VegNet.net - The Network for Vegans and Vegetarians in Community

ECO-DEVELOPMENT

VegNet uses the term EcoDevelopment to refer to sensitive land-and-community development that attempts to balance the needs of wildlife and of the land itself with the needs of humans (for community, for fresh organic food, for fresh air and water, for safety, and for aesthetically pleasing, natural, non-toxic affordable housing).

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In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact    of our decisions on the next seven generations.

from The Great Law of the Iroquois Confederacy

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EcoDevelopment is a central issue for many of us in the veg/an community world, so VegNet is dedicating a page to it. Tune us in to other sites related to the eco-development theme and we'll list them here.

So far:

  • Planting trees
  • Green homes that are a little different
  • Visitability
  • Organic gardening and farming
  • Eco-Community
  • Eco-Developers
  • Finance revisited

PLANTING  TREES

FROM ONE TREE TO A FOREST:  The positive results of reforesting barren ground are unbelievable!  ...Improving the pH of the soil, increasing precipitation, cooling the soil, encouraging biodiversity and cleansing the drinking water; providing jobs and biodiesel fuel... Plant trees wherever you can - in your yard, your neighborhood, or by joining plant-a-tree projects like the Conservation Fund's Go Zero ($2 to plant a tree to offset carbon emissions): http://conservationfund.org/gozero and write to them at gozero@conservationfund.org

Paolo Lugari's visionary experiment at Gaviotas in the eastern savannah of Columbia, where the Gaviotas eco-community has been planting millions of trees since the 1980s, is a story of one unexpected "miracle" after another.  Read about what they have done and are still doing in reforestation as well as in solar energy, wind energy, biodiesel and more... and hopefully get inspired to plant trees wherever you can!

GREEN  HOMES  THAT  ARE  A  LITTLE  DIFFERENT

  • DELTEC ROUND HOMES:   Beautiful anywhere and easy to place on a variety of terrains, Deltecs are great for surviving intact in places with high winds, and now they are being adapted for green living as well. Follow this link and click on The Round House of Millerton to see a detailed list of green building materials and environmentally friendly building techniques used in this NY Deltec project.     ...Deltec Homes now has a Green consultant on their staff. Now we're waiting for them to come up with a green Deltec, shell and interior, that's affordable for low-income families! Go for it, Deltec!http://www.deltechomes.com/ecofriendly.php

  • COB AND MORE     Ianto Evans, Michael Smith and Linda Smiley's The Hand-Sculpted House (Chelsea Green) has an excellent resources section at the back, giving workshops, websites, books, on a whole range of natural building techniques - cob, strawbale, adobe, rammed earth, earth bag, cordwood, thatching, clay infill, recycled materials. The book is terrific, too!

  • A new kind of concrete that lasts more than 4,500 years?  As children we learned that the Great Pyramids were made from quarried stone and that the massive 70-ton blocks were "rolled" across the desert and somehow "lifted" into place.  Now researchers are wondering: were they cast in place, using a cement made from limestone, clay, lime and water?   Is this a solution for affordable building materials? How green is lime compared with concrete?   Research and theory on the Giza Pyramids mystery discussed at http://www.livescience.com/history/070518_bts_barsoum_pyramids.html

VISITABILITY

Green design: Width of doors (bathroom doors especially) and maneuvering space in hallways and bathrooms - if designing new homes, these are things to keep in mind...for ourselves as we grow older and need a walker or wheelchair, and for visitors and relatives.

  • Info: Eleanor Smith, director of Concrete Change, 404-378-7455 or concretechange@mindspring.com. For additional background and construction information see the website at   www.concretechange.org
  • For information on helping to promote the first national Visitability bill, the Inclusive Home Design Act, contact Darrell Price at darrell@accessliving.org

ORGANIC GARDENING AND FARMING

  • Gardening resources galore:   Information on growing all you need in a very small space; books; educational programs:   www.journeytoforever.org   -  check their Small Farms Online Library for classics by Sir Albert Howard, Lady Eve Balfour, the British Soil Association etc. (some of which are out of print).
  • Square Foot Gardening: A New Way to Garden in Less Space with Less Work by Mel Bartholemew (Rodale Press).   www.squarefootgardening.com  
  • Rodale Press    www.rodalestore.com

ECO-COMMUNITY

       

ECO-DEVELOPERS

Imagine weaving together such things as affordable housing, ecologically sensitive development of a large piece of land (1,000 acres... or even 100 acres), easements to protect 60-85% of the land in its natural state in perpetuity, alternative non-toxic building styles, jobs on site, organic farming....with government funding, government-leased land, etcetera...

  • www.CommonwealConservancy.org     is one of about 10 eco-developers in the US who are heading in that direction. At the Galisteo Basin Project, half an hour from Santa Fe, Commonweal Conservancy has purchased and guarantees a permanent easement on 12,000+ beautiful acres, protecting it forever, of which they are developing only 300 acres for residential use, including an option for a couple of communities and for affordable housing, and (did I dream it?) an organic farm.
  • The down side with the new eco-developer trend is: the emphasis is almost exclusively on sensitive land development / protection, and not much thought is given to making it affordable for people. The land is paid for by selling high-priced sites for luxury single homes. An example is the very beautiful  www.ThreeCanyons.com  project just north of Patagonia AZ, where the land is being very sensitively developed with the help of the eco-developer La Semilla.
  • ...Recently the Three Canyons realtor suggested the owners might be open to setting aside land for an intentional community in Phase II.
  • The up side is that developers like Commonweal Conservancy are open to working with new communities - planning an acreage that would be affordable and shared by a group of buyers, rather than by a single-home buyer - and CC is looking for land to buy up and preserve in various parts of the US.

Other resources and eco-developers

FINANCE  REVISITED

  • Banker to the Poor - autobiography of Professor Muhammad Yunus.   Download "Social Business Entrepreneurs Are the Solution" and other articles by Prof Yunus at    http://www.grameen-info.org/
  • Equity Trust, Inc   www.equitytrust.org     provides low-interest loans to grassroots groups and unconventional groups like intentional communities.  
  • Findhorn Community (Scotland) uses the proceeds from their alternative community currency to make small low-interest loans to local businesses.
  • Unconventional Community Financing...
    • Setting up cooperative inter-community banking and a mutual loan association for getting no-interest and low-interest community loans
    • The Findhorn model: using funds from alternative currency to make low-interest loans
    • The Grameen model: low-interest micro-loans

  • New financial approach needed:  Right now there are 400+ veg/an communities in the forming stage in North America alone. That represents a whole lot of ideas, enthusiasm and interested veg/ans - but probably not enough financial backing?  How to get over the hump?  Brainstorming unconventional approaches may lead your group to workable, ethical solutions. Let us know!

Email good sites to us as you find them, so we can add them to the VegNet pages.   aslvvc@yahoo.com