Time for a FRESH Start
Community Projects, Consumerism, Demonstration Sites, Society, Village Development — by Kenneth Gronbjerg March 10, 2012
Editor’s Note: For background on the FRESH project ("the world’s wildest supermarket"), please see this previous post.
From: Sepp Holzer’s Permakultur, Leopold Stocker Verlag, 2008
Danish food revolutionaries take matters into their own hands in order to do what needs to be done — without funding, permits and other bureaucratic fumblings.
In this article, I will answer the following questions:
- What is FRESH? What kind of people are in the movement? What is it doing?
- How is FRESH doing (or planning to do) what it does?
- How is FRESH progressing?
Update on Sociocracy Workshop, Brisbane (March 2012)
Alternatives to Political Systems, Courses/Workshops, People Systems, Society, Village Development — by Wyan Carter March 9, 2012
What: Sociocracy Workshop
When: March 16-17, with an additional, optional Advanced Training day on March 19 (1.1mb PDF flyer)
Where: Synapse Conference Room, Level 1, 262 Montague Rd., West End, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
This is an update on a previous advert for the Sococracy workshop we ran on this site recently.
Due to popular demand, and a bit of last minute finessing, we’ve managed to reduce the cost of the upcoming Sociocracy to make it more accessible. The two day workshop has been reduced to $350, but will still provide you with the practical tools to implement a fairer, more engaging, more effective decision making system that’s already been used for over 40 years. If you’re sick of seeing community initiatives fall over because of a failure to make decisions or deal with power fairly, then it’s time to learn more about Sociocracy.
We’re also now planning to run a one hour introduction to Sociocracy on Friday night, the 16th of March. For more information or to register for any of the Sociocracy workshops, please go to sociocracyworkshop.wordpress.com.
An Innovative Approach to Water Storage at a Sustainable Tanzanian Home
Aid Projects, Community Projects, Conservation, Courses/Workshops, Dams, Demonstration Sites, Irrigation, Land, Material, Village Development, Waste Systems & Recycling, Waste Water, Water Harvesting — by Robert Cork
Just outside of Arusha, Tanzania, is ‘Kesho Leo’– a sustainable home for vulnerable women and children operated by FoodWaterShelter. The principles of permaculture underpin the daily lives of the Kesho Leo residents. It is currently the home of seven families, each headed by a Tanzanian mama who cares for up to five children, including orphans. In addition to the daily essentials, Kesho Leo provides the many other aspects that a ‘home’ needs; access to family and social support, access to education and health, and very importantly – access to community.
Permaculture meeting the needs of the Kesho Leo residents
Revolving around the community and education aspects of Kesho Leo are the permaculture systems that strive to provide all of the food, water and energy needs of the residents. Basic needs of water, sanitation and power are provided through rainwater harvesting, innovative batch compost toilet systems, and solar power.
Comments (7)Sail Power Reborn – Transporting Local Goods by Boat
Community Projects, Energy Systems, Markets & Outlets, Processing & Food Preservation, Village Development, peak oil — by Anthea Hudson
Peak Moment host Janaia Donaldson joins Fulvio Casali, Kathy Pelish and Alex Tokar, co-founders of the Salish Sea Trading Cooperative, on the deck of the sailboat Soliton, docked in Ballard, near Seattle, Washington.
The Salish Sea Trading Cooperative have teamed up with Nash’s organic produce in Sequim, where twice a month they arrive by sailboat, to collect the produce, before heading back to Ballard for distribution to the local community through their CSA scheme.
Comments (0)Permaculture Resiliency Project with the San Bushmen in the Kalahari Vergenoeg, Namibia
Aid Projects, Community Projects, Food Forests, Irrigation, Potable Water, Village Development, Waste Water, Water Harvesting — by Warren Brush March 8, 2012
In a land of contrast, mystery and years of imperialism, a small village of over 300 people on the edge of the Kalahari in Namibia germinated a new permaculture resiliency project in January of 2012. In talking with the headman of the village, he shared that their people, the San Bushmen, have lived in harmony with the land as hunter gatherers for eons. They are often cited as the first peoples of Africa and very likely all of humanity may have descended from their ranks many millennia ago.
The village elder sadly shared that colonialism has destroyed the San migratory way of life — a hunter gatherer tradition that was sustainable for thousands of years. He told us that they were no longer allowed to roam freely and trophy hunters destroyed the vast herds of game that formed their principal supply of food. Both Black and White farmers alike built up huge herds of cattle that destroyed the ecology of the Kalahari and subsequently the foods that had been their staple diet. They soon found they had to work for the farmers to be able to feed their families and hence a cycle of poverty and separation from their cultural roots ensued.
Comments (6)An Experiment in Back Yard Sustainability – and a Revisit, Four Years On
Community Projects, Consumerism, Demonstration Sites, Food Shortages, Plant Systems, Village Development, peak oil — by Anthea Hudson March 7, 2012
Part I
Scott McGuire of ‘White Sage Gardens’, Janaia Donaldson’s guest for this episode of Peak Moment, asks the question: What would it look like if we were to really start feeding ourselves?
Comments (5)Re-imagining Urban Design and City Life
Building, Community Projects, Consumerism, Economics, Land, Society, Village Development — by David Bollier
I have been asked to address what the commons might have to say about urban spaces and urban life. The short answer is, a lot!
First, the language of the commons helps us assert a moral entitlement to public spaces again. It lets us challenge the unholy alliance of politicians, developers and professional architects and planners, and insist that city spaces serve our needs as ordinary people. This means, first of all, that commercial considerations cannot crowd out vital common purposes – as we see when the market or authoritarians take over.
Comments (0)A Manifesto for Psychopaths
Alternatives to Political Systems, Consumerism, Economics, People Systems, Society — by George Monbiot March 6, 2012
Ayn Rand’s ideas have become the Marxism of the new right.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom.
It has a fair claim to be the ugliest philosophy the post-war world has produced. Selfishness, it contends, is good, altruism evil, empathy and compassion are irrational and destructive. The poor deserve to die; the rich deserve unmediated power. It has already been tested, and has failed spectacularly and catastrophically. Yet the belief system constructed by Ayn Rand, who died 30 years ago today, has never been more popular or influential.
Mythologists of the Glen
Biodiversity, Deforestation, Livestock, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Village Development — by George Monbiot March 5, 2012
A report on deer in the Scottish Highlands is a sycophantic paean to Balmorality and landed power.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom.
A remnant of the ancient Caledonian Forest, Scotland
I’ve read too many daft reports in the course of this job, but I don’t remember any as self-defeating as this. This morning the Scottish Gamekeepers’ Association launches its study on the economic importance of red deer to Scotland’s rural economy*. It succeeds in demonstrating the opposite of what it sets out to prove.
Comments (2)Stabilizing the Climate with “Permanent Agriculture”
Animal Forage, Biodiversity, Biofuels, Deforestation, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Land, Medicinal Plants, Plant Systems, Regional Water Cycle, Rehabilitation, Soil Conservation, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Trees, Village Development, Water Contaminaton & Loss, Water Harvesting — by Eric Toensmeier March 1, 2012
Trees are one of our most powerful tools to pull carbon from the atmosphere and sequester it in the soil for long-term storage. This is why reforestation and protecting intact forests are such important parts of plans to address climate change. Conventional climate change science tells us that the planet’s capacity for reforestation is limited, however, by the need to preserve land for agriculture.
But movements like agroforestry and permaculture show us that farming and trees are not mutually exclusive. From tree crops to contour strips of nitrogen fixing trees between bands of annual crops, there is a wealth of techniques that can give us the best of both worlds. These techniques, should a global effort get behind their implementation on a large scale, could have a major impact on climate change. They would also have numerous other benefits to the planet and its people.
A century ago, writer-farmers like J. Russell Smith coined the term “permanent agriculture” to describe food forestry and other farming practices that combated a key issue of their day — erosion and degradation of farmland. From Smith and his compatriots we in permaculture have taken the name of our movement, though our movement has grown to encompass much more than food forestry. Today these visionary ideas are more essential than ever, to address an environmental crisis on a scale Smith and his contemporaries could not have imagined.
Comments (3)A Forest of Food in the Center of Seattle
Community Projects, Demonstration Sites, Food Forests, Land, News, Society, Urban Projects, Village Development — by Andrew Beard
Click for larger view
In the Beacon Hill community of Seattle a revolutionary community garden is being developed to feed her people. The Beacon Food Forest is transforming a previously unused piece of public land into a vibrant food forest filled with hundreds of different varieties of edible plants, fruits and nuts. The seven acre plot uses perennial crops and sustainable methods rooted in permaculture to create a source of food available to all.
Comments (3)Free Your (Eco)Mind
Consumerism, People Systems, Society — by Frances Moore Lappe February 29, 2012
Think like an ecosystem, and you just might save the world
Gradually it’s dawned on me: We humans are creatures of the mind. We perceive the world according to our core, often unacknowledged, assumptions. They determine, literally, what we can see and what we cannot. Nothing so wrong with that, perhaps — except that, in this crucial do-or-die moment, we’re stuck with a mental map that is life-destroying.
And the premise of this map is lack — not enough of anything, from energy to food to parking spots; not enough goods and not enough goodness. In such a world, we come to believe, it’s compete or die. The popular British writer Philip Pullman says, “we evolved to suit a way of life which is acquisitive, territorial, and combative” and that “we have to overcome millions of years of evolution” to make the changes we need to avoid global catastrophe.
If I believed that, I’d feel utterly hopeless. How can we align with the needs of the natural world if we first have to change basic human nature?
Comments (2)Regenerating Rusinga (Kenya)
Aid Projects, Biodiversity, Community Projects, Deforestation, Developments, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Land, Population, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Trees, Village Development, Water Contaminaton & Loss — by Elin Lindhagen February 28, 2012
FMNR workshop, Feb 2012, Kenya
Rusinga Island is situated in Lake Victoria in the Western parts of Kenya. It is known for its prehistoric findings of primate fossils dating from 17 million years ago and for being the birthplace of the famously assassinated Kenyan politician, Tom Mboya, whose scholarship fund enabled Barack Obama’s father to study abroad. Not too many years ago it was still known to be a beautiful forested island, rich in unique bird species and with access to great fishing. Today the island is considered a vulnerable ecosystem with marginal agricultural land, leading one author to call it ‘one of the driest and most environmentally marginal agricultural zones in the region’(1).
Rapid population growth in the 1980s led to intensified pressure on natural resources such as trees and fish. At the same time, other communities started coming into Rusinga’s fishing waters to exploit the fish resources. Fish stocks started declining and the fishermen of Rusinga were forced to start looking for other ways of making an income. Many turned to agriculture but the Luo’s on Rusinga were traditionally fishermen, not farmers. Trees were cut down to make houses for a growing population, firewood to feed an increasing number of hungry stomachs and charcoal to make an income. Within a generation, what was once a richly forested island had become bare — suffering increasing droughts, soil erosion and crop failures due to the loss of trees.
Comments (1)Dacha Farming
Community Projects, Consumerism, Food Shortages, Land, Society, Urban Projects, Village Development — by Wyan Carter
My partner and I have recently bought a house in Melbourne. I’m proud to say that we have deliberately avoided any pressure to buy a large house; our entire property is 170 square metres, and at least half of that is garden. I realise that’s not tiny, but it’s plenty smaller than places owned by a number of my friends and family. One of my cousins has recently built a house on a block of land, and his house alone would swallow our entire property three times over.
But as proud as I am of our small house mentality, I’ve started to realise that this does put some serious constraints on our ability to be independent and self-sufficient. Personally I’ve never been that committed to the dream of being self-sufficient on a good sized, rural block; I’d much rather be community-sufficient within a city suburb. But I don’t want to be vulnerable to crises and shocks, and growing food, fibre and fuel yourself is a big part of reducing that vulnerability.
Comments (2)National Permaculture Day – May 6, 2012
Community Projects, Courses/Workshops, Social Gatherings, Village Development — by Penny Pyett February 22, 2012
Sponsorship opportunity in permaculture: businesses, local groups, entrepreneurs, consultants & trainers.
Dear Permaculture Practitioners and Local Groups
National Permaculture Day (NPD) showcases the practices of permaculture to the public. Businesses and local groups show permaculture in action — through markets, demonstrations, ‘open houses and gardens’, and local events in city and country.
The day has run nationally for three years, supported first by individuals and local groups, and last year by a grant of $17,900 from the federal government. It is part of the developing move for a national presence for permaculture.
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