Season's Greetings!

This is the start of hopefully what will become an annual ritual for us - putting up a report on line to let our supporters know in a little greater detail what we have been doing the past 12 months. If you visit this site and thought it was worthwhile, or have any comments on how it might be improved, please feel free to write and let me know at albert@thefarm.org.

We started the Institute for Appropriate Techology exactly 25 years ago, so this is kind of a benchmark we have just reached. (For our more complete overview please read our story.) Most non-profits have either made it to million-dollar ranks, senesced into a useful but at-the-margins local support existence, or gone extinct by the time they reach this age. We have done none of those. We have stayed small but kept an edge, staying one step ahead of trends, finding solutions almost before the problems emerge. We could not be happier than when our solutions are picked up and adopted by other non-profits, businesses and governments. It frees us up to tackle the next issue.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we know what to do with it. Our mission has been to tackle the really big problems facing the planet: global warming, clear-cutting of ancient forests, a human population outgrowing carrying capacity, vanishing species - the genetic heritage of a billion years, changing weather, polluted watersheds, nuclear energy, bioengineering, war, pestilance, famine and plague. Our tactics have been applied science and thoughtful words applied where they will do the most good.

When we research something, we often get immediate results. These can be put to immediate use, even while our research tries to go deeper and find more lasting solutions. Through our Ecovillage Training Center, we offer workshops and seminars that put tools and solutions into the hands of people working for positive change.

Workshops

This past year was a busy one. We gave workshops in Mushroomgrowing Basics for people who might assist us in saving forests by giving living tree ecologies more economic worth than dead or manufactured ones.We gave several workshops in Natural Buildings (Straw, Cob, Bag, Round Pole) to students working to save forests or just create low-cost, non-toxic living spaces.Solar Energy International joined us again to teach a week-long couse in how to install and maintain photovoltaic electric systems. Village Habitat Associates aided us in improving our Sustainable Village Design workshop. That now includes blocks in site selection, master planning, consensus and conflict resolution, financial aspects, work issues, and much more. This year we completed our 14th Permaculture course, bringing in 11 guest lecturers over 15 days. We gave permaculture short courses and talks about sustainable village design at university campuses in the U.S. and South Africa as well.

United Nations

On January 30th we gave a presentation to the United Nations at the invitation of the Council on Sustainable Development. The presentation discussed the mandates of Agenda 21 and how non-governmental agencies were moving ahead without waiting for official support or endorsements, ran at a brisk pace through 120 slides from ecovillages around the world, and then spent some time describing the challenges faced by people working with economic and ecological sustainability issues.

Building Projects

We always have so much in progress that some projects become "orphaned" for a while as we turn our attention to the most pressing needs. Nowhere is this more true than with experiments in building techniques and technologies. Partly this is because construction is expensive, so we have to fit a few projects into a limited budget each year. Partly it is because we are constantly tinkering with plans and design concepts. And partly it is because the construction process itself is an educational opportunity and if that means sacrificing completion of a building in progress to the needs of a trainee to come away with his or her needs met, we favor the individual. Several of our buildings have gone up, been taken down, and gone up again in order to show students how they are made.

In 1997 we began construction with Welsh builder Ianto Evans, of the Cob Cottage Company, on a 2000 sq ft earthen building at the training center. We have used this building as a "prop" for numerous natural buildings courses since, and many of the graduates of those courses have gone on to teach the techniques professionally. Hundreds of natural buildings activists have been trained and thousands more trained by them since we broke ground for this building. Twice it held the skeleton of a roof, and twice the roof was removed. Once Joe Kennedy, author of The Art of Natural Building, constructed a curving, 50-foot straw wall on the north side, only to have the bales unceremoniously removed and turned into garden mulch six months later.

After a half-hearted start in late June, which used the building in the Kids-to-the-Country camp and several workshops, we kicked into high gear and made it our resolve to dry-in the building for a final time by the end of 2002. With a new group of apprentices and volunteers from among the many Farm youth visiting us during the summer, we established a tough schedule to cope with 90+ degree temperatures and still get a building built. Each day we rose at 5:30 and began work at 6. We broke for breakfast at 8 and resumed at 8:30 with occasional breaks for water and snacks until noon or 1 pm, when we knocked off for the heat of the day. Sometimes the afternoons were cool and we went back to work. Other times the western sun baked the site with 100-degree intensity and work was impractical.

Gradually the walls rose back up to roof height. New doors and windows went in. We raised huge posts and beams to carry the weight of the living roof. From the nearby Amish mill we hauled scrap mill ends to be our stringers. We built a new clerestory on the southwest. We lifted a 1700-lb pond liner 20 feet up onto the stringers to go under the turf and serve as a permanent moisture barrier.

The climate was our greatest challenge. We got to the middle of August and anticipated another 6 to 8 weeks of dry weather to allow us to get the roof on, put up the straw wall again, and maybe even install the turf. It was not to be. This fall was one of the rainiest on record, several inches above normal. We scrambled up onto the roof every dry day, but those were few and far between. You can't sift clay when it is too wet to pass through a screen, so cobmaking ground to a halt. But with perserverence into late November, we got the roof on, got the liner on, and finished the clerestory, making the building sound for overwintering. As I sit here writing this, it is covered in snow and doing fine. We'll pick up work and finish in the straw wall next year.

We also completely reworked the interior cob and plaster on the sauna building adjoining our straw greenhouse, and put in two doors and a window. The living roof is now on its second winter and doing fine, although many of the grasses have given way to mosses on the north and east sides.

Outside the sauna Im Imlach and Suzanne Heinzelman transformed the cobbing pit into a recessed outdoor kitchen - a cob bread oven with a steep-pitched living roof.

We also made improvements to the Inn, the strawbale cabin and several other structures on site over the course of the year.

Iceland Trip

At the invitation of Solheimer ecovillage near Selfoss, Iceland, we attended the opening of the Sesseljuhus, Iceland’s first ecocenter. Sesseljuhus is named in honor of the late founder of Solheimer (1930), Sesselja Hreindis Sigmundsdottir, whose 100th birthday was marked by the opening of the ecocenter on July 5, 2002. Solheimer is located at 64 03 99 N, 20 38 57 W, in a fertile valley just inland from the southern coast of Iceland, an hour to the east of Reykavik. Peak summer temperatures are usually around 20C with lows of 10C, and peak winter temperatures are usually 10C with lows around –15C. This contrasts quite favorably with Tennessee, whose averages are 5 to 10 degrees warmer in the summer (with 90% humidity) and whose winter lows can reach –30C and remain there for weeks.

Solheimer is blessed by a hot spring which generates 90C water at 12-15 gps, adequate to provide central heating and hot water and to supply a large number of glass houses that grow vegetables and nursery trees year-round. Solheimer is an anthroposophical care center for developmentally challenged persons, going back to Sesselja’s contacts with the philosophy of Rudolf Steiner and Karl König in the late 1920s. All residents are encouraged to work to the best of their abilities and numerous production shops – woodcarving, candlewax, ceramics, weaving, oil painting, herbal soap and shampoo, and paper – encourage individual free expression as well as providing practical income for the community.

The Sesseljuhus ecocenter’s primary function is to provide environmentally-related courses within a showcase of green technology. The interior theater seats 100, and exhibit halls, smaller conference rooms and offices are all wired for internet, sound and projection capabilities. The building is 100 percent PVC-free, uses a variety of exterior natural insulation materials, employs driftwood for interior paneling and trim, is thoroughly earthquake-resistant, uses recycled tire rubber for floorboards, uses sustainably harvested timber products for trusses, minimizes use of cement by substituting rammed earth, has a wet composting toilet similar to Dowmus in design but without the worms, employs energy-efficient lighting, earth chilled and geothermal warmed air circulation and heat recovery, solar PV and geothermal energy and several novel features we have not previously observed elsewhere.

These innovations include a 5-stage reuse of geothermal water before final discharge. Water enters from a nearby hot well at 83C (a new well was drilled after the 2000 earthquake reduced the flow of the original well), and is harnessed by use of a Varmarafali bimetallic converter which passes cold water over an opposing microcircuit, generating an electrical current based on the temperature differential. The initial prototype is small, but a next-stage 1 kw Varmarafali generator will eventually supply much of the power for interior lighting and projection. Given Iceland’s enormous geothermal and snow resource, practical, no-moving-parts devices which tap temperature differential are a significant advance over current steam turbine methods used widely in Iceland.

Second stage water leaves the Varmarafali at 80C and is used for hot water in the kitchen and bathrooms, or alternatively run through the radiant heating system. Third stage water is captured in the greywater drains and from radiator exhausts at 60C and run through a heat exchanger for convective air flow, at the underground point of entry for incoming air. Fourth stage water at 35-40C is sent under the outdoor walkways (for de-icing) and thence flows by gravity into the biological digestors and constructed wetlands where it keeps useful microflora active year-round.

The Institute provided seminars on ecovillage network challenges on 6 and 7 July, in tandem with presentations from Cindy Harris (Centre for Alternative Technology's Green Buildings expert); Rob Gwillim (CAT energy options); Andy Patton (Camphill, development and care for handicapped); Yrsa Siguordsdottir (Solheimer architect); Phil Horton (CAT history); Caroline Oakley (CAT publications and web resources); and Sabrina Wise (CAT information systems). All speakers were invited to attend an Icelandic State Dinner at the historic parliamentary center at Tingvellir, which coincidentally is where Sesselja was born and raised.

At the conclusion of the events at Solheimer we were spirited away on a 3-day scenic tour of Iceland hosted by Agnar Guolangssyni (Solheimer director), and his wife Byorg and facilitated by Icelandic Adventure Tours which supplied the monster truck and trailer (named Eco 3) to get us into and out of glacial rivers and across hardened lava flows. In some places we went where roads had only just opened after the spring melt, but meandering rivers through loose volcanic sands presaged a dirth of bridges and a plethora of rough water crossings. Our first night was in Torsmork, at a rustic hikers hut, Basar, at the base of Myrdalsjokull glacier (63 41 99 N, 19 30 79 W, 5 cpm background radiation). The next morning we departed on foot, crossed the Godaland valley and ascended the 458 m. Valahunkur at Hringsja og Solar which afforded magnificent views of the glaciers. We descended the opposite side past Songhellir – the singing cave – to Fimmvorduhals, then returned by a different footpath to the Godaland valley and Torsmork. Spring flowers and flowering trees lined the paths, and we gathered Silene acaulis (campion moss), and Saxifraga caespilosa (tufted saxifrage).

The second night we proceeded through a moonscape of lava fields (notably 64 03 99 N, 20 38 57 W, 5 cpm background radiation) to Landsmannalauger, at the opposite terminus from Torsmork of the glacier trail that is much traveled by Icelandic hikers. We use “night” rather loosely since sunset was at 23:30 and sunrise was at 3:20 GMT. Even though it was the dark phase of the moon, it was never dark – the glow of the sun was always just below the horizon from midnight to 3 AM.

We arrived a bit earlier than expected because en route our guide took us up a river canyon and pointed to an hours’ long walk we were expected to make to see a glacial waterfall. It had begun to rain, we had already climbed a mountain that day, and so we declined the side trip and instead pushed on to Landsmannalauger. As it turned out this decision was fortuitous. The rain, and perhaps a small earth tremor, caused a section of glacial dike to become unhinged, releasing a sudden flash flood into that canyon. There would have been no glacial waterfall to view, only a torrent of glacial water! While no injuries were reported, other hikers were stranded for a day or two until the river subsided.

Landsmannalauger (63 59 44N, 19 04 47 W) is a scenic public campground, with a steaming river swimming area and numerous easy ascents through weird lava formations just above. Among the hundreds camping there that night, we were fortunate to have reserved one of the few indoor (12-mattress, sardine-style) bunkrooms. Agnar charcoal-broiled steaks and potatoes and Byorg made quiche for the vegetarians. It is a curious irony that we are using charcoal to cook on, since much of Iceland was formerly forested when the Europeans arrived in the 9th Century, but almost all was gone by the end of the 19th century – removed for charcoal – resulting in desertification and erosion of the precious topsoil, ruin of the small farm economy, and climate change (it is colder and windier without trees). The government is making a modest effort to reseed with native grasses as a prelude to reforestation, but it is a long, slow process. Solheimer is using its geothermal hot spring to grow indigenous forest nursery stock in glasshouses for this effort.

The third day we descended from the glaciers and lava fields and after a night at Geysir and a visit to the falls at Gullfoss, returned to the coast, stopping to swim and sauna at the Blue Lagoon east of Reykavik. The Blue Lagoon is a discharge pond for a geothermal steam plant. The grey limey clay that precipitates from the effluent gives the pools a turquoise tint and is said to be medicinal. People at the Blue Lagoon slather themselves in mud. It is sold in shops at premium prices.

Eventually we returned to Reykavik and a Viking dinner in Hafnarflorour village, hosted by Edda and Pétur Sveinbjarnarson.

Petur, as president of Solheimer has done a magnificent effort of attracting favorable publicity and bringing aboard corporate sponsors. He works regularly with Morgunbladid, Iceland’s daily paper, to place news releases. When we were there the paper issued a full size, color 8-page Sunday supplement devoted to Solheimer that went free with all the editions throughout Iceland. However, where there is such praise, there is also reaction, and Petur has suffered some unwarranted personal attacks on TV and radio. The complaints range from the outlandish – Solheimer embezzles government money and drugs its patients so it doesn’t have to care for them – to the merely concerned – Solheimer spends funds for ecological buildings and sculpture gardens instead of hiring staff to care for more disabled people. Recently there have also been some unfavorable audits by government agencies complaining about everything from the lack of uniformity in coffee cups to the low caregiver-to-patient ratios. There are concerns that, as a tax-exempt entity receiving government support, Solheimer’s industries (agriculture, candlemaking, papermaking, hospitality, soaps and shampoos) compete with taxed for-profit businesses. All of these complaints are not new. Many are nearly identical to the complaints heard by Sesselja in the 1930s and 1940s.

On July 4th, Global Village Institute awarded Solheimer a trophy "for outstanding achievement in ecological design for human habitats."

Campus Ecovillages

If one is attempting to bring about a massive cultural change in order to shift atmospheric chemistry back into balance - no net carbon gain - one needs to start talking about lifestyle change in the consumer countries of the North. Looking for leverage in making this kind of shift, one is presented with the spectra of university campuses, the crysalis stage from which the lifestyles of the future will emerge. We need for those lifestyles to be nature-sensitive, biocentric, based upon regenerative cycles in which waste is not part of the equation.

The Institute works this edge in several important ways. We assist universities in providing speakers and literature for courses in a standard academic setting. We host college classes that come to our training center for instruction ranging from half day to 2 weeks. We assist emerging ecovillages in creating "living and learning centers" that can do the same in their locale. We are part of Living Routes, a university-consortia sponsored program to take students into the field for a semester of hands-on learning. We have 5 and 10 week apprenticeship programs to take J-term, summer and work-trimester students and build practical skills. But there is an even more transformative path that is emerging.

Imagine universities competing to be crucibles of change to a sustainable society; places where the 4-year sojourn prepares you not merely for the workforce, but for living a life in harmony with the planet.. This process is beginning already at schools like Oberlin, CalPoly Pomona, University of New Hampshire, and elsewhere. The Institute is now working in depth with Berea College in Kentucky to create the Berea College Ecovillage. John Todd and the people at Ocean Ark are providing the Living Machine for waste treatment. Sim Van der Ryn has been contracted as an architect. Buddy Williams is doing the permaculture landscape design. Our task is to assist with the "invisible architecture" of community, the psychic shell that brings an otherwise gossimer vision into the real world of human interactions.

World Summit in Johannesburg

After our work in setting the stage at the various Prepcom conferences leading up to the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development, it fell to us to get to Johannesburg in August and see if we couldn't get some of these initiatives implemented. To assist us in getting there and being effective, we joined with other NGOs to form the EcoEarth Alliance.

The Problem:
3/4ths of the world’s poor live in rural communities, primarily in the developing world.

1 billion live on less than a dollar a day with no access to clean water or electricity.

2 billion people don’t even have basic sanitation.

Those in the greatest need are last in line and pay the consequences of developed countries exhausting our planet’s resources.

Lack of resources and funding where it is needed most is rapidly depleting the already overburdened natural environment, people and community structures.

Our Solution:
Create and promote a sustainable, integrated, and community-based model of development in order to overcome poverty, restore the environment, and provide for basic human needs throughout the world.

To get a more complete story on what happened in Johannesburg, and what it was like for us, check out our Summit Scrapbook.

The following agreements reflect the positive outcomes of the Summit:

BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY
Agreed to cut significantly by 2010 the rate at which rare animals and plants are becoming extinct. *

POVERTY
Agreed to establish a solidarity fund to wipe out poverty, "the greatest global challenge facing the world today". Stressed that contributions to fund are voluntary. *

WATER AND SANITATION
Agreed to halve proportion of people without access to proper sanitation by 2015, a goal Washington had resisted. Complements previous goal of halving proportion of people without access to clean drinking water by 2015. *

ENERGY
Agreed to take actions to improve access to affordable energy but failed to agree on specific targets to increase share of world energy produced from renewable "green" sources such as solar or wind power. EU was in favour of targets but United States and oil-producing countries refused to budge. *

GLOBALISATION
Plan acknowledges globalisation has both good and bad sides. While it offers great opportunities for growth of the world economy and better living standards, poor countries face special difficulties and should be included.
*
PRECAUTIONARY APPROACH
Reaffirmed principle of acting to protect the environment even if evidence of potential future damage to the Earth's ecosystem is not conclusive. *

STRATEGIES
Countries agreed to initiate strategies to preserve resources for future generations by 2005*

FISH
Agreed to restore depleted fish stocks by 2015 at the latest, recognising oceans are essential to ecosystems and a critical source of food, especially in poor countries.*

CHEMICALS
Agreed that by 2020 chemicals will be made and used in ways to minimise severe harmful impact on humans and the environment. Will promote sound management of hazardous waste.*

HEALTH
Agreed that a World Trade Organisation accord on patents should not prevent poor countries providing medicines for all; a key issue as they often cannot afford drugs to treat Aids.*

WOMEN
Access to healthcare should be consistent with basic human rights as well as religious and cultural values*

AID
Recognises that substantial increase in aid is needed for poor countries in order to meet agreed development goals. Urges rich countries to give 0.7 percent of national income, a target first set in 1970. Only five countries have reached that level.*

TRADE
Bolsters trade and environment without saying that World Trade Organisation rules override global environmental treaties. Seen as victory for environmental groups who feared deals such as Kyoto protocol could be undermined. Wealthy countries reaffirmed will to lower trade-distorting subsidies.*

GOVERNANCE
Recognise that good governance nationally and internationally is essential for sustainable development. Rich states wanted aid tied to less corruption and more democracy.*

Womens Peace Village

A week-long Women’s Peace Village inviting 140 women leaders from all parts of Ecuador and 6 international locations (U.S., Spain, Italy, Argentina, Hungary and Colombia) was organized by the Institute through the Rainbow Peace Caravan and its partner organizations and took place in Ecuador.

Our local partner, Centro de Educación y Acción de las Mujeres Otavaleñas (CEAMO), has been providing appropriate leadership training and technical assistance to women with a strong family orientation. CEAMO has conflict resolution and leadership training alliances with local police and health departments and 32 community and women’s organizations, representing several thousand rural, urban, indigenous and mestizo women.

Another partner, Federación Indigena y Campesina de la Inrujta (FICI), represents over 160 primarily native Kichwa communities. Its mission is to organize communal projects promoting economic sustainability (craft, agriculture, fishing, tourism), adequate housing, education and health care.

Red De Solidaridad Con Los Migrantes, Exmigrantes Y Sus Familias (RSMEF) is an organization of social support formed by women worried about the traumatic consequences of migration for families and the society. RSMEF seeks to assure affordable housing, sanitation and access to education for migrant families.

Our fourth partner, Tejemujeres, is a women’s textile cooperative founded in 1992 in Gualaceo, which is composed of 120 women working together to produce textiles and to improve their social and economic conditions.

A two-month process (April/May 2002) to convene the Peace Village led to the production of a three-fold brochure, letters of invitation and a Peace Village program. La Caravana posted all information on its Spanish web site.

An unexpected, extremely favorable by-product of the invitation process was the production of a database detailing more than 280 women’s groups we were able to identify in the process of the preparatory investigations. This database was put on CD-ROM and made available to the women’s organizations. It is to our knowledge the only relatively complete listing of women’s organizations in Ecuador and as such represents an important step in the unification of the women’s leadership movement.

As follow-up to the workshops given to the partner participants, the video team met during the Peace Village to coordinate the documentation process. Unfortunately some of the women who had taken the workshop were more interested in attending activities and seemed to lack sufficient self-confidence and training to spend much time recording the event. Nonetheless, four video cameras were in active use throughout the Peace Village and four women from the RSMEF did participate in the documentary process. One of these women has been involved in the editing process and several have given input.

Although the anticipated involvement of the women in the documentary was not as complete as had been hoped for, we feel the process was very beneficial in exposing the women to its potential and exciting their interest. It is suggested that in future projects the video documentation workshops be expanded to allow more time for workshops considering the diversity of the group and the level at which the women are initiating their training.

A video documentary entitled “Tejiendo Redes, Tejiendo Futuro” (Weaving Networks, Weaving Futures) has been produced by the production team, principally the video instructors and few of the women participants (See VHS videotape). This video was premiered at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg and will be distributed in Ecuador through the Ecuadorian Women’s Leadership Network, and then throughout Latin America and the world by la Caravana, GVI and the Global Ecovillage Network. We are seeking the means to make an English subtitled version and considering the possibility to enter it in film documentary festivals and contests.

We are extremely excited about this professional quality video and its potential to inspire and motivate women to unite and form networks. It also demonstrates the replicability of the project.

The culmination of the Peace Village was the formation of the Ecuadorian Women Leaders Network for Peace (Red Ecuadoriana de Mujeres Lideres por la Paz). The women also signed a declaration which they had written during the last days of the Village outlining their concerns as women for the problems they encounter on all levels in their country. It was agreed that the Network would be temporarily headed by the Azuay group, particularly the women from the RSMEF who had been trained in this project. This leadership would rotate after two years. The women were designated the task of organizing the network, writing a code of ethics, and looking for ways to convene the 2nd Women’s Peace Village of Ecuador. There were suggestions made to launch the Network on the same day, all over the country.

The Azuay committee as of Aug 15, 2002 has had four meetings and has made some progress. It has decided to launch the Network on Oct 12, 2002 with celebrations, cultural activities and other events throughout the country. They are calling this day “The Rediscovery of Women.” REMLP has designated Leticia Quintero of the RSMEF as President and has assigned other Azuay participants as officers. The majority of the officers are from the RSMEF.

Members of the Committee who did not have email accounts have taken a workshop in “How to set up an Email account”, given by a Caravan trainer and have set up their accounts.

REMLP has created (with help from la Caravana) a listserv for participants in the Peace Village and other interested members. Ms. Christian M. Collette of the U.S. Embassy in Quito is a member of this listserv. Through this listserv they are distributing suggestions for the Oct 12 launching and a press release to aid in the organization. The final report of the project is on line in English.

Alberto Ruz and Liora Adler visited the Ecovillage Training Center in Tennessee in October. Liora Adler, met twice with Ms. Collete M. Christian, Cultural Affairs Attache at the U.S. Embassy in Quito. A positive working relationship was established and Ms. Christian provided contacts with women’s groups, particularly in Esmeraldas. We are hopeful this will generate some future funding for similar projects in Latin America.

Partnerships

Through several of our programs we have formed new and interesting partnerships this year and they promise to enlarge our fields of activity in the future. Through the Global Ecovillage Network, where we currently serve as strategic and financial development office, we have formed a partnership with thesustainablevillage.com, an alternative technology provider with unusual projects all over the world. Through that partnership we are also part of EcoEarth Alliance, a coalition of groups working on sustainable development strategies. We are part of UNITAR's type II initiatives and find ourselves allied with a variety of state, municipal and private agencies which are working to train future civic leaders in essential skills to balance environmental and economic sustainability. With Owen Plastics LLC we now have a full service machine shop close to our headquarters. With Zoxy Energy Systems, g.m.b.h., we are testing zinc-based fuel cells in our Training Center. We are providing fiscal sponsorships to La Caravana Arcoiris y Paz, Earth Advocates Institute, and Thlolego Development Project, which permits them to use our federal tax-exempt status to raise funds in the United States. We continue to serve as a channel for donations to Luna Nueva in Mexico, Sarvodaya in Sri Lanka, Sortavala in Russia, and many other pathbreaking projects around the world.



Type 2 Initiatives

10 years after the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the United Nations agreed to organize the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, from the 26th of August to the 4th of September 2002.

Within the context of the Millennium Declaration, the United Nations Secretary General asserted the importance of the partnership between the United Nations and the civil society, local authorities and the private sector. Subsequently, the Secretary General of the United Nations evoked the thematic goals of the WSSD, which are Water, Energy, Health, Agriculture and Biodiversity.

The overall ambition of the WSSD is to launch, on the one hand, a plan of implementation for Agenda 21 (type 1 product), which will have been the subject of prior inter-governmental negotiations and, on the other hand, a series of partnerships to promote the development of concrete projects (type 2 product). The latter must be related to the plan of implementation and involve United Nations Agencies, governments, non-governmental organizations, the civil society and private firms.

The plan of implementation includes several explicit references to local authorities:


The type 2 initiative entitled “Local Capacity-Building and Training for Sustainable Urbanization: a Public-Private Partnership” was launched by the CIFAL (International Training Centre for Local Actors), a UNITAR Programme based at Divonne-les-Bains in France. It is the outcome, with the approval of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA), of collaborative work with the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), the World Federation of United Cities (UTO) on behalf of the World Associations of Cities and Local Authorities Coordination (WACLAC), international NGOs (Global Ecovillage Network, Fondation du Devenir) and a multinational (Vivendi Environment). These partners agreed to organize “Regional Fora on Sustainable Urbanization”.

Regional fora were organized between December 2001 and October 2002 for Africa (Durban, December 2001), Latin America and the Caribbean (Curitiba, April 2002), Asia and the Pacific (Shanghai, June 2002), Europe (Lyon, July 2002) and the south bank of the Mediterranean basin (Algiers, October 2002). Each regional forum focused on a specific topic such as water and sanitation, waste management, energy and transport, public health, housing and local governance. The key participants at these fora were the local authorities and their partners (United Nations, cooperation institutions, city associations, NGOs…), with whom they cooperate. The four fora gathered more than 800 participants, among them mayors, presidents of regions, territorial administrations staff, representatives of Ministries, United Nations directors, academics, heads of associations, business representatives.

By establishing a link between the needs expressed and the analysis of answers already provided by existing support programmes, each forum provided precise recommendations in the form of a declaration and an action plan, synthesized in a type 2 partnership, which will be presented at the WSSD. The latter is called “Local Capacity-Building and Training for Sustainable Urbanization: a Public-Private Partnership” and consists in several components, depending on the type of training sought for, the partners involved and the secured funding opportunities.

Each component refers both to the five main themes of the WSSD and to various paragraphs of the Plan of Implementation for the World Summit (PrepCom 4 version, Bali, 12th of June 2002).

Through various of its training components, this initiative contributes to strengthen the new Sustainable City campaign initiated by the European Union.

This initiative aims to strengthen the capacities of local authorities to reach global sustainable development goals at a local level.

Kids to the Country

This was the 14th year of Kids to the Country and the 6th year we have hosted the program at the Ecovillage Training Center. This year we were supported by numerous sponsors, some returning, some for the first time. Sponsors included the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Best Buy Foundation, National Gardening Association, Seed Savers Exchange, Dramm Corporation, Opus, Inc., Storey Publishing, Novelty Manufacturing Company, L.R. Nelson Corporation, Old Farmers Almanac, Nichols Garden Nursery, Jackson and Perkins, Gardeners Supply Company, Fiskars, and Seeds of Change, as well as many individuals throughout the country.

During their stay at our Ecovillage Training Center, underprivileged children are housed and fed and provided instruction and activities relating to the theme of creating and enjoying sustainable and frugal lifestyles in harmony with nature. The children engage in normal summer camp activities such as basketball, volleyball, badminton, horseback riding, swimming and water sports, hiking, bicycle trips, and arts and crafts. Children are given varying degrees of responsibility, depending on age and maturity, but all were assigned chores and duties, including sweeping and mopping, making beds, food preparation, serving and clean-up. In addition, through the support of the Institute, an environmental education component is incorporated. Each group of children engages in hands-on demonstrations of building with straw, cob, earthbags, bamboo and other natural materials, composting their food scraps, visits wastewater wetlands natural treatment systems, cultivates and harvests vegetables in organic gardens, and picks fruit and berries from edible landscaping. They are instructed in techniques of waste and pollution avoidance and in "feeding the earth" with valuable organic matter.

Our instructional methodology is a relational pedagogy involving active student participation in the learning process. This is encouraged by creating stimulating group activities which blend modern-day technological advancements — efficient buildings, renewable energy, biological waste management, and organic gardening — with the best features of traditional small villages: close companionship and family bonds, decentralized and participatory decisionmaking, frugality and conservation, and enjoyable group activity.

Each program typically involves 12 to 25 children and runs 4 days. Instructors include permanent staff of Plenty and the Ecovillage Training Center and volunteers (aged 16-19) drawn from the surrounding community. The volunteers consist of youth counselors and members of service agencies such as Meharry Sisters and Earth Matters Tennessee. Approximately twenty volunteers participate in the course of a season.

Children will be transported to and from D.D. Wallace and Edgehill low income housing projects in Nashville, the St. Patricks Shelter for the homeless in Nashville, the Whitehaven section of Memphis, and midstate rural low-income areas serviced by the Meharry Sisters. The objective is to provide stimulating group activities which serve to instruct participants in environmental issues, particularly those surrounding global warming, and the responses which society as a whole must make in years to come.

This program, which extends our training to underprivileged populations of youth, is in keeping with the social justice mission of our work. It also looks to the long term, when these children will become tomorrow's decisionmakers and community developers.

Permaculture Peace Palestine

This year brought together two projects we have worked separately with in the past but have really needed to be coordinated. The Marda Permaculture Centre in Nablus, West Bank, Palestine was a model of permaculture in the Arab world, developing drought resistant landscapes, forming heirloom seedbanks, demonstrating alternate energy and economics. It was tragic when the wells dried up after a new, unlawful settlement was allowed to be built just upslope of their orchards and vinyards, but they struggled on, gathering rainwater in large catchments and channeling it to where it could be stored and used. Then came the latest Intifada and Marda, its libraries and workshops, kitchens and seedbanks, was bulldozed, its residents scattered to refugee camps, and its abundant foodscapes crushed under the treads of tanks. One of Marda's founders, Murad Al-Khufash, was brought to the US, where he has been teaching permaculture and working with us for the past 2 years. In late Spring this year we were joined by Israeli kibbutzniks and peace activists Shmuel and Alison Ofanansky, and together with Murad they have been working on a joint permaculture training program for the occupied territories. See The Crazy Palestinian's Permaculture Page for more on this.

Ecovillage Apprenticeships

In March we launched an ambitious 10-week apprenticeship program in organic food production, natural building, wastewater, and ecological design. Too ambitious we now think, and we have scaled it back in 2003 to three separate 5-week apprenticeships. Apprentices pay board and lodging, we provide courses and training in solar electric system installation, organic and biodynamic farming, cob, strawbale and earthbag construction, living roofs, greywater systems and constructed wetlands, village design and master planning, consensus and conflict management. This is designed to be a boot camp for community activists working with sustainability issues, all over the world.

Bamboo

We started planting bamboo in 1994 and we are now up to a dozen species and hope to acquire more. This year we added Phyllostachys henna, P. aurea, P. spectabilis, and P. rubromarginata. Bamboos have some 90 genera, and Phyllostachys, the most common domestic variety in temperate climates such as Tennessee, has some 75 species with more than 200 subspecies.

Bamboo is just grass, but it varies in height from dwarf, one foot (30 cm) plants to giant timber bamboos that can grow to over 100 feet (40 m). It grows in a lot of different climates, from jungles to high on mountainsides. Bamboos are further classified by the types of roots they have. Some, called runners, spread exuberantly, and others are classified as clumpers, which slowly expands from the original planting. There are also varieties of root systems that are a mixture of these types. Generally, the tropical bamboos tend to be clumpers and the temperate bamboos tend to be runners.

Bamboo is both decorative and useful. In many parts of the world it is food, fodder, the primary construction material and is used for making great variety of useful objects from kitchen tools, to paper to dinnerware. Bamboo employs more than one out of every six people on the planet, because of its thousands of uses.

Next Year

The work next year is exciting with projects and events coming up in Brazil, Peru, Russia and Africa that will keep us busy and challenge our resources. We are committed to another season of Kids to the Country. We plan additional housing and utilities for the apprenticeship program.We'll h ave a full schedule of course, including new ones on domebuilding, earthbags, bamboo and holistic healing. We have to find some major sponsors to continue the important and transformative work of the ecovillage movement which has outgrown its startup phase but unable to sustain its outreach efforts in 40 languages, on the meager resources of villages themselves, which are already doing without government support what governments have agreed is necessary if humanity is to get through the next century and emerge with a sustainable economic model for the future.

We welcome your support in 2003. It is more important and timely now than ever. We pledge to put any resources we are entrusted with to immmediate and effective use towards the end of better future for everyone. If you have read this whole report and haven't reached for your wallet yet, Just Do It!

Albert Bates
President