This is the twentieth issue of my free newsletter. Your feedback is most welcome!
This issue of “Earth & Us” is a bit like a patchwork quilt of my recent experiences, all of which add up to a sense of place: being part of a community within the larger bioregional community, within the global family.
The Katuah Bioregional Gathering took place in early October at Earthaven. “Katuah” is a Cherokee word for their land, which was adopted by the bioregional movement in the Southern Appalachians that began in the 1970’s. Small groups discussed topics such as sustainable agriculture, bioregional economics, and watershed organizing. Here are a few highlights of those discussions.
Sustainable Agriculture
This group discussed eating in season, as well as within the region. One of the basic goals is to use primarily regionally produced food, fiber, and fuel. This will create food production security and decrease our dependence on unsustainable transportation and packaging that accrue high energy costs. This bioregion has abundant wild foods and medicinals, and we need to learn them, utilize them, and protect them. We discussed regional food production and distribution: Community Supported Agriculture, tailgate and farmer markets, coops such as Carolina Organic Growers, and community canning facilities. There is a need for public education. Vote with your dollar (buy local even if it is not the cheapest choice), learn what is from your region, create a list of high nutrition foods/ recommended varieties/ seed saving exchanges of regional varieties. Growing some of our own personal food and herbs instills a joy of gardening, personal fulfillment, and connection with all-that-is. Genetic Engineering is one of the biggest threats to local agriculture. Bioengineering plants are advertising their conferences as a job fair. Interest will then lead to company implementing a factory/lab in that area and having a recruited job force of bioengineers.
Economics and Fossil Fuel
Economics drives the destruction of our ecologic systems. Our ability to meet our own needs locally has deteriorated recently due to the advent of biotechnology, high-speed fiber optics, and expensive medical technologies. The textile industries, forestry and timber products are in decline. What groups and organizations make links between producers and consumers? We need to support local producers to create more product autonomy within the region. Local agriculture is competing with multinational corporations. We discussed ways to reduce the amount of energy we use and set up the infrastructure for future fuel scarcity. What products do we need? What can we export to support the infrastructure we need? A possible way to reach the mainstream is to focus on the weak, insecure economy and how to change that for local people, then bring up the environmental issues once they perceive their own personal involvement. Mondragon is a region in Spain where workers own businesses cooperatively, and it is one of the most bioregionally powerful places in the industrial world.
Watershed Organizing
The Watershed Association of the Tuckaseegee River (WATR) is a model nonprofit. The watershed spans two counties; it was clear that a broad membership base was needed. They recruited a paper company executive for their board, as well as some Cherokee representatives. In their monthly monitoring, they discovered sediment problems. Finding allies: the tourism industry is interested, since sedimentation in the rivers is bad for the rafters and fishermen. Sedimentation is caused by logging and by grazing cows; erosion is against the law, but enforcement is difficult. Water Quality has a “sedimentation officer,” and volunteers can be extra sets of eyes (especially during and after big storms) for this official, who can then issue fines. Logging roads account for about 25% of sedimentation; the Division of Forest Resources can respond. To involve people, creek clean-ups are great, also rafting trips with a naturalist; goals are educating people to stop polluting and to refrain from clearing, grazing animals, or developing at least 25 feet from the stream bank. Adopt a Stream program is statewide, and includes re-introducing native plants in riparian zones.
A key proposal was to start a “Katuah Bioregional Union” with these goals: Unite the region’s residents through a pledge of socially and ecologically sustainable tenets, provide an index of local goods and services, match people needing a livelihood with vacant niches, and establish a local currency (called “Katuah Ours”) following the example of “Ithaca Hours.”
Apple season is here in the Southern Appalachians. Folks in the know found heavily laden trees in abandoned apple orchards. All kinds of apple varieties I’d never seen or heard of before--ever had a “Sheep’s Nose” apple? It’s named for its unusual, elongated shape. There are Black Hoovers, which really are blackish red; Ben Davis, Betsy Denton, Virginia Beauties, and Crow’s Egg. Sure, they have the occasional worm and blemish, but who can argue with a truckload of free heirloom apples? It was a delight, although hard work, to participate in pressing cider. First we washed the apples (in a wheelbarrow), then the bruised and wormy parts were trimmed and the apples were tossed into a crusher. The crushed apples were then poured into trays lined with cloth, and then the press was turned—and turned—and turned, with grunts and groans, while the delicious brown juice spilled out. I had never tasted it fresh from the press, unbelievably sweet and light. Even the kids came and helped for awhile. For the next two weeks, apple crisp or apple cake was a regular feature at dinner.
One of the local highlights of the fall season is the “LEAF” (Lake Eden Arts Festival) in Black Mountain. In a lovely setting with sunlight sparkling on the small lake and golden and red trees on the hills beyond, there is a 3-day celebration of life: live music, dancing, poetry, kids’ events, crafts, and healing arts. A zip-line brought squealing youths down a steep hill for a splash-down in the cold lake water, while bright red canoes glided by on the far side. A dance hall offered clogging lessons and practically nonstop contra dancing. Children sporting face paint and grins were everywhere.
Transcending tragedy
Most inspiring to me of all the musicians at the festival were the “Mahotella Queens,” three South African women singers who began singing together in the early 1960s. Now 58, 59, and 61 years old, and a few pounds heavier, they are still passionate, funny and sexy as they bop around the stage in their outrageous beaded costumes, round hats, red socks and white sneakers, singing exuberant Mbaganga (township music) in English and Zulu. The group was touched by tragedy: three of their original band died in 2000. The women took a period of mourning, then returned to performing with a new band of younger men. The women told the audience their ages, “to inspire and encourage those older women out there—we women are strong!” Having survived both the traumas of apartheid and personal loss, their high spirited, joyous performance is even more impressive. Yabo!! (Zulu for Yes!)
Creating Family
The A&A House, which is a large building made mostly of salvaged plywood pallets, old bridge I-beams, second-hand windows and doors, has become in many ways the heart center of the Earthaven community. It’s literally the “family” house, because it is being built, and now occupied, by a family: two sisters, one husband (a talented engineer, now disabled with asbestosis, who designed the house), and the sisters’ 86-year-old mother. And it is the hospitality center, the first place at Earthaven to offer indoor sleeping accommodations to visitors, guests, and students. A great deal of the building has been done by work-exchangers, who work about 20 hours a week in exchange for their meals and a place to camp (or sometimes, camping in the top, unfinished floor of the building). Many of these folks are idealistic, hard-working, and visionary. One of them is not only skilled in carpentry, but is also a chiropractor, flower essence and Reiki practitioner. The first floor has the kitchen, bathroom, dining, and several guest rooms. The second floor is the family’s living quarters; the top floor has the fledgling new library, plus a large open meeting room. The atmosphere there is warm and welcoming. Visitors can’t help but lend a hand when they see there’s work to be done, and the family members are appreciative.
Recently, the matriarch of the A&A (Fran) had to go to the hospital with congestive heart failure; one of the sisters pulled a back muscle the same day and was immobilized with pain, leaving one family member to take care of three others. Even in a community (or perhaps especially in a community) it isn’t easy to ask for help! The Earthaven community began to respond, but a couple of days later, right after Fran had come home on oxygen, the other sister fell and sprained her foot. Now we are learning how to function more as a traditional village would: many people are taking turns cooking meals, running loads of laundry into town, doing errands, pitching in with housework, tending to the injured and sick.
The global view
Now I’ll quote Barbara Kingsolver, from her most recent article in “The Nation” magazine:
“ Most of our populace and all our leaders are participating in a mass hallucinatory fantasy in which the megatons of waste we dump in our rivers and bays are not poisoning the water, the hydrocarbons we pump into the air are not changing the climate, overfishing is not depleting the oceans, fossil fuels will never run out, wars that kill masses of civilians are an appropriate way to keep our hands on what's left, we are not desperately overdrawn at the environmental bank and, really, the kids are all right.”
And from a Forest Conservation Action Alert email: The U.S. petroleum giant Chevron-Texaco recently went on trial in Ecuador in a lawsuit filed on behalf of 30,000 poor and indigenous Ecuadoreans who say Texaco's 20 years of drilling poisoned their homeland. Between 1971 and 1991, Texaco extracted more than 1.5 billion barrels of oil from the Ecuadorian Amazon. Texaco's oil operations devastated one of the most biologically fragile places on earth. 2.5 million acres of rainforest were lost. The lawsuit alleges that Texaco cut costs and took advantage of weak environmental standards by pouring wastewater into some 350 open pits. The company's waste water flowed into rivers and streams that feed into the Amazon River. Local peoples are drinking contaminated water, causing cancer and other sicknesses. In 2001, Texaco merged with Chevron, forming the second largest energy company in the world. Now it is Chevron's legal and ethical responsibility to clean up the mess that Texaco left in Ecuador. The case may set the important precedent that foreign courts can hold a multinational corporation financially responsible for environmental damage in their country. A favorable ruling would send an important and long overdue message to the oil industry: adhere to the best technical practices when they drill in the developing world as they would in rich nations, and end oil production in environmentally sensitive areas. Take action now at http://forests.org/emailaction/ecuador.htm.
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Blessings of the season,
Cathy Holt
with the word "subscribe" in the subject. It is a free newsletter, and any donations are also welcome! (Cathy Holt, 1035 Camp Elliott Rd., Black Mountain, N.C. 28711.) Previous issues of Earth & Us may be found 