a significant influence over the health of our planet. The more sustainable that Asia is the more sustainable the world is. With the level of resources available in Hong Kong and with the right mindset we would love to see Hong Kong become Asia’s leading Eco-city.

What do we need to do?
Inspire and assist more people of the Asian region to be an active part of ending poverty and environmental degradation, while creating results in their personal and business lives that are fulfilling and environmentally sustainable.

Who do we need to connect with?
Positive people inspired by the purpose and vision.

When do we need to do this?
Now!

How do we continue to achieve the purpose and vision?

• Determining and implementing business models that provide cashflow to look after Merrin and Louise so they can share this vision with even more people.
  
• Ensuring Merrin is living as a “Star” and Louise as a “Lord”, or put another way, that they are doing what they are best at and enjoy doing.
  
• Sharing our New Zealand and international experiences with others (particularly across Asia) so that more people can see how the actions of a few can make a real difference.
  
• Connecting environmentally conscious business owners with organisations active in making an on the ground difference.
  
• By being open to opportunities and ideas presented to us.
  

Grow well
Dr Merrin

Goals for 2009

Since 1998 I have been writing down my goals. I must admit that even after what is now 10 years I am still amazed at how if you write them down you do achieve many of them.

Once you write them down you do need to refer to them again and have them in a prominent place. For the first few years I wrote them down and they stayed in a file hidden on my desk out of sight. More recently I have had them in my diary that I carry every day though on a page that I was not looking at regularly. So this year I have decided to put them in many places including in my diary, as part of the wallpaper on my computer desktop and here on my blog so I see them every day. The reason for them going on the blog is so that the world, well really the human internet users that find this page, do know what my goals are. So I am looking forward to seeing how this helps me achieve more of my goals and also hopefully to help others achieve their goals.

So here are some of my goals for 2009:

• Be fit and healthy and really feel fit and healthy
  
• Generate income of at least US$80,000 so that I can support Louise, cover our financial commitments and help promote and solve environmental, conservation and animal welfare issues around the world
  
• Plant trees in at least 5 different countries
  
• Meet Jackie Chan and work with him on environmental initiatives
  
• Give motivational and educational presentations in at least 5 different countries with at least one of them being as a paid keynote speaker
  
• Visit a bear sanctuary in Vietnam or China (oh yes I also can write this as a second one by replacing “bear” with “beer”)
  
• Climb the 10 highest peaks in the Hong Kong SAR plus the highest peak on Lamma and Po Toi Islands
  
• Have at least one brand sponsorship deal
  
• Establish ourselves more formally in Hong Kong
  
• Have a staring role in a movie
  
• Live in a more comfortable house
  
• Work on an international project that calls upon my surveying, geodesy, mapping and quality assurance skills.

You know the other interesting part about writing your goals down, is how clearly and precisely you write them.. What I mean is that the opportunities to achieve those goals as written can appear in ways that you do not expect though they do meet your goals.

So I look forward to experiencing how this year’s goals become reality.

Grow well
Dr Merrin

PS: If you have got this far through this posting then do let me know what your goals are so I may assist you to achieve them!

Top 3 people who made a global difference to the environment in 2008

I would love to hear who are your top 3 people that made a real difference to raise environmental awareness globally in 2008.

Personally I think the following three people had the biggest impact on me.

Al Gore - continues to promote awareness about climate change. I really liked his challenge to America to produce all of its electricity from renewable sources within 10 years. What a target for America and actually all countries. I have just finished reading his booking titled "An Assault on Reason" and it highlighted to me again how it can be difficult to get a balanced view from mainstream media. http://www.algore.com/


Paul Coleman - Earthwalker – has now walked over 47,500 km through 39 nations, planting trees and encouraging people to preserve the natural environment, delivering the environmental message to all aspects of society, from the jungles of the Amazon to the highlands of Zimbabwe, and even into war zones. The simple action of walking and keeping focused on the goal despite the challenges of the physical and political environments he travels through amazes me. This year Paul and Konomi finished a walk from Hong Kong to Beijing (another 3140 km) and Louise and I had the pleasure of joining them for a mere 180 km (check out our adventures at http://asia-ecopreneur.blogspot.com)
http://www.earthwalker.com/

Jill Robinson – The founder of Animals Asia continues to promote and take action towards ending cruelty and restoring respect for animals in Asia. Her organisations work to reduce the cruelty to bears farmed for their bile (in Vietnam , China and Korea) and killing methods for cats and dogs in the misguided belief that "torture equals taste"! http://www.animalsasia.org/

I am looking forward to hearing of other amazing people making a real difference to improve our environment.

Grow well
Dr Merrin

A.B.See Art

Enjoying the variety of life is something I really like to try and explore.

My formal training has certainly taken me well into the left brain world. Then opportunities like this help me to explore the right brain world.

In this interview I explore with the artist A.B. See, who Melodious Olympics requested to get in touch with the energies of ancient Chinese origins particularly that surrounding the Emperor Fuxi, and see what would emerge in her art.

The resultant works are a fascinating study in how the Beijing Olympics in 2008 were a beginning, the planting of a seed for eventual union between East and West as well as a demonstration of how right brain art and can link us to higher realms through intuition and sentient knowing.

So enjoy the interview that is split into two parts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsZ4sxAr57I


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyj7eCLNigI

Grow well
Dr Merrin

Computer Gaming for the Ecopreneur

You know I love of the outdoors, if not check out a few of the other blogs I have written to get the idea. Anyhow, I had the opportunity to capture on video the experiences people were having at the Asia Gaming Show 2008 in Hong Kong. I was videoing for www.NewsGroup247.com, Yeah it is in the Exhibition Centre where there are no windows and lots of very alien looking people dressed as their favourite game characters.

So why would I want to explore what may be described as the darker corners of the gaming world? To know what is there and try to better understand how I could help introduce a “greener” more “eco” experience to those gamers.

Yes the bulk of the games and accessories are shoot em up and kill them quick games though there were some very bright green corners. Lets start with Sony’s stall. I saw this game where some one was out on the plains of Africa stalking Zebra. Looking for the gun I was pleasantly surprised when they pulled out a camera and shot a superb picture. The collection grew and when they returned to the campsite after the day they got to see the score for their photos. I liked it (Hakuna Matata the games name is also is a Swahili phrase that is literally translated as "There are no worries"). A similar one was for discovering new fish.

I did take the chance to talk with Sackboy as we are all on a LittleBigPlanet!


Getting gamers to exercise more would be one of the things I would love to see. Not many of the games seemed to exercise more than the fingers. A reality golf game called OnGolf (www.ongolf.com) currently uses only the mouse though they are working on a version that will have motion sensor devices to get you more into the swing! There was a drumming game that almost got people into a sweat with the pace of drumming required. Looking forward to see the gaming industry merge more with the fitness industry to get people exercising and then outdoors to explore the real worl rather than living in the virtual world.

Grow well
Dr Merrin

Christmas Carolling

Have you ever tried Christmas Carolling in the streets? I had not until last year, so when the opportunity came up again this year to spread the joy of sharing Louise and I were there. Jami Gong from the Take Out Comedy Club in Hong Kong (http://www.takeoutcomedy.com/) put out the word and about 50 people wandered the street of SoHo and Lang Kai Fong on Thu 18 Dec 2008.

Along with sharing some wonderful Christmas tunes (okay some of them were really not that tuneful) we got to meet new friends and share a smile or two with those who wondered by. It does remind me how simple and meaningful Christmas can be. A few people on the street raising the spirits of others can make a real difference. When you are next in the mall buying for a festive season try stopping for a moment to thank the shop assistant, your fellow shopper and put a smile on their face. You will be surprised at how long your smile will last.

If you are brave then listen to one of our great carol's -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOupwBErDQc

Then when I came back to see our video online I spotted this posting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-lPLaaGhV4

You just never know who is wacthing you!

Grow well
Dr Merrin

When do you think about an Ultra Future World?

I guess that you often do.



I thought I did until I attended the Ultra Future Conference (http://www.ultrafutureworld.com/) at Hong Kong Science and Technology Park (http://www.hkstp.org/) on Sat 13 Dec.

Seeing presentations of:
- Energy Islands by David Harris of floating platforms that use the difference in sea water temperature, solar power and wave power generators to produce electricity, hydrogen and fresh water,
- new graphics for use in "chat rooms" where you change the shape of the Avatar's face that looked so real. Taehoon Kim had everyone amazed at the realistic facial expressions that this new product by Nurien was able to create,
- Web 3.0 by Adam Khemeri of NewsGroup247 demonstrating "chat rooms" with the great abilty to add in video clips and graphics from other website quickly to the chats, and
- James Law showing some of his latest Cybertecture designs (http://www.jameslawcybertecture.com/). As a surveyor I really was impressed on how James was modelling the real world to generate building designs that are basically whole cities in themselves.

Above you have seen a sketch of what James saw a key design components of Earth that he is replicating in his Technosphere. Below you can see that "progression" from looking at the Earth and creating the design.



One of the real interesting discussions was on how this modern technology that utilises the internet and computing power which is available to only 1/6th of the worlds population can be used to assist those without the technology. Suggestions were every time people by clothes for their Avatar they donate to a charity to provide real clothes to people who really need them. James spoke of how the external lighting on one of his building design would change based on the forecast for the upcoming weather. This way everyone who can see the building would know what the weather would.

Love to hear your Ultra World thoughts.

From my surveying and mapping experience I am amazed at what you can do with Google maps. Here is the location of some of the people I met at the conference.



Grow well
Dr Merrin