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
Thursday, July 01, 2010
Friday, June 04, 2010
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
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
Saturday, May 01, 2010
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
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
Thursday, April 01, 2010
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
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
Monday, March 15, 2010
International Newsletter on Sustainable Local Development
Newsletter #66
March 1st 2010
Summary
Message from the Editorial Team
Sustainable Local Development and traditions: the Parakuiyo Maasai challenge
ANNOUNCEMENTS
The 2010 Pan-Canadian Summit on a People-Centred Economy
The 2nd US Social Forum
Message from the Editorial Team
In this number Judith Hitchman shares the challenges facing the Maasai in Tanzania. Like most other indigenous peoples of our planet, « modernity » as imposed by the dominant form of globalisation, creates the exclusion of indigenous peoples and undermines their traditional lifestyles; in some countries this even goes as far as threatening the very existence of these peoples as such.
In order to cope with this situation, the Maasai in the village of Parakuyo have developed a form of community organisation that places the education and schooling of their children at the heart of the response to this challenge.
We also would like to draw your attention to two events that are scheduled to take place in North America in the upcoming months. As Yvon Poirier will be involved in both events, he will share his observations with us later in the year.
Editorial Team
Judith Hitchman
Yvon Poirier
Martine Theveniaut
Sustainable local development and traditions: the Parakuiyo Maasai challenge
Traditional life-style and local development
One of the most complex and difficult issues facing the indigenous peoples on our planet is how, or indeed whether or not to reconcile their traditional life-style with what can be considered true sustainable local development. I recently had the very great privilege of spending a week visiting my Maasai friend Adam Kuleit ole Mwarabu in Parakuyo, Tanzania. I had met Adam in Tunisia last year during the work I did with the civil society lobby at the negotiations on FAO Treaty on Plant Genetic Ressources, and had greatly admired his way of reconciling tradition and modernity. After all, there aren’t many people who can stand up in front of a UN meeting in full Maasai traditional dress (which he always wears) and make a Powerpoint presentation… I took the opportunity of a visit to my Kenyan son Ruwa, north of Mombasa last October, to hop on a plane from Mombasa and fly down to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and travel by bus to visit him and his family…
All too often, our vision of sustainable local development is culturally clouded by Western concepts of progress, and fails to take the issues of the wisdom of local traditions on board. Worse still, many indigenous peoples are buying into so-called “modernity”, to the detriment of their traditional practice. And the combination of outside exploitation of mineral and land resources, human greed, climate change and loss of biodiversity and of the natural balance of traditional ecosystems all add up to a kind of local development that is ultimately anything but sustainable.
But education can be seen as part of the way forward. This article tries to tell some of the story of the Maasai population of Parakuyo, a small village approximately 60km from Morogoro in the Kilosa district of Tanzania, of Adam Kuleit ole Mwarabu and his family, his colleague Pololet Mgema, and Peter John Mruma, Headmaster of Parakuyo secondary school. It is the result of some very privileged time spent there last November. The village has a population of more than 4000 inhabitants keeping livestock such as cattle, sheep, goats and donkeys in an area of 30,000ha.
A traditional society based on a harmonious balance between men, women and nature: a little background information.
Few people are aware of the complex traditional balance of Parakuiyo Maasai society. They are pastoralists, with land that is traditionally a common good. Their territory covers both Kenya and Tanzania. Their society is based on traditions that are transmitted from one age group to another. It has an open-minded, humanist basis, with a structured profound spiritual wisdom, knowledge of medical virtues of plants and trees, and a social practice anchored in honour, loyalty, sharing and respect. Their society is also based on the wisdom of mediation and conflict resolution rather than aggression.
Their pastoral practice is anchored on a deep historical knowledge of their land and the alternating dry and rainy seasons. It used to include cohabitation with wildlife, and a naturally balanced difference between the way that cows graze (they eat the long grasses), and other animals that eat only the shorter grass and browse the acacias trees and other plants. Drought is not a new phenomenon in these regions, but the historic access to highland pastures alternating with grazing the steppe in the plains used to mean that ecosystems and cattle survived. Contrary to the loudly expressed opinions of many so-called development agencies, the Maasai never destroyed the land. Quite the opposite: their rotating grazing systems were a mighty factor of preservation! Until very recently they were a wealthy people, with herds of many thousands of heads of cattle, even though they do not necessarily attach much traditional importance to money per se as they have always used a barter system and paid livestock for dowry and peace making.
Land reform, land-grabbing and the violation of human and animal rights.
Colonial and post-colonial land reform frequently granted private land rights to both natural wildlife reserves and parks (to be used to exploit tourism), and introduced Western style cattle ranching on the best lands that were allocated to both black and white elites.
The Maasai have progressively become marginalised and dispossessed of their lands. They have been excluded from their traditional grazing lands such as the Mara (now the famous Maasai Mara game park in Kenya), and Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania. For a people to whom land is a communal territory containing resources, rather than a resource to be appropriated by individuals, (or the State) the above are totally at odds with the way in which traditional Maasai have always governed by social and political conventions designed to reduce the risk of unpredictable climate and semi-arid conditions. The balance of culture and nature enabled the Maasai to live in harmony with other creatures on their lands.
An example of one of many land-grabs is illustrated by one of several incidents that took place in 2009 (previous similar incidents took place in 2006). Non-pastoralist communities massively evicted pastoralists in Tanzania from their traditional lands with governmental support and collusion. They introduced modern intensive cattle ranches aimed at exporting meat. Farmers entered land that was not theirs, gained deeds to the land, and started to farm. The government supported them, stating that the Maasai were uneducated and poor. Cows were impounded and died of hunger and thirst. There were physical fights over land, and even deaths. Maasai homes were burnt. Access to water for grazing became a serious issue. Cows were rounded up, and the Maasai had to pay 30,000 Tanzanian shillings (about 18 euros) a head as a fine for “damaging the environment” and 1,500,0000TZS (880Euros) to put them into trucks that they had to rent (a further expense) to remove them from the “camps”. During the evictions, traditional leaders and the Maasai Bishop Jacob Mameo of ELCT Morogoro diocese went from village to village, organising traditional meetings to organise advocacy. The evicted nomadic pastoralists informed members of the parliaments, the European Union, the United Nations, the African Commission on Human & Peoples’ Rights and Local governments of great violation of human and animal rights, but the impact of this information has yet to be felt on the ground.
From considerable wealth (their cows) the Maasai were quickly reduced to a destitute community: typically, people went from owning from 300 cows to nothing overnight. Children were out of school, with parents who could no longer afford to pay the school fees. This was of course not only unconstitutional, but also a violation of the United Nations Declaration of Indigenous People’s Rights, Human Rights and also animal rights… The Prime Minister created a commission in 2007, but over two years later, the report still has not been published. The government position has remained one of prioritising foreign investment in land and tourism… The regions of Arusha, Rukwa, Morogoro and Mbeya have been the most affected. A population of 10,000 pastoralists have lost more than 300,000 livestock. The affected families have been left by the government to die of hunger and disease.
Fighting against the odds
The Parakuiyo Pastoralists Indigenous Community Development Organisation, was founded by the community as an informal NGO. It uses traditional Maasai leadership as a natural form of governance. In 2006 it became a formal structure to enable it to receive outside funding for local projects. It continues to do much successful work at international level in terms of advocacy and defending Maasai and pastoralists’ rights. It is a member of PINGOs Forum, a national platform established in 1994 to defend indigenous peoples’, pastoralists’ and traditional hunter-gatherers’ rights. The four objectives are human rights, land rights, education (both secondary and higher) and capacity building.
In Parakuyo village itself there are several public standpipes and flush toilets in the village, and some non-traditional houses even have their own showers and flush toilets. Young girls can now go to school and not have to walk more than a couple of hundred meters to draw water for cooking: a major impact on their access to education. There is also a primary school. Vicky, Adam’s wife is a teacher there. The financial crisis has meant that her salary has been cut, adding further to their financial difficulties. Their daughter, Winnie, lives about an hour’s drive away with Vicky’s parents, so that she can attend Kindergarten school, as there is none in Parakuyo. Her parents pay someone to take her to school on his bicycle every day, and only see her during the holidays and once a month…Their son, Longishu, is still a toddler, and full of the joys of a life full of love and relative (if closely supervised) freedom. They live in one room in a house provided by Vicky’s school. Internet connections are an acrobatic business, and Adam (who is very tall) often has to put his computer on a series of chairs on top of the table to get a signal… As a Junior Elder, and much-respected leader, Adam is constantly consulted on all sorts of matters when he is at home.
The heart of the village project is the Parakuyo Secondary School. It was founded in 2005, and opened in 2007. There are 220 pupils. It is the only Parakuiyo Maasai secondary boarding school in Tanzania. It has been essentially community-funded by the Maasai families whose children attend the school (90%). There is also an annual grant of 20,000 shillings for every child who attends. There are classrooms and dormitories for forms 1-3. (The secondary school system includes forms 1-4). There is an almost equal gender balance, with 45% girls and 55% boys attending. 90% of them come from pastoralist families. Five years ago, very few girls attended, but there has been successful awareness-raising of the importance of education, supported by the traditional elders. Parakuyo Secondary School was built for Parakuiyo Maasai children in the Morogoro and adjacent regions. 90% of the children in the secondary school are Parakuiyo Maasais.
The school also uses traditional approaches to help young people develop their sense of community responsibilities, such as allocating them plants and trees to tend. After school, the day pupils also participate in traditional activities of herding and village life.
There are many challenges facing the school, some of them urgent. Those children who have gone through forms 1-3 now have no classrooms or dormitories for form 4. They are currently out of school. There are no science labs or equipment. The kitchen, little more than a sheet of galvanised metal over an open fire, uses wood rather than gas or solar energy to prepare meals, not an optimal ecological solution by any means. Apart from trying to raise funds for the much-needed classrooms and dorms, there is also an adult education project…
As the article says, Maasai communities today are facing multiple challenges: human rights issues, climate change, land grabbing, economic survival and the inevitable migration not to new pastures and grasslands but towards the major cities and tourist resorts, with all that this implies. Whatever the future impacts of government policy or climate change on the pastoralist community, the emphasis in Parakuyo is on education, both through the modern school system and Maasai traditions that are part of the Parakuiyo project. It is an important element that will help these young people to preserve their identity and face whatever the future holds in store.
* There are two spelling variations used in this article : Parakuiyo for the Maasai community, Parakuyo for the village and the school.
Judith Hitchman
Original article in English
http://pingos.moportfolio.com/about_us
http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/en/drip.html
ANNOUNCEMENTS
The 2010 Pan-Canadian Summit on a People-Centred Economy
This summit will be held in Ottawa (Canada) from May 30th to June 1st 2010.
The 2010 National Summit on a People-Centred Economy will be an unprecedented gathering of leaders and representatives of the community economic development, cooperative and social economy sectors to build a common agenda and mobilize action for a secure, sustainable economy that puts people and the planet first.
The summit will focus on six themes: Finance and Investment, Enterprise Development, Territorial Revitalization, Organizing the Social Economy Marketplace, Partnerships, International.
For further information:
http://www.ccednet-rcdec.ca/en/summit
The 2nd US Social Forum
From June 22nd – 26th 2010, some 20,000 activists are expected in Detroit to attend the 2nd US Social Forum. The current context of different and serious crises in the United States makes this event even more important than ever.
http://www.ussf2010.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
Newsletter #66
March 1st 2010
Summary
Message from the Editorial Team
Sustainable Local Development and traditions: the Parakuiyo Maasai challenge
ANNOUNCEMENTS
The 2010 Pan-Canadian Summit on a People-Centred Economy
The 2nd US Social Forum
Message from the Editorial Team
In this number Judith Hitchman shares the challenges facing the Maasai in Tanzania. Like most other indigenous peoples of our planet, « modernity » as imposed by the dominant form of globalisation, creates the exclusion of indigenous peoples and undermines their traditional lifestyles; in some countries this even goes as far as threatening the very existence of these peoples as such.
In order to cope with this situation, the Maasai in the village of Parakuyo have developed a form of community organisation that places the education and schooling of their children at the heart of the response to this challenge.
We also would like to draw your attention to two events that are scheduled to take place in North America in the upcoming months. As Yvon Poirier will be involved in both events, he will share his observations with us later in the year.
Editorial Team
Judith Hitchman
Yvon Poirier
Martine Theveniaut
Sustainable local development and traditions: the Parakuiyo Maasai challenge
Traditional life-style and local development
One of the most complex and difficult issues facing the indigenous peoples on our planet is how, or indeed whether or not to reconcile their traditional life-style with what can be considered true sustainable local development. I recently had the very great privilege of spending a week visiting my Maasai friend Adam Kuleit ole Mwarabu in Parakuyo, Tanzania. I had met Adam in Tunisia last year during the work I did with the civil society lobby at the negotiations on FAO Treaty on Plant Genetic Ressources, and had greatly admired his way of reconciling tradition and modernity. After all, there aren’t many people who can stand up in front of a UN meeting in full Maasai traditional dress (which he always wears) and make a Powerpoint presentation… I took the opportunity of a visit to my Kenyan son Ruwa, north of Mombasa last October, to hop on a plane from Mombasa and fly down to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and travel by bus to visit him and his family…
All too often, our vision of sustainable local development is culturally clouded by Western concepts of progress, and fails to take the issues of the wisdom of local traditions on board. Worse still, many indigenous peoples are buying into so-called “modernity”, to the detriment of their traditional practice. And the combination of outside exploitation of mineral and land resources, human greed, climate change and loss of biodiversity and of the natural balance of traditional ecosystems all add up to a kind of local development that is ultimately anything but sustainable.
But education can be seen as part of the way forward. This article tries to tell some of the story of the Maasai population of Parakuyo, a small village approximately 60km from Morogoro in the Kilosa district of Tanzania, of Adam Kuleit ole Mwarabu and his family, his colleague Pololet Mgema, and Peter John Mruma, Headmaster of Parakuyo secondary school. It is the result of some very privileged time spent there last November. The village has a population of more than 4000 inhabitants keeping livestock such as cattle, sheep, goats and donkeys in an area of 30,000ha.
A traditional society based on a harmonious balance between men, women and nature: a little background information.
Few people are aware of the complex traditional balance of Parakuiyo Maasai society. They are pastoralists, with land that is traditionally a common good. Their territory covers both Kenya and Tanzania. Their society is based on traditions that are transmitted from one age group to another. It has an open-minded, humanist basis, with a structured profound spiritual wisdom, knowledge of medical virtues of plants and trees, and a social practice anchored in honour, loyalty, sharing and respect. Their society is also based on the wisdom of mediation and conflict resolution rather than aggression.
Their pastoral practice is anchored on a deep historical knowledge of their land and the alternating dry and rainy seasons. It used to include cohabitation with wildlife, and a naturally balanced difference between the way that cows graze (they eat the long grasses), and other animals that eat only the shorter grass and browse the acacias trees and other plants. Drought is not a new phenomenon in these regions, but the historic access to highland pastures alternating with grazing the steppe in the plains used to mean that ecosystems and cattle survived. Contrary to the loudly expressed opinions of many so-called development agencies, the Maasai never destroyed the land. Quite the opposite: their rotating grazing systems were a mighty factor of preservation! Until very recently they were a wealthy people, with herds of many thousands of heads of cattle, even though they do not necessarily attach much traditional importance to money per se as they have always used a barter system and paid livestock for dowry and peace making.
Land reform, land-grabbing and the violation of human and animal rights.
Colonial and post-colonial land reform frequently granted private land rights to both natural wildlife reserves and parks (to be used to exploit tourism), and introduced Western style cattle ranching on the best lands that were allocated to both black and white elites.
The Maasai have progressively become marginalised and dispossessed of their lands. They have been excluded from their traditional grazing lands such as the Mara (now the famous Maasai Mara game park in Kenya), and Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania. For a people to whom land is a communal territory containing resources, rather than a resource to be appropriated by individuals, (or the State) the above are totally at odds with the way in which traditional Maasai have always governed by social and political conventions designed to reduce the risk of unpredictable climate and semi-arid conditions. The balance of culture and nature enabled the Maasai to live in harmony with other creatures on their lands.
An example of one of many land-grabs is illustrated by one of several incidents that took place in 2009 (previous similar incidents took place in 2006). Non-pastoralist communities massively evicted pastoralists in Tanzania from their traditional lands with governmental support and collusion. They introduced modern intensive cattle ranches aimed at exporting meat. Farmers entered land that was not theirs, gained deeds to the land, and started to farm. The government supported them, stating that the Maasai were uneducated and poor. Cows were impounded and died of hunger and thirst. There were physical fights over land, and even deaths. Maasai homes were burnt. Access to water for grazing became a serious issue. Cows were rounded up, and the Maasai had to pay 30,000 Tanzanian shillings (about 18 euros) a head as a fine for “damaging the environment” and 1,500,0000TZS (880Euros) to put them into trucks that they had to rent (a further expense) to remove them from the “camps”. During the evictions, traditional leaders and the Maasai Bishop Jacob Mameo of ELCT Morogoro diocese went from village to village, organising traditional meetings to organise advocacy. The evicted nomadic pastoralists informed members of the parliaments, the European Union, the United Nations, the African Commission on Human & Peoples’ Rights and Local governments of great violation of human and animal rights, but the impact of this information has yet to be felt on the ground.
From considerable wealth (their cows) the Maasai were quickly reduced to a destitute community: typically, people went from owning from 300 cows to nothing overnight. Children were out of school, with parents who could no longer afford to pay the school fees. This was of course not only unconstitutional, but also a violation of the United Nations Declaration of Indigenous People’s Rights, Human Rights and also animal rights… The Prime Minister created a commission in 2007, but over two years later, the report still has not been published. The government position has remained one of prioritising foreign investment in land and tourism… The regions of Arusha, Rukwa, Morogoro and Mbeya have been the most affected. A population of 10,000 pastoralists have lost more than 300,000 livestock. The affected families have been left by the government to die of hunger and disease.
Fighting against the odds
The Parakuiyo Pastoralists Indigenous Community Development Organisation, was founded by the community as an informal NGO. It uses traditional Maasai leadership as a natural form of governance. In 2006 it became a formal structure to enable it to receive outside funding for local projects. It continues to do much successful work at international level in terms of advocacy and defending Maasai and pastoralists’ rights. It is a member of PINGOs Forum, a national platform established in 1994 to defend indigenous peoples’, pastoralists’ and traditional hunter-gatherers’ rights. The four objectives are human rights, land rights, education (both secondary and higher) and capacity building.
In Parakuyo village itself there are several public standpipes and flush toilets in the village, and some non-traditional houses even have their own showers and flush toilets. Young girls can now go to school and not have to walk more than a couple of hundred meters to draw water for cooking: a major impact on their access to education. There is also a primary school. Vicky, Adam’s wife is a teacher there. The financial crisis has meant that her salary has been cut, adding further to their financial difficulties. Their daughter, Winnie, lives about an hour’s drive away with Vicky’s parents, so that she can attend Kindergarten school, as there is none in Parakuyo. Her parents pay someone to take her to school on his bicycle every day, and only see her during the holidays and once a month…Their son, Longishu, is still a toddler, and full of the joys of a life full of love and relative (if closely supervised) freedom. They live in one room in a house provided by Vicky’s school. Internet connections are an acrobatic business, and Adam (who is very tall) often has to put his computer on a series of chairs on top of the table to get a signal… As a Junior Elder, and much-respected leader, Adam is constantly consulted on all sorts of matters when he is at home.
The heart of the village project is the Parakuyo Secondary School. It was founded in 2005, and opened in 2007. There are 220 pupils. It is the only Parakuiyo Maasai secondary boarding school in Tanzania. It has been essentially community-funded by the Maasai families whose children attend the school (90%). There is also an annual grant of 20,000 shillings for every child who attends. There are classrooms and dormitories for forms 1-3. (The secondary school system includes forms 1-4). There is an almost equal gender balance, with 45% girls and 55% boys attending. 90% of them come from pastoralist families. Five years ago, very few girls attended, but there has been successful awareness-raising of the importance of education, supported by the traditional elders. Parakuyo Secondary School was built for Parakuiyo Maasai children in the Morogoro and adjacent regions. 90% of the children in the secondary school are Parakuiyo Maasais.
The school also uses traditional approaches to help young people develop their sense of community responsibilities, such as allocating them plants and trees to tend. After school, the day pupils also participate in traditional activities of herding and village life.
There are many challenges facing the school, some of them urgent. Those children who have gone through forms 1-3 now have no classrooms or dormitories for form 4. They are currently out of school. There are no science labs or equipment. The kitchen, little more than a sheet of galvanised metal over an open fire, uses wood rather than gas or solar energy to prepare meals, not an optimal ecological solution by any means. Apart from trying to raise funds for the much-needed classrooms and dorms, there is also an adult education project…
As the article says, Maasai communities today are facing multiple challenges: human rights issues, climate change, land grabbing, economic survival and the inevitable migration not to new pastures and grasslands but towards the major cities and tourist resorts, with all that this implies. Whatever the future impacts of government policy or climate change on the pastoralist community, the emphasis in Parakuyo is on education, both through the modern school system and Maasai traditions that are part of the Parakuiyo project. It is an important element that will help these young people to preserve their identity and face whatever the future holds in store.
* There are two spelling variations used in this article : Parakuiyo for the Maasai community, Parakuyo for the village and the school.
Judith Hitchman
Original article in English
http://pingos.moportfolio.com/about_us
http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/en/drip.html
ANNOUNCEMENTS
The 2010 Pan-Canadian Summit on a People-Centred Economy
This summit will be held in Ottawa (Canada) from May 30th to June 1st 2010.
The 2010 National Summit on a People-Centred Economy will be an unprecedented gathering of leaders and representatives of the community economic development, cooperative and social economy sectors to build a common agenda and mobilize action for a secure, sustainable economy that puts people and the planet first.
The summit will focus on six themes: Finance and Investment, Enterprise Development, Territorial Revitalization, Organizing the Social Economy Marketplace, Partnerships, International.
For further information:
http://www.ccednet-rcdec.ca/en/summit
The 2nd US Social Forum
From June 22nd – 26th 2010, some 20,000 activists are expected in Detroit to attend the 2nd US Social Forum. The current context of different and serious crises in the United States makes this event even more important than ever.
http://www.ussf2010.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
Sunday, January 31, 2010
International Newsletter on Sustainable Local Development
Newsletter #65
January 1st 2010
Summary
Message from the Editorial Team
Recipes from Rome: the World Summit for Food Security
Message from the Editorial Team
A full decade of the 21st century has already gone by!
We are living in a time of paradox. We all know that the requisite knowledge to solve the fundamental issues facing humanity exists, be it those of food, health, education, peace or creating harmony between peoples and within nations.
The same can be said of the environment. We now know that scientifically speaking, the degradation of the biosphere is a fact. We also know that we collectively consume more resources than our planet can provide. It is an established fact that we would need at least three times our planetary resources if all countries were to follow the consumer model of the so-called “developed” countries.
And progress towards the key objectives, such as the Millennium Development Goals for poverty reduction or even that of reducing greenhouse gas, is at a standstill, or even regressing.
Conservative forces that uphold the ideology of “it’s all working fine”, be it the neoliberal voices of the United States, or newer powers such as China or India (all of which are remarkably similar), still support an ideology of economic growth. Yet we are acutely aware that the answers to problems can not be found in the thought processes that created them in the first place, an idea first put forward by Einstein.
We can see for ourselves that these forces are still blocking the essential elements of the reforms that are fundamentally needed, as witnessed by President Obama’s attempts to push through reforms, the failure of the Copenhagen conference, even if some small reform is being carried through in order to control the financial system. Nothing is being done to change the most essential aspects, even though the need is greater than ever.
So in terms of concrete, positive results, no significant progress has been made.
But there is major progress happening at other levels.
In particular, there is a new level of global awareness of the key issues. Most NGOs and social movements in countries and at the international level agree on their analyses, even if their strategies are still somewhat divergent. The World Social Fora and many other meetings, such as that organised by RIPESS testify to this progress.
The vision of economies and alternative societies is increasingly based on approaches such as solidarity economy, that are inclusive in nature, and that are generally more localised. Connecting the approach more closely to people’s local environments increasingly appears as a viable alternative to the so-called development as known hitherto.
It would indeed be preferable to implement a “different” model that is more compatible with the limited resources of our biosphere. If we fail to do this, our planet will self-destruct, and this is likely to be extremely brutal. So it is advisable to do something, or things will be even worse for most of the inhabitants of our world.
This is the tenor of the article that we are publishing in this issue on the question of food. There are two conflicting “models” out there, as clearly shown in the text on the FAO (United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation) summit held in Rome last November. As the participants in the People’s Forum that took place at the same time clearly stated, the choices we are facing are between a productivist agricultural model aimed at growth (of profits) and a model based on local agriculture aimed primarily at feeding people (rather than share-holders). For our part, our choice is clear!!
Editorial Team
Judith Hitchman
Yvon Poirier
Martine Theveniaut
Recipes from Rome: the World Summit for Food Security
The World Summit for Food Security was recently held in Rome (16th - 18th November) under the auspices of the FAO (the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation), headquartered in this city. The timing could not have been more appropriate, as the pretentious title of the meeting suggests: “Imagine. Achieving food security in times of crisis”. This notion of food security is aimed at food for all, even at the height of current global financial turbulence, with over one billion people in the world suffering from hunger. The aim of the first Millennium Development Goal - to halve the number of people suffering from hunger by 2015 compared with the figures for 1990 - is far from today’s reality. If we add the uncertain impacts of climate change on agriculture, the profit-driven interests of agribusiness and predatory attitudes of governments, the outlook for the most vulnerable is indeed pessimistic.
A parallel meeting: People’s Forum on Food Sovereignty
Civil society rose to the occasion, and organised their own space for discussion in the People’s Food Sovereignty Forum that was also held on the same dates in Rome, parallel to the FAO Summit. I had the privilege of being a member of the volunteer interpreting team that was responsible for supporting the communication between over 400 delegates who had come from all over the world. The objective was to promote the right of rural communities to define their own agricultural model that respects their ecological, social, economic and cultural traditions. Food sovereignty prioritises local consumption, access of small farmers to natural resources, to land, seeds and agricultural biodiversity. It condemns the use of food production as either a trade or a political weapon. A great number of civil society organisations participated in the Forum. The International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty represented them in their discussions with the “United Nations system”, mainly the FAO and IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development).
The final declaration text from the People’s Forum, from which I have extracted a few key points, mentions the importance of considering the Food Security Committee of the FAO as the privileged body for developing international policies on food and agriculture, especially as the recent reform that has been approved confers a greater role on the representatives of civil society. The declaration also discusses the appropriate financial support provided by members of the FAO to enable the Committee to carry out its work in an adequate manner, guided by the human right to food. Financial resources have been proposed by the World Bank and other international financial institutions, whose past mechanisms of governance have shown a lack of democracy and transparency; this means there is a risk of the same mistakes being made as in the past. “As long as institutions such as the WTO continue to privilege commercial interests over the globally marginalised and malnourished, hunger will continue to stalk the world”.
The text also defends the need to respect ecological supply chains, and condemns the aggressive mercantile approach to nature and knowledge. It requests a global moratorium on GMOs and invites all States to take immediate adequate action to protect and regulate national food markets by managing supplies to guarantee the availability of food, decent pay and fair prices. States should guarantee joint control of land through integrated agrarian reform that respects both individual and collective access to land, and control over territories.
Concerning the control of resources for food production, the Declaration condemns the alarming land- and water-grabbing currently practiced by certain countries and multinationals. In less than one year, 40 million hectares of fertile land in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe have been usurped through agreements that favour this practice and displace local food production in favour of export crops. The Declaration also opposes intellectual property rights aimed at protecting living resources such as seeds, plants and animals.
Finally, the text commits civil society to building alliances via the International Planning Committee and presents the input from the different work groups that took place during the Forum: Women, who defend their role in food sovereignty, youth who plead for education and training in agricultural practice, fishing and animal husbandry, indigenous peoples who demand the right to land and who consider nature as a living being that is essential to the identity and culture of their communities.
The FAO Summit Declaration
The official declaration of the FAO Summit expresses good intentions and pompous commitments in their five Principles of Rome for sustainable global food security: 1) invest in national plans to channel resources aimed at NGOs and well-designed results-oriented programmes, 2) encourage strategic co-ordination of national, regional and global plans in order to improve governance and promote a better distribution of resources, 3) work towards food security through direct emergency measures aimed at the most vulnerable groups, in order to fight hunger and poverty, 4) guarantee the role of the multilateral institutions, 5) guarantee the commitment of all to investing in agriculture, food security and nutrition, in order to fund pluri-annual plans and programmes.
The civil society Forum criticised the FAO for grounding the achievement of the above principles in the creation of a High Level Action Group on the crisis in food security at the instigation of the Secretary General of the United Nations. This is in the context of the reform of the Committee for food security. Civil society’s disagreement is due to the fact that the Action Group supports the multinationals that are patenting seeds and commercialising GMOs in order to implement projects with many large international philanthropic foundations who are operating on funds from the World Bank.
Civil society condemns the fact that the FAO also delegates “the strategic co-ordination of national, regional and global plans” to a “global Alliance for agriculture, food security and nutrition”, created by the industrialised countries of the G8 that - and this is no mere coincidence - control most of the food system by imposing production models that are contrary to the interests defended by small-scale farmers.
The principles of Rome also includes the World Trade Organisation, and suggests on paper that global markets become more open to small-scale farmers from developing countries, in order to enable them to increase their productivity, and compete in more equal circumstances. Civil society organisations again reproached this attitude: Although the WTO is a multilateral institution representing countries of all sorts, and with a decision-making system based on the principle of “one country, one vote” it is important to realise that in the corridors of power some countries club together to defend their interests more than those of others, in terms of the available resources, the size of the economic and legal lobby and their influence. Once again, the developing countries have a handicap in negotiations before they even begin.
Challenges for the years to come
It’s time to square up on the chess board: one camp defends food sovereignty, protected by rural tradition and the ancestral knowledge of peoples and communities, while the other is in favour of technological green revolutions, the industrialisation of agriculture and GMOs. These are the black and white, even grey squares on the board... Can there be no meeting of the ways in this struggle for power?
Ethical commitment and respect of the environment, of ecosystems and subsistence means of rural populations should take priority; it is necessary to avoid ideological and political prejudice as well as economic interests that may block the path. If we really wish to reach a reciprocal commitment of all stakeholders, we need to consider that achieving a joint solution is a moral obligation that broadens our field of vision.
Food sovereignty implies a sense of responsibility. On one hand, governments need to guarantee supplies of accessible food that is culturally acceptable and nourishing, and to facilitate emergency access to those in need of help, without undermining the principle of sovereignty. On the other, farmers and producers should participate in the decision-making process as to how to grow and distribute food. Their know-how is both their heritage and their contribution. Food is life. It comes from the land that we work and from animals that we raise or hunt. It is nature, culture, tradition, religion, the identity of peoples and nations. We savour it, appreciate it, dream about it; it awakens feelings and emotions in our hearts; it brings us together, satisfies us, makes us aware of our essential being and our shared identity. As citizens, we can, through our acts, set the example for future generations, through responsible consumption, by cultivating our curiosity as to the origin and way in which food is produced, and by drawing closer to nature. We are all involved in the future of our planet and we can no longer remain dependent on decisions taken by others.
Jorge Soriano Bugnion
voluntary professional interpreter and activist
Original article in Spanish
http://www.fao.org/wsfs/
http://peoplesforum2009.foodsovereignty.org/
Our Newsletters are available on the WEB:http://local-development.blogspot.com/
www.apreis.org/
Special thanks to:
Judith Hitchman for the English translation
Brunilda Rafael from France for the Spanish translation
Michel Colin from Brazil for the Portuguese translation
To contact us (for information, feedback, to subscribe or unsubscribe):
Yvon Poirier ypoirier@videotron.ca
Newsletter #65
January 1st 2010
Summary
Message from the Editorial Team
Recipes from Rome: the World Summit for Food Security
Message from the Editorial Team
A full decade of the 21st century has already gone by!
We are living in a time of paradox. We all know that the requisite knowledge to solve the fundamental issues facing humanity exists, be it those of food, health, education, peace or creating harmony between peoples and within nations.
The same can be said of the environment. We now know that scientifically speaking, the degradation of the biosphere is a fact. We also know that we collectively consume more resources than our planet can provide. It is an established fact that we would need at least three times our planetary resources if all countries were to follow the consumer model of the so-called “developed” countries.
And progress towards the key objectives, such as the Millennium Development Goals for poverty reduction or even that of reducing greenhouse gas, is at a standstill, or even regressing.
Conservative forces that uphold the ideology of “it’s all working fine”, be it the neoliberal voices of the United States, or newer powers such as China or India (all of which are remarkably similar), still support an ideology of economic growth. Yet we are acutely aware that the answers to problems can not be found in the thought processes that created them in the first place, an idea first put forward by Einstein.
We can see for ourselves that these forces are still blocking the essential elements of the reforms that are fundamentally needed, as witnessed by President Obama’s attempts to push through reforms, the failure of the Copenhagen conference, even if some small reform is being carried through in order to control the financial system. Nothing is being done to change the most essential aspects, even though the need is greater than ever.
So in terms of concrete, positive results, no significant progress has been made.
But there is major progress happening at other levels.
In particular, there is a new level of global awareness of the key issues. Most NGOs and social movements in countries and at the international level agree on their analyses, even if their strategies are still somewhat divergent. The World Social Fora and many other meetings, such as that organised by RIPESS testify to this progress.
The vision of economies and alternative societies is increasingly based on approaches such as solidarity economy, that are inclusive in nature, and that are generally more localised. Connecting the approach more closely to people’s local environments increasingly appears as a viable alternative to the so-called development as known hitherto.
It would indeed be preferable to implement a “different” model that is more compatible with the limited resources of our biosphere. If we fail to do this, our planet will self-destruct, and this is likely to be extremely brutal. So it is advisable to do something, or things will be even worse for most of the inhabitants of our world.
This is the tenor of the article that we are publishing in this issue on the question of food. There are two conflicting “models” out there, as clearly shown in the text on the FAO (United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation) summit held in Rome last November. As the participants in the People’s Forum that took place at the same time clearly stated, the choices we are facing are between a productivist agricultural model aimed at growth (of profits) and a model based on local agriculture aimed primarily at feeding people (rather than share-holders). For our part, our choice is clear!!
Editorial Team
Judith Hitchman
Yvon Poirier
Martine Theveniaut
Recipes from Rome: the World Summit for Food Security
The World Summit for Food Security was recently held in Rome (16th - 18th November) under the auspices of the FAO (the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation), headquartered in this city. The timing could not have been more appropriate, as the pretentious title of the meeting suggests: “Imagine. Achieving food security in times of crisis”. This notion of food security is aimed at food for all, even at the height of current global financial turbulence, with over one billion people in the world suffering from hunger. The aim of the first Millennium Development Goal - to halve the number of people suffering from hunger by 2015 compared with the figures for 1990 - is far from today’s reality. If we add the uncertain impacts of climate change on agriculture, the profit-driven interests of agribusiness and predatory attitudes of governments, the outlook for the most vulnerable is indeed pessimistic.
A parallel meeting: People’s Forum on Food Sovereignty
Civil society rose to the occasion, and organised their own space for discussion in the People’s Food Sovereignty Forum that was also held on the same dates in Rome, parallel to the FAO Summit. I had the privilege of being a member of the volunteer interpreting team that was responsible for supporting the communication between over 400 delegates who had come from all over the world. The objective was to promote the right of rural communities to define their own agricultural model that respects their ecological, social, economic and cultural traditions. Food sovereignty prioritises local consumption, access of small farmers to natural resources, to land, seeds and agricultural biodiversity. It condemns the use of food production as either a trade or a political weapon. A great number of civil society organisations participated in the Forum. The International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty represented them in their discussions with the “United Nations system”, mainly the FAO and IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development).
The final declaration text from the People’s Forum, from which I have extracted a few key points, mentions the importance of considering the Food Security Committee of the FAO as the privileged body for developing international policies on food and agriculture, especially as the recent reform that has been approved confers a greater role on the representatives of civil society. The declaration also discusses the appropriate financial support provided by members of the FAO to enable the Committee to carry out its work in an adequate manner, guided by the human right to food. Financial resources have been proposed by the World Bank and other international financial institutions, whose past mechanisms of governance have shown a lack of democracy and transparency; this means there is a risk of the same mistakes being made as in the past. “As long as institutions such as the WTO continue to privilege commercial interests over the globally marginalised and malnourished, hunger will continue to stalk the world”.
The text also defends the need to respect ecological supply chains, and condemns the aggressive mercantile approach to nature and knowledge. It requests a global moratorium on GMOs and invites all States to take immediate adequate action to protect and regulate national food markets by managing supplies to guarantee the availability of food, decent pay and fair prices. States should guarantee joint control of land through integrated agrarian reform that respects both individual and collective access to land, and control over territories.
Concerning the control of resources for food production, the Declaration condemns the alarming land- and water-grabbing currently practiced by certain countries and multinationals. In less than one year, 40 million hectares of fertile land in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe have been usurped through agreements that favour this practice and displace local food production in favour of export crops. The Declaration also opposes intellectual property rights aimed at protecting living resources such as seeds, plants and animals.
Finally, the text commits civil society to building alliances via the International Planning Committee and presents the input from the different work groups that took place during the Forum: Women, who defend their role in food sovereignty, youth who plead for education and training in agricultural practice, fishing and animal husbandry, indigenous peoples who demand the right to land and who consider nature as a living being that is essential to the identity and culture of their communities.
The FAO Summit Declaration
The official declaration of the FAO Summit expresses good intentions and pompous commitments in their five Principles of Rome for sustainable global food security: 1) invest in national plans to channel resources aimed at NGOs and well-designed results-oriented programmes, 2) encourage strategic co-ordination of national, regional and global plans in order to improve governance and promote a better distribution of resources, 3) work towards food security through direct emergency measures aimed at the most vulnerable groups, in order to fight hunger and poverty, 4) guarantee the role of the multilateral institutions, 5) guarantee the commitment of all to investing in agriculture, food security and nutrition, in order to fund pluri-annual plans and programmes.
The civil society Forum criticised the FAO for grounding the achievement of the above principles in the creation of a High Level Action Group on the crisis in food security at the instigation of the Secretary General of the United Nations. This is in the context of the reform of the Committee for food security. Civil society’s disagreement is due to the fact that the Action Group supports the multinationals that are patenting seeds and commercialising GMOs in order to implement projects with many large international philanthropic foundations who are operating on funds from the World Bank.
Civil society condemns the fact that the FAO also delegates “the strategic co-ordination of national, regional and global plans” to a “global Alliance for agriculture, food security and nutrition”, created by the industrialised countries of the G8 that - and this is no mere coincidence - control most of the food system by imposing production models that are contrary to the interests defended by small-scale farmers.
The principles of Rome also includes the World Trade Organisation, and suggests on paper that global markets become more open to small-scale farmers from developing countries, in order to enable them to increase their productivity, and compete in more equal circumstances. Civil society organisations again reproached this attitude: Although the WTO is a multilateral institution representing countries of all sorts, and with a decision-making system based on the principle of “one country, one vote” it is important to realise that in the corridors of power some countries club together to defend their interests more than those of others, in terms of the available resources, the size of the economic and legal lobby and their influence. Once again, the developing countries have a handicap in negotiations before they even begin.
Challenges for the years to come
It’s time to square up on the chess board: one camp defends food sovereignty, protected by rural tradition and the ancestral knowledge of peoples and communities, while the other is in favour of technological green revolutions, the industrialisation of agriculture and GMOs. These are the black and white, even grey squares on the board... Can there be no meeting of the ways in this struggle for power?
Ethical commitment and respect of the environment, of ecosystems and subsistence means of rural populations should take priority; it is necessary to avoid ideological and political prejudice as well as economic interests that may block the path. If we really wish to reach a reciprocal commitment of all stakeholders, we need to consider that achieving a joint solution is a moral obligation that broadens our field of vision.
Food sovereignty implies a sense of responsibility. On one hand, governments need to guarantee supplies of accessible food that is culturally acceptable and nourishing, and to facilitate emergency access to those in need of help, without undermining the principle of sovereignty. On the other, farmers and producers should participate in the decision-making process as to how to grow and distribute food. Their know-how is both their heritage and their contribution. Food is life. It comes from the land that we work and from animals that we raise or hunt. It is nature, culture, tradition, religion, the identity of peoples and nations. We savour it, appreciate it, dream about it; it awakens feelings and emotions in our hearts; it brings us together, satisfies us, makes us aware of our essential being and our shared identity. As citizens, we can, through our acts, set the example for future generations, through responsible consumption, by cultivating our curiosity as to the origin and way in which food is produced, and by drawing closer to nature. We are all involved in the future of our planet and we can no longer remain dependent on decisions taken by others.
Jorge Soriano Bugnion
voluntary professional interpreter and activist
Original article in Spanish
http://www.fao.org/wsfs/
http://peoplesforum2009.foodsovereignty.org/
Our Newsletters are available on the WEB:http://local-development.blogspot.com/
www.apreis.org/
Special thanks to:
Judith Hitchman for the English translation
Brunilda Rafael from France for the Spanish translation
Michel Colin from Brazil for the Portuguese translation
To contact us (for information, feedback, to subscribe or unsubscribe):
Yvon Poirier ypoirier@videotron.ca
Sunday, November 01, 2009
International Newsletter on Sustainable Local Development
Newsletter #63
November 1st 2009
Summary
Message from the Editorial Team
Reclaim the Fields
An initiative of the peasant youth of Europe
Changing indicators
A societal debate on development that we want
Inner City Development Cooperative (Manila, Philippines)
A disaster
Message from the Editorial Team
We are presenting two articles written by Judith and Martine in the light of their respective participation in two recent meetings in Europe. Even if both meetings had completely different themes, they dealt head on with alternative approaches to development as we know it.
For their part, young farmers are establishing approaches and strategies for environmentally responsible local agriculture anchored in local communities. On the other hand, we all know that the dominant economic indicator is the calculation of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). However, this indicator is totally inadequate to measure the well-being of individuals, the true wealth of societies. For example, the recovery and recycling of waste adds more to GDP than the reuse of well-planned products designed to last longer. The theatrical play "Erika’s Paradox” demonstrates how this ecological disaster was transformed into a growth indicator of GDP in France! We could list many other examples. Therefore, it is very important that other indicators be put into place.
Finally, we wish to inform you of the natural disaster that hit the neighbourhood of Tatalon in Manila. We described in Newsletter #44 the inspiring work of the Inner City Development Cooperative. Now everything has to be rebuilt.
We want to express our solidarity with the members of this community.
Editorial Team
Judith Hitchman
Yvon Poirier
Martine Theveniaut
Reclaim the Fields
An initiative of the peasant youth of Europe
Reclaim the Fields held a gathering of about 300 young farmers and landless youth with agricultural projects of various kinds from all over Europe. It took place on a collective farm at Cravirola, near Minerve, in the South West of France, from September 30th to October 4th. It was organised by Reclaim the Fields, a youth movement tightly linked to Via Campesina. It was created in Rostock, Germany at the time of the anti-G8 meeting in May 2007.
The camp was essentially self-organised (camping, collective kitchen, workshops and plenary sessions…). It was aimed at addressing various issues that have become increasingly critical in the current multiple global crises (financial, economic, climate change…). The participants were a mixture of people who had either started up their own projects or who intended or wanted to do so. The key issues discussed were those of access to land and to seeds (especially the traditional rights of farmers to save, exchange and resow their seeds). Some of the discussions also addressed the questions of fair prices for agricultural products and direct sales’ circuits from farms to consumers, the social recognition of farmers, the opposition to the dominant industrial farming model, and the need for fair agricultural policies. Other discussions included ideas on how to achieve self-empowerment and capacity building that is adapted to a non-industrial model, and how to make it possible for those who want to farm to do so. But the most recurrent and central theme was that of access to land, a question which varies according to the law and availability and price in each country.
The importance of local communities and sustainable local development
One of the most central and recurrent questions was the best way to articulate and organise things at local level. Peasant agriculture is probably one of the most effective ways to fight climate change, improve health and maintain a sustainable local economy. Some of the most interesting discussions were those on gaining acceptance within local communities. This concerned not only new arrivals within the communities, but also how to manage change in the case of transmitting the farm within the same family, particularly when the transmission was from father to daughter, and when the new generation wanted to change the way the farm was run (a shift to organic agriculture, or from raising livestock to market gardening for example). Becoming an accepted member of a rural community is one of the key levers to success.
Access to land
The idea of learning to work within local communities, to get support form local authorities and have land set aside for peasant farming and market gardening was often mentioned. This also needs to take the notion of collective property and projects as well as individual land-ownership into account. One idea for the future was to develop an on-line community to inform people of available land that might suit their project. Structures like Terre de Liens and the Nef in France are a help, but are not sufficient. Too much land is lying fallow, and although the first option is always to gain access to land through peaceful, legal means, a deep and total agrarian reform is needed to provide more equitable solutions. The Brazilian MST movement and their practice of occupying unused land is highly effective too… Each country has its own legislation, which can either facilitate or prove to be a major obstacle. Access to land is highly controlled in France, which is often a major obstacle.
Selling produce in direct supply chains
All the existing networks and solutions, such as the CSA (AMAP) were of course mentioned as part of the answer. But maintaining and even developing local farmers’ markets, direct sales on the farms, linking sales to agrotourism and other initiatives also need to be supported. There are also many atypical projects that do not fit into any mould, and that also need to be considered. The move to including organic local suppliers in public tenders in France is a positive thing too. Again, this requires lobbying and communication with local structures.
The urban dimension was also included as an important aspect, both in terms of urban and peri-urbans market gardening, but also in terms of linking up with other social movements to improve living conditions and access to healthy affordable food.
The camp ended with a peaceful sit-in outside the regional offices of the SAFER, the Société d'Amenagément Foncier et d'Establissement Rural, a State body that plays a powerful role in the sale and acquisition of land. This clearly showed the determination of so many young people to gain access to land, to build a European movement of young peasant farmers.
Author: Judith Hitchman
Original article in English and French
http://reclaimthefields.org/
http://reclaimthefields.org/content/action-à-la-safer
http://www.terredeliens.org
Changing indicators
A societal debate on development that we want
Our indicators make us blind! The present crisis we are experiencing goes far beyond a financial and economic crisis. The primary indicator of wealth is gross domestic product and its development, namely economic growth. However, this indicator only takes monetary exchange into account, and ignores the elements that have no "price" as they are often incalculable... Researchers are examining alternative measures of well-being. While GDP growth has served as a reference to progress since World War II, it has become even more necessary to rethink progress in terms of well-being for all people, including future generations. This means reducing disparities, sharing of resources, social cohesion and sustainable development....
In the whole series of recent initiatives and works devoted to this subject, the Stiglitz Commission report has opened the door to this.
Two recent meetings placed that focus on indicators for territorial well-being.
Territoires de Coresponsabilité held their first meeting September 25th 2009 in the town of Mulhouse. This town is a recognized pioneer in this process.
In its strategy for social cohesion, the Council of Europe defines the latter as « the ability of society to ensure the well-being of all through the joint responsibility of the various stakeholders (public and private actors, citizens). A link to sustainable development is created by including the well-being of future generations, making the welfare of all generations a goal for societal progress ». With this impetus, several territories have begun to implement this new approach, using this definition as their starting point, and by using a method in which citizens are invited to rethink the organization of the society in which they live, based on the real needs identified in a concerted approach.
The method was first applied in the city of Mulhouse, France in 2005 with the help of Samuel Thirion (Division for the Development of Social Cohesion). This experience helped develop the foundations for this methodology. It is still the most advanced that exists. As a result, applications have also been introduced in the Department of Timisoara in Romania, the Autonomous Province of Trento in Italy and in Paris, Ile-de-France Region. They have led to the introduction of the concept of Territoires de Coresponsabilité.
This method is currently being used nationally in the Rural Poverty Alleviation Program (PLPR) in Cape Verde, co-funded by IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development) placing it within an institutional framework that links the community, the regional and national levels. A link between the local approach and regional policies is also on track in the Walloon Region (Belgium). Several other territories, regions and/or countries are currently planning to use or take inspiration from this method, including Brittany (France) with the support of the NGO PEKEA (Political and Ethical Knowledge on Economic Activities) and in Gabon.
The implementation of this strategy involves: development of indicators to define and measure the well-being of all; especially with citizens; the collaborative sharing of responsibilities to ensure progress towards the well-being of all, including that of future generations; the follow-up and evaluation of societal progress realized.
For further information : http://spiral.cws.coe.int
The ISBET Program (Societal Indicators of Territorial Well-being) presented its first results on October 5th in Rennes (France): "Counting what really matters in a territory" Organized by PEKEA and a Local Governments Club.
PEKEA stands for Political and Ethical Knowledge on Economic Activities. Over 900 people are members. It is recognized as an NGO in consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council. The members of this think tank come from research programs, universities, and especially NGOs; they are all leaders in alternative actions on the field and concerned citizens. Some fifty countries have participants. The network organization and the extensive use of the Internet provide an international dimension to the organization whose global headquarters is located in Rennes. The online texts are published in three languages: French, English and Spanish.
Why is there a Local Governments Club (LGC)? At the initiative of Rennes Métropole, the idea of a club was discussed and worked among some elected local authorities. Formally, three local governments created the club in 2006: Rennes Métropole, Département d’Ille et Vilaine and Région Bretagne, joined in 2007 by the Région Nord-Pas-de-Calais. The LGC is chaired by Alain Yvergniaux, Regional Council of Bretagne.
The priority for Local Governments is to improve the well-being of the members of their communities. That is to say, these Local Governments need to make decisions and design policies able to improve this well-being, or to increase global societal value. The convergence is clear between this first PEKEA project to give content to the concept of « societal value » and assist Local Governments wishing to have a better understanding of the level of well-being of their local communities for which they are responsible. Attaining this objective will increase the capacity to select appropriate policies that will increase this level of societal well-being.
The project ISBET (Societal Indicators of Territorial Well-being), financed by the Bretagne Region and promoted by PEKEA, follows this perspective. From an analytical point of view, the project is built on three axes:
1. Calculation of a regional IDH (Human Development Index) and its deflection at local level (IDH2, IDH3, IDH4…) ;
2. Construction of territorial indicators of well being with the participation of citizens and stakeholders on two territories in Brittany.
3. Theoretical discussion on procedures for the participatory construction of indicators.
The process of collective construction of indicators for well-being (axis 2 of the project) takes inspiration from the approach promoted by the Council of Europe. It aims to visualize what really counts for the citizens and to formulate proposals that would feed into the elaboration of public policies in domains such as territorial social cohesion, sustainable development, etc. Participation of citizens, stakeholders, associations, economic actors and others in the construction of a shared definition of well-being of all and for all is considered an essential pre-condition when it comes to identifying what really counts for them.
This approach is being piloted in two areas of local communities of peri-urban Rennes: Val d'Ille and Pipriac in the Ille and Vilaine Department.
Contacts : PEKEA, Michel Renault, coordinator of project ISBET with information from Claire Cartieaux
http://www.pekea.org
Martine Theveniaut (participant at both meetings)
Inner City Development Cooperative (Manila, Philippines)
A disaster
We introduced the Inner City Development Coop (ICDC) in Newsletter #44, December 1st 2007; Yvon had the opportunity to visit this cooperative in October 2007 at the first Asian Forum on Solidarity Economy.
Now a tragedy has affected the community. Typhoon Ondoy hit the Philippines very hard on September 26th. As described in a message from Zeny de Jesus of ICDC, the disaster struck the whole community, including 99% of the cooperative members. And that is not all, since a fire destroyed 600 homes at the same time. The message explains the situation well.
As it often happens, the poorest are most affected when natural disasters strike, especially because the slums are located in areas more conducive to flooding.
Nevertheless, with the tool they have collectively, their cooperative, members immediately took charge of the situation to assure their survival and their community’s.
Having witnessed the strength and the will of the cooperative and its members, I am sure they will succeed in rebuilding their community and renewing their efforts to lift people out of poverty.
Author: Yvon Poirier
Although the following article is in French, the pictures show the extensive damage done.
http://blog.lefigaro.fr/babyloan/2009/09/manille-ou-lirresistible-montee-des-perils.html
Our Newsletters are available on the WEB:http://local-development.blogspot.com/
www.apreis.org/
Special thanks to:
Évéline Poirier from Canada for the English translation
Brunilda Rafael from France for the Spanish translation
Michel Colin from Brazil for the Portuguese translation
To contact us (for information, feedback, to subscribe or unsubscribe):
Yvon Poirier ypoirier@videotron.ca
Newsletter #63
November 1st 2009
Summary
Message from the Editorial Team
Reclaim the Fields
An initiative of the peasant youth of Europe
Changing indicators
A societal debate on development that we want
Inner City Development Cooperative (Manila, Philippines)
A disaster
Message from the Editorial Team
We are presenting two articles written by Judith and Martine in the light of their respective participation in two recent meetings in Europe. Even if both meetings had completely different themes, they dealt head on with alternative approaches to development as we know it.
For their part, young farmers are establishing approaches and strategies for environmentally responsible local agriculture anchored in local communities. On the other hand, we all know that the dominant economic indicator is the calculation of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). However, this indicator is totally inadequate to measure the well-being of individuals, the true wealth of societies. For example, the recovery and recycling of waste adds more to GDP than the reuse of well-planned products designed to last longer. The theatrical play "Erika’s Paradox” demonstrates how this ecological disaster was transformed into a growth indicator of GDP in France! We could list many other examples. Therefore, it is very important that other indicators be put into place.
Finally, we wish to inform you of the natural disaster that hit the neighbourhood of Tatalon in Manila. We described in Newsletter #44 the inspiring work of the Inner City Development Cooperative. Now everything has to be rebuilt.
We want to express our solidarity with the members of this community.
Editorial Team
Judith Hitchman
Yvon Poirier
Martine Theveniaut
Reclaim the Fields
An initiative of the peasant youth of Europe
Reclaim the Fields held a gathering of about 300 young farmers and landless youth with agricultural projects of various kinds from all over Europe. It took place on a collective farm at Cravirola, near Minerve, in the South West of France, from September 30th to October 4th. It was organised by Reclaim the Fields, a youth movement tightly linked to Via Campesina. It was created in Rostock, Germany at the time of the anti-G8 meeting in May 2007.
The camp was essentially self-organised (camping, collective kitchen, workshops and plenary sessions…). It was aimed at addressing various issues that have become increasingly critical in the current multiple global crises (financial, economic, climate change…). The participants were a mixture of people who had either started up their own projects or who intended or wanted to do so. The key issues discussed were those of access to land and to seeds (especially the traditional rights of farmers to save, exchange and resow their seeds). Some of the discussions also addressed the questions of fair prices for agricultural products and direct sales’ circuits from farms to consumers, the social recognition of farmers, the opposition to the dominant industrial farming model, and the need for fair agricultural policies. Other discussions included ideas on how to achieve self-empowerment and capacity building that is adapted to a non-industrial model, and how to make it possible for those who want to farm to do so. But the most recurrent and central theme was that of access to land, a question which varies according to the law and availability and price in each country.
The importance of local communities and sustainable local development
One of the most central and recurrent questions was the best way to articulate and organise things at local level. Peasant agriculture is probably one of the most effective ways to fight climate change, improve health and maintain a sustainable local economy. Some of the most interesting discussions were those on gaining acceptance within local communities. This concerned not only new arrivals within the communities, but also how to manage change in the case of transmitting the farm within the same family, particularly when the transmission was from father to daughter, and when the new generation wanted to change the way the farm was run (a shift to organic agriculture, or from raising livestock to market gardening for example). Becoming an accepted member of a rural community is one of the key levers to success.
Access to land
The idea of learning to work within local communities, to get support form local authorities and have land set aside for peasant farming and market gardening was often mentioned. This also needs to take the notion of collective property and projects as well as individual land-ownership into account. One idea for the future was to develop an on-line community to inform people of available land that might suit their project. Structures like Terre de Liens and the Nef in France are a help, but are not sufficient. Too much land is lying fallow, and although the first option is always to gain access to land through peaceful, legal means, a deep and total agrarian reform is needed to provide more equitable solutions. The Brazilian MST movement and their practice of occupying unused land is highly effective too… Each country has its own legislation, which can either facilitate or prove to be a major obstacle. Access to land is highly controlled in France, which is often a major obstacle.
Selling produce in direct supply chains
All the existing networks and solutions, such as the CSA (AMAP) were of course mentioned as part of the answer. But maintaining and even developing local farmers’ markets, direct sales on the farms, linking sales to agrotourism and other initiatives also need to be supported. There are also many atypical projects that do not fit into any mould, and that also need to be considered. The move to including organic local suppliers in public tenders in France is a positive thing too. Again, this requires lobbying and communication with local structures.
The urban dimension was also included as an important aspect, both in terms of urban and peri-urbans market gardening, but also in terms of linking up with other social movements to improve living conditions and access to healthy affordable food.
The camp ended with a peaceful sit-in outside the regional offices of the SAFER, the Société d'Amenagément Foncier et d'Establissement Rural, a State body that plays a powerful role in the sale and acquisition of land. This clearly showed the determination of so many young people to gain access to land, to build a European movement of young peasant farmers.
Author: Judith Hitchman
Original article in English and French
http://reclaimthefields.org/
http://reclaimthefields.org/content/action-à-la-safer
http://www.terredeliens.org
Changing indicators
A societal debate on development that we want
Our indicators make us blind! The present crisis we are experiencing goes far beyond a financial and economic crisis. The primary indicator of wealth is gross domestic product and its development, namely economic growth. However, this indicator only takes monetary exchange into account, and ignores the elements that have no "price" as they are often incalculable... Researchers are examining alternative measures of well-being. While GDP growth has served as a reference to progress since World War II, it has become even more necessary to rethink progress in terms of well-being for all people, including future generations. This means reducing disparities, sharing of resources, social cohesion and sustainable development....
In the whole series of recent initiatives and works devoted to this subject, the Stiglitz Commission report has opened the door to this.
Two recent meetings placed that focus on indicators for territorial well-being.
Territoires de Coresponsabilité held their first meeting September 25th 2009 in the town of Mulhouse. This town is a recognized pioneer in this process.
In its strategy for social cohesion, the Council of Europe defines the latter as « the ability of society to ensure the well-being of all through the joint responsibility of the various stakeholders (public and private actors, citizens). A link to sustainable development is created by including the well-being of future generations, making the welfare of all generations a goal for societal progress ». With this impetus, several territories have begun to implement this new approach, using this definition as their starting point, and by using a method in which citizens are invited to rethink the organization of the society in which they live, based on the real needs identified in a concerted approach.
The method was first applied in the city of Mulhouse, France in 2005 with the help of Samuel Thirion (Division for the Development of Social Cohesion). This experience helped develop the foundations for this methodology. It is still the most advanced that exists. As a result, applications have also been introduced in the Department of Timisoara in Romania, the Autonomous Province of Trento in Italy and in Paris, Ile-de-France Region. They have led to the introduction of the concept of Territoires de Coresponsabilité.
This method is currently being used nationally in the Rural Poverty Alleviation Program (PLPR) in Cape Verde, co-funded by IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development) placing it within an institutional framework that links the community, the regional and national levels. A link between the local approach and regional policies is also on track in the Walloon Region (Belgium). Several other territories, regions and/or countries are currently planning to use or take inspiration from this method, including Brittany (France) with the support of the NGO PEKEA (Political and Ethical Knowledge on Economic Activities) and in Gabon.
The implementation of this strategy involves: development of indicators to define and measure the well-being of all; especially with citizens; the collaborative sharing of responsibilities to ensure progress towards the well-being of all, including that of future generations; the follow-up and evaluation of societal progress realized.
For further information : http://spiral.cws.coe.int
The ISBET Program (Societal Indicators of Territorial Well-being) presented its first results on October 5th in Rennes (France): "Counting what really matters in a territory" Organized by PEKEA and a Local Governments Club.
PEKEA stands for Political and Ethical Knowledge on Economic Activities. Over 900 people are members. It is recognized as an NGO in consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council. The members of this think tank come from research programs, universities, and especially NGOs; they are all leaders in alternative actions on the field and concerned citizens. Some fifty countries have participants. The network organization and the extensive use of the Internet provide an international dimension to the organization whose global headquarters is located in Rennes. The online texts are published in three languages: French, English and Spanish.
Why is there a Local Governments Club (LGC)? At the initiative of Rennes Métropole, the idea of a club was discussed and worked among some elected local authorities. Formally, three local governments created the club in 2006: Rennes Métropole, Département d’Ille et Vilaine and Région Bretagne, joined in 2007 by the Région Nord-Pas-de-Calais. The LGC is chaired by Alain Yvergniaux, Regional Council of Bretagne.
The priority for Local Governments is to improve the well-being of the members of their communities. That is to say, these Local Governments need to make decisions and design policies able to improve this well-being, or to increase global societal value. The convergence is clear between this first PEKEA project to give content to the concept of « societal value » and assist Local Governments wishing to have a better understanding of the level of well-being of their local communities for which they are responsible. Attaining this objective will increase the capacity to select appropriate policies that will increase this level of societal well-being.
The project ISBET (Societal Indicators of Territorial Well-being), financed by the Bretagne Region and promoted by PEKEA, follows this perspective. From an analytical point of view, the project is built on three axes:
1. Calculation of a regional IDH (Human Development Index) and its deflection at local level (IDH2, IDH3, IDH4…) ;
2. Construction of territorial indicators of well being with the participation of citizens and stakeholders on two territories in Brittany.
3. Theoretical discussion on procedures for the participatory construction of indicators.
The process of collective construction of indicators for well-being (axis 2 of the project) takes inspiration from the approach promoted by the Council of Europe. It aims to visualize what really counts for the citizens and to formulate proposals that would feed into the elaboration of public policies in domains such as territorial social cohesion, sustainable development, etc. Participation of citizens, stakeholders, associations, economic actors and others in the construction of a shared definition of well-being of all and for all is considered an essential pre-condition when it comes to identifying what really counts for them.
This approach is being piloted in two areas of local communities of peri-urban Rennes: Val d'Ille and Pipriac in the Ille and Vilaine Department.
Contacts : PEKEA, Michel Renault, coordinator of project ISBET with information from Claire Cartieaux
http://www.pekea.org
Martine Theveniaut (participant at both meetings)
Inner City Development Cooperative (Manila, Philippines)
A disaster
We introduced the Inner City Development Coop (ICDC) in Newsletter #44, December 1st 2007; Yvon had the opportunity to visit this cooperative in October 2007 at the first Asian Forum on Solidarity Economy.
Now a tragedy has affected the community. Typhoon Ondoy hit the Philippines very hard on September 26th. As described in a message from Zeny de Jesus of ICDC, the disaster struck the whole community, including 99% of the cooperative members. And that is not all, since a fire destroyed 600 homes at the same time. The message explains the situation well.
As it often happens, the poorest are most affected when natural disasters strike, especially because the slums are located in areas more conducive to flooding.
Nevertheless, with the tool they have collectively, their cooperative, members immediately took charge of the situation to assure their survival and their community’s.
Having witnessed the strength and the will of the cooperative and its members, I am sure they will succeed in rebuilding their community and renewing their efforts to lift people out of poverty.
Author: Yvon Poirier
Although the following article is in French, the pictures show the extensive damage done.
http://blog.lefigaro.fr/babyloan/2009/09/manille-ou-lirresistible-montee-des-perils.html
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Special thanks to:
Évéline Poirier from Canada for the English translation
Brunilda Rafael from France for the Spanish translation
Michel Colin from Brazil for the Portuguese translation
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Yvon Poirier ypoirier@videotron.ca
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