Resurgence Issue 257

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at the heart of earth, art and spirit
November/December 2009 No. 257
RESILIENCE & CLIMATE CHANGE
ROB HOPKINS TONY JUNIPER WANGARI MAATHAI JONATHON PORRITT
Schumacher
College
NEW short course
programme for Winter 2010
Transformative Learning for
Sustainable Living
Visit our website to see more course details,
to book and to join our email list.
Science Meets Spirit:
The search for meaning
January 4 22, 2010
One of the most signicant discoveries
of modern science is the discovery of
its own limitations. This has led many
of the greatest scientists to reect on
how spiritual search and the search
for meaning can relate to scientic
research. This course tackles these
fundamental questions from a variety
of perspectives evolution, complexity
and biology, quantum physics and
philosophy of science.
Teachers; Elisabet Sahtouris,
Mary Midgley and Ravi Ravindra
The Economics
of Happiness
February 1 19, 2010
As societies and individuals
accumulate more and more wealth,
their levels of well-being do not
increase at a corresponding rate.
This course looks at the connection
between money and happiness at a
psychological and a systemic level.
What can individuals and society do to
combat the dominance of materialism?
Teachers; Tim Kasser, Karma Ura,
Per Espen Stoknes and Nic Marks
After Copenhagen:
Opportunities and
challenges
March 1 19, 2010
The Copenhagen climate change
summit in December 2009 is one of the
most signicant international events
of our time. What do agreements from
the summit really mean for people
working on the ground in all parts of the
world? Whats missing? Whats next?
The teachers on this course will share
their insights into what was achieved
and what the implications are for efforts
to build a fairer and more sustainable
global community.
Teachers; Vandana Shiva,
Malini Mehra, Richard Heinberg,
Rob Hopkins, Clare Short MP
and others
These courses may each be taken over one, two or three weeks.
For further information please contact us:
+44(0)1803 865 934
admin@schumachercollege.org.uk
The Old Postern, Dartington,
Totnes, Devon TQ9 6EA, UK.
www.schumachercollege.org.uk
Schumacher College is an initiative of
The Dartington Hall Trust, a registered charity.
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Resurgence No. 257 November/December 2009 3
W
e have chosen a fower for the cover of this issue
to illustrate Resilience. Blossoms and fowers
are resilient. They stand out there in the wind,
in the rain, in the snow, in sunshine day and
night unperturbed, undiminished. They are resilient because
they are fexible and fragrant, pliable and pleasant, supple and
soft, tender and tolerant, gentle, adaptable and light.
Flowers take their nutrients from the soil, moisture from the rain
and energy from the sun. They need no fossil fuels to fourish: that
is why they help to regulate the climate rather than destabilise it.
Flowers are very useful members of the Earth family. They
provide nectar for the bees to make healing honey, beautiful
blossoms that develop into nourishment, and an uplifting aroma
to please human hearts.
They show that we are all related, we are all connected, we are
all an integral part of the web of life, and we all exist within the
context of mutuality and reciprocity. This is why fowers beneft
everyone without discrimination. They give their fragrance and
fruits with unconditional generosity: saints or sinners, poor or
rich, humans or animals, bees or wasps all are invited to enjoy
the abundant gifts of fowers.
Flowers inspired poets like Wordsworth, who delighted
in daffodils, and painters like Van Gogh, who celebrated
sunfowers. The Buddha holds a lotus fower in his hand to teach
wisdom and enlightenment while Lakshmi, the Indian goddess
of prosperity, stands on the lotus to show that true wealth is
neither money nor gold nor diamonds, but pure water, clean
air, healthy soil and Nature in good heart, of which the lotus is
a potent symbol. Lakshmi asks us all to include fowers in our
families as they are the real fortune. The Bible teaches us to live
like the lilies who are graceful and fulflled and totally at ease
within themselves, without any need for toil or struggle.
If we were to derive our energy from the sun, wind and
water as fowers do, our energy supply would be assured and
sustainable. If our economy could be as elegant as fowers, if
our businesses could be as beautiful, if trade could be as tender
and tolerant, if politics could be as pleasant, if our society could
be as supple and soft as fowers, then we would have a resilient
economy, resilient trade, resilient politics and a resilient society.
So why not be like fowers and act like fowers?
Resilient fowers need resilient felds and forests to fourish.
Wild fowers need wild felds and forests. Forests are the lungs
of the Earth and are a guarantee of a stable climate as they host
the harmonious dance of carbon and oxygen that is the lifeline
of all living beings.
Carbon trading, carbon sequestration and umpteen other
commercial or technological solutions are secondary: the frst
and foremost step to ensure climate stability is to protect, honour
and celebrate our fowers and forests. When I look at our urban
conglomerates, our housing estates, our industrial landscapes and
our ever-enlarging business parks, I wonder: Where have all the
fowers gone? Where have all the forests gone? Let us bring them
back. Let there be a meeting of Nature and culture in our world.
When you read these words, it will soon be Christmas and
you may be contemplating a Christmas tree. Let us start a new
culture: rather than uprooting a tree and bringing it into the
house to honour it, why not go out with your whole family
and plant a tree? Let each and every tree be a noble Christmas
tree. Let Father Christmas fll our stockings with seeds and
seedlings. Let us plant fowers, trees and forests all around us;
let us see and acknowledge heaven in a wild fower as William
Blake exhorted, and let us stop those who are cutting down our
rainforests for short-term commercial gain.
Trees and fowers are the answer. Now, what is the question?
SATISH KUMAR
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Green violet-ear hummingbird pollinating an orchid fower, Costa Rica
FLOWER
POWER
4 Resurgence No. 257 November/December 2009

FRONTLINE
6 KEEPING OIL IN THE
GROUND
7 CLIENTEARTH
8 CULTURAL RESISTANCE
9 POSITIVE MEDIA
10 BIG BANG LAB
11 VANCOUVER - GREEN CITY
KEYNOTES
16 CAN WE COPE?
Crispin Tickell
Can we overcome conceptual
sclerosis?
21 POEM
Joyce Kilmer
BIOCULTURAL DIVERSITY
22 AMAZON IMPERATIVE
Peter Bunyard
We must implement global
protection of tropical rainforests.
29 POEM
Lao Tzu
32 CLIMATE JUSTICE
Vandana Shiva
The polluters continue to pollute
with impunity, whilst people
thousands of miles away bear the
brunt of their actions.
UNDERCURRENTS
34 CLIMATE-FRIENDLY
FARMING
Mukti Mitchell
Rich-soil farming could help us
turn back the carbon clock.
36 POSITIVE TIPPING POINT
Hazel Henderson
The Copenhagen climate
conference could be the tipping
point for global eco-awareness.
COVER STORIES
FRoNT CoveR:
White snake's head
fritillary
PhoTogRaPh: DaviD
hall/WWT
12 RESILIENCE THINKING
Rob Hopkins
Why resilience thinking is a
crucial missing piece of the
climate-change jigsaw.
18 THE THREE 'Rs'
Jonathon Porritt
The three fundamental
principles that should under-
pin any approach to food
security.
26 TIME FOR ACTION
Tony Juniper
The kind of leadership that was
shown in bailing-out the banks
should now be demonstrated
to protect the tropical
rainforests.
30 TREES ARE THE
ANSWER
Interview with Wangari Maathai
let us continue the work
started by Wangari Maathai
and reforest the entire world,
creating right livelihood for all.
CONT E NT S
No. 257 November/December 2009
12
18
26
38 CHANGING DIRECTION
Kate Rawles
The climate crisis can't be solved
using existing paradigms.
42 A LEARNING SOCIETY
Kate Davies
Can we learn to live sustainably on
the earth?
44 THE POWER OF TRUST
Rachel Fleming
an interview with Fiona Reynolds,
Director general of the National
Trust.
THE ARTS
46 ART FOR EARTH'S SAKE
Satish Kumar
From 'ego-art' to 'eco-art'.
50 BANKSY
Andy Christian
has the commodifcation of Banksy's
art taken the edge off his work?
52 POETRY
Peter Abbs
The epic power of Nature and the
poignancy of love: the poetry of
Robyn Bolam.
54 HOMEMADE
Ros Badger & Elspeth Thompson
Two gorgeous things to make with
love.
REGULARS
3 WELCOME
Satish Kumar
56 LONESOME PINES
Brigitte Norland
58 NATURE WRITING
John Moat
60 SENSIBLE SOLUTIONS
Oliver Tickell
62 PIONEERS
Amanda Pissani
64 LETTERS TO THE EDITORS
Your views and comments.
72 MEMBERS' PAGE
REVIEWS
66 WHAT ON EARTH
EVOLVED?
Christopher Lloyd introduces his
new book.
67 ANCIENT LIGHT
Sean Borodale reviews
A Sleepwalk on the Severn.
68 SONG AT THE
HAZARDOUS EDGE
Jeremy Hooker reviews Voyaging
Out.
69 MEANINGFUL WORK
Jordi Pigem reviews A Life at Work.
70 JEWELS OF EVOLUTION
Lorna Howarth reviews Consider the
Birds.
71 WRUNG FROM DARK
Natasha Rivett-Carnac reviews
Wild.
73 CLASSIFIED ADVERTS
75 DISPLAY ADVERTS
FOR CONTACT INFORMATION FOR RESURGENCE OFFICES AND AGENTS, PLEASE SEE PAGE 83
Soldier Questions
the Legality of the
Afghan War
Lance Corporal Joe
Glenton faces a court
martial after refusing
to fght in Afghanistan.
Glenton, who wrote
to Gordon Brown
recently explaining
why he will not fght,
plans to deny the charge of desertion because he believes
the confict is unlawful. In his letter to the PM he states,
The war in Afghanistan is not reducing the terrorist risk
far from improving Afghan lives it is bringing death and
devastation to their country I implore you, sir, to bring
our troops home.
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IN OUR TIME
ILLUSTRATORS
Hugh Dunford Wood is an artist and
designer.
Tudor Humphries is a watercolour painter.
Rachel Marsh is a graphic designer.
Lance Corporal Joe Glenton awaiting court martial
NEW ON THE WEBSITE
CLIMATE CHANGE
Resilience & Climate Change:
Feedback from the Resurgence conference
Try the Resurgence carbon calculator
MOST READ ONLINE
The Resurgence Gallery: artistic
expressions of ecology and spirituality
The Effciency Trap: slow-tech manifesto
Resilience: Transition Towns
Going Local: living without oil
WEB EXCLUSIVES
Our website is updated regularly with
exclusive articles, events and reviews.
Why not add it to your favourites!
www.resurgence.org
NEWS FROM THE GRASSROOTS
I
n absolute contrast to the recent terrible
events resulting from the Peruvian
governments determination to develop
its petroleum reserves in the heart of
the Amazon when as many as 100
Indigenous people and their supporters
may have been killed in clashes with
police and army its neighbouring
country Ecuador has offered to keep
oil in the ground for perpetuity and so
protect its rainforests, biodiversity and
Indigenous peoples.
Ecuadors proposal for avoided oil
extraction is focused on the Yasuni
National Park, which covers some
928,000 hectares and has extraordinary
biodiversity, with one hectare of rainforest
harbouring an average 655 distinct
species of tree and bush a number
greater than the total number of native
tree species in the entire United States
and Canada. Meanwhile, the Ecuadorian
government will continue to respect the
desire of Indigenous peoples to live in
isolation in the park.
Some 20% of Ecuadors known
recoverable petroleum reserves are to
be found in the Yasuni National Park
and therefore the country is prepared
to commit itself to leaving 846 million
barrels of heavy oil in the ground. And if, as
is likely, more oil were discovered, that too
would be subject to the same jurisdiction,
thereby preventing its exploitation.
Were the 846 million barrels of oil
to be exploited a daily production of
some 107,000 barrels for thirteen years,
followed by dwindling production over
the next twelve years that consumption
would result in the emission of 407 million
E C UA DOR
KEEPING OIL IN
THE GROUND
Peter Bunyard explains
how the Yasuni Initiative
sets a precedent for rain-
forest nations to protect
their natural capital.
A young boy swims under an oil pipeline in Ecuador
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metric tons of carbon dioxide.
In return for leaving the oil untouched,
Ecuador has proposed the establishment
of a capital fund administered by an
international trust fund, with guarantees
in the form of Yasuni Guarantee Certifcates
that the oil will remain underground
forever. Ecuador is looking for the fund to
have a value equivalent to at least half the
earnings the country would receive were
it to extract the oil. The present net value
of the oil, if exploited would amount
to some US$7,000 million, which
coincidentally is not far from the value of
the carbon offsets as Certifed Emission
Reductions (CERs) that would result from
avoiding greenhouse-gas emissions.
Ecuadors daring and unprecedented
initiative, if supported by the international
community, would go much further
than simply preventing greenhouse-gas
emissions from the consumption of the
oil. The capital fund would allow Ecuador
to fulfl its aims to a) protect National
Parks and native forests over 38% of
the national territory; b) carry out
reforestation and forestation of 1 million
hectares; c) substitute renewable energies
for fossil-fuel-based thermo-electric
power generation and d) invest in the
social agenda of Indigenous peoples. And,
of course, the proposal would prevent
407 million metric tons of CO
2
from
getting into the atmosphere.
The international community via the
COP15 United Nations Climate Change
Conference in Copenhagen this December
must give priority to this kind of ground-
breaking initiative for all our sakes.
Peter Bunyard is science editor of the Ecologist and
author of Extreme Weather, Floris Books, 2007.
W
e at ClientEarth believe in a positive
future. We accept the challenges
humanity currently faces but also recognise
humankinds ingenuity. We believe in
humanitys potential to forge a sustainable
future together. Our tool of choice is the
law, backed by sound science. Fusing the
two, we work to create a society that has
a sustainable relationship with the Earth.
ClientEarth lawyers operate at national
and international level in a diverse range
of felds including marine protection,
deforestation, toxic chemicals, air pollution
and climate change, and environmental
justice. We ensure good laws are created,
implemented and enforced.
A fundamental shift is needed in the
way humankind exists in its environment
and we believe it is necessary to adapt
the structures that have thus far cradled
modern culture. Achieving this change
will be diffcult, but it also offers an
unparalleled opportunity.
Changing the way we produce energy
is key to our future. To make way for
the new, we are working to prevent a
continuation of the status quo on coal,
which continues to be considered part
of the future energy mix in the UK. As
the situation stands, high-carbon power-
generation projects still enjoy the lions
share of investment in Europe because
there is insuffcient incentive to back
carbon capture and storage (CCS) and
large-scale renewable electricity. We are
using our legal expertise to ensure that
an emissions performance standard
becomes a keystone in plans for future
power infrastructures. This would rule out
high-carbon emitters. We are also pushing
for robust environmental laws that
support sustainable and environmentally
sound power generation.
A series of representations we made
over the last year to Ed Miliband,
Secretary of State at the UKs Department
for Energy and Climate Change, resulted
in a strategic environmental assessment
becoming part of the consenting process
for all new coal power stations. This
process will expose the dangers of coal
plants that do not capture their CO
2
. We
are also monitoring the results of the
Departments consultation on clean coal,
to make sure the government acts to
produce clean power.
In other felds, our Marine Protection
programme focuses on reform of the
EU Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). The
CFP is the worst legal regime to regulate
fsheries in the developed world and has
led to the devastation of EU fsheries.
We will be calling for root-and-branch
changes, and giving legal advice to
environmental groups who work in
this area. Our petitions to curb drift-net
fshing in the Mediterranean resulted in
French courts recognising for the frst
time protection of the environment as a
fundamental freedom.
The Climate and Forests programme we
are working on focuses on environmental
justice for forest communities. ClientEarth
argues that recognising such communities
rights and interests is the fundamental
principle for investing in rainforest
protection to achieve carbon reduction.
Our newest campaign CleanAir for
london seeks to make sure londons air
is clean for the 2012 Olympics. Current
levels of pollution greatly exceed legal
limits, mostly because of dirty diesel
vehicles. The result, according to EU
studies, is that more than 3,000 people
a year die in london due to air pollution.
We aim to protect the health of Olympic
athletes during the games, and of
londoners on a permanent basis.
Achieving these goals in any of these
felds requires that we rigorously defend
and promote the environmental rights
of people and planet. Our Access to
justice programme fghts to ensure that
environmentally concerned voices are
heard in the courts. Such work is vital
in ensuring that the economic activity we
need in order to live well does not drain
the vitality of the Earth and all those who
sail upon her.
For more information and to become
a member of ClientEarth for free visit
www.clientearth.org
James Thornton is CEO of ClientEarth.
GL OB A L
CLIENTEARTH
James Thornton
discusses how the power of
the law can create justice
for the planet.
Protecting the vitality of the Earth PHOTOGRAPH: ANNIE GRIFFITHS BElT/NATIONAl GEOGRAPHIC STOCK
F R O N T L I N E
I NDI A
CULTURAL RESISTANCE
Bulu Imam explains how the interests of coal-mining corporations in
India are still given priority over the rights of Indigenous peoples.
T
he lower valley of the River Damodar in the state of jharkhand in
Eastern India is the scene of Indias earliest coal mine, which further
developed after Independence into an industrial region with hundreds of
coal mines, coal washeries and coal-fred power stations. But the upper
valley, the heart of the rivers watershed, with its hundreds of tribal villages
surrounded by forests flled with all kinds of wild animal including
tigers and elephants, lay peacefully unaware of this pace of development.
Inhabitants of this ancient place can trace their ancestry directly back to
the rock artists who dwelled in caves of the forested hills through which
the Damodar River fows.
This idyll was suddenly shattered in 1985 when the government signed
a contract with Whyte Industries of Sydney, Australia, to start mining the
upper part of the valley using heavy machinery and sophisticated in-pit
crushing and conveyor-belt technology. We who lived in the nearby town
of Hazaribagh overlooking the valley were shocked to learn that several
dozen more mines were planned in the valley, a place containing rare relics
of megalithic sites, prehistoric rock art, and the remains of
Palaeolithic people.
I was perhaps the frst to blow the whistle on the
North Karanpura Coalfelds Project in 1987 when I
became Convener of the local INTACH (Indian National
Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage), a well-known NGO
founded by the late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.
We met the Australian engineers in their newly built
township, where I learned of Aboriginal protests against
similar strip mines destroying Indigenous lands in
Australia. With this in mind we began with a small team
to protest against the mining and explore the cultural
heritage of the region. Under the valley of the Damodar
River lie forty billion tons of medium-quality coal with
a high fy-ash content, which the government and the
coal industry were greedily eyeing because they could
A mural being painted in Udine by a TWAC artist PHOTOGRAPHS: COURTESY BUlU IMAM
N
ever has there been a greater need
for positive news. Record numbers
of adults are being treated for anxiety and
panic attacks, while the number of young
people battling depression has doubled in
the last ffteen years, and the mass media
are fuelling the fear. Headlines for the past
year have been unremittingly gloomy,
fogged with recession, war, scandal and
environmental apocalypse. Give us a
reason to be cheerful, we cry!
Well, heres one. The positive media
movement is growing exponentially
online and its coming from the grassroots,
via green social networking communities,
email lists and online TV. Sites like Avaaz.
org, TreeHugger.com, PlanetChange.TV
and in the UK green.tv and Positive TV
as well as a myriad of smaller pro-action
sites like MakeMeSustainable.com are
springing up worldwide.
In the UK independents like Positive TV
(PTV) are already fying the fag. launched
in 2007, PTV reports on whats breaking
through rather than whats breaking
down and aims to broaden the global
conversation and raise questions about
the world we live in and what sort of
future we want to create. Throwing its
net wider than just environmental news,
it covers anything that is about promoting
a positive world, including business
innovation, protest, youth projects, arts
and music, health and lifestyle.
PTV align themselves with other
conscious organisations like the Club of
Budapest and Worldshift 2012, Transition
Towns, Alliance for a New Humanity and
Earth Champions.
www.positivetv.tv
Imogen Ororke is media adviser for Positive TV.
UK
POSITIVE MEDIA
Imogen Ororke fnds some
reasons to be cheerful.
grab it for free under the infamous land
Acquisition Act of 1895 instituted by the
British for mineral-bearing areas.
During our campaign we discovered a total
of twelve rare ancient prehistoric rock-art
sites dated by experts back to the Mesolithic
Age. The people facing the mining companies
were all tribal groups who claimed the rock
paintings were by their ancestors so similar
to the Aboriginal experience in Australia!
I also became aware of the painted houses
of the villages in the valley which had their
walls decorated with murals similar to the
animal forms and other designs found in the
rock art. Thus were discovered the art-forms
of Khovar, a comb-cut sgraffto art made by
the women to decorate the bridal room, and
the great Sohrai art painted by the women on
the occasion of the harvest festival in October.
In a spirit of cultural resistance to the
mining, out of this discovery grew the
Tribal Women Artists Co-operative (TWAC)
which sent our tribal women artists to the
Geneva Conference of the United Nations
Working Group on Indigenous Populations
to present their case.
The TWAC paintings on paper reached
the Hogarth Gallery in Sydney in 1995,
and thereafter a series of exhibitions of
the art were organised in Australia.
In May 2008 three of our women artists
and I were invited to present our case before
the Vicino lontano Conference in Udine,
Italy, where the artists also painted three
large murals on cloth. Several meetings
organised by human rights groups in
Udine and Rome were held, at which our
organiser Daniela Bezzi helped to present
our words in the Italian language.
Unfortunately, despite over two
decades of campaigning, thirty new coal
mines have recently been allocated land
for mining in the valley. Each mine will
destroy about thirty square kilometres of
land and six or seven tribal villages, to
produce about six million tons of coal.
Through INTACH we have initiated an
international campaign with letters to the
governor of jharkhand and the president
of India requesting that an immediate
stop be put to the new coal mines, which
are a part of a larger expansion project
of the government. In view of the great
threat posed by the proliferation of carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere which is
largely the result of coal mining and coal-
fred power generation, this move by the
government is indeed a short-sighted and
ultimately fatal decision. We have focused
on this aspect along with Indigenous rights
as outlined in the UN Declaration on the
Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the new
legislation treating global warming as a
violation of human rights. Our campaign
is supported by james E. Hansen, a well-
known climate researcher at Columbia
Universitys Earth Institute.
www.karanpuracampaign.com

Bulu Imam is Director of the Sanskriti Research
Centre.
The painted houses of Hazaribagh
F R O N T L I N E
I NDI A
BIG BANG LAB
Sergio Lpez Figueroa
explains how the Delhi
City Symphony has helped
change the lives of people
with limited prospects.
E
ngaging communities with their
values, collective memories and
heritage in a way that is open, relevant
and sustainable is at the core of Big Bang
lab, a cultural, social enterprise working
across flm, music and heritage. A turning
point happened earlier this year when
I received a Cultural leadership award
for Creative Entrepreneurs to work in
India supported by the British Council.
Delhi City Symphony was the outcome,
a successful project proving that archive
flms and media are powerful learning and
outreach tools for tackling contemporary
issues across cultural backgrounds.
The process of musical heritage
engagement was simple: the innovative
approach to new music-making using
balloons, singing and real car-horn sounds
was the starting point for questioning
the accessibility of Indian classical music
education. Audiences were interested in live
music for a new contemporary silent flm
created and performed by young children,
a group of boys and girls living in shelter
homes with a history of child abuse,
traffcking, child labour and displacement.
The host organisation was Prayas, a
national non-governmental organisation
supporting these underprivileged children
through various holistic programmes. This
project made visible the hidden creative
power of their children.
Together they made a digital flm
about Delhi, focusing on its heritage and
present life. The structure was created as
a reaction to the visual material available,
not by following a script. Heritage is
not only about the past. We are creating
Heritage right now, expressed Kamalini
Dutt, Director of Doordarshan TV
Archives, who supported the project and
the use of archive footage.
The children contributed to the flm
by shooting at various locations and
also interacted with local communities.
Amongst many other outcomes, the
process helped the children to judge
the consequences of the lack of waste
management affecting a local heritage site
Tughlakabad and to look more deeply
at the effects of consumer culture. After
the project some children wanted to do
something to preserve their heritage and
most of them were not happy with the
amount of rubbish in their locality.
The collective editing took place
at Frameboxx, a school of animation
providing resources and volunteers in
kind. The fnal flm was presented with
live music on World Heritage Day at the
India Habitat Centre, a central cultural
venue in the city and another active
supporter of the project.
The co-creation of the new live
soundtrack was a successful achievement,
working together with a group of young
classical Indian musicians. I was really
pleased to hear that as a consequence
the participants wanted to learn to play
instruments from their own cultural
heritage through formal training. This
project proved that young people can
be encouraged to reconnect with their
cultural traditions and values whilst being
empowered as responsible citizens.
To learn more about Delhi City
Symphony and watch videos
related to the project please visit
www.delhi-citysymphony.com
Sergio Lpez Figueroa is Founder and Director of Big
Bang Lab. www.bigbang-lab.com
Children learning to play instruments from their cultural heritage PHOTOGRAPH: COURTESY SERGIO lPEZ FIGUEROA
F R O N T L I N E
C A NA DA
VANCOUVER THE
GREENEST CITy IN
THE WORLD?
Allan Badiner extols the
virtues of a city that is
embracing the seismic shift
towards a green economy.
B
irthplace of Greenpeace, and a leader
in hydroelectrics, Vancouver draws
90% of its power from renewable sources
and is now preparing to use wind, solar,
wave and tidal energy to signifcantly
reduce its fossil-fuel use.
Vancouvers dynamic young mayor,
Gregor Robertson, wants Vancouver to be
the North American hub for green jobs
and sustainable industry, and to capitalise
on what is now globally a seismic shift
toward a green economy. Robertson
envisions the city attracting new green
businesses that will thrive as they roll out
their goods and services to other cities that
are still playing catch-up.
Those other cities in North America
racing to be the worlds greenest include
Toronto, San Francisco, Portland, Santa
Monica, Austin and Chicago. However,
according to The Vancouver Sun, Vancouver is
still well behind Reykjavk, Copenhagen,
Stockholm and Amsterdam when it
comes to its shade of green. london,
Sydney, Barcelona and Bogot are also in
the competition.
Robertson recently enjoyed a sweet
victory with the initiation of bicycle
lanes on a major city bridge. While most
of the local media, business groups
and politicians denounced the plan
predicting it would pave the way for his
defeat in the next election the new
lanes did not disrupt traffc, and the
public responded enthusiastically.
For one- and two-family dwellings,
Vancouver already has the greenest
building code in North America. New
homeowners now stand to save up to
30% on their energy bills, use less water
and have healthier places to live.
Host to the Olympic Winter Games
in 2010, the city has constructed a
nine-block green Olympic Village,
where 10,000 athletes will stay, which
will become environmentally friendly
apartments after the games. Half of
the buildings will have green roofs,
providing insulation and reducing the
energy needed to heat or cool them.
Environmentalist David Suzuki,
who warns that climate change could
eliminate ice skating, cross-country
skiing and low-elevation downhill skiing
by 2050, has partnered with Vancouver
to reduce the size of the 2010 Games
carbon footprint.
The citys aspiration to become the
greenest in the world may be what
makes Vancouver the most future-
focused, particularly in light of
the intensifying climate crisis. The
realisation that our lifestyles are not
just injurious to the Earth, but literally
suicidal, grows apace. In Vancouver, all
development issues, all policies and all
actions may soon be viewed through
the lens of this looming crisis.
long arguing for the inevitable
decentralisation of political power,
professor Warren Magnusson from
British Columbia has promoted the idea
of radical municipalism: that global
cities will open the political space for
new forms of social and political life.
Radical municipalism may well be one
of the strategies that gives Vancouver
indeed cities and towns throughout the
world a fghting chance to adapt to and
address climate change, when the larger
political entities, provinces, states and
nations are too slow to act decisively.
Allan Badiner is a writer and activist and
editor of Dharma Gaia; Zig Zag Zen; and
Mindfulness in the Marketplace.
Life long Vancouverite Blain Spencer takes his bicycle out for a spin
PHOTOGRAPH: REUTERS/MIKE BlAKE
K E Y N O T E S
TRANS I TI ON ROB HOP KI NS
RESILIENCE THINKING
Why resilience thinking is a crucial missing piece of
the climate-change jigsaw and why resilience is a more
useful concept than sustainability.
I
n July 2009, UK Secretary of State
for Energy and Climate Change Ed
Miliband unveiled the governments
UK Low Carbon Transition Plan, a bold
and powerful statement of intent for a
low-carbon economy in the UK. It stated
that by 2020 there would be a fve-fold
increase in wind generation, feed-in
tariffs for domestic energy generation,
and an unprecedented scheme to retroft
every house in the country for energy
effciency. In view of the extraordinary
scale of the challenge presented by
climate change, I hesitate to criticise
steps in the right direction taken by
government. There is, though, a key faw
in the document, which also appears
in much of the wider societal thinking
about climate change. This faw is the
attempt to address the issue of climate
change without also addressing a second,
equally important issue: that of resilience.
The term resilience is appearing
more frequently in discussions about
environmental concerns, and it has a
strong claim to actually being a more
useful concept than that of sustainability.
Sustainability and its oxymoronic
offspring sustainable development are
commonly held to be a suffcient response
to the scale of the climate challenge we
face: to reduce the inputs at one end of
the globalised economic growth model
(energy, resources, and so on) while
reducing the outputs at the other end
(pollution, carbon emissions, etc.).
However, responses to climate change that
do not also address the imminent, or quite
possibly already passed, peak in world oil
production do not adequately address the
nature of the challenge we face.
Lets take a supermarket as an example. It
may be possible to increase its sustainability
and to reduce its carbon emissions by using
less packaging, putting photovoltaics on the
roof and installing more energy-effcient
fridges. However, resilience thinking would
argue that the closure of local food shops and
networks that resulted from the opening of
the supermarket, as well as the fact that the
store itself only contains two days worth
of food at any moment the majority of
which has been transported great distances
to get there has massively reduced the
resilience of community food security, as
well as increasing its oil vulnerability. One
extreme, but relevant, example of where
sustainability thinking falls short was Tescos
recent Flights for Lights promotion, where
people were able to gain air miles when
they purchased low-energy light bulbs!
Some people believe that we can move
from our current high carbon model,
where goods are transported at great
distances, to a low carbon information
economy, where it is ideas that are
exchanged rather than goods, and where
we operate in a virtual world with few
impacts. Yet such an economy still
depends on fossil fuels: to power the vast
internet servers as we check our morning
emails, not to mention the breakfast we
eat and the coffee we drink that continue
to be sourced from far and wide, often
with a disastrous impact on the local food
systems that would have supported us in
the past. Despite the temptation to believe
otherwise, we still operate in the physical
world with very real and pressing energy
and resource constraints.
T
he concept of resilience emerged
from within the ecological sciences
as a way of looking at why some systems
collapse when they encounter shock,
and some dont. The insights gleaned
now offer a very useful overview for
determining how systems can adapt
and thrive in changing circumstances.
Resilience within communities, for
example, depends upon
Diversity: a broader base of livelihoods,
land use, enterprise and energy systems
than at present
Modularity: not advocating self-
suffciency, but rather an increased
self-reliance; with surge protectors for
the local economy, such as local food
production and decentralised energy
systems
Tightness of feedbacks: bringing the
results of our actions closer to home,
so that we cannot ignore them
A recent report by the think tank
Resilience: the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and
reorganise while undergoing change, so as to retain
essentially the same function, structure, identity and
feedbacks.
ILLUSTRATIONS: HUGH DUNFORD WOOD
DEMOS, Resilient Nation, raised the
question, Resilient to what? Are we
building resilience in the face of peak
oil and climate change, or of terrorism
and pandemics? While it is clearly not
an either/or situation, I would argue
strongly that peak oil and climate change
are so far-reaching and destabilising that
we really must give them precedence,
the solutions that arise being markedly
different from addressing terrorism or
pandemics. But what would this kind of
resilience thinking look like in practice?
For many years, those writing and
campaigning on relocalisation have
argued that it is a good idea because
it produces a better, more equitable
economy. Now, as the potential impacts
of peak oil and climate change become
clearer, an additional and very strong
argument has emerged: that as the net
energy underpinning society inevitably
contracts, so the focus of our economies
and our daily lives will inexorably shift, at
least in terms of manufacturing and trade,
from the global to the local.
It requires a huge amount of cheap oil
thundering around the superhighways
and shipping lanes of the world to bring
to our shops the things we now feel we
need, much of which we would have
grown or made ourselves not all that long
ago. But creating a different way of doing
things takes time, resources and proactive
and creative design.
Often, climate-change thinking doesnt
question the notion that higher rates of
consumption lead to individual happiness
it focuses rather on low-carbon ways
of making the same consumer goods.
Yet as we enter the world of volatile oil
prices, resource constraints, and the need
to situate ourselves more within the local
economy than the global one, we will
need to link satisfaction and happiness to
other less tangible things like community,
meaningful work, skills and friendships.
When I give talks on this subject,
there are always some who interpret
the concept of increasing localisation
to mean that building resilience in the
West increasing national food security,
rebuilding local manufacturing and so
on will by necessity lead to increased
impoverishment in the developing
world. I dont believe this to be the case.
Will the developing world be lifted out
of poverty by continuing to dismantle
its own food resilience and becoming
increasingly dependent on global trade,
which is itself massively dependent on
the cheap oil we can no longer rely on? Is
the way out of poverty really an increasing
reliance on the utterly unreliable? Rather
than communities meeting each other
as unskilled, unproductive, dependent
and vulnerable settlements, they would
meet as skilled, abundantly productive,
self-reliant and resilient communities. It
is a very different quality of relationship,
and one that could be hugely benefcial
to both.
In any event, work by people such
as Mike Davis in his book Late Victorian
Holocausts shows how the impact of
famine was enormously magnifed by
the forced introduction of India into the
international money/cash-crop nexus.
As Amartya Sen has shown, famine
occurs more from the way in which food
is distributed, and inequality, than from
food shortage. Even that analysis now
needs to be revisited from a resilience
perspective. Over the last few years
weve started to see clear impacts of
tying the developing world into global
commercial food webs, as food prices
rose in step with oil and fertiliser prices.
In fact, Id argue that tying developing-
world food producers into the globalised
system leads to their exposure to both
food and money shortages.
T
he need to cut carbon emissions is even
more urgent than the governments
Transition Plan acknowledges. NASA
scientist James Hansen, one of the worlds
leading climate scientists, now argues that
we have already passed the climate tipping
point at our current level of 387ppm, when
the safe level of carbon in the atmosphere is
at most 350ppm. While the UK government
argues that we need to stay below 450ppm,
it is clear that even that is a huge ask. If
you were to step outside your front door
today and ask the frst ten people you met
what your town or city might look like in
ten years time if it began today to cut its
emissions by 9% a year starting today, I
imagine most people would say something
between the Flintstones and Mad Max! We
have a paucity of stories that articulate what
K E Y N O T E S
We have a paucity of stories that articulate what a

lower-energy world might sound like, smell like, feel like
and look like. What is hard, but important, is to be able to
articulate a vision of a post-carbon world so enticing that
people leap out of bed every morning and put their shoulders
to the wheel of making it happen.

a lower-energy world might sound like, smell like, feel like
and look like. What is hard, but important, is to be able
to articulate a vision of a post-carbon world so enticing
that people leap out of bed every morning and put their
shoulders to the wheel of making it happen.
Resilience thinking can inspire a degree of creative
thinking that might actually take us closer to solutions
that will succeed in the longer term. Resilient solutions
to climate change might include community-owned
energy companies that install renewable energy systems
in such a way as to generate revenue to resource the
wider relocalisation process; the building of highly
energy-effcient homes that use mainly local materials
(clay, straw, hemp), thereby stimulating a range of
potential local businesses and industries; the installation
of a range of urban food production models; and the
re-linking of farmers with their local markets. By seeing
resilience as a key ingredient of the economic strategies
that will enable communities to thrive beyond the
current economic turmoil the world is seeing, huge
creativity, reskilling and entrepreneurship are unleashed.
The Transition Movement is a rapidly growing, viral
movement, which began in Ireland and is now under
way in thousands of communities around the world. Its
fundamental premise is that a response to climate change
and peak oil will require action globally, nationally, and
at the scale of local government, but it also needs vibrant
communities driving the process, making unelectable
policies electable, creating the groundswell for practical
change at the local level.
It explores the practicalities of building resilience
across all aspects of daily life. It catalyses communities
to ask, How are we going to signifcantly rebuild
resilience in response to peak oil and drastically reduce
carbon emissions in response to climate change?
By putting resilience alongside the need to reduce
carbon emissions, it is catalysing a broad range of
initiatives, from Community Supported Agriculture and
garden-share schemes to local food directories and new
Farmers Markets. Some places, such as Lewes and Totnes,
have set up their own energy companies, in order to
resource the installation of renewable energy. The Lewes
Pound, the local currency that can only be spent in Lewes,
recently expanded with the issuing of new 5, 10 and
20 notes. Stroud and Brixton are set to do the same soon.
The Scottish government is using its Climate
Challenge Fund to fund Transition Scotland Support,
seeing Transition initiatives as a key component of the
countrys push on climate change (and thanks also
to that fund, a number of Transition initiatives have
received substantial fnancial support: for example,
Transition Forres received 184,000 and has become
a real force for local resilience-building). In England,
Somerset and Leicestershire County Councils have both
passed resolutions committing themselves to support
local Transition initiatives. What underpins these
responses is the idea that meeting our climate emissions
responsibilities and preparing proactively for the end
of the age of cheap oil can either be seen as enormous
crises, or as tremendous opportunities.
I
t is clear, as Jonathon Porritt argues in Living Within Our Means, that
attempting to get out of the current recession with the thinking that
got us into it in the frst place (unregulated banking, high levels of debt,
high-carbon lifestyles) will get us into a situation that we simply cannot
win. A friend of mine who works as a sustainability consultant in the
North West talks of a meeting he had with a leading local authority
there. Having read their development plan for the next twenty years, he
told them, Your Plan is based on three things: building cars, building
aeroplanes and the fnancial services sector. Do you have anything else
up your sleeves? As John Michael Greer says, were in danger of turning
what could still be a soluble problem into an insoluble predicament.
Transition is an exploration of what we need to have up those sleeves,
an optimistic exploration of the practicalities of relocalisation, creating,
as Jeremy Leggett puts it, scaleable microcosms of hope.
However, resilience is not just an outer process: it is also an inner one,
of becoming more fexible, robust and skilled. Transition initiatives try to
promote this through offering skills-sharing, building social networks
and creating a shared sense of this being a historic opportunity to build
the world anew.
Navigating a successful way through climate change and peak oil will
require a journey of such bravery, commitment and vision that future
generations will doubtless tell stories and sing great songs about it.
But as with any journey, having a clear idea of where you are headed
and the resources that you have at your disposal is essential in order to
most skilfully maximise your chances of success. If we leave resilience
thinking out, we may well end up an extremely long way from where
we initially thought we were headed.
Rob Hopkins is co-founder of the Transition Network and is the author of The Transition
Handbook.
K E Y N O T E S
OVE RVI E W CRI S P I N TI CKE L L
CAN WE COPE?
Can we overcome conceptual sclerosis and
address the multiplicity of issues related to
climate change and its impact?
H
umans are a remarkable species,
and the society they have created
is even more remarkable. Over the
last 40,000 years or so, their impact
on other species and life on Earth slowly and
then rapidly increased. Before the Industrial
Revolution some 250 years ago, the impact was
local, or at most regional, rather than global. But
now the impact is indeed global.
The idea may be hard to accept, but in its long
history with all its environmental variants the
Earth has never been in this situation before. In
the words of the title of a recent book by John
McNeill, we confront something new under the
sun. The problem is almost on a geological scale.
There are six main factors which have driven
this transformation. Of these, human proliferation
is often ignored as somehow embarrassing or
mixed up with religion; most people are broadly
aware of land degradation, resource depletion
and waste problems, although far from accepting
the remedies necessary; water issues, both fresh
and salt, have already had a lot of publicity, and
in one way or another affect most people on this
planet; climate change with all its implications
for atmospheric chemistry is also broadly
understood, apart from by those who do not
want to understand it; how we generate energy
while fossil-fuel resources diminish and demand
increases is another conundrum; but damage to
the diversity of life on which our species critically
depends has somehow escaped public attention.
Here we remain ignorant of our own ignorance.
There is a seventh factor recent in human
experience. It arises from the introduction of
new technologies. It recently led the President
of the Royal Society, Lord Rees, to suggest
that the ramifcations and dangers of
information technology, nano-technology,
nuclear experimentation and the rest had still
to be understood and explored. His conclusion
was to give our civilisation only a 50% chance of
survival beyond the end of this century.
F
or many people the idea that radical change is
necessary, if creeping disaster is to be avoided,
is so repellent that it has been almost automatically
rejected. We all suffer from the disease of what has
been called conceptual sclerosis. Little is more
diffcult than learning to think differently, above
all when problems go to the roots of conventional
wisdom. Old ideas haunt us like ghosts. Yet in
the last two or three years attitudes have begun
to change, and at least some of the ghosts have
begun to fade.
The catalyst has been climate change, or, as I
prefer to call it, climate destabilisation. Over the
last forty years a big debating point has been the
relationship between natural and human-driven
change. But there is now no serious doubt that
through increased emissions of greenhouse
gases, humans are changing the chemistry and
temperature of the air they breathe, and more so
every year. Humans carry a direct responsibility
for what is happening, with widely differing
effects in different parts of the world. Hence the
Framework Convention on Climate Change of
1992, the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, the successive
meetings of the parties to it, and innumerable
conferences worldwide. The Copenhagen
conference in December this year will be the
culmination of an increasingly fraught debate
between scientists, the business and corporate
communities, and not least individuals about
what could and should be done.
That debate is not yet resolved. We still have to
learn to think in global as well as national terms.
Here is the frst test of the resilience of human
society. Nearly all involved accept that certain
practical measures have to be taken, tomorrow
We remain
ignorant of our
own ignorance.

manufacturing capacity to such countries
as China whose emissions have risen
correspondingly. For their part the Chinese
and Indian negotiators may underline a
supposed right to development on the
Western model (hence avoiding specifc
commitments to reduction), but do not
mention the dire vulnerability of both
their countries to climate change, in
particular over fresh-water supplies and
sea-level rise.
N
onetheless there is progress.
Mechanisms for cutting emissions
are everywhere under discussion, from
taxes on carbon to global auctions
of permits to emit it. New and old
technologies are being explored to
sequester carbon, or to take it out of
the atmosphere in other ways. Such
countries as Mexico have come forward
with proposals for a Green Fund to help
the poorest countries and regions adapt
to change. The position of the United
States, the biggest emitter of carbon per
head in the world, is changing as fast
as Congress will allow. Conservation of
forests is now seen as major priority.
People are thinking about environmental
issues as never before.
All this may not lead to the fundamental
change of direction for which we must
hope. But Copenhagen is only part of a
process, and that process is advancing.
More conferences will follow. We have yet
to think seriously about the multiplicity
of other issues with which climate
change and its impacts are closely related:
for example human multiplication on a
scale which by any standard looks out of
control, and the lack of an institution of
real authority to bring together the 200
or more separate and often overlapping
environmental agreements into a World
Environment Organisation. Sovereignty
is already something of an illusion, but
giving it up, even in limited areas, is
always a painful process.
True resilience may seem far away. We
want to be able to choose to establish
it, and not have it forced on us by
catastrophes, whether sudden or slow.
History has many instances of both.
Humans have a lot of damage to answer
for. Let us hope that some at least of the
answers can be found at Copenhagen.
Crispin Tickell is President of TREE AID and a patron
of the Optimum Population Trust.
if not yesterday. The most important is
drastically to reduce the emission of
greenhouse gases into the atmosphere,
and, if safe means can be found, to
reduce those that are already there.
But even if the science is not in serious
question, the practical steps arouse a
multiplicity of diffculties: they relate to
most current economics; energy of all
kinds; exploitation of resources; food
security; social infrastructure, particularly
in cities; human migration; development
in all its aspects; and following on from
the commitments in the Framework
Convention on Climate Change, the
sharing of responsibility for what has
happened. In short, we have to decide
who should contribute what to whom to
create the necessary changes of direction.
The process is bedevilled by sometimes
ferocious arguments, within as well as
between countries, over matters that do
not usually come into the public domain:
for example, the calculation of fgures
for setting targets to limit emissions,
arrangements for swapping between
those who emit a little and those who
emit a lot, and the effective policing of
the resulting system. Governments as well
as individuals are expert at fnding ways
round any rules that may be set.
The preparations for Copenhagen have
brought all this out clearly. The British
may preen themselves on the reduction
of carbon emissions in Britain since
1990 but do not mention the export of
Face in the crowd, painting by Evelyn Williams COURTESY: THE BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY
K E Y N O T E S
F OOD J ONATHON P ORRI TT
THE THREE Rs
M
ore than two years after the 2007 foods
in the West of England, over 150 families
are still homeless many of them in
Tewkesbury. The anniversary of the foods
prompted a number of moving interviews with these
environmental refugees driven from their homes by
the kind of climate-induced disaster that we are going to
see so much more of over the next few years.
I just happened to be listening to some of those
interviews on the radio the day that I was getting to
grips with the latest extraordinary report from the
Global Humanitarian Forum: The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis.
The fndings of this report are stark: Every year, climate
change leaves over 300,000 people dead, 325 million
seriously affected, and economic losses of $125 billion.
Four billion people are vulnerable, and 500 million
people are at extreme risk.
And the title tells it all. Understandably, there is little
coverage here in the UK devoted to those 325 million
seriously affected. We would be drowned by the
unceasing food of personal testimonies; our capacity
for empathy would be overwhelmed. But as Kof Annan
puts it in his Introduction to the report: Where does
a fsherman go when warmer sea temperatures deplete
coral reefs and fsh stocks? How can a small farmer
keep animals or sow crops when the water dries up?
Will families be provided for when fertile soils and
fresh water are contaminated with salt from rising seas?
The frst hit and worst affected by climate change are
the worlds poorest groups. 99% of all casualties occur
in developing countries. A stark contrast to the 1% of
global emissions attributable to some ffty of the least
developed nations. If all countries were to pollute so
little, there would be no climate change. New climate
policy must therefore empower vulnerable communities
to cope with these challenges.
Hot on its heels came another blockbuster report, this
time from Oxfam. Suffering the Science, published just before
the meeting of G8 leaders in Italy in July 2009, gave
vent to yet more liberal effusions of hot air. Its specifc
forecasts about rice and maize (on which many hundreds
of millions of people depend) show reductions in yield
of up to 15% by 2020 in much of sub-Saharan Africa
and India. Thats 2020, in case the date just blurred past
you, not somewhere off in what politicians comfortably
talk about as the long term.
Its conclusion: Climate changes most savage impact on
humanity in the near future is likely to be in the increase in
hunger. The countries with existing problems in feeding
their people are those most at risk from climate change.
Millions of farmers will have to give up traditional crops
as they experience changes in the seasons that they and their ancestors
have depended on. Climate-related hunger may become the defning
human tragedy of this century.
This timing issue is critical. It has an often hidden but still extraordinary
effect on the way people internalise the reality of climate change. If
something is twenty-fve to thirty years away, that belongs to the next
generation i.e. not us. If its ten years away, that belongs to us, and theres
no getting around it. Right now, for instance, Professor John Beddington, the
governments Chief Scientifc Adviser, is doing the rounds of government
A church in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, cut off by foodwater in 2007 PHOTOGRAPH: STUART FRANKLIN/MAGNUM PHOTOS FOR TIME MAGAZINE/UK
Three fundamental principles should under-
pin any approach to food security: resilience,
resolarisation and relocalisation.
departments and universities warning people of the Perfect Storm that will
most likely be upon us in 2030! Thats both very precise, and between
what belongs to us and what belongs to the next generation.
But at least Beddington is sending out the right kind of storm warning,
and as a good systems-thinker, reminds his listeners that the linkages
between different phenomena are as important as the phenomena
themselves. Personally, I think hes holding back on the full extent of all
the synergistic effects we are likely to see impacting peoples lives over
the next few years.
T
he oil/food nexus is of particular importance.
Memories fade so fast: it was little more than
eighteen months ago that the impact of rising oil on
food prices brought the whole question of food security
back to the top of the global agenda. Food riots broke
out in Morocco, Yemen, Senegal, Uzbekistan, Indonesia,
Mexico and Mauritania.
Since then, food prices have come down again,
tracking the fall in the price of oil since it hit US$147 a
barrel in the middle of 2008. Right now, the economic
recession is masking the inevitability of energy prices
rising again just as soon as levels of economic activity
pick up particularly in China and India. As far as I
can tell, there are no serious commentators who think
that oil will ever go below US$40 a barrel again, and
most are projecting a price range of between US$60 and
US$110 by the middle of 2010. Even the oil companies
now acknowledge that the days of easy oil are gone
forever, removing the foundation stone on which the
whole of modern food production has been built.
Without cheap oil and cheap gas, there is no more
cheap food. Few people really understand the extent
of our near-total dependency on fossil fuels in terms
of fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides, farm machinery,
storage, supply chains, retail systems, and so on. As many
commentators have pointed out, we are basically eating
oil, and on an almost inconceivably ineffcient basis.
Its against that backdrop that one might legitimately
despair of the quality of the current debate on food
security here in the UK. Free-market absolutists battle it
out with self-suffciency evangelists; advocates of genetic
modifcation (GM) would have us believe that our only
salvation lies in the adoption of GM crops on every front;
the organic movement brushes aside concerns about the
imperative of having to feed 9 billion people by 2050.
It is absolutely not enough, when confronted with
this empirical reality, to fall back on platitudes of the
following mind-boggling magnitude: We believe
that global food security means that everybody has
enough to eat. National food security is hugely
more relevant for developing countries than the rich
countries of Western Europe. The UK is well-placed to
access suffcient foodstuffs through a well-functioning
world market.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural
Affairs Defra the author of those words, continues to
argue alongside all the big food retailers, as well as the
National Farmers Union, that the UKs food security is
best served by ever deeper integration into international
supply chains. But does that really make sense in such a
fractured and uncertain world?
They are right, of course, to describe absolute self-
suffciency as an illusion what would we do without
our tea and coffee, or our oranges and bananas? But we
need to get beyond the simplistic percentages. We need
to recognise the distinctions between self-suffciency and
optimised, sustainable self-reliance.
And that means we must step back and look at the
fundamental principles which underpin any serious
approach to food security:
A church in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, cut off by foodwater in 2007 PHOTOGRAPH: STUART FRANKLIN/MAGNUM PHOTOS FOR TIME MAGAZINE/UK
K E Y N O T E S
Jonathon Porritt is a Founder Director of Forum for the Future and the author of
Capitalism As If the World Matters. www.forumforthefuture.org
Resilience
Our production systems here in the UK, as well as our
supply chains globally, are seriously vulnerable in the
face of the radical discontinuities I have discussed. Policy
frameworks are best designed on the basis of worst-case
eventualities, rather than best-case improbabilities. The
Sustainable Development Commission frst drew attention
to this in its report in 2007, $100 a Barrel of Oil: Impacts on the
Sustainability of Food Supply in the UK. This came out well before
oil went not just to $100 but to $147, but attracted very
little interest from Defra at that time.
Resolarisation
Lets just spell this out: the only way to avert a sequence of food
crises resulting from supply disruptions and price spikes in oil and gas over
the next twenty years is to systematically reduce our dependency on stored
solar energy (fossil fuels) in favour of real-time solar energy.
All farms must therefore become powerhouses
of renewable (solar) energy, investing as fast as can
practically be arranged in on-site energy schemes such as
wind turbines, solar thermal, photovoltaics, micro-hydro,
biogas digesters, biomass boilers, and so on. Its ludicrous
that the government does not have a comprehensive grant
or loan scheme to make this happen right now.
Beyond that, farmers are going to have to come to
terms with the fact that, in future, nitrogen will be fxed,
not by fossil fuels (stored solar energy), but by real-time
solar energy, converted by legumes (particularly clover)
into bio-available nitrogen. In other words, soil fertility
will again be solar-powered surely the most important
solar opportunity of all.
Relocalisation
Whichever way you cut it, a combination of high oil
prices, high input prices, growing demand for food,
an additional seventy million or so people every year,
and growing pressure on soil, water and biodiversity,
compounded by accelerating climate change and the
kind of high carbon prices that are inevitably on their
way, leads to only one rational conclusion: increased
resilience by reducing the length (and vulnerability) of
our supply chains. The more high-quality, healthy food
we can produce close to the point of consumption, the
more resilient our food supply chains are going to be.
Thats not an expression of some anti-globalisation
extremism: its just common sense. The trends I have
referred to earlier are not just foreseeable: they are
inevitable. So why not get good at working with them
rather than dying on the barricades of some superannuated
ideology that sees global as good and local as second
best and a bit sad? Some pragmatism here would be so
welcome!
C
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I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is pressed
Against the Earths sweet fowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy palms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
- Joyce Kilmer 18861918
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B I O C U L T U R A L D I V E R S I T Y
The sublime landscape of rainforest and granite mountains, Serra dos rgos National Park, Brazil PHOTOGRAPH: FRANS LANTING/FLPA
For our own survival we must
implement global protection of
tropical rainforests.
RAI NF ORE S TS P E TE R B UNYARD
AMAZON IMPERATIVE
T
he world is now waking up to
a momentous truth: we cannot
do without the Amazon, blessed
as it is with its rainforests,
rivers and unparalleled biodiversity.
And were the forests to go, destroyed
by human hands, the climate of South
America would change in a matter
of decades, converting the continent
from its verdant, luxuriously vegetated
state, the legacy of millions of years of
extraordinary evolution, into one that
resembles Africa, with its deserts, semi-
arid areas and savannahs.
How would Brazil, now obtaining
85% of its electricity from hydropower,
survive as a rapidly developing industrial
nation without the Amazon rainforests to
feed the atmosphere with water vapour
and keep the rain falling all the way to the
Andes and beyond? What would happen
to the River Plate basin with its fabulous
fertility if the rains now carried south-
east by the low-level jet stream from the
Amazon were to fail because the forests
that charged the air with masses of water
were no more?
And what about the Andean countries
of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia,
if the gigantic air-sucking convection
system fuelled by Amazonian evapo-
transpiration were to dwindle away,
killed off in the rush to turn millions of
hectares of rainforest into cattle pasture,
soya plantations, sugar cane, palm
oil and charcoal, and in the process,
converting precious tropical timbers into
unnecessary consumer goods?
We now know, too, that the Midwest of
the United States the golden corn belt
depends on the rains brought to it from
the Amazon basin in the spring and early
summer, just when they are most needed
to generate a good harvest.
T
he enormous area covered by
the Amazon rainforests some
six million square kilometres makes
equatorial South America something
of a special case. The faster-growing
forests are to the far west, some 3,000
kilometres from the mouth of the
Amazon River and the tropical Atlantic
Ocean, yet how they get the rainfall so
essential for their growth and survival is
the result of a recycling system in which
the rainforest plays an extraordinary
role by pumping water in the form of
vapour back into the atmosphere. That
biotic pumping results in a drop of
water derived from the tropical Atlantic
Ocean somewhere between Africa and
Brazil being recycled perhaps as much as
six times, as the air stream passes over the
Amazon basin on its way to the Andes.
Hence Bogot, in Colombia, thousands of
kilometres from the Brazilian coastline,
gets most of its rainfall courtesy of the
rainforests of the Amazon. Without the
forests, precipitation would decrease
exponentially, leaving the interior a much
drier, hotter place perhaps as much as
10 C hotter and therefore incapable of
supporting the humid tropical rainforests
which have been there for tens of millions
of years.
A climate model that looks specifcally
at the relationship between rainforests
and rainfall has shown how natural
forest cover is critically important
in maintaining rainfall over a large
continent such as South America. Natural,
broad-leafed forest, with its canopy
and sub-storey vegetation, carries out
transpiration through the stomata of
its leaves at a rate that compensates for
what would otherwise be an exponential
decline in rainfall. This maintains soil
moisture and rates of evapo-transpiration
in a self-feeding, highly selected system.
It is that process which gets the rainfall
all the way to the Andes and beyond to
the Pacifc Ocean and higher latitudes on
both sides of the Equator.
Alternative vegetation cannot do the
same job, and if inland natural forests are
replaced by agro-industrial enterprises,
the consequence will be a drying out of
the entire system, to the point at which
not only will the remnants of Amazonian
rainforest die back, but agricultural crops
will no longer be viable.
I
n the early 1980s, Brazilian physicist
Eneas Salati calculated that the power
of the sun over the fve million square
kilometres of the Amazon amounted to
the equivalent in energy terms of seventy
Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs exploding
every second of the day and night. He
showed that a considerable proportion of
the rainfall over the Brazilian Amazon was
recycled, using up to 75% of the solar
input in generating latent energy in the
form of water vapour.
Consequently the forests act as
enormous energy pumps, the fuel
being the conversion of water to water
vapour and then back again to water. The
combined process of evaporation and
transpiration over the Amazon therefore
puts back into the atmosphere more than
six million million (6 x 10
12
) tonnes of
water vapour every year equivalent in
energy terms to as much as forty-fve
times the total energy currently used by
all human beings for all their activities.
The forest, as a gigantic, irreplaceable
water pump, is therefore an essential part
of the planetary air circulation system.
And it is that system which takes energy
in the form of masses of humid air out
The power of the sun over the fve million square

kilometres of the Amazon amounts to the equivalent in energy
terms of seventy Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs exploding
every second of the day and night.

and away from the Amazon basin to the higher latitudes, to the more
temperate parts of the planet. Argentina, thousands of miles away from
the Amazon basin, gets no less than half of its rain as a result of the low
level South American jet stream. How many Argentinian landowners
are aware of the Amazons role in giving them a productive agriculture?
In 2008, as conventional fuel prices soared to nearly $150 a barrel,
biofuels became the name of the game, which in turn led to a surge
in deforestation. Amazon deforestation, particularly in the states of
Par and Mato Grosso, increased by 23% in 2008 compared to data
compiled for the same time of the year in 2007. And it is not just the
rainforest that is being affected. The savannah region, in the Mato Grosso,
is extremely rich in biodiversity, with some 160,000 species of plants
and animals, many of which are becoming endangered. With some
22,000 square kilometres of savannah being cleared each year, mainly
for soya plantations, more than half of the original vegetation has been
eradicated, and if the rate of clearing continues, little of the original
savannah will be left by the year 2030.
The National Space Research Institute of Brazil estimates that
deforestation over the past twenty years has led to one hectare of
Amazon rainforest disappearing on average every ten seconds. Out of
a total of four million square kilometres, nearly 700,000 have already
vanished, and predictions from the Institute for Environmental Research
in the Amazon indicate that another 670,000 square kilometres will be
devastated by 2030 if no action is taken to reduce the rate.
Clearly our insatiable desire for dairy products, for chicken and for
pork is fuelling the destruction of Amazon rainforest. According to
Britaldo Silveira Soares-Filho of the University of Minas Gerais, By
2050, current trends in agricultural expansion will eliminate a total of
40% of Amazon rainforests, including at least two-thirds of the forest
cover of six major watersheds and twelve eco-regions.
T
he Brazilian government intends to take steps that will reduce
deforestation rates by 70% over the coming decade, and the
visionary Norwegian government is offering Brazil $1,000 million to
achieve its conservation targets. Consequently, the Brazilian government
has given large areas over to national parks and is intent on granting
land title to Indigenous peoples. It has also talked of granting land title
to small farmers on the basis of relatively small holdings which cannot
be sold on, but which will revert to the government if abandoned by
the original occupants. The idea is that the small farmers will seek the
use of sustainable methods to provide a living and may indeed receive
some kind of carbon offset subsidy in return for leaving forest intact on
their lands.
But the fne detail still has to be worked out and the international
community needs to get further involved in providing incentives to
prevent degradation and deforestation. It is therefore a matter of
urgency that we value the rainforest primarily for its ecological and
climatological services, and for that reason a mechanism or, even
better, a multifaceted approach must be developed which recognises
that the value of the forest as a natural carbon sink is only one side of
the vital role which the forest plays in determining climate processes.
A system of carbon credits may be one mechanism, and the
thinking at present is in terms of compensation for carbon that
would have been vented were there no compliance to reduce
deforestation. Such a credit system, known as REDD Reducing
Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation in Tropical
Countries could well appeal to major carbon-emitters in
industrialised countries who are looking for a cheaper alternative
to reducing their emissions than if they were to make the emission
cuts themselves.
In theory REDD could work effectively, if
strictly maintained to reduce deforestation.
However, both advocates and critics of
REDD schemes are concerned that a) it
may prove hard to ensure the permanence
of a reduction in deforestation; b) relative
conservation in one area may give
licence or leakage to the exploitation of
another which is not part of any REDD
scheme; and c) instead of a REDD scheme
being additional to other incentives and
initiatives to reduce overall emissions it
will be instead of, with the net result that
greenhouse-gas emissions will continue
to rise unabated, very much as they have
done under the Kyoto Protocol.
The Anavilhanas archipelago in the middle of the Rio Negro River PHOTOGRAPH: CLAUS MEYER/MINDEN PICTURES/FLPA
Alternatives to REDD are being developed. The World Rainforest
Movement and Canopy Capital have come up with the concepts of
HEDD (Halt Emissions from Degradation and Deforestation) and
PINC (Proactive Investment in Natural Capital). In the latter case, the
emphasis is on the ecosystem services which the natural forest provides,
including the maintenance of a viable hydrological and nutrient cycle
and, not least, the keeping of carbon stocks within the biomass of the
forest itself.
T
he unavoidable conclusion is that, unless the world acts swiftly to
prevent further deforestation in the Amazon, we could fnd the
impact of global warming to be far worse than anticipated in the latest
report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Currently, protection of the rainforest tends to be piecemeal and
fragmented, and despite all the concern about the future of the Amazon,
an international process that values the overall forest as a natural carbon
sink and for its climate services does not exist.
Ultimately, for our own survival, we cannot make
do with less than a global-scale protection of tropical
rainforests. At the COP15 United Nations Climate
Change Conference in Copenhagen this December,
let us ensure that these concerns are given priority
in the decision-making of all countries in the world
whether with or without tropical forests, in the process
of preventing irremediable climate change, and that
countries with vast expanses of humid tropical forests
will take the initiative in getting global agreements in
place that will result in protection of those same forests.
Peter Bunyard is science editor of the Ecologist and author of
Extreme Weather, Floris Books, 2007.
Unless the world acts swiftly to prevent further

deforestation in the Amazon, we could fnd the impact of
global warming to be far worse than anticipated in the IPCCs
latest report.

F
or more than three decades the international
community has made different attempts to
combat the ongoing challenge of tropical forest
clearance. Initial concerns were spurred-on by
disappearing wildlife, impacts on forest peoples and
the degradation of environmental services such as soil
protection and maintenance of clean rivers. But now
the debate has moved on. At the heart of the discussion
about tropical forests today is the matter of carbon, and
how to keep it in the trees and the soils beneath them,
and thus out of the atmosphere.
Centre stage in this new discussion are negotiations
taking place under the auspices of the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
through talks on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation
and Forest Degradation or REDD. The aim is to fnd
ways of cutting the vast carbon emissions arising from
tropical forest loss through new funding streams to
help countries shift towards lower-carbon development
pathways and create some form of market mechanism
to stop deforestation.
The discussion has been controversial and intense,
TIME FOR ACTION
The kind of leadership that was shown in bailing-out the banks
should now be demonstrated to protect the tropical rainforests.
RAI NF ORE S TS TONY J UNI P E R
viable way of generating the vast sums of
money needed to help slow down forest
loss, and that is why, they argue, we need
to urgently fnd the means to trade forest
carbon credits in carbon markets.
All the while, however, the forests
continue to fall. Some six million
hectares of diverse tropical forests are
cleared every year. As a result, hundreds
of millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide
are pouring into the atmosphere. Indeed,
the emissions arising from tropical
deforestation are today greater than those
from the whole transport sector with
an estimated 17% of total emissions
arising from human activity, this is more
than all the worlds cars, planes and ships
combined. When the service provided by
the forests in absorbing some 15% of the
emissions arising from human activity is
taken into account, it becomes clear that
any serious attempt to avoid the worst
effects of climate change must include a
credible attempt to slow down, stop and
then reverse tropical deforestation.
D
espite the controversy and
disagreements, the negotiations
currently taking place might put in place
at least the foundations for some future
market or fund that could ultimately
deliver fnance at the scale needed to
make a serious difference. It is clear,
however, that even if an agreement is
forged in these negotiations, it will not be
possible to generate substantial funds for
years, perhaps taking more than a decade
to deliver fnance at an appropriate scale.
This delay can be expected because of the
time it will take to work out all the rules
needed to govern the new mechanism, the
likely period needed to resolve technical
questions (for example, linked to how to
measure the carbon held in and under
forests) and because of the time it will take
many tropical forest countries to establish
the capacity to run a new and potentially
complex mechanism. During the course of
that decade, another sixty million or more
hectares of tropical forest could be cleared.
This is forest that the world cannot afford
to lose, giving rise to the rather important
question of what can be done now to slow
down the rate of loss.
Since late 2007 the Prince of Wales
Rainforests Project (PRP) has been seeking
answers to this and related questions.
One result was published in April 2009
in the form of an Emergency Package
for Tropical Forests. Based on nearly
eighteen months of research and intense
analysis, the project team generated a set
of proposals that could mobilise fnance
immediately, providing tropical countries
with the economic space they need
to embark on lower-carbon and more
sustainable development paths.
In the end the reasons for deforestation
are economic, and any serious attempt to
slow down forest loss needs to provide
alternatives to the income derived
from activities ranging from logging to
farming and from agri-business feeding
global commodity markets to minerals
exploitation. All these activities generate
income (as well as causing forest loss)
and if the destructive impacts are to be
reduced then countries will need to put
in place different development plans
from the ones they have now. The loss
of income arising from the stoppage of
deforestation has to be compensated for.
Creating that economic space is one
of the most important priorities for the
international community; but not as an
act of traditional overseas aid, and less
still in the form of loans. The transaction
should be seen more like the payment of
a utility bill the price of maintaining
services that are vital for human wellbeing
everywhere. Without the rainforests, the
prospects for sustainable development
will be fatally undermined everywhere.
But how much will it cost to provide that
economic space for countries to embark
on a different style of development?
The 2006 report The Economics of Climate
Change (The Stern Review) estimated that
the annual bill to cut tropical rainforest
clearance in half by 2020 was in the order
of US$1015 billion. The PRP concluded
that this kind of fnance must be urgently
deployed to compensate countries for
keeping their forests intact, by replacing
with passionately held views on all
sides. Some have argued that market
mechanisms hold grave risks, for example
in potentially undermining the land rights
of Indigenous peoples, and through the
purchase of cheap forest carbon credits
enabling industrialised countries to
get off the hook in meeting their own
targets. Others maintain that, as Western
governments face massive national
budget pressures, markets offer the only
The emissions arising from tropical deforestation are

today larger than those from the whole transport sector
all the worlds cars, planes and ships combined.

A lone Brazil nut tree (protected in Brazil since
1994) stands amidst land cleared for soya
plantations
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whole range of safeguards to ensure
that the money was spent in ways that
promoted real benefts on the ground,
thus requiring minimum standards for
fnancial management, governance and
stakeholder participation. This too would
be a job for the new agency to ensure
that proper standards were maintained.
As for the governments issuing the
bonds, they would have choices in how
to repay investors as the bonds matured.
They could simply raise money through
taxation, or they could align repayment
with other climate-protection policies
they will in any event need to implement
over the next decade and beyond. For
example, they could allocate money
derived from the auctioning of credits in
their cap and trade schemes, they could
tax aviation fuel, they could put in place
a Tobin tax on international currency
transactions or they could look at ways
to charge small levies on certain kinds of
insurance premium. During the course
of ten to ffteen years these kinds of
measures could raise many billions, and
in the process help cut carbon in the rich
countries too.
I
f we are to avoid a climatic catastrophe
that would affect all life on Earth, then
deforestation must be stopped quickly,
and at the same time, drastic cuts in
emissions from fossil fuels must take
place. While there are many ideas on how
best to do this, the one thing that we are
truly short of is time.
In April this year, governments came
together through a new process to look
at the potential emergency measures that
might be put in place to cut deforestation.
Perhaps the kind of leadership that was
shown in bailing-out the banks will now
be demonstrated in the provision of the
much more modest fnance needed to
bail-out one of our planets ailing life-
support systems. Lets hope so, for we
may not have too many more chances to
make the difference needed. For, unlike
the banking system, when our natural
capital is depleted no cash injection will
bring it back.
For more details about the
Princes Rainforests Project see
www.rainforestsos.org
Tony Juniper is an independent sustainability
campaigner and a Special Adviser to the Princes
Rainforests Project.
the revenues they would otherwise derive
from land activities such as cattle exports,
soya bean production, palm oil expansion
or an increase in logging.
One idea from the PRP is for a new
agency to be set up. It would negotiate
with countries on how much money they
would need to depart from deforestation
activities. The agency would disburse
funds and monitor performance.
Countries would be compensated in direct
proportion to how much forest they saved,
thus creating a clear and direct fnancial
incentive to keep the forests standing.
One possible funding mechanism
proposed by the PRP is the use of
government bonds. These would be
offered to private investors such as
insurance and pension companies and
would yield a modest rate of return over
the lifetime of the bonds say, ten to
ffteen years for the investors. At the end
of the period, the investors would get their
money back having earned a secure rate
of return for the time the governments
had use of their money. This is a perfectly
normal fnancial arrangement. Indeed,
governments routinely issue hundreds of
billions of dollars worth of bonds each year.
These would be rainforest bonds, however,
and the money raised would be passed
to the new agency which in turn would
disburse fnance in accordance with the
agreements reached with the tropical
forest countries.
Of course there would need to be a
Unlike the banking system, when our

natural capital is depleted no cash injection will
bring it back.

An Orang Rimba man surveys the effects of deforestation, Sumatra Island, Indonesia
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Better to keep your
Country small
Your people few
Your devices simple
And even those for
Infrequent use.
Let people measure life
By the meaning of death
And not go out of their way
To visit far off places
With nowhere to travel
And little care for the display of great ships
And shining weapons become
Mere relics of the past.
Let people recover
The simple life
Reckoning by knotted cords
Delighting in a basic meal
Pleased with humble attire
Happy in their homes
Taking pleasure in their
Rustic ways.
So content are they
That nearby towns
So close, the sound
Of dogs and roosters
Forms one chorus
Folks grown grey with age
May pass away never having
Strayed beyond the village.
Lao Tzu
(written circa 700 BC)
ILLUSTRATION: ISTOCKPHOTO.COM
I NTE RVI E W wi t h WANGARI MAATHAI
TREES ARE THE ANSWER
F
or many years, before humanity
became aware of the dangers of
climate change, Wangari Maathai
was advocating the planting of
trees. Her work was based initially in her
home country of Kenya in order to redress
the imbalances created by the imposition
of a Western paradigm of progress on
a country and people whose inherent
wealth and wisdom went unrecognised.
Wangaris intuitive understanding of
ecology began when she observed a
pristine stream in her childhood village
become dry and barren as the forests
around her home were cleared; she
realised that the wellbeing of her people
depended on the wellbeing of the natural
world. This innate understanding of the
interconnectedness of all life led her
to found The Greenbelt Movement in
Kenya which has in the intervening years
planted millions of trees. I asked Wangari
if she felt The Greenbelt Movement
was a model that could be replicated
throughout the world.
The fact that trees can sequester
carbon is really a miracle, she replied,
but when we started planting trees,
that was not foremost in our minds.
But the more I now think about climate
change, the more I know for sure that
trees are our best friends in the global
effort to mitigate climate change. So,
yes, at Copenhagen we will be strongly
advocating that forests must be part of
the solution.
Despite Wangaris Nobel Prize and her
high-profle work (and that of many
others) to save the worlds remaining
forests, the message still seems to fall
on deaf ears. How is it, I asked, that
well-educated politicians and economists
Let us continue the work started by Wangari Maathai in Kenya
and reforest the entire world, sequestering atmospheric carbon
and creating right livelihood for all. Interview by Satish Kumar.
Wangari Maathai at the Nobel Peace Centre in Oslo
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still cannot see the link between healthy
environments and healthy people and
economies?
Part of the problem is that the
underpinning science is very abstract
and the majority of people dont quite
understand it, Wangari explained.
What is needed is to have the science
translated into a language that people
can comprehend, so that we can create
a movement of citizens who understand
that the planet is under threat and who
are willing to take action and put pressure
on politicians to make the right long-
term decisions.
We also need to educate politicians
and business leaders. President Obama is
promoting a lot of excellent initiatives,
and it was very encouraging to see the US
Secretary of Energy, Dr Steven Chu, at the
recent Symposium on Climate Change
convened by HRH The Prince of Wales.
Dr Chu attended the conference from the
beginning to the end and that is clearly a
demonstration that, at long last, the US
government is committed to addressing
climate change.
But once we understand the nature of
the problems we face, then we need to do
two things. Firstly, we must change our
own lifestyles because unless we practise
what we preach, no-one will listen to
us. We have to be the change we want
to see in the world. And secondly, we
must put pressure on our governments to
take action and to commit to supporting
that change via policy and economic
infrastructure.
I think that, ultimately, it is the
collective conscience of citizens that will
eventually change the politicians minds.
Politicians respond to public opinion
and unless public opinion is informed,
it cannot put pressure on politicians. So,
education for politicians and the public
alike is of the utmost importance. The
more people who get to understand the
science, the more people who get to
commit, the more we create a critical
mass or movement for change that puts
pressure on the government to commit
politically but also fnancially.
W
angaris work to educate people
about the link between our cultural
values and the wider environment is
backed up by an initiative called the
Billion Tree Campaign, launched in
Nairobi in 2006 in association with the
UN Environment Programme (UNEP).
By the time Wangari went to the Climate
Conference in Bali the following year, a
billion trees had already been planted.
Now, she tells me, more than three billion
trees have been planted worldwide as part
of this campaign.
Achim Steiner, the Executive Director
of UNEP, has just launched a Seven Billion
Tree Campaign, says Wangari. Thats
seven billion trees by the time we reach
the Copenhagen Climate Conference in
December this year, as a way of mobilising
public opinion and raising awareness. But
its also a way of saying that we can all
help in the fght against climate change
by planting a tree. Everyone can do this,
and every tree that is planted sequesters
atmospheric carbon. It means that
anybody poor or rich, man or woman,
educated or uneducated anybody can
plant a tree.
I also encourage the protection
of standing trees. We have not yet
appreciated the true value of the tree: it
stabilises the soil; it gives us shade; if it is
a fruit tree it gives us fruit. The tree fxes
carbon for us; gives us oxygen; regulates
the composition of the air Trees are a
wonderful gift to humanity!
Trees also have spiritual meaning. I
come from a tradition where our ancestors
prayed and made offerings to trees. My
people were particularly respectful of the
fg tree. To them it was a symbol of the
power of god a gift that god gives. And
trees are a symbol of plenty. In most other
traditions around the world, trees have
always been symbols of plenty. In the Bible
its a symbol of knowledge. So a tree is a
wonderful gift.
The Greenbelt Movement has been
going for thirty years now, and as people
can see the reality of improved environment
and lifestyles thanks to trees and forests,
there has been an upsurge in interest in
this campaign not only in Kenya but in
many other parts of Africa and elsewhere
in the world. In the beginning people
thought we were a little bit crazy! But now
people realise that there is wisdom in what
we are trying to do.
It is because of the work of The Greenbelt
Movement that I was able to speak with
Gordon Brown recently about the plight
of the second largest forest in the world,
the Congo forest, which is approximately
twice as big as France. Prime Minister
Brown pledged ffty million pounds from
the British government to help us in our
multifaceted work to help protect this
forest region, and he also talked to his
colleague in Norway, who gave another
ffty million pounds. My work with The
Greenbelt Movement and the precedent
we have set in reforesting and protecting
forest habitats were fundamental to that
agreement. We have now established a
Congo Fund, based in Geneva, which
will continue to negotiate strategies with
the international community to value and
protect this critical ecosystem. I know that
if the politicians accept and include this
and similar models of forest protection
as part of the climate solutions at the
Copenhagen conference, then we stand a
real chance of mitigating climate change.
W
angaris ultimate message as she
makes her way to the COP15
Copenhagen Climate Conference is that
forests must be part of the solution, and a
fnancial mechanism must be established
so that it is no longer economically
viable to cut forests down. She believes
that the governments of forest nations
must commit to monitoring to ensure
that there is no misuse of the potential
remuneration packages intended to
reimburse the economies of countries
that have agreed to keep trees in the
ground, providing ecosystems services
for all of humanity in perpetuity rather
than destroying the forests for the short-
term fnancial gain of a rich elite. But her
message is also that trees are the givers of
life, the teachers of wisdom, the gifts of
god, and our greatest allies in the race to
mitigate the effects of climate change.
As this magazine goes to print, the
Seven Billion Tree Campaign is well
under way, with 6,459,878,455 trees
pledged and 4,763,921,220 already
planted. For more information visit
www.unep.org/billiontreecampaign
Professor Wangari Maathai is Founder of The
Greenbelt Movement and 2004 Nobel Peace Prize
Laureate. www.greenbeltmovement.org
I know for sure that

trees are our best friends in
the global effort to mitigate
climate change.

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CLIMATE JUSTICE
In industrialised countries, the polluters continue to
pollute with impunity, whilst people thousands of miles
away bear the brunt of their actions. This is the cruel
face of climate injustice.
HI MAL AYA VANDANA S HI VA
I
write from Ladakh, where we are
studying the impact of climate
change and evolving participatory
adaptation and disaster-preparedness
strategies with local communities. Whilst
the melting of ice in the Arctic and
Antarctic due to global warming and
climate change is reported frequently, the
melting of the Himalayan glaciers goes
largely unreported, even though many
more people are impacted.
Presently 10% of the Earths landmass is
covered with snow and ice, with 84.16%
in the Antarctic, 13.9% in Greenland,
0.77% in the Himalayas, 0.51% in North
America, 0.37% in Africa, 0.15% in
South America and 0.06% in Europe.
Outside the polar region, the Himalaya
Range has the highest concentration of
glaciers: 9.04% is covered with glaciers,
with a 3040% additional area covered
with snow.
The glaciers of the Himalayas are the
Third Pole. They feed the giant rivers
of Asia and support half of humanity.
In Ladakh, the northernmost region of
India, all life depends on snow. Ladakh is
a high-altitude desert with only 50mm
of rainfall annually. Its water comes from
the snow melt both the snow that falls
on the land and provides the moisture
for farming and pastures, and the snow
of the glaciers that gently melts and feeds
the streams that are the lifeline of Ladakh.
For centuries snow has supported human
survival in Ladakh.
Climate change is altering this. Less
snow is falling, so there is less moisture
for growing crops. In village after
village, where snow-melt on the felds
was the only source of moisture, we are
witnessing the end of farming. Reduced
snowfall also means less snow in the
glaciers, and less streamfow. The shorter
period of snowfall prevents the snow
from turning into hard ice crystals, so
more of the glacier is liable to melt when
the summer comes.
Climate change has also led to rain
rather than snow falling, even at higher
altitudes. This also accelerates the melting
of glaciers. Heavy rainfall, which was
unknown in the high-altitude desert,
is now a frequent occurrence, causing
fash foods which wash away homes
and topsoil, trees and livestock. Climate
refugees are already being created in
Himalayan villages. One of the displaced
women said to me, When we see the
black clouds, we feel afraid.
The arrival of black clouds and the
disappearance of white snow in the cold
desert is how climate change is entering
the life of the Ladakhi communities. They
did not cause the problem, but they are its
victims. This is the direct and cruel face of
climate injustice: the polluters continue to
pollute so far, they are insulated from the
impact of their own actions whilst other
people, thousands of miles away, bear the
brunt of greenhouse-gas pollution.
I
ndia has 5,243 glaciers covering an area
of 37,579km
2
. The Gangotri glacier,
source of the river Ganga, is receding
twenty to twenty-three metres per year.
Milam glacier is receding thirty metres a
year; Dokrani is retreating ffteen to twenty
metres a year. The receding of the glaciers
has accelerated with global warming.
The rate of retreat of the Gangotri glacier
has tripled in the last three years. Some
of the most devastating effects of glacial
meltdown occur when glacial lakes
overfow and the phenomenon of glacial
lake outburst foods takes place.
Climate change thus initially leads to
widespread fooding but, over time, as
the snow disappears there will be drought
in the summer. In the river Ganga, the
loss of glacier melt could reduce July to
September fows by two-thirds, causing
water shortages for 500 million people
and for 37% of Indias irrigated land.
Glacial melt in the Himalaya is the
largest source of fresh water for northern
India and is also the source of the Ganges,
Indus, Brahmaputra, Mekong, Irrawady,
Yellow and Yangtze rivers. According
to the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC), Glaciers in
the Himayala are receding faster than in
any other part of the world and if the
present rate continues, the likelihood
of them disappearing by the year 2035
and perhaps sooner is very high if the
Earth keeps warming at the current rate.
According to the IPCC report the total
area of glaciers in the Himalaya will
shrink from 193,051 square miles to
38,000 square miles by 2035.
The lives of billions are at stake. That
is why we have started a participatory
process for Himalayan communities
to engage in the discussion on climate
change, including issues of climate justice,
adaptation and disaster preparedness. In
terms of numbers of people impacted,
climate change at the Third Pole is the
most far-reaching. And no climate change
policy or treaty will be complete without
including the Himalayan communities.
The government of India has set up a
National Climate Action Plan, which has
eight missions. One of the missions is
for sustaining the Himalayan ecosystem.
However, the voices of the Himalayan
communities are missing in the mission.
The Action Plan states: A mission for
sustaining the Himalayan ecosystem
will be launched to evolve management
measures for sustaining and safeguarding
the Himalayan glacier and mountain
ecosystem. Himalaya being the source of
key perennial rivers, the mission would,
inter alia, seek to understand whether
and the extent to which the Himalayan
glaciers are in recession and how the
problem could be addressed. This will
require the joint effort of climatologists,
glaciologists and other experts.
Local people only get introduced
into the mission to protect forests:
Community-based management of
these ecosystems will be promoted with
incentives to community organisations
for the protection and enhancement of
forested lands.
However, climate change is about more
than forests. It is about fash foods and
drought; it is about planning for a future
that is not like today. For this, local people
need to be partners in monitoring and
planning. No government machinery, no
matter how sophisticated, can know every
mountain, every glacier, every stream and
every feld. Local people are the experts
on local ecosystems and the changes in
their ecosystems due to a destabilised
climate. It is this expertise which needs
to be mobilised in order to evolve timely
strategies for adaptation.
Vandana Shivas latest book is Soil Not Oil,
published by Zed Books.
The glaciers of the Himalaya are the Third Pole. They

feed the giant rivers of Asia and support half of humanity.

U N D E R C U R R E N T S
CARB ON S E QUE S TRATI ON MUKTI MI TCHE L L
The new approach of rich-soil farming
reveals that correctly managed agriculture
could help us to turn back the carbon clock.
Green manures like this vetch are part of a farmers toolkit to sequester
vast amounts of carbon
PHOTOGRAPH: JASON INGRAM/jasoningram.co.uk
P
utting the many approaches to agriculture into
simplistic categories and making sweeping
generalisations about their merits and faults
has led to farmers of all kinds feeling that
their methods are unfairly criticised. There are farmers
employing good techniques in every category. As well
as working harder than many other professions, for
low remuneration, most farmers care about their work
and want to provide the best products and maintain
their livelihoods for the future. However, pressures
including competition, prices, perceived need for high
productivity, sector policy and marketing of agricultural
inputs have led to many farm practices that borrow
more carbon from the soil each year than they put back.
There is a newly emerging way of looking at farming
that recognises good techniques being practised on any
type of farm. It gives credit where due and creates a level
playing feld for assessing all approaches to farming:
traditional, mechanised, intensive, organic, biodynamic
or permaculture. This universal aspect of good farming
could perhaps be called rich-soil farming.
The three major considerations in the assessment of
food production are the quality and quantity of food
produced and the ability to continue production. At
a biological level, it is soil that produces food, and its
production capacity can be enhanced or reduced. Typical
rich forest soil might be made up of approximately
15% air, 15% water, 60% rock and minerals and 10%
organic matter. Organic matter is decomposed plant
matter (humus) and animal life in the form of microbes
and insects, and is at least 50% carbon. As the rock
content of soil is stable, and air and water content are
affected by organic matter, the critical controllable factor
that determines food quality, quantity and continued
productivity is increasing or decreasing its organic
matter content.
Over 70% of Britain is covered with agricultural land,
so the greater part of the soil and plant life of this island
is controlled by human management. The soils of natural
oak forests in the UK contain around 10% organic
matter but in the majority of British agricultural land
this has been reduced to an average of 3.5% and in some
intensively farmed arable land to just 1%. But the good
news is that while some farming practices decrease soil
Climate-friendly
Farming
organic matter, others increase it, and a
host of recent studies are helping to defne
the effectiveness of different practices.
In my role as designer of the
Resurgence Carbon Calculator and a
promoter of low-carbon lifestyles, I
was recently approached by Jonathan
Smith of Climate Friendly Food (CFF),
an organisation dedicated to reducing
the climate impact of food and farming.
Jonathan asked me to work on the
development of a new carbon calculator
for farmers and growers, that takes into
account the sequestration processes in
soil and plant life. He envisaged that the
farmers and growers carbon calculator
would form the basis of the worlds
frst low-carbon food certifcation
programme, enabling food producers to
calculate and label the climate impact of
their produce and allowing consumers to
choose products that help mitigate the
effects of food production on the climate.
What neither of us expected was that the
carbon calculator unveiled a previously
underestimated beneft of rich-soil
farming: that it sequesters atmospheric
carbon dioxide at an incredible rate.
M
icro-organisms and organic matter
in healthy soils store carbon, and
initial research suggests that farmland
may have the potential to sequester as
much CO
2
per hectare as a forest. But
not all farmland is healthy: much of it
over the years has been denatured by
industrialised agricultural practices.
Plants form a carbon highway from
atmosphere to soil, and this process of
turning air into soil has four stages: the
frst is photosynthesis, whereby plant
leaves use the suns energy to absorb
carbon dioxide and separate the carbon
and oxygen to form sugars; secondly,
resynthesis occurs inside the plant,
where the sugars are transformed into
more stable carbon compounds; thirdly,
exudation and the release of organic
matter happen when plants exude carbon
into the soil through their roots, and when
leaf, stem and root matter enters the soil
through the natural lifecycle process; and
fourthly, humifcation takes place when
soil microbes decompose plant carbon
into a more stable form (humus).
All farmland employs the frst three
stages, but much intensive agriculture
fails to maintain the fourth stage, the
soil microbial life. It is the microbes that
make the humus, storing carbon in the
soil and preventing it from re-oxidising
to the atmosphere. Humus also provides
nutrition to plants and, like a sponge,
holds on to the water content of the soil.
Rich-soil farming increases soil organic
matter and microbial life by maintaining
a balance between the organic matter
removed from the land as crops and
that returned to the land as compost
or manure. Nitrogen-fxing crops are
used to fertilise the land and support
soil life, and their high growth rates
rapidly sequester carbon. Natural pest
controls avoid poisoning microbes and
promote insect and animal diversity, in
turn sequestering more carbon dioxide
because the very bodies of Earths life
forms are made of carbon. Maintaining
soil cover and adopting minimal tillage
avoids the oxidisation of carbon from
the soil and keeps microbes alive with a
constant supply of food from plant roots.
The prototype growers carbon
calculator showed that even on a small
scale a farm employing rich-soil practices
can sequester so much carbon that even if
the farmer uses diesel tractors and four-
wheel drive vehicles and engages in other
fuel-intensive activities, soil sequestration
will still make it a net carbon sink.
Further calculations suggest that on a
global scale, rich-soil farming could have
a sequestration potential so powerful that
it could turn back the carbon clock. These
fgures are backed up by the latest science.
A 2007 study for the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change estimates that if
world agriculture adopted best practices
to increase soil organic matter content,
it could mitigate 6 to 10 billion tonnes
of carbon dioxide equivalent per year
by 2030, which is between 20% and
35% of current annual global emissions
(29 billion tonnes per year). As the world
has approximately 5 billion hectares
of agricultural land, this equates to a
sequestration rate of between one and
two tonnes of carbon dioxide per hectare,
which, considering the growth rates
of many plants, could be conservative.
For example, recent research has found
that forests can absorb over 8 tonnes of
carbon dioxide per hectare every year
for hundreds of years, and if very best
practices were adopted, rich-soil farming
could potentially match this. To quantify
the sequestration potential of best farm
practices, CFF is building a database of
soil samples and changes in organic
matter content from year to year.
T
o mitigate 100% of current global
emissions, the worlds agricultural
land would need to sequester an average
of 6 tonnes of CO
2
per hectare per year,
and research so far shows that some
systems can achieve this. Anything
above that level would begin to turn
back the carbon clock, bringing down
atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to
that of consecutive previous years.
CFF believes that rich-soil farming can
produce quality food for a growing world
population whilst enhancing biodiversity,
food security and healthy ecosystems,
and at the same time mitigate signifcant
amounts of global carbon dioxide.
At the time of writing (August 2009),
the prototype growers carbon calculator
is being feld-tested and further research
is being conducted. The calculator will
undoubtedly need to be further calibrated
and fne-tuned. But what is not in doubt is
that rich-soil farming indeed, gardening
too has an enormous and growing part
to play in addressing climate change.
Climate Friendly Food launches
the carbon calculator for organic
growers in October 2009 (non-
organic version launching 2010),
together with the worlds frst low-
carbon food certifcation programme.
For more information visit
www.climatefriendlyfood.org.uk
With thanks to Jonathan Smith for his
important contribution to this article.
Mukti Mitchell is a carpenter, sailor and
author and a pioneer of low-carbon lifestyles.
www.lowcarbonlifestyle.org
Healthy farmland may have the potential to sequester as

much carbon dioxide per hectare as a forest.

THE CL I MATE P ROS P E RI TY MOVE ME NT HAZE L HE NDE RS ON
POSITIVE TIPPING POINT
The Copenhagen climate conference could host the positive tipping point:
a critical mass of global citizens and their rising eco-awareness.
T
he Climate Prosperity
Movement is worldwide and
goes by many names: the
Green New Deal, the Green
Economy Initiative, Transition Towns,
One Planet, Green Jobs, Green for All, Be
The Change, the Post-carbon Society, the
Phoenix Economy, Breaking the Climate
Deadlock sustainable societies, as well
as the hundreds of thousands of groups in
over a hundred countries, calling for new
forms of sustainable livelihoods.
All this new activism is the healthy,
positive response to the dying fossilised
paradigm of economism and its deadly
addiction to economic growth measured
in money, no matter what the social
and environmental costs. The disparate
social protest movements of the past
thirty years began coming together via
the internet and at World Social Forums.
Today, they are coalescing over the ever-
accumulating threats to life on Earth. The
United Nations joined with civil society
in calling the fnancial and climate crises
an opportunity to transition to fairer,
cleaner, more sustainable forms of human
development.
Ever since the UNs climate agreements
in 1997 in Kyoto, the evidence from
the scientifc community of this threat
to our collective survival has grown
stronger and more ominous. The biggest
per capita polluter, the US, played an
obstructive role, imposing its own
version of the economism paradigm:
market fundamentalism. While refusing
to sign the Kyoto protocols, the US
forced its market-based approaches onto
successive UN climate conferences.
The idea of capping carbon emissions
was sensible enough, using government
targets and regulating continuous
reductions. But instead of backing the
enforcement of carbon caps and shifting
tax burdens from incomes and payrolls
onto carbon and other pollution and
waste, the US market fundamentalists
demanded that allowances to continue
emitting carbon be given to polluters.
These rights they demanded could also
The 2008 Transition Towns Conference in Cirencester PHOTOGRAPH: MIKE GRENVILLE
be traded on commodity exchanges,
along with other derivatives like the
credit default swaps that caused such
havoc in fnancial markets. Widespread
objections forced governments to agree
to auction pollution allowances, but
fossil-fuel lobbies kept their give-aways.
Thus bankers, stockmarket traders
and commodity brokers saw carbon as
a new trillion-dollar asset class and
a proft opportunity. The results have
been disastrous. Powerful industrial
groups lobbied governments for more
free allowances and offsets (paying for
dubious green projects overseas in
exchange for continuing to pollute). They
sold their permits, often reaping windfall
profts. The cap and trade emissions
schemes in Europe created proliferating
bureaucracies with caps on emissions
easily lifted by lobbyists. Worse, all these
regulation-driven carbon markets failed
to reduce carbon emissions, which are
still steadily rising. The Copenhagen
conference in December 2009 is seen by
all the parties as a tipping point.
T
he failures of cap and trade proved
a costly diversion. The debate was
forced into the narrow calculus of
costs in money terms and its focus on
GDP growth losses. Critiques of GDP-
measured growth are fnally gaining
traction, with alternatives from the New
Economics Foundation and the Calvert
Group making headway at the European
Parliaments Beyond GDP Conference in
2007. Yet the costs of controlling carbon
emissions in the obsolete fossil-fuelled
sectors still trump the uncounted savings,
benefts and avoided costs of investing in a
global transition to the green post-carbon
economy, based on energy effciency
and wind, solar, ocean and geothermal
sources.
However, the greener, sustainable
sectors are growing worldwide, and the
grassroots movements for sustainability,
from Transition Towns to the new
wellbeing and quality-of-life indicators
to replace GNP, are burgeoning too. The
Obama administration in the US and the
General Assembly of the United Nations
have acknowledged this shift to the
sustainable sectors. The rigid G-7 and
G-20 summits have given ground to the
G-192 as all the member countries of
the UN came together in New York in
June 2009 and declared their support for
the new just, green, sustainable global
economy. All saw the meltdown of the
global fnancial casino as a chance to
fnally put economism in its place and
downsize fnance to its limited role
facilitating real production.
The television spectacle of the US
and other central banks printing money
helped raise awareness that money is not
real wealth but just a clever invention
to track and keep score of transactions
and use of natural resources. This new
understanding that money is simply
one form of information helped people
realise that there is enough money to
invest in our common future. The real
constraint is not money, but time to
act: a ten-year window to install a post-
carbon, localised economy to replace the
collapsed global casino. Last to get the
message of the new Climate Prosperity
Movement are, of course, the coal, oil, gas
and nuclear energy companies who are
still fghting desperate rearguard actions.
Joining the Climate Prosperity
Movement are the ranks of socially
responsible investors, pension funds,
charitable endowments and green
bankers as well as unions and NGOs. The
many alternative, decentralised trading
exchanges, such as craigslist, Freecycle,
Prosper and Zopa, that facilitate sharing,
recycling, charitable donating and peer-
to-peer lending, as well as local currencies,
are fourishing. This information-based
trading has illustrated that we are not
dependent on Wall Street, the City or
other fnancial centres.
T
he last piece of the puzzle to achieve
climate prosperity within the ten-year
window are Climate Prosperity Bonds.
Socially responsible investors are now
joining forces with the Green Economy
Initiative, government agencies and twenty
UN departments in a new global effort to
fund Climate Prosperity Bonds, aiming
to invest US$10 trillion over the next ten
years and to double installed renewable
energy and effciency savings each year.
This is less than the US$14 trillion spent in
the US on Wall Street and other bail-outs,
and is less than 10% of the US$120 trillion
of assets in pension funds for benefciaries
future security.
Today, climate change is a threat to all
of humanitys future security. What better
plan is there than to invest these pension
assets now in securing the future in a
safe, sustainable, green economy? Climate
Prosperity Bonds with government
guarantees and laddered maturities are
geared to the fast-track payouts from
energy effciency and the expanded
effciencies-of-scale in wind, geothermal
and solar. Such bonds will undoubtedly be
attractive to pension-fund asset managers.
The Climate Groups Breaking
the Climate Deadlock plan calls for
US$1 trillion to achieve a 70% reduction
in emissions by 2020 largely through
energy effciency. During this ten-year
rollout of the new low-carbon economy,
coal and oil, as well as nuclear, will become
even more costly and less competitive.
The faulty logic of economism which
sees the problem as a shortage of money
is exposed by the Climate Prosperity
Movement, which understands that the
real constraint is time, not money. After
wasting decades, we must act now.
The Climate Prosperity Movement,
together with many groups leading
in widening awareness, planetary
citizenship and perennial wisdom
from Indigenous peoples and all faith
traditions, is succeeding in changing
the paradigm. We are transitioning from
the dismal economism of money-based
scarcity and fear to a vision of abundance
through sharing, caring, volunteerism
and community revitalisation, all built on
using the energy freely available from the
sun, wind and oceans. Copenhagen could
indeed host the positive tipping point: a
worldwide critical mass of global citizens
and their rising eco-aware culture in the
emerging, information-rich Solar Age.
Hazel Henderson authored The Politics of the
Solar Age and Ethical Markets as well as the
Calvert-Henderson Quality of Life Indicators. See
www.calvert-henderson.com
The United Nations joined with civil society in calling

the fnancial and climate crises an opportunity to transition
to fairer, cleaner, more sustainable forms of human
development.

An hourglass treefrog PHOTOGRAPH: CHRIS PERRETT/naturesart.co.uk
B L UE P RI NT F OR A S AF E R P L ANE T KATE RAWL E S
CHANGING DIRECTION
Lord Sterns proposition that the climate crisis can be resolved
within existing economic paradigms is fundamentally fawed. Climate
change is a symptom of economic and political systems committed to
exponential growth on a planet with biophysical limits.
Greenhouse gas emissions

constitute the greatest market
failure the world has seen. The
2006 Stern Review, in which these
words were written, altered the landscape
of mainstream climate-change policy and
economics. Sir Nicholas, now Lord Stern,
with absolute clarity and unassailable
logic, laid bare the utter inadequacy of the
view that our responses to climate change
are best fashioned by the free market.
In addition, he effectively turned on its
head the last argument against taking
robust action on climate change that
had any shred of credibility by showing
that action now, though costly, would be
vastly cheaper than the cost of mopping
up the consequences of climate change in
a business-as-usual scenario.
Since 2006, scientifc predictions
have continued to worsen and Sterns
latest words on the consequences of
failing to intervene are chilling indeed.
As he points out, most of the worst
effects of the climatic changes caused
by the accumulation of greenhouse-gas
emissions in the atmosphere are to do
with water, not with heat: storms, foods,
droughts, sea-level rise. Stern paints an
almost apocalyptic vision of a future in
which millions are displaced, agricultural
systems collapse, drinking water is more
precious than oil, and the human cost of
confict is immense.
If we dont act, that is. Stern, a former
chief economist at the World Bank, and
not a fgure prone to environmental
hyperbole, leaves us in no doubt that we
need to make extremely substantial cuts in
emissions, and fast. He has done as much
as anyone to get the need for action on
climate change taken seriously by the UK
government, and indeed by governments
across the world. Stern has other strengths
too: he understands that tackling climate
change must be a commitment across
government departments and not
confned to the environment.
And, as the lead writer of the Report of
the Commission for Africa, and with a career
that has included substantial time in
the developing world, Stern has a deep
understanding of the interconnections
between climate change and poverty and
a commitment to tackling both that is
strongly ethical as well as tactical. Above
all, alongside the much needed wake-up
call, he offers recommendations that are
robust halving world greenhouse-gas
emissions by 2050 and yet couched
in terms just about acceptable to world
leaders, economists and politicians alike.
Stern, in sum, is both optimistic and user-
friendly. His blueprint for action is radical
and yet not: the response to market
failures is to fx them, not abandon the
market; politicians can tackle climate
change and still be elected; and, yes, we
can still have growth.
A
t the heart of Sterns recommendations
is the concept of decoupling. Using
the somewhat strained train metaphor,
at the moment the growth economy
engine pulls carriage after carriage of
carbon emissions behind it, constantly
adding these emissions to the stocks of
greenhouse gases swelling year on year
in the atmosphere. Sterns proposal is to
decouple the engine of growth from its
carbon emissions, using a range of fscal
and regulatory means to achieve much
greater resource effciency, fully harness
the potential of existing technologies,
ensure investment in new technologies
and halt deforestation. Problem solved.
With suffciently robust, globally co-
ordinated action, we can make the
necessary cuts in emissions and achieve
a more secure, stable world, growing
strongly with a safer natural environment
and with less poverty, as Stern puts it.
With the exception of halting
deforestation, this is a variation on the
technofx approach to environmental
problems that has a long and contentious
history. Technofxes of various kinds
have an important role to play. There
are massive ineffciencies in our energy
consumption think people moving
themselves around in Hummers that
do three miles to the gallon on a good
day; buildings lit up like Christmas trees
with incandescent light bulbs; domestic
systems burning through tonnes of gas
and oil while poorly insulated houses
leak their heat into the night sky. There is
immense potential in existing and new
technologies to reduce carbon and other
greenhouse-gas emissions.
But in the context of a growing human
population and growing per capita
consumption we will be running fat out
just to stay still. Overall, global emissions
are steadily rising despite the recession;
the sheer scale of changes needed to
reduce world emissions by about 50%
(8090% in the industrialised world)
within the necessary timescale is not
achievable through technofxes alone.
Do throw-away-consumerism, crass materialism

and the individualism that goes with them really
represent the pinnacle of human achievement?
Or a deeply impoverished vision of the good life, of
human aspiration and human potential?

In fact, while relative decoupling is well
under way i.e. fewer emissions per unit
of GDP: China, for example, uses about
eight times less energy consumption
per unit of income than it did in 1980
what we need, as recent reports by both
Forum for the Future and the Sustainable
Development Commission have made
crystal clear, is absolute decoupling: a
drastic reduction of overall emissions
across the world. For nine billion people
to enjoy a European standard of living
while staying within our carbon targets,
the amount of carbon released into the
atmosphere for each dollar spent would
have to reduce from 770g to 6g. Thats
130 times lower. At the moment, there is
no reduction in overall emissions at all.
To be fair, it is absolute decoupling that
Stern has in his sights. But even if we could
achieve this in the way he suggests and,
as the fgures show, it is an immense if
announcing a happy ending and bringing
up the credits would still be premature.
The plot has other twists and a number
of villains: excess carbon emissions are
not the only problematic side-effect of
industrialised lifestyles. Largely neglected,
as climate change takes up the media and
political spotlight, is an environmental
disaster of truly epic proportions: the
catastrophic loss of other species. This
drastic reduction in biodiversity, and the
resulting collapse in ecosystem services
critical things such as pollination, the
cleaning of water, the provision of clean
air, soil fertility and the renewal of fsh
populations puts, according to a suite
of reports, our own medium-term
survival as a species into serious question
and already renders the Millennium
Development Goals including poverty
reduction increasingly out of reach.
Both the speed and the scale of this
devastating loss, tragic in its own right
as well in its implications for us, will be
greatly exacerbated by climate change. But
it is already well under way. And it wont
be halted by an end-of-pipe reduction in
carbon emissions alone.
The bottom line is that industrialised
societies are fantastically destructive of
the other-than-human world in a range
of interrelated ways, of which climate
change is only one. Decoupling our
economy from carbon would have some
positive implications for these other
issues, as Stern points out, but would still
leave a host of interconnected problems.
Putting biodiesel in the Hummer might
be a start but it is fatally fawed as an
overall solution.
S
o, where does the Stern analysis fall
short? Stern believes that we can
tackle climate change within existing
socio-economic paradigms and without
really changing the dominant values and
worldview of industrialised societies. He
is hardly alone in this view the vast
majority of our politicians appear to
share it. Of course, given the immense
diffculties involved in offering any kind
of serious challenge to dominant thinking
from within mainstream politics, this
is almost bound to be the case. Even as
the dawning reality of quite how bad the
consequences of climate change could be
begins to strike home, there is an equal
desperation to cling to the status quo: to
believe that our modern industrialised
lifestyles can be kept entirely intact.
Approaches to climate change
fashioned from within this mindset are
bound to fail. Climate change, for all its
seriousness, is a symptom, and neither the
only nor even the most serious one at that.
It is a symptom of economic and political
systems committed to exponential
growth on a planet with biophysical
limits; of a suite of inappropriate values
that support these systems and of the
profoundly fawed worldviews in which
these economic systems; and values are
embedded. If we are going to deal with
climate change, we need to grapple with
these root causes.
First, growth: this is a position that
needs nuance. Not all growth is bad, and
Stern does not think that growth can
continue forever. But he believes that,
for the foreseeable future, economic
growth, pursued roughly as it is now,
both can and must continue. In the
developing world, this kind of growth
may be necessary to lift people out of
poverty and improve their lives. But Stern
does not even consider other alternatives
such as redistribution nor does he
really tackle the core contradiction that
inevitably arises when the kind of growth
that depends on resource consumption
and creates pollution is pursued on a
planet whose resources, while abundant,
nevertheless have limits and whose
capacity to absorb pollution is not infnite
either.
Second, values: at no point does
Stern question whether that aspect of
improvement that involves adopting
mainstream industrialised societies
values around consumerism the
association of individual success, status
and self-esteem with ever-increasing
quantities of certain kinds of goods
is necessarily a good idea. Not only do
these values make Sterns decoupling
ambitions an exercise in tail-chasing
but, in relation to human happiness,
they have proved illusory. Of course
peoples basic needs should be met and of
course we all want a life that is fulflling
as well as comfortable and safe. But
mounting evidence makes it abundantly
clear that, after a certain point,
increased income and consumption
do not lead to increased happiness and
fulflment. Moreover, what they do lead
to are increases in social divisions and
inequality, mental and physical health
problems, crime and environmental
degradation. Even if this werent the
case, do throw-away-consumerism, crass
materialism and the individualism that
goes with them really represent the
pinnacle of human achievement? Or a
deeply impoverished vision of the good
life, of human aspiration and human
potential?
Third, worldviews: Sterns view is
thoroughly entrenched in the worldview
that has its roots in Enlightenment and
modern Western thinking. This worldview
presents the entire Earth to us as a set
of resources for the sole beneft of one
species our own. Until very recently
these resources were presumed to be
infnite and, even now, with grudging
acknowledgment that there might be
some limits after all, it still positions us
as somehow outside the environment:
as detached managers of these resources.
A profound optimism and faith in
the ability of science and technology
typically accompany this worldview,
and it is utterly anthropocentric. The
entire suite of other life forms we share
the planet with, from earthworms to
starfsh, whales to goldfnches, oaks, ants
Putting biodiesel in the Hummer might be a start but it is

fatally fawed as an overall solution.

A keel-billed toucans beak PHOTOGRAPH: CHRIS PERRETT/naturesart.co.uk
and fying foxes: the immense diversity,
complexity and sheer will to live that is
the environment is reduced to its role
in providing ecological services for us,
as if this were its only importance. The
world, in Sterns language, is the human,
and primarily economic, world. And it is
this world that can and should continue
to grow.
Not that halting economic growth is
an easy option. We are on the horns of a
dilemma as the honest and hard-hitting
report Prosperity without Growth? published
by the Sustainable Development
Commission outlines. Growth may
be deeply unsustainable but human
wellbeing is genuinely threatened when
economies collapse. This, though, is
precisely the dilemma we need to grapple
with. If we are to get out of the current
economic mess, the climate mess and
all the other messes we are in, we need
to realise their shared roots in a deeply
fawed economic system, studded with
inadequate values that in turn have their
roots in a profoundly fawed worldview.
T
his is not about telling the Chinese
they cant have mobile phones.
Its about remodelling what we mean
by development and success, and
profoundly rethinking the values that
underpin those most infuential of
concepts, across the industrialised and
non-industrialised worlds alike. Its
about rethinking our view of ourselves,
rejecting the dangerous delusion that
we are detached managers of a set of
resources for the vastly saner vision of
ourselves as members of a fantastically
complex, interdependent ecological
community. And its about acknowledging
and respecting the intrinsic value of our
fellow members, the billions of life forms
with whom we co-exist. Decoupling
alone does not provide the way ahead.
We urgently need to reduce greenhouse-
gas emissions, of course. But having done
this, well still be accelerating towards a
cliff. To avoid crashing over the edge we
need a profound change of direction.
We need to lay the foundations of a very
different economic system, with very
different values, in the context of a wiser,
saner worldview. The next question, of
course, is how.
Kate Rawles is currently working on The Carbon
Cycle, an account of her 4,553-mile bike ride
from Texas to Alaska, exploring North American
responses to climate change.
H
uman evolution has always depended on the ability
of communities and groups to learn. In prehistoric
times, humans survived by learning how to work
together to fnd food: the agricultural revolution was
possible because hunter-gatherers shared information about how to
cultivate seeds and care for animals; the Industrial Revolution was
built on a partnership between scientists and entrepreneurs. These
and many other advances depended on collaborative learning.
To continue our evolutionary journey, Homo sapiens needs to learn
how to live sustainably on the Earth. This requires a fundamental
reform of the education system because todays schools, colleges
and universities mostly serve the needs of industrial society,
fostering consumerism, competition and individualism. They
prepare students to become cogs in a vast economic machine
one that is devastating our planet. The current approach to
learning emphasises theories over ethics, individualism over
relationship, and quick-fx answers over thoughtful inquiry.
Based on a worldview that asserts the superiority of the human
species above all others, mainstream education perpetuates the
very patterns of thinking and behaving that cause the socio-
ecological crisis.
Just as it takes a village to raise a child, it will take human
society as a whole to learn how to live lightly on the Earth. No
one person or group of people has all the answers. We need the
knowledge of Indigenous peoples, the expertise of people who
work on the land, the curiosity of children, and the wisdom of
the elders. We need artists, scientists, poets, engineers, spiritual
leaders and flm-makers. In short, we need everyones creativity
and ingenuity. Only by listening to each other and sharing what
we know will humankind be capable of evolving into a truly
sustainable society.
Active listening and authentic sharing are essential in this
process because they make collaborative learning possible. Like
a synergistic chemical reaction in which substances interact
to create new ones, collaborative learning is a powerful way
of creating new knowledge. When individuals share their
thoughts and experiences about a mutual problem, new
and better solutions emerge. The collective creativity often
generated in groups leads to fresh perspectives and innovative
thinking. Recognising that the whole is greater than the sum
of the parts, collaborative learning views learning as a social
process as well as an individual one.
If learning is a social phenomenon, education cannot be
limited to schools, colleges and universities. It becomes a
lifelong process that can occur anywhere, any time, with anyone,
no matter how young or old. Learning is not a segregated set of
activities, conducted at specifc times of the day, in specifc places,
and at a specifc stage of life. Instead, it is integrated into the
fabric of everyday living. Singer and actress Eartha Kitt once said,
I am learning all the time. The tombstone will be my diploma.
And understanding education as a lifelong, collaborative process
is at the heart of a learning society.
T
his idea was frst proposed by American educational
philosopher Robert Hutchins. In The Learning Society, published
in 1968, he advocated a society whose primary goals were
continuous learning, active citizenship and social wellbeing.
According to Hutchins, The object of the educational system,
taken as a whole, is not to produce hands for industry or to teach
the young how to make a living. It is to produce responsible
citizens. His idea of a learning society was based on the belief
that education should improve society by helping learners
understand, participate in and change the world around them.
Sadly, Hutchins original idea has been turned on its head.
Since the mid-1970s, governments and businesses have used
the phrase a learning society to mean the opposite of what
Hutchins intended. Arguing that its purpose is to continuously
update workers skills, they are using this idea to enhance
national competitiveness and economic growth. For instance,
in 1998 the UK government published a Green Paper called
The Learning Age which stated that a learning society could help
ensure a well-trained and adaptable labour force. The thought
that a learning society should produce engaged citizens with
the capacity to lead social change has all but disappeared from
public discourse.
So how can we revive Hutchins original idea and, more importantly,
develop a learning society to assist humankinds evolution towards
sustainability? A good start would be to explore how a learning
society can support ecological literacy, place-based education and a
cosmological approach to learning.
E DUCATI ON KATE DAVI E S
A LEARNING SOCIETY
The next step in human evolution depends on our ability to
learn to live sustainably on the Earth.
Based on a worldview that asserts

the superiority of our species above all
others, mainstream education perpetuates
the very patterns of thinking and behaving
that cause the ecological crisis.

Create Learning Communities
Collaborative learning happens best in communities, so it makes sense
to create learning communities for sustainability throughout society.
There are now many types of learning community in existence,
including professional, online, spiritual and neighbourhood ones.
A learning community is any group of people who share a common
purpose and who are actively engaged in learning from each other.
There are already many learning communities studying sustainability. The
Northwest Earth Institute, which organises community-based courses in
the US, is a good example. Conversation Cafs and World Cafs are
other forms of online learning communities.
Learning from Experience
Experience is the surest guide to living sustainably. Books and experts can
be helpful but ultimately our own lived experience is the best teacher.
Through experimentation and critical thinking we can learn what works
and what doesnt. John Dewey, the father of experiential education, said
that learning from experience equips students to become better citizens.
Foster a New Worldview
We need a new worldview one that is based on respect for the Earth.
With its presumption of human superiority, Western culture assumes that
humankind has the inherent right to exploit other species and the planets
resources. Developing values and beliefs consistent with sustainability
will require an understanding of the destructive consequences of the old
worldview, as well as creating a respectful relationship with the Earth.
Think Systemically
We need to learn to think systemically. Based on the belief that the parts
of a system can best be understood in the context of their relationships
with each other, systemic thinking emphasises patterns, trends and
feedback loops. Systemic thinking focuses on the interactions between
human and ecological systems. Without systemic thinking, society
will continue to apply ineffective and superfcial solutions that do little
to resolve underlying problems.
Embrace Diversity
We need to embrace not only different cultures and ethnicities, but also
different ideas and beliefs. This is important because it demonstrates a
commitment to a democracy based on inclusion, equality and respect.
It is also important because differences are a source of learning. We
can learn from people who do not look or think like us, because
they challenge our assumptions, beliefs and expectations. If we only
interact with people like ourselves we are unlikely to learn anything
new. Just as variety is the spice of life, it is also an essential ingredient
for learning.
Whole-person Learning
We should foster the development of whole human beings, who can
think critically and appreciatively, respond compassionately and act
ethically. Whole-person learning enables students to grow as authentic
human beings. This is very different from contemporary education
which focuses mostly on intellectual learning, and largely ignores
ethical values, stunts emotional intelligence and leaves students with
few practical skills for navigating the complex world around them.
T
he task of humankinds evolution towards
sustainability is urgent. Let us hope that the
urgency of the situation catalyses the creation of a
learning society.
Kate Davies is director of the Centre for Creative Change at Antioch
University Seattle. www.antiochsea.edu/academics/creativechange
PHOTOGRAPH: DAVID TIPLING/PHOTOSHOT
Six Ideas for a Learning Society
PHOTOGRAPH: THE IRISH IMAGE COLLECTION/AXIOM
I NTE RVI E W wi t h F I ONA RE YNOL DS
Rachel Fleming interviews Fiona Reynolds, Director
General of the National Trust, which, with its 3.7
million members, is in a good position to take a lead in
the sustainability agenda.
T
he National Trust was founded in
1895 by three philanthropists,
one of whom was Octavia
Hill. Concerned by the impact
of uncontrolled development and
industrialisation on the nations health and
psyche, they set about forming a trust that
would protect countryside, coastline and
beautiful buildings for every person, rich
or poor. Now, more than a century later,
the inventory of land and history available
to us as a result of their vision totals an
impressive 612,000 acres of countryside,
more than 700 miles of coastline and
upwards of 200 buildings and gardens
of outstanding interest and importance.
These assets are held in perpetuity, so
their future is as secure as possible, and
the stories they tell, which link the past
to the present and the future, give us a
tremendous reminder of our history and
place. It is these stories, along with a
sense of continuation and evolution, that
inspire the current Director General of
the National Trust, Dame Fiona Reynolds.
I feel as though I am picking up the
baton that was passed on by Octavia
Hill, says Fiona. The values she held are
remarkably similar to those we are talking
about today. She wanted open-air living
rooms for the poor at a time when green
felds were being gobbled up and beauty
wasnt on the agenda at all. She wanted
green spaces for children to feel the grass
under their feet. This was a time when
the government was more excited about
empire, wealth generation and progress,
but the founders of the National Trust didnt
buy this. They knew that there were other
values that were important to preserve.
These values are still alive today, if the
membership of the National Trust is anything
to go by: current membership fgures stand at
more than 3.7 million, with visitor numbers
up around 20% on last years despite the
economic downturn.
At one level the recession has been a
crisis, says Fiona, but at another it has
been an opportunity. It has allowed people
to re-evaluate their priorities and look at
what really makes them happy. For decades
the general assumption has been that
happiness is about having more stuff, but
the work we are doing here at the National
Trust is in direct response to an insatiable
public demand for the simple pleasures of
life a walk on the beach, a beautiful view
things that are priceless but not valued
by a busy world.
In the spring more people came to see
the snowdrops and the daffodils than usual,
The need of quiet, the need of air, the need of exercise
and the sight of sky and of things growing seem
human needs, common to all. Octavia Hill
The
of
TRUST
Fiona Reynolds PHOTOGRAPH: COURTESY THE NATIONAL TRUST
POWER
and they came to walk in the bluebell woods.
You dont need lots of money to enjoy these
things, and people are fnding that they are
more rewarding than shopping. The public
want to have access to these pleasures, just
as our founders predicted. They want to
connect with Nature again and I think theres
defnitely a move towards rediscovering
whats special about our own environ-
ment,which has tremendous diversity and
beauty and depths of possibility.
There are undoubtedly bigger and more
unpredictable changes afoot than the
economic recession such as climate change
and, for the National Trust, looking after
so much of the nations land and history, this
is surely a huge responsibility. The climate
change debate is an interesting one for us,
Fiona agrees. I think of us as the nations
canary in the coal-mine because owning
so much land and coastline puts us in a
good position to spot trends before others
do. And, yes, there are certainly big changes
happening such as coastal inundations,
storm surges and extreme events which
mean that some of the landscapes we have
thought of as enduring will not be. But as
well as raising the alarm and accepting that
we cant turn these things back, we also feel
it is our job to show what can be done to
minimise the risks and point us towards a
sustainable future.
The Trust currently owns the best part
of forty villages, all of which will be retro-
ftted for energy effciency in a drive to
cut fossil-fuel dependence. There is also a
huge push towards local food production
and the revival of kitchen gardens,
orchards and schemes for community
involvement on the land.
T
he organisation is certainly in a good
position to take a lead in the sustainability
agenda, not least because many of the
estates it manages were originally built to
run as sustainable enterprises. The needs of
the estates would have been self-generated:
energy in the form of wood and charcoal,
food from their farms and kitchen gardens,
grain for the mills and sheeps wool for
cloth. At locations all over the country, these
principles are slowly being brought back as
an inspiration for how we can live today.
A good example of this is Castle Drogo on
Dartmoor, which has an old water-powered electricity generator,
the original power supply, says Fiona. Reviving that as a 21st-
century phenomenon is
exciting. Then theres Gibson
Mill in Yorkshire, which was
built to be self-suffcient for
power in 1701, but it fell
out of use a hundred years
ago. We have now fxed it to
run entirely off-grid from
a mix of water-generation,
solar power and wood-
burning fuel. These are just two examples of how we are
looking at good practice in a historical context and helping
people to see what they could do in their own homes. If you
think that changing to a low-energy light bulb is diffcult,
you should try it for some of our chandeliers!
I also think food is completely inspiring, she continues.
With the work we are doing on food, we seem to be tapping
into something with enormous resonance, almost like a cri de
cur from the population. We have lost touch with something
that is so fundamental to our lives the feeling of authenticity
and good health that comes from eating home-grown food
in season. Weve really been encouraging grow-your-own
across our properties this summer, with free seeds, gardening
demonstrations and experts on hand so that visits to National
Trust properties can be times where you can really take part
and learn something. Weve also had Wild Child, where
we encourage children to get their hands dirty and connect
with Nature in a practical way like days out building dens
when we were children. At the end of the day, the National
Trust is not an antidote any more. Its not a place where you
come to forget. It is more about being part of something an
inspiration on how to live.
I
ts an important time for the National Trust, which fnds
itself at the heart of what we as a nation will leave as
a legacy for future generations. Will there still be green
spaces for children to feel grass under their feet as Octavia
Hill intended, and will the buildings tell a story of how we
turned back to a sustainability that was inherent in their
construction? What will be the new shape of the land once
we have adapted to the worst of a changing climate, and
will our local communities be stronger for it?
Its a big job for Fiona at the helm, carrying the baton of
Octavia Hill through different but very similar times. So
many people still see us as telling stories about the past, she
concludes, but today we are as much about telling stories of
the future. We are all going through a period of readjustment
and reprioritisation but I do think that people want to feel
optimistic about the future, they want their children to grow
up in a positive world and they want to do their bit. Whilst we
live in a constant cacophony of sound, its important to listen
to our own inner voices about the fundamentals of what really
matters. Our membership numbers show that its the simple
pleasures that really matter to a lot of people.
www.nationaltrust.org.uk
Rachel Fleming is Editor of The Source magazine.
TRUST IN NUMBERS
612,000: Number of acres held in trust by the National Trust
700: Number of miles of coastline managed by the Trust
Fiona Reynolds PHOTOGRAPH: COURTESY THE NATIONAL TRUST
In the spring more

people came to see the
snowdrops and the daffodils
than usual, and they came
to walk in the bluebell
woods.

T H E A R T S
ART S ATI S H KUMAR
ART FOR
EARTHS SAKE
We need a paradigm shift: from
ego-art to eco-art.
T
he dominant thinking in Western society is
that of separation: the separation of mind from
matter, science from spirituality, art from daily
life. From the Renaissance onwards, artists
worked as individuals, in their studios, in isolation
from other artisans, separating themselves from their
fellow craftspeople. They practised art as a way of self-
expression. Their art produced mostly items of luxury
and status. Thus art became disconnected from the
natural world, from living communities and from life
itself. There art stayed, for centuries, something apart
to be practised only by those with special talent, to
be purchased only by those with great wealth, and seen
mostly within the four walls of churches, museums and
art galleries. For the past 500 years, art has become an
item of consumption, a commodity to be bought and
sold: no longer a way of life practised by everyone as an
everyday activity.
In traditional societies, there was no separate word
for the arts, as art was integral to everyday living:
clothes, shoes, household objects, religious artefacts,
musical instruments were all beautifully made and
equally valued. But under the infuence of Modernity,
the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, the
emphasis shifted. Accordingly, the arts were divorced
from the crafts, and craftspeople became poor relations
to artists. Craftwork became denigrated in comparison
with industrial products, while the arts were upgraded
and transformed into an elitist pursuit.
Frozen River, 12 February 1999 by Andy Goldsworthy
C
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In Mind of Monk, 2008 sculpture by Peter Randall-Page
Such exclusive practice of art is
now being challenged by people with
ecological and social sensibility. Joseph
Beuys, one of the founders of the Green
party in Germany, said, Everybody is an
artist, and began the process of reclaiming
art from galleries and museums. Beuys
began to reconnect art with ecology,
politics and everyday life. The Sri lankan
art historian A. K. Coomaraswamy spoke
in a similar vein and said, An artist is not
a special kind of person but every person
is a special kind of artist.
Once, when visiting an Aboriginal
community in Australia, I asked, What is
your work in this place? They answered
without hesitation, We are all artists.
These were voices of wisdom and sanity.
When we wish to bring joy in life, said
an artist in that community, we paint,
sing and dance, we bring art into our
communities, into the way we till the
land and the way we make our clothes.
For what is life, if it is not integrated with
art? Not only does art reinvigorate our
communities but it also helps to heal the
wounds inficted by an uncaring society
on the very nature of our soul.
W
hen artists let go of their egos and
their wish for celebrity status and
personal glory, then art becomes truly
boundless. UK photographer Susan Derges,
frustrated by the sense of separateness that
a camera places between herself and her
subject matter, began to take photographs
without using a camera. The night became
her darkroom; she immersed herself in
her subject. The distinction between the
observer and the observed dissolved, and
she felt attuned to the moon, the stars, the
river and the trees. She experienced the
fascinating patterns of Nature, and realised
the profound interdependence of all life.
This was a paradigm shift: from ego-art
to eco-art.
The same Nature/human relationship
inspires the art of Andy Goldsworthy. he
chooses to work with water and wood,
snow and stones, sun and rain, woodlands
and deserts to express our intimate
connection with the natural cycles of
death and rebirth.
It is this awe and wonder, this reverence
and love for Nature, which inspires
many contemporary artists such as peter
Randall-page to work hand in hand with
activists and communities to articulate
the meaning of art in the realities of life
and reconnect the arts with the wellbeing
of people and the planet.
O
nly through reconnecting with
Nature, culture, spirituality, beauty,
art and craft can we stride towards
freedom from the tyranny of money,
materialism and mass production, which
have separated us from our communities
and alienated us from the Earth.
While art is a liberating force, it is
also a force for transformation and self-
realisation. As a sculptor shapes a piece
of stone, the stone shapes the sculptor.
As a potter transforms an ordinary lump
of clay into a work of beauty, that clay
transforms the potter into an artist and
craftsperson of his or her community.
This transformative power of the arts
Only artists sow the

seeds of hope and empower
the disempowered.

T H E A R T S
gives us a sense of belonging and unlocks
the doors of optimism and hope.
But, unfortunately, at the moment
pessimism and despair are in fashion.
Scientists, environmentalists and
climatologists are claiming that collapse
is around the corner and civilisation is
coming to an end. Book after book tells
us that we have passed the tipping point
and have reached the point of no return:
the skies are saturated with CO
2
and
the atmosphere is flled with pollution.
The scenario of doom and gloom is
expounded by experts and activists alike.
Only artists sow the seeds of hope and
empower the disempowered.
Of course no-one should doubt the
severity of the climate crisis. We must
respect those who are predicting a
catastrophic future for humanity. Our
present way of life, so dependent on the
use of fossil fuel, is hanging on a cliff
edge. If we go any further we will fall
into the abyss. Yet artists go beyond fear,
beyond doom and gloom. Their work is
rooted in the love of life. So the only thing
we can do now is to take a step back and
use this climate crisis as an opportunity
to understand that problems such as
global warming are a consequence of
our dependence on mechanised forms
of production and our limitless desire for
consumption.
T
o meet the challenge of this
environmental, social and spiritual
crisis, we need to make the change
from being consumers to being artists.
As William Morris discovered long ago,
arts and crafts ignite our imagination,
stimulate our creativity and bring us
a sense of fulflment. poetry, painting,
pottery, music, meditation, gardening,
sculpting and umpteen other forms of
arts and crafts can meet all basic human
needs; can produce beautiful, useful
objects that do not require the use of fossil
fuel. human happiness, true prosperity
and joyful living can only emerge from a
life of elegant simplicity embedded in the
arts and crafts.
let us be inspired by the words of
William Morris, have nothing in your
house that you do not know to be useful
or believe to be beautiful. humanity in
general and Western societies in particular
have reached the point where economic
growth and material progress are causing
great stress on fragile Earth systems. But
the potential of growth and progress in
the sphere of arts and crafts is immense
and this can occur without any damage
to planet Earth.
The climate crisis on the one hand
and the economic downturn on the
other offer us an opportunity to change
our direction from gross to subtle, from
glamorous to gracious, from hedonism to
healing, from the conquest of Earth to the
conservation of Nature, from quantities
of possessions to quality of life and, in the
words of Mahatma Gandhi, from mass
production to production by the masses.
This change will transform us from being
mere consumers of goods and services to
genuine makers of art and artefacts. In the
present state of the world and under the
infuence of unsustainable consumerist
culture, human beings are reduced to the
condition of passive recipients of factory-
made objects. This must change.
In order to build resilient communities
of the future we need to move towards
a state where we humans are active
participants in the process of life and in
the making of things which are beautiful,
useful and durable. Where fossil-fuel-
powered production is part of the
problem, the arts and crafts are part of
the solution.
A shorter version of this article appeared
in The Worldwatch Institutes State of the
World report, Into a Warming World.
Satish Kumar is the editor of Resurgence
magazine. His latest book is Earth pilgrim,
published by Green Books, Dartington, UK.
www.resurgence.org
Where fossil-fuel-powered production

is part of the problem, the arts and crafts
are part of the solution.

Yellow Moon Dandelion, 2003 by Susan Derges COURTESY: SUSAN DERGES /www.susanderges.com
T H E A R T S
S TRE E T ART ANDY CHRI S TI AN
BANKSY
Has the commodifcation of Banksys
art taken the edge off his work?
S
ubversive, witty, cultish, street-wise, satirical,
activist: these among others are words that seek
to defne the artist called Banksy. he delights in
denying descriptions of himself just as he ducks
attempts at establishing his identity. What is undeniable is
that he has created a cultural chemistry that has engaged
the public: up to 6,000 people each day queued for three
hours or more to get into his exhibition in the Bristol
City Museum and Art Gallery, this summer.
his audience ranged from parents with infants to
people well into their senior years; local residents
coming to celebrate this son of their city, and those
magnetised from afar by his mythology. There were
whole family groups whose teenagers are normally
disengaged as they obsessively text friends, but in this
enormous queue teenage eyes were engaged as they
chatted with their neighbours in the line. They were
there sharing a common curiosity. This was a museum
queue like no other: waiting to see the work of a graffti
artist lauded by critics and exhibiting work in a place
where not so long ago he would have smuggled it in and
placed it on illicit display.
Banksy was probably relishing it all. But was this
exhibition compromising the principles of street art? It
was certainly a long way from the sharp stencil art made
by the lone urban guerrilla graffti artist he once was,
giving rise to the question of whether his anonymity is
merely part of a deliberate stance to enhance the mystery.
It would be all too easy to romanticise Banksys work.
I think he has been both lucky and canny. Because his
stencilled images usually frst appear on the street, people
are attracted to his daring, to his illegal interventions and
Works by Banksy
the rich and the poor. It is in such works that Banksy
seems to be most effective. We are needled into a state of
alertness, of shame even.
The ironic, idyllic paintings of beach play on the
segregation wall in palestine, like the edgiest work Banksy
has made in cities, seem to me to be the strongest work.
If we are moved when confronted by our unconscious
acceptance of malevolent change, whether it is the bullish
tactics of the Israelis or the slide to a surveillance society
in Britain, then Banksy has succeeded. If part of what art
can do is to make us consider the world differently, then
these works are powerful in that sense.
It could be argued that the humour of other works
might lead his fans to the more serious imagery but I think
they lead to dilution. The vast pink BORING sprayed by
fre extinguisher over one of the blank faades of the
Southbank Centre by the Thames in london is pretty
much as dull as Banksy gets. Its a modernist building
that gained that kind of comment from its inception, so
apart from refecting a popular view, the act of doing it
is itself a bit of a yawn.
B
anksy has caught the public mood. people are
delighted by his gift of a major exhibition to the city
of Bristol. In his best work he stirs things up, unsettles
us and exposes. But he has become an organisation, and
the danger of that is in the risk of losing a sense of clarity
and the edge of radical quality.
Andy Christian is a writer and art consultant.
to his evident dark humour. he is working during a period
when the public in general feel alienated from elected
representatives and discontented with many aspects of
the establishment. Banksy has sparked the traces of their
dissidence. he provokes smiles at a bleak time.
B
anksy originally seemed to be challenging the
conventions of the art world, but the editions of
spray-painted stencilled canvases, the approval of Damien
hirst, who has collected his work, and the scramble
by the fashionable set to scoop it up point more and
more to Banksys acceptance of some aspects of these
conventions. If Banksy is to hold on to the radical ground
he once commanded, he needs to keep undertaking risky
interventions on our streets.
The street-art movement is well over thirty years old;
indeed, forms of graffti can be found as drawings and
writing from Roman times onwards. In 1979 John
Fekner stencilled the pulaski Bridge in New York City
with the slogan Wheels Over Indian Trails, making an
acute reference to the marginalised and dispossessed
Indigenous people. london saw the Free George Davis
campaign use painted slogans in the same decade
to huge effect as tall buildings were scaled to bring
injustice to notice. In paris Blek le Rat continues to stencil
consciousness-raising images on the streets, as he has
done since 1981.
Banksy is quick to acknowledge Blek le Rats infuence,
but his own ambitions have moved him towards the
mainstream. There is a sense that the co-operation with
galleries, the prints, the merchandise and the move
to humorous gallery installations are a distraction.
Something about the idea of the sale of street art and
the evidence of a productive and protective organisation
around Banksy is unsettling.
The Bristol show was called Banksy versus Bristol museum
but there was no evidence of struggle. This was Banksy
in the museum with all their help and co-operation.
paintings by A local Artist were substituted in rows of
conventional rural landscapes, and the local Artist had
added burnt-out cars to rather badly painted pastiche
landscapes. Other well-known works were wittily
adjusted but the inclination was for sensation rather
than subtlety. Unarguably visitors were drawn to look at
other works as they engaged in the game of hunt the
Banksy but I was left feeling that many of his offerings
were a bit light-weight.
Caged models of animals delighted children and some
adults. A hen watched as her chicken-nugget chicks
pecked at a dish; witty at best but hardly something to
make a complex sculpture about. Similarly, a leopard-
skin coat wagged its tail from its perch on a branch. They
left no mystery, raised no really new issues, and work on
a single level. It felt like entertainment, even if it was of
a waspish kind.
In the aisles of the ground foor, casts of famous statues
had been replaced by altered works. Michelangelos David
had become a suicide bomber, and others had been
turned into a compulsive shopper and a bag lady. There
were acute reminders of the widening gap between
T H E A R T S
P OE TRY P E TE R AB B S
THE HOPE OF RENEWAL
Robyn Bolam has recently brought out New Wings, an anthology of
poems representing work she has written over the last three decades. It
is a compelling collection revealing both a fne sensitivity to the exacting
demands of poetic form and a broad set of animating preoccupations.
Two of her enduring themes are the epic power of Nature and the
poignancy of love. At the very heart of her work lies the hope of renewal
and transformation.
Cloud Study painting by Norman Adams
CACTI AND LOVE
I knew the desert without driving to it:
the road went straight through my forehead.
Fat branch stumps of Joshua trees,
like a cross between a cactus and a palm,
stopped a long way short of the clear deep sky.
Cacti reminded me of my mother
diffcult to touch without injury to each other.
But when she was happy, relaxed, no tensions,
her smiles were exotic, unexpected fowers.
Her cacti bear with me and still blossom.
We both needed love: I still need it now,
and hope is everywhere in a desert
cacti bloom; light lifts us into its space.
We forget alien distance, the lack of water:
cacti and love outlive their owners.
MUSIC OF THE HEMISPHERES
In such a November night as this,
wind fings rain against the glass
behind closed blinds, and the light
in which your fngers tap, travels on
half a world to my sunrise.
You write from tomorrow:
I read it today, reply,
then sleep as you move towards noon.
Soon I will wake as you go home
your day ended, mine just begun.
Often, you write to me round noon,
words which travel as I sleep at 2 A.M.
Our minds linger to meet outside time
in a space we create, that is always light,
where bodies break orbits and gently collide.
MEETING AGAIN AFTER
ALMOST EIGHT YEARS
How can I tell you? Are there enough ways
so that you will not see too much of the pain,
so that I will seem as I would like to be again
a woman with life singing in my veins?
Love that can be reckoned is a passing craze.
Ours held more than either of us could explain
and even though youve left while I remain,
its love that heals the hurt through every phase
of learning how to live a separate life.
Now years that should have drawn us together
pass between us like a broadening river. Ive
no time for regret, though loss has its costs never
doubt that I remember our best hours, or was the wife
who once said, No one will love you better.
ROCK
The rock had spent thousands of years
on the spot where he had tumbled
when the glacier left him.
The tiny fssure in the earth at his base
became bigger: water seeped into it
it widened and followed its own course.
The rock watched, always from the same spot.
Men came and went. The rock watched.
He grew tired, weak, felt that every storm
was wearing him down. Even the red ants
were dismantling him, grain by grain.
He had broken himself into boulders
and let them roll away: lichen, thrift,
wagtails feet persisted. He stopped caring.
One day a woman appeared, gathering ling
and bilberries. The rock saw her, struggling
in the bushes with bedding, brooms, fruit
for her children. She sensed his dilemma,
drew closer, laid her hand against rock,
and passed on her power. Endure,
she said and the rock endured.
TOPSOIL
I walk these moors for what they are.
The winds runways. It swoops
Whoo-ing in my ears like sad owls,
Their beaks at my face where
The scarf cant cover. Beyond them
Curlews, constantly panicking,
Calling away from invisible nests.
This is the skys full drop.
It doesnt have to cramp around cities
Or spear itself on spires.
Here it can stretch down its legs
And walk. It strides over the heather
Farther than I can see. The curlews
Call between its knees.
I walk these moors for what they are.
Neglected roof gardens of the mill towns
Left to fend for themselves, riding
The landscape with a small burden of sheep
And Sunday walkers. Where purple fowers
Tongue a late summer bell
Pealing low blue notes.
The marsh sucks my feet to a certain depth
And no further. The old sheep tracks lie
Deep down with monks footprints.
Below, an Iron Age prospector once scratched
For ore, plundered trees for his furnace,
And below, a Bronze Age shepherd
Slept beneath them.
It matters little that the Vikings came
Or the Romans landed. That once this
Vast scar of heath was solid ice
Or fertile forest. The peat preserves
Old seeds: all swallowed now and
Well digested. I walk these moors
For what they are.
MIXED DOUBLES
If love means nothing
his smile has just caused her to
make a double fault.
New Wings: poems 1977-2007 is published
by Bloodaxe Books.
www.peterabbs.org
T H E A R T S
CRAF TS ROS B ADGE R & E L S P E TH THOMP S ON
Gorgeous things to make with love. HOMEMADE
The makings of a Christmas wreath phOTOGRAphS: COURTESY BENJAMIN J. MURphY
T
his naturally beautiful festive wreath
is a far cry from the tinselly, trussed-
up versions available in shops and
markets, which are often so heavy on dark,
gloomy greenery. It is also surprisingly
fun and easy to make, and will be much
admired on your front door for a good two
to three weeks. For the cheapest, greenest
and most natural effect, you would ideally
forage your own foliage from garden or
hedgerow ivy in particular needs a good
annual prune, so youd be doing it a favour.
Or you can buy it all in its worth making
an early-morning trip to a fower market
and buying enough to supply a few like-
minded friends, too. Why not get a few
wreath-makers together for an informal
workshop in your house? Fuelled by a
simple yet delicious supper and a glass or
two of mulled wine, much fun will be had
and the wreaths will grow, like patchwork
quilts, while you chat and work.
You will need
Whippy willow branches
Trailing ivy
Roll of forists wire
Holly leaves
Holly or other red berries
Fir cones and mossy twigs
Hydrangea head the redder the better
Strong ribbon or string for hanging
To make the wreath
Lay out the willow branches to the
desired circumference for your wreath. Lay
long strands of ivy on top of it and lash all
layers tightly together with the forists
wire to make a long sausage of foliage.
This gives your wreath a good solid base
and will help keep a strong round shape.
(Its possible just to use holly and ivy as
a base, but you may fnd that the weight of
larger wreaths will cause them to stretch
into an oval when hanging.)
Form the sausage into a wreath shape
and secure the ends together with wire.
This makes the base of the wreath. Then,
working around the wreath, attach holly
leaves, berries, cones, twigs and sections
from the hydrangea head, and any other
Christmassy foliage, evenly around the
circumference, securing each with the
forists wire.
When you have gone round once,
hang the wreath to view from a distance,
and continue to add more leaves and
berries if any part looks sparse. Attach
a length of strong ribbon or string at the
top back of the wreath where it will not
show, for tying around a nail or hook
on your door. The wreath should last
a good three weeks if hanging outside
and may even dry out suffciently to
carry on as an indoor decoration, to be
supplemented with seasonal fowers and
foliage, throughout the rest of the year.
Christmas Wreath
Bag-in-a-Bag
p
lastic carrier bags are a defnite no-
no in both the eco-conscious and
the style stakes. But fnding the
right shopping bag one thats big and
strong enough to carry heavy groceries,
light enough to fold up small and ft in
your handbag and stylish to boot is
like searching for the holy Grail. The one
featured here ticks all the right boxes,
incorporating a gusset for extra capacity
and a pretty ribbon and button tie for
rolling it up small. Its also surprisingly
simple to make choose from striped
cotton canvas or pink metallic nylon for
a touch of glamour.
You will need
1m (39") in any standard width of
strong fabric that isnt too thick or
heavy; or use an off-cut measuring 64cm
x 80cm (25" x 32")
Cotton thread for machine sewing
2030cm (812") ribbon
A pretty button
To make the bag
Cut out a piece of fabric measuring
80cm x 46cm (32" x 18") including a
1.5cm (") seam allowance.
To make the straps, cut two strips
of fabric, each measuring 54cm x 9cm
(21" x 3"). Fold in 5mm (") on
each side to the wrong side and iron
fat.
Fold each strap in half lengthwise
(so that the pattern is on the outside
and the folded edges are facing
inwards), and machine topstitch all
the way along.
For the top edge of the bag, fold in
one of the longer sides by 3mm (
1
8
") to
the wrong side. Iron in place and then
fold down a further 4cm (1") and iron
again.
Pin the two handles in place,
beginning with handle one about 10cm
(4") in from the right side edge. Pin one
end of the handle, then pin the opposite
end about 13cm (5") away from the
frst end. Have the stitches on the inner
side of the handles, and the bottom of
the strap pieces level with the bottom
of the folded-over edge of the bag.
Repeat at the opposite end with
handle two. Secure the handles in
place and stitch down the top of
the bag with two rows of machine
stitching, one about 3mm (
1
8
") from
the top edge and the other along the
bottom of the folded-over edge.
Fold the bag in half, right sides
together. Sew the side and bottom
seams about 1.5cm (") in from the
edge. Zigzag stitch over the raw edges
to prevent fraying.
To make the gusset, open the bag out
so the bottom seam runs down the centre
and sew a diagonal line of about 10cm (4")
across each corner.
To make the ribbon and button tie,
loop the length of ribbon around one
of the handles, joining and securing
with a button. To roll up the bag, fold it
into three or four sections and roll up,
leaving the straps end until last. Then
simply wrap the ribbon tie around
the roll and wind the loose end of the
ribbon around the button to secure.
Edited extract from Homemade: Gorgeous
Things to Make with Love by Ros Badger
and Elspeth Thompson, published by
Collins, ISBN 9780007284795.
Colourful and easy to make, a bag-in-a-bag!
R E G U L A R S
TRE E S B RI GI TTE NORL AND
Lonesome Pines
Native pine trees are a resilient species that can adapt to most
circumstances. Reintroducing them into our woodlands is an
act of foresight that could pay dividends in the future.
P
re-dating the evolution of
deciduous plants, the conifers
of the northern hemisphere
have survived ice ages and the
movement of continents to populate
latitudes extending beyond the Arctic
Circle down to the Equator, and while
there are many conifer species, the pine
tree stands out as beautiful, enduring
and adaptable, its utility indispensable to
human culture.
The UKs native pine, Pinus sylvestris,
also known as the Scots Pine, is found
in Northern Europe from Ireland and
Portugal in the west, to Lapland in
northern Scandinavia, into Asia in eastern
Siberia, and south to the Caucasus where
it grows at altitudes above 1,200 metres.
It prefers a dry soil, stands wind and sea
spray and is most useful in shelter belts
when establishing a garden. Native forests
have all but disappeared from the UK due
to over-exploitation and deer-browsing,
though pines still mark old drovers routes
and estate boundaries, and naturalisations
have taken place on heaths and moors.
The Caledonian Forest is being actively
restored in the highlands of Scotland
thanks to the enlightened work of the
organisation Trees for Life.
Given ideal conditions, the pine can
live up to 600 years and attain a height
of sixty metres, while specimens grown
in the Arctic Circle have been found
with upwards of 600 rings and scarcely
measuring twenty centimetres in
diameter. Tree rings record poor summers
in a thin ring, and better summers in
a more substantial deposit of wood,
holding a history of climate analogous
to an Antarctic ice-core, demonstrating
the pines ability to grow in a very wide
range of conditions and its qualities of
resilience and adaptability.
Part of the pines endurance lies in its
needles, which stand up to extremes of
weather better than the broad leaves of
deciduous trees, mere striplings in the
history of plant life. The mature pine
grows to form a tall tree with a relatively
unbranched trunk; while it is easily cut
and worked, it contains a high resin
content, acting as a preservative and giving
the timber long life. Pine became the
frst choice of house- and ship-builders
and furniture- and paper-makers, whose
needs rapidly outstripped native stands
as industrialisation took hold in Western
Europe. Baltic timber underwrote the
construction of Londons Underground
and the Paris Mtro, not to mention all the
foors laid in the apartment buildings and
grander houses of our cities.
Southern Europe enjoys more varied
populations of pines, including the
picturesque Umbrella Pine, Pinus pinea,
which grows in dry maritime areas of the
Mediterranean. Pinus pinaster, the Maritime
Pine, has a similar distribution. One of
the species from which turpentine is
derived, it furnished the painter Czanne
with inspirational landscapes as well as
the actual material of his craft. Without
turpentine there might be no Western
pictorial tradition, since turpentine and
resin-based varnishes have made and
preserved paintings for a thousand years.
Czanne saw the pine tree as a battered
old man, alone but undiminished, and
he cherished its shade and the drama
recorded in its form.
The pines of Eastern Asia have inspired
artists and poets for centuries. A mountain
pine perched on a rocky outcrop has
been a favourite subject for calligraphers,
whose practised, minimal gestures evoke
the spirit of endurance.
Growing native pine trees can help
regenerate degraded ecosystems, as they
provide fast growth rates, soil stability,
improved water retention, natural habitat
and carbon sequestration potential, as
well as all the bounty of the wood for
fuel, furniture and building materials.
And whilst native pines are best for
this purpose, over the centuries many
wonderful species from other continents
have been introduced that have integrated
into our landscapes. Perhaps the most
extraordinary is the ginkgo, a cousin to
the pine and classed as a living fossil,
since, though it has only been found
growing wild in Eastern China, fossilised
remnants have been found throughout
the world. It grows readily as a cultivated
tree, even in cities alongside traffc-flled
roads. A marvellous specimen some 200
years old grows in the botanical gardens
in Bath, where the short-lived autumn
yellow of its leaves is breathtaking.
Pinus gerardiana, the Chilgoza Pine,
from the north-western Himalayas,
and Pinus bungeana from China, known
as the Lacebark Pine, have ornamental
bark. Other pines growing in extreme
conditions have generated dwarf forms,
such as Pinus pumila, the Siberian Dwarf
Pine.
North America contains the greatest
number of distinct species, while the
many Asian pines have adapted to Siberian
winters and to the Sumatran rainforests at
2 S, demonstrating the valuable potential
of pine trees to adapt to climate change.
The botanical gardens in Cambridge hold
a collection of pines, including Pinus nigra,
the European Black Pine, and subspecies
from Austria and Eastern Europe. Planted
before 1850, these trees have matured
into broad-girthed specimens, despite
the chalky subsoil of the site and perhaps
because of the relatively dry climate of
East Anglia.
Pines have been planted to stabilise
the advance of sand dunes; the Monterey
Pine, Pinus radiata, is especially adapted to
sea winds in milder climates, although it
can be invasive under certain conditions.
Some pines give delicious nuts, maturing
on the tree for up to three years, waiting
for the perfect moment of release. Pinus
pinea is our best producer of pine nuts,
while several North American species
yield edible seeds, including the unusual
Pinus monophylla, the Single-leaf Pinyon,
which bears its needles singly.
Although my own garden is low-
lying and damp and not ideal for pines,
a stand was planted forty years ago on
the highest part of the ground around
the house, and these have been inhabited
by rooks in noisy springtime courtship.
I have planted Pinus wallichiana, the Bhutan
Pine, its elegant, long, blue-green needles
borne in bundles of fve, in some poor,
stony soil, and after twenty years it is
some thirty feet high, gleaming in our
wet summers.
In this issue of Resurgence many of the
contributors have extolled the virtues of
trees and have exhorted us to plant as
many of them as we can to help mitigate
climate change. For its sheer beauty,
incredible rate of growth and adaptability
to most conditions I would recommend
the humble pine tree.

Brigitte Norland is a writer and gardener.
Pines at Loch Tulla ILLUSTRATION: TUDOR HUMPHRIES
R E G U L A R S
NATURE WRI TI NG J OHN MOAT
John Moat introduces the intimate writing of Peter
Please, whose meditations on an ordinary place
extend our own knowledge of the living world.
P
eter Please tells us that he
was infuenced, above all,
by W. H. Hudson, whom he
describes as that great traveller-
naturalist, the quintessential traveller
in little things. He was always in search
of the ordinary such as birdsong, old
hawthorn trees, city and rural peoples
yet through his vision helped to give back
to us an aesthetic for the commonplace.
A Nature Writer isnt someone who
writes about Nature, but someone who,
by making accessible to us a frst-time
experience of the living world in its
being, extends our territory. He or she,
always by way of a unique heart-register,
draws the receptive reader into the present
and ever-new presence of Nature. That
said, I dont know any writer more able
than Please to convey us into the stillness,
the breathing imminence of what may
sometimes be a quite extraordinary
byway of the land fermenting the
commonplace into experience we will
never forget. For instance:
Frantic burrowing of insects make me
stop by this strange weeping salix. The
hefty baseline of a queen bumblebee says
that the nectar is fowing. The bumblebees
are almost as big as catkins and have the
backsides of baby elephants. I see old
familiars, the yellow swarming fy, not in
vast numbers but in ones and twos, sandy
in the sun and hoppers on land. The jet-
black fuselage, shiny and big against the
yellow pollen felds, must be the picture-
winged fy (Sepsis fulgens); they walk like
ants paddling their wings. Still shiny
green-bottles, washed-out
house fies, dreary dung
fies, a tiny ichneumon,
a striking solitary bee
all slink or hobble into
view. Hoverfies, broad-
headed, fat wafer bodies
with horse-riding legs,
work methodically at each
catkin; the honey bees
frantically fll their honey
bags. I notice the solitary
bee again, more rufous, quick fying in
a straight line. An independent character.
This is the opening of the insect year
when salix is in fower, as ivy is the door
which closes it in winter.
A two-spot ladybird closely resembles
the nutty sheaves of the catkins. The
dung fy is nut brown, brackish green as
a country gentleman with short brown
corduroys. I, alone, still feel tight in my
winters shell, in a torpor. I often wonder
how seasonal or self-induced this is. I
fnd it hard to loosen this pen, let down
this winters drawbridge. I am still frozen
with little to give or feel. I am hundreds
of years old at the moment. I dont know
whats happening in my life. The insects
are only interested in the fowers, none
venture into the woody interior of Salix
caprea Pendula. When the clouds come,
only the yellow swarming fies remain.
(Upton Cheney, 21st March 1992)
P
lease worked in English and Scottish
journalism before training as an
organic gardener at Findhorn in the mid-
seventies. Then he worked for a while in
therapeutic gardening. During the 1990s
A Nature Writer isnt someone

who writes about Nature, but
someone who, by making accessible
to us a frst-time experience of the
living world in its being, extends our
territory.

he was a storyteller in schools, museums
and woodlands. He has been made an
Honorary Bard by the Druidic Gorsedd
of Caer Baddon. He has written novels,
and the remarkable Holine trilogy, journals
of his wandering and travel. And most
recently Clattinger, which is a well, let
him tell you:
Clattinger is so ordinary, I say to
others. Every day of the week you would
pass it by; a few fat felds, some enclosure
hedgerows, a few big trees. There is
nothing to attract your attention. This
jewel is not given easily.
I, like others, had seen the green-
winged orchids in their thousands. I
had never seen anything like it. I kept
going back. I went in every season, in
the rain, the fog, when the grass was
scrubbed clean and the fowers were
only a memory. Although it is carefully
managed, Clattinger Farm (SSSI) is one of
the few wildlines where nothing is sown
or planted. Here everything has arrived
by chance. Not like the felds of wheat
and mustard grass which have to pay
their way.
I went alone with my journal. I walked
the margins of these felds perhaps two
dozen times, every time going the same
way, as fxed as any badger on its nightly
foraging. I stopped at the pool in the elbow
of two felds, by the fve-bar gate, the
cattle trough, the end of the feld where
the fritillaries grow, and other places. They
had different moods and elements, and I
recorded them in my journals. I made a
history of places that people pass by, and
likewise of my responses. I liked this time
out, but I wont say from the real world.
There was a lot here more real than that.
And what did I fnd? The fool in me,
for sure. I buttered no parsnips. I fed the
child that loved to meander, not follow
signposts. I remembered the joy of
discovery, like seeing the way a grass-blade
speared dew drops, the smallest at the
top, the fattest at the bottom; identifying
insects such as the sunfy with its totemic
yellow stripes. I liked my private, hidden
world and by some transmission I liked
the hidden meanings I found in Nature.
I felt wonderfully foolish doing
absolutely nothing. I was alone in my
world and this heightened the sense of
my uniqueness, my right to exist, yet
paradoxically all the while I felt myself to be
attached by invisible strings to everything
that I could see roots and snipe and oak
and that meant that I could never be alone.
I like the way the worlds cross over if we
let them the childish with the formal;
the poet with the expert; insects and cities;
the sceptic and the campaigner; knowing
and not knowing and not caring if we fail.
These strange juxtapositions bring back
the familiar to view.
So this is a playful book of poetic
sketches, my own sign/sing/nature of
Nature, of twenty-six new words to record
what I found. There just arent enough
words to describe the inside moments of
our lives yet all the time I have been
looking at the real world, whats in front
of me. The graffti is developed from my
handwriting, illegible even to myself. I
exaggerated it until it had a life of its own.
Instamori the little death between moults,
the space between. This feels like one of
those moments.
Clattinger: An Alphabet of Signs from Nature
by Peter Please is available from
www.peteralfredplease.co.uk
John Moat is a poet, painter and writer. His most
recent book, The Best (Including Quite
the Worst) of Didymus, is available for
purchase at 7.99 from www.resurgence.org
www.johnmoat.co.uk
A white orchid in the meadow at Clattinger Farm PHOTOGRAPH: COURTESY STEVE COVEY/FLICKR
R E G U L A R S
S E NS I B L E S OL UTI ONS OL I VE R TI CKE L L
Natural Frugality
The practice of natural frugality creates a quiet
but abiding satisfaction all of its own.
A simple camp fre, Norway PHOTOGRAPH: HAAKON HARRISS/IMPACT PHOTOS
M
ore years ago than I care
to remember, I and two
companions took a trek in
the Kashmiri Himalayas.
It was a staggeringly beautiful journey
that took us about a week to complete
beginning at Sonamarg and following
a trail through the high valleys to Lake
Gangabal, dramatically situated beneath
the mighty glaciers of Haramukh. During
the trek we met a number of the nomadic
herders who grazed their focks of
sheep and goats in the summer pastures
bejewelled with wild delphiniums, and
we began to understand a little of their
ancient way of life.
Our guide, Sonam, was himself wise to
the mountains, though unable to explain
much to us since he spoke not a word of
English. But he was an expert exponent of
natural frugality. On our frst soaking wet
night in the mountains he led us across a
vast expanse of low shrubs to a camping
spot marked only by the presence of three
small, round stones each about six inches
across. And here he proceeded to cook us
a deeply warming meal, using for his fre
just three sticks of dry wood that he had
somehow gleaned from dead bushes.
The stones were set close together,
leaving gaps just big enough to push a
stick between them. With a single match
and a twist of newspaper Sonam induced
a fame to burn where the three sticks
met in the centre, above which he placed
a cooking pot. He coaxed and controlled
the fame by careful manipulation of the
sticks, cooking frst our steaming pot of
rice, then a savorous curry conjured from
a single onion fried in ghee, seasoned
with salt and a generous spoon of chili.
I can honestly say it was the best curry I
have ever eaten.
Later on in the journey, one chilly
moonlit night, I sat with three shepherds
around a very small fre. The shepherds
were wrapped in their thick homespun
blankets, naturally waterproofed with
wool grease. From time to time one
would lightly pick a coal or two from
the fre with his fngers, and drop it into
an earthenware pot, which they passed
around from one to the next like a bottle
of port. The fortunate recipient would
plunge the pot beneath his blanket, letting
its warmth permeate until his impatient
neighbour would nudge him into passing
it on. In this way a fre of just a few sticks
kept three men or four including me
pleasantly warm.
No less memorable was the occasion
when we were welcomed by a family of
ethnic Tibetan nomads into their large but
crowded tent, providing warm and steamy
shelter from a cold wet night. I had earlier
heard of the salt tea drunk by Tibetans,
brewed with Chinese brick tea, salt
and rancid yaks butter and invariably
described as disgusting by people who
ought to know better. The mixture might
be unappealing on a summers evening in
England, but on a rainy mountainside at
the end of long days walk there can be
no more satisfying or restorative drink.
Rich, warming, energising and endowed
with an inimitably smoky favour, it beats
any assortment of energy drinks into
the ground. And its compact ingredients
are easily carried into the remotest of
Himalayan reaches.
There is no need for me to contrast the
profigate use of energy and materials that
typifes even the poorest of households
in the rich world with the natural and
bonhomious frugality of the mountain
guides and shepherds of Kashmir. I suppose
the nearest equivalent to their charcoal
pot in modern England is our hot-water
bottle providing effcient, well-directed
warmth and comfort.
B
ut now for my own breakthrough in
the realm of outdoor cuisine. It all
began when I bought, at a knockdown
price in a boot sale, a small portable
barbecue which stands on four legs with
fre-bowl, grille and lid. This replaced my
fre pit, which had to go for reasons of
space. The perfect barbecue fuel, I have
discovered, is twigs of the kind that
you can pick up off the ground in your
garden, or on a rural or suburban walk
almost anywhere in Britain. With a mere
boxful of dry twigs, you can quickly get
a convincing blaze going in the barbecue
bowl before closing the lid and reducing
the confagration to a smoking bed of
embers. A quick stir, et voil! a bed of
coals that will glow long enough to cook
a good meal or two.
The satisfaction is several-fold. First,
you can be cooking within ten minutes
of lighting the fre. Second, you dont
have to go to a shop to get your charcoal
briquettes there are twigs all around
you, there for the gathering. Third, twigs
are free. Fourth, a few twigs go a long way
one good armful is enough for several
barbecues. Fifth, its as eco-friendly and
carbon-neutral as you can get no need
to burn up the mangrove swamps of
Indonesia, or the Amazon rainforest, for
your barbecue fun.
Theres a similar satisfaction to be had
from carrying bowls of dirty washing-up
water out into the garden to refresh your
thirsty plants and fower beds during dry
weather. My experience is that most plants
prefer washing-up water to the chlorinated
stuff that comes straight from the tap. And
a household can easily recycle several
cubic metres of water a year in this way.
OK, its not going to save our endangered
wetlands, or even do a great deal for your
water bill, but it will help a little. It will
also help you to tune in to the spirit of
natural frugality in other aspects of life,
and provide the satisfaction that you have
used something normally considered as
waste, good for nothing but tipping
down the sewer, for a useful purpose.
For most of us who live in rich (or,
as may better be described, profigate)
countries in these modern times, natural
frugality remains a lifestyle choice
unlike the natural frugality of mountain
shepherds in Kashmir, which is forced
upon them by their circumstances.
But natural resources of all kinds are in
decline, including both renewable ones
like wood and water, and fnite ones
from fossil fuels to rock phosphate. And
developing countries, thanks to their fast-
growing economies, are asserting their
rights to a fair share of natural resources,
which have until now been largely under
the control of the rich world.
So in the future we will have to
make do with less. Thanks to the credit
crunch and general economic mess, a
good many of us are doing so already.
And despite the hardship the economic
decline has caused, there is an upside.
The practice of natural frugality creates
a quiet but abiding satisfaction all of its
own. Looking ahead to a future in which
water, gas, electricity and other things we
take for granted today may have become
scarce and expensive, we may as well get
good at it.
Oliver Tickell writes and campaigns on health and
environmental issues. His latest book is Kyoto2.
Despite the hardship the

economic decline has caused,
there is an upside.

R E G U L A R S
P I ONE E RS AMANDA P I S S ANI
Green
Compassion
Start with a seed, says Marc Barasch,
founder of The Green World Campaign,
who is pioneering simple and direct ways to
reforest the Earth.
I
ts amazing what one seed can grow. With the seed of an idea,
Marc Barasch has started a global campaign to help re-green
the planet. And while the growing manifestation of his vision is
impressive, his unconventional method of starting an innovative
philanthropic organisation is even more so.
When I frst spoke with him in the spring of 2005, he had recently
published his fourth major book in an acclaimed series on wholeness, entitled
The Compassionate Life. In the course of his research, he sought out people who
had made extraordinarily deep commitments of service to others. I was
struck, he says, by the joy they took in living from the heart.
When his mother developed a terminal illness in the midst of his
book tour, it accelerated his own personal change. My mom was a real
giver, he says. In her fnal days, I realised that Id searched the world
for examples of altruism, but Id had one at the breakfast table as I was
growing up. His mother had left him with a small inheritance, enough
to live for a year, and he felt moved to use it to give back to the world,
as a way of honouring my mother and the people that I had met along
my path.
Barasch began what he thought of as an experiment: I decided
Id treat this juncture in my life as a blank canvas, sketch an intention
to achieve some good, and let life paint it in. He took a hiatus from
writing, making a practice of answering invitations without asking too
many questions, just to see where they would lead. A day before he
was to return home from a trip to Los Angeles, a philanthropist friend
invited him to meet some people who had been planting trees in the
developing world. Barasch found himself fascinated by a presentation on
agroforestry, a system of planting trees and crops together, dating back
to the ancient Mayans. This synergistic method, he learned, produces
a wealth of benefts, not only for the soil and the local communities
that depend on it, but also for the planet as a whole: each tree planted
sequesters a ton of carbon in its lifetime.
It is an age-old practice. The frst Western visitors to the Amazon,
Barasch notes, didnt recognise that these Indigenous systems were
even agriculture. Instead of cleared felds planted in neat rows, here were
trees, crops and herbs grown together in natural accord. Vast deposits of
Marc speaking in LA PHOTOGRAPH: KSENIYA FEDOROVA

trees. Its also about reducing poverty, even about
peacemaking. Barasch observes that the diminution of
natural resources in equatorial regions forces groups to
compete for fertile land. Desperation breeds confict
and war. The genocide in Rwanda was not just over
ethnic differences, but also over scarce arable land and
water resources. If we plant trees that help recharge
aquifers, increase biodiversity and encourage sustainable
food production, were also resolving potential conficts.
I sometimes think of the whole thing as just green
compassion.
B
arasch is excited by the little-understood process
some scientists call emergence. When I put my
career on hold, my friends were a little worried that I was
doing nothing. But I told them that I was practising not-
doing, the Taoist strategy of allowing things to unfold, of
trusting that patterns emerge from seeming randomness.
What seems to be nothing germinates something.
Look at a seed: you have to wonder how anything
could possibly emerge from this tiny dot of inert matter
buried in the dirt. But a seed is not so much a physical
object as it is the germ of an idea. Its the information
contained in the seed that mobilises elements in the soil
to join the dance that produces these towering living
structures. I think that for a person, or an organisation,
to function like a seed, requires not just action but being
receptive to the universes inherent intelligence.
If we trust that there is something within each of
us, within each situation, that already knows how to
unfold itself, that just needs light and nourishment, we
potentiate almost magical creative forces.
The poet Rilke once addressed God in this way: As a
tiny seed, you sleep in what is small; and in the vast, you
vastly yield yourself. The planet has arrived at an epochal
crossroads, a tipping point. Maybe we are all seeds being
summoned to awake and vastly yield ourselves. To start
small, right where we are, but dream big. I see the Green
World Campaign as a way to plant a seed of spirit in the
soil of the world. From my own experience, once that
seed is planted and cared for, its not unrealistic to expect
something marvellous to come up.
For more information visit www.greenworld.org
Marc Ian Barasch has written an award-winning series of books on
wholeness: The Healing Path; Remarkable Recovery; Healing
Dreams; and The Compassionate Life. He created the Emmy-
winning environmental special One Child, One Voice, broadcast
through CNNs global affliates to an audience of two billion people.
Amanda Pissani is former Editor-in-Chief of Science of Mind
magazine and is now a freelance writer and editor.
nutrient-rich soil frst thought to be volcanic deposits are now known
to be the result of thousands of years of deliberate composting. Swathes
of the wild jungle were actually agroforestry projects!
I was excited by the idea that humans have long lived in a co-creative
relationship with the natural world. Through the right practices I call
it regenerative ecology it is possible to re-green enormous areas of
barren land around the world with relatively minimal resources: seeds,
education, community labour, a little capital and lots of caring.
Barasch decided to start the Green World Campaign (GWC), to
provide simple, direct ways for people to work together to reforest the
Earth and help combat climate change. Founded in 2006, GWC is now
a growing nonproft organisation whose goal is to plant millions of
trees, restoring the ecology and economy of the worlds poorest places.
B
arasch says the slogan that occurred to him Its amazing what one
seed can grow has become a kind of animating principle. The
frst seed was resolving to just start at my kitchen table, to do one small
thing followed by another, to adopt an ethos of openness to who or
what might show up. He was gratifed when help materialised, often
through unexpected synchronicities. A philanthropist friend agreed to
act as nonproft fscal sponsor. A digital designer from Japan volunteered
to create an elegant website. A retiree from the World Bank started
donating time, as did the former manager of an anti-malaria project in
West Africa. An Indian satellite company began advising
Barasch on geospatial monitoring of tree growth.
Barasch relates how he was once handed a plane ticket
to Ethiopia to observe some early pilot projects that the
Campaign had funded. He stopped off en route in London,
where he was offered housing by a friend of a friend who
turned out to be a environmentalist member of the British
nobility. Ensconced for a week in a marchionesss town house, Barasch
learned from his host about an Ethiopian group that helped Indigenous
forest people to restore their ecosystem. When he was in Addis Ababa,
he looked up the group, and soon they became charter members of the
Green World Campaign.
Ive been choosing projects that take a genuinely holistic approach,
Barasch says. This particular group, MELCA (Movement for Ecological
Learning and Community Action), turned out to be a hub of the African
Biodiversity Network. They strengthen forest peoples ability to be
natural stewards of the land, encourage elders to teach schoolchildren
traditional knowledge, create maps of sacred sites and rare species, and
help protect Indigenous land rights. They also partner with villages to
plant trees in sustainable ways. Our pilot projects with them and other
groups planted 100,000 trees in Ethiopia.
Not long after Barasch returned, he happened to go to a party at the
environmentalist Paul Hawkens house and met associates of a Mexican
organisation called Naturalia, which was working in surprisingly similar
ways. Naturalia was helping villages of the native peoples to restore
their local ecology through tree-planting. They were getting schoolkids
involved, protecting biodiversity, and mobilising the public to replant
the hills around Mexico City. They, too, viewed their work as putting
spiritual principles into practice, and were, in effect, a mirror image of
MELCA half a world away.
I felt I was discovering a self-emergent movement. I saw how the
GWC could help form a network of people who were combining
holistic concepts with hands-on ways to help people and planet.
Baraschs approach is an extension of the defnition of compassion he
suggests in his book: realising that everything is inextricably connected
to everything else, and being willing to act on that knowledge.
This is refected in his own integral approach: Its not just about
Its not just about trees. Its also about

reducing poverty, even about peacemaking.

R E G U L A R S
Eco Blind Spot?
A subtle but disturbing thread wound
its way through a number of articles in
Resurgence 255. It relates to something of
a blind spot which otherwise deeply
committed and self-aware activists appear
to have developed to their own carbon
footprints, particularly through fying.
First, we had Mark Kidels Music and
Place article in which no critical eyelid
was batted at the fact that the world
music cognoscenti are travelling to
Far-Eastern Siberia, Rajasthan, Borneo
or the Sahara to attend events that are
more or less traditional although tourist-
oriented. Gail Simmons Journey into
Silence in the Sinai Desert ended with a
note that she travelled with the Makhad
Trust. Satish Kumar will be participating
in a similar retreat. Philip Carr-Gomms
Armchair Travel dilemma whether to
travel to sacred places clearly recognises
the impact of doing so, though ends
without explicit resolution and with no
expression of hope that by travelling
the world to write Sacred Places: Sites of
Spiritual Pilgrimage from Stonehenge to Santiago de
Compostela he has perhaps discouraged us
from having to make the physical journey
ourselves. And so on.
When I probed this a little in a
workshop at the excellent-as-always
Resurgence Summer Camp, I made
little progress in understanding how
such ecological commitment can be
reconciled with a substantial personal
carbon footprint. One person pointed
out the world of difference between our
Editor travelling to speak at a conference
in India and someone going clubbing in
Ibiza; my response that the climate does
not differentiate between good and
bad carbon was seen as simplistic and
naive. Another said we should trust our
individual consciences rather than submit
to objective measures, ignoring the fact
that most frequent fyers probably already
do this and arrive at an answer which is
of course part of the problem.
The closest I have come to a resolution
of this apparent confict is that a sort of
mental offsetting is taking place which
goes something like this: I sustain a
high carbon footprint in the belief that
through spreading the word to many
others I will encourage them to reduce
their own impact and this will more than
compensate for my own carbon excess.
I can see the merit in this return on
investment thinking but Im not sure
we have an evidence base to support the
assertion. It is also some way from the
Gandhian be the change you want to
see philosophy which many of us fnd
so inspiring.
Nigel C. Bell
Potent Places
The silence of sacred places hugely appeals
to me. In Potent Places (Resurgence 255)
Liz Hoskens clarion call for international
recognition and respect for sacred places
makes such common sense that one
wonders what the worlds leaders have
been occupying their time with.
Our primary responsibility is surely
to hand over the Earth in as good a
condition as is possible, in order that
future generations will survive. The
short-term economic madness that is
rampaging across the world threatens
this responsibility, because sacred places
do not feature on a balance sheet. Such
places are not a conversation piece in any
boardroom. Shareholders do not care
about them. Indigenous peoples do care.
However, there are tiny streams of light
fltering through to re-enchant a country
awakening from a materialistic and
political stupor, as sacred places begin to
exert their unstoppable forces. Wonderful
news.
David Harvey
The Death of
Language
The article Language Nests by Nick Hunt
(Resurgence 255) reminded me of a series of
interviews I undertook ffty years ago with
every family on the Spokane Reservation
in the state of Washington, USA. There
were about 140 families who were being
assimilated into the American melting
pot. Out of the ffty million Indians in
the US that Columbus discovered only
about half a million remain today.
In the Pacifc Northwest the Indians
were being assimilated both biologically
and socially. Most of the legal Spokane
Indians did not live on the reservation
and those who did were only one-quarter
to one-half Indian.
During the presentation of my survey
to the tribal council the Chief said,
When the Spokane language is dead, the
Spokane culture will be dead. I thought
that was a very profound remark.
In my home state of Jharkhand in India
there are twenty-two tribes, many of
whom are losing their language because
the state has Hindi as the medium of
instruction in schools. This is true in
nearly all the states of India home to
eight-two million tribal people. This is
one form of cultural genocide that very
few tribal people in India have questioned.
Prodipto Roy
Cultural Riches
Whilst I appreciate the sentiment of Mark
Kidels article (Resurgence 255) about world
music, and WOMAD festival in particular
that the music loses some of its
meaning when taken out of the context
of its place of origin I do feel that the
article in general was rather elitist. Unlike
Mr Kidel, most of us cannot afford the
luxury either monetarily or from our
personal carbon allocation of attending
the Festival in the Desert or some Siberian
shamanic gathering. Inviting a diverse
range of artists to WOMAD is surely more
ecologically benign and allows an equally
valuable cultural experience for the artists
themselves many of whom are or have
been persecuted for their art in their
homelands.
Rather than decrying the slight loss
of authenticity, I would have thought a
journalist of Kidels experience would
have applauded the efforts of WOMAD to
support these artists in their endeavour
to perform and bring their messages
of peace and friendship to the wider
world. It is becoming more diffcult
for musicians from the Middle East and
Islamic countries to get visas to work in
Le t t e r s t o t he E di t or s
Europe and America, and the WOMAD
team works miracles in this respect. I was
also pleased to see that efforts are being
made to calculate the carbon footprint
of the entire festival and offset this via a
certifed carbon-sequestration project.
As I watched Youssou NDour and his
fellow musicians in the pouring rain at
WOMAD this year, I was transported to
Africa and bathed in the sunshine of their
smiles and joy. The musicianship was
sublime, and the eloquence of Youssou as
he asked us to remember that Africa is not
a land of poverty, but a land of cultural
riches, was heartfelt and moving.
Rob Swan
Pilgrims and Tourists
Despite a personal resonance and
sympathy with the call for pilgrims rather
than mere tourists (Resurgence 255), an
either-or distinction with the implication
that tourists are a homogenous bunch of
utilitarians may not be overly helpful.
I am a traveller, you are a visitor, they
are tourists is a well-known adage in
tourism circles and neatly captures the
sentiment that most people would rather
describe themselves as anything but
the much maligned tourist; ironically,
usually whilst engaging in activity that
constitutes tourism. Whilst an Earth
Pilgrim may be a noble designation
indeed, it adds yet another layer to the
hierarchy, pushing the tourist further still
to the bottom of the chain of desirable
being, and does little to imbue the tourist
with a sense of responsibility towards the
people and places s/he visits. Most people
are tourists, not pilgrims - it is therefore
imperative that we strive to empower
responsible tourism.
Irony was famously lost on the Reverend
Francis Kilvert, Victorian diarist and snob
well-known for his rantings against the
loathesome and ill-bred tourists who
were sharing the Welsh countryside with
him on his travels.
We do need pilgrims who recognise
the intrinsic value of Nature, but it is
important to recognise that spending time
away from our own home, whether for
recreational or spiritual reasons, requires
servicing in the form of transport, food
and lodging and invariably involves
cultural exchange and interaction with
natural ecosystems. This is tourism, and
even pilgrims share inescapable needs,
characteristics and impacts both
positive and negative with tourists.
Whats important is that all of us have
choices which determine whether the
Earth and its communities bear the cost
of our visitation or whether we take
responsibility for maximising the benefts
of our visit and minimising our negative
impacts.
Nick Stewart
International Centre for Responsible
Tourism
The Editors welcome concise
letters from readers commenting on
articles published in Resurgence. Send
your letters to: The Editors, Resurgence
Trust, Ford House, Hartland, Bideford,
Devon, EX39 6EE or email:
editorial@resurgence.org
Letters may be edited for reasons of space or clarity.
Co-operation is the primary Gaian
interrelationship.
The founder editor of the Ecologist and
the author of A Blueprint for Survival, who
inspired and informed a generation of
activists, passed away on 21st August
2009. The Resurgence family pays homage
to this pioneer of the environmental
movement in Britain.
PHOTOGRAPH: COURTESY GREEN BOOKS
Edward Goldsmith
R E V I E W S
I N MY OWN WORDS CHRI S TOP HE R L L OYD
W
hat is life? Which forces control Nature? Why do different
living creatures look and behave as they do? Where does
humanity ft in? Todays debate about peoples place in
the world is as highly charged as it was when Charles
Darwin frst published his evolutionary theory, 150 years ago. Climate
change, shrinking biodiversity and global pollution are challenging
everyone to try to establish a more sustainable working relationship
between the planet, life and people, especially at a time when the human
population is growing by an average of 211,000 people every day.
Darwins writings have inspired generations of writers, scientists,
philosophers and environmentalists including me. What on Earth
Happened? The Complete History of Planet, Life and People from the Big Bang to the Present
Day, published in 2008, was my attempt at creating a more connected
perspective on the past. It is a single-volume history of the world that
dovetails the growth of human civilisations with evolutionary biology,
modern science with prehistoric art and the rise of world religions and
the irrepressible forces of Mother Nature.
While writing this book I realised it might be possible to take the
concept of holistic history a stage further. What on Earth Evolved? 100 Species
that Changed the World, published this October, is a follow-up volume that
looks at the past from the perspective of the most successful life forms
ever to have lived. They range from the frst genetic molecules at the
dawn of life in the oceans 3.5 billion years ago to many of the most
prolifc species alive today.
Looking at the past through the lens of myriad forms of viruses,
bacteria, fungi, fsh, plants, fowers, reptiles, mammals and humans
paints a dramatically different picture of history both human and
natural. Gone are the usually unavoidable prejudices that glorify one
continent, religion or culture over another. See the past from the species
perspective, not the individual human point of view, and the impact of
life on Earth takes on a fresh, new meaning.
T
he frst section profles ffty of the most successful species that
evolved in the wild, according to the laws of natural selection. They
include infuenza, smallpox, rhizobia, cyanobacteria, slime moulds,
corals, trilobites, earthworms, dragonfies, tyrannosaurus, mosquitoes,
oaks, bamboos, honeybees and ants. Our own species, Homo sapiens, is
included, of course, as are our direct ancestors Homo erectus and the frst
walking chimpanzee Australopithecus.
The second ffty species feature those that have thrived in a world
dominated by the rise of human civilisations over the last 10,000 years.
Rice, wheat, maize, sugar cane, rabbits, cats, dogs, rubber, cotton, cows,
sheep, roses, apples, poppies and cannabis are all living things that have, in
some way, been artifcially selected because they are pleasing to humans.
All 100 species have extraordinary stories to tell, and are ranked at the
back of the book in a table of overall infuence from number 1 to 100.
What surfaces is an extraordinary wrestling match. Artifcial selection
tailors a thin sliver of natural species to suit humans, while natural
selection champions the broadest possible ecological diversity. This epic
spat has become the defning hallmark of our age, a period defned by
geologists as the Anthropocene.
Species profled in the frst half are entirely natural,
mostly founded on sexual reproduction and inheritance,
a system that harbours no sentimentality for the
survival of any one species over another. Diversity is
its ultimate measure of success. Its simplicity lies in its
self-organising, self-correcting symmetry infnitely
adaptable, remarkably robust.
The second ffty species are fashioned out of the
rational, centralised, problem-solving human mind
replete with all the inevitable unintended consequences
of rational thought. In this mostly sexless system,
biodiversity is ruthlessly suppressed. Species that
enhance humanitys welfare are vigorously encouraged
while those that threaten it are destroyed. Living things
that look symmetrical, taste good or provide shelter,
warmth, transport or other benefts are bred into
monocultures that work for humanity. In this system
cloning, grafting and selective breeding provide the
reproductive plumbing necessary to focus Natures gene
pools, ensuring that the fttest dont survive: just those
most useful to humankind.
It is easy to forget that everyday human conduct
is dominated by humanitys constant battle against
natural selection. Think how normal it seems to apply
a weedkiller to garden grass, buy a bunch of cut roses
from Kenya, drink coffee from sun-drenched South
American plantations, or for a doctor to prescribe a
course of antibiotics to relieve a sore throat. Each activity
belongs to humanitys war on Nature.
The conclusion is as chilling as it is humbling. In the
world of artifcial selection humanitys survival will
always, at some level, be dependent on Nature. Yet, in the
wild, Nature has absolutely no need for humans.
What on Earth Evolved? 100 Species that Changed the
World is published by Bloomsbury at 25, ISBN
9780747599623.
Christopher Lloyd is a journalist, writer and educationalist.
WHAT ON EARTH
EVOLVED?
One hundred
species that changed
the world.
R E V I E W S
ANCIENT LIGHT
F
lat stone sometimes lit sometimes not | One among many
moonswung creatures | That have settled in this beautiful |
Uncountry of an Estuary begins Alice Oswalds poem about
the moon. It is set at night on the Severn estuary, in which, she
explains, various characters talk towards the moment of moonrise
and are changed by it. She is keen to suggest that it is not a play but
a poem in several registers, but makes free use of dramatic conditions.
It opens in classical style with a prologue, followed by an alternation of
the chorus and fve episodes new moon, half moon, full moon, no
moon, until moon reborn, and | Sometimes she moves behind and
sometimes shes gone.
There is a particular style to this poem. Theatre director Peter Brook
in The Empty Space proposes that there are four strains of theatre: Deadly,
Rough, Holy and Immediate, and I would tentatively suggest another
Field which might include this poem: a hybrid form which takes
on a live correspondence with the world and draws rawly on its
conscious and unconscious elements. Its origins, via Greek drama and
the Dionysiac, could be traced back to the frst shoots of poetry and
agrarian cult drama. Here Oswald combines feld theatre with the dark
medium of mime, or silence, which is the skeleton or very bone-stuff
of poetry, and this work abounds in variations on silence, a distinctively
Oswaldian preoccupation: gap, pause, calm, recess, abate, listen. These
nodes of silence are the shadowy ideas of fgures cast off the ordinary
life-shapes and life-voices that inhabit the poem.
The cast, we are told, are all real people from the Severn catchment
fsherman, birdwatcher, sailor, vicar, and so on some alive, some
dead, and the whole poem is slowly, unfoldingly re-cast by the effect of
moonlight. Five phases, fve turns of silence. This is the plays (or poems)
structure and it works effectively with an unsettling lightness to clasp
the reader into its strange watery chime of fve modes. The language
drives incantations of slipped etymology: some profound, some slightly
disharmonic moonwords like creatures under turned stones on the
Severns glossy tidal mud; untranslatable hissed interruptions.
As Oswald evokes the rivers moon-pulled fux, she makes us aware
that the moon is also a mirror: But its like searchlights out here | I
keep being followed by a strip of light. Part of the moons effectual
magic is that it borrows, by virtue of light being elsewhere. Such is the
nature of a universe, and there is a sweep to this poem which lifts some
of its light from other experiments, re-directing it onto the world stage
of the present the inverted turns of phrase of Hardy, Joyce, the strange
infused language of Hughes (just as in Hughes, for instance, there are
wavelengths of Graves, Hopkins, Neruda, Lorca) and of course, Beckett,
whose Ill Seen Ill Said must make up a little of its spectrum.
Sunset over the River Severn
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Light refected and reborn is in a way ancestral, or, put
more fundamentally, part of the poetic food-chain. Even
Oswalds articled clerk, the third character in the second
portion of the book, seems conscious of this, out on the
mud with all night that seeping feeding sound watching
that bent old egret | Prodding and poising his knife and
fork I thought I know whose tongue Im | treading on
There were those queues of reeds | Dipping their straws
in the dead | There was that sly tide swiftly reflling.
This moon poem illuminates a return to that most
ancient of things, a refective device which allows us to
look directly into the absorbed light of the poetic source.
It is in the pulse of the chorus that we hear Oswald
most clearly: Something needs to be said to describe
my moonlight | Almost frost but softer almost ash
but wholer | Made almost of water which has strictly
speaking | No feature but a kind of counterlight call
it insight And where in her previous work, Dart,
Oswald slipped through the forms various voices, here
she ebbs and fows between her cast of characters and
the chorus (thats her, since the chorus, in dramatic
tradition, is generally the main channel for the poets
own voice). The use of repeating strengtheners along the
band of the poem adds to the trance and invocation of
the moons states through an ever-tumbling present. Like
a Dionysiac play, the series of lit characters are in rapid
succession as they change, and their pull tugs at a reader
in their own head, their own dark theatre, towards a
conviction that while something new seems to have
begun here, it is also something very old.
Sean Borodale is an artist and poet. His poem Notes for an Atlas was
performed at the Southbank Centre, London.
Sean Borodale reviews a book that is part
of the poetic food-chain.
A Sleepwalk on the Severn
Alice Oswald
Faber and Faber, 2009
ISBN 9780571247561
R E V I E W S
SONG AT THE HAZARDOUS EDGE
F
rom the beginning Peter Abbs
quest has been spiritual. In a
poem published in 1978, which
is the frst in his selected poems,
The Flowering of Flint, he asks: where would
you lead me and what | would you
have of | me, restless | and enigmatic |
spirit? A line from another early poem
expresses the autobiographical impulse
that drives his spiritual quest: What I
have struggled with is who I am.
The authenticity of his struggle, which
continues in the new poems gathered
in Voyaging Out, lends a certain harshness
to Abbs lyricism. Characteristically,
he begins a number of poems with
questions: for example, Where to
begin? and How to phrase it? This
both denotes the genuinely exploratory
nature of Abbs poetry, and engages the
reader with the immediacy of his quest.
Voyaging Out is in two parts. Peregrinations
consists of poems representing the poets
personal voyages both into inner depths
and out into the world, some of the poems
arising directly from his life experiences,
and others focusing on subjects as diverse
as Nietzsches childhood, the death of
Pope John Paul II, and paintings by Pierre
Bonnard and Edward Hopper, but all
driven by the same metaphysical quest.
The second section, Transformations,
consists of contemporary versions of
poems by Rumi, Dante and Rilke. These
metamorphoses of the originals both
bring a great tradition into the conditions
of the modern world, and lend the poet
the spiritual support of that tradition.
To say that Abbs is a religious poet
means, partly, that he is consciously a
post-Christian poet who grapples with
the spiritual legacy of his early Catholic
faith. It also means that he draws upon
Jeremy Hooker is impressed
by a new metaphysical poetry
of harsh struggle and lyrical
beauty.
Voyaging Out
Peter Abbs
Salt, 2009
ISBN 9781844715121
religious language and imagery with the
aim of renewing it for a new vision of
aesthetic, erotic and ecological meaning.
The metamorphic or alchemic process
begins with words and imagery, such
as icon, associated with the poets
strongest early experiences. Thus, in Self
Portrait, the frst poem in Voyaging Out,
Abbs writes of icons where endings | are
beginnings, where the country of despair
| borders the frontier of possibility.
The border or frontier, which recurs also
in Voyaging Out in imagery of an edge,
is the location of Abbs quest for a new
metaphysical poetry. This is at once the
world of everyday experience and, in the
title of another poem, Off all the maps:
How to grasp the emergency thats
ours? At the edge,
speechless, failing unseen into the
wind scream.
Recurring images in Voyaging Out include
colours such as silver and white, birds,
music, light and fre, and rising winds.
Thus, the poet sees a swan:
a prodigy of driven white, its huge
wings whirring over
my astounded head, its webbed feet
dripping silver
in the mist and light. No beginning,
no middle, no end.
Not a word on my tongue
Mysterium Tremendum.
The ellipsis, a form of punctuation
Abbs favours in a number of his poems,
indicates the place where speech fronts
speechlessness. In this instance, the iconic
swan perhaps does not need the fnal
explanatory words.
In such books as Against the Flow, Abbs
is known as a powerful polemicist. On
occasion in his poems the polemicist
weighs in to explain what the lyrical
poet has pictured and sounded in words.
It would be fair to say, however, that the
best of Voyaging Out is vision: a quality
marvellously conveyed by the cover image
of a David Tress painted bush ablaze with
colour. Vision emerges through poetry
that takes the strain of negation.
Voyaging Out is haunted by endings as well
as beginnings, by death and the prospect
of death. The poems seek through time
for timelessness, and through the fnite
for infnity. For Abbs, Christianity is
associated with death, and philosophy
risks being a betrayal of the body. His
poem Bonnards Gift embodies what
he says about the painter in Against the
Flow, where he sees in the paintings the
ecstasy of the ordinary. The fullness of
existence. It is in Nature, and in erotic
love, that Abbs, like Bonnard, perceives
that fullness. In the words of Bonnards
Gift, He wants the gold gift | from the
alchemists furnace, fesh | rippling with
light. His new poems contain more than
glimpses of this vision. Voyaging Out is all
the stronger for the courage with which
the poet struggles towards the frontiers of
possibility, through the country of despair.
Jeremy Hookers books include The Cut of the
Light: Poems 1965-2005 and an edition of
Richard Jefferies essays, At Home on the Earth.
A Hot Day, February (Tretio) painting by David Tress
MEANINGFUL WORK
F
or over two decades Thomas
Moore has been helping many of
us to rediscover the soul and to
enrich our everyday lives with a
subtle dimension of magic and mystery.
As he stated in his seminal book Care of
the Soul, a key problem of our time is the
loss of soul: when the soul is ignored or
repressed, it manifests itself in distorted
ways obsessions, addictions, violence,
meaninglessness. But soul is not
something that can be plainly defned. It
is, rather, the mystery we glimpse when
we look inside ourselves an inner
world that cannot be reduced to objective
parameters, a dimension which speaks
not in the language of concepts but in
that of images, dreams, myths and poetry.
Moore, who has been particularly
infuenced by two great Western
explorers of the psyche, the Renaissance
philosopher Marsilio Ficino and the
Jungian psychologist James Hillman,
has managed to bring the essentials of
their approach to a wide audience and
in several books he has applied them to
areas such as relationships (Soul Mates),
daily life (The Re-Enchantment of Everyday
Life), or challenging experiences (Dark
Nights of the Soul). His most recent book,
A Life at Work, is a guide to help us fnd
a way of living that resonates with who
we truly are.
If our soul is not in our job, if what
we do most of the day is not in tune
with our calling, we are bound to end
up unfulflled and frustrated. As Jung
once wrote, creativity is not a luxury
but a vital human need. To think that our
real life happens only when we are away
from work is a recipe for dissatisfaction.
What we bring to our life work cannot be
separated from our values and passions
and from the quality of our emotions and
relations. Our work should enable us to
grow as human beings and to fnd our
place in society and in the world. It is the
royal road to self-realisation.
Moore takes the alchemical quest
(which was traditionally referred to as
opus that is, work) as a model for the
lifelong process of getting life together
and becoming a real person. This process
should turn you into a deeper, more
complex, more mature person through
your struggle. Many classical authors felt
the presence of what in ancient Greece
was called the daimon, an urge that we are
born with and that pushes us in a certain
direction throughout our life. Perhaps in
our shifting, liquid world, we shouldnt
think of single callings that are cast in
stone for ones lifetime. And we know
the task of fnding our self-realisation
through our work is not easy in a world
that values effciency and economic
abstractions over values and callings.
But often its not we who fnd a job, but
rather the job fnds us.
In our current systemic crisis, the
collapse of the material and ideological
structures through which our culture
tried to dominate the world will hopefully
open up many opportunities to work
for social and personal transformation.
What are you, with your skills and your
passions, meant to do in this crucial time?
Like his mentor Hillman, Moore is very
aware of the complexities of the soul,
of its lights and shadows, and doesnt
fall into cheap self-help approaches. But
here he seems to aim for a more popular
style (with, for instance, recurring
stories about his neighbours), perhaps
at the expense of the depth and richness
of his previous books. A Life at Work is a
commendable book, but there are other
works no less relevant to the task of
fnding ones own calling for example,
Eckhart Tolles A New Earth: Awakening to Your
Lifes Purpose, or Hillmans The Souls Code: In
Search of Character and Calling.
Jordi Pigem has taught philosophy and cultural
ecology at Schumacher College and the University
of Barcelona.
Being an RNLI lifeboat volunteer is certainly worthwhile and important work
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Jordi Pigem reviews Thomas
Moores invitation to fnd
your own calling.
A Life at Work:
The Joy of Discovering What You
Were Born to Do
Thomas Moore
Piatkus, 2008
ISBN 9780749939977
R E V I E W S
JEWELS OF EVOLUTION
T
his book is extremely well
researched, astute, and rather
funny too a perfect recipe
for an excellent read. It is clear
from the start that Colin Tudge is in awe of
avian evolution, and this passion for the
subject imbues every page with insight
and interest. He maps the evolutionary
progress of birds, from the fossils of
archopteryx, through evolutionary dead-
ends and extinctions, to the birds we
are familiar with today. Their unique
ability to travel long distances across
vast oceans is a key driving force of their
evolution, giving us the myriad species
we see throughout the world.
Birds are a highly superior life form:
they can fy. Tudge has always admired
and envied birds for this very reason.
If human beings wanted to fy like a
bird (in the style of Icarus), then they
would need a keel that protruded two
metres from their chests to anchor the
necessary fight muscles. But evolution
has not always worked entirely in birds
favour: in order to fy, birds have to be
relatively small. If the linear dimensions
of a bird are doubled, their weight
increases eight-fold. Consequently, very
big birds are all land-bound, and this law
of physics might explain why humans
never evolved this remarkable trait.
However, just because most birds are
small, it doesnt mean they are all bird-
brained or unintelligent. It has been
shown that many birds crows, parrots,
even the secretary bird are all highly
intelligent; however, as Tudge states, the
last still cannot take minutes! One of my
favourite passages in the book is Tudges
interpretation of birdsong. He doesnt
hesitate to say that birds have language:
not human language, but language
full of meaning nonetheless and he
goes on to give a host of remarkable
facts to underpin this statement. From
the different dialects within the same
species, to the elaborate calls of the
Brown Thrasher, which has over 2,000
different strophes or elements to its
song, the section is endlessly fascinating.
A large part of the book is taken up
with the classifcation of birds a
sterling feat indeed, as Tudge admits that
Nature feels no obligation to be easily
defnable. This part of the book may be
of more interest to hard-core twitchers
and ornithologists so extensively
researched and notated it is yet always
Tudge writes with humour and insight,
so that even a lengthy passage on ratites
is packed full of intriguing facts, for
example that the elephant bird of
Madagascar weighed almost half a ton
and laid an egg over a foot long. Not one
of the 450 pages can be skipped, for fear
of missing a gem of information.
These fascinating facts include tales of
pigeon milk (a cheesy secretion stored
in their crops to feed young) and other
wonders, such as the male sungrebe
who uniquely carries his babies in fight,
in pouches of skin beneath his wings. Or
of hummingbirds which can fy upside
down and dont hold their urine in
bladders: they spray as they go so that
they do not retain any extra weight that
might interfere with their aerobatics.
Perhaps the saddest fact of all is that
many of these magnifcent birds Tudge
traces from the dodo to the moa
existed in exquisite harmony with their
environment until humans came along
and wiped them out. Now all we have
left of them are a few fossil remains and
the imagination of a man like Tudge, who
brings them, momentarily, back to life.
All is not quite lost though: the white-
winged guan was thought to be extinct
in 1870 but turned up again in 1977.
And whilst the elephant bird is sadly
not likely to reappear, some spectacular
survival stories remain.
The passage on migration is also not to
be missed. The authors initial question,
How on Earth does a baby swallow
hatched in Surrey know its way to Africa,
after its parents have already left for
warmer climes?, remains unanswered,
but much of this intriguing behaviour
is revealed in all its complexity, and
serves to underline just how different
from mammals birds really are. Their
intelligence is on another level to ours,
and in many ways they are as highly
evolved as humans; they can holiday in
the sun every year without creating a
huge carbon footprint!
Tudge presents an incredible picture
of who birds are and what they do.
Humbled by their feats of endurance,
navigation, co-operation and ingenuity,
reading this book means that I will
never look at birds in the same way
again. They are truly jewels of evolution.
Most scientists agree that the ancestors
of birds are in fact dinosaurs. For
Tudge, dinosaurs are still with us, on
duck ponds, in the farmyard and in the
treetops. It pleases him immensely that
the much-loved robin is probably a
miniature dinosaur.
If only this review allowed space to
elucidate further on the architectural
abilities of the satin bowerbird who
paints his bachelor pad with the juice
from berries and decorates it with
sparkling trinkets, solely for the purpose
of seduction. Or to delve into the
clever tactics of birds who use human
Bird of paradise tail feathers
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Lorna Howarths love of
birds is enhanced by what
must rate as one of the
most fascinating books ever
written on the subject.
Consider the Birds: Who They Are
and What They Do
Colin Tudge
Allen Lane, 2008, ISBN 9781846140976
WRUNG FROM THE DARK
A
loving revision of a rather
ubiquitous theme, Wild pares
the subject down to its very
essence. Much more than
a travelogue or Nature book, it is the
unfinching account of seven years of the
authors life devoted to the healing of her
fragmented self, so much so that the
outcome of this truly fascinating book
seems almost negligible.
In her investigation of the worlds wildest
places, Griffths takes the reader on a sensual
journey to the Arctic, the desert, the mountains,
the Amazon and even Outer Mongolia. But
the pleasure of Wild is in accompanying
Griffths on her experience of transformation,
approached with an enigmatic combination
of courage and humility.
Wild is rigorously researched. Still, it is
neither a compendium of fascinating facts
about politics and ecology, nor a straight-
forward memoir; Wild is in form as it is
in content: borderless. Fierce in its use of
language, the prose sparkles and seduces,
but never generalises or romanticises: like
the poet she is, Griffths is cautious and
concise, yet she writes from the wild
place in herself. She never sacrifces the
narrative for the sake of frivolity. The
language always serves the story.
In the account of her time with the Inuit
in the Arctic, Griffths writes about the
experience of witnessing a beluga being
killed during the Inuits traditional annual
whale hunt. She describes with pointed
vulnerability the death of a hot-blooded
animal, writes through her own inner
confict of the strangely beautiful red of
blood against snow, revealing the way her
hands shake as she tries to capture all the
details of the event, especially the way
her emotions refuse to co-operate with
her intellect, which knows that it isnt
the Indigenous traditions that have led to
the dwindling numbers of whales in the
wild, but commercial whaling.
In this way Griffths journey addresses
diffcult subject matter with journalistic
integrity on the one hand and, on
the other, unbridled reverence. Never
reduced to regurgitating accepted views
on Nature, Griffths prose is alive with
unsentimental sincerity.
But above all Wild is a sensual journey.
Griffths listens to the Arctic wind, tastes
fresh seal liver, and smells the dank
wilderness. Ever vigilant, she refutes
stereotypes and inherited knowledge,
regularly evaluating what she sees and
hears. Griffths entices the reader with her
undeniable childlike curiosity, coupled
with the mature language of a seasoned
writer: The Northern Lights is a special
instance of the Arctics irrealities: while
the snow is softly drinking the moon,
the aurora borealis rains down huefuls
of greenlight. The night sky is tie-dyed
and spun, in centrifuge from the sun, in
hesitance and light; the wind wrests colour
from the night and secret light is wrung
from the dark. Griffths language is wild.
The prose seems to rip its way through the
page, to breathe of its own accord.
An ambitious and precocious book, Wild
attempts to expand our limited and often
unexamined ideas about wilderness. But
the real treasure is the underlying theme
that claims wilderness isnt somewhere
out there a living, steamy creature or an
isolated mountain range wilderness is
within ourselves.
Although Wild takes its shape from
the writers hard-won journey into the
depths of her own wilderness, distilled to
its essence the book tells stories simply
and movingly, cutting to the core of what
it is to be human on this beautiful planet.
Natasha Rivett-Carnac is a freelance writer and arts
manager based in London.
Natasha Rivett-Carnac recommends
a book that journeys into the heart of
human nature.
Wild: An Elemental Journey
Jay Griffths
Penguin, 2008, ISBN 9780141006444
technology for their own purposes. But,
alas, this review is already too long and
there are two further points that Tudge
makes which deserve mention.
We are still in thrall to the Darwinian
evolutionary idea of survival of the
fttest in our competitive economies,
our schools, and even our leisure and
yet birds demonstrate clearly that in fact
survival of the most co-operative is the
key to success. Tudge suggests we have
much to learn from the birds and asks us
to consider another theory of Darwins
that has been rejected by the scientifc
community, but could yet allow a whole
new understanding of the laws of Nature:
that a great number of animals have
been rendered beautiful for beautys sake
and for no other purpose.
Lorna Howarth is Co-editor of Resurgence.
The Northern Lights: aurora borealis, seen from Finland
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M E M B E R S P A G E
Resurgence
Readers Profle
I stumbled across free back issues
of Resurgence magazine on display
at The Rebecca Hossack Gallery in
2007, explained Diane. Looking back,
this was my frst step on the way to
becoming what Resurgence would
describe as an Earth Pilgrim.
Ive since taken part in several of
Resurgences Slow Sunday initiatives
from my home in Kent. Its such a
gift to be able to share time with
my children and grandchildren. No
lectures. Having fun. Taking small
actions can make a big difference.
For Diane life is a continuous journey.
I fnd inspiration in a multitude of
stories, art and poetry through those
who speak with humility, timelessness,
vision and passion. Especially when
they speak with a Canadian accent
which I share! Robert Lepage and
Leonard Cohen are a couple of my
favourites. Ive coined the term interr-
ELATION to express the sense of
awe that Im flled with when seeing
the beauty of the natural world.
Contact ian@resurgence.org to
share experiences from your Slow
Sundays or to feature in a future
Reader Profle.
Diane Baylis, a Resurgence reader for the past two
years explains how she discovered the magazine,
why she enjoys taking part in Resurgences
Slow Sunday initiatives, and what the sources of
inspiration are in her life.
Volumes of Inspiration
Buy your Christmas presents from Green Books, support an
independent bookshop and receive a 25% discount on all titles. If
your order is 20 or more you will also receive a free copy of Only
Connect: Resurgence Anthology which was published to celebrate
Resurgences 200th issue and Editorial Jubilee.
You can order books online at: www.greenbooks.co.uk
To activate the discount put in the voucher code RESURGENCE
FREE BOOK or phone Central Books 0845 458 9910. Mention
the Resurgence Free Book Offer and also ask for the 25% discount.
Taking Sunday Slowly
Readers share how they like to wind down with
low-impact activities at the weekend
Jackie Carpenter digs out the paintbrush
and easel: We took a look in the cupboard for
some old watercolour paints that belonged to
Grandmother and sat quietly outdoors with
the children, painting pictures of the beautiful
landscape that surrounds us. We have never
done watercolour landscape pictures before
Chantal (age 9) and Yasmin (age 7) enjoy their Slow Sunday
ILLUSTRATION: RACHEL MARSH
C L A S S I F I E D A D V E R T I S I N G
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All adverts are subject to our minimum specifications, available
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CENTRAL EDINBURGH
Friendly B&B in quiet victorian street with superb views
to Salisbury Crags and Arthurs Seat. varied continental
breakfast. Walking distance castle, palace, etc. 5 min
main bus route. Tel: Moira 0131 6683718
NORTH LONDON
Tufnell Park. Quiet room, own bathroom, share kitchen
Zone 2, near tube/buses. 354 pcm plus bills.
020 7281 7824
SUSTAINABLE PROSPECTS?
Newly forming eco-community in Devon area, based
on permaculture principles, seeks more members
with capital. For more information, phone Frances on
01243 430314 or see www.prospectcohousing.org.uk
DIPLOMA CHINESE MEDICINE HEALING
One-year course in beautiful Southern France. Learn
all about wild medicinal plants, acupuncture, Taoist
meditation, fulcrum bodywork and process. More
information at www.cmhealing.com
email d.kaatz@wanadoo.fr
CREATIVE RETREATS WITH YOGA
Fun mix of Hatha Yoga, walking, philosophy and delicious
food with a range of painting, singing, dancing and writing
retreats. Welcombe, North Devon. Contact Rosina:
01288 331793 www.creative-retreats.com
INITIATORY TRAINING
An international three-year study on spiritual thought.
www.initiatory-training.com
ECO-ARCHITECTURE
planning & permaculture design. Sustainable ecological
architecture and design of buildings, planning
applications, planning appeals. Tel: 01235 529266
Email: Sophie@eco-architectureandplanning.com
Website: www.eco-architectureandplanning.com
eco-architectureandplanning.blogspot.com
LECTURE OFFERED
Economics is ecologically illegitimate in conception
and inevitably therefore ecologically unsustainable
in practice. Supported by new book Our Assumption
of Separability (subtitled The Ecology of Economics).
details from Ecohesion: 0114 288 8037
GAIA GROUPS
Resurgence readers opportunity to meet together
in local groups, sharing meditation, ideas, an eco-
friendly way of life, and seasonal food. For more
information on local groups across the UK, or to start
your own group, contact elaine@gaiapartnership.org
0845 458 4718
Birmingham: bi-monthly. Abdul, 0121 426 2606
alseffar@beeb.net
Bradford: Family friendly! Radhia Tarafder,
01274 407 789
Chester: cliodhna@flowstone.org.uk
East Devon: Christina, 01297 23822
tinabows@hotmail.com
Edinburgh: Anna Shepherd 0131 228 3874
anna@peacocksolutions.co.uk
Hertfordshire Hemel Hempstead:
paulsandford28@yahoo.co.uk
Hertfordshire/Bedfordshire: Baya Salmon-Hawk,
01462 437350 Hawkeye5000@gmail.com
Kent East, Ramsgate: Gerard, 01843 589 027
gez6551@yahoo.co.uk
Kent Strood: David Bowdler, 01634 712 217
dave@dbmu.freeserve.co.uk
Leeds: David Midgley,
david@schumacher-north.co.uk
Oxford: Jessica Deguara, 01865 883 920
carrie@moonrise.globalnet.co.uk
Poole & Bournemouth: Harriet Stewart-Jones,
harrietsj@googlemail.com
Shropshire Ludlow: Linda Downey, 01584 879428
ljdowney@phonecoop.coop
West Sussex Cuckfield: Margaret Tyzack More,
01444 412 228 makaet@yahoo.co.uk
Welsh Borders: Near Hay on Wye, 01981 550 246
elaine@gaiapartnership.org
ZERO-EMISSION MICRO-YACHT
Designed and built by Mukti Mitchell, the revolutionary
Explorer Micro-yacht (nominated Innovative Boat of
the Year 2005 at the British Marine Awards) is the only
production yacht that is both small enough to row and
seaworthy enough to sail around Britain. To request a
brochure or arrange a test sail, visit
www.mitchellyachts.co.uk or call 0845 345 5075

SATISH KUMAR TALKS ON CD
A selection of talks by Satish Kumar is now available on
CD and DvD via the Resurgence website. Talks include
Satishs Schumacher lecture Slow Down, Go Further
(Dublin 2004), Cultural Non-violence, and Reverential
Ecology. To find out more or buy a CD/DvD online visit
www.resurgence.org/satish-kumar/video-audio.html
NORTH DEVON
Small, comfortable converted barn. very pleasant
location, 3m from sea, nr Clovelly. Open plan.
Woodburner. Sleeps 2/4. Organic vegetables available.
Tel: 01237 431589
FOR ALL READERS
who are considering a trip overseas, we would urge
you to visit www.seat61.com to plan your journey
by train.
CHURCHWOOD VALLEY
Wembury, nr Plymouth, Devon. For peace and
tranquillity, s/c holiday cabins in beautiful natural
wooded valley close to the sea. Abundance of birds and
wildlife. Gold awards for conservation. Pets welcome.
Tel: 01752 862382 churchwoodvalley@btconnect.com
www.churchwoodvalley.com
MID WALES
Earth, Air, Water, Fire... Walk wild hilltops, breathe fresh
air, explore streams and waterfalls, and snuggle down
by the woodburner. Cosy, bright, peaceful hideaway
in the hills for 2+2. Also quiet streamside camping &
campfires. Rob and Pip. Tel: 01686 420 423
wildwood@deeppool.fsnet.co.uk
LONDON HAMMERSMITH
Nice B&B in family homes. Comfortable, centrally
located. Direct transport to attractions, airports and
Eurostar. Double 50, single 36 per night. Children's
reductions. Tel: 020 7385 4904 www.thewaytostay.co.uk
HARTLAND
Panoramic sea views. Large, comfortable victorian
house set in an area of outstanding natural beauty close
to coast path. Sleeps 10 + cot. Plus cottage, sleeps 6 +
cot. Tel: +44 (0)1237 441 259
email: enquiries@littlebartonhartland.co.uk
www.littlebartonhartland.co.uk
NORTH CORNWALL
Self-catering accommodation in spacious barn
conversion. Sleeps 8. Secluded rural location. Ideal
for visiting all attractions Eden Project just 40 min.
Well equipped and very comfortable, with large private
garden. Contact Jeanette and John Gill, Rocksea
Farmhouse, St Mabyn, Bodmin, Cornwall PL30 3BR
john@rockseabarn.co.uk www.rockseabarn.co.uk
YURTS AND HUT BY THE POND
A single yurt or a group of 4, or a hut by a pond on an
award-winning Cotswold organic farm near Cirencester.
See www.theorganicfarmshop.co.uk for details.

ACCOMMODATION
COMMUNITIES

COURSES
FOR SALE
HOLIDAYS
EVENTS

ECO-ARCHITECTURE
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WANTED
SITUATIONS VACANT
Satish Kumar has been a pilgrim ever since, at
the age of eight, he joined the brotherhood of
wandering Jain monks in his native India. In his new
book Earth Pilgrim Satish draws on this personal
experience and also his understanding of the
spiritual traditions of both East and West.
EARTH PILGRIM by Satish Kumar
To purchase Satishs new
book Earth Pilgrim, phone
+44 (0)1237 441293 or buy
online
www.resurgence.org/shop
Price: 9.95 / $14.13
Earth Pilgrim (published by Green Books) is out now!
STRESSFUL LIFE?
Free email newsletter on downshifting, sustainable
living and sustainable business.
Subscribe at www.sallylever.co.uk
VISIONARY ARTIST
Edward Foster
www.edwardfosterart.co.uk
info@edwardfosterart.co.uk
WHAT WORLD WILL YOUR GRANDCHILDREN
inherit? Your legacy, however modest, to the
Resurgence Trust could make it a better one. For more
information, contact Satish Kumar, The Resurgence
Trust, Ford House, Hartland, Bideford, Devon, EX39
6EE, UK, or email info@resurgence.org
TEESHIRTS SPREAD THE MESSAGE
Working on various Green Man and Green issue designs.
Interested? Please contact dileas_sean@yahoo.com or
phone 01334 470588
PHIROZ MEHTA
Author of The Heart of Religion, Holistic
Consciousness, Buddhahood. Listen to his talks
on holistic living and spirituality on our website
www.phirozmehtatrust.org.uk
The Phiroz Mehta Trust, 47 Lillian Road, London,
SW13 9JF Tel: 020 8748 3218
Email info@phirozmehtatrust.org.uk
IRELAND
Co. Clare and surrounding areas: farmhouses, cottages,
smallholdings, etc., in beautiful unspoilt countryside.
Some within reach of Steiner school. Greenvalley
Properties. Tel: +353 (0)6192 1498 www.gvp.ie
CENTRAL ITALY
Habitable detached 3-bed cottage in Central Italy
(Marche), central heating, organic garden, small
orchard, woodland, plus outbuildings to restore. Beauti-
ful views. 170,000. Tel: +39 0734 711856
ianmcca@alice.it
CO. DONEGAL, IRELAND
Beautiful detached three-bedroomed house for sale,
surrounded by 3/4 acre organic vegetable, fruit, herb
and flower gardens, tended lovingly for 30 years.
Solar panels, new Stanley range. Borehole for water.
Conservatory, large polytunnel, mature trees, rural
location, magnificent views, superb beaches nearby.
Carndonagh 3 miles. Price: 300,000. visit
www.mypropertyforsale.co.uk/showproperty-europe-
an.php?pid=82407 bevfreespirit@yahoo.co.uk.
BEAUTIFUL WOODEN HOUSE
In stunning Borlin valley, West Cork. Unique opportu-
nity to join Eco village project
www.unicornecofoundation.org. See: layout/Herne
House for details. Contact ziginor@gmail.com
RESIDENTIAL HOUSEGUARDIANS - CAMPHILL
Orchard Leigh is a small life-sharing community near
Stroud in Gloucestershire, where adults with learning
difficulties are helped to lead fulfilling lives in a mutually
supportive setting. We have organic farmland, a bakery
and craft workshops. We are looking for single people,
couples or families, preferably with experience of life in
a Camphill community, to join us as volunteer residential
co-workers, supporting our residents and running a
household. Call 01453 823811,
email orchard.leigh@virgin.net
www.camphill.org.uk/~orchardleigh
GREECE
Cottage to let all year round in castle in Greece. Contact
nikosnjina@msn.com for photos and details.
FOR RENT/SALE:
Beautiful farmhouse+18 acres. Northern Spain, Oviedo.
Cheap rent if you help renovate! Or 140,000.
becdoe@yahoo.co.uk
ELEGANT GEORGIAN MANSION
in Castletownshend village, Co. Cork., divided into
two spacious comfortably refurbished apartments,
available for reasonably priced winter lets. Full
of character and creative ambience, would suit
writers, artists, etc. For more information, please
email geraldineorfeur@ukonline.co.uk
TIBETAN REFUGEE CHILDREN IN N. INDIA
There is a crisis now in Tibet, and sponsors are greatly
needed for these children. 24 pm or 12 pm. Contact
morelle.juno@talktalk.net
CO-LIVING PROJECT
Seeking 4-6 people, to each invest 100,000 in property
for relational/green living (and working?). 20-mile radius
Exeter. Contact: earthsky@tiscali.co.uk
DIGGERS & DREAMERS WITH CAPITAL
See our website for details:
www.prospectcohousing.org.uk
BUDDHIST ECOLOGIST & WRITER
seeks s/c rural accommodation in venue suitable for
residential seminars, creative workshops, writing
holidays, yoga & meditation or walking & Slow Food
retreats. Farm, country house or Mediterranean.
www.buddhistecology.eu zen@studydirect.org
HOLIDAY COTTAGE ON COTSWOLD ORGANIC FARM
Lovely south-facing holiday cottage at the end of the
track. Woodburner, old Indian furniture, farm shop and
caf to visit, the whole farm to roam.
See www.theorganicfarmshop.co.uk for details.
RUGGED, BEAUTIFUL PEMBROKESHIRE
Two eco-friendly, recently converted barns on
smallholding. Each sleeps 4. Coastal path 2 miles.
Tel: 01348 891286 holidays@stonescottages.co.uk
www.stonescottages.co.uk
GRETA HALL, KESWICK, LAKE DISTRICT
Former home of Coleridge and Southey. Three beautiful
self-catering accommodation options in Grade 1 building
sleeping 11, 6 or 2. Large grounds and seclusion close
to town centre. www.gretahall.net or 01768 775980
TOTNES (SOUTH DEVON)
Self-catering double-bedroom riverside apartment.
Situated on the edge of the magnificent Dartington
estate. Short walk along the river path to Totnes
mainline station and town centre. Perfect base
for exploring by foot, canoe and bike. Canoe hire
available. www.littleriverside.com Tel: 01803 866257
Mobile: 07738 634136
ORGANIC VEGETARIAN HOLIDAYS
for peace and inspiration. Lancrigg vegetarian Country
House Hotel in the mountains of the English Lake
District. Wonderful walking from the door. Delicious fully
certified organic vegetarian meals served throughout
the day. 01539 435317 www.lancrigg.co.uk
HIMALAYAN PAINTING HOLIDAY
Stay with a local family. Full board, studio, fabulous
landscape; rural reality. www.paintinginparadise.co.uk
ISLE OF SKYE
Superb yoga studio, teacher available, sea loch, log
stoves, self-catering 1-4 persons. No single supplement!
Tel: 01470 592367 www.skye-yoga-holidays.co.uk
YOGA HOLIDAYS, INDIA.
In beautiful Kerala hill station. www.mundax.com
ECO-FRIENDLY COTTAGE
Hartland, N. Devon. Solar water, green central
heating. Stunning coast & countryside views. Sleeps 4.
01237 441490 www.peaceandplentyholidays.co.uk
email r.r@tosberry.com
FIRST IMPRESSIONS COUNT
Proofreading and copy-editing by a member of the
Resurgence team. Reliable, friendly service.
Helen Banks 01726 823998
helenbanks@phonecoop.coop
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featured in Resurgence may be
obtained from the
Schumacher Book Service,
now managed by Green Spirit Books
(Tony Jarrett, 56 Downlands Road,
Devizes SN10 5EF)
Tel & fax. 01380 726224
www.greenspirit.org.uk/books
e-mail: greenspiritbooks@btinternet.com
Correspondence Diploma Courses
using colour and design as a healing art
Holistic Interior Design
Healing Garden Design
Colour Therapeutics for interiors
Transformative Therapy
using art and music
Feng Shui for Homes and Businesses
www.holisticdesign.co.uk
01803 868037
grants available
HOLISTIC DESIGN INSTITUTE
RESURGENCE
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Issue 259 Mar/Apr - 3rd Jan
Issue 260 May/Jun - 1st Mar
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www.resurgence.org/advertise or on request.
BI JA
An international school for sustainable living, India.
Gandhi and Globalisation
24 November 2009 5 December
2009 (2 weeks)
Marking the 100th anniversary of
Gandhis vision
In 1909 Mahatma Gandhi wrote
his manifesto for the non-violent
social order. The manifesto
was called Indian Home Rule
(Hindswaraj). In this manifesto
he described his great vision of
civilisation based in local economy,
decentralised politics, non-violence
and spiritual values.
His vision is as relevant today as it
was then.
To mark the 100th anniversary
of this manifesto a two-week
course is being held at Bija, an
international school of sustainable
living in North India.
Bija was founded on the model
of Schumacher College and is
situated in the beautiful hills of
Himalayas on an organic farm near
the city of Dehradun.
The course will be taught by Satish
Kumar, editor of Resurgence
Magazine, Vandana Shiva, author
of Soil Not Oil and Samdhong
Rinpoche, the Prime Minister of
the Tibetan Government in exile.
The course includes daily yoga
classes, meditation, temple visits
and work on the farm. For further
information on fees etc please
contact Mini Joy at:
bijavidyapeeth@vsnl.net or
Telephone +91 11 26853772.
The Resurgence
Trust is seeking a
new Trustee with
legal experience in
Charity Law.
Volunteers are
invited to contact
Ian Tennant for
further details.
ian@resurgence.org
01237 441293
130-197-6
52-103-0
191-191-191
102-102-102
241-239-240
156-156-156
235-176-56
227-116-15
247-148-29
133-114-68
49-25-1
90-62-25
247-148-29
A
re you our n
O
oo Laureate?
& the title of
Ooffoo Laureate 2010
Were looking for an inspiring letter that you
would write to a world leader or somebody
of global or significant influence.
The award will go to the person who is judged
to have written the most impressive and
inspiring letter - one that offers hope or
encouragement and is aimed at helping to
change things for the better. Your letter could
consist of new or original ideas and
suggestions or it may be a letter of praise and
encouragement for something positive that she
or he is already doing. You may know of
something that is already taking place
elsewhere in a smaller or local context and
your letter may be a suggestion as to how this
may work on a grander or global level. You
may wish to write an inspirational speech to
him or her as a form of encouragement and a
reminder of the power she/he has to be able to
make a difference.
This competition seeks to unlock the
power in all of you, our readers, to reach
out and light as many candles as we
can together. We do hope you will be
inspired to enter and help us spread
the word.
Satish Kumar, Editor of Resurgence
For full details including 'How to enter' please visit
www.ooffoo.com/laureate
Ooffoo.com in association with Resurgence
Magazine announces the opening of this
year's Ooffoo Laureate competition.
Rediscover the ancient power of group chant
Magical Voice Techniques Mantra & Sonic
Meditations Mongolian Overtone Chanting
www.healingvoice.com T: 020 7435 2467
Jill Purce
The Healing Voice
Jill Purce
The Healing Voice
Inner Sound & Voice Weekends London
Oct 31 - Nov 1 Dec 12 - 13
Ritual & Resonance Healing the Family
October 17 - 18 December 5- 6
Week Intensive - London
Healing Voice October 31 - November 6
Money
a gift, a resource, a burden, an
opportunity, a pain?
If you have substantial capital,
are happy to give at least 3,000pa
to charities and pressure groups
working for a better world,
and seek to use your wealth creatively,
check out the
Network for Social Change
and join us.
www.thenetworkforsocialchange.org.uk
No unsolicited applications for funding accepted
SUFI TEACHINGS of
LOVE, HARMONY and BEAUTY
Introduction to Sufsm: The Path of the Heart
London Suf Centre Open Days.
Saturday 19 September & Saturday 7 November 2009,
11.30-5pm
These days are an opportunity to go deeper into
the teachings and practices of the Suf Order
and are not only meant for practising Sufs but
for anyone who is keen to explore this path.
Venue: London Suf Centre/CCPE, Beauchamp Lodge,
2 Warwick Crescent, London W2 6NE
Teachers: Nigel Wali Hamilton (19th September),
Aziz Dikeulias (7th November)
Cost: 10 on the door.
(please bring food to share at lunchtime)
Info: Suf Order UK, Tel: 020 7266 3099
Email: info@suforderuk.org, www.suforderuk.org
Know where your money goes
Triodos Bank NV is incorporated under the laws of The Netherlands with limited liability, registered in England
and Wales BR3012. Authorised by the Dutch Central Bank (DNB) and regulated by the Financial Services Authority
(FSA) for the conduct of UK business. Registered office: Brunel House, 11 The Promenade, Bristol BS8 3NN.
Naturally, were delighted that we were recently named the worlds
most sustainable bank by the Financial Times. For us, its a vote of
confdence in our unique actively ethical approach to making money
work for positive change. But what does it mean for you? Quite simply,
its further reassurance that when you save with Triodos youll enjoy
not just a fair return on your money, but also a frm promise of total
transparency about how its being used.
Prize-winning performance, from
the worlds most sustainable bank.
Be part of our success from just 1.
Open an Online Saver account today from as little as 1.
Or save for the longer term, with our One or Three Year Bonds.
For details of our full range of accounts call now on 0500 008 720
or visit us online at www.triodos.co.uk
80929 AC Resurgence 136x188.indd 1 6/8/09 14:41:42
WHY WE LIVE AFTER DEATH
By Dr Richard Steinpach
Why are we here on Earth today?
How does the soul outlive the body?
Where does it go in the Beyond?
What happens to us over there?
What is the real meaning of life?
Irrefutable evidence coupled
with new knowledge that clearly
demonstrates how our Earth-life is
but a short yet decisive episode in
our entire existence.
To obtain this 69-page booklet free, please contact:
THE GRAIL MESSAGE FOUNDATION 0845 658 5666
Dept. RJP, PO Box 3480, Rugby, CV22 5YW
E-mail: GralGB@aol.com
Autumn Residential Courses in
North Norfolk
with Susie Self and Michael Christie
Sound Healing 30 Oct-1 Nov
Singing with Ease 4-6 Dec
185 fully inclusive per weekend
Go to www.selfmademusic.co.uk
for further details
Selfmade Music presents:
Permaculture Magazine display ads 2009
This PDF layout is CMYK 300dpi
If you require an ad in another format i.e. tiff, please
contact Tony Rollinson, tel: 01730 823 311
or email: tony@permaculture.co.uk.
As we move into an age of unstable climate and rising oil, food and utility prices, you could be
forgiven for feeling hopeless. But dont despair! There are many practical actions that can be taken!.
Permaculture Magazine Inspiration For Sustainable Living features practical, real life stories from
people around the world who are creating a more sustainable, life-enhancing human society. Their
inspiring solutions show you how to grow your organic food, eco-build and renovate, how to live an
environmentally friendly life and much more. It is full of news, reviews, courses, contacts and clever
money saving ideas ideas. So dont delay, join the sustainable revolution and become a life changer!
Permaculture Magazine is published quarterly in full colour, 68 pages.
Tel: 01730 823 311 Email: info@permaculture.co.uk
www.permaculture.co.uk
Inspiration for Self Reliance
As we move into an age of unstable climate and ever rising oil, food and
utility prices, you could be forgiven for feeling hopeless. But dont despair!
There are so many practical and enjoyable actions that can be taken and
are being taken by 10s of 1,000s of people across the globe just like you...
Permaculture Magazine Inspiration For Sustainable Living gathers
together practical, informative and real life stories from real people who are
creating a more sustainable, life-enhancing human society. Their inspiring
ideas are shared freely and are applicable to everyone, everywhere. So
join the sustainable revolution and become a life changer! Subscribe to
Permaculture Magazine TODAY.
PM is published quarterly in full colour, 68 pages. Subscribe and SAVE 20% on the cover price:
UK: 1 year 12.95 / 2 years 24.95 EUROPE: 1 year 19.00 / 2 years 34.00 ROW: 1 year 22.00 / 2 years 40.00
Permaculture Magazine is also available to subscribe to online at:
www.exacteditions.com/exact/magazine/409/460
Permanent Publications Res, The Sustainability Centre, East Meon, Hants GU32 1HR
Tel: 01730 823 311 Email: info@permaculture.co.uk www.permaculture.co.uk
Inspiration for Self Reliance
A magazine Which Makes A Difference
JUST THIS DAY
Our world is busy and in the turmoil we forget we all share the same space. Families,
communities and countries live with confict, poverty and disease.
How can we make a diference?
Stop: For Just One Day November 25th 2009
Go beyond nationality, religious diference or belief and remember the still, silent presence
where everything is united. That space is the same. In cities or felds. In work, study or play. In
fortune or adversity. In peace or confict. In fact, wherever YOU are. It belongs to us all.
WWW.JUSTTHISDAY.ORG
Just this Day is an inspiring vision,
everybody who cares for the
upliftment of soul and renewal
of society should observe the
day Satish Kumar
SPECIALITY FARM FOODS
To buy online visit our website
www.specialityfoods.org.uk
or call us 0845 8120 128
Culinary treasures from around
the world produced by
small farmers and artisans.
No.01

Legacy for Resurgence Trust
The Resurgence Trust, in collaboration with likeminded
individuals and organisations, works for the realisation
of a vision of society at ease with itself and in harmony
with the earth itself. We believe that urgent action is
needed to bring about social transformation, environ-
mental sustainability and spiritual revival.
We need your support. You can be part of the
change you want to see in the world by leaving a legacy,
however modest, to The Resurgence Trust.
As we develop our vision to embrace a wider
community with the fundamental message Resurgence
magazine has championed for the last forty two years,
we are flled with hope and passion that together with
our writers, artists, photographers and our supporters,
we can really make the world a better place.
Fore more information on what your legacy can
achieve, contact
Satish Kumar
Resurgence Trust
Registered offce: Ford House, Hartland,
Bideford, Devon EX39 6EE
Tel. 01237 441 293
Fax 01237 441 203
Email satish@resurgence.org
Registered Charity No. 1120414
Web www.resurgence.org/trust
Also for legacy advice, visit www.patrickwise.co.uk

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Schumacher
College
NEW short course
Sustainable Living
January 4 22, 2010
The Economics
of Happiness
February 1 19, 2010
After Copenhagen:
Opportunities and
challenges
March 1 19, 2010
global community.
and others
+44(0)1803 865 934
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EDITORIAL OFFICE
Ford House, Hartland, Bideford,
Devon EX39 6EE, UK
Tel: + 44 (0) 1237 441293
Fax: + 44 (0) 1237 441203
Offce Manager
Lynn Batten
info@resurgence.org
Trust Manager
Ian Tennant
PA to Satish Kumar
Elaine Green
Editors
Satish Kumar
Lorna Howarth
Managing Editor
Jo Oland
Website Editor
Angie Burke
Design
Rachel Marsh
Art Adviser
Sandy Brown
Poetry Editor
Peter Abbs
Sub-editor
Helen Banks
ADVERTISING
Advertising Manager
Gwydion Batten
Advertising Sales
Andrea Thomas
Tel: + 44 (0)208 771 9650
andrea@resurgence.org
TRUSTEES
Chair James Sainsbury
Sandy Brown, Rebecca Hossack, Nick Robins
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
Herbert Girardet, Hazel Henderson, David
Kingsley, June Mitchell, Sophie Poklewski
Koziell, Jonathan Robinson, Andrew Simms,
Martin Wright
ADVISORY PANEL
Ramesh Agrawal, Rosie Boycott, Ros Coward,
Oliver James, Annie Lennox, Philip Marsden,
Geoff Mulgan, Jonathon Porritt, Gordon
Roddick, Sam Roddick, William Sieghart
MEMBERSHIP
Membership Offce
Jeanette Gill,
Rocksea Farmhouse,
St Mabyn, Bodmin,
Tel: + 44 (0) 1208 841824
Fax: + 44 (0) 1208 841256
Membership Rates
UK: direct debit 25
cheque 30
Overseas: Airmail 40
Surface mail: 35
OVERSEAS MEMBERSHIP
USA
Walt Blackford,
P O Box 312,
Langley, WA 98260
U.S.A.
Airmail: US$60, Surface: US$52
Australia
Sustainable Living Tasmania,
Level 1, 71 Murray Street,
Hobart, 7000, Australia
Tel: 03 6234 5566
info@sustainablelivingtasmania.org.au
The Ethos Foundation,
37 Bibaringa Close, Beechmont,
Qld 4211, Australia
Tel: 07 5533 3646
info@ethosfoundation.org
Airmail: A$97, Surface: A$84
Japan
Fair Trade Company/Global Village
2F, 2-16-29 Jiyugaoka,
Meguro-ku, Tokyo,
Japan 152-0035
Tel: + 81 3 5731 6671
Fax: + 81 3 5731 6677
planning@globalvillage.or.jp
Airmail: 8.600, Surface: 7.500
South Africa
Howard Dobson, SEEDS,
16 Willow Road, Constantia
7806, Cape Town, South Africa
Tel: + 27 2 1794 3318
howdy@mweb.co.za
Airmail: R556, Surface: R487
DISTRIBUTORS
USA
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1402 Avenue B,
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Tel: +1 308 635 2225
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UK
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St Mabyn, Bodmin,
Tel: + 44 (0) 1208 841824
Fax: + 44 (0) 1208 841256
EVENTS
Peter Lang
Tel: + 44 (0) 20 8809 2391
peterlang@resurgence.org
RESURGENCE SUPPORTERS
Patrons (5,000)
Anthony and Carole Bamford, Roger Franklin,
Kim Samuel-Johnson, Doug Tompkins, Michael
Watt, Louise White
Life Members (1,000)
Klaas and Lise Berkeley, Peter and Mimi
Buckley, Anisa Caine, Craig Charles Dobson,
Mary Davidson, John Doyle, John and Liz
Duncan, Rosemary Fitzpatrick, Hermann
Graf-Hatzfelt, Brenda Lealman, Michael Livni,
Mrs O. Oppenheimer, Vinod Patel & Rashmi
Shukla CBE, John Pontin, Colin Redpath, Jane
Rowse, Gabriel Scally, Penelope Schmidt,
Philip Strong
Sustainer Members (500)
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PRODUCTION
Printer
Kingfsher Print, Totnes, Devon
ISSN 0034-5970
Printed on Evolution paper:
(75% recycled fbre/25% FSC certifed
virgin pulp), using soya-based inks.
The Resurgence Trust is a registered educational charity (no. 1120414).
The magazine and its associated network of individuals and groups are
dedicated to the service of the soil, soul and society. Our aim is to
help create a world based on justice, equity and respect for all beings.
Resurgence (ISSN 0034-5970) is published bi-monthly
by The Resurgence Trust and is distributed in the US
by SPP, 95 Aberdeen Road, Emigsville PA. Periodicals
postage paid at Emigsville PA POSTMASTER: send
address changes to c/o Resurgence, PO Box 437,
Emigsville PA, 17318-0437

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NEW short course
Sustainable Living
January 4 22, 2010
The Economics
of Happiness
February 1 19, 2010
After Copenhagen:
Opportunities and
challenges
March 1 19, 2010
global community.
and others
+44(0)1803 865 934

Resurgence Issue 257

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R

We have a paucity of stories that articulate what a

The power of the sun over the fve million square

Unless the world acts swiftly to prevent further

The emissions arising from tropical deforestation are

Unlike the banking system, when our

I know for sure that

The glaciers of the Himalaya are the Third Pole. They

Healthy farmland may have the potential to sequester as

The United Nations joined with civil society in calling

Greenhouse gas emissions

Do throw-away-consumerism, crass materialism

Putting biodiesel in the Hummer might be a start but it is

Based on a worldview that asserts

In the spring more

Only artists sow the

Where fossil-fuel-powered production

A Nature Writer isnt someone

Despite the hardship the

Marc speaking in LA PHOTOGRAPH: KSENIYA FEDOROVA

Its not just about trees. Its also about

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