International Newsletter on Sustainable Local Development
Newsletter #74
December 1st 2010

Summary

Message from the Editorial Team
Nekasarea: a Basque network serving the everyday struggle for Food Sovereignty

New web sites
International Network for the Promotion of the Social Solidarity Economy (RIPESS)
International Forum on the Social and Solidarity Economy (FIESS)


Message from the editorial team
In this issue we are happy to publish an article that was sent to us by the URGENCI Secretary General Jocelyn Parot.
The Basque Nekasarea network is important both in terms of its vision and its scope that reaches well beyond community supported agriculture (CSA); it is a good example of how CSA can be integrated into the broader development of the community itself. In this sense, it is a beautiful demonstration of sustainable local development.
As our next issue is scheduled for February 1st 2011, we would like to send our readers our best wishes for the New Year.

The Editorial Team
Judith Hitchman
Yvon Poirier
Martine Theveniaut

Nekasarea: a Basque network serving the everyday struggle for Food Sovereignty

Nekasarea is a network of organized producers and consumers that have operated in the Biscaye Province of the Spanish Basque country for the last two years. The Farmers’ Union Ehne-Biscaye, a founding member of La Via Campesina in 1996, has recently devoted a lot of time and effort to the implementation of initiatives of partnership and short-chain supplies in food production and distribution. These initiatives are inspired by the French AMAP (Community Supported Agriculture), as well as other similar experiences. In 2010, the Basque network already includes nearly a hundred farmers who organize their production and sell directly to consumers.

The Ehne Union is an historical actor of the social and political landscape at local level. Initiated during the 1970s the struggle to defend the price of the milk rapidly led it become the expression of the farmers’ fight against Francoism, and for the democratisation of society. In recent years it has become the first Farmers Union of the Biscaye province with more that 1000 members (affiliados), which represents a 60% rate of unionisation of the farmers of the region. The Union staff team is composed of ten employees, ranging from the communication team to the network management team. The employees are in charge of the operating systems for direct sales; these are organised on a partnership basis. There is an ongoing negotiation between farmers of the Union and the groups of activist consumers on the economic and social conditions, as well as the organisation of the logistics. Currently, there are about thirty consumer groups, all of whom are committed to the process and distribution througout Biscaye, but mostly in the capital, Bilbao, and its surroundings.

Like all tried and tested recipes, that of Nekasarea is simple. But it requires some experience to get things right. The network is under the wing of a Union which is anchored in 40 years of history of farmers’ struggles. It also requires the right ingredients, like those of the local land, varied as those found in the Zeanuri grocery store. And patience, as demonstrated by the project leaders as they follow training courses carried out tirelessly week after week.

1. Building an alternative aimed at restoring the true meaning of exchange
Through the Nekasarea network, Ehne aims to provide constructive solutions to clearly identified problems, through action rather than by taking a critical stance or protesting.

The Network’s values

The network is built on values that clearly resemble those of the CSA and AMAP models. The notion of shared risk is thus central, as the consumers pay for their orders when they are placed (even if it is a monthly payment), and they commit for the whole year. The price of each “basket” prepared by the network that includes the produce from several producers can be fairly expensive (up to 200 Euros per family per month for a complete basket). The baskets are delivered on a weekly basis.
The annual commitment is based on a basket that has a constant content. This helps avoid planning difficulties. Each family usually begins with a trial period of three months before committing for the whole year. The important development of Nekasarea over these two years can also be explained by a local tradition that is very ingrained. Gastronomes, local food activists and Farmers’ Unions regularly gather in “gastronomic dining clubs” of which there are many in each town in the region (there were four in the town of Durango alone). These clubs support old, local traditions.

Their first objective is to provide a possibility to exchange and create social links around a meal prepared from local products. Social links and exchange: these two terms were central to all the meetings we had. They are twin concepts that guide the actions of the Ehne Union orientation of information and training, even if as Umrafu explained to us, the golden rule of Farmers’ Union is that “the more you talk, the more enemies you have, and the more efficient you are, the more threats you receive”.
Nekasarea, a pedagogical tool aimed at serving the movement
The members have considered it is necessary to reach beyond to the experience of direct sales, and include a new dimension by making Nekasarea a pedagogic tool that serves the food sovereignty movement.
One of the key assets of this kind of trade-union based local and solidarity partnership system is that it guarantees ongoing consistency between local actions and the global dimension. The considerable work that has been done in the fields of communication and training linked to global evolution has led to an overall homogeneity among the CSA actors. This means that the new Basque partnership model has avoided becoming a kind of club for the wealthy. The network reaches beyond the “just between friends” and reaches out to society. It reaches beyond a small in-group of the initiated, to become part not only of the local community but of society as a whole.

The technical staff working in Ehne is dedicated and able to carry out training as well as being leaders. Isa is not only the leader of the Nekasarea network but also a consumer in the empowered consumer cooperative in Vittoria. As such, she manages a cooperative bar-restaurant project that follows local peasant agriculture criteria and that employs 6 people. This bar-restaurant aims to show that ecological actions are not limited exclusively to the elite but that all segments of society can organize to build alternative chains that are socially more viable.

2. Other actors of alternative chains: the case of the Zeanuri grocery store

Zeanuri is a village that holds a pleasant surprise: the centre of this little town that curls into the Pyrenees is very busy around the local grocery store. The existence of this grocery store in the village centre is a good example of a local project. It sells mainly local products, and operates through cooperation between the local authorities, local NGOs and producers. The Ehne trade union doesn’t play a central role in this project, but it has nevertheless played an essential supporting role.
The village grocery store at the heart of the revitalization of a rural project zone.

Several years ago, with the inevitable rural exodus, the municipal authorities decided to launch a competition to renew the life of this small mountain village and its surroundings.

The grocery-bar-restaurant project was launched by a young woman who is very aware of the local agricultural issues as she comes from a family of local farmers. When her father died, her brothers chose to keep all the cows in the mountains out of their love for the work more than for profits’ sake. She thought up the grocery as a direct sales’ system and a community space. The grocery store is based on a direct sales’ system: two shepherds provide ewe’s mild cheese; a vegetable producer sells her organic production. The owner herself works on her farm where she grows food mainly for her own consumption, selling any surplus in the shop. Initially Irena did everything by herself: taking care of the livestock, the daily management of the shop and the farm, selling in the shop and baking the bread. She then transmitted her knowledge to others and now she is increasingly handing on the work. Eight people are involved in the kitchen and behind the bar.

This grocery store is first and foremost a community centred space: every day works to the hourly rhythm of different activities. It is a very lively space where people gather, eat and stay in touch.

The coordinating role of Nekasarea

The Nekasarea network plays a coordinating role. It helps bring producers and the grocery store together. It also allows the members to discuss the grocery project with those who are more aware of the importance of consuming locally. This does not involve all of the inhabitants of the village who usually shop in supermarkets instead of coming into the centre of the village, says the owner. The grocery store is actually the ideal place to discuss social issues, especially those that are food-related.

CONCLUSION

Nekasarea demonstrates the social force of change that becomes possible through coherent social organization. It provides the possibility for genuine local development, the preservation of the agricultural and cultural heritage and the realization of collective projects of “better living together”.
Jocelyn Parot
www.urgenci.net
Baserribizia, the monthly network newsletter,
in Spanish and Basque, is available at:
http://www.baserribizia.info/
Info :
http://blog.urgenci.net/?p=461 (FR only)
http://blog.urgenci.net/?p=467 (FR only)
http://blog.urgenci.net/?p=470 (ENG only)
http://blog.urgenci.net/?p=474 (ENG only)


New web sites
International Network for the Promotion of the Social Solidarity Economy (RIPESS)
RIPESS annonces that it now has a new website.
http://ripess.org/
International Forum on the Social and Solidarity Economy (FIESS)
This is the website for the meeting that will be held in Montreal 2011, October 17 to 20 under the theme «Government and Civil Socity».
http:/www.fiess2011.org

Our Newsletters are available on the WEB:
http://local-development.blogspot.com/
www.apreis.org/

Special thanks to:
Brunilda Rafael (France) for the Spanish translation
Michel Colin (Brazil) for the Portuguese translation
Évéline Poirier (Canada) for proof-reading English and French versions

To contact us (for information, feedback, to subscribe or unsubscribe):
Yvon Poirier ypoirier@videotron.ca

International Newsletter on Sustainable Local Development
Newsletter #73
November 1st 2010

Summary

Message from the Editorial Team

2009 Nobel Prize for Economics awarded to Elinor Ostrom for her work on “Governing the Commons” (1

Wind of (institutional) change

Message from the editorial team

Awarding the 2009 Nobel Prize for economy to the political scientist, Elinor Osrom is most encouraging and important, as it reinforces the main approach that we try to promote in our Newsletter. Martine helps us to explore the concept of “commons”. Yvon has been in a position to witness the community management of the Nepalese forest, which Ostrom quotes as an example, as a genuine success in terms of the preservation of the biosphere, while at the same time allowing local people to improve their living conditions.

As already mentioned in previous issues, the survival and promotion of small-scale local family farming is definitely a solution for feeding people and overcoming poverty for the majority of the poorest inhabitants of our world. Just to remind you, 70% of the one billion people who live in extreme poverty live in rural areas. Judith shares the positive developments within the Food and Agriculture Organisation agency of the United Nations (FAO).

The Editorial Team
Judith Hitchman
Yvon Poirier
Martine Theveniaut

2009 Nobel Prize for Economics awarded to Elinor Ostrom for her work on “Governing the Commons” (1)

This approach, which is central to all of Elinor Ostrom’s research is not mainstream, to say the least, or on the radar of the economists from the Chicago School of Economics (world leaders with the most Nobel Economics Prizes!). It may even be considered marginal according to the article by the renowned Garrett Hardin “The Tragedy of the Commons” (2) that deals with the dominant neo-classical paradigm!

The current pressure on natural resource management problems places the research of this 76 year-old woman at the heart of everyday preoccupations. Essentially her book examines the managing of common pool resources (CPRs), and shows that the way collective action operates does not follow the usual assumptions of economics (rationality and perfect information of the actors). In reality, actors make more appropriate choices in terms of collective gain, than those related to the predictions of rational choice theory. This is explained partly by the importance of face-to-face or personal relationships, which encourage mutual commitment, as well as by the actors’ capacity to innovate or adapt which allows them to increase collective gain by modifying some of the rules.

Her reflection has constantly evolved since the 60s, based on supporting evidence; it aims to escape the intellectual trap of the tragedy of the commons: starting with her thesis on water management in Southern California (1963), inshore fisheries in Turkey, irrigation systems in Spain and the Philippines, and more recently, the exploitation of forests in Nepal (3). Elinor Ostrom and Amy Poteete have thus shown that regulation of the use of forests by local communities is strongly linked to
 the attitude of local people vis-à-vis the forest resource;
 the size of the forest, as it must be monitored;
 the attitude of government agencies, which should not impede local efforts and provide institutions to facilitate the resolution of conflicts;
 the attitude of political power towards lobby groups with antagonistic interests to the modes of forestry management;
 the nature and size of interest groups (small sizes with homogeneous interests or large sizes with different interests).

Contrary to intuitive judgments, direct management by the communities does not always guarantee the preservation of the resource, but this type of institutional arrangement has a high probability of leading to sustainable management of forests.

“Instead of presuming that optimal institutional solutions can be designed easily and imposed at low cost by external authorities, I (Elinor Ostrom) argue that “getting the institutions right” is a difficult, time-consuming, conflict-invoking process. It is a process that requires reliable information about time and place variables as well as broad repertoire of culturally acceptable rules.”(4) “What is missing from the policy analyst’s tool kit – and from the set of accepted, well-developed theories of human organization – is an adequately specified theory of collective action whereby a group of principals can organize themselves voluntarily to retain the residuals of their own efforts.” (5)

“Examples of self-organized enterprises abound… But until a theoretical explanation – based on human choice – for self-organized and self-governed enterprises is fully developed and accepted, major policy decisions will continue to be undertaken with a presumption that individuals cannot organize themselves and always need to be organized by external authorities.” (6)

New collective regulations are possible.

To reduce the gap between current theories of collective action and empirical examples, “what is needed … is a somewhat different orientation toward the theoretical endeavor related to policy analysis.”(7) Rather than relying on the choices of individuals assumed to be capable of maximizing short-term but not long-term results, who are trapped in their dilemma and directed to governments as users of their programs, when in fact the decisions are taken with an idealized vision of the market or state. The change of vision which her analysis opens, gives consistency to the initiatives of individuals and their collective social inventions as “users … struggling to find workable and equitable solutions to difficult problems within arenas provided by courts, by legislative bodies, and by local authorities.”(8) This theory has now emerged from marginality. It is widely backed by empirical data. It opens a legitimate path that practitioners can implement. In the long term, a framework for documentation, the analysis and lessons learnt are needed to describe the added value of “good governance”, equipping, evaluating and anticipating the pursuit of a shared responsibility to all the territories. The local level needs to be rehabilitated to be valued at global level. The path which we will continue to follow consists of mutualizing the results of “I illustrate, I discuss, I propose”(9). We can walk this road with increased confidence. It is a safer way than “I know what’s best, therefore I’ll tell you what to do and you do it.” (10)

Martine Theveniaut
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elinor_Ostrom
http://www.elinorostrom.com/
http://shesc.asu.edu/ostrom

1. Ostrom, Elinor, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action, Cambridge University Press, 1990.
2. Science, December 13, 1968, number 162, pp 1243-1268.
3. Poteete A.R., Jansen M.A, Ostrom E., Working Together: Collective Action, the Commons, and Multiple Methods in Practice, Princeton U. Press, 2010
4. Ostrom, Elinor, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action, Cambridge University Press, 1990, p. 14
5. Ostrom, Elinor, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action, Cambridge University Press, 1990, p. 24-25
6. Ostrom, Elinor, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action, Cambridge University Press, 1990, p. 25
7. Ostrom, Elinor, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action, Cambridge University Press, 1990, p. 191
8. Ostrom, Elinor, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action, Cambridge University Press, 1990, p. 216
9. This expression is specific to the format of the Lux’09 meetings, which we discussed in a previous issue.
10. Expression used by France Joubert, president of Pactes Locaux.

Wind of (institutional) change

With over 1 billion hungry people in the world, and 10,000 children dying daily of hunger-related illness, the question of what forms of local development can best feed people in a sustainable manner is one of the core issues the world needs to address.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is the dedicated United Nations Agency that has responsibility for this question. Until one year ago, the Committee for Food Security (CSF), one of the key bodies within the FAO, was limited exclusively to governmental representatives. The reform that was enacted in 2009, gives civil society as well as major businesses a consultative say in matters of food security. The ultimate say, through voting rights, remains with the governments.

The World Food Summit of 1996 defined food security as existing “when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life”(1).

This is precisely where the debate between food sovereignty and food security is situated. The latter does not necessarily take things like the “green revolution” based on GMO-modified seeds, or Economic Partnerships Agreements (EPAs) with the ACP (Africa, Caribbean & Pacific) countries into account. The green revolution has a disastrous effect on small-scale farmers (who feed most of the world’s population), on as well as agricultural workers, nomadic pastoralists and landless rural populations; it pushes them off their lands and into the cities. Their traditional community-based agriculture, seed exchange and local food systems sit poorly with profit-hungry multinationals and neo-liberal governments. The system of EPAs also allows imports that are nothing but dumping of subsided factory-farm products that wipe out local agriculture and processing in many of the APC countries, again with the same results as the green revolution, pushing people off their land so that they can no longer feed either themselves or others.

This is why the concept of food sovereignty is a more far-reaching politically embedded concept. It is defined as follows: “Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. It puts those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations. It defends the interests and inclusion of the next generation. It offers a strategy to resist and dismantle the current corporate trade and food regime, and directions for food, farming, pastoral and fisheries systems determined by local producers. Food sovereignty prioritises local and national economies and markets and empowers peasant and family farmer-driven agriculture, artisanal - fishing, pastoralist-led grazing, and food production, distribution and consumption based on environmental, social and economic sustainability. Food sovereignty promotes transparent trade that guarantees just income to all peoples and the rights of consumers to control their food and nutrition. It ensures that the rights to use and manage our lands, territories, waters, seeds, livestock and biodiversity are in the hands of those of us who produce food. Food sovereignty implies new social relations free of oppression and inequality between men and women, peoples, racial groups, social classes and generations”(2).

This is where the extraordinary work of a range of civil society organisations has come together through the IPC (International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty)(3) and their remarkable work of lobbying the FAO. They have been at the core of working to develop the Civil Society Mechanism for the Civil Society Organisations that wish to have their voices heard in the reformed CSF (Committee for Food Security) of the FAO(4).

After a long year spent working on the details, a three-day meeting of Civil Society organisations took place in Rome last week (8th-10th October), organised by the IPC, and officially funded by those member states of the CSF that supported the reform. Three hard long days’ work it was too, to prepare for the first meeting of the reformed CSF that took place in Rome the following week. The first echoes that have filtered down are of how surprised most States were by the highly organised positions of civil society, their good sense and use that they made of the allotted slots.

So a wind of change is blowing in the FAO. Perhaps not enough to change as much or as fast as many would like, given the strength of the multinational corporations and those States that support an industrial profit-based approach to agriculture and food security that is neither local nor sustainable. But it is nevertheless a significant step forward for the voice of the real solutions to feeding the world and preserving a sustainable environment and local development.
Judith Hitchman
1.http://www.who.int/trade/glossary/story028/en/
2.http://www.nyeleni.org/
3.http://www.foodsovereignty.org/new/
4.http://www.fao.org/cfs/cfs-home/en/


Our Newsletters are available on the WEB:
http://local-development.blogspot.com/
www.apreis.org/

Special thanks to:
Paula Garuz Naval (Ireland) for the Spanish translation
Michel Colin (Brazil) for the Portuguese translation
Évéline Poirier (Canada) for proof-reading English and French versions

To contact us (for information, feedback, to subscribe or unsubscribe):
Yvon Poirier ypoirier@videotron.ca

International Newsletter on Sustainable Local Development
Newsletter #72
October 1st 2010

Summary

Message from the Editorial Team

Development and international cooperation Summer University
An ”alternative” press agency

Message from the Editorial Team

In this issue, Judith, responsible for recruiting and coordinating the team of interpreters gives us an overview of the rich knowledge exchange at a Summer University held last July. This meeting on present day development issues was attended by 1000 participants.

We also encourage you to visit the IPS News website. Subscription is free.


The Editorial Team
Judith Hitchman
Yvon Poirier
Martine Theveniaut

Development and international cooperation Summer University

Founded in 1976 by eight French NGOs, the CRID (le Centre de Recherche et d’Information pour le Développement) now brings together a multitude of French NGOs that have built partnerships with similar organizations in the South and East that are involved in development projects for their communities and that represent a broad a network.

According to the CRID website, “Development is a global process improving the standards of living of a community on an economic, social, cultural and political level. Development should be efficient from an economic point of view, but should also create a long-term perspective, should be sustainable for the environment, fair at a social level, democratic, acceptable at a geopolitical level and allow for cultural diversity. Development therefore does not merely consist in economic growth. It has to contribute to the satisfaction of fundamental needs (food, education, health…) that are recognized as rights”.

The summer university, which is held every two years, was the first to involve such a major international dimension and was attended by over 1,000 people. It took place in Pessac, a suburb of Bordeaux, from July 7th – 10th. The backdrop was the global situation of multiple crises, and the wide-ranging subjects in the workshops demonstrated the high level of involvement and concern not just of the speakers, but of the participants in development issues. As one of the young Spanish interpreters remarked: “It is impressive to see how mobilised people are in France. The way retired people have become involved in associations is an important aspect. There is nothing like this in Spain… “.

The organisation included a team of 20 Babelit@ interpreters from 8 countries and 3 continents, that I had the pleasure of coordinating as a self-managing team, working closely with the CRID steering committee. Babels is an international collective of voluntary interpreters, involved mainly in the Social Fora, aimed at providing alternatives to commercial interpretation and allowing people to speak in the language of their choice. It was a very positive experience for everyone involved.

The local radio station, France Aquitaine Radio Libre took up residence on campus for the duration of the event. There are numerous interviews about CRID (in French) which are available through their archives, including one with David Leyendecker, an interpreter from Senegal and myself: http://www.farl.net/universite_ete_solidarite_2010.htm

“I would call this University both participatory and committed” said Nathalie Marzano, the General Secretary of the CRID. 130 organisations took part, as well as the many NGOs that had stands and the 45 NGOs from countries of the South or the East. We expect the latter to increase even more in the future, as they were deeply involved in the modules and different workshops. In previous summer universities, the organisations were free to choose the themes of the modules and workshops. This year the CRID opted for the World Social Forum model and the “semi autonomous model”.

The theme of the University was “Towards Dakar 2011”, and as such, many of the foundations for participating in the next World Social Forum have already been laid. Civil society has taken on an increasingly organised dimension that can no longer be overlooked, whatever the field.

Judith Hitchman
Original article written in both English and French
http://www.universite-si.org
www.crid.asso.fr/
www.babels.org/

An ”alternative” press agency

Inter Press Service News Agency (IPS NEWS) is a website that presents news from a people’s and civil society viewpoint. In fact, we could talk about different websites since the Agency has news in fifteen (15) different languages. Content varies much from one language to the other. The English website is very global while the others are less. For example, the French version is in fact IPS Africa, so they have more news about Africa. The Portuguese website is run from Brazil.

If you want news and analysis that is different than the mainstream Western world media, you may subscribe on one of the following websites.

http://www.ipsnews.net/ (EN)
http://www.ipsinternational.org/fr/ (FR)
http://www.mwglobal.org/ipsbrasil.net/index.php (PT)
http://www.ipsnoticias.net/ (ES)


Our Newsletters are available on the WEB:
http://local-development.blogspot.com/
www.apreis.org/

Special thanks to:
Brunilda Rafael (France) for the Spanish translation
Michel Colin (Brazil) for the Portuguese translation
Évéline Poirier (Canada) for proof-reading English and French versions

To contact us (for information, feedback, to subscribe or unsubscribe):
Yvon Poirier ypoirier@videotron.ca

International Newsletter on Sustainable Local Development
Newsletter #71
September 1st 2010

Summary

Message from the Editorial Team

The Editorial Team members – who are we?

US Social Forum, Detroit, June 22nd – 26th 2010

International Forum on Social and Solidarity Economy: Public Authorities and Civil Society
October 2011, Montreal (Canada)

Solidarity Economy I: Building Alternatives for People and Planet
New publication

Labour Unions and the Solidarity Economy: The Quebec Experience

Towards the European P’Actes: Promoting co-operative territorial economy as a means of combating poverty and social exclusion

Message from the Editorial Team

As we begin our 8th year of publication, we have continued to see new readers join our mailing list. So we would like to use this opportunity to remind everyone of the origins of our publication, as well as provide some more information on the members of the Editorial Team.

As well as a brief article on the Social Forum held in Detroit last June, we are including announcements for several upcoming events, and a review of a book that includes an article by Yvon.

The Editorial Team
Judith Hitchman
Yvon Poirier
Martine Theveniaut

The Editorial Team members – who are we?

We first got together in the company of our late friend Franscico Botelho from Portugal, when we were preparing for an international meeting of actors involved in sustainable local development that was scheduled to take place in Portugal in 2002.

Although the meeting was cancelled, we decided to continue promoting the development of sustainable local development, as we believe it is a fundamental prerequisite for developing alternatives to the current global crisis.

We are particularly convinced that it is important to build bridges between people living in different parts of the world. This is why we publish our newsletter in four languages: French, English, Spanish and Portuguese.

The first number of our newsletter was published in November 2003. Our initiative is strictly private, and completely based on voluntary work. We hope to be able to continue until such time as an organisation will continue our work, in the same spirit. Even if we are all involved in different projects and organisations, we do not act on their behalf. All three of us are also involved at different levels in the RIPESS (Intercontinental Network for the Promotion of the Social Solidarity Economy).

Judith Hitchman (France/Ireland)

• Member of the steering Committee of the Pactes Locaux, a French NGO supported by the Foundation for the Progress of Humankind (FPH)
• Special Envoy to the International Committee of Urgenci, the international network of Community Supported Agriculture networks
• Member of Babels and coordinator of interpreting teams for many projects within the World Social Forum Process.

Yvon Poirier (Canada)

• Member of the organising committee of an international meeting on local development held in Sherbrooke, Quebec (Canada) in 1998
• Chair of the International Committee of the Canadian Community Economic Development Network (CCEDNET)

Martine Théveniaut (France)

• General Secretary and Coordinator of the Pactes Locaux, a French NGO supported by the Foundation for the Progress of Humankind (FPH)
• Actively involved in various local development projects involving social and solidarity economy in her region in France (Languedoc-Roussillon).
• Author of Le développement local: Réponse politique à la mondialisation (1999)

US Social Forum, Detroit, June 22nd – 26th 2010

Last June, about 15,000 activists gathered in Detroit for the second US Social Forum. This represented a 50% increase in participants compared with the first edition that was held in June 2007. The deepening economic crisis in the U.S. no doubt partly explains this increase.

Hosting this event in Detroit was a deliberate choice. The historical capital of the automotive industry is one of the cities most affected by the economic and housing crisis. In the last 30 years, more than one third of the population has left, either for other parts of the country or to outlying cities. The vacancy rate for all types of housing is 17%. The mayor is pursuing a deliberate policy that is detrimental to disadvantaged neighbourhoods. There is a policy in effect to demolish entire sections of neighbourhoods to sell land to speculators. Parks and schools are being closed. In order to counter this situation, there are strong social movements in Afro-American and immigrant communities, since the golden days of the automotive industry had attracted high immigration. Detroit is the American city with the largest Muslim community as well as the largest Palestinian community. One resistance initiative and alternative industry is urban agriculture. It is the largest such movement in the USA, both to feed itself and to create work opportunities, especially for young people.

This was the context that motivated the US Solidarity Economy Network (SEN) and allied groups to organize a series of workshops. It is important to note the strong presence of the movement related to food issues, that represented community supported agriculture or peasants’ and small-scale farmers’ movements who are members of Via Campesina. Interestingly, a meeting was held to organize a US network for Food Sovereignty.
As with other Social Fora in the world, many of the participants adhere to the anti-globalization movement, and many are members of a wide variety of political movements such as anarchists, socialists and Trotskyites.

Even if it is interesting to see all these movements, we found that the construction of alternatives was not a major concern for most involved. The third plenary on June 25th focused on this issue. Thanks to the US SEN, the forum organizers had invited Daniel Tygel from the Brazilian Forum of Solidarity Economy to present the perspectives of solidarity economy. He reported on the progress of solidarity economy in Brazil, including the creation of a movement that is now rooted throughout the country. He stressed the importance of reaching beyond the capitalist discourse (strong at the Forum) and the importance of "hands-on work". This means concretely building economic activities that are self-managed by the people involved. The fact that these activities are solidarity-based is in itself a reflection of their political impact, an affirmation that another possible is not only possible, but it is already being built.

Yvon Poirier

International Forum on Social and Solidarity Economy: Public Authorities and Civil Society
Montreal (Canada), Palais des Congrès, October 17th – 20th 2011

The main theme of this international forum is the need for a State – civil society dialogue to develop public policies for social solidarity economy.

This event is organized with the support of the Government of Quebec and the city of Montreal. The organizing committee is composed of key members and partners of the Chantier de l’économie sociale du Québec. Several international partners such as the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the OECD’s LEED Programme as well as political bodies such as the State Secretariat for Solidarity Economy in Brazil are also helping to organize the Forum.

For further information (FR-EN-SP):
www.chantier.qc.ca
ecosoci@chantier.qc.ca



Solidarity Economy I: Building Alternatives for People and Planet
By Emily Kawano
Paperback: $25.00
E- Version : $5.00
www.lulu.com
Another world is not just possible.

It is being built.
So many of us wish for something more—an economy we can feel a partf, not that makes us feel like a disposable cog in a soulless machine. That something exists and it’s called the Solidarity Economy. This kind of economy starts from entirely different premises than those of the ruling model of neoliberal capitalism which enshrines individualism, competition, materialism, accumulation, and the maximization of profits and growth. The solidarity economy by contrast seeks the well being of people and planet. It holds at its core these principles: solidarity, equity in all dimensions, sustainability, participatory democracy, and pluralism.
This book is about vision and hope. It provides many examples of real solutions in a wide array of sectors. These practices are currently too isolated from one another. The task of the solidarity economy is to bring these practices together to build a whole and humane economy that works for people and planet.

The book is the result of the Forum on Solidarity Economy organised by US SEN, March 2009, in Amherst Massachusetts.



Labour Unions and the Solidarity Economy: The Quebec Experience

Quebec province labour unions have supported the social and solidarity economy. They have created investment funds and credit unions. Most day-care centers (non-profits) are unionized. One union in particular, the Confédération des Syndicats Nationaux (CSN) has been at the forefront of this activity. How did this come about? This article tells part of the story.

This article written by Yvon Poirier is published in the book entitled Solidarity Economy I: Building Alternatives for People and Planet described above.
This article is also available in English and French directly from the author.
Yvon Poirier (ypoirier@videotron.ca)

Towards the European P’Actes: Promoting co-operative territorial economy as a means of combating poverty and social exclusion (2010 – a key year for Europe)

As a follow-up to Lux’09, the Pactes Locaux are organizing a meeting entitled Towards European P’Actes: Promoting co-operative territorial economy as a means of combating poverty and social exclusion. The meeting will be hosted by the Committee of the Regions in Brussels on November 23rd, 2010. The meeting is based on concrete experiences structured around 3 key issues:

1. Reorganise the economic and social spheres on the basis of local realities and resources rather than expecting institutions to take care of everything.
2. Implement co-responsibility in terms of democratic territorial governance of the economic and social spheres.
3. Learn from one another to prepare for a change of, direction: bring learning stories together and connect them. ‘We need to understand what we have learnt in order to jointly put forward proposals’.

Info:

Aloe has hosted the Pactes Locaux project on their site since 2009. We plan to continue with this co-operation in 2010-11. We jointly invite you to contribute to these activities.
http://aloe.socioeco.org/page69-projet_en.html
www.pactes-locaux.org

Our Newsletters are available on the WEB:
http://local-development.blogspot.com/
www.apreis.org/

Special thanks to:
Judith Hitchman (France) and Évéline Poirier (Canada) for the English translation
Brunilda Rafael (France) for the Spanish translation
Michel Colin (Brazil) for the Portuguese translation

To contact us (for information, feedback, to subscribe or unsubscribe):
Yvon Poirier ypoirier@videotron.ca

International Newsletter of Sustainable Local Development
Newsletter #70
1st July 2010

Summary

6th European Conference of Sustainable Towns and Cities
May 19th – 21st 2010 : An invitation extended by the Urban Community of Dunkirk.

2010 National Summit on a People-Centred Economy (Canada)
PRESS RELEASE!!
It Matters!!

Annoncement
Autumn School of Social Economy and Local Economic Development in Quebec



Message from the Editorial Team

In this issue, we are including and article jointly written by Martine and Judith on the Dunkirk 2010 meeting that took place last May. It is about the place of European local and regional government in the implementation of RIO + 10 and sustainable development.

The other text is a press release sent out by Ethel Côté after the 2010 National Summit on a People-Centred Economy, that took place in Ottawa from May 30th to June 1st. Yvon was actively involved in this event.

We are happy to announce some wonderful news: Brunilda Rafael, who has been translating our newsletters into Spanish since 2006 has just given birth to a little girl called Oumy.

The Editorial Team
Judith Hitchman
Yvon Poirier
Martine Theveniaut

6th European Conference of Sustainable Towns and Cities.
(Dunkirk 19th - 21st May 2010)

Two members of our editorial team took part in the event: Judith was there as an interpreter, and Martine as a journalist officially representing our Newsletter. They decided to jointly write this report. They agree on their overall impressions: it was an important meeting, rich in concrete illustrations and a voice of hope. All the hotels were full, and the event was generous, lavish even in these hard times. The entire town joined in, with all the generosity and warmth of the culture of the North of France. The organisation ran like clockwork. At the end of the day 1 800 people too part in the event: members of local governments from many towns and cities, companies, associations and NGOs from 55 European countries and beyond (www.dunkerque2010.org).

This European conference was organised by ICLEI: the International Council for Local Ecological Initiatives. Since 1990 ICLEI has been the voice of Local Governments in the “Rio” process, with the mission of launching and serving an international movement of towns, that is proving that towns can contribute to a marked improvement in the global ecological situation and the conditions of sustainable local development. Founded in 1990 under auspices of the United Nations Environment Programme, the International Union of towns and local governments and the “Centre for Innovative diplomacy”, it acts as an international ecological agency for Local Governments. (www.iclei.org).

The workshops illustrated a wealth of concrete achievements

Workshop A9. Biodiversity: Why Local Authorities are key actors

A bird’s eye view from the interpreter’s booth…

Biodiversity issues are not restricted to the countryside alone. One side of the coin is urban agriculture which is an increasing fact of life, with rooftop gardens, beehives and many new architectural features. The flip side are the millions of tons of chemical weed-killer still being used by some local authorities to keep towns and cities free of weeds, combined with the increasing urban sprawl that threatens all sorts of local flora and fauna... This workshop was a highly significant moment in what was certainly an interesting conference. Given my deep personal interest in nature and agriculture, I was more than happy to have been designated to work on this particular subject.

Local Authorities have recently begun to use their mandate to protect and increase biodiversity in not only rural areas, but in towns and cities. This approach can prove very effective, especially when it is coupled with citizen’s involvement and co-responsibility, as the workshop so clearly showed. It was organised by ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability. ICLEI is running this programme together with IUCN.

The issues covered were many and varied. They ranged from preserving the presence of bats to combat mosquitoes, to protecting owls to hunt rodents, and the preservation of a rare species of fritillaries... The importance of raising awareness and involving citizens to participate actively in identifying and cataloguing existing resources was a core element. Awareness-raising involves reconsidering cultural attitudes to “manicured, weed-free gardens”, and learning that trees, grass, wildflowers and a more natural approach to pruning and the preservation of designated green corridors is the key to a more balanced urban environment. Learning that nature involves all sorts of chain reactions, and that local authorities need to take joint ownership with citizens for preservation, is something still quite novel for many people. I was reminded of the council worker I witnessed in Kobe, who was weeding the grass from under a tree on a central street using a knife... How many cities would have just preferred to spray on selective weed-killer?

The workshop clearly demonstrated several things: acting locally can have global impacts; citizen’s empowerment is a key factor; and shared responsibility leads to successful governance. It also implicitly demonstrated the need to revive folk-knowledge of nature for a whole generation that has grown up with little or no contact with nature.

www.iclei.irg/biodiversity
http//www.iucn.org



Taking up the challenge after the disappointment of the global Intergovernmental conference of Copenhagen

“Instead of being a hindrance, it should be the basis of our determination to change and mobilise. We need to share our best experiences, to discuss the challenges, draft our roadmap, pool our energies and send out a very clear message to our governments and to the European Institutions” said Michel Delebarre, the President of the COTER of the committee of European regions, and deputy Mayor of the town in the opening ceremony. “Our territories use most of the wealth produced, the cities are where most exchange occurs, and when the system shakes, the problems are felt by one and all”. But local government accounts for between 75 and 80% of public investments in Europe and only 10% of public debts in France!

Over the last ten yeas the European campaign for sustainable towns and cities has been raising awareness in European cities on issues of sustainable local development. The Aalborg Charter was adopted in the first conference, in 1994. The cities that signed up committed to a strategy similar to a local Agenda 21. In 2004, over 230 local governments had signed the Charter, including 30 in France. The objective of “Aalborg + 10”was to facilitate and accelerate the active sharing of the lessons learnt over the last ten years. This lies behind the text entitled “The Aalborg Commitment”, that has been signed by 110 Local Governments. It includes ten themes that form a priority commitment: governance, sustainable local management, shared natural resources, responsible consumption and lifestyle choices, urban planning, improved mobility and traffic reduction, local health, sustainable local economy, equity and social justice, from local to global levels. The added value of the Aalborg Commitments is that it provides practical guidelines for action and local implementation and strengthens the attempt to achieve sustainability through awareness-raising of the need to act in a holistic manner if we are to meet the growing challenges to sustainability. (www.localsustainability.eu).

Other tools for mutualising work were presented: the Leipzig Charter of European Sustainable Cities that is an official document of the Member States dating from May 2007, the Mayor’s Convention, signed by 130 towns. It was launched in 2008, and encourages local authorities and citizens to move beyond the objectives set by the European Union in terms of climate change and energy issues by further reducing carbon emissions another 20% by 2020 with the introduction of increased energy efficiency produced by renewables. The Convention has been signed by 1700 local governments. Those authorities that fail to achieve the desired results can be excluded. Joan Antoni Baron, Mayor of Mataro and President of the provincial Council of Barcelona (Spain) set the example during a recent drought. The inhabitants of Barcelona had to cut back on their consumption. They have continued to do so.

The meeting concluded with an official declaration:
(http://www.iclei-europe.org/fileadmin/templates/iclei-europe/files/content/ICLEI_IS/Newsbits/)


Conclusions: How to consolidate the role that civil society already plays in the social organisation of territories in terms of sustainable local development?

In the plenary sessions and the workshops, in both the official speeches and those from the floor, as well as in the final declaration, the citizens who inhabit the towns and cities are called upon to play their part as allies. Local and regional governments claim they are “the level of governance that is closest to citizens”. Yet they are almost totally absent from those invited to speak. One workshop was dedicated to multi-level governance, yet no member of organised civil society was present among the panel of speakers.

Little was said about the difficulties that exist within Local Government to reach agreement, an issue that all too often hampers progress and is an obstacle to the convergence that is required to achieve positive outcomes. Territorial cohesion is included in the Treaty of Lisbon, that became law in 2009. It is the third pillar of the European project, and is still something that is being defined in terms of European strategy. The territorial approach completes and adds dynamics to the economic/social tandem that was the dominant approach until now. 2010 is a decisive year, because it is now that the budget for the next ten years is determined. The Committee of the European Regions has adopted multi-level governance as a guiding principle in 2010, in order to weigh against the vertical powers of the European Commission and the Member States. But there is still a long way to go! This is why the success of the 6th Conference in Dunkirk is so important.

Citizens are already active, and have been for a long time, in their own way, without expecting institutions to take care of everything, and they are doing a great job! They are often responsible for starting up local initiatives that are then taken up and multiplied. They mobilise local communities’ resources, as this newsletter has so often demonstrated over the years. The role they play is essential in the required shift towards democratic governance... For is it by starting at grass-roots level, by taking the problems that need to be solved, the environmental resources, the human potential that exists at territorial level, that we can indeed hope to make this shift become reality? Referring to citizens in speeches should not just be a way for local and regional governments to claim legitimacy...

Maybe the next steps to be taken before the 7th Conference should be to see how co-operation can genuinely be placed at the heart of projects for sustainable towns and cities? And to develop the means that will allow us to live together on a positive and converging path that leads to the shift in attitude whereby elected representatives become genuinely closer to citizens, and become actors who share responsibility for the future. This is indeed the perspective that is opened by this successful meeting, that was held at a time of systemic and human crisis that is forcing everyone to look beyond conventional solutions.

Judith Hitchman and Martine Theveniaut


2010 National Summit on a People-Centred Economy (Canada)
PRESS RELEASE
It matters!!!!

May 30th to June 1st, the 2010 National Summit on a People-Centred Economy welcomed more than 350 participants from 10 provinces and 2 territories in Canada, and 5 continents internationally. It was a fully bilingual event; all Summit activities had simultaneous translation. Speakers from all elected parties in the House of Commons, including two Cabinet ministers, brought significant messages of support and shared their views on the importance of a people-centred economy for revitalizing rural and urban Canada. A joint declaration proposed by Summit organizers and debated by participants was presented and a large number of specific actions were announced in the closing plenary. All key organizations and networks who organized this event, and many more, confirmed their commitment to continue working together and building the momentum of a process that will engage even more partners.

“The National Summit was a modest but important step. We have much to learn from and with each other in our sector. Just as important, we must be sure to reach out to the many other constituencies working for a sane and decent transition to a very different kind of economy. Labor, the environmental movement, and the increasing numbers of progressive credit unions and triple bottom-line investors are among those we must engage with on a much more strategic basis. It is a long road and we need to travel together. Who knows? It might be a shorter journey than I think. The ferment for change is growing everywhere. Convergence is happening. People are taking systematic and positive action. We must keep nourishing each other with inspiration, do the grinding work to reweave our economic life, and celebrate the process. It matters!!!!” Michael Lewis, Executive Director of the Canadien Centre for Community Renewal.

“The discussion around major global issues, the relationships, ongoing collaboration, the commitment of key networks and national organizations to continue to work on public policies, and finally the recognition of women’s presence and contribution in the people-centred economy are all key to moving forward. As a First Step, we do have a draft declaration unveiling a collective voice and many recommendations to mobilize our efforts. Now more than ever, the globalization of solidarity make sense in Canada.” Ethel Côté, Social Enterprise Development, CCCR.

Ethel Côté, Social Enterprise Development, CCCR.
For information (EN-FR)
http://www.ccednet-rcdec.ca



Annoncement

Autumn School of Social Economy and Local Economic Development in Quebec
Concordia University, Montréal, Canada 25th-29th October 2010. Organised by ART-Universitas of the UNDP and the Karl Polanyi Institute

Registration is now open to all practitioners, decision-makers and researchers from North and West Africa and Latin America. If you are interested in signing up, please send a curriculum vitae to Ana Gomez of the secretariat before 15th July 2010 latest to polanyi@alcor.concordia.ca



Our Newsletters are available on the WEB:
http://local-development.blogspot.com/
www.apreis.org/

Special thanks to:
Judith Hitchman (France) for the English translation
Paula Garuz Naval (Ireland) for the Spanish translation
Michel Colin (Brazil) for the Portuguese translation

To contact us (for information, feedback, to subscribe or unsubscribe):
Yvon Poirier ypoirier@videotron.ca

International Newsletter on Sustainable Local Development
Newsletter #69
June 1st 2010

Summary

Message from the Editorial Team

The concept of "Living Well"
A Bolivian viewpoint

Message from the Editorial Team

In this number we present a text issued by the Bolivian government. It was published internationally in April by the Bolivian delegation to the United Nations.

Although the text is longer than usual, we are publishing it in full as we find that there is a strong similarity to the views that we have been promoting in our Newsletter since 2003.

Furthermore, as our readers already have no doubt become aware, this vision of "Mother Earth" and of life in general is present all over our world.

The cultural diversity of languages often plays tricks with nuances or subtleties when it comes to writing. Martine pointed out that in French "explore less, so long as it’s an improvement" is an acceptable and even positive expression in French. The interest of this newsletter is that it is published in 4 languages! This provides us with a good opportunity to express our warmest thanks our authors as well as to our translators for their good work.

We hope you enjoy reading this text

The editorial team
Judith Hitchman
Yvon Poirier
Martine Theveniaut

The Concept of “Living Well”
A Bolivian viewpoint

We should live in a simple way for others to be able to live as well.
Mahatma Gandhi

He who is richer is not who has more, but who needs less.
Zapotec saying, Oaxaca, Mexico

We suffer the severe effects of climate change, of the energy, food and financial crises. This is not the product of human beings in general, but of the existing inhuman capitalist system, with its unlimited industrial development. It is brought about by minority groups who control world power, concentrating wealth and power on themselves alone.

Concentrating capital in only a few hands is no solution for humanity, neither for life itself, because as a consequence many lives are lost in floods, by intervention or by wars, so many lives through hunger, poverty and usually curable diseases.

It brings selfishness, individualism, even regionalism, thirst for profit, the search for pleasure and luxury thinking only about profiting, never having regard to brotherhood among the human beings who live on planet Earth. This not only affects people, but also nature and the planet. And when the peoples organize themselves, or rise against oppression, those minority groups call for violence, weapons, and even military intervention from other countries.

Living Well, Not Better
Faced with so much disproportion and wealth concentration in the world, so many wars and famine, Bolivia proposes Living Well, not as a way to live better at the expense of others, but an idea of Living Well based on the experience of our peoples. In the words of the President of the Republic of Bolivia, Evo Morales Ayma, Living Well means living within a community, a brotherhood, and particularly completing each other, without exploiters or exploited, without people being excluded or people who exclude, without people being segregated or people who segregate.

Lying, stealing, destroying nature possibly will allow us to live better, but that is not Living Well. On the contrary, Living Well rather means complementing one another and not competing against each other, sharing, not taking advantage of one’s neighbor, living in harmony among people and with nature. It is the basis of the defense of nature, of life itself and of all humanity, it’s the basis to save humanity from the dangers of an individualistic and highly aggressive, racist and warmongering minority.

Living Well is not the same as living better, living better than others, because in order to live better than others, it is necessary to exploit, to embark upon serious competition, concentrating wealth in few hands. Trying to live better is selfish, and shows apathy, individualism. Some want to live better, whilst others, the majority, continue living poorly. Not taking an interest in other people’s lives, means caring only for the individual’s own life, at most in the life of their family.

As a different vision of life, Living Well is contrary to luxury, opulence and waste, it is contrary to consumerism. In some countries of the North, in big metropolitan cities, people buy clothes they throw away after wearing them only once. That lack of care for others results in oligarchies, nobility, aristocracy, elites who always seek to live better at other people’s expense.

Nobody says : I will only take care of myself
Within the framework of Living Well, what matters the most is not the individual. What matters the most is the community, where all the families live together. We form part of the community as the leaf forms part of the plant. Nobody says: I will just take care of myself; I don’t care about my community. It is as absurd as if the leaf said to the plant: I do not care about the community; I will only take care of myself. It is just as preposterous as if the leaf would tell the plant: I do not care about you, I will only take care of myself.

We are all valuable, we all have a space, duties, and responsibilities. We all need everybody else. Based on complementing each other, the common wealth, organized mutual support, the community and the community life develop their ability without destroying man and nature.

Work is happiness
Not working and exploiting our neighbors will possibly allow us to live better, but that is not Living Well. When one is living well, work is happiness. Work is learning to grow up, melting into the fascinating reproduction of life. It is an organic action such as breathing or walking. Within the Living Well framework, work is general, for everyone and everything, from a child to a grandfather. It’s for men, women and even nature itself. Among us, nobody lives to benefit from the work of others. Private accumulation is unknown and unnecessary. Community accumulation always fills the warehouse.

In our communities we do not seek, we do not want anyone to live better, as development programs tell us. Development is related to living better, and all the development programs implemented among different States and governments, starting from the church, have encouraged us to live better.

Development depends on an ever-increasing use of energy, primarily oil. We have been led to believe that development is the salvation of mankind and that it will help us to live better, but without oil there is no development. And for us, with or without oil, sustainable and unsustainable development means anti-development, which is the cause of major disparities in nature and between people.

Development can be a disaster
Consequently, Living Well is contrary to capitalist development and goes beyond socialism. For capitalism, what matters the most is money, making a profit. For socialism, what matters the most is the man, because socialism tries to meet the increasingly growing needs of man, both material and spiritual.

Within the Living Well framework, what matters the most is neither man nor money; what matters the most is life. But capitalism does not care about life, and the two development models, the capitalist and the socialist, need rapid economic growth, causing a dissipation of energy and an insatiable use of fossil fuels to boost growth.

Therefore, development has proved to be a failure, as evidenced by the crisis of nature and the severe effects of climate change. It is now the leading cause of global crisis and the destroyer of planet Earth, because of the exaggerated industrialization of some countries, addicted consumerism and irresponsible exploitation of human and natural resources.
The industrialization and consumerism of Western “civilization” threatens Mother Nature and the subsistence of the planet, to such a degree that it must not be spread to the whole of humanity, because natural resources are not enough for all of us nor renewable at the same pace in which they are being exhausted.

Living Well in the Global Crisis
The most important crises are:
• The exponential increase of human-induced climate change affecting all regions of Earth;
• The water crisis, where urbanization, industrialization and increased use of energy is lowering the level of groundwater resources;
• The crisis in food production by the impact of climate change and the increasing production of biofuels;
• The imminent end of the era of cheap energy (we are reaching the peak of oil production). In the lapse of 100 years we are finishing fossil energy created over millions of years, and this is bringing about dramatic changes in all the theories about the operation of society;
• The significant depletion of other key resources both for industrial production and for human welfare, including fresh water, genetic resources, forests, sea and wildlife, fertile soils, coral reefs, and most of the local, regional and global elements we have in common.
Unless they are reversed, this combination of dangerous tendencies may soon bring global environmental and social crises up to an unprecedented scale, and they may also cause the collapse of the most basic economic and operative structures of our society.

On the verge of catastrophic change
Climate chaos and global warming threaten the loss of much of the world’s most productive lands, physical upheavals in many places caused by storms and rising waters, desertification of many agricultural lands, and economic and social tragedy that will last for long in the future, with very severe problems for the most impoverished nations and peoples.
Without having found alternative sources of energy that can replace inexpensive oil and gas supplies in the amounts to which we have become accustomed to (and alarming new evidence regarding the limits of accessible coal), Peak Oil threatens the long term survival of industrial nations and industrialism itself, at its present scale. Long distance transportation, industrial food systems, complex urban and suburban systems, and many commodities basic to our present way of life —cars, plastics, chemicals, pesticides, refrigeration, etc— are all rooted in the basic assumption of an ever-increasing inexpensive energy supply.
Other scarce resources — fresh water, forests, agricultural land, biodiversity of many kinds, are dramatically decreasing in number due to the overuse of industrialized nations that every year surpass 30 percent of the resources that the Earth can regenerate, rendering the survival of humans and other species far more difficult than at any other time throughout the history of mankind. We also face the possible loss of 50% of the world’s plant and animal species over the next decades.

So the planet’s ecological, social and economic systems are on the verge of catastrophic change, and very few societies are prepared for this. Efforts by governments to respond to the impending emergency are thus far grossly inadequate. Efforts by corporations and industries to reform their behaviors remain largely enclosed by structural limits that require continued growth and profit above all other standards of performance.

Living Well Life to counteract against the Global Crisis
In this Global Crisis, all the problems have the same structural base, and can be faced using the same structural changes. The solution for each one is the solution for all. All the new models must begin by accepting there are fundamental limits to the capacity of the Earth to sustain us. Within those limits, societies must work to set new standards of universal economic sufficiency and a Living Well conception that does not depend on the excessive use of the planet’s resources.

The construction of a Living Well vision to counteract Global Crisis in this era of climate chaos and diminished resources in our finite planet, means ending consumerism, waste and luxury, consuming only what is necessary, achieving a global economic “power down” to levels of production, consumption and energy use that stay well within the environmental capacities of the Earth.

It also means stopping energy dissipation, i.e. bringing about a rapid withdrawal from all carbon-based energy systems, and rejecting large-scale so called “alternative” energy systems designed to prolong the industrial growth system. These include nuclear energy, “clean” coal, industrial scale biofuels, and the combustion of hazardous materials and municipal waste, among others.

Equally important is a dramatic increase in the practices of energy conservation and efficiency, i.e., powering down, decreasing the personal consumption in countries where it has been excessive, and reorienting the rules of economic activity — trade, investments, norms. It is also important to modify all of society’s main activities that are related to those norms (transport, manufacture, agriculture, energy, building design, etc). Our current dependence on export-oriented production, enormous amounts of long distance transportation, ever-expanding use of resources and global markets, cannot possibly be sustained in a finite planet.

Local production for local consumption
In order to adapt ourselves to the true reality of a post carbon era, we will have to satisfy our fundamental needs such as food, housing, energy, production, and means of support, from local systems and resources. This means encouraging regional and local self-sufficiency, sustainability and control; economic localization and community sovereignty, local production for local consumption, local ownership using local labor and materials.

Thus Living Well means redesigning urban and non-urban living environments, the restitution of the local, regional and national communal goods, and a quick transition towards renewable energy at a small scale, that must be oriented to the locality and also owned by the local community, without hampering the natural balance, and including wind, solar, small scale hydro and wave, local biofuels.

Living Well also means promoting an orderly reconstruction of the countryside and the revitalization of communities by way of an agrarian reform, education and application of eco-agricultural microfarming methods, based on our cultural and communal practices, the wealth of our communities, fertile land, clean water and air. All of these approaches are in preparation for the inevitable de-industrialization of agriculture, as cheap energy supply declines.

Furthermore, Living Well means reallocating the trillions of millions destined for war in order to heal Mother Earth who is injured by the environment issue.

Less will be more
Our Living Well proposal emphasizes on harmony between humans and with nature, and the preservation of “natural capital” as primary concerns. It is well known that the protection and preservation of balance in the natural world, including all its living beings, is a primary goal and need of our proposal, and that mother nature has inherent rights to exist on the Earth in an undiminished healthy condition.

Living Well also means unplugging the TV and internet and connecting with the community. It means having four more hours a day to spend with family, friends and in our community, i.e., the four hours that the average person spends watching TV filled with messages about stuff we should buy. Spending time in fraternal community activities strengthens the community and makes it a source of social and logistical support, a source of greater security and happiness.

For societies that now accept the images of “the good life” widely promoted in the media, this “good life” is based on hyper consumption of commodities, the new strategies to use less resources, to accumulate less, and to be ruled by modest standards of living also become arguments for greater personal fulfillment. Driving less and walking more is good for the climate, the planet, and our health. Buying less means less pollution, less waste, less time working to invest in shopping. Less stress, more time for the family, friends, nature, creativity, recreation and leisure which are activities on which people spend little time nowadays.

Among presently over-consuming societies, less really will be more. Basic compliance with Living Well conditions include sufficient food, shelter, clothing; good health and the values of strong community engagement; family security; meaningful lives; and the clear presence and easy access to a thriving natural world.

We are part of Mother Nature
In this context, Living Well means living a sovereign and communal life in harmony with nature, where we can work together for our families and for society, sharing, singing, dancing, producing for the community. It means living a modest life that reduces our consumption addiction and maintains a balanced production.

Rather than eroding the Earth, depredating nature and within 30 or 50 years ending with gas, oil, iron, tin, lithium and all other non-renewable natural resources required for a living better, Living Well guarantees life for our children, for the sons and daughters of our children and for those that will come after them, saving the planet using our rock, our quinoa, potatoes and cassava, our beans, broad beans and corn, our mahogany, coconut and coca.

In the construction of Living Well, our economic and spiritual wealth is tied directly to a high regard for Mother Earth and a respectful use of the wealth that she gives us. The only alternative for the world in this Global Crisis, the only solution to the crisis of nature, is that human beings acknowledge that we are part of Mother Nature, that we need to restore the complementary relationships, the mutual respect and harmony with her.

Boosting community energy with creativity and collective action
For this new experience of facing global crisis, for this new experience of Living Well to be successful, it will be necessary to boost local and international actions. We should follow the example of the millions of people on this Earth who are not waiting for official recognition of the global crisis, we should follow the example of the uncountable numbers of people and communities across the planet who, with creativity, enthusiasm and joint action are already actively trying to create or update a great variety of alternative practices at local, community and regional levels, in both rural and urban contexts.

Out of our own initiatives in our communities and also with help from governments that boost Living Well, with a broad unity of forces and social movements, we have to wake up community energy, boost community energy in our communities, which is the main capacity we’ve got to transform society and build a Living Well vision. We have to follow the example of these people and communities, starting to rebuild our communities and nations OURSELVES, with our own hands, our own hearts and our own brains, starting to take responsibility for the building of a Living Well Life for all within the limits of nature. We cannot rely only on governments and international movements to solve our problems.

Powering down
Out of our own initiatives in our communities and also with help from our governments, let us begin to regain our ancestors’ harmonious living, strengthen our own way of life, the identity and spirituality in our communities. Let us begin to organize our productive and community life in the countryside and in our neighborhoods, making education work, as well as communication and health, let us build our schools and roads, resolve between all of us our internal relations and the issues of land and territory, water, forests, and so on.

Let us build a Living Well vision and the sovereignty of our communities within the balance between man and nature, where we can rebuild our bonds, respecting everyone’s right to consultation when making our own decisions, where we can freely determine our own aims, our forms of organization, the joint planning of our communities, the designation of our authorities, all based on the knowledge we have of ourselves and with full awareness of the responsibility that this entails.

To start powering down, we can reduce significantly our energy use: driving less, flying less, turning off the lights, buying local seasonal food (food takes energy to grow, package, store and transport), wearing a jumper instead of turning on the radiator, use a clothesline instead of a dryer, going on holiday closer to home, buying second hand things or borrowing them before buying new ones, recycling.

We can also nurture a Zero Waste culture at home, within our school, workplace, church, community. This means developing new habits, such as using both sides of the paper, carrying with us our own mugs and shopping bags, making compost out of food leftovers, avoiding bottled water and other over packaged products, repairing and mending rather than replacing…

Our own health, learning and communication
Out of our own initiatives in our communities and also with help from governments that boost a Living Well vision, let us start to run our own health system taking after the ways that have always kept us healthy, where the health of the community is as important as that of our own body and where abundant healthy food free of chemicals is our medicine. Faced with the growth of increasingly manipulated consumption, let us rebuild the healthy domestic food production. Let us prevent diseases instead of looking for drugs to cure them, and let us use our own natural medicine which will not cure a disease by creating another.

Let us start to run our own education, or rather our own communication, learning in the way that we have always taught our children in our communities as part of the community practices and responsibilities, i.e. through community learning, through which we create communal energy and learn through daily work, within the social school that would be the community, where we learn that we cannot live outside of communal life. Rather than education, let us re-establish our own communication; strengthen the real communication between father and son, between students and teachers.

Let us protect our own seeds
Let us defend the women, traditional defenders of the seeds and food safety, custodians of natural variety and of local and quality food for our families, whose life revolves around fertility, child care, countryside, seeds, the care of water, trees and other resources, and whose farming practices in the communities are part of communal life in harmony with nature.

We do not solve world hunger with Terminator seeds from agricultural business, but bringing back and protecting our rich ancestral seeds, storing them and fighting against their usurpation by large transnational corporations that defend themselves through intellectual property, patents and the use of transgenic seeds having as an excuse productivity increase.

Let us protect the life of indigenous country communities, which allows the cycle of seed and inputs to be closed within the very same communities, freeing us from the need to import them. Let’s practice a small-scale production, which will protect natural resources for the present and future generations, and give us all healthy and varied food.

Let us build a Living Well vision, retaking our own appropriate technologies, which are not expensive and can be managed through community administration, monitoring and control, using our own funds from our own savings banks or credit unions. We can do our own self-training, which can mature if we bring together researchers and professionals who have a vision of sympathy, support and respect for reorganization processes of the communities and the peoples.

To strengthen all our procedures…
Living Well means giving back fertility to the planet, now in the hands of sterile corporations, reforesting the world, living a modest life close to soil in communities or small family farms, which are those that have preserved the trees and the harmonic variety of species, that have more water at their disposal and survive better.

Waking up the ethical and moral values of our peoples and cultures, we can make this new millennium, a millennium of life and not of war, a millennium for Living Well, for balance and complementarity. Together we can build a culture of patience, the culture of dialogue and fundamentally the Culture of Life, a way of life that is not dependent on excessive consumption of non-renewable energy that emit greenhouse gases but is based on the harmonious relationship between man and nature.

In order to strengthen all the procedures that may lead us to Living Well, we encourage a broad discussion and debate regarding this proposal, so we can find a common approach that will lead to a fundamental change in the way societies operate, and how we live, as communities, families and individuals.

Article distributed in English by the Bolivia delegation at the UN. April 2010

Our Newsletters are available on the WEB:
http://local-development.blogspot.com/
www.apreis.org/

Special thanks to:
Judith Hitchman (France) for the English translation (editorial)
Paula Garuz Naval (Ireland). Tatiana Castilla (Columbia) and Karol Bailey (Bolivia) for the Spanish translation (editorial)
Jinane Prestat (France) for the translation to French
Michel Colin (Brazil) for the Portuguese translation

To contact us (for information, feedback, to subscribe or unsubscribe):
Yvon Poirier ypoirier@videotron.ca

International Newsletter on Sustainable Local Development
Newsletter #68
May 1st 2010

Summary

Message from the Editorial Team

Terre de Liens (Land of connections) is an NGO (association) that was created in France in 2003.


Message from the Editorial Team

Land, both urban and rural is considered as just another coveted good that is subjected to speculation, not to mention the resources that are concealed underground, or the waterways. The history of humankind is a long succession of wars and expropriation. But in modern times, the manner in which peoples have become dispossessed has taken a dramatic and unjust turn: written laws have been opposed to the oral cultures of First Peoples, who have used their ancestral lands since time immemorial, all over the world.

People are fighting all over the world to reinstate justice and the full rights to their land. This is true in Canada, Brazil, India and Tanzania as well as elsewhere, as this Newsletter has already reported.

In another vein agrarian reform, which is so hard to achieve is underway. In many countries citizens' movements are implementing concrete measures to remove land from the field of financial speculation. Land trusts are a tool that is being used more and more frequently. In the USA and the UK Community Land Trusts are non profit-making structures. By becoming the land-owners the CLTs can preserve land from speculation and make it accessible for affordable housing to support social inclusion. American CLTs were not at all affected by the mortgage crisis in 2008!

More recently, a similar land trust movement has developed in Europe and North America. The French Association Terre de Liens is putting all its efforts into recovering agricultural land to protect it from being abandoned or falling victim to speculation. They are using it to help farmers who want to run organic farms and grow local produce.

In this issue, we are presenting a concrete case study, that of Echausses, that illustrates this innovative practice, a perfect example of sustainable local development. We would like to thank the collective of Echausses for their contribution.

Editorial Team
Judith Hitchman
Yvon Poirier
Martine Theveniaut

Terre de Liens (Land of connections) is an NGO (association) that was created in France in 2003.

Its mission is to "contribute to the creation of environmentally responsible and socially interdependent rural activities, by supporting people with projects and the collective acquisition of agricultural land and buildings. It is also to raise the awareness of civil society, and challenge politicians, unions and associations in order to reinclude land management at the heart of their concerns." It is inspired by the Triodos Bank, a Dutch green bank that started a green fund to invest in and buy land for organic farming in the 1980s. This thinking became more widespread in the ‘90s in popular education, ethical finance, organic, biodynamic farming and environmental protection movements.

One objective was to devise a tool that would allow people to go beyond the solution of the GFA (agricultural land acquisition groups) or the SCI that can prove to be fragile structures in the long run, because if any one partner decides to withdraw, the whole operation is jeopardised.

To implement its action plan, the association of Terre de liens created two tools: one for solidarity investment, the Terre de liens Landholding Trust, which has a savings’ fund that is used to acquire agricultural land that is then rented out to farmers, and the Terre de liens Foundation. Recognised as being of public interest, the latter may accept donations of money and farms. Terre de liens is now present in 15 regions of France.

The example of "Echausses" in the Languedoc-Roussillon region.

Eight adults between 28 and 40, with five children shared a collaborative project and were looking for a multi-purpose property. "Echausses" in Limoux seemed an ideal place. The real estate is composed of 7 ha of alluvial deposit land, 2 barns, a hayloft, a wood-fired old-fashioned bread-baking oven, 580 m2 of habitable space and 120 m2 that could be converted. It is situated in Limoux, in the south of the Aude department (county) very close to the Pyrenees. The financial weight of the project and their determination to ensure the land would continue to be put to use to grow food, inclined the group to favour a collaboration with the Terre de liens Landholding Trust.

The total cost of the transaction was € 520,000. The price of the residential buildings and the mixed nature of the project helped the group to determine the value by separating the assets as follows:

• The living quarters: € 310,000 of residential buildings acquired by the SCI “Fermacultures” created by the collective.
• The agricultural land and buildings acquired by the Landholding Trust (150,000€ for agricultural land and buildings, 60,000 € for roofing, masonry, restoration of wasteland, etc, spread so that 16% was put up by members of the collective project and 84% borrowed from local savings banks and non dedicated funds). This guarantees the possibility for those involved to continue to live on site if their farmland were sold on at a later stage (upon retirement or departure of members involved in the collective).

What was their project? "The diversity of our professions, our paths and our daily lives create both the richness and challenges of the project" they wrote in the description of their project.

"One of the challenges was to find a legal arrangement that reflected the true state of our money matters, solidarity and the division of power: Working together one day a week and one weekend per month to strengthen our ties and jointly build a certain independence (a shared vegetable garden, renewable energies) and to develop some cultural life on the farm (film evenings, games, discussions, concerts ...). All this involved many different things: Develop and manage all shared areas by consensus; develop our “committed” professional activities on site, all that involves a lot of dedication. We also had to find means of sharing materials (agricultural, household, workshop and cultural property) and shared income; cultivating open and non-violent communication; having fewer material goods but growing more as human beings…. We had to jointly buy organic and local the food we did not produce."... Moving step by step towards an ideal situation is no easy thing: for example for the SCI, separating the capital from the personal cash deposits has helped even out the difference in capital and achieve a fairer, more horizontal way of sharing. The development of a legal plan has been sometimes challenging, at times a frustrating and confusing state of affairs, especially where there were no definitive, reliable legal answers, even though we consulted professionals.

Even if the shared time fosters bonding among the residents, the professional economic activities and dwellings remain individual. Each person is responsible for developing his or her own professional and personal project: Vincent is setting up an organic market garden for vegetables while Gaëtan is growing organic fruit; both fruit and vegetables will create added value through direct sales (markets and box schemes). The land will be worked whenever possible using mules rather than tractors. Gaëtan will also keep up his consulting business in forestry management alternatives. Lisbeth, a midwife, moved her holistic support birthing offices to the site (she specialises is home births). Cécile is planning to accommodate senior citizens. Michaël, a special needs teacher, is planning to occasionally host disabled individuals or troubled youths. Jocelyn, who makes string-instruments and is a musician, wants to move his workshop to Echausses. Nina, a teacher, is planning to create educational activities for young children.

The collective agricultural and cultural project is centred on the choice of working together one day a week and one weekend a month. They hold regular meetings the funding and organization of the project. The resources are shared, and there is almost daily exchange. Household running costs (water, electricity, gas ...) are divided according to a variable schedule that is jointly defined on the basis of the estimated individual consumption.

The project milestones.

The SCI was created in April 2009. The property was purchased and in May, the pioneers moved in (3 adults)! By the beginning of July, 5 adults and 1 child were living in Echausses and the interior renovation of the SCI began. In the summer they sorted out the fences on the land. With the help of Moutsie from Nature & Progrès, they carried out a complete botanical inventory using bio-indicators. A nice welcome party on August 15 was followed by a lively collective effort to begin the renovation of roofs of the property (400 m2) and to stabilise the retaining wall of the bakery.

By late August, 7 adults and 3 children were living in Echausses and the roofing work continued. Vincent bought two beautiful cross Pyrenean-Portuguese donkeys (Ulis and Quetzal) and he began to train them. At the start of September, 4 ha of the land authorised for agricultural purposes that had been lying fallow was restored (by heavy grinding, ripping, chiseling, plowing, and harrowing). A pedologist (soil specialist) using the Hérody-biodynamics approach considered that the work had been well done, the quality of the soil was improved: bushes had not started to grow again, the earth was coming to life (aeration) and the vegetation had significantly changed.

In autumn, the group completed the renovation of most of the roof. Lisbeth began her work as a midwife in Echausses, Gaëtan continued with his forestry activities and prepared to plant his orchard, Josselin continued to prepare his workshop for making string-instruments and to organize Occitan concerts, Nina was preparing for an educational entrance exam, Cécile was working as a trainer in the region, Michaël as a special needs teacher in Limoux, and Vincent was preparing to farm the land. Work on the interior of the buildings (walls, floors, electricity) will continue through the winter, as well as the organization of the workshop in one of the Terre de Liens barns. Vincent and Gaëtan continue to develop their plan for the market garden and organic fruit trees with ADEAR 11 . Vincent is pursuing the training of his donkeys for tillage (they’re starting to get the hang of it!) as he prepares for his first season.

In March 2010, eight adults between 28 and 40 and five children from 1 to 11 are now living in Echausses. Béatrice, Michaël’s wife, has moved in with her two daughters.

And what now ?

"We are planting hedges just about everywhere! Firewood, many small daily tasks and meetings for the management of the SCI ... We are testing the well (it flows well!) and beginning to install irrigation and buy farm equipment. Vincent sowed his first plant bed after tillage and installed his first greenhouse (after some administrative problems). Gaëtan ordered his fruit trees and got his stakes (from a forest that he manages!), the collective vegetable garden has been started ... Long live the sun!
In one month ... the project will already be one year old! We had to accept that ... the world was not created in one day, and Echausses will not be completed in a year! Life at a place helped by "Terre de Liens" ... the happiness of a great adventure! Thank you to everyone who has supported us from near and afar. "

For further information:
Terre de Liens, « Une richesse à cultiver » : http://www.terredeliens.org
mouvement@terredeliens.org
Terre de Liens in Languedoc-Roussillon : lr@terredeliens.org

Summary by Martine Théveniaut (from documents submitted by the Echausses collective).

Our Newsletters are available on the WEB:
http://local-development.blogspot.com/
www.apreis.org/

Special thanks to:
Évéline Poirier (Canada) and Judith Hitchman (France) for the English translation
Paula Garuz Naval (Ireland) for the Spanish translation
Michel Colin (Brazil) for the Portuguese translation

To contact us (for information, feedback, to subscribe or unsubscribe):
Yvon Poirier ypoirier@videotron.ca

International Newsletter on Sustainable Local Development
Newsletter #67
April 1st 2010

Summary

Message from the Editorial Team

The Urgenci International Network, Kobe Conference 2010: Community supported foods and farming

Solidarity Economy in Nepal

Message from the Editorial Team

There are many varied initiatives in Asia in the field of local and community development, social and solidarity economy.

In this number Judith Hitchman shares the results of her participation in the URGENCI network Symposium that was held in Japan. Yvon Poirier took part in a meeting organised by the recently developed Nepalese Solidarity Economy Network.

In both instances, the field trips allowed us to observe how rich and strong a more community-oriented economy can become, when it is anchored in the needs of the local population.

Editorial Team
Judith Hitchman
Yvon Poirier
Martine Theveniaut

The Urgenci International Network, Kobe Conference 2010: Community supported foods and farming
The background
With the world in a state of on-going economic, financial, social and environmental crises, the relevance of local actions is greater than ever before. The importance of food sovereignty at local community level has taken on a new meaning. Not that Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a new phenomenon. The concept was first developed in Japan in the early 1970s, to try to guarantee healthy organic food at a time when mercury poisoning had led to Minemata disease, mother’s milk poisoned their children, and pollution was causing increasing environmental havoc. Three separate initiatives came together, led largely by Yoshinori Kaneko, to form the Japanese Teikei system. A similar unrelated birth occurred in Switzerland around the same period. As Elizabeth Henderson, one of the leading figures in the field of CSA and the global fight for local solidarity-based partnerships between producers and consumers so rightly says: “A century of ‘development’ has broken the connection between people and the land where their food is grown in many countries, North and South. A few decades of free trade have driven family-scale farms to the point of desperation. A long series of food scandals - illness from food-borne pathogens, milk and other products contaminated with GMOs and chemical pollutants - have led to a crisis of confidence in imported foods from industrial-scale farms. CSA offers a return to wholeness, health and economic viability”.

The Urgenci International Network brings together the many different national networks of consumer-producer partnerships from different countries all over the world. Its key aims are to disseminate and promote the concept of Community Supported Agriculture, as well as other related issues, such as the preservation of biodiversity and access to land. It also includes other similar concepts, such as farmers’ markets. The current global situation is leading to a natural development of the phenomenon, and it is a vital part of building a new solidarity-based economy.

An exemplary case-study: Tamba city local authorities play their part.
Japanese culture is largely based on the concept of harmony and peace, which is not an easy challenge in a country where 21 per cent of the population are over 65, agricultural land increasingly lying fallow, more food imported from abroad, young people moving from the rural to the urban lifestyle… Food also plays a very central role in Japanese lifestyles, and is traditionally one of the finest cuisines in the world.

We had the unique opportunity of a field trip to Tamba city before the Kobe conference took place, to visit a local initiative. Tamba city is the result of 6 different towns merging some years ago. It has a population of 71,000, and is situated in the Hyogo Prefecture, about an hour’s drive from Kobe. It is where Shinji Hashimoto, one of the members of the Urgenci International Committee lives and farms. The region is famous for both its beautiful scenery and its food.

In order to develop the Teikei system, and address some of the challenges stated above, Shinji was largely instrumental in convincing the Local Authorities to financially support some 20 young people from various cities who wanted to become farmers to gain access to farmland. He helped to initiate an apprenticeship scheme so that the young people could learn their new profession, alternating between internship and working their own rented farms. The initiative has proven highly successful, with over 1,000 consumers benefiting from the box scheme and able to buy reasonably priced organic fruit and vegetables for ten months of the year.

The producers and consumers involved in the scheme prepared one of the finest banquets I have ever eaten for our group, all from local produce, all cooked by members of the Teikei scheme. The ceremonial speeches were moving, with the mayor and other local figures speaking and toasting the farmers and the group of foreign visitors. The farmers all introduced themselves to the group, and presented their individual projects. Most had left factory jobs in cities to take up a rural life and serve their community by producing healthy food.

Using and preserving nature
The search for harmony already mentioned above can best be illustrated by the approach to growing organic rice and preservation of the wetlands: the paddy fields are populated with ducks. They keep them clean, provide natural fertiliser, and good healthy meat. The Oriental Stork (konotori), is a bird that is very sensitive to pollution. It became extinct in Japan due to “modern” farming practices killing off its food supply of frogs, fish and other wetland animals. The last bird died near Kinosaki in 1971.

Konotori no Sato Park was built to reintroduce the storks to Japan using birds obtained from Russia. The storks themselves are now designated a special protected animal by the government, and have become a symbol of the Tajima region around Kinosaki where I spent several days, where even the local airport is named after them (Konotori Tajima Airport).

Located 10 km south of Kinosaki, the Konotori no Sato Park is part museum and part breeding habitat, where visitors can learn about the storks, the breeding program and conservation, as well as see the birds on the sanctuary grounds.

The aims of the program are being realized as local farmers are altering their farming practices to preserve the wetland habitat, and the storks are being successfully reintroduced into the wild. In May 2007, for the first time since 1964 a stork chick hatched in nature. Its parents were born at the sanctuary and released into the wild. The Teikei farmers of the region are very proud of their storks, and rightly so!

Challenges and threats
One major challenge facing all forms of alternative economic production in general, and food in particular, is that of standards and quality. In a world where the transnational agribusiness has imposed quality certification costs that are prohibitive for small-scale producers, there is an even greater risk of being excluded from the market. The participatory guarantee system (PGS), such as Nature et Progrès in France, does however provide a positive answer to this. A similar system operates in Japan. A far greater and more insidious threat is the industrial-scale production of organic food by transnational corporations, trying to cash in on the ‘niche market’ of the increasing number of people who have understood the dangers of GMOs and pesticides, but are unable to distinguish between industrial-organic and family-farm produce, and who see the organic food sold in supermarkets as an attractive option. It seems important to me to raise public awareness on this issue.

Scaling up the local approach and building networks
Like so many of the case studies illustrated in other articles of this newsletter, the Teikei system and other CSA approaches (AMAP in France, GAS in Italy, farmers markets in the UK, Equiterre in Quebec, Vodelsteams in Belgium, Reciproco in Portugal…) are all based on a form of sustainable local development. Local food, local jobs, less fuel, fewer food miles… As Elizabeth Henderson states: “Each local food project takes its shape from the tastes, talents, needs and resources of its creators. The more we can learn from and support one another, the faster we will move toward sustainable and peaceful communities”. To achieve this, the Urgenci international network intends to continue disseminating the Local Solidarity Partnerships between Producers and Consumers (LSPPC) approach, and build alliances and partnerships with other networks to strengthen the ability of civil society to fight the multiple crises.


Judith Hitchman
Activist and special envoy in charge of intercultural relations
with the International Committee of URGENCI
Original article in English
http://www.urgenci.net/


Solidarity Economy in Nepal
On March 4th, the Solidarity Economy Network (SEN-Nepal), currently under construction, organized a workshop to better understand the origins of different concepts such as social economy and solidarity economy, the history of the SSE movement, the current global issues and the challenges of networking. Approximately thirty (30) people from more than twenty (20) organizations attended the workshop. Among these organizations, there were some from social economy enterprises such as cooperatives in agriculture and in savings and loans, a national association of groups of forest users, micro-finance, fair trade organizations and advocacy groups, etc.

For this occasion, the coordinating committee's provisional network invited me to make a presentation on how to meet their targeted objectives. Since this was the first time that several of the organizations were participating in a network meeting (the most important meeting to date), the coordinating committee presented its action plan for the year. One objective of the plan is to become better known and recognized, especially in the media. Various opportunities can be used for the advancement of the social solidarity economy. The restoration of democracy with the king's forced abdication in 2006, and the end of armed insurrection provides a more favourable environment for development. The Constituent Assembly elected in 2008 is under the legal obligation to adopt a new constitution before the end of May. With the establishment of a federal republic and the elections that will follow, Nepal will work to rebuild an economy that meets the urgent needs of the population. The situation is therefore more conducive to proposing the inclusion of the social solidarity economy in public policy.

At the request of the organizers of the workshop, the Centre for International Studies and Cooperation (CECI), a Canadian international NGO, the costs of my participation were covered through a short-term mission of the UNITERRA program.

I cannot conclude this short article without mentioning the importance of a vast organization of forestry users that I first got to know when I met them at the World Social Forum in January 2005. FECOFUN (Federation of Community Forestry Users, Nepal) consists of 12,500 user groups (who have been entrusted with the forest), representing a total of 1.7 million families, or about 9 million people. Considering that the population of Nepal is 28 million, 1/3 of the population is a member of the association. This association, which considers itself as part of the social solidarity economy is by far the largest civil society association in Nepal. It is also an active member of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), an international certification organization dedicated to the responsible management of the forest.

I wish to thank Sunil Chitrakar from the Nepal Fair Trade Group and member of Board of Directors of RIPESS for organizing my participation in the workshop and the CECI office in Nepal for their hospitality and support.
Yvon Poirier
Member of the International Comittee of CCEDNet
(Canadian Community Economic Development Network)
and Comité international du Chantier de l’économie sociale du Québec
(a social solidarity network in the province of Quebec)

For information:
http://www.fecofun.org/
http://www.fsc.org/


Our Newsletters are available on the WEB:http://local-development.blogspot.com/
www.apreis.org/

Special thanks to:
Évéline Poirier (Canada) and Judith Hitchman (France) for the English translation
Brunilda Rafael (France) for the Spanish translation
Michel Colin (Brazil) for the Portuguese translation

To contact us (for information, feedback, to subscribe or unsubscribe):
Yvon Poirier ypoirier@videotron.ca