PlacerSustain: Voices of Placer County's Sustainability Community

When we walked into the Sheraton in Springfield, Massachusetts we were greeted by none other than a wall full of cross sections from trees perfectly sanded to reveal the rings. “No way” I say. “I forgot the camera!” says Neil. We were just walking into the Northeast Natural History Conference, along with Dario and Jackie from the Tree Ring Lab. When I pictured my freshman year of college last summer, I pictured a lot of things. I did not picture getting to go to a conference to present a poster on my own research.

The first of a series on the learning, challenges and opportunities seen at Connecting4Community to shift to more citizen-centered, bottom-up ways of living and structuring our approaches to the problems we see around us.

John reminds us that relationships in a personal world are the antidote to following the siren call of progress in a tool-ruled world.

Having to stand in line for this service or that program is one of the most powerful reinforcers of the scarcity mindset. It symbolizes helplessness, hopelessness and the constant concern that there is not enough ... and that it will run out just before it is my turn. Edd Conboy is doing something about that.

Highlights from Peter's April 16 online/dial-up conversation with Tom Dewar, co-director of the Aspen Institute’s Roundtable on Community Change and long-time member of the Asset-Based Community Development Institute.

"This is the first report that I have ever read that really feels 'community friendly,'" says Roque Barrios of San Diego. He's talking about the story of how local community building leaders came together to share strategies and discuss lessons learned about how to improve conditions in disadvantaged communities.

First of all, it’s not your typical farm tool. It isn’t a hoe, or a shovel, or even a tractor implement. But, it may help you harvest faster, increase your production, and lead to greater profits. By now, with the dawn of agriculture some 12,000 years or so behind us, it is reasonable to believe that every tool we really need has already been invented. Of course, there can never be enough variations of the hoe in the minds of the tool manufacturers. However, during the past......

When people ask me what the Bioneers Conference is, I say it’s a natural anti-depressant. As someone all too well informed about the magnitude of the destruction and intractable predicaments our world uniquely faces today, I’m grateful I also have the privilege of a job that amounts to a kind of “star search” for the greatest social and scientific innovators of our time. When you’re immersed in the inspiration of BioneersWorld and constantly learning about breakthrough solutions for people and planet, it’s simply impossible not to have hope.

Can’t make it to the national Bioneers conference, or want to go local? Our Beaming Bioneers local partners bring home the inspiring Bioneers plenaries plus a treasure trove of live local solutions and leaders to build community resilience and restoration nationwide. Join local allies to activate your region for transformation.

How do we train 100,000 new farmers and instill a larger land ethic modeled on nature’s wisdom? How can each of us apply these ecological design principles and practices in our own backyards and communities? Don’t miss the brilliant design science full-day Permaculture intensive at Bioneers 2012 with leading masters.

Several years ago I had the opportunity to help a 21-year-old gardener realize her dream of creating a mandala garden on land I was stewarding. She was bright, visionary and strong, and could hardly believe her luck at being given the go-ahead to use one acre of a beautiful meadow for her project. And what a garden it was! Two weeks later on the other side of the country in a completely unrelated incident, my 21-year-old musician daughter was approached by a woman about my age who asked her to join the string quartet of her dreams. Unsolicited. She could hardly believe her luck.

Each Cultivating Women’s Leadership Training blows my heart wide open, as I am struck by the vision, dynamism and beauty of strong women stepping more fully into their wholeness on behalf of our ailing world. As we take stands on behalf of what we love, in alliance with women from all walks of life, ages, disciplines and ethnicities, it seems the world bends to meet us. As research reveals, as women’s equity improves, so too does the health of all the human and ecological communities around them.

There’s no “summer break” for Bioneers’ Education for Action Program, where budding initiatives are in fast-paced development to serve our expanding educational community in deeper, more extensive capacities than ever before.

I am a member of the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe of California, raised in the heart of the Mojave Desert on our Indian Reservation along the shores of Havasu Lake, CA. My commitment and dedication to my people has afforded me tremendous opportunity to receive degrees in cultural anthropology and photography from Oklahoma State University and the Institute of American Indian Arts, and soon after serve as both a Chemehuevi Tribal Council member and Executive Director of the Chemehuevi Cultural Center. My path and purpose have led me to a life dedicated to the preservation and revitalization of indigenous culture, language, lifeways and landscapes.

Nature does not favor centralization. As climate change escalates and too-big-not-to-fail systems unravel, brilliant effective models of building local and regional resilience and economies are mushrooming. It’s time to create a national and globalocal network of resilient communities to build collective knowledge, transfer leading-edge models and tools, and catalyze collaborations.