Even though summer officially starts in June, to me June and July is the heart of summer time activities. By the end of July, the planting and harvesting of fruits and veggies are just about over for the year. Our fall garden is not usually as big and busy as our summer one.
According to the “Alabama Gardener’s Calendar,” published by the Extension System, June is the time to finish planting seeds and plants in the vegetable garden. If you have fruit trees, it is time to thin the fruit if the fruit is too thick on the trees. For shrubs and lawns, it’s fertilizer time. As far as our early [...]
The Heart of Summer
Climate Community Citizen of the Week: Victoria Bogdan
From ClimmateCommunity:
Congratulations to Victoria Bogdan this weeks Climate Community Citizen of the Week!
Victoria is a life long environmentalist – with a deep love of the out doors and an interest in learning how to make life on our planet sustainable both for humans and the other animals that we share the earth with. The following is a wonderful overview of her background and her motivation…
Nature, and because of that, conservation, are core values to my life and career. I have always been drawn to science, and have vivid memories of hiking with my avid outdoors man uncle and quizzing him about nearly every plant and bird we saw. But [...]
What is permaculture and why is it important?
What is perma-culture? Why is it important?
As defined, “permaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and perennial agricultural systems that mimic the relationships found in natural ecologies.” Breaking this down further, permaculture is the act of creating independently functioning natural systems that can produce substantial amounts of food while maintaining a natural balance of water, nutrients, pest control, and biodiversity, all with limited or no human/chemical intervention. This is also to say that once created, permaculture sites offer a tremendous bounty of foods and medicines in a way that doesn’t require the use of petrol power or petrol derived chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
Now, keeping a system like this [...]
The Loss of Connection
There is a phrase of scripture many Christians know – The field is white, all ready to harvest. However, I’ve lived in the city during my entire childhood, and so the meaning of that image eluded me until one day, my bishop asked us youth why the scriptures always describe the field as white. Why white? Why not golden, which we speak of when we sing about the “amber waves of grain” in America, the Beautiful? Our bishop, who worked on farms in Idaho during his childhood, described how when a field is white, it is past golden, completely overripe – in fact, the harvest is so ripe that the [...]
Update on “Friends in the Meadow-Birds”
Friends in the Meadow-Birds is progressing along as well as any new children’s book I suppose, unless of course the author is Madonna or the book ends up on Oprah, by miracle. I’ll put the latter on my Christmas Wish List!
The book and information was placed on The USA Book News site in September, 2009 and will remain on display through December, 2009. The USA Book News site is http://www.USABookNews@earthlink.net.
The Reading Tub chose the book as one of the Fall Author Showcase features. It introduces the book and interviews the author, which was fun. See this article at http://www.thereadingtub.com/displayAuthor.asp?
The book has received several reviews on Amazon.com, B&N, and other sites. [...]
Is Sustainability a requirement for eco-tourism?
In yesterday’s sustainable tourism conference, speaker Lawrence Pratt dissected the issue and importance of sustainability in regards to successful eco-tourism. Pratt - from INCAE, a multi-national graduate business school that was established by support from President John Kennedy – said that sustainability is integrally linked with eco-tourism and vice verse.
But sustainable tourism goes beyond Nature, he said. In Costa Rica in particular, it’s taken on a highly diverse profile.
The Certificate of Sustainable Tourism (CST) has helped Costa Rica create a country position as an eco-tourist destination. In fact, he said, the CST has been successfully replicated in other countries.
But he questioned whether sustainability really helps drive eco-tourism and if it’s a requirement to creating the tourist-related income [...]
Sustainable architecture’s impact
Yesterday, renowned architect Bruno Stagno spoke during the sustainable tourism confrerence about the importance of creating sustainable architecture that adapts to the local climate.
Stagno, winner of numerous international awards including from the Dominican Republic and Holland, stressed the need to recognize and incorporate Nature in architectural design, or, as he calls it, bioclimatic architecture.
Stagno said that 50 percent of the world’s existing forests are located in tropical areas. Of the UN’s membership, 108 countries in are in these areas.
“We have to develop guidelines foe eco-development,” Stagno said.
Stagno is currently working on projects to bring forests to urban settings, particularly in San Jose, Costa Rica.
More soon.
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Costa Rica’s Sustainable Tourism Conference Begins
Opening ceremonies of the first annual Planet People Peace conference on sustainable tourism took place tonite. The evening was an elegant setting filled with dignitaries, music, dancers and inspiration.
Costa Rica’s growing number of environmental achievements and successes were outlined, including that more than 26 percent of the country is under some sort of protection for conservation.
This country of four million people has a commitment to conserve its natural resources, said Minister of Tourism Flores. And, he added, almost 5 percent of the world’s biodiversity exists in Costa Rica alone!
Costa Rica, said Glen Jampol (President of CANAECO, the National Chamber of Ecotourism), is to be a world leader in eco-tourism.
“The first thing people [...]
Evolution is an upgrade path
We all have the ability to make choices that improve how we live on this beautiful planet, and support the continuation of life. In this video, Janine Benyus talks about planning for upgrades and changes that will add to our sustainability. As always, she talks about some fabulous technological solutions coming out of the field of Biomimicry – learning from the solutions nature has already come up with. Enjoy, and be inspired to make at least one change that could improve life in a little or big way.
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China’s first national park
With the help of The Nature Conservancy. China has opened its first national park.
Potatso (Pudacuo) National Park is located on a Rocky-Mountain-National-Park-sized area of land in the north part of the state of Yunan. Its landscape resembles Yellowstone and is complete with roads, tour buses, lodges, boardwalks, interpretive programs.
Created and driven by the provincial governor of Yunan, Potatso National Park was built with around $100 million US in loans and so far is generating a large income stream to pay off the loan. All this was done in a little over three years.
This is an amazing feat, especially balanced against what we generally hear about the large environmental crises that have plagued China the past several years.
The [...]