Institute for Appropriate Technology

Please visit our growing library of tools and techniques now in the public domain. Your contributions welcome! Please View Our Guestbook Please Sign Our Guestbook

Now Sponsoring Culture Change and the San Francisco plastics ban protecting the Pacific Gyre while trying to outlaw BPA. donations welcome

Our 2008 Target: 20,000 trees in highly climate-affecting regions, such as the Brazilian Amazon, North Africa, and the Middle East. $20 from you plants 10 trees! One tree removes 55 pounds of carbon each year, equal to 1100 miles of car travel or 5500 miles in a commercial airliner (assuming 2 passengers out of 200 on the flight). Learn More

Where we are planting trees right now: in the West Bank, Palestine providing water, food, fuel, peace and hope to the peoples of the Middle East from the peoples of the Middle East

Did you know that the urban habitat crisis could be solved by allowing people to grow their own houses? In the 1970s the Institute began research into fast growing plant species that could serve multiple purposes even while providing residential building materials for an expanding world population. Our experimental hybrid poplar and chestnut plantations are now more than 20 years old. Our tree varieties, including Tennessee's own state tree, the Tulip Poplar are able to process wastewater and reclaim severely eroded landscapes. Today we have more than 20 varieties of temperate bamboo growing at our Ecovillage Training Center, and more than 200 varieties under study at the nearby Earth Advocates Research Center for size, growth rates, temperature tolerance and other characteristics. We like bamboo as a cultivatible architecture. Only 500 square meters are needed to grow one house in one year, about the size of a typical U.S. living room.

To provide owner-built homes for the 100,000,000 people now without adequate housing, the area needed to grow bamboo for one year is less than the area annually being clearcut in the Caribbean rainforests of Belize, Honduras and Colombia each year!

Did you know that water hyacinths can be used to fight AIDS? Water hyacinths are a nightmare plant for many water management authorities. Untreated wastewater from cities and nutrient runoffs from farms provide ideal growing conditions for hyacinths in rivers and lakes, hindering recreation and navigation, starving fish of oxygen, and blocking water pumps. Hyacinths put out lovely flowers that make them useful for decorating and gardens, but millions of them can kill a freshwater ecosystem. In the early 1990s, the Institute began using the multiplying effects of hyacinths in wastewater reclamation experiments. We found that hyacinths could be harvested and composted and turned into garden soil. Then we discovered another use: as substrate for the Reishi mushroom, Ganoderma lucidum. Reishi, which has been ground and taken as a tonic in Chinese medicine for more than 1000 years, contains powerful immune boosters known as ganoderms. Laboratory trials have confirmed that ganoderms are effective in combating viral and bacterial infections by stimulating the production of interleukin 2 in the bloodstream. Reishi is now being used in the treatment of AIDS. At our Ecovillage Training Center in Tennessee we demonstrated the complete cycle, from greywater remediation through water hyacinths to composted mushroom substrate, to cultivation and processing of Reishi and other edible and medicinal mushrooms. All of the waste products are used. These techniques are now being distributed by development organizations in the Americas and Africa to produce clean water, food, medicine, energy, fertile soil, and healthy children.

Since 1994, we have been weaving together the emerging ecovillage movement, which we view as having the potential to bring about lasting change by seeking, as a central organizing principle, a harmonious balance between human habitat and the natural world.  Ecovillages are where the low- and medium-tech experiments of the past half-century merge into integrated human communities, at peace with their cultural and bioregional context, and proactively responsive to the profound agricultural, climatological and social challenges of the coming century. We offer instruction which includes both the technical transfer side of appropriate technology (how-to and hands-on) and the "invisible landscape" of community–the nuts and bolts of creating consensus and nurturing community social health and conviviality, distributing decisionmaking, and creating culturally-protective economic opportunities. We work in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese, with further translation to indigenous languages as needed. Our primary goal is to train trainers who will carry on the work in our absence, and to empower these promoters with the tools they need to network with their peers. We support diverse cross-cultural networks of environmental interests.

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Donations to the Institute are tax-deductible. In FY 2006, the Institute raised and spent approximately $240,000. 
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Apologies for the delay in posting our 2007 summary.

 In the year ending December, 2006, we:

Became a founding sponsor of the Sail Transport Network.
Became a fiscal sponsor for Culture Change, host of the Petrocollapse conference series.
Presented "The End of Suburbia" at the UN Committee on Sustainable Development 14th annual meeting.
Brought participants from Mexico, Brazil, Ghana, Venezuela, Palestine, England, Iceland, Costa Rica, Wales, Japan, Australia, India, Nepal, Colombia, and Canada to the USA for training under the auspices of the UNITAR program.
Attended and presented at Peak Oil conferences in Washington DC, Boston, Berea College, Kentucky, Yellow Springs, Ohio and New York City.

Conducted Gaia University events and trainings in the USA, Germany, Netherlands and Italy.
Published a training manual on post-petroleum living.
Inaugurated the Sonnenshein green power Festival in Hohenwald, Tennessee.
Attended the European Permaculture Conference.
Completed our twelfth year as a site for the Kids to the Country summer program.
Launched our Community Subscription Energy cooperative initiative.
Converted four late-model vehicles to run on biofuels.

 In the year ending December, 2005, we:
1. Became a founding sponsor of Ecoaldea Gratitud, a climate-change-mitigation broadly based ecovillage and nature sanctuary program in Mexico.
2. Brought participants from Belize, Brazil, Cameroon, Palestine, England, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Colombia, and Canada to the USA for training under the auspices of the UNITAR program.
3. Presented on ecovillages at the UN Committee on Sustainable Development 13th annual meeting in New York and also for Sustainable Hudson Valley.
4. Attended and presented at Peak Oil conferences in Lisbon, Portugal, Yellow Springs, Ohio and New York City.
5. Attended the North American Bioregional Convergence at Earthaven in North Carolina and the South American Convergence in Brazil.
6. Made multiple trips to China to work on ecovillage standard development.
7. Chartered Gaia University and established its first working campus.
8. Attended a tour of eco-development programs in Provence, France
9. Presented on Peak Oil and ecovillages at numerous university and community venues in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
10. Attended the 75th Anniversary Celebration of Solheimer Ecovillage in Iceland and met with the President of Iceland and numerous Ministers and MPs.
11. Hosted the National Vegan Conference.
12. Participated in the 7th International Permaculture Convergence in Slovenia and the 2nd International Ecovillage Conference in Scotland.
13. Attended the Communal Studies Association meeting in Pennsylvania.
14. Completed our eleventh year as a site for the Kids to the Country summer program.
15. Invented a new process for making cheese-like fermented soyfoods that melt on pizzas and pack a lot of flavor.
16. Erected a new strawbale hipitat on our Tennessee campus.


 In the year ending December, 2004, we:
1. Again brought participants from Israel, Palestine, Italy, Colombia, India, Japan, Taiwan. Netherlands, Spain, Canada, Ecuador, Ghana, Norway, S. Africa and S. Korea to the USA for training under the auspices of the UNITAR program.
2. Presented on ecovillages at the Peak Oil conference in Yellow Springs, Ohio and Permaculture Convergence at Earthaven in North Carolina.
3. Sponsored the first North American Conference on Ecovillages and Sustainable Communities in Cortes Island, British Columbia.
4. Hosted a Communities Activist Summit at The Farm in Tennessee.
5. Presented on Peak Oil at numerous university and community venues in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
6. Developed a Spanish language powerpoint on ecovillage design and debuted it in Solferino, Quintana Roo.
10. Provided six-month fellowships at ETC to visiting scholars from China and Japan.
11. Sponsored participation by GVI board members at the Annual Conference on Sustainable Villages in Boulder, Colorado.
12. Sponsored participation by ecovillage representatives from Germany, Norway, Australia, and Japan at the International Communal Studies Association meeting in Iowa.
13. Completed our tenth year as a site for the Kids to the Country summer program.
14. Were awarded the National Gardening Association award for design of Children’s Learning Gardens.

In the year ending December, 2003, we:
1. Through GEN, joined the Global Village Energy Partnership (GVEP), part of the UNDP/World Bank ESMAP Program.
2. Hosted participants from Israel, Palestine, Brazil, Canada, Ecuador, Hungary, Ghana, S. Korea and the USA for training under the auspices of the UNITAR program.
3. Facilitated the visa application process for the fledgling ecovillage movement in rural China, enabling China to send a delegation to CSD-11 in NY and to host a side-event there. We sent 4 representatives to the CSD and hosted our own side-event.
4. Sent GVI board members to Rome to begin an ongoing consultative process with the FAO SARD IFAD/NGO Extended Cooperation Program (ECP). GVI provided updated information on the Major Group focal points to be included in SARD’s powerpoint and multi-media presentations during the International Forum on Partnerships for Sustainable Development.
5. With two GVI board members represented GEN in the 56th Annual DPI/NGO Conference at the UN.
6. Assisted the U.S. Department of Energy in developing a CD-Rom on alternative energy and natural building.
7. Guest edited Communities: Journal of Cooperative Living issue devoted to the topic of ecovillages, wrote a guest editorial for a 2003 issue of The Permaculture Activist, and assisted Dan Chiras in developing the theme article for Mother Earth News on ecovillages and the movement, which later became a book by the same author.
8. Hosted a J-term class from Berea for a month-long training including workshops in Ecovillage Design (in cooperation with Village Habitat Associates) and Conflict Transformation.
9. Hosted a North American Communities Conference May 23-25 at The Farm, in conjunction with the Fellowship for Intentional Community.
10. Financially underwrote the international ecovillage gathering, “Call of the Condor” in Peru, an equinox ceremony at Machu Picchu and provided presentations in Cuzco, Olantaytambo, and Aguacalientes in conjunction with these events.
11. Hosted the University of Michigan’s Project SERVE Alternative Spring Break Program.
12. Assisted with natural building seminars in Mexico for the Zopilote Association and installed a multimedia display capacity for the Alfonso Cervantes Gomez  primary school in Tlaxco.
13. Developed a natural building powerpoint in Spanish and debuted it in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas. 

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Contact: 
Institute for Appropriate Technology
PO Box 90
Summertown TN 38483
931-964-4474
email: ecovillage at thefarm.org

Go to
| Ecovillage Training Center
| The Farm Page
| Intentional Communities
| Global Ecovillage Network

	Donor Form Print this Out and Mail or Fax	To: Institute for Appropriate Technology Box 90 Summertown TN 38483-0090 USA  Fax: (931) 964-2200
From:  Name: Address: City/State/Code: Country: Tel: Fax:     I would like to make a donation. I understand I will receive a receipt by mail qualifying me for tax deduction.   Amount Enclosed : ___________________ Please charge my VISA or MASTERCARD Number: ______ ______ ______ ______ Expires: __________ Signature: __________________________________ Name on Card (if different from top): __________________________________	Category Amount Donor $1 - $499 Contributor $500 - $2,500 Sponsor $2,501 - $5,000 Supporter $5,001 - $10,000 Sustainer $10,001 - $25,000 Benefactor $25,001 and over	I would like to designate support for: Trees for Airmiles Marda Permaculture Training Center Tlholego in South Africa Culture Change Gaia University La Caravana Arcoiris para la Paz Ecovillage Network of Americas Ecovillage Network of Quintana Roo Global Ecovillage Network i4at Endowment Fund Ecovillage Training Center Wherever Most Needed

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