RAIN July/August 1984 Nancy & John Todd: Sacred Ecology Fukuoka's Last Straw Computer Co-ops Volume X, Number 5
Page 2 RAIN July/August 1984 The earth seen from the moon (FROM: A Hundred Billion Stars—see page 27) RAINDROPS RAIN Volume X, Number 5 July/August 1984 Editor Tanya Kucak Staff Rob Baird (offipe manager) Cathy Baker (intern) Steve Johnson (on leave) Alan Locklear (circulation manager) Steve Manthe (intern) Kris Nelson (assistant editor —bioregions) Lance Regan (intern) Katherine Sadler (intern—promotion) Jeff Strang (Farm Project) Contributors Fritjof Capra Timothy Clark Ruth Downen Denise Henderson Mimi Maduro Alberto Quarto David Sparenberg Charlene Spretnak Beverly Stein John Todd Nancy Jack Todd Graphic Design Susan Applegate Comptroller Lee Lancaster Printing: Argus Printing Typesetting: Irish Setter RAIN magazine publishes information that can help people lead simple and satisfying lives, make their communities and regions economically self-reliant, and build a society that is durable, just, amusing, and ecologically sound. RAIN is published six times a year by the Rain Umbrella, Inc., a nonprofit corporation located at 2270 NW Irving, Portland, OR 97210; 503/227-5110. Subscriptions are $25/ year for institutions, $15/year for individuals ($9.50 for persons with incomes under $6000 a year). For additional information on subscriptions and publications, see page 39. Writers' guidelines are available fora SASE. Editorial and advertising deadlines are two months prior to publication date. RAIN is indexed in the Alternative Press Index and New Periodicals Index. Members of the Rain Umbrella Board of Directors: Bruce Bliatout, Jackie Dehner, Patti Jacobsen, Kim MacColl, Mimi Maduro, Maggie Rogers, Steve Rudman, Sumner Sharpe, and Michael Wells. Cover: Masanobu Fukuoka (photo by Halgar Shorter) "What do you call the day after it's rained for two days?" Alan asked at one of our Monday morning staff meetings. (The answer is Monday.) We haven't been showered with promotion contest entries (details in RAIN X:3, page 2), however. Is anyone reading RAIN? We've received only two or three entries so far, so we're extending the deadline two months—to August 1. The object is to develop a low-cost, well thought-out plan for making RAIN economically self-reliant. As things stand now, subscriptions pay for our printing and postage costs. Rent, utilities, overhead, and salaries (those of us who are paid get about $2-$3 per hour, effectively) must be subsidized in some way. We need to hear from you in order to decide if we should continue publishing. We have only about 1300 subscribers now, and we wonder if it's still worthwhile to talk to the same small, knowledgeable audience. Many areas we used to cover have now been appropriated by specialized journals, and many ideas have entered the mainstream. (Madison Avenue market researchers use living- lightly and bioregional categories to advertise products.) Has RAIN outlived its usefulness? (Send us your promotion ideas today!) Help us get the ideas into mainstream publications, too. Send a copy of RAIN to your local newspapers, and write letters to the editors of the papers telling them why you read RAIN. Encourage them to cover the same kinds of features that we include. Have them write to us for permission to excerpt articles. Talk to librarians about RAIN. Give RAIN subscriptions and publications as gifts. In the last issue, we forgot to introduce a new name in the staff box. Linnea Gilson has moved on after spending almost four years as our graphic designer (that's longer than most people have lasted here). She did a wonderful job and helped RAIN weather several major staff transitions. Our new graphic designer, Susan Applegate, is a book designer in Portland. Three new interns! Both Lance Regan and Steve Manthe come to us from Western Washington University (double- double-u-u) in Bellingham. Lance graduated from Fairhaven College with a self- designed major in social ecology, and Steve graduated from Huxley College of Environmental Studies with a major in environmental studies and mass communications. Within a month, Lance had introduced orderliness to our periodicals collection, and Steve had rescued our library from stacks of unfiled books. Our third intern, Katherine Sadler, is focusing on promoting the magazine. Her background includes promotion for arts organizations in Michigan. Sabbaticals anyone? Steve Johnson continues to work on community computer projects while he is on leave from RAIN. Kris Nelson will be spending the summer on Vancouver Island. —TK For those who wonder: The last issue of your subscription is indicated by the four-digit number in the upper right- hand corner of your mailing label (for instance, 10 03 means your sub expires with volume 10, number 3). We do our best to notify you when your sub is expiring. We send out a flier with a postage-paid envelope before your last issue reaches you, we stamp "Renew now. This is your last issue" on your last issue, and we send another flier and postage-paid envelope to those who haven't already renewed after their last issue. Also, we mail RAIN at the nonprofit third-class postage rate. Under most circumstances, the Post Office will not forward this class of mail. If you wish to receive all your issues of RAIN, you must notify us of your change of address. Please remember that we need your old address as well as your new address. —AL
July/August 1984 RAIN Page 3 LETTERS I strongly disagree with your reviewer, Jeff Strang, that The Global Brain by Peter Russell (Tarcher, 1983) "says it all" and is "the ultimate synthesis." Rather, it is merely an introduction to one form of synthesis. For those who seek a higher, more adult level of evolutionary thought, I recommend H. G. Wells' World Brain (Doubleday, 1938) and Oliver L. Reiser's, Cosmic Humanism (Schenkman, 1966). Neither author is mentioned by Russell. If we forget—or never know—that such outstanding work existed, we are bound to reinvent our intellectual wheels; in Peter Russell's case, it is done so at a distinctly inferior level. Michael Marien Editor, Future Survey LaFayette, New York I read the article entitled "Water Under The Bridge: Experimenting With Microhydro" in your June/July issue. Please keep in mind that hydro is not a panacea, and in fact, it has the potential of delivering devastating impacts to the waterways of Oregon. As a prime example, the 35 miles of the Deschutes River in Deschutes County now have applications for 15 hydroelectric projects. Twelve of those 15 would create new structures in the river, and all but two would permanently divert the river's water through enclosed pipelines for a considerable distance before being returned to the river through turbines. The community here is panic-stricken. Oregon's Hydroelectric Siting Act was adopted in Oregon in 1931. During the 50 years from 1931 to 1980, 256 applications for hydroelectric development were submitted. During the last three years alone, 300 additional applications have been submitted. We have a major problem! Please don't bill hydroelectric generation as any panacea, especially in this period of surplus. Representative Tom Throop Deschutes and Klamath counties, Oregon I recently read your article "Hidden Costs of Housing" in the March/April issue of RAIN. You have certainly raised a number of points concerning home financing and the continuing disappearance of the American "dream" of home ownership. I must say, though, that the political realities of "eliminating" realtors and traditional bank financing from the picture were not fully considered. The next step would have to be a total restructuring of our society, its goals, its future. its premises for being. I await your next installment. As for the Revolving Loan Fund idea: Several rural preservation companies in New York state have developed and administer small funds for housing- improvement activities. These have been set up to provide low-cost capital (6% in our case) to low- and moderate-income rural homeowners and renters. Though our fund is relatively new, we look forward to a time when it will aid residents not only in housing improvement, but in home ownership and cooperative purchasing. Glenn Gidaly, Program Coordinator Orange County Rural Development Goshen, New York The interview with Joel Schatz on Peace through Communications (RAIN X:2) was exciting. Strangely, no mention was made of the language problem. Perhaps Schatz speaks Russian, and therefore had no problem. Sadly, I do not. I have studied eight languages, which has brought me many valuable contacts, yet I am often struck with how many people I can't talk with. I wonder how the school children who will be connected by the proposed space bridge will communicate. Could an internationally adopted language solve this problem? Although it would be convenient for us to push for the use of English for all international communications, it is charged with a great deal of cultural bias. If we are dedicated to world-wide respect and cooperation, it is unfair to demand that everyone else learn our language. We should be ready to meet everyone at least halfway. Perhaps this example shows how easy it is, even for those striving to find new, positive ways of living, to get caught in old, counter-productive thought patterns. As a forum for ideas, RAIN gives us a chance to learn from each other and to form a more complete, wise, integrated community. Derek Roff Albuquerque, New Mexico You're right, Derek, English is biased toward American Western values in international communications, and the problem of language in cross-cultural computer communications deserves further discussion. We included a description of Esperanto—the only thriving international language without a nationality—in the Peace Communications access following the interview with ]oel. The children in the proposed interactive video exchange would use translators, for now. My dream is that one day all school children and their parents will learn a neutral language like Esperanto. —KN After reading your April/May issue, the following thoughts came to mind. The first is that I find it interesting to note that a lot of the folks who were writing about a.t.—windmills, composting toilets, you name it—several years ago are now writing about "community" in one form or another. Instead of finding my mail packed with conference announcements for alternative wholistic solar composting gardening get-togethers, it seems like a week doesn't go by without getting one for a meeting on some aspect of community development. Not that this is all bad, mind you. It's just that it's getting a little tiresome recycling this growing wardrobe of the "Emperor's new clothes." What this avalanche of good intentions seems to say to me is that folks are finding it difficult to form the kinds of friendships that help them to sail through the storm. Attempting to create "community" is nothing new in human history, just as the common sense implicit in the notion of a.t. has been lurking for years in the string collection in your grandparent's kitchen. I wish that just once, I'd pick up an article on "community," or an announcement for a conference, and find there an acknowledgement that friendships are the building blocks of communities, and that the search for "community" begins not in the pages of journals, or in some intergalactic network, but over your back fence. The second thought has to do with RAIN. Where are you headed? What niche are you trying to fill? After reading this issue and the plans for the next, it's not clear to me what you're trying to accomplish. The fact that everything-is- connected-to-everything-else shouldn't necessarily make everything relevant to your pages . . . other bigger, better funded groups already do this to the hilt. As Clint Eastwood says in a million towns around the globe, "Make my day.' Surprise me. Take a stand, any stand . .. I'll still love you. I might not read you, but at least I'll be able to tell you why. Ethan Seltzer Portland, Oregon
Page 4 RAIN July/August 1984 Ecology as the Basis of Design by Nancy Jack Todd and John Todd More than a decade ago, as I was reading the authors' biographies in Scientific American, I discovered that John Todd was a co-founder of the New Alchemy Institute. As I subsequently read more about the institute, its work intrigued me. New Alchemy's motto was "To restore the land, protect the seas, and inform the Earth's stewards." The laboratories where they tested and displayed their ideas about integrated living systems were called Arks. Here were professional scientists who were redefining the role of the scientist, venturing into new areas, and integrating their knowledge. In Bioshelters, Ocean Arks, City Farming, Nancy Jack Todd and John Todd present a synthesis of what they have learned over the years. Ecological design, according to the Todds, is "design for human settlements that incorporates principles inherent in the natural world in order to sustain human populations over a long span of time. This design adapts the wisdom and strategies of the natural world to human problems." The nine precepts of ecological design, which the Todds develop and explain in this book, are: . □ The living world is the matrix for all design □ Design should follow, not oppose, the laws of life □ Biological equity must determine design □ Design must reflect bioregionality □ Projects should be based on renewable energy sources □ Design should be sustainable through the integration of living systems □ Design should be coevolutionary with the natural world □ Building and design should help heal the planet □ Design should follow a sacred ecology In the section on biological equity, the Todds relate the fascinating story of their "Biological Hope Ship": "The idea was that the boat would produce and transport biological materials like seeds, plants, trees, and fish to impoverished areas with the hope of reviving the local biological support base and thereby imptoving the means for the human population to sustain itself." The concept evolved into the Ocean Pickup— intended to be as useful as its land counterpart. Several technological innovations helped make the ship light and sturdy, as well as inexpensive and easy to build. (For more information, write to Ocean Arks International, 10 Shanks Pond Road, Falmouth, MA 02540.) In the first excerpt below, the Todds demonstrate their ccmviction that "an area as comprehensive as a landscape can in many cases be restored with a wise use of scientific information and biological tools in place of capital-intensive strategies." The second excerpt—-which the Todds use to illustrate their ninth precept—echoes the second part of the book, "Redesigning Communities." There is a lot of useful information here, particularly on growing food and purifying water in the city. If there are any flaws in the book, they are in the last chapter, "The Surrounding Landscape," which is considerably weaker than the rest of the book. Here, the Todds leave their main areas of expertise to discuss the history ofagriculture and the nuclear risk. In all, this book is a valuable contribution. How wonderful it would be if the Todds' precepts of ecological design were part of everyone's education! —TK Excerpted by permission of.Sierra Club Books from Bioshelters, Ocean Arks, City Farming, by Nancy Jack Todd and John Todd, 1984, 224 pp., $10.95 from: Sierra Club Books, 2034 Fillmore Street, San Francisco, CA 94115. Although there are few areas in the world where the primal ecological integrity has not been violated, it is our hypothesis that there is a chance that the ancient ecology lives on, but in scattered forms—in bits and pieces in various parts of the world—where it is available to be reassembled. Taking as an example the depleted shores and waters of the Mediterranean, and envisioning how magnificent they must have been before the area fell heir to its destiny as the cradle of our civilization—there are other environments around the globe analogous to that of the Mediterranean. Some of the species differ somewhat but similar life forms with comparable structural relationships exist in parts of California, Chile, Australia, Africa, and the Indian subcontinent. It might be possible that organisms gathered from such areas combined with those in the Mediterranean area itself contain, in aggregate, a sufficient array of species from which to restore or recreate the ancient ecological integrity of the region. We have drawn up a pilot project to begin to tackle a project of such vast proportions, one that integrates our experience in biotechnology and the [tree] replanting ideas of [Elzeard] Bouffier, [Richard] St. Barbe Baker, and Wendy Campbell-Purdy [see Trees access].
July/August 1984 RAIN Page 5 The first step would be to create salt marshes in low- lying valleys. To do so we would install New Alchemy sail-wing windmills to pump sea water into low-lying coastal valleys. The sea water would flow by gravity back to the sea, the windmills providing a technological analogue of tidal action. The newly created salt marshes would then be planted with a variety of organisms and seeded with marine creatures collected from relic Mediterranean marshes. At this juncture ecologically based mariculture could be undertaken to provide the restoration process with an economic base. As the salt marsh becomes established, the plan would be to plant brackish-water-tolerant plants, including the commercially important carob tree, around the edges. Many of these salt-tolerant plants would serve as an ecological beachhead for less tolerant plants on adjacent ground above. As the salt marshes start to act as catch basins for seasonal rains, this process will speed up. The marsh would begin to host a wide diversity of life forms, moving outward from the center, which in turn could trigger a more ecologically complex restoration cycle. The marsh complex would have the additional benefit of enhancing nearby marine life by acting as a nursery for many organisms that spend much of their adult lives in the sea. We have mapped out a further restorative strategy that is more technological and would be particularly applicable to arid or impoverished areas. Bioshelters would be constructed for distilling sea water with the long-range intention of nurturing young forests. The bioshelters would be approximately fifty feet in diameter and use New Alchemy's pillow dome structure. About a dozen would be pitched in a circle, like an Indian encampment. Inside the central zone of each structure would be the transluyent solar tanks or solar-algae ponds to grow fish and to heat and cool buildings. There is a chance that the ancient ecology lives on—in bits and pieces in various parts of the world—where it is available to be reassembled. During the day, relatively cool sea water would be pumped into them. The temperature differential between the water in the ponds and the air would be enough to cause the tanks to sweat fresh water down their sides onto the ground. At night the air would lose its heat to the atmosphere and the moisture-laden air within would condense on the inside of the bioshelter skin and "rain" down onto the ground inside the periphery of the building. Trees and other plants would be planted in the wet zones created by the "weeping" of the bioshelter. Once their roots were established and compost-rich soils created, the protective embryo of the bioshelter could be lifted off and taken to a new site to repeat the process, leaving behind the newly liberated ecosystem. Hardy trees could be planted adjacent to this nucleus to further diversify the restoration process. Each bioshelter rtilght be in place for two or three years before being moved to the next locale. There are many possible variations on the salt marsh and bioshelter schemes and a number of intermediate approaches. Taken together, they add up to an assembly of biotechnologies which can serve the restoration process—early catalysts in the coevolutionary process of planetary Cathedral bioshelter, St. John the Divine (FROM: Bioshelters, Ocean Arks, City Farming) Cathedral as Bioshelter .... The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, the largest Gothic structure in the world, has enfolded ecology into its expansive program. The Cathedral is rivaled in size and splendor only by the breadth of the rnission that has been forged for it by a succession of farsighted men. Under the present leadership of the Right Reverend Paul Moore, Bishop of New York, and the Very Reverend James Paul Morton, the Dean of the Cathedral, St. John the Divine is pursuing a course that honors the tradition inherent to its history and its architecture. In its time, the medieval cathedral was the center of its community, administering to all aspects of human life. Quoting Dean Morton, "Education, healing, the guilds, the arts, the market were all tied to the Cathedral. It was the symbol of the perfection of urban life." Accordingly, at St. John the Divine the arts, crafts, world peace, social justice, and ecological concerns are all part of the fabric of Cathedral life. The Cathedral has in residence its own drama, dance, and music groups, and is, in addition, frequent host to performances by innumerable other groups, from the internationally known to the dedicated amateur. These people use the church as much more than space—they are invited to make a contribution to a community integrating the sacred and secular.
Page 6 RAIN July/August 1984 The medieval past is honored at the Cathedral, and so . is the dawn of the solar age. We have proposed that the Cathedral be solar heated, as the cost of heating it is growing rapidly. Our idea is to replace the copper sheathing on the southern face of the existing six-hun- dred-foot-long roof with glass. Such a rooftop greenhouse is to trap warm air which would be ducted down into the subterranean vaults of the Cathedral for later use in heating. Our plan also calls for the interior of the roof areas to be used for the mass propagation of fruit, nut, and ornamental trees, which could be used by millions to help reforest New York. The architect David Sellers grafted our ideas onto a new architectural form for the Cathedral. He has proposed that the south transept, which was never built, be redesigned as a Gothic bioshelter. It is named the Rene Dubos bioshelter, honoring a man who fused Christian tradition and ecological thought. David Sellers designed the south transept with a glazed roof through which solar heat is ducted to heat the nave. Sellers' designs place solar hot water collectors in the existing south roof to heat water to be stored in a vast chamber under the crossing. In this way summer sun would be used for winter heating. The bioshelter design expresses a re- emerging relationship between Christianity and ecology. The chapel contains a garden comprised of an ecosystem specifically adapted to the Cathedral's space and climate. As the stones are being cut for these towers, under construction again after a fifty-year lull, St. John the Divine grows daily closer to its own idea of a Cathedral. It will be a statement in stone embracing past and future, serving the people of the Diocese of New York and of the world. □ □ © 1984 Naiuy lack falci ami lohii Toiiii ACCESS: Land “My Farm is Safe Forever," by Noel Perrin, Country Journal, April 1984, $2.50 from: Country Journal 205 Main Street Brattleboro, VT 05301 Every time I go back to New Jersey, I discover another shopping center or bridge or condominium where before there had been fields or woods. Well, development is not inevitable. If you own rural land, and you'd rather see it used as farm or woodlot than as a parking lot in years to come, you probably can protect it—and make money in the process. Noel Perrin gave his Vermont town development rights to his 90 acres, and thereby earned a $27,800 deduction on his income tax (the difference between the land's value as farmland and its value as developed land). The immediate benefit was a lower annual tax rate, and he retained every right of ownership aside from development rights; he could even sell the property. Forty states have some legal protection strategy for open land. (Vermont's version is called the Current-Use Assessment Program.) In most cases, the town does not lose tax revenue on the land because the state makes up the difference in tax revenues. In the long run, land protection holds down your neighbor's taxes, too, since the town saves money on schools, roads, and services. In Suffolk County, Long Island, the county raised $60 million to buy development rights on about 12,000 acres of farmland—and the county expected to save $60 million in services that wouldn't have to be provided. Development is costly in other ways, too. Perrin discovered that in the last decade, Orange County, Vermont, has lost 153 farms to development. Having spent 20 years restoring his land "to a beautiful and moderately productive farm, [Perrin] didn't relish the idea of bulldozers leveling [his] carefully rebuilt stone walls or black-toppers advancing into the orchard." Productive land is a precious resource. This article can point you toward strategies for keeping j/o«r land safe forever. —TK Sacred Cows at the Public Trough, by Denzel and Nancy Ferguson, 1983, 250 pp., $8.95 from: Maverick Publications Drawer 5007 Bend, OR 97708 The adventures oflhe American cowboy have been immortalized in countless late- night westerns and perpetuated on drugstore bookshelves. Blinded by this romanticized version of history, few Americans realize the damage the cattlemen have caused and continue to cause in public lands of the arid west. As former managers of the Malheur Field Station in Southeast Oregon's Malheur Wildlife Refuge, Denzel and Nancy Ferguson have observed the declines in range productivity, increased soil erosion and desertification, and degradation of wildlife habitat that greedy and shortsighted western stockmen have brought on through overgrazing. In this book, the Fergusons detail how a privileged minority is allowed to monopolize the use of public lands for private gain, while extracting a hefty subsidy for range "improvements" from an unconcerned and uninvolved public. They relate the ecological devastation that occurs when the carrying capacity of the land is ignored. Sacred Cows at the Public Trough is an important book for anyone concerned about wildlife, desertification, and erosion in the public lands of the West. —SM
July/August 1984 RAIN Page 7 ACCESS: Trees Trees: Guardians of the Earth, by Donald J. Nichol, 1983, 28 pp., $3.50 from: Lorian Press PO Box 147 Middleton, WI53562 This short booklet is both a tribute and an urgent appeal—a tribute to the vital role trees play in the earth's ecosystems and in the health of the human spirit, and an appeal to us to save the planet, and ourselves, by saving trees. Trees not only play a pivotal role in regulating the earth's water cycles and oxygen-carbon dioxide ratios, and in building and protecting topsoil, but they also play an essential role in enriching the human experience. In the first chapter, "The Alchemists of Nature," Nichol details the vital ecological functions of trees. The book also includes profiles of Dorothy Maclean (one of the founders of Findhorn) and Dr. Richard St. Barbe Baker. A visionary of sorts, St. Barbe Baker did much to combat the rampant mismanagement of the earth's forests in the past century. Elsewhere in the book, the author reminds us that trees provide an important "presence" in our harried lives and that trees and nature were once a part of our human identity. Trees, he says, represent a form of intelligent life, yet we all too often regard them as little more than an economic resource. The nice thing about this book is that it's not a diatribe against or a worthless indictment of present forestry practices. Its aim is to educate and inspire. In doing so, it will put many of us on our way toward helping to arrest the problem of our planet's shrinking forests. —CB The Man Who Planted Hope and Grew Happiness, by Jean Giono, $1 from: Friends of Nature do D. Smith Brooksville, ME 04617 This is the inspirational story of Elezard Bouffier, the Johnny Appleseed of France, who planted acorns wherever he went— 100 acorns per day—in southern France. The acorns grew into trees and turned a desolate region into a lush, beautiful region. This story has been reprinted numerous times {Vogue, March 15,1954; The Next Whole Earth Catalog, 1980, $12.50 from CoEvolution Quarterly, PO Box 428, Sausalito, CA 94966) and was reviewed in RAIN 11:6. —TK FROM: Trees: Guardians of the Earth Richard St. Barbe Baker Foundation 417 Cumberland Avenue South Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7H 2L3 Canada Richard St. Barbe Baker was born in Hampshire, England, in 1889, and he died in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, in 1982 (see RAIN IX:2). Founder of Men of the Trees, St. Barbe Baker spent his life planting trees and forests and inspiring others to perpetuate the forests. The Richard St. Barbe Baker Foundation held its founding conference June 4- 5, 1984, at the University of Saskatchewan. St. Barbe Baker was a member of the first graduating class of the university in 1912, and his archival collection, the Baker Papers, will be kept in the University Archives. The purpose of the foundation is "promoting responsible maintenance and renewal of the world's tree resources." It will not have a membership, but will offer nongovernmental organizations administrative, technical, and educational assistance related to forestry and trees, focusing on Canada and developing countries. In conjunction with the conference, the foundation has published a compilation of interviews, articles, and other material about St. Barbe Baker's life and work (Man of the Trees: Richard St. Barbe Baker, edited by Hugh Locke, 1984, 32 pp.). This collection gives a good sense of St. Barbe Baker's deeply rooted dedication to trees and his,commitment to planting trees around the world. In his New Earth Charter (1950), St. Barbe Baker wrote, "I believe in the traditional ideal that our fields should be 'fields of the woods,' by which is meant landscape farming of every valley and plain, with woodlands in high places, shelter belts, nut and fruit orchards (of mixed species) and hedgerow trees everywhere." —TK "Wanted: Seeds, and Picks and Shovels," MANAS, volume 23, number 11 (March 14,1979), 300 from: Manas Publishing Company PO Box 32112 El Sereno Station Los Angeles, CA 90032 "Twenty years ago, an Englishwoman, Wendy Campbell-Purdy [or -Purdie], having heard Richard St. Barbe Baker say that the spread of deserts could be stopped by a green wall of trees, bought a one-way ticket to North Africa and set to work planting trees," begins the article. She planted trees in Morocco and Algeria, then founded a trust called Tree of Life to continue the work. MANAS cites a booklet. Tree of Life (do Coutts & Company, Duncannon Branch, 440 Strand, London WC2R OQS, United Kingdom), for further information.. By the way, MANAS is my favorite source for new ideas and examples of intelligent idealism. I usually hear of interesting projects in MANAS first—it's published weekly (except July and August) and is a real bargain at $10/year.'. —TK
Page 8 RAIN July/August 1984 ACCESS: Central America Wljile some of us in North America are seeking to develop lifestyles, technologies, and social institutions that enhance community control and self-reliance, the people of Central America are engaged in their own struggles for self-determination. Our efforts are related: The people of Central America (and other Third World countries) benefit from our efforts by developing ways of life that do not depend on the exploitation of their labor, resources, and markets. They also benefit from alternatives they develop themselves. Reliance on fossil-fuel imports and energy- and chemicalintensive agricultural systems hurts the balance of trade of Third World countries and decreases the long-term stability of their institutions. But development questions in Central America are complex and cannot easily be separated from political issues. For example, in countries such as El Salvador and Guatemala, the development of "alternative" methods ofproduction either plays into the hands of the ruling elite or endangers the lives of those involved. In Guatemala, 80% of the land is held by 2 % of the population, and the majority ofpeople are landless; new technologies cannot offer much ofa solution in this context. Only structural changes in the economic and political systems can lead to a society where freedom, justice, and ecological wisdom prevail. Thefollowing list of resources can help North Americans better understand and assist in the crucial struggles ofour neighbors to the south. —LR What Difference Could a Revolution Make? Food and Farming in the New Nicaragua, by Joseph Collins, with Frances Moore Lappe and Nick Allen, 1982,185 pp., $4.95 from: Institute for Food and Development Policy 1885 Mission Street San Francisco, CA 94103 Joseph Collins, of the Institute for Food and Development Policy, was invited to Nicaragua in August 1979 by the one- month-old Sandinista government. The Sandinistas were forming an international advisory panel of people who had experience in agrarian reform and food policy. This book documents his perspective on the first three years of Sandinista attempts to create a new agricultural base for the emerging revolutionary society. We learn of the tremendous challenges the Sandinista leadership has confronted in trying to reform an agricultural system historically noted for gross inequities and exploitation of poor laborers. The Sandinistas faced many dilemmas. How could they balance their policy of the "logic of the majority"—meaning that the interests of the poor majority would take precedence over the interests of the wealthy elite—with their policy of "national unity"—their attempt to maintain support for a program of reconstruction among both the capitalist producers and the peasants? Also, how could they balance the need to grow food crops to feed the hungry with the need to grow export crops to obtain necessary foreign exchange? Significant tradeoffs were necessary. To further complicate matters, they had to make these difficult decisions in an atmosphere of increasing counterrevolutionary aggression and an economic destabilization campaign conducted by theU.S. What emerges is a picture of the Sandinista government in stark contrast to the one painted in the U.S. media. Collins shows that the Sandinistas, rather than being doctrinaire revolutionary ideologues, are open-mined and pragmatic about confronting Nicaragua's problems, as their openness to outside advisors indicates. Rather than following in the footsteps of any other revolutionary model—Soviet, Cuban, or otherwise— the Sandinistas seek to create a genuinely Nicaraguan revolution, based on their Christian heritage and Sandino's principles of national self-determination, democratic participation, and economic justice. Collins concludes that the Nicaraguan revolution demonstrates that there are more than two models for development, 'and that it could come to serve as an example to other Third World courvtries seeking to take control of their destiny— if only given a chance. —LR Science for the People, November/ December 1983, $2.50 from: Science for the People 897 Main Street Cambridge, MA 02139 This entire issue is devoted to positive developments in Central America. Five articles are about Nicaragua, including coverage of the new health care system, integrated pest management practices, and efforts to attain energy self-sufficiency. Another article is about health care in one of the rebel-controlled zones of El Salvador. All the articles are highly informative. —LR "Revolutionary Sandinistas Back Wide Range of Renewables," by Andy Feeney, Renewable Energy News, March 1984, $2.50 from: Renewable Energy News PO Box 690 Ogdenburg, NY 13669 "One of the most ambitious renewable energy development programs in the Western hemisphere may get under way this year in revolutionary Nicaragua." Thus begins this recent article by Andy Feeney. What prompts the Sandinista government to pursue such a program is not merely concern about the eventual depletion of global fossil-fuel reserves. One major concern is that 40% of Nicaragua's export income currently goes toward petroleum imports. Additionally, last October, CIA-backed contras destroyed one of the country's main fuel storage facilities and 135 million gallons of petroleum in the Pacific coast city of
July/August 1984 RAIN Page 9 Corinto. This prompted Exxon to announce that it would no longer use its own ships to bring petroleum into Nicaragua for safety reasons. Under these severe circumstances, shifting to a base of domestic energy resources has become a practical necessity. —LR "Revolution Provides Lessons for Urban Activists," by Michael McConnell, The Neighborhood Works, February 1984, $2 from: Center for Neighborhood Technology 570 West Randolph Street Chicago, IL 60606 Discusses the institutions for local parHci- patory democracy that are developing in Nicaragua. The Sandinista view of democracy clearly goes beyond merely voting in national elections every few years. —LR rate involvement in Central America with lots of statistics, lists, charts, and footnotes, Part One includes analyses of agricultural trade, international financing, military alliances, and the real beneficiaries of foreign aid. Part Two gives a political, economic, and historical profile of each of the seven Central American countries, along with a complete listing of the U.S. corporations operating in each country. —LR Central America Bulletin, monthly, $15/ year from: Central America Research Institute PO Box 4797 Berkeley, CA 94704-4797 Formerly the El Salvador Bulletin, this 8- page monthly features three or four well- researched articles about the latest political developments in Central America in each issue. —LR The Nicaraguan Reader: Documents of a Revolution underfire, edited by Peter Rosset and John Vandermeer, 1983, 359 pp., $8.95. El Salvador: Central America in the New Cold War, edited by M. E. Gettleman et al., 1981, 397 pp.,$7.95. Guatemala in Rebellion: Unfinished History, edited by Jonathan Fried et al., 1983, 342 pp., $7.95. All from: Grove Press 196 West Houston Street New York, NY 10014 Each of these readers covers all aspects of the conflict in each country. Each is organized in thematic sections with editors' introductions and a variety of readings from the p>olitical right (usually U.S. government documents) and left. These books are probably the best introductions for those wishing to gain a broad and balanced understanding of the problems and prospects of these three countries. —LR Dollars and Dictators: A Guide to Central America, by Tom Barry, Beth Wood, and Deb Preusch, second edition, 1983, 282 pp., $6.95 from: Grove Press 196 West Houston Street New York, NY 10014 Have you suspected that corporate interests might be involved in the U.S. government's concern about Central America, but not had the data available to substantiate your suspicions? You'll find it all here in this book. The authors document U.S. government and corpoCommittee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) 19 West 21st Street, 2nd Floor NewYork, NY 10010 With more than 300 local organizations nation-wide, CISPES is the largest Central American solidarity organization in the U.S. Dealing with the problems of the region as well as El Salvador, CISPES' activities include letter-writing and petition campaigns, door-to-door canvassing, film and slide presentations, local and national demonstrations, and medical aid to El Salvador. CISPES publishes a monthly newspaper, El Salvador Alert! ($10/year), covering both developments in Central America and anti-intervention activities in the U.S. —LR CPF New El Salvador Today NEST Foundation POBox4762-A Berkeley, CA 94704 We know what the rebels in El Salvador are fighting against, but do we know what they are fighting/or? To get a glimpse of the new society they seek to create, we can look to those areas currently under control of the rebel forces, known as the "zones of control." NEST was founded to bring information about the zones of control to the American people. Through NEST we learn about the local Popular Governments—newly developed insHtutions for community participation in decisions regarding the areas of Production and Distribution, Education, Health, Civil and Local Affairs, Public Works, and Security and Self-Defense. NEST not only provides information about life in the zones of control, but also raises funds for the Local Popular Governments, and promotes sister-city and sister-committee projects. (Berkeley has become a sister-city to the rebel town of San Antonio Los Ranchos.) To learn more about life in the zones of control, read NEST's 32-page booklet, A View of Life in the New El Salvador, available for $1.50 from Solidarity Publications, PO Box 40874, San Francisco, CA 94140. —LR Nicaragua Seed Project Tilth 4649 Sunnyside North Seattle, WA 98103 This project was born at the Chinook economics conference in May. We collected over $700 at the conference to buy seeds for Nicaraguan farmers. The project was inspired by an article by James Donaldson in the spring issue of ' Tilth. Donaldson had just returned from Nicaragua with two messages to the American people from the farmers of the Sandinista Sustainable Agricultural Movement: "Please vote" and "please send us seeds." Nicaraguan farmers are engaged in a program to transform agricultural practices during 1984 and 1985 comparable to the massive literacy campaign conducted in the year after the revolution. Their goal is food self-sufficiency for virtually every Nicaraguan family by 1986. If you wish to help them reach their goal, you can send a tax- deductible contribution to Tilth, which will buy seeds in this country and send them with the next delegation that visits Nicaragua. —LR
Page 10 RAIN July/August 1984 Itching to Learn about ^ Ethnobotany? by Cathy Baker The Chehalis Indians once warmed Douglas fir cones over a fire as a prayer for sunshine. Sahaptin myth has it that Coyote, the preeminent character of Northwest coast Indian mythology, used the goldstar flower (Croci- dium multicaule) to replace the eyes Raven, the mythological trickster, poked out of the unsuspecting victim. The Nuxalk enjoyed the boiled cambium from the cottonwood tree as a "snack." To protect the young of the tribe, the Yakima made cradleboards for their babies using a "fender" made out of wood from the wild rose plant, since rose protects against ghosts. Quileute seal hunters would rub themselves with stinging nettles before going on seal hunts in order to stay awake, alert, and warm. These examples give insight into the place of plants in culture and into the interrelations between plants and aboriginal peoples—the focus of a discipline generally called ethnobotany. Its history dates back to the exploration of the New World, when explorers catalogued the botanical inventory of the North American continent in an attempt to discover its economic potential. Their observations of native plants, and the uses indigenous people made of them, provided the "first" natural history of the continent, and the bases for the beginnings of ethnobotany. Today, ethnobotany is far less utilitarian in its aims. Ethnobotanists now study native languages to see how people classify and conceptualize the plant (and animal) world; they look at references to plants in mythology, and study the effects human populations can have on the ecosystem; and, recently, ethnobotanists have been working with native groups in an effort to reintegrate indigenous plant foods into the diet. At the Seventh Annual Ethnobiology Conference held in Seattle in April, anthropologists, archeologists, historians, botanists, linguists, nutritionists, and health- service workers gathered to address these topics and present their recent work. This year's three-day conference culminated in a banquet of native foods, beginning with an array of hors d'oeuvres that included cow parsnip stalks, salmonberry "sprouts," and fish eggs clustered on kelp. The main course featured baked salmon and was followed by a demonstration by a Nuxalk elder, "On Making Ooligan Grease." Ooligans, also known by the name caiidlefish, are small oily fish found in the waters of the North Pacific. When dried, this fish can be burned as a candle. (Last year, when the conference was held in the plains region, conference-goers feasted on fresh bison.) The many topics covered at the conference included medicinal plant use, folk classification and naming, paleoethnobiology, nutritional values of native foods. Pacific coast ethnobotany, and Chinese nutritional and herbal medicine. Two of the most interesting presentations dealt with Mayan agroforestry and traditional Nuxalk foods. Fred Wiseman from M.I.T. discussed the history of and prospects for agroforestry in the Mayan lowlands. Recent findings suggest that the Mayan Indians of the late classic era (around 700 A.D.) relied much more on an agronomic system composed of a mix of tree, shrub, and herbaceous crops than scholars had previously thought. This agroforestry system provided a stable subsistence base, required minimal maintenance, and due to its great stability, could have supported the high population and prosperity that the Maya enjoyed during this period. As to why this magnificent culture collapsed, Wiseman suggested that the clue lay in changing subsistence patterns. After contact with the Spanish, the Maya replaced the forest-based system with intensive cultivation of maize. This single crop system depleted soil nutrients and offered less mobility, two factors that could have made the Maya more vulnerable to Spanish manipulation. What are the prospects for the renewal of agroforestry in the Mayan lowlands? Most of the present lowland forest is intact and suitable for an agroforestry system. In an area of the world that is so politically volatile, such a system might have many advantages, including a greater immunity from terrorist attacks. Living things, particularly plants, are at the interface of human needs and thought with nature. What happens when this vital link is severed? Much of the conference focused on the nutritional and cultural values of native foods for native groups today. Nutritionists have been discovering that traditional foods from the Southwest and Northwest have a much lower fat and salt content, and a higher calcium content when compared to commercial foods. In 1983 Health and Welfare Canada, a government agency, funded a program to enhance the health status and use of traditional foods among the people of the Nuxalk Nation of Bella Coola, British Columbia. As part of this program, agency-sponsored botanists and ecologists conducted a study to determine the availability of traditional plant foods in the environment, while program coordinators held nutrition classes and food excursions, with the help of elders, to teach people when, where, and how to collect native foods. In addition, the program continues to sponsor traditional food feasts and has started a traditional plant food garden in the
July/August 1984 RAIN Page 11 community for educational purposes. The program has met with much success among both the young and old of the community. In fact, it has sparked a renaissance of sorts, where the young are learning “the old ways" and the elders feel a renewed sense of worth from sharing their knowledge. (For more information, write to Nuxalk Food and Nutrition Program, Health Clinic, PO Box 93, Bella Coola, BC, VOT ICO, Canada.) Similar work has been initiated among the Tlingit and Haida of southeast Alaska. This program has gathered several indigenous foods to determine nutritional values, and has produced a videotape that demonstrates traditional foocl preparation techniques. (Helen Hooper, Indian Health Service, Mt. Edgecumbe, AK 99835.) These last examples show how valuable ethnobotany can be in addressing contemporary concerns. Living things, particularly plants, are at the interface of human needs and thought with nature. What happens when this vital link is severed? Among the Nuxalk people, there is a widespread problem with obesity and poor health. The lack of vital ties to the original resource base, to the flora and fauna, represents a tremendous vacuum in their culture, and contributes to the atrophy of the culture's resilience and integrity. , For the rest of us, the Anglos of North America, this issue prompts us to define our relationship to this land. Are we denizens, inhabitants? Will we continue to rape the land? To ship produce 3000 miles from its source, to a concrete jungle that has little or no tie to its resource base? The programs mentioned above have value not only for native groups, but for the current inhabitants of a region as well. Learning about different cultures can give us access to new ways of thinking about the world. Tomorrow morning when you stumble to the kitchen for a caffeine fix to get you through the day, why not consider instead a trip to the backyard to rub down with some stinging nettles? □ □ For more information about next year's conference, write to the Society of Ethnobiology, PO Box 1145, Flagstaff, AZ 86002. Subscriptions to the Journal of Ethnobiology (quarterly, $15lyear) are also available from the above address. ACCESS: Nature Mushroom: The Journal of Wild Mushrooming, quarterly, $12/year from: Box 3156 University Station Moscow, ID 83843 Mushroom lovers alert! This is a journal to fulfill your wildest fungi fantasies. Volume 1, Number 1 rolled off the presses last fall with articles on spores. Amanita virosa, and the 19th century mycologist Charles H. Peck. The first issue also evaluates nine well-known mushroom field guides. News from NAMA (North American Mycological Association), informative advertising, and recipes round out this new periodical. —Mimi Maduro Finding Your Way on Land or Sea: Reading Nature’s Maps, by Harold Gatty, 1983, 271 pp., $8.95 from: The Stephen Greene Press Fessenden Road Brattleboro, VT 05301 Harold Gatty claims that aborigines and native guides have no monopoly on competent pathfinding. Furthermore, you need no compass or maps anywhere on earth to find your way—only well- trained senses and an understanding of what your senses reveal. Gatty, an Australian navigator, honed his powers of observation at sea. He soon realized that finding his way in the wilds required only observation and deduction. In this book—originally published as Nature is Your Guide in 1958—he tells you what to look for. You can tell direction from lichens, wind-sculpted trees, or anthills. At sea, you can release birds to point the way to land. Gatty explains why we walk in circles (we're unbalanced). This book is packed with useful information and interesting facts. If you're planning to visit the wilderness. Camel caravan in Australia keeping smoke from three fires in line (FROM: Finding Your Way on Land or Sea) read this book first as insurance against loss of map and compass, and use the pointers in this guide to increase your awareness of the nuances in nature. —TK San Francisco: Wild in the City (poster), by Nancy Morita, 1983, 23 by 35, $4.50 plus $1.50 postage from: Wild in the City 6 Cypress Road San Anselmo, CA 94960 San Francisco used to be a pretty wild place—before it became San Francisco. Today, the city is so densely covered with pavement and buildings that it's hard to imagine Indians and grizzly bears roaming the peninsula. This hand-lettered and -drawn, black-and-white poster shows two views of the city: native (before 1750) and today (1980s). (Nancy Morita expects to have a full-color version available later this year.) The native map shows Ohlone village sites (one near today's Candlestick Park) and such natural features as beach and dune (Golden Gate Park overlies former beach/dune terrain), chaparral, and salt-water marsh. For each natural area, the poster lists the native flora and fauna and the soil type, and notes which species are now regionallyrare, endangered, or extinct—such as freshwater jellyfish, tule elk, and moon snail. This is the kind of information that makes me want to travel back in time, about 250 years, if only for a glimpse at San Francisco's wildest days. —TK
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