Solutions Volume 6, Issue 3

May-June 2015, Volume 6, Issue 3

For a sustainable and desirable future

Solutions Girls’ Education: Look at the Local

by Xanthe Ackerman and Kaitlyn Scott Farmland, Food, and Bioenergy Crops Need Not Compete for Land

by Christopher P. Littlejohn, Stephen D. Wratten, Timothy J. Curran, and Rainer W. Hofmann The Aquaponics Solution

by Michael T. Mageau, Baylor Radtke, Jake Fazendin, and Tony Ledin Living by Strict Rules: Co-Management as a Way to Prevent Eviction from a Conservation Area

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Sweden’s Prostitution Solution

by Marie De Santis

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Lee, G. (2015). China Needs to Invest In a Better Environment. Solutions 6(3): 1. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/china-needs-to-invest-in-a-better-environment/

Editorial by George Lee

China Needs to Invest in a Better Environment

C

hina is waking up to the environmental challenge its rapid growth is creating. Development has come at the expense of our natural capital, an unsustainable relationship that’s now threatening to damage the Chinese economy. The good news is that there’s a growing awareness of the problem and how we must go about fixing it.

An international conference titled ‘The Future New Economy—a Sustainable Model towards an Ecological Economy,’ was recently held in Shanghai, China. The event, sponsored by the DeTao Institute of Green Investment, concluded that “investment into natural capital could and should be a new driver for economic prosperity” in China, and that “the natural ecosystem that human society needs for its survival is still lacking in a metric that matches the current national economic statistics and accounting, and that could be accepted by all countries.”

Following the workshop, the ‘DeTao Natural Capital Future New Economy Shanghai Declaration’ was published.1 This declaration is a call for the establishment of a metric and the subsequent transformation of investment patterns.

DeTao is now working with international parties to develop such a metric and investment mechanism.

The Chinese government has been heeding this and other calls for change. In a government report delivered in March 2014, Premier of the State Council Li Keqiang noted that “China’s economic development has entered a new normal, meaning we must adopt a new attitude.” Premier Li’s speech identified the contours of what a ‘new normal’ means: economic

growth that makes more judicious use of limited resources, and protecting the country’s vast natural capital from degradation while reducing negative impacts on the environment. The National People’s Congress (NPC) and Political Consultancy meetings have also produced important messages on environmental policy in China. The groups identified the following initiatives: intensifying financial, social, and political reforms to encourage creativity and social vitality, involving private capital in investment in infrastructure and environmental-related projects, and accelerating the establishment of an ecological civilization, including “exploring and compiling a natural capital balance sheet.”

Recently, the idea of an ecological civilization and the ‘new normal’ have gained unprecedented importance in the central government’s development guidelines. They are seen as so important that they will be the basis of the Party’s upcoming 13th Five-year Plan, the official guideline for China’s national economic development. This prioritization shows China’s determination to move towards sustainability.

There is a long way from intention to practice. In the past ten years, gross domestic product and labor costs have risen while natural capital has remained stable. We need to cast away the old growth model and develop a new economy that promotes a synergistic relationship between growing and nurturing and the regional economy. Investing in natural capital can generate as much as a 100:1 return rate to society.2 We must now analyze what types of natural capital in a given area are suitable for private investment, and build a commonly recognized metric to evaluate the results of such investments.

China is facing great environmental challenges that threaten economic development and social prosperity.

To reverse this trend, we need private capital, government investment, and public participation. The government must take the lead by providing funding, integrated planning, policy guidance, and regulations. Professional natural capital investment companies will play a supporting role, as the logic of natural capital is very different from the logic of built capital, and our ecosystem must be dealt with carefully.

The dangers of not doing so are clear from vast environmental challenges the country now faces. Tackling issues such as pollution involve multiple stakeholders and provide little to no return over a long investment period. Yet China’s fledgling environmental industry has shown there are mechanisms that can allow for sensitive and ecologically friendly development.

The DeTao Institute is devoted to establishing a private think tank on green and natural capital investment in China. Moving forward, we hope to develop a platform on which local government actors, the financial sector, natural capital investment companies, and numerous third parties can work together to formulate regulations and create a standard for green investment. We also plan to initiate a green business school to cultivate cross-disciplinary talents to continue developing this field. We must be willing to pioneer an experiment into natural capital investment, educating people on what natural capital is, why we must invest in it, and how to do so, thus building a new economy in which nature and humans can both prosper in harmony.

References 1. China Encourages Investment in Natural Resources and Landscape. DeTao Group [online] (2015) http:// www.detaoma.net/news/show/1733638.

2. Balmford, A et al. Economic reasons for conserving wild nature. Science 297: 950–953 (2002).

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Contents

May/June 2015

Features

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Farmland, Food, and Bioenergy Crops Need Not Compete for Land

by Christopher P. Littlejohn, Stephen D. Wratten, Timothy J. Curran, and Rainer W. Hofmann

Shelterbelts were once heralded by the American government as a means to increase crop yields. Long since undervalued, these natural structures now offer a solution to competing land use between bioenergy and food crops by integrating the two into existing farming systems. The resulting benefits to numerous ecosystem services are increasing the long-term sustainability of these co-product farms.

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The Aquaponics Solution

by Michael T. Mageau, Baylor Radtke, Jake Fazendin, and Tony Ledin Aquaponics holds the promise of solving food supply shortages while requiring far less land, water, energy, and other inputs than traditional farming systems. Production facilities in Minnesota in the American Midwest are proving that small-scale, localized aquaponics facilities can be successful in both urban and rural settings of various climates.

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Living by Strict Rules: Co-Management as a Way to Prevent Eviction from a Conservation Area

by Claudia Sattler and Barbara Schröter When threatened by both park regulations and a growing tourism industry, the traditional Marujá community located inside Brazil’s Cardosa Island State Park negotiated a system of co-management with the park governance.

The resulting agreement created a successful symbiotic relationship through which the community and park work to protect one another.

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On the Web

Perspectives

www.thesolutionsjournal.org Explore the Solutions website for more content and interactivity. What are your solutions? Share your vision for a sustainable and desirable future and learn more about the Solutions community.

Envisioning

Girls’ Education: Look at the Local by Xanthe Ackerman and Kaitlyn Scott

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Sweden’s Prostitution Solution: Why Hasn’t Anyone Tried This Before?

by Marie De Santis

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Got Food? How Local Food Systems Can Build Resilience for Turbulent Times

by Wendy Slusser and Laurie Mazur

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A Multi-Faceted Natural Asset Trust for the Great Barrier Reef

by Tom Dowsley

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Tiny Houses, Big Ideas by Ryan Mitchell

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On the Ground Gardening for Victory: One Battle for Urban Food Security by Kate Flynn In the city of

Hamilton, Canada, residents face a battle now known to many towns across the globe: food insecurity. In an effort to supply local banks with healthy food, citizens banded together to demonstrate the capacity of a local, community-based solution to answer the demand for nutritious food for all.

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Why We Need to Envision Positive Futures by Bruce

Cooperstein The practice of envisioning allows us to see ourselves in bold, innovative, and daring alternative futures. As a tactic for change, a vision is a powerful tool to generate hope for a feasible, unifying, and better future in which we each have a place.

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Solutions in History

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Many Environmentalisms from New York to Kabul, from the Past to the Present by Gregory Rosenthal and Marjeela Basij-Rasikh

For those fighting for basic rights and survival, environmentalism is localized in everyday struggles. Global environmentalism cannot be one uniform movement, but should rather be a movement creating systems of support empowering people to achieve solutions in their own communities.

Idea Lab Noteworthy

06 Interview

Poachers Beware!

Combating Snow Leopard Poaching in Kyrgyzstan

Foreign Policy Interrupted: An Interview with Lauren Bohn

Interviewed by Maisam Alahmed Lauren Bohn, founder of Foreign Policy Interrupted, speaks about the importance of female perspectives in foreign policy, and how to encourage women to raise their hands, interrupt, and make their voices heard in global media.

International Hackathon Empowers Women Mobilizing Literacy: Cell Phones Help Afghan Women Learn to Read From Sustainable Surfboards to Smarter Housing Solutions A Historical Alliance Takes a Stand against the Coal Industry Swipe Right for Peace: A Dating App for Conflict Reconciliation

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In Review

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A Practical Alternative to the Corporate Growth Model

by Mike Rotkin

Editorial

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China Needs to Invest in a Better Environment by George Lee www.thesolutionsjournal.org | May-June 2015 | Solutions | 3

Solutions Editors-in-Chief: Robert Costanza, Ida Kubiszewski

Contributors 3

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Associate Editors: David Orr, Jacqueline McGlade Managing Editor: Colleen Maney Senior Editors: Christina Asquith, Jack Fairweather History Section Editor: Frank Zelko Book & Envisioning Editor: Bruce Cooperstein Editors: Naomi Stewart, Dana Rawls Graphic Designer: Kelley Dodd Copy Editors: Maria Hetman, Hana Layson, and Barbara Stewart

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Interns: Audrey Pence, Maisam Alahmed Editorial Board: Gar Alperovitz, Vinya Ariyaratne, Robert Ayres, Peter Barnes, William Becker, Lester Brown, Alexander Chikunov, Cutler Cleveland, Raymond Cole, Rita Colwell, Robert Corell, Herman Daly, Thomas Dietz, Josh Farley, Jerry Franklin, Susan Joy Hassol, Paul Hawken, Richard Heinberg, Jeffrey Hollender, Buzz Holling, Terry Irwin, Jon Isham, Wes Jackson, Tim Kasser, Tom Kompas, Frances Moore Lappé, Rik Leemans, Wenhua Li, Thomas Lovejoy, Hunter Lovins, Manfred Max-Neef, Peter May, Bill McKibben, William J. Mitsch, Mohan Munasinghe, Norman Myers, Kristín Vala Ragnarsdóttir, Bill Rees, Wolfgang Sachs, Peter Senge, Vandana Shiva, Anthony Simon, Gus Speth, Larry Susskind, David Suzuki, John Todd, Mary Evelyn Tucker, Alvaro Umaña, Sim van der Ryn, Peter Victor, Mathis Wackernagel, John Xia, Mike Young

Subscriptions: http://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/subscribe Email: solutions@thesolutionsjournal.com

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On the Cover A female student at Ayno Meena Number Two school in Kandahar, Afghanistan. While great strides have been made in girls’ education globally in recent years, there is still much work to be done in achieving gender equality in education. Some of the most effective solutions exist at the local level. Photo by Global Partnership for Education / Jawad Jalali.

Solutions is subject to the Creative Commons license except where otherwise stated.

1. Michael T. Mageau—Michael

received a M.S. Degree in Environmental Biology from the University of Minnesota-Duluth (UMD), and a Ph.D. in Environmental Science with a certificate in Ecological Economics from the University of Maryland. He is currently an Assistant Professor at UMD, and directs the Environment and Sustainability undergraduate degree program. He also directs the Center for Sustainable Community Development (CSCD). Michael’s research and teaching interests are aimed at renewable energy systems and sustainable food systems. In the past 10 years he has received over US $2.5 million in grant funds to support research and community project work at the CSCD. 2. Chris Littlejohn—Chris Littlejohn

is at present researching ecosystem service delivery from bioenergy shelterbelts on dairy farms for his PhD at the Bio-Protection Research Centre, Lincoln University, New Zealand. He hopes to complete in July 2015. In 2010 he completed, with merit, a Masters studying the effects of earthworm availability on British lapwing chick survival rates. Lapwings are a farmland bird in severe decline in the UK, partly due to the activities of intensive agricultural.

With a teaching, farm management, and research background, he hopes to continue research on the role of agroecology in maintaining the sustainability of intensive agricultural production systems.

3. Claudia Sattler—Claudia is

a researcher at Leibniz-Centre for

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Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Institute of Socio-Economics.

She holds a diploma in Horticultural Science from the University of Hannover, Germany, and a PhD in Agricultural Science from the Department of Agricultural Economics at the Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany. From 2010 to 2012 she was a visiting scholar at the Gund Institute of Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont, USA. Her research interests include governance and institutional analysis in ecosystem service management such as community-based or market-based approaches (e.g.

PES) and the use of simulation models for decision support in sustainable ecosystem management.

4. Barbara Schröter—Barbara stud-

ied Political Science with a focus on Latin American politics at the EberhardKarls-University of Tuebingen, Germany, and the University of Barcelona, Spain. Barbara earned her PhD from the Julius-Maximilians-University of Wuerzburg, Germany. After her dissertation she worked in political consulting and opinion research in Mexico City, doing qualitative and quantitative research on different political and social topics. In 2011 she started working at Leibniz-Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Institute of Socio-Economics. Her main research focus is on governance and institutional analysis, civil society engagement, participation, and social capital as well as ecosystem management.

Contributors 11

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5. Xanthe Ackerman—Dr. Xanthe

8. Maisam Alahmed—Maisam

Ackerman is a writer based in Istanbul.

She is the founder of Advancing Girls’ Education in Africa, an international non-profit that supports life-changing opportunities for secondary school girls in Malawi. Dr. Ackerman is a former scholar at the Brookings Institution and the United States Institute of Peace and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Her writing focuses on education, refugees, Syria, and Africa.

Alahmed is currently interning as a freelance journalist with the Fuller Project for International Reporting in Istanbul, Turkey. In the past, Maisam worked as a researcher for the Boston Consortium for Arab Region Studies in Boston, Massachusetts and Amman, Jordan. She has also worked as a Junior Program Officer with the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention Implementation Support Unit in Geneva, Switzerland. Maisam is from Saudi Arabia. She is currently pursuing her Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs with a concentration in Middle East Studies at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts.

6. Kaitlyn Scott—Kaitlyn Scott

is a graduate student at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, studying humanitarian affairs. She also holds an MSc from the London School of Economics in International Development and Humanitarian Emergencies. Her professional and academic focus is on education and children’s issues in conflict, particularly in central Africa and Syria.

7. Michael Rotkin—Mike Rotkin

served as a Lecturer and as the Director of the Community Studies Field Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz from 1974 to 2011. He was elected six times to the Santa Cruz City Council and served a record five terms as Mayor of the City. He is currently an organizer for the University Council of the American Federation of Teachers, representing lecturers and librarians in the UC system statewide. He has served as Chief Negotiator for both the Librarian and Lecturer Units. Cured of his electoral addiction, he continues to be active in local politics.

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9. Bruce Cooperstein—Bruce

Cooperstein is Professor of Mathematics at University of California, Santa Cruz, where he has taught since 1975. He was a Pew National Scholar for Carnegie Fellows from 1999-2000 and was Provost of College Eight (one of the ten resident Colleges at UCSC) from 1984-1990. In addition to his mathematical specialties in group theory and incidence geometry, he is interested in the interaction of education, politics, economics, and ecology.

He has written numerous op-ed pieces on these and other topics as well as articles on economic conversion and the economic foundations of peace.

10. Gregory Rosenthal—Gregory

Rosenthal is Assistant Professor of Public History at Roanoke College.

His current book project is a history of

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Native Hawaiian migrant labor in the nineteenth-century global economy. He has published in Environmental History, World History Bulletin, and Perspectives on History. Read more at his website www.gregoryrosenthal.com.

11. Marjeela Basij-Rasikh—

Marjeela Basij-Rasikh is a recent graduate of Middlebury College where she received a BA in Environmental Studies with a focus on environmental policy. Her undergraduate thesis analyzed contemporary environmental policies in Afghanistan concerning water pollution and water scarcity. In the fall of 2015, she will begin an MA program in International Environmental Policy at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California.

12. George Lee—George Lee is a

founder and permanent member of the “Boao Forum for Asia,” as well as the founder and chairman of the DeTao Investment and Development Group, in operation since 1989. The DeTao Group has witnessed the most robust development of China’s market-oriented economy in the past two decades. The Group now has 10 subsidiaries and over 3,000 employees. As a comprehensive enterprise group, its business ranges from education, real estate, and finance to tourism, constructional engineering, and hotel management.

The DeTao Group owns three public companies and the first five-star hotel in Hainan Province (tropical China), as well as several financial branches.

13. Ryan Mitchell—Ryan lives in

Charlotte, NC. He has been following the Tiny House movement for years, and had decided to become a part of it by launching the website www.thetinylife.com. He is currently building his tiny house. He focuses on alternative housing options and sustainable local agriculture as key components to meet future needs.

14. Kate Flynn—Kate Flynn is

Co-owner and Operations Manager of Honest Field Farms, based in Hamilton, Ontario. She also works as a freelance writer and editor. Kate holds an MSc from the University of Oxford in Migration Studies and a Bachelors of Arts (Honors) from Queen’s University in Global Development Studies. She is a former board member of the Hamilton Victory Gardens and a proud community volunteer.

15. Lauren Bohn—Lauren Bohn is The

GroundTruth Project’s inaugural Middle East correspondent, formerly a columnist for Foreign Policy magazine. She’s the co-founder of Foreign Policy Interrupted, a start-up incubator and fellowship program dedicated to changing the ratio and getting more women miked and bylined.

She’s also the co-founder of SchoolCycle, a United Nations Foundation campaign in Malawi to provide bikes for adolescent girls to get to school.

16. Marie De Santis—Marie De Santis

is the founder and director of the Women’s Justice Center, an independent non-profit organization based in Northern California fighting to secure women’s rights to justice.

See more at www.justicewomen.com.

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Noteworthy. (2015). Solutions 6(3): 6-11.

Idea Lab Noteworthy Poachers Beware!

Combating Snow Leopard Poaching in Kyrgyzstan

by Maisam Alahmed Snow leopards, a strikingly magnificent species of wild cats, are facing the risk of decreasing rapidly into extinction. Although snow leopards are spread across the mountains of 12 Asian countries, a range of over 750,000 square miles, scientists state that there are only 3,500 to 7,000 snow leopards left in the wild. With the increasing prevalence of poachers, their numbers are declining fast.

In Kyrgyzstan, poachers could not be stopped easily due to the fact that they are influential figures and that park rangers lacked the funding and resources to have a strong impact in keeping away illegal hunters.

Citizen Ranger Wildlife Protection Program (CRWPP), a project led by the government of Kyrgyzstan and the Snow Leopard Trust Fund, is proposing a comprehensive plan to level the playing field between the poachers and the rangers. CRWPP will use the incentives of both a monetary award amounting to US$250 and recognition with the presentation of a certificate to empower park rangers and local citizens to report any poacher to the authorities. The CRWPP hopes to leverage the local community, in that recognition for rangers and citizens will be just as important to them as the financial reward.

The Snow Leopard Trust Fund stated in a press release in March 2015 that, “National recognition raises social profile and respect for rangers while publicly celebrating and positively reinforcing community collaboration and best practices.”

Roger Blackwell

Snow leopard populations in Asia are declining steadily, in part due to poachers.

The CRWPP that began as a pilot program in limited areas in 2014 has managed to expand greatly in all of Kyrgyzstan’s 19 nature preserves and state parks in 2015, and includes coaching for rangers, investigation capacity, and law enforcement training. That expansion became possible due to the extended support of the Snow Leopard Trust Fund and a grant given from the UK’s Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund.

Furthermore, the increasing demand of the marketplace drove supply to an all-time high of US$10 billion in 2011, despite long-term

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efforts to ban the sale of endangered animal products. Meanwhile, other sellers attempted to sidestep the 1972 law against selling endangered animal products by making them and falsely labeling them as vintage.

In realization of the illegality of selling both newly made and vintage products made out of endangered animals, the Snow Leopard Trust Fund launched an online petition in 2013 to enforce this ban, which was signed by 33,000 people. This petition convinced the popular online website Etsy.com to ban the sale of all items containing material from endangered animals.

Idea Lab Noteworthy International Hackathon Empowers Women

by Audrey Pence

In higher education as well as the worldwide workforce, women are underrepresented in the STEM fields, particularly in computer science and technology. According to the National Science Foundation, only 25 percent of the workforce in computer and mathematical sciences is composed of women. Although women earned over 57 percent of bachelor’s degrees in 2011, they only earned 18.2 percent of the bachelor’s degrees in computer sciences.

The Global Fund for Women led an International Girls Hackathon in February of this year. The event included over 70 young women coders in five

cities around the world in a 24-hour hackathon and was directed at finding inventive solutions to issues facing women worldwide through coding.

A range of inventive solutions were developed. One group in Travandrum, India developed a website to combat the lack of sex education in the country. The website allows for users to chat with counselors, locate health services near them, use discussion toolkits to prepare for talking to family members or others, and read articles about sexual harassment with self-defense tips. Another group in Oakland, California developed wearable sensors and an application to help locate women or girls in dangerous situations. Users have a profile with contact information and settings on

safety ranging from green for safe to red if in danger. Users also have a friends list where they can see the status of friends and send messages of support. Each user also has a list of five emergency contacts that are automatically notified if users indicate that they are in trouble.

The winning solution was Não Me Calo, or “I Will Not Shut Up,” from Brazilian women aged 18 to 22. The application, called “Yelp for women’s safety” by the Global Fund for Women, allows women to review and rank venues according to how safe they are for women and girls. It provides a source for women as well as data for business owners and government representatives to monitor different venues.

Corinne Warnshuis

Women are underrepresented in computer science and technology. A hackathon hosted by the Global Fund for Women included over 70 young women coders. www.thesolutionsjournal.org | May-June 2015 | Solutions | 7

Idea Lab Noteworthy Mobilizing Literacy: Cell Phones Help Afghan Women Learn to Read

by Audrey Pence

The literacy rate of women in Afghanistan is among the lowest in the world, with UNESCO reporting only 24 percent of women over the age of 15 as literate in 2015. The Afghan Institute for Learning (AIL) has led a creative initiative to combat low literacy rates among women.

The initiative brings mobile phones into the picture to be used alongside classroom teaching for women in rural communities. At the start of the four-month program, 80 percent of

the students could only recognize the basic alphabet at best. After the four months, 80 percent were able to read at a fourth grade level or higher.

AIL was the first NGO to start learning centers for women in Afghan refugee camps and has continued to work to provide education to women across Afghanistan for over a decade. Their learning centers train teachers, provide health education, and lead other workshops for women. The Mobile Literacy Program was combined with AIL literacy courses in 2006 to bring the course from a nine-month period to only four months by using mobile phones to encourage active engagement

within and outside of the classroom.

Messages are sent to students with fill-in-the-blank problems or openended critical thinking questions, and each student is provided with a mobile phone with enough credit to complete assignments. Around 1,000 girls have already completed the program.

AIL is faced with the challenge of earning the trust of rural communities in the usage of mobile phones, especially by young women. They work to include members of the community to advocate among families and to employ trusted local teachers.

Women enrolled are also able to build communities and communicate

Direct Relief

The Afghan Institute of Learning develops programs to support disenfranchised Afghan women, in part through education. Here, a woman studies at an AIL program.

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Idea Lab Noteworthy

Farhana Asnap / World Bank

A man scours through trash in Jakarta, Indonesia. Nevhouse recycles plastics from streets and landfills into building panels for sustainable houses.

with their peers. Dr. Sakena Yacoobi, founder and president of the Afghan Institute of Learning said in an article for the Huffington Post, “The impact that access to mobile phones and knowledge of how to use them has on Afghan women is far greater than just accelerating literacy. The women can build and maintain relationships with other women to whom they are not related, something that is incredibly difficult in Afghan society. When women have access to mobile phones, they build a network of friends.

Friends who share information, ideas, hopes and dreams.”

From Sustainable Surfboards to Smarter Housing Solutions

by Colleen Maney

Nev Hyman is famous in the surfing world for founding Firewire, one of the world’s largest and most successful manufacturers of surfboards. What’s lesser known is the company’s core principal of sustainability.

This mission toward sustainability brought Hyman from surfboards to housing with his new initiative, Nevhouse. The driving solution behind the initiative is two-fold, addressing

both waste surplus and suitable housing shortages in developing countries.

Nevhouse collects plastics from streets and landfills in local regions, which are then recycled into a composite plastic compound and reshaped into panels suitable for building. These panels are flat packed for easy transportation and assembled into prefabricated home building kits. The kits are assembled onsite, requiring only basic tools for construction. The resulting homes are designed to be low-maintenance, waterproof, fire and earthquake resistant, and easy to clean.

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Idea Lab Noteworthy The company is the first to supply prefabricated homes from composite recycled compounds. In an interview with the Huffington Post, Hyman described a Nevhouse home as “a house that’ll last 100 years, that’s impervious to bacteria, free of maintenance, and to a degree [can] withstand hurricanes and earthquakes. So from this perspective they are important tools for disaster relief and can be built and taken down in just two days.”

Operations are currently in place in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, with headquarters in Singapore.

Partnerships with governments and NGOs help to deliver the low-cost homes primarily to families living in slums, working in remote areas, and those who have lost their homes to natural disasters. Hyman hopes to

expand the company to have plants built in 100 countries worldwide, to “respond to the changing nature of demand for plastics on a global scale” as tons of waste continues to accumulate in developing countries.

If his housing solution is half as successful as his surfboard empire, Hyman’s Nevhouse holds great promise as a social enterprise.

A Historical Alliance Takes a Stand against the Coal Industry

by Colleen Maney

On Thursday, May 14, an unprecedented alliance took a stand against the North American coal industry.

The historic gathering brought

together nine tribes from Montana, Washington, and British Columbia to oppose a permit for what would be North America’s largest coal export terminal. All nine tribes signed a declaration urging the US Army Corps of Engineers to deny a permit for the proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal in the Salish Sea by the company SSA Marine.

Tribal leaders argued that the proposed terminal would threaten their communities, cultures, and the shared future of all people. The coal development would infringe upon treaty-protected resources and sacred sites, thus breaking obligations that the US has agreed to in protecting the tribes’ rights.

The tribes are joined by grassroots activists and organizations such as

Katrin Lorenzen

Revelstoke National Park in British Columbia. Nine tribes from the region joined together to protest against a coal terminal in the Salish Sea that would threaten the wellbeing of all communities.

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Idea Lab Noteworthy the Sierra Club in their efforts to resist coal development in the Pacific Northwest. The May 14 event was followed by a day of meetings with local and national environmental groups and representatives from the faith-based community to discuss the greater impacts of coal development on all local residents.

At a press conference following the event, Reuben George, Ceremonial Sundance Chief of the Tsleil–Waututh First Nation, expressed the spirit of the alliance bridging tribes and greater communities, saying “we collectively stand together to protect what we love; the earth is a part of who we are.”

Swipe Right for Peace: A Dating App for Conflict Reconciliation

by Colleen Maney

What happens when Tinder meets the Israel–Palestine conflict? A new dating and friendship app that aims to tackle misperceptions fueled by segregation and spark meaningful dialogue between young Isrealis and Palestinians.

Designed by New York-based developer Matthew Nolan, Verona is a new app that is specifically meant to connect Israelis and Palestinians.

In an interview with the Peace and Collaborative Development Network, Nolan explained the simple rationale behind the app, saying, “I very much believe that the basis of any relationship is communication, so if these two cultures are forced to be separate in all this conflict, forming relationships between them could be the glue that hopefully ignites a shift in consciousness.”

The app was launched in March of this year and is designed based

Ian Burt

A painting on the Israeli West Bank Barrier. Verona offers the opportunity for cross-community friendship, allowing users to use cell phones to cross barriers, create relationships, and gain perspectives.

on the widely popular dating app Tinder. Users log in via Facebook and select whether they identify as either “Israeli” or “Palestinian.” They are then presented with prospective matches in their area who identify with the opposite group. If uninterested, the user swipes left. If they like someone, they swipe right. If both parties swipe one another right, they are then “matched” and have the opportunity to message one another through the app.

Although only yet available for Android devices, a free beta test of the app had been downloaded over 1,000 times as of April 24, less than a month after its launch. While many of these initial downloads were within the New York area, a “surprising number” were coming from Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and the West Bank, according to Nolan.

Verona’s slogan, “world peace, one swipe at a time,” captures the optimism and power of a generation of tech-savvy youth. While simplistic, the potential is great. One user, who identifies as Israeli, described her experiences thus far with the app as a series of positive exchanges. “I’ve heard a lot of people’s stories, their family history, so I’m getting some perspective,” said the 27-year-old user. “It’s interesting to hear what it’s like to be Palestinian in that area.”

The power of simple conversation can be great, but often segregation is one of the greatest barriers to conflict resolution. Verona is harnessing technology to overcome the physical and spatial barriers segregating young Israelis and Palestinians, bringing meaningful dialogue straight to their phones. The solution is as easy as swiping right.

www.thesolutionsjournal.org | May-June 2015 | Solutions | 11

Cooperstein, B. (2015). Why We Need to Envision Positive Futures. Solutions 6(3): 12-14. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/why-we-need-to-envision-positive-futures/

Envisioning

Why We Need to Envision Positive Futures

by Bruce Cooperstein

This article is part of a regular section in Solutions in which the author is challenged to envision a future society in which all the right changes have been made.

An eternal trait of men is the need for vision and readiness to follow it; and if men are not given the right vision, they will follow wandering fires.

—Sir Richard Livingstone

Where there is no vision, the people perish.

—Proverbs 29:18

One cannot construct what one cannot image.

—Lawrence Goodwyn

To do the same thing over and over again and expect different results is crazy.

– Albert Einstein

T

here is no shortage of wellresearched journal articles and books on climate change, habitat destruction, species extinction, degradation of water sources, fouling of the land and atmosphere, and other forms of environmental despoliation. There is equally no shortage of well-researched journal articles and books on the sources of absolute and relative poverty worldwide. And there is ample documentation of violations of human rights as well as intra- and international conflict.

In Solutions, we emphasize the positive. More specifically, we feature articles on reducing carbon emissions; rehabilitating damaged ecosystems; protecting fresh water sources and forests; restricting the introduction of harmful chemicals into the soil, oceans, and atmosphere; pulling people and countries out of poverty; de-escalating conflicts; and resisting tyrannical regimes.

In the battle of ideas, we like to think (I certainly do) that we have the better logic and stronger evidence and that citizens in democratic societies should be rallying to our side.

However, that does not seem to be happening. Some attribute this to more effective communication (some would call it propaganda) on the part of

George Lakoff on framing; as well as the work of neuropsychologist Drew Weston on the role that emotions play in political decision making.

Evidence, statistical and otherwise, can be impressive but is rarely convincing. As just one example, people are less afraid of automobiles than air travel when all the evidence clearly establishes that the former is far more dangerous.

One finding of behavioral economics is that change does not come easily to individuals or societies; resistance to it is stubborn. As often as not, people must first believe and then they see, not the other way around as it is commonly stated.

Thus, when confronted with new evidence, people will select those

The purpose of a vision is to enable people to see themselves in an alternative future. those corporations and wealthy individuals who benefit financially from environmental destruction, economic deprivation, and conflict. There is much truth to this and means we need to examine some of our fundamental ideas about how to achieve change. In particular, we need to acknowledge that logic and evidence, though important, are not sufficient for changing minds and behaviors. There is much research that tells us that this is so: for example, the pioneering work of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky on behavioral economics; the findings of linguist and cognitive scientist

12 | Solutions | May-June 2015 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

parts that confirm their existing views. They strongly prefer avoiding losses to acquiring gains, which goes a long way to explaining the resistance to change.

Consequently, people won’t become involved in change until they can see themselves in the alternative future to which the change aspires, and they won’t be able to see themselves in that future until they become involved in change. The purpose of a vision is to enable people to see themselves in an alternative future. Envisioning is then a tactic for enacting democratic change.

Envisioning A vision is not a list of values, goals, objectives, or principles. Rather, it is a clear and integrated proposal for the future. It should be a depiction of society detailed and precise enough that it is possible for most people to see themselves in it. It could focus on a single element of the future such as education, housing, work and employment, care and treatment of children, or of the elderly, or it could look at the big picture and describe how such elements fit together and interact. To be effective, a vision should be bold, daring, exciting, and generate hope. It

should invite counter visions, stimulate debate, draw new people into politics, and induce them to act.

A vision should be informed by a theory of human decision making, in particular, how people formulate expectations of the future.

Expectations are formed from two elements: the alternative outcomes that might result from our choices which we differentially value on the basis of their desirability; and our subjective estimation of the probability that a particular outcome can be achieved. As a tactic for change, a vision emphasizes

how much more gratifying life could be as contrasted with the present and that there is a reasonable chance that such a future can be obtained. To be successful as a political tactic, a vision should satisfy three conditions: it must be desirable, it must be feasible, and it must be unifying.

To be desirable, a vision should suggest how fundamental human needs will be satisfied. To be feasible, a vision must be achievable with what is currently known and not depend on scientific breakthroughs or interventions from outer space or the

Lu Lacerda

Visions allow people to see themselves in an alternative future, a more powerful tool than mere reason. www.thesolutionsjournal.org | May-June 2015 | Solutions | 13

Envisioning

Duncan Hull

Enact change by imagining a different future for yourself, and encourage the creative envisioning of others.

supernatural. To be unifying, a vision must appeal to nearly everyone and hold out the promise of an improvement in the quality of life for the vast majority. The logic of the vision must be compelling and consistent, and its components should fit into an integrated whole.

At one time, before we became jaded, we turned to utopians and let their imaginations guide us. As the

19th century gave way to the 20th, H.G. Wells both inspired and frightened the people of his time with utopian and dystopian works such as A Modern Utopia and Things to Come. Before him, Edward Bellamy roused many with his novel Looking Backwards, which in turn inspired William Morris to pen his own vision, News from Nowhere.

The works of Bellamy, Morris, and dozens of other utopian authors were

14 | Solutions | May-June 2015 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

a response to Karl Marx, who viewed his work as the “scientific” alternative to Enlightenment utopians.

Inspiring the great thinkers of today and tomorrow is an activity that needs to be rekindled. In its Envisioning section, Solutions offers a place where that can happen. We welcome submissions and every one we receive will be given careful consideration for publication.

Alahmed, M. (2015). Foreign Policy Interrupted: An Interview with Lauren Bohn. Solutions 6(3): 15-17. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/foreign-policy-interrupted-an-interview-with-lauren-bohn/

Idea Lab Interview

Foreign Policy Interrupted: An Interview with Lauren Bohn

by Maisam Alahmed

Fortune Live Media

A 2013 Fortune Global Forum on integrating educated women in BRIC and UAE countries into male-led industries. Foreign Policy Interrupted works to encourage women in foreign policy to make their voices heard in international media.

“A woman over 65 is less likely to be cited as an expert in the media as a boy in the 13 to 18 age group.”

L

auren Bohn is the co-founder of Foreign Policy Interrupted (FPI). A journalist by training, she is also The GroundTruth Project’s Middle East correspondent based in Istanbul and a columnist for Foreign Policy magazine.

Bohn is also the co-founder of SchoolCycle, a United Nations Foundation

campaign in Malawi to provide bikes for adolescent girls to get to school. She is the founding assistant editor of the Cairo Review of Global Affairs in Egypt, where she was a Fulbright fellow and Pulitzer Center grantee.

What is FPI? What are the problems and issues this project aims to address in the political and journalism worlds?

So, about two years ago or so, a very good friend, journalist Elmira Bayrasli

and I came together, and we were like, “Where are all the women in foreign policy?” When conferences are held it’s the same old dudes on the panels, not to mention the same old white dudes.

I was like, “Why are there so many men, not just in my colleague’s stories, but my stories?” I found myself trying to call upon women experts to give me their opinion so I could quote them in my pieces, not just because they were women, but because I knew that

www.thesolutionsjournal.org | May-June 2015 | Solutions | 15

Idea Lab Interview they had the expertise in whatever area I needed a quote on. And, I started noticing a trend whereby I would call women asking, “What do you think about Netanyahu’s last comment or what do you think about the Muslim Brotherhood’s position on this?” And women generally would respond, “This isn’t necessarily my area of expertise,” or “It’s a very busy week, can we talk next week or the week after?” And conversely, whenever I would call a man, he could literally be on the tarmac taking off for a flight, and he’s rambling his opinion about what just happened 10 minutes ago as though he’s ready to submit a book proposal to Random House about what just happened.

Those that are willing to give a speedy response, whether or not it’s noteworthy, are the ones who get published. And this disparity then kind of gets worse. The divide gets even wider.

What we’re trying to do with FPI is harness this conversational momentum and the moment we’re at right now, asking all of these important questions and saying, “Okay, well this disparity exists in foreign policy. Yes, it’s complicated. It’s not just because women need to lean in. It’s not just because of internal barriers. On the other side, it’s not just external barriers. It’s not just the fault of editors and producers. There are a lot of problems here, but let’s try to design something that combats both, and that actually changes the ratio we talk about changing.”

What we’ve been doing in the past years: we have a twitter account, we have a Facebook account, we put out a weekly newsletter that goes out to a few thousand people now.

We want to interrupt people’s inboxes and show them here is what the world is like this week, or here is the opinion of the world this week as told, or seen, by women.

What is the Interrupter Series about?

And what is its significance as part of FPI? An interrupter is anyone who knows what they’re talking about, has something to say, owns their expertise, and feels that he or she by sharing their opinion, they know their voice has value and has a place in the foreign policy conversation. Not just for diversity’s sake, but because when you have more voices, we believe you have a greater chance or you’re creating a space whereby solutions, or at least interesting ideas for solutions, can be better incubated, can be better cultivated, to some of the greatest foreign policy challenges in our day.

The series is simply about giving women a mic. They already have a voice. I’m not giving them the voice, I’m just giving them the mic—the platform—to be like, “Hey this is what I know. What I have to say has value; it should be in the conversation.”

What does your book club focus on, and how do you believe it promotes the message of FPI? A lot of books are written by men, and the books that get reviews are written by men. The book club was an extension of the Q&A series, as a way to say this woman, not only does she really know her stuff, but she wrote a whole book on her stuff.

Our ideal audience for the book club series is for the same editors, producers, different places who might be like, “Let’s have her on to discuss her book” or “Let’s use her as an expert in this piece.”

It’s diversifying the content for readers, for an audience who’s interested in the world, and might want to take that interest to the next level of actually reading something that’s more than 140 characters.

We think it’s really easy, when you talk about foreign policy and international relations, to focus on the

You can’t wait around to be called upon, you have to raise your hand and interrupt as well.

Then we tweet it out and people share it to the end of people learning something new about the world through a different voice that might not have had that mic. And also because, when a producer or an editor wants to book somebody to talk about Iraq or Syria, they’d be like, “That person actually has something interesting to say that should be taken into question,” and if they’re wondering what her opinions are they can just look at our Q&A series.

It can be a shortcut to know that she’s an expert in this field.

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Middle East because the US foreign policy conversation is so Middle East driven. But, it’s perhaps really willful that we don’t have opinions coming out, or stories coming out, of Brazil or Uruguay or Venezuela.

It’s really important for us to make sure that we’re not just interrupting the Middle East foreign policy conversation; that we’re also showing people that there are interrupters on a whole wide range of issues that need to be read, that need to be considered.

Idea Lab Interview What is the Fellowship Program? Who qualifies for it and what does it aim to achieve? What is the impact that the Fellowship Program has had so far?

Our fellowship program, an all-girl fellowship program, is going to take around three women, and we’re going to customize the fellowship program individually to each fellow we bring on.

The fellowship is open, and we feel very strongly about this, to non-US citizens.

The requirement, though, is English fluency. But, because it’s open to women, quite frankly, all around the world, the fellowship is going to be done mostly online. So the media training is going to be done via Google Hangout.

Throughout the summer they’ll be given customized media training. We’ll set them up with mentors in the field, and have experts, men and women, through Google Hangout talk to our fellows and to mentor them along.

In academia, or in any space where they have foreign policy expertise, a lot of these women don’t know how to write in a way that resonates with not just the ‘regular Joe’ reading the opinion space, but the people outside that academic echo chamber.

Once it’s done—I think it will be about five weeks or so—we link them to an editor at a major publication for an editorial mentorship. So it’s kind of like an externship, because they’re not going to be in the office. We have the Daily Beast on board, Foreign Affairs, CNN, and Financial Times. We’ll link them to an editor there, and that editor will work with the fellow on, again, shaping her expertise and delivering interesting op-eds. They’ll be working together for a time, that’ll be decided between the fellow and the publication, on developing her expertise in these op-ed pieces and literally, then, changing the ratio of getting more women published.

Magharebia

Tunisian female journalists hold a workshop on the need to support women’s participation.

What are some of your approaches to get more women interested? And have you, if at all, targeted men in any way to help support the objectives of FPI? Do you think it is important to incorporate them, or not?

So, we want women to get more involved. But I think the question we always try to ask ourselves is, “How do we get more men involved, and how do we get men supporting the cause?”

So, how do you recruit them?

It’s kind of like you need a ‘He for She’ campaign. Men are often in the editorial positions deciding what goes into the paper. They’re the ones who are anchors, they’re the ones who are running the business side of the papers and the magazines. So, what Elmira and I have done, in focusing on women in the short term, we’ve reached out to men at think tanks, male journalists, men who are making decisions, men from the editorial side of a magazine, but also from the business [side], and we request to talk to them. We give them presentations about our mission

in hopes that they join this male brain trust that we have with men.

Getting them to do something action based is difficult, but I think you have to convince men that this only makes their publication better as well, that it’s not just for diversity’s sake. It’s that, in having these different voices amplified in their publications or in their conversation is actually making the conversation better. So it’s a business interest almost. It’s an economic interest.

Editors, producers, gate-keepers, not calling upon women, is also women’s boring Sheryl Sandberg mantra, which I think is problematic if it’s sort of the only tool we use in our arsenals. You can’t wait around to be called upon, you have to raise your hand and interrupt as well. If you know something, the onus is on you to own your expertise and to share it.

Because you know by sharing your opinion on something, you’re helping to shape a conversation. You’re helping to, again, perhaps create more foreign policy solutions.

www.thesolutionsjournal.org | May-June 2015 | Solutions | 17

Ackerman, X. and K. Scott. (2015). Girls’ Education: Look at the Local. Solutions 6(3): 18-21. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/girls-education-look-at-the-local/

Perspectives Girls’ Education: Look at the Local

by Xanthe Ackerman and Kaitlyn Scott

GRACE Pakistan

Schoolchildren at GRACE Pakistan with founder Khadim Hussain, center.

I

n Gilgit-Baltistan, the forgotten northernmost territory of Pakistan, Khadim Hussain recently got word that extremists planned to bomb the school for girls that he had started. His neighbors took to the streets in a show of public support, and the attack was called off. It is that community backing, built over decades, that protects Hussain and makes his program successful in the unlikeliest of places.

Hussain founded the Al-Zahra School two decades ago, when girls’ education was considered a sin in the region. Despite initial resistance, after years of campaigning door to door, he enrolled thousands.

Although girls enroll in school in equal numbers to boys in some countries, in others they are appallingly behind. In Gilgit-Baltistan, 57 percent of girls attend primary school compared to 78 percent of boys.1 In 23 countries, fewer than 85 girls are enrolled in secondary school for every 100 boys.2 Answering the question, ‘what can we do to address the remaining challenges in girls’ education?’ led us to a six month investigation into gaps in global education funding for the Brookings Institution. The answer to that question is both simple and surprising.

Girls’ education has made tremendous strides in recent years.

18 | Solutions | May-June 2015 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

At the primary level in 2000, girls represented 58 percent of children not in school, compared to 53 percent in 2012.3 Given increases in primary enrollment, the third Millennium Development Goal—promoting gender equality and empowering women—is thought to be one of the most successful.4 This leads to the misconception among some policymakers that girls’ education is a finished agenda, ready to be crossed off the list of development goals.

Yet, gender equality is far from achieved.

Disparity in girls’ education is highly localized. While global ratios have improved, in a key set of countries and in regions within countries, little has changed. For example, in Sub-Saharan Africa, girls were just as far behind in lower secondary school in 2014 as they were in 2004.5 To close the gender gap, we argue that policymakers have to understand and address challenges in context.

This cannot be accomplished through large-scale, cookie-cutter programs replicated from country to country.

Work in the places where girls are furthest behind—from Gilgit-Baltistan, to northern Nigeria, to Yemen—requires deep analysis of the specific barriers that girls face as well as trust in local leadership.

Government and international assistance rarely reach Gilgit-Baltistan.

The Taliban banned girls’ education in the neighboring Swat Valley in 2009,6 and later attempted to assassinate girls’ education advocate Malala Yousafzai. Many people are suspicious after the war in Afghanistan and drone strikes across the border, and see girls’ education as a Western agenda to secularize Pakistan.

Perspectives

GRACE Pakistan

A young girl draws a picture at GRACE Pakistan.

Yet Hussain, founder of GRACE Association for community empowerment, says extremism is not an absolute mindset,7 but rather one that can be challenged through dialogue.

Having been to the US on a fellowship in 2013, villagers sometimes suspect him. From his sparse office at GRACE he told us, “They call me an American agent. I frankly tell them: ‘Yes, I am an agent—an agent of change; change for positive development and education for all.’ Then they have no comment.”

Where leaders like Hussain succeed in educating girls, communities derive manifold benefits including economic growth, improved maternal and infant health, lower fertility,8 and bettereducated children.9 Hussain, paralyzed from the waist down after fighting polio as an infant in a region with no vaccines, says that despite his own handicaps, being an illiterate woman would be much worse. “I am a physically disabled person, but I can work and move around the world with my wheelchair,” he says. “My mom cannot even talk about herself and cannot travel alone to her nearest city.”

Now, Hussain says Gilgit-Baltistan can develop through girls’ education.

“Sustainable development starts with educated women. The educated girls we have in our community are the real change agents and our greatest strength.”

Fortunately, donors in international education also understand girls’ value.

We found that budgets for girls’ education are growing in most institutions and that three-quarters of funders prioritize girls in their planning. Still, education’s share of international aid is small compared to other sectors.

Global health, for example, received 17 times more funding than education in 2014.10 During humanitarian emergencies education receives less than two percent of overall funding,11 leaving little for girls’ specific needs. Since money is scarce, funders face pressure to find effective models, to implement on a large scale, and to grant to nonprofits that can handle volume.

However, given the complex challenges remaining in girls’ education, this is less and less realistic.

Barriers to girls’ education include poverty, religion, culture, politics,

and social or legal institutions. These barriers manifest in vastly different ways. In a dozen countries, many of them in West Africa, more than 15 percent of girls are married by the age of 15.12 In other countries, including Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt, girls are generally well educated, but rarely transition to the workforce or participate politically.13 Political violence and Islamic extremism are another growing threat, with girls the target of attacks in 16 countries.14 What works in Sierra Leone, where Ebola closed down schools and girls took up caregiving roles,15 will not work in Jordan where the education curriculum, controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood, prepares women for marriage.16

The first step in reaching girls that are still out of school is assessing barriers at the local level.

Startlingly, breakout analysis on the barriers girls face is not required of developing country governments that receive up to $100 million grants from the Global Partnership for Education, a partnership of nearly 60 donors, governments, international and civil organizations, and private sector actors in education. Especially for countries where girls are severely behind, this should be a requirement for all education funding. And many ministries would welcome technical support and capacity building to get this done.

The second step is perhaps even more obvious: support work in places where girls are furthest behind.

Half of the children who are out of school reside in conflict-affected countries,17 and 70 percent of secondary-school-aged refugee children in camps are out of school.18 Of the countries with the biggest gender gap,

www.thesolutionsjournal.org | May-June 2015 | Solutions | 19

Perspectives

Lindsay Mgbor / Department for International Development

Young women attend class at a school in northern Nigeria.

almost all are war-torn, and there, girls are at high risk of early marriage and violence.

Yet, only a third of funders told us that their institutions can rapidly respond in places affected by conflict.

For some donors, supporting a school like Al-Zahra would be too risky. One philanthropist told us, “I’d worry that taking Western aid would make them [leaders in places like Pakistan] a target of anti-Western fundamentalists.”

Yet Hussain is effective in his isolated region. He says having a strategy and taking precautions lower the risk.

According to Hussain, “extremism has roots in poverty…if the funder supports community development approaches…such as clean drinking water, an irrigation channel, mother and child health care...threats to girls’ education services providers can be minimized.” He also suggests foreign organizations keep a low profile and avoid banners and visits in logoemblazoned vehicles.

Recognizing that need outstrips education funding, donors can immediately make their work more impactful.

While local context and solutions should have pride of place in the girls’ education movement, sharing a framework can highlight issues, align actors, and build momentum.19 Top priorities embraced by Brookings, Clinton Global Initiative and dozens of funding institutions include: education quality, retention through secondary school, school safety, transitions to the workforce, and support to local leaders like Hussain.20 UN Special Envoy for Global Education, Gordon Brown, proposes a pooled fund for education in humanitarian emergencies to boost resources.21 This should be applied immediately, and could be groundbreaking if the fund includes an explicit focus on girls. Foundations and corporations could overcome risk by collectively making grants. Local organizations on the ground, like

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GRACE Association, could serve as intermediaries, building the capacity of smaller partners.

Funders can also weigh institutional factors when determining their strategies. Pakistan, for instance, home to one-tenth of the world’s out of school children, is a top recipient of international education aid. But, the government is notorious for spending just two percent of its gross national product (GNP) on education—less than half the share recommended by UNESCO, and a seventh of the national military allocation.22 Backing local advocates that push for education spending with a focus on girls and disadvantaged groups, and supporting watchdog groups that guard against corruption, can have a powerful impact.

In 2000, world leaders wrote the Millennium Development Goals to halve poverty by 2015. Two major criticisms of the goals were a lack of emphasis on the most marginalized, and the focus on primary education at the expense of secondary education.

Education funders responded to those criticisms and adapted their programs. Now most funders aim to reach marginalized groups of girls in the countries where they work and the majority support secondary education.

But having faced those challenges, the hardest one remains. If we want to look back in 15 years and truly cross girls’ education off the list of challenges to women’s equality globally, it’s time to look at the local.

References 1. Hussain, K. Fostering Inclusive Education in Pakistan: Access and Quality for All Children Through Community School Empowerment Networks. Brookings Institute [online] (2012) http:// www.brookings.edu/~/media/Events/2012/12/06%20 girls%20education/Khadim.pdf.

2. Millennium Development Goals Indicators. United Nations Statistics Division [online] (2015) http:// unstats.un.org/unsd/mdg/Data.aspx.

Perspectives for International Development [online] (1997) http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNACA323.pdf.

10. Global humanitarian funding in 2014: Totals per sector. Financial Tracking Service [online] (2015) http://fts.unocha.org/reports/daily/ocha_R16_ Y2014_1506100301.pdf.

11. Education Cannot Wait: Financing Education in Emergencies Challenges and Opportunities.

Carfax Educational Projects [online] (2013) http://educationcluster.net/?get=001687%7C2014/ 06/Education-Cannot-Wait-2013-Analysis.pdf.

12. The State of the World’s Children 2013: Children with Disabilities. UNICEF [online] (2013) http:// www.unicef.org/sowc2013/statistics.html.

13. The Global Gender Gap Report 2014. World Economic Forum [online] (2014) http:// www3.weforum.org/docs/GGGR14/GGGR_ CompleteReport_2014.pdf.

14. Winthrop, R & McGivney, E. Raising the Global Ambition for Girls’ Education. The Brookings Institution [online] (2014) http://www.brookings. edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2014/12/globalambition-girls-education-winthrop-mcgivney/ winthrop-nextgengirls-v3.pdf.

15. Bah, C. Ebola and the Lost Children of Sierra Leone.

The New York Times [online] (2014) http://www. nytimes.com/2014/11/14/opinion/ebola-and-thelost-children-of-sierra-leone.html.

16. Jordan pressured to restrict Muslim Brotherhood.

Al-Monitor [online] (2014) http://www.al-monitor. com/pulse/originals/2015/02/jordan-muslimbrotherhood-gulf-aid.html.

17. Teaching and Learning: Achieving quality for all.

UNESCO [online] (2014) http://unesdoc.unesco.org/ images/0022/002266/226662e.pdf.

18. The hidden crisis: Armed conflict and education.

UNESCO [online] (2014) http://unesdoc.unesco.org/ images/0019/001907/190743e.pdf.

19. Winthrop, R & McGivney, E. Raising the Global Ambition for Girls’ Education. The Brookings Institution [online] (2014) http://www.brookings. edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2014/12/globalambition-girls-education-winthrop-mcgivney/

Xanthe Ackerman

Syrian girls living in southern Turkey practice writing at a school desk.

winthrop-nextgengirls-v3.pdf.

20. Winthrop, R & McGivney, E. A Commitment to Raise the Global Ambition for Girls’ Education.

The Brookings Institute [online] (2014)

3. Progress in getting all children to school stalls but

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/education-plus-

6. Pakistan: Militants announce ban on girls’

some countries show the way forward. UNESCO

education in Swat. IRIN [online] (2009) http://www.

[online] (2014) http://unesdoc.unesco.org/

irinnews.org/report/82161/pakistan-militants-

images/0022/002281/228184E.pdf.

4. Millennium Development Goals: 2014 Progress Chart. UN.org [online] (2014) http://www.un.org/ millenniumgoals/2014%20MDG%20report/ MDG%202014%20Progress%20Chart_English. pdf.

5. UNESCO Institute for Statistics [online] (2014) http://data.uis.unesco.org/.

development/posts/2014/09/24-global-ambitiongirls-education-winthrop-mcgivney.

21. Gordon Brown on emergency education funds.

announce-ban-on-girls-education-in-swat.

7. GRACE Association Pakistan [online] (2015) http:// www.grace.org.pk/.

World Economic Forum [online] (2015) https://agenda.weforum.org/2015/02/video-gordonbrown-on-emergency-education-funds/.

8. Education transforms lives. UNESCO [online]

22. Fact Sheet: Education in Pakistan. Education for All

(2015) http://www.education-transforms.org/

Global Monitoring Report [online] (2012) http://

en/?portfolio=testing-hidden#.VTgmACFVikp.

en.unesco.org/gem-report/sites/gem-report/files/

9. Ridker, RG. Determinants of Educational Achievement and Attainment in Africa. US Agency

EDUCATION_IN_PAKISTAN_A_FACT_SHEET.pdf.

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De Santis, M. (2015). Sweden’s Prostitution Solution: Why Hasn’t Anyone Tried This Before? Solutions 6(3): 22-25. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/swedens-prostitution-solution-why-hasnt-anyone-tried-this-before/

Perspectives Sweden’s Prostitution Solution: Why Hasn’t Anyone Tried This Before?

Sweden’s Groundbreaking 1999 Legislation

by Marie De Santis

In 1999, after years of research and study, Sweden passed legislation that a) criminalizes the buying of sex, and b) decriminalizes the selling of sex. The novel rationale behind this legislation is clearly stated in the government’s literature on the law: “In Sweden prostitution is regarded as an aspect of male violence against women and children. It is officially acknowledged as a form of exploitation of women and children and constitutes a significant social problem…gender equality will remain unattainable so long as men buy, sell and exploit women and children by prostituting them.”3

Ira Gelb

The basis of Sweden’s legislation is that prostitution is a form of male violence against women and children.

I

n a centuries-deep sea of clichés despairing that ‘prostitution will always be with us,’ one country’s success stands out as a solitary beacon lighting the way. Since the introduction of a revolutionary prostitution law in 1999, Sweden dramatically reduced the number of its women in prostitution. Between 1999 and 2008, the number of women in street prostitution was halved.1 In many major Swedish cities, street prostitution has all but disappeared.

Gone too, for the most part, are the renowned Swedish brothels and massage parlors that proliferated during the last three decades of the twentieth century when prostitution in Sweden was legal.

In addition, the number of foreign women now being trafficked into Sweden for sex is nil. In 2013, the Swedish authorities reported only 41 suspected victims of human trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation, a figure that’s negligible compared to the 15,000 to 17,000 females yearly sextrafficked into neighboring Finland.2 No other country, nor any other social experiment, has come anywhere near Sweden’s promising results.

By what complex formula has Sweden managed this feat? Amazingly, Sweden’s strategy isn’t complex at all.

Its tenets, in fact, seem so simple and so firmly anchored in common sense as to immediately spark the question, “Why hasn’t anyone tried this before?”

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In addition to the two-pronged legal strategy, a third and essential element of Sweden’s prostitution legislation provides for ample and comprehensive social service funds aimed at helping any prostitute who wants to get out of the sex industry, and additional funds to educate the public. As such, Sweden’s unique strategy treats prostitution as a form of violence against women in which the men who exploit by buying sex are criminalized, the mostly female prostitutes are treated as victims who need help, and the public is educated in order to counteract the historical male bias that has long stultified thinking on prostitution. To securely anchor their view in firm legal ground, Sweden’s prostitution legislation was passed as part and parcel of the country’s 1999 omnibus violence against women legislation.

An Early Obstacle in the Path Interestingly, despite the country’s extensive planning prior to passing the legislation, in the first couple of

Perspectives years into this novel project, nothing much happened at all. Police made very few arrests of johns, and prostitution in Sweden, which had previously been legalized, went on pretty much as it had before. Naysayers the world over responded to the much publicized failure with raucous heckling, “See? Prostitution always has been, and it always will be.”

But eminently secure in the thinking behind their plan, the Swedes paid no heed. They quickly identified, then solved the problem. The hang-up, the place where their best efforts had snagged, was that law enforcement wasn’t doing its part. The police themselves, it was determined, needed in-depth training and orientation to what the Swedish public and legislature already understood profoundly: that prostitution is a form of male violence against women. The exploiters/ buyers need to be punished, and the victims/prostitutes need to be helped.

The Swedish government put up extensive funds and the country’s police and prosecutors, from the top ranks down to the officers on the beat, were given intensive training and a clear message that the country meant business. It was then that the country quickly began to see the unequaled results.

Today, not only do the Swedish people continue to overwhelmingly support their country’s approach to prostitution (with 72% of people in favor according to a recent national opinion poll),4 but the country’s police and prosecutors have also come around to be among the legislation’s staunchest supporters. Sweden’s law enforcement has found that the prostitution legislation benefits them in dealing with all sex crimes, particularly in enabling them to virtually wipe out the organized crime element that plagues other countries where prostitution has been legalized or regulated.

Philipp Rümmer

All levels of law enforcement, from prosecutors to officers on the street, such as these on patrol in Uppsala, were given intensive training on the legislation.

The Failure of Legalization and/or Regulation Strategies In 2003, the Scottish government, in looking to revamp its own approach to prostitution, enlisted the University of London to do a comprehensive analysis of outcomes of prostitution policies in other countries.5 In addition to reviewing Sweden’s program, the researchers chose Australia, Ireland, and the Netherlands to represent various strategies of legalizing and/or regulating prostitution. The researchers did not review the situation where prostitution is criminalized across the board as it is in the United States. The outcome of that approach is already well known.

The failures and futility of the revolving door of arresting and re-arresting prostitutes is all too familiar the world over.

But the study revealed that outcomes in the states under review that

had legalized or regulated prostitution were found to be just as discouraging, or even more discouraging, than all-around criminalization. In each case the results were dramatically negative.

Legalization and/or regulation of prostitution, according to the study, led to the following: • a dramatic increase in all facets of the sex industry, • a dramatic increase in the involvement of organized crime in the sex industry, • a dramatic increase in child prostitution, • an explosion in the number of foreign women and girls trafficked into the region, and • indications of an increase in violence against women.

www.thesolutionsjournal.org | May-June 2015 | Solutions | 23

Perspectives In the state of Victoria, Australia, where a system of legalized, regulated brothels was established, there was such an explosion in the number of brothels that it immediately overwhelmed the system’s ability to regulate them, and just as quickly these brothels became a mire of organized crime, corruption, and related crimes.

In addition, surveys of the prostitutes working under systems of legalization and regulation find that the prostitutes themselves continue to feel coerced, forced, and unsafe in the business.

A survey of legal prostitutes under the showcase Netherlands legalization policy found that 79 percent say they want to get out of the sex business.5 And though each of the legalization/ regulation programs promised help

for prostitutes who want to leave prostitution, that help never materialized to any meaningful degree. In contrast, in Sweden the government followed through with ample social services funds to help those prostitutes who wanted to get out. Programs are available to assist sex-trade workers in finding other lines of work. For migrant women who were trafficked into Sweden, pathways are available to allow for their return home.6

So Why Hasn’t Anyone Tried This Before?

Why, then, with Sweden’s success so clearly lighting the way, aren’t others quickly adopting the plan? Well, some are. Both Iceland and Norway passed similar legislation in 2009. Canada and France have also attempted

similar laws, sparking greater societal interest in the legalization versus criminalization debate. More recently, in early 2014, the European Parliament approved a resolution by British MEP Mary Honeyball calling for the Swedish model to be adopted throughout the continent.7 But, the answer to the question of why other countries aren’t jumping to adopt Sweden’s plan is probably the same as the answer to the question of why governments haven’t tried Sweden’s solution before.

In order to see prostitutes as victims of male coercion and violence, it requires that a government first switch from seeing prostitution from the male point of view to the female point of view. And most, if not virtually all, countries of the world still see

Michela Simoncini

The Netherlands is famous for its regulated sex industry, as epitomized by the Red Light District in Amsterdam. However, a survey of legal prostitutes in the country found that 79 percent wanted to get out of the sex business.

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Perspectives prostitution and every other issue from a predominantly male point of view.

Sweden, in contrast, has led the way in promoting equality for women for a very long time. In 1965, for example, Sweden criminalized rape in marriage.

Even by the 1980s there were states in the United States that still hadn’t made that fundamental recognition of women’s right to control her own body.

The Swedish government also stands out in having the highest proportion of women at all levels of government. In 1999, when Sweden passed its groundbreaking prostitution legislation, the Swedish Parliament was composed of nearly 50 percent women.

Sweden’s prostitution policy was first designed and lobbied for by Sweden’s organization of women’s shelters and was then fostered and fought for by a bipartisan effort of Sweden’s uniquely powerful and numerous female parliamentarians.

Nor has Sweden stopped there. In 2002, Sweden passed additional legislation bolstering the original prostitution legislation. The 2002 Act Prohibiting Human Trafficking for the Purpose of Sexual Exploitation closed some of the loopholes in the earlier legislation and further strengthened the government’s ability to go after the network of persons that surround and support prostitution, such as the recruiters, the transporters, and the hosts.

And Why Can’t We Copy Sweden’s Success Here?

While it’s probably that the United States and other countries are still much more steeped in patriarchal darkness than Sweden, there’s no reason we can’t push now for the policy changes that Sweden has made. The beauty of it is that once the ground has been broken and the proof of success has been established, it should be ever much easier to convince others to go down that path.

euranet_plus

British Member of the European Parliament Mary Honeyball proposed a resolution to adopt the Swedish model throughout the continent. The resolution passed in early 2014.

References 1. SOU 2010:49. Regeringskansliet, Government

manniska-och-samhalle/jamstalldhet/prostitution/

Offices of Sweden [online] (2015) http://www.

SUMMARY-Prostitution-kartlaggning-2014.pdf.

government.se/content/1/c6/15/14/88/6dfbbdbd.pdf.

2. GRETA: Group of Experts on Action against

5. Bindel, J & Kelly, L. A critical examination of responses to prostitution in four countries:

Trafficking in Human Beings. Report concerning

Victoria, Australia; Ireland; the Netherlands’ and

the implementation of the Council of Europe

Sweden. London Metropolitan University [online]

Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human

(2003) http://www.glasgow.gov.uk/CHttpHandler.

Beings by Sweden. Council of Europe [online] (2014) http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/trafficking/ Docs/Reports/GRETA_2014_11_FGR_SWE_en.pdf.

3. The Swedish Penal Code. Regeringskansliet, Government Offices of Sweden [online] (2015) http://www.government.se/sb/d/3926/a/27777.

4. Summary: The extent and development of

ashx?id=8843&p=0.

6. Wente, M. Sweden’s prostitution solution.

The Globe and Mail [online] (2015) http://www. theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/swedensprostitution-solution/article23482528/.

7. Goldberg, M. Swedish prostitution law is spreading worldwide—here’s how to improve it. The Guardian

prostitution in Sweden 2014. Länsstyrelsen

[online] (2014) http://www.theguardian.com/

Stockholm [online] (2014) http://lansstyrelsen.

commentisfree/2014/aug/08/criminsalise-buying-

se/stockholm/SiteCollectionDocuments/Sv/

not-selling-sex.

www.thesolutionsjournal.org | May-June 2015 | Solutions | 25

Mazur, L. and W. Slusser. (2015). Got Food? How Local Food Systems Can Build Resilience for Turbulent Times. Solutions 6(3): 26-29. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/got-food-how-local-food-systems-can-build-resilience-for-turbulent-times/

Perspectives Got Food? How Local Food Systems Can Build Resilience for Turbulent Times

by Wendy Slusser and Laurie Mazur

C

onsider, for a moment, that lettuce leaf on your plate. It probably traveled a long way to get there—about 1,500 miles, on average.1 In fact, your dinner has probably seen more of the world than you have: the average American meal contains ingredients from at least five countries outside the United States.2 The complex, globalized system that puts food on our plates is a technical and logistical marvel, delivering unprecedented quantities of food at historically low prices.3,4 But that system is surprisingly fragile. Its globe-spanning supply chains are easily disrupted and its vast monocultures are vulnerable to drought and disease.5,6 And, because the system is entirely dependent on fossil fuels, it is subject to the shortages and price swings that afflict those commodities.7 New Yorkers got a firsthand look at the fragility of the food system when Superstorm Sandy pummeled the city in 2012. Days after the storm, trucks were still stranded on roadsides, unable to make deliveries. Some grocery stores saw their stocks destroyed by the storm surge; others lost power and trashed their perishable goods.

Thanks to “just-in-time” supply chains that kept inventories to a minimum, shortages set in quickly.8 As a result, hungry New Yorkers stood in line for hours, waiting for emergency supplies of food and water.9 Most New Yorkers weathered those shortages, and a massive crisis was averted. Still, Sandy should serve as a wake-up call. In the era of climate change, our cities will face more monster storms, floods, and other extreme weather events.10 At the same time, a wide range of natural and

human-made crises—from epidemics to terrorism—have the potential to bring our food system to its knees.11 In these turbulent times, we need to make our food supply systems more resilient. Producing and distributing food on the local level could help us weather disruptions of all kinds.

Local food systems have taken root across the country in recent years, with a proliferation of farmers’ markets, community-supported agriculture, and farm-to-table restaurants.

There were more than 8,000 farmers’ markets across the U.S. in 2014, up 180 percent since 2006.12 Locally marketed food topped $6 billion in sales in 2012.13

Better nutrition means better public health—a cornerstone of disaster resilience.

And, while farmers growing for a global market must choose varieties that are uniform and ship well (hence the tasteless square tomatoes found in supermarkets year round), those growing for a local market can choose varieties for their nutrition and taste.16 The greater crop diversity found on local farms means more nutritional diversity for consumers and more resilience to pests and drought.15 Local food systems also generate more jobs than conventional agriculture leading to increased economic resilience for communities. The U.S.

The greater crop diversity found on local farms means more nutritional diversity for consumers and more resilience to pests and drought.

As food author and activist Michael Pollan has observed, those smaller-scale local and regional food systems are better able to withstand shocks than their massive, globalized counterparts.14 And because they are decentralized, local food systems offer less tempting targets to terrorists and saboteurs.

Local food systems support the resilience of people and communities in other ways as well. Because it travels shorter distances, locally grown produce is able to conserve nutrients better, making it more nutritious.15 It also tastes better, which encourages people to eat more of it.

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Department of Agriculture found that produce growers supplying local and regional markets generate 13 full-time jobs for every $1 million earned, compared to just three jobs per $1 million for farms that do not serve local markets.17 Finally, by reducing the miles between farm and fork, local food systems limit greenhouse gas emissions.

Food systems account for between 19 and 29 percent of emissions worldwide.18 Reducing the carbon footprint of agriculture would go a long way toward mitigating climate change, which poses mounting threats to global food security.19 Preventing

Perspectives

Corey Templeton

The Deering Oaks farmers’ market, held every Wednesday and Saturday in Portland, Maine.

the worst effects of climate change is a better resilience strategy than trying to adapt after it’s already occurred.

So, local food makes all kinds of sense and is growing in popularity.

But food grown for local markets still accounts for only 1.5 percent of U.S. agricultural production.13 That’s because the mostly small farmers who sell their produce locally struggle to compete with industrial farms whose economies of scale, hefty public subsidies, and sheer domination of the market enable them to sell their food more cheaply.

But with effort, those challenges can be overcome. One effective strategy is to create local “food hubs” that aggregate locally sourced food to meet demand.

These collaborative enterprises enable small farmers to access wholesale, retail, and institutional markets they couldn’t reach on their own. This strategy is catching on: the number of food hubs across the U.S. grew nearly threefold between 2007 and 2014.13

Communities can help by nurturing vibrant local food systems. For example, citizens in Placer County, California—a rapidly suburbanizing area with a rich agricultural heritage—took action to sustain nearby farms.20 They created an agricultural marketing organization called PlacerGROWN that launched farmers’ markets, festivals, and fairs featuring local produce, meat, and wine. PlacerGROWN educates the public about the benefits of local food and forges connections between the community and farmers. As a result, much of the county’s best farmland has been protected from development, and in 2007, the county’s farms, ranches, and vineyards generated almost $60 million worth of agricultural products.21 Others are bringing the farm to the city. In Milwaukee and Chicago, a group called Growing Power, Inc. has built state-of-the-art greenhouses in urban food deserts, engaging people

from low-income communities in the production of nutritious food.22 In Cleveland, the worker-owned Evergreen Cooperatives manage a sprawling greenhouse that provides jobs and fresh produce in an impoverished neighborhood.23 The scale of these efforts remains small, but history shows that local food production can ramp up quickly when it needs to. During World War II, Americans planted “Victory Gardens” to help the war effort and produced 40 percent of the vegetables grown in the U.S.24 More recently, when food prices spiked in 2008—touching off riots around the world—many Caribbean countries invested in local agriculture to reduce reliance on imported food.

It worked: today Antigua and Barbuda produce nearly half of their own food, up from only 20 percent in 2009.25 There are many reasons to embrace local food: it’s healthier, it tastes better, and it’s better for the planet. Here’s one more: it can make us more resilient, in good times and bad.

References 1. Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Center for Health and the Global Environment. Local and urban agriculture [online] (2015) http://www. chgeharvard.org/topic/local-and-urban-agriculture.

2. Natural Resources Defense Council. Food shopping tips for a cleaner, greener, healthier holiday season [online] (2007) http://www.nrdc.org/ media/2007/071121.asp.

3. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Agriculture 101 [online] (2013) http://www.epa.gov/agriculture/ ag101/printeconomics.html.

4. Thompson, D. Cheap eats: How America spends money on food. The Atlantic [online] (March 8, 2013) http://www.theatlantic.com/business/ archive/2013/03/cheap-eats-how-america-spendsmoney-on-food/273811/.

5. Plenert, G, Makharia, M & Sambukumar, R. Supply chain vulnerability in times of disaster [online] (2012) http://www.wipro.com/documents/resourcecenter/Supply_Chain_Vulnerability_in_Times_of_ Disaster.pdf.

6. Foley, J. Farming changes can limit risks of extreme drought. The New York Times [online] (July 25, 2012) http://www.nytimes.com/

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Perspectives

Robin Kirk

St. George’s market in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The popular weekend market provides a space for local producers to sell fish, meat, dairy products, and produce. roomfordebate/2012/07/25/how-can-we-prevent-

thesalt/2015/02/05/384058943/are-farmer-market-

Climate change 2014: Impacts, adaptation, and

another-dust-bowl/farming-changes-can-limit-risks-

sales-peaking-that-might-be-good-for-farmers.

vulnerability (summary for policymakers) [online]

of-extreme-drought.

13. U.S. Department of Agriculture. Local food systems:

7. Klare, M. The oil-food price shock. The Nation

What do we know about national trends? [online]

(2014) https://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/images/uploads/ WG2AR5_SPM_FINAL.pdf.

[online] (March 28, 2011) http://www.thenation.

(February 3, 2015) http://blogs.usda.gov/2015/02/03/

com/article/159165/oil-food-price-shock#.

local-food-systems-what-do-we-know-about-

for sustainable food and agriculture: The case of

national-trends/.

PlacerGROWN. University of California, Davis

8. Mahanta, S. New York’s looming food disaster.

CityLab [online] (October 21, 2013) http://www.

14. Pollan, M. Farmer in chief. The New York

citylab.com/politics/2013/10/new-yorks-looming-

Times [online] (October 9, 2008) http://www.

food-disaster/7294/.

nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.

9. Palmer, G. Coney Island post-Hurricane Sandy: Food aid remains the most popular attraction. Huffington

html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.

15. Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Center

Post [online] (November 21, 2012) http://www.

for Health and the Global Environment [online]

huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/21/coney-island-post-

(2015) http://www.chgeharvard.org/.

hurricane-sandy-food_n_2170928.html.

16. Sommer, L. Building a better, tastier tomato [online]

10. U.S. Global Change Research Program. 2014

(August 17, 2012) http://science.kqed.org/quest/

National Climate Assessment (full report). [online] (May 20, 2014) http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/

audio/building-a-better-tastier-tomato/.

17. U.S. Department of Agriculture. New report: Local

report.

11. Runyon, L. Could our food supply be a target for terrorists? Harvest Public Media [online] (March 6, 2014) http://harvestpublicmedia.org/article/could-

might be good for farmers. National Public Radio [online] (February 5, 2015) http://www.npr.org/blogs/

(2015) http://www.placercfb.com/our_history.php.

22. Growing Power [online] (2015) http://www. growingpower.org/.

23. Green City Growers Cooperative [online] (online) http://evergreencooperatives.com/business/greencity-growers/.

24. National World War II Museum. Fun facts about victory gardens [online] (2015) http://www. nationalww2museum.org/learn/education/forstudents/ww2-history/at-a-glance/victory-gardens. html.

25. Cave, D. As cost of importing food soars, Jamaica turns

Change, Agriculture and Food Security. Food

to the earth. The New York Times [online] (August 3,

emissions [online] (2015) http://ccafs.cgiar.org/

2013) http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/world/

bigfacts/#theme=food-emissions.

americas/as-cost-of-importing-food-soars-jamaica-

19. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

28 | Solutions | May-June 2015 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

files/125960.pdf.

21. Placer County Farm Bureau. Our History [online]

8, 2011) http://blogs.usda.gov/2011/11/08/new18. CGIAR Research Program on Climate

our-food-supply-be-target-terrorists.

[online] (2015) http://ucanr.edu/sites/UC_CCP/

foods are working for the nation [online] (November report-local-foods-are-working-for-the-nation/.

12. Runyon, L. Are farmers market sales peaking? That

20. Campbell, D & Feenstra, GA. Local partnership

turns-to-the-earth.html?_r=0.

Perspectives

Mike & Molly

Kellners Greenhousein Milwaukee, Wisconson. www.thesolutionsjournal.org | May-June 2015 | Solutions | 29

Dowsley, T. (2015). A Multi-Faceted Natural Asset Trust for the Great Barrier Reef. Solutions 6(3): 30-33. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/a-multi-faceted-natural-asset-trust-for-the-great-barrier-reef/

Perspectives A Multi-Faceted Natural Asset Trust for the Great Barrier Reef

by Tom Dowsley

T

he Great Barrier Reef is arguably Australia’s most famous natural icon. Yet, the ecological health of the reef has declined over the last 150 years following intense development.1 In addition to the terrestrial pollution, the reef is under threat from invasive species, overfishing, and climate change.2 Development has focused on enhancing built capital and facilitating economic growth, with little recognition of the vast ecosystem services that are provided by the reef.3 Attempts to preserve the reef have been underway at all levels of government for many years, however, there have been no notable improvements to its health. The most recent government initiative has been the establishment of a Reef Trust that seeks to leverage funds to improve coastal habitat and water quality throughout the reef’s catchment area, offering the first glimpse of the broadspectrum approach that is needed to save this extraordinary resource.4

An Unbalanced Approach to Social, Human, Natural, and Built Capital in the Reef Intensive development along the Great Barrier Reef has created a strong portfolio of built capital. However, this development has come at the cost of the Reef itself, which sustains the ecosystems that draw so many people to the area in the first place. Recent estimates have valued the ecosystem services provided by the Reef at between AUD $15 and $20 billion each year.5 These ecosystem services are at risk due to such widespread development. At the regional scale, agriculture presents one of the greatest threats to the Reef.6 There is now a clear

Richard Ling

A coral garden and various damselfish at Big Broadhurst Reef, a section of the Great Barrier Reef.

consensus that degraded water quality due to agricultural fertilizers is linked to the reef’s higher susceptibility to coral bleaching.7,8 Tackling agriculture is just one issue requiring a systemwide approach to managing the reef.

The imbalance between natural and built capital is exasperated by a myriad of governance issues. Given the link between terrestrial pollution and reef health, an obvious challenge is the jurisdictional split of management: the Australian government is responsible for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, while the Queensland government manages the adjacent coastal area.9 At the Commonwealth level, financial incentives are provided to improve water quality, while state regulations have been set to minimize agricultural pollution.10,11

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The effectiveness of these incentives and regulations is being called into question even as the Reef faces one of its biggest challenges yet—climate change.12,13 With little meaningful global cooperation, carbon dioxide concentrations are likely to exceed the ‘dangerous’ threshold of 2oC.14 Exceeding this threshold would lead to significant destruction of most corals within the Reef.15 The impact of climate change on the reef could be partially ameliorated by significant improvements to water quality.16 While reductions in dissolved inorganic nitrogen concentration of up to 80 percent would be required to offset a global temperature rise of 2oC,17 such an approach would go a long way to saving the reef, provided regional players can work more effectively together.

Perspectives A Multi-Faceted Natural Asset Trust A solution that seeks to manage the asset base of the Reef in a consolidated fashion is more likely to be effective at the regional scale rather than the global scale. The recently established Reef Trust could be classified as a quasi-natural asset trust. These trusts are well-developed mechanisms for managing natural assets on behalf of the owners of those assets, namely, in this case, the public citizenry.18 A few tweaks, including the addition of market incentives and regulation, could turn the current trust into the guardian that the Reef needs at this crucial time.

Assurance Bonds for Major Projects Issuing mandatory assurance bonds for all major developments along the Reef is a crucial first step. Firstly, it would provide sufficient funding in the Reef Trust for any necessary environmental remediation activities. Secondly, the interest earned on bonds would become a revenue stream to support projects that secure the environmental health of the Reef. Bonds would be held in the Reef Trust until the development is complete, and returned to the developer if certain pre-set conditions are met. As suggested by Mathis and Baker,19 the bond price should be set at a level required to fund remediation activities for the worst case scenario. Careful and transparent analyses would need to be undertaken to determine both the worst-case scenario and the level of funding required in that scenario.

In the first instance, only projects that directly impact Reef health would be required to pay an assurance bond. This could be extended to other projects, nationally and globally, to include projects that

Fusion Vision

A public rally in support of reef conservation. As shareholders in a potential Reef Trust, citizens would be given the right to vote on how to allocate funds.

indirectly impact the Reef, such as projects generating greenhouse gas emissions. By internalizing the cost of environmental impacts, assurance bond payments would go some way to minimizing the imbalance between built and natural capital.

Water Quality Trading Scheme Water quality is a major issue for the Reef because there is no financial impost for polluters. A ‘cap-andtrade’ water quality scheme would be effective in reducing dissolved inorganic nitrogen concentrations in the Reef catchments. A cap-and-trade system is preferable to a tax, as it enables the overall level of pollution to be reduced, over time, to a set level.20 Polluters would be required to purchase permits to discharge degraded run-off into Reef catchments. Revenue from permit sales would fund projects that specifically deliver water quality improvements.

A market would be established where firms and individuals could exchange

discharge permits. To reduce the number of permits in circulation and consequently minimize pollution, the Reef Trust could purchase permits.

A target to reduce the concentration of dissolved inorganic nitrogen by 80 percent is suggested in order to offset the predicted impact of a rise in global temperature of 2oC.21 A water quality trading scheme internalizes the costs of water pollution.

Such a scheme would impose a financial burden on the agricultural sector. There needs to be a comprehensive understanding of any social or economic consequences of water quality improvement strategies.22 Different economic activities result in variations in the type and volume of pollutants discharged among the 35 Reef catchments.23 To achieve a fair allocation of permits and minimize undesirable economic impacts, permits should be allocated on a catchment-by-catchment basis.

Catchments with higher rates of pollution would initially be allocated

www.thesolutionsjournal.org | May-June 2015 | Solutions | 31

Perspectives

An aerial view of the Great Barrier Reef.

more permits. Polluters could purchase sufficient permits to continue current operations, and enter a transition period where they could reduce water pollution over time.

Increased Tourism Charge Further revenue could be generated through an increase to the existing charge for tourist visits to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. The existing charge is AUD $3.50 per tourist per day.24 This rate is disproportionately low, given that the tourism industry

generates AUD $5.1 billion in direct expenditures annually.25 There are approximately 42.8 million paid visitor days in the Reef region each year.26 Assuming that all these visitor days are spent undertaking activities that attract the charge, revenue from the tourism charge represents only three percent of direct tourism expenditure. The charge could be doubled to AUD $7.00 per day, with minimal impact on the tourism industry, generating an additional $150 million for the Reef Trust.

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Shareholder Decision-Making There is a unique opportunity to build social capital in the Reef through involving citizens in decision-making on Reef Trust projects. As shareholders of the Reef Trust, citizens would be allocated voting rights in order to determine projects suitable for funding. Proposals for projects that enhance the environmental health of the reef would be submitted to an independent governing body. The governing body would undertake a quality assurance role to ensure

Perspectives scientific evidence demonstrating the need to maintain the Reef.

A natural asset trust is a regional approach to reef management that provides a range of market incentives to leverage a more appropriate balance between built and natural capital. This solution does not deal with the risk and uncertainty associated with global climatic change, but does go some way to offset the potential impacts of a rise in global temperature.

11. Thorburn, P & Wilkinson, S. Conceptual frameworks for estimating the water quality benefits of improved agricultural management practices in large catchments. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment Vol. 180 (2013).

12. Heogh-Guldberg, O et al. Coral reefs under rapid climate change and ocean acidification. Science Vol. 318 (2007).

13. Hoegh-Guldberg, O. Climate change, coral bleaching and the future of the world’s coral reefs.

Marine and Freshwater Research Vol. 50, no. 8 (2009).

14. Vaughan, NE, Lenton, TM & Sheperd, JG. Climate change mitigation: trade-offs between delay and strength of action required. Climatic Change Vol. 96 (2009).

15. Silverman, J, Lazar, B, Cao, L, Caldeira, K & Erez, J. Coral reefs may start dissolving when atmospheric

References

CO2 doubles. Geophysical Research Letters Vol. 36, no.

3 (2009).

1. Waterhouse, J, Brodie, J, Lewis, S, & Mitchell, A. Quantifying the sources of pollutants in the Great

can ameliorate effects of climate change on corals.

Barrier Reef catchments and the relvative risk to

Ecological Applications Vol. 19, no. 6 (2009).

reef ecosystms. Marine Pollution Bulletin Vol. 65

17. Wooldridge, S. Water quality and coral bleaching

(2012).

thresholds: Formalising the linkage for the inshore

2. Brodie, J & Waterhouse, J. A critical review of

reefs of the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Marine

environmental management of the ‘not so Great’ Barrier Reef. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science Vol. 3. Moberg, F & Folke, C. Ecological goods and services of coral reef ecosystems. Ecological Economics Vol. 29,

Science Vol. 319 (2008).

19. Mathis, M & Baker, P. Assurance bonds: a tool for managing environmental costs in aquaculture.

no. 2 (1999).

Aquaculture Economics and Management Vol. 6, no.

4. Department of the Environment. The Reef 2050

1–2 (2002).

Plan. Australian Government Department of

20. Barnes, P et al. Creating an Earth Atmospheric Trust.

the Environment [online] (2014) http://www. environment.gov.au/marine/gbr/publications/reef-

Science Vol. 319 (2008).

21. Wooldridge, S. Water quality and coral bleaching

2050-long-term-sustainability-plan.

5. Stoeckl, N et al. A new approach to the problem of overlapping values: a case study in Australia’s Great

thresholds: Formalising the linkage for the inshore reefs of the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Marine Pollution Bulletin Vol. 58, (2009).

Barrier Reef. Ecosystem Services Vol. 10 (2014).

value for money, and to ensure that proponents have the necessary experience to deliver the project. Projects could then be listed on a website, and citizens could use their shares to vote.

Shareholder votes would then be used to assist the governing body to make decisions on funding allocation. This promotes strong public engagement in decision-making, and transparency around the use of Reef Trust funding.

The human capital of the Reef community could be bolstered with education campaigns that clearly articulate the

Pollution Bulletin Vol. 58, (2009).

18. Barnes, P et al. Creating an Earth Atmospheric Trust.

104–105 (2012).

Tchami

16. Wooldridge, S & Done, TJ. Improved water quality

22. Grieken, M, Thomas, C, Roebeling, P & Thorburn, P.

6. Waterhouse, J, Brodie, J, Lewis, S, & Mitchell, A. Quantifying the sources of pollutants in the Great

Integrating economic drivers of social change into

Barrier Reef catchments and the relvative risk to reef

agricultural water quality improvement strategies.

ecosystms. Marine Pollution Bulletin Vol. 65 (2012).

Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment Vol. 180

7. Grieken, M, Thomas, C, Roebeling, P & Thorburn, P. Integrating economic drivers of social change into

(2013).

23. Waterhouse, J, Brodie, J, Lewis, S, & Mitchell, A.

agricultural water quality improvement strategies.

Quantifying the sources of pollutants in the Great

Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment Vol. 180

Barrier Reef catchments and the relative risk to

(2013).

reef ecosystms. Marine Pollution Bulletin Vol. 65

8. Wooldridge, S. Water quality and coral bleaching thresholds: Formalising the linkage for the inshore

(2012).

24. Environmental Management Charge: what are the

reefs of the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Marine

charges? Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority

Pollution Bulletin Vol. 58, (2009).

[online] (2014) http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/zoningpermits-and-plans/environmental-management-

9. Brodie, J & Waterhouse, J. A critical review of

charge/emc-fee-schedule-2011%3E.

environmental management of the ‘not so Great’ Barrier Reef. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science Vol.

25. Deloitte Access Economics. Economic contribution of the Great Barrier Reef. Great Barrier Reef Marine

104–105 (2012).

Park Authority (2013).

10. Carroll, C et al. A paddock to reef monitoring

26. Deloitte Access Economics. Economic contribution

and modelling framework for the Great Barrier Reef: paddock and catchment component. Marine

of the Great Barrier Reef. Great Barrier Reef Marine

Pollution Bulletin Vol. 65 (2012).

Park Authority (2013).

www.thesolutionsjournal.org | May-June 2015 | Solutions | 33

Mitchell, R. (2015). Tiny Houses, Big Ideas. Solutions 6(3): 34-35. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/tiny-houses-big-ideas/

Perspectives Tiny Houses, Big Ideas

by Ryan Mitchell

I

n a time when the “American Dream” tells us that bigger is better, people are downsizing their space to make more room in their lives. Tiny houses are small homes, often built by their owners, between 150 and 300 square feet with a focus on simplicity and minimalist living. This trend in housing is a stark contrast to current housing in America and has been gaining support over the past few years.

American homes have largely stayed the same for the past 60 years with two main exceptions: size and cost. In 1950, the average home was just shy of 1,000 square feet and cost an average US$7,354.1 Compare this to today’s homes of 2,385 square feet at an average cost of US$343,300.2,3 The real noteworthy concept here is the income to home cost ratio:4,5 • 1950: 1.7 (median household income: US$4,237, average house cost: US$7,354) • 2015: 6.6 (median household income: US$51,939, average house cost: US$343,300) During this time, while the size of homes has more than doubled, family size has decreased from an average of 3.67 to 3.13 people.6 Houses have gotten a lot bigger but also much more expensive. In 1950, only those with very good credit could qualify for a 15-year mortgage, while today most loan applicants are securing 30 and even 40-year mortgages just to make owning a home possible.

All this is to say that housing has become unaffordable to more and more people due to a shrinking middle class, higher costs of living, and decreased buying power of our

Nicolás Boullosa

A tiny house in Pozuelo de Alarcón, Spain.

incomes. It’s clear to many that something needs to change. The average American now spends 33 to 50 percent of their income on housing.

In 2008, I found myself in this position after my employer decided to close the company I had been working for. After my employer decided to close the company I had been working for, I knew something had to change.

I started looking critically at my life, my relationship with money, and my budget and realized that about half of my income was going toward housing. It was then that I discovered tiny houses and realized that their many benefits could be the solution to this challenge.

My story is similar to most people who find themselves in the tiny house lifestyle. We one day realized that the “American Dream” turned out to be more of a nightmare. A life saddled with debt meant spending long hours in jobs that most people don’t like and spending huge portions of our lives away from the ones we love.

The average American will spend 15 years of their life to pay for their

34 | Solutions | May-June 2015 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

home, whereas most tiny house owners can build and pay for their living spaces in under a year while working an average income job.

People switch to tiny houses for a range of reasons. They are financially more viable, environmentally more sustainable, offer a simpler way to live in the chaos of modern life, and provide flexibility and options that are simply not available to most other home owners.

Tiny houses go far beyond issues of money, however. They come with an entire outlook on life. Tiny living means living a life where you can not only live debt free, but also pursue your passions, goals, and free time on your own terms. With reduced costs of living, we can pursue that hobby or the rewarding career that might not have paid enough before but now could mean a comfortable lifestyle.

It means we can pursue big goals or bucket list items that can bring meaning to our lives. It can give us the time and flexibility to focus on relationships and spend time with loved ones.

Simply put, while tiny houses

Perspectives Finally, a few quick tips on how to make your way to The Tiny Life: • Determine your goals in life and evaluate the decisions you’ve made: do they get you closer to

Nicolás Boullosa

A tiny house owner in Freestone, California, who repurposed an old shipping container to construct her house.

minimize your physical space and possessions, you gain huge rewards in the things that matter.

From my personal experience, my monthly cost of living used to be around US$1800 per month when I lived in a mainstream living situation.

Today, in my tiny house, my cost of living is around US$500 per month for a much more comfortable life. That cost includes utilities, insurance, a cell phone, internet, and food.

I took it a bit further to make my living situation not only small and financially minimal, but also eco-friendly. The power for my tiny house comes from a solar panel system, allowing it to be totally off the electrical grid. I have also equipped my home with high-efficiency appliances.

I can run every light, a computer, cell phone, fridge, and hot water heater for less power than a single standard high watt lightbulb.

The house is made of sustainable materials, all reclaimed, recycled and/ or sustainably sourced. The water

supply is from the city, but all fixtures have an ultra-low flow, making the water bill less than US$5 per month.

Freedom from rent or mortgage payments on top of these allow me to keep my costs so low.

All of these decisions added up for me, resulting in some pretty drastic changes in my life in a very positive way.

This lifestyle has allowed me to start my own business, to spend more time with family, and to pursue life goals that had been long deferred.

Since moving into a tiny house, I’ve been able to write and publish a book, travel for six months out of the year, and pursue some key passion projects that weren’t attainable in my life before.

To think that today I spend almost half the year traveling the world, while earning a good living and being more financially stable is a life most could only dream of. Yet this is my reality and the reality of most people who live tiny.

those goals?

• Start today: begin by evaluating your possessions and financial decisions. Could you choose a different path that brings you closer to your goals?

• Start small: begin with a small part of your life, see how you can improve that one physical space or one aspect of your life. How much can you optimize it for the best outcomes?

• Make a plan to get smaller: it doesn’t have to be a tiny house, but a housing option that reduces costs while still promoting a good quality of life.

• Get out of debt: debt is a toxic force in most people’s lives and inhibits their pursuit of life goals and passions.

References 1. Historical census of housing tables: home values.

United States Census Bureau [online] (2015) https:// www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/census/ historic/values.html.

2. Dietz, R. New single-family home size declined in 2014. National Association of Home Builders [online] (2014) http://eyeonhousing.org/2015/02/ new-single-family-home-size-declined-in-2014/.

3. Cooper, S & Mayo, R. New residential sales in March 2015. US Census Bureau News [online] (2015) http:// www.census.gov/construction/nrs/pdf/newressales.pdf.

4. 100 years of consumer spending: data for the nation, New York City, and Boston. Bureau of Labor Statistics [online] (2015) http://www.bls.gov/opub/ uscs/1950.pdf.

5. DeNavas-Walt, C &Proctor, BD. Income and poverty in the United States: 2013. US Department of Commerce [online] (2014) http://www.census.gov/content/dam/ Census/library/publications/2014/demo/p60-249.pdf.

6. Number of people per family in the United States from 1960 to 2014. Statista [online] (2015) http:// www.statista.com/statistics/183657/average-size-ofa-family-in-the-us/.

www.thesolutionsjournal.org | May-June 2015 | Solutions | 35

Littlejohn, C.P., S.D. Wratten, T.J. Curran, and R.W. Hofmann. (2015). Farmland, Food, and Bioenergy Crops Need Not Compete for Land. Solutions 6(3): 36-50. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/farmland-food-and-bioenergy-crops-need-not-compete-for-land/

Feature

Farmland, Food, and Bioenergy Crops Need not Compete for Land

by Christopher P. Littlejohn, Timothy J. Curran, Rainer W. Hofmann, and Stephen D. Wratten Steve Attwood, Auldwood

Mxg bioenergy shelterbelt growing on an irrigated intensive dairy farm on the Canterbury Plains in New Zealand.

In Brief The need to mitigate the effects of climate change has resulted in some governments setting mandates to attain targets for bioenergy production. Recently, there has been concern that the large-scale use of first-generation biofuel feedstocks may result in ‘food displacement.’ New second-generation bioenergy crops can be produced on poor soil and provide a potential solution to this problem if grown on marginal land that was previously uneconomic for agricultural production. However, consequences of this production method are biodiversity loss and carbon release if previously fallow land is cultivated. Marginal land is also less agriculturally productive, and if profits from biomass plantations exceed those from food production, farmers will grow bioenergy crops on prime agricultural land in order to maximize profit.

Alternative approaches include utilizing mixtures of native grassland perennials grown on agriculturally degraded lands for bioenergy production and producing biodiesel from microalgae. In New Zealand, research is being conducted on the benefits of integrating bioenergy crops within the present farming system. In this research, the ecosystem services (ES) value of re-instated shelter on irrigated dairy farms is assessed using the novel approach of adopting a bioenergy crop for shelterbelt creation. Together with on-farm ES as well as those external to the farm, ES delivery from shelterbelts—rows of trees or shrubs planted to provide wind protection—potentially improves the profitability of the farming enterprise. By planting a shelterbelt of Miscanthus x giganteus (Mxg), a sterile hybrid bioenergy grass that grows four meters tall, in the northerly corners of fields, we were able to measure the multiple ES advantages generated including shelter for livestock, the growing of a harvestable crop for fodder or renewable fuels, and benefits from creating a new on-farm habitat such as a refuge for beneficial predatory insects and pollinators. Findings show that pastures benefiting from the shelter of the grass have reduced evapotranspiration rates, the process by which water is transferred from the land to the atmosphere by evaporation from the soil and other surfaces and by transpiration from plants, resulting in increased yields. In the sheltered field areas, there was a positive influence on soil mineralization rates and beneficial insects. By having bioenergy crops as a valuable co-product of the existing farming system, in this case dairy production, the problem of replacing land used for food production with bioenergy cropping is overcome. The loss of food-productive land is potentially more than compensated for by the value of ES benefits gained if long term sustainability of the farming system and global threats associated with fossil-carbon use are considered.

36 | Solutions | May-June 2015 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

A

s the source of two-thirds of global GHG emissions, the energy sector will be pivotal in determining whether or not climate change goals are achieved. The International Energy Agency predicts that world energy demand will increase by one-third by 2035. If government policies promote the use of low-carbon energy sources—which includes biofuels—to 40 percent of total world energy use by 2030, then energyrelated carbon dioxide emissions will still rise by 20 percent. This leaves the world on track for a longterm average temperature increase of 3.6°C.1 The need to reduce the dependence on fossil fuels to meet emissions targets outlined in climate change mandates and to improve energy security has already resulted in billions of dollars being spent worldwide to support the biofuel industry.2 For example, the European Commission in 2008, as part of its ‘climate change package,’ adopted the Directive for Renewable Energy (DRE), which legislated the use of biofuels in the transportation sector.3 The Directive insisted that “the share of energy from renewable sources in the transport sector must amount to at least 10 percent of final energy consumption in the sector by 2020.”4 In 2012, global subsidies for production of renewable energy to aid achievement of mandated production targets reached US $101 billion, being highest in the European Union (US $57 billion) and the United States (US $21 billion).1 The 2008 world food crisis, where prices for basic staples increased by 83 percent,5 resulted in an examination of bioenergy policy.

As articulated by Josette Sheeran, Executive Director of the UN World Food Programme, blame was directed at the increased food demand from developing countries—notably China and India—but this was a convenient oversimplification of

the causes. “It takes the scrutiny off structural causes of the crisis, such as the trade liberalization policies advocated by the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) that have wreaked destruction on the agricultural base of the developing countries and destroyed their ability to feed themselves,” Sheeran noted

Key Concepts • Land-use change is a potential environmental risk that may be exacerbated by bioenergy development.

• Many are concerned that the potential competition between energy crops and food crops might result in increased food commodity prices.

• An alternative approach is to integrate second-generation bioenergy crops into the farming system by using them to recreate shelterbelts.

Recent changes in farming practices, such as the installation of center-pivot irrigation with a height clearance of greater than two meters, have led to widespread removal of shelterbelts. Mxg can compensate for these changes as it allows the center pivot to pass through it and is not restricted by the height of the pivot.

• Biomass production is only one of 15 possible ecosystem services shelterbelts can provide that improve sustainability of the farming system.

• Renewable diesel plants using US technology can generate this fuel from biomass. If farmers are able to develop a small generating unit, the use of this technology would allow for on-farm production and energy consumption, further creating a sustainable production system.

during the crisis.5 Nevertheless, the rise of the middle class globally is driving more meat consumption, which requires high rates of crop calorie production to sustain it, putting further pressure on agricultural land to meet ever-increasing demand.

This in turn further informs the food versus fuel debate.

Growing bioenergy crops has considerable benefits, the principal ones being GHG sequestration and the development of energy independence as these crops can reduce consumption of fossil fuels. Bioenergy crops absorb carbon from the atmosphere via the photosynthetic process, compensating in this way for the carbon dioxide (CO2) released on combustion. In contrast, carbon in fossil fuels has been sequestered underground for millions of years, and their burning add to the present atmospheric concentrations of GHG. Despite these benefits, changes in land-use patterns, with future increasing areas of energy crops being produced instead of food, is potentially detrimental and an important consideration internationally.6 Even though the US leads the world in total biofuel production (Table 1), biomass fuels only provided about five percent of the energy used in the US in 2013. Of this five percent, about 45 percent was from wood and woodderived biomass, 44 percent was from biofuels (mainly ethanol), and about 11 percent was from municipal waste.

Ethanol is produced mainly from corn, which is a high-input, annual monoculture and an example of a firstgeneration bioenergy crop. These are existing food crops that can be used to produce biofuel, either ethanol or biodiesel, using either carbohydrate from grain crops or sugar cane stems or oil from oilseed rape (canola), palm oil, and soybean. Bioethanol is the most widely produced biofuel globally with worldwide production being 1,322 billion liters in 2010 compared to only 15 billion liters of biodiesel.

Bioethanol is easy to produce but has an energy density one-third of that of diesel and is mostly used as a transport fuel by blending with petrol. Typical blends use 10 percent ethanol, but with engine modification, 85 percent ethanol can be used. Biodiesel is similar to mineral diesel and has a similar combustible energy content. The low interest in the production of biodiesel

www.thesolutionsjournal.org | May-June 2015 | Solutions | 37

Region

Biofuel Production (billion litres)

Europe

10

Corn / soya bean / OSR

North America

40

Corn / soya bean

South America

25

Corn / sugar cane

Major Feedstock

Africa

2

Animal dung / jatropha

Australia/Asia

4

Palm oil / OSR

OSR – oil seed rape (Canola)

Authors

Table 1. World biofuel production is largely based on first-generation bioenergy feedstocks

in the US—three billion liters in 2010 compared to 72 billion liters of bioethanol—is due to the strict emissions standards the fuel has to meet, meaning it has to be blended with mineral diesel before being used as a transport fuel. This is not an issue with renewable diesel, which can be produced from lignified material including second-generation bioenergy crops and used as a ‘drop-in-fuel.’

The ratio of the energy produced from combustion compared to that used to grow, harvest, and transport the crop gives a measure of the net energy gained, with a value higher than 1 indicating a positive energy balance. The energy ratios of first-generation biofuels are highly variable. Stromberg and Asparatos gave the following net energy ratios: wheat bioethanol (1.6 to 5.8); palm oil biodiesel (2.4 to 2.6); and jatropha seeds used for biodiesel production particularly in semi-arid and remote areas of developing countries (1.4 to 4.7).7 Corn bioethanol (0.8 to 1.7) and certain soybean biodiesel practices (1.0 to 3.2) demonstrated lower ratios, below 1.0 in some cases. Sugarcane was the only crop with relatively high ratios (3.1 to 9.3), which makes

it reasonably ‘sustainable’ as it also has high GHG reduction potential.8 In Brazil, there are 9 million vehicles that use sugarcane ethanol or ethanol blends, and to date, this high usage has not had any effect on food supply.

Also, a major drawback of sugarcane is, depending on location, its soil erosion rates are 5.2 times greater than soil formation rates.9 Land degradation is a major concern with the expansion of first-generation biofuel crops. The expansion of corn and cassava into already-degraded upland agricultural systems in Southeast Asia can increase the risk of soil runoff and sediment generation.8 These concerns have led to an increased interest in the use of secondgeneration bioenergy crops and perennial energy crops, which include a variety of native and non-native grasses and woody plants grown purely for energy production. These require fewer inputs, have superior energy ratios, reduce GHG more than annual cropping, and enhance water quality and habitat quality for beneficial insects and other wildlife.12 The lignocellulose in perennial forage crops is a more energy-dense material than the starch and sugars

38 | Solutions | May-June 2015 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

used from first-generation bioenergy crops. It represents a potentially vast and renewable source of biomass feedstock, and recent advances in technology enable production of biodiesel and renewable diesel from lignocellulose.13 Renewable diesel is chemically the same as mineral diesel and can serve as a direct replacement. Biodiesel is not and tends to be blended before it can be used if engine modifications have not been made. Both are derived from plant material but have different methods of manufacture. The higher yields of second-generation bioenergy crops means the same amount of biofuel can be produced from a smaller area of land. This is important when considering the Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) of biofuels.

Energy ratios and GHG emissions are the principal components used to generate LCAs, which are then used to investigate the environmental impact of biofuel production. Monitoring the application of minimum targets on GHG emissions reduction to biofuels as well as estimating their substitution efficiency to fossil fuels is subject to significant uncertainty and inaccuracy due to the associated methodology.

The introduction of biofuels in the US

Ethanol Production (billion litres) Country

Major Feedstock

United States

40 Corn / Wheat

Brazil

25 Sugar Cane

China

3 Corn / Cassava / Rice

Canada

2 Corn / Wheat

Major Producers of Bio-ethanol 2010 (billion litres) 3

2

United States Brazil

25 40

China Canada

Authors

Table 2. World bio-ethanol production in 2010.

has expanded total corn acreage but diverted it away from food and feed.

The expanded corn acreage may take land away from lower value crops, which may move into marginal land that is not currently farmed. In Brazil, grazing activity displaced in the Cerrado region by sugarcane expansion may encroach into the Amazon forests, although sugarcane may not be directly cultivated in that region.

Thus, when one considers the overall effect of producing biofuels on a large scale on net GHG emissions, the indirect land-use effect has to be taken into account.14

The wider adoption of secondgeneration bioenergy crops would create the opportunity of using marginal, rather than prime, cropland for crop production. This is due to the ability of marginal lands to produce high yields without requiring high nutrient inputs because they are harvested when they have senesced.

Therefore, a common response to the potential competition between energy crops and food crops is to suggest that marginal, rather than prime, cropland be targeted for bioenergy production.

There are two major drawbacks of this. First, production still needs to

be economically viable and yields are still likely to be lower when crops are grown on marginal lands as they tend to have reduced water availability.

Second, marginal land, if not being used for agricultural production, is likely to have a high biodiversity and ES value. Of the six main direct causes of biodiversity loss identified in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, four are directly associated with biofuel expansion.15 Moving bioenergy production to marginal land is often associated with the conversion of natural ecosystems such as grassland and forests, resulting in greater biodiversity loss than when compared to the conversion of cultivated land.16 Marginal lands also deliver a number of ES benefits that humans derive from ecological processes that contribute to human welfare, both directly and indirectly, and therefore represent part of the total economic value of the planet.17 These systems, such as regulatory systems including water, climate, pest regulation, and pollination, are critical to the functioning of the earth’s life-support system.

Agricultural landscapes potentially provide humans with a variety of valuable ES. They provide food, fiber, and animal feed. They regulate the quality of our water, sequester GHGs, host beneficial insects and other wildlife, and provide us with a variety of recreational opportunities. Despite the importance of these multiple services, agricultural landscapes tend to be designed to maximize only provisioning services such as crop production as these generate goods that can be sold, therefore yielding income for producers and landowners. For agricultural landscapes to be sustainable, they need to balance provisioning services that primarily accrue to individuals with regulating cultural and supporting services that benefit communities more broadly.18 A prime example of the conflict between the aim of using agricultural land to produce products and the

www.thesolutionsjournal.org | May-June 2015 | Solutions | 39

Net Energy Balance of Maize Grain Ethanol 30 25

Corn grain ethanol Outputs

20

Distiller’s dry grains

MJL-1 of ethanol produced

15 10

Facility energy use

5 Inputs

0

Other energy use: -5

Facility labour energy use Facility construction

-10

Transportation

-15

Household energy use

-20

Machinery productin Fertilizers and pesticides

-25

Fossil fuel use

-30

Hybrid seed

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Adapted by authors from Hill et al.

The net energy balance of maize grain (corn) ethanol as estimated by six recent studies, most recently by Hill et al.10 All eleven input and output categories are ordered as they are shown in the legend, but some are so small as to be imperceptible. Only the estimate of Hill et al.10 includes all eleven categories.

The estimated net energy balance (the sum of the outputs minus the sum of the inputs) from each study is shown by the placement of a black dot.11

need to generate sustainability by maximizing ES delivery is the chequered history of shelterbelt use in agricultural systems. Shelterbelts have an important role in improving the sustainability of the farming system, but they are undervalued and consequently have been declining. Their removal is either through progressive deterioration, a lack of funding or incentive to replace them, or from active removal due to changes in farming practices such as the

installation of center-pivot irrigation systems. For example, in ‘The Great Plains Forest Shelterbelt Project’ in the US, the planting of single-row tree shelterbelts over a 167-km wide belt extending from Texas to the Dakotas, was instigated by President Roosevelt in 1934 to mitigate harsh environmental conditions, improve crop yields, and preserve soil moisture.20 This led to the planting of 96,356 ha of trees, or 30,895 km of shelterbelts. Despite the advantages shelterbelts provide

40 | Solutions | May-June 2015 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

to the surrounding area, this massive effort to establish and maintain shelterbelts has never been repeated, and their numbers have been continually declining. Marotz and Sorenson’s research ‘Depletion of a Great Plains Resource: The Case of Shelterbelts’ found that part of the reason for the decline was a lack of incentive to maintain and replace aging trees combined with the increase in popularity of center-pivot irrigation.20 The consequences of shelterbelt

Adapted by authors from Wratten et al., Ecosystem Services in Agricultural and Urban Landscapes, 2013

Various ecosystem services provided to farming systems by shelterbelts.

removal is of great concern to the local community. Trees around farmsteads can reduce energy bills by blunting the cooling force of the winter wind or providing shade from the summer sun. Trees in pasture areas provide the same benefits to livestock. Tree rows can provide living snow fences if they are planted in strategic locations and in recent years, trees have also been planted along creeks or streams to help filter water. Trees can also provide an important refuge for wildlife.

In the February 4, 2013 edition of the Dakotafire, a media project that reports on issues of importance to rural communities in North and South Dakota, the lead article, entitled “Shelterbelts, One of the Great Soil Conservation Measures of the 1930s, Are Being Removed” debated the

reasons for and consequences of shelterbelt removal. The farmers’ short-term view was that there were many reasons to take out a shelterbelt or windbreak and not nearly as many to maintain them or plant new ones.

In recent years, the most persuasive argument for removing tree rows is the little bit of land underneath that could be growing corn or soybeans.

“It’s hard to leave a tree belt [to] sit there, when land, like in Brown County, sells for $13,000 an acre,” said one farmer quoted in the article. But the effect of shelterbelt removal on the long-term sustainability of the farming system is a primary concern.

“It does bother me when shelterbelts in our records, planted by the taxpayer, are cleared away, and those thousands of dollars that were

spent are simply gone” said a district conservationist quoted in the article.

“But I don’t put the blame on the individual making a business decision.

They’re trying to make a buck, trying to make a living…I want them to make money—but I don’t want them to make that money just for one or two harvests, but for as long as they are in business” he said.

In the Canterbury region of New Zealand, a similar grant-assisted shelterbelt planting project was started in the 1940s to protect productive agricultural land from the drying northerly winds common to the area. Shelterbelt removal in the region has been done through the conversion of large parts of the area to dairying, which relies on centerpivot irrigation to be profitable. The

www.thesolutionsjournal.org | May-June 2015 | Solutions | 41

pivot circumnavigates the milking platform (the grazed area used for milk production), often at a height as low as 1.5 meters. Consequently, all plantboundary shelter is removed leading to large expanses of open pasture.

The effect is that extensive areas of the Canterbury plains now comprise of large expanses of a flat, treeless landscape of low diversity pasture. The resulting production system is low in ES provision, the most visual of which is low aesthetic value, which creates a public perception of unsustainable dairying.21 An alternative approach to address the concerns of replacing food with fuel, that is, production of bioenergy crops and the loss of shelterbelts and their associated benefits, is to integrate the bioenergy crop into the present farming system as shelterbelts. This is not the sole solution available for addressing the food versus fuel dilemma. Others include utilizing mixtures of native grassland perennials grown on agriculturally degraded lands for bioenergy production and producing biodiesel from microalgae.

Tilman et al. showed biofuels produced from low-input, high-diversity (LIHD) mixtures of native grassland perennials can provide more usable energy, greater GHG reductions, and less agrichemical pollution per hectare than can corn grain ethanol or soybean biodiesel.22 However, their claim that LIHD biofuels can be produced on agriculturally degraded lands and thus need neither displace food production nor cause loss of biodiversity via habitat destruction is debatable as these lands are displaced from their fundamental role of producing meat and milk foods via grazing animals.23 An equally acceptable alternative is to consider the potential role of human-inedible cereal crop residues in providing bioenergy. Producing biofuel from microalgae is the only renewable bioenergy that has the potential to completely displace liquid transport fuels derived from

petroleum. However, at present, the economics of production are not favorable enough to establish competitiveness with petroleum-derived fuels.23 Using bioenergy crops as shelterbelts not only can help avoid food production displacement, it can also enhance ES delivery from the farming system, improving its sustainability and reducing its external costs, including costs incurred through damage to the environment such as the contamination of waterways or the degradation of soils. Improved food yield due to shelter-enhanced production has the potential to partly or wholly offset these costs.

An alternative to woody shelterbelts, the use of perennial tall grasses as second-generation bioenergy crops creates a novel means of recreating shelterbelts. The Southeast Asian tall grass Mxg is widely used in Europe and the US where it is planted in whole fields as a bioenergy crop. Mxg is a perennial that senesces each year, regrows in the spring, and is harvested just before spring regrowth. It has a high yield output, low inputs due to being harvested after senescence when the majority of plant nutrients have been translocated to the rhizome, a high energy ratio of greater than 20:1, and rapid growth. Its mature height is four meters year on year once into its third

Shelterbelts have an important role in improving the sustainability of the farming system, but they are undervalued and consequently have been declining.

Porter et al. developed a new production system based on a combined food, energy, and ecosystem services (CFEES) approach.24 In this research, the planting of the CFEES system was established to create an agroecosystem that was a net-energy producer and developed more energy in the form of renewable biomass than was consumed in the planting, growing, and harvesting of the food and fodder. The bioenergy component was represented by belts of fast-growing trees (willows, alder, and hazel) that are planted orthogonally to fields that contain cereal and pasture crops. The benefits from the shelterbelts were evaluated by assessing the value of the ES delivered by them. Resultant increases in the delivery of ES improved the sustainability of the farming system and at the same time the shelterbelts produced their own primary production output in the form of wood for energy production.

42 | Solutions | May-June 2015 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

season, and it has multiple end uses, including production of renewable diesel. Unlike woody shrubs and trees, this grass allows the center pivot to push through it and so is not restricted in height. Mxg does not do well in heavy soils and requires annual rainfall amounts of greater than 600 mm.

Mxg is one of the best performing bioenergy crops. Recent analyses conclude that in the (warm) temperate zone, Mxg is the bioenergy crop that seems able to deliver the highest net GHG mitigation and has the highest yield in terms of energy per hectare when compared with bioethanol, biodiesel, and short rotation coppice willow biomass.25,26 The combination of an annual harvest and a good energy yield per hectare (substantially more than that for wood species) gives the plant considerable potential as a bioenergy crop.27 Mxg yields are maximized under irrigation, so shelterbelt creation on irrigated farms means the

Keri Sailer/LaMoure Chronicle/via Dakotafire Media

Trees removed from a windbreak in LaMoure County, US, are piled up to dry so that they may be burned later. Aging shelterbelts and windbreaks are being removed all over the eastern Dakotas.

production benefits associated with a regular and sufficient water supply are harnessed through the existing farming infrastructure.

Mxg also has many attributes that make it favorable for creating shelterbelts. It is a naturally occurring, sterile, and noninvasive hybrid between Miscanthus sinensis (Andersson) and Miscanthus sacchariflorus (Maxim) Franch,25,26,28 and originates from Asia.

It has no known vulnerability to pests and diseases outside of its native areas, and weed control is needed only in its first two seasons of growth, making it a low-maintenance, easily managed shelterbelt plant. Once planted, it can remain productive for at least 20 years,

and being sterile with a slow rhizome spread, there is minimal risk of it spreading to unwanted areas.

At Lincoln University in New Zealand, research is being done on the suitability of using Mxg for creating shelterbelts and results to date indicate it is very effective. Presently, shelterbelts consisting of six rows of Mxg were planted on an intensive center-pivot irrigated dairy farm on the Canterbury Plains in New Zealand. The shelterbelts were planted in the northwest corner of six fields in an L-shape 80 meters long and seven meters wide.

The primary aim was to provide shelter that would not impede the progress of the center pivot and would allow

protection from the drying northerly winds that are a predominant feature of the Canterbury Plains.

Now halfway through its third season, the shelter structure is over three meters tall, is robust, performs well in very severe gales, bending rather than breaking in the wind, and has the desired porosity to allow the shelter effect to extend far into the field. A general rule is that the distance of shelter effect into the field is 10 to 12 times the height of the shelter.29 Shelter effect would be expected to increase as the Mxg plants mature.

It can be argued that using a non-native plant in this way will not enhance the biodiversity of existing

www.thesolutionsjournal.org | May-June 2015 | Solutions | 43

Newly established Mxg bioenergy shelterbelt two months after planting on a New Zealand dairy farm.

barren monoculture landscapes.

However, most shelterbelts are often comprised of non-native plant species. Mxg has many features, such as reduced winter cover, that allows other plants to grow within its shelter and thus creates a diverse habitat. ES delivery from the shelter are Mxg biomass yield; pasture yield; pasture evapotranspiration (ETz) rates, where liquid water is removed from an area with vegetation and into the atmosphere by the processes of both transpiration and evaporation; organic matter mineralization rate;

earthworm abundance; and occupancy of the shelterbelt by endemic New Zealand lizards (skinks), bumblebees, and rodents. A study of insect diversity within the shelterbelt is ongoing, but initial results showed an increase in beneficial predatory arthropods within the shelter compared to the open paddock.

Current Mxg growth analysis suggests annual yields of 3- to 10-yearold Mxg plantations grown under irrigation in Canterbury would be close to 30 tons per hectare per year (t ha-1 yr-1). If this is used to produce

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renewable diesel, 9,000 liters of this fuel per hectare would be produced.

At a replacement cost of US$0.89, this equates to a gross margin of US$8053 ha-1 yr-1.

Pasture dry matter yield was calculated from pasture height readings collected from a C-Dax pasture meter.30 This meter measures grass cover and can take numerous pasture cover readings (200 per second) across a field that can be used to produce yield maps.

Further analysis of the data was used to calculate pasture yield from shelter effect.

Christopher Littlejohn

A center-pivot irrigation system in New Zealand.

Christopher Littlejohn

Readings taken within the shelter area—the 40 by 40 square meter section of field enclosed on two of its northern sides by the shelterbelt and an equivalent-size control area of open field—showed pasture yield increased by 18 percent when the pasture was sheltered from drying northerly winds.31 ETz rates measured using data loggers with environmental sensors over one month in midsummer in three separate fields showed a reduction in ETz of 25 percent in sheltered areas (unpublished data). Hand-held

porometer readings, used to measure leaf stomatal openings (stomata are closed when plants are water-stressed, reducing photosynthesis rates and growth), showed that plants in sheltered areas keep their stomata open for longer.31 Organic matter mineralization rates measured using lamina probes showed that the mean mineralization rate at the distance of maximum shelter effect (six meters) in year two of this study was 13 percent higher than in the open field.32 Using soil quality data, it can be calculated that this increase would release 495 kg of nitrogen ha-1 yr-1. This equates to a value of US $242.55 per hectare (unpublished data). The increase in mineralization rate was recorded up to 12 meters from the shelter in Season Two when Mxg was 2.5 meters high.

In Season Three of the trial, the rate of decline in earthworm weight at increasing distances out from the shelter was significantly different at the 95 percent level. For control areas, this was not the case. At a distance of 40 meters from the shelter, there was a decrease of 2.5 g in earthworm weight per spade

sample (0.008 m3 of soil) (unpublished data). Overall, there were three times as many earthworms in the shelter areas compared to the control, open field area.

Earthworms are the most important component of the soil biota in terms of soil formation and maintenance of soil structure and fertility. They bring between 10 and 500 t ha-1 yr-1of soil to the surface, and it was estimated that soil biota aids the formation of approximately 1 t ha-1 yr-1 of topsoil.33 Rats and hedgehogs didn’t seem to favor Mxg shelterbelts, but the shelters were the preferred habitat of skinks and mice. Skinks and mice are both near the top of the food web in the New Zealand agriculture setting, so their relatively high numbers indicate high biodiversity and abundance at the lower trophic levels.34 Both feed on invertebrates, which can provide many ecosystem services to humans including pollination, biocontrol of pests, soil health, and ecosystem resilience and function.35,36 Mice are pests in New Zealand, being responsible for the decimation of native invertebrate populations,37 and indirectly affect native bird predation by providing

www.thesolutionsjournal.org | May-June 2015 | Solutions | 45

LinUni_20140225_21 Pasture height (mm) 62 – 70 71 – 90 91 – 110 111 – 130 131 – 150 151 – 170 171 – 190 191 – 192

0

50

100 Metres

Map A. LinUni_20140329_21 Pasture height (mm) 10 – 30 31 – 50 51 – 70 71 – 90 91 – 110 111 – 130 131 – 150 151 – 170 171 – 173

0

50

100 Metres

Authors

Map B. Pasture yield maps of one shelterbelt trial field from C-Dax records using the Kriging method of analysis in ArcMap 10.1, showing possible shelter effect in A (shelter present) but not in B (shelter absent). A – Mxg shelter 2.5 m high. B – Mxg shelter removed by previous grazing due to a southerly wind causing cows to crowd in this area, break the fence, and eat the shelter.

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Christopher Littlejohn

Placement of bumblebee motels and skink rest areas into young Mxg shelterbelts.

food for their predators such as possums and stoats.38 Their nests do provide suitable nesting sites for bumblebees,39 which are valuable pollinators. However mice also prey upon bumblebees,39 thus the mouse population supported by Mxg is potentially more of an ecosystem disservice than a service. The Mxg shelter itself acted as a refuge for nesting bumblebees.

The only ‘bumblebee motels’40 placed around the farm to have active nests were those placed in the Mxg shelter.

On dairy farms where virtually all shelter has been removed to accommodate the center pivot, the welfare concerns for stock are an important consideration. Although the current work did not measure actual benefits to stock, cattle utilized the shelter even when it had reached only half its expected height to protect themselves from cold southerly winds.

Arguments against using field strips instead of whole-field plantings for bioenergy plantings are that the amount of biomass produced on a farm level would be low. Planting of an Mxg shelterbelt around each paddock

on 100 ha uses approximately seven percent of the land area, or seven ha of land. At yields of 9,000 liters of renewable diesel per hectare, this would produce 63,000 liters of renewable diesel. Average diesel consumption in 2008 for each farm in New Zealand was 6,800 liters.40 As mentioned in the Dakotafire media report, the main argument by farmers against planting shelterbelts was the loss of productive agricultural land. This raises a number of issues, notably that farming practices are largely dictated by the pursuit of primary production irrespective of the external costs of the methods used to achieve these and that the resulting delivery of ES are not being valued.27 It must be recognized that field-margin plantings deliver benefits that mitigate the external costs associated with intensive production methods such as reduced nitrate and phosphate run-off if the shelter is planted as a riparian strip, GHG emissions mitigation, carbon sequestration, enhanced biodiversity, and improved aesthetic farm appearance.

Previous research suggests that integrated farming systems have the potential to improve the energy and GHG balances and biodiversity compared to both organic and conventional systems.41 For example, Brandel et al. estimated above-ground biomass carbon sequestration rates of 20-yearold, single-row shelterbelts at 30 to 60 percent of their final height were 9.14 tons per kilometer (t km-1) of carbon for conifers, 5.41 t km-1 for hardwoods, and 0.68 t km-1 for shrubs.42 For Mxg, it is estimated for crop yields of 20 t ha-1 yr-1, that if grown on 10 percent of suitable land area in the European Union (EU), the total carbon mitigation could be about nine percent of the EU total carbon (C) emissions for the 1990 Kyoto Protocol baseline levels.43 In the current research, seven meter wide Mxg shelterbelts around each field would constitute seven percent of the farmed area. The total net annual GHG emissions (CO2 equivalent) for New Zealand in 2012 was 65 million tons of CO2 .44 If planting seven percent of the cultivated area of New Zealand (11.2 million ha), the total potential soil organic C mitigation potential would be 255,000 tons of C per year (t C yr-1) in addition to the 671,000 t C yr-1 mitigated if coal was replaced by Mxg as a furnace fuel, such as that used in dry milk production. This is based on a total C mitigation value of 7.2 t C ha-1 yr-1 for Mxg DM yields of 20 t ha-1 yr-1.43 The drawback of using Mxg as a shelterbelt, particularly on livestock farms, is that it is palatable to stock and so needs fencing throughout its productive life. However, if the plant is eaten, no long-term damage is done as it behaves as any other grass, regrowing from the rhizome.

The fact that it senesces in the winter means shelter is reduced to some extent from midwinter to late spring and full shelter height is not reached until midsummer. On irrigated dairy farms in New Zealand, this was ideal as shading of pasture in the spring delays growth and the aim was to create

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Christopher Littlejohn

An Mxg bioenergy shelterbelt in its third season on a New Zealand dairy farm.

48 | Solutions | May-June 2015 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

shelter from drying northerly winds that predominate in the summer. Mxg shelter does not need harvesting to remain productive. If not harvested, some shelter remains until regrowth is fully established, and if harvested, this operation does not occur until early spring at the start of regrowth.

If needed in early spring, stock shelter could be provided by external shelterbelts not restricted in height by the center pivot. Once well established, which occurs midway through the second season, maintenance of the shelterbelt only involves harvesting.

Upscaling of the present study through the production of plantlets from tissue culture is an established process and can generate hundreds of thousands of plants within one season.

Planting of rhizomes is an alternative method, but this is slower to upscale.

Using plantlets, when compared to conventional arable crops, is more expensive. But when costs are considered over the productive period of 15 to 20 years, then average annual gross margins are only 20 percent less than barley. New technology developed

by New Energy Farms, which was used to establish Mxg crops for the University of Iowa Biomass project,45 produces rhizome pieces at a cost of US $0.08 per unit compared to plantlet costs in New Zealand of $0.50 per unit. However, specialist machinery is needed to plant these, such as silage harvesters or a mower and large baler.

Shelterbelts however usually need to be seven meters wide to accommodate these. The economics of Mxg production are dependent, as with any form of cropping, on end use and present gross margin estimates are based on its low-end value of US$75 per ton if used as straw replacement or for burning in power stations. The economics would be improved if on-farm renewable diesel production could be developed.

In the context of the food versus fuel debate, a holistic viewpoint would be that monoculture is detrimental to creating a sustainable farming system

and a mixed farming system is preferable.19 Whether bioenergy production takes the road of diverse pastures, and its associated biodiversity benefits incorporates bioenergy shelterbelts into the farming system, or continues down the road of monocultures with no shelter will be determined ultimately by market forces and perceived income benefits, which in the absence of government incentives, are unfortunately likely to be short term.

Summary Mxg is an economically viable bioenergy crop to grow, but achieving high yields—calculated at 30 t DM ha-1—is dependent upon a regular supply of water (more than 500 mm during the growing season). This dependency has caused Mxg to become reliant on irrigation in areas of low summer rainfall and in areas that are dependent upon this irrigation to sustain intensive agricultural production. The economics of Mxg production are such that it is not, at present, economic to install irrigation solely for its production.

Areas dependent upon irrigation that use center-pivot irrigators are devoid of shelter due to center pivot height restrictions. Shelterbelts confer benefits to the farming system that improve its long-term sustainability as well as delivering yield benefits to the existing cropping systems. Although these benefits are difficult to quantify, research shows that they are real. Mxg is a means of creating shelter where center pivots are used due to its ability to allow the pivot to pass through it.

Shelterbelt creation is not solely a benefit in irrigated farming systems.

A key outcome of the use of bioenergy crops, such as Mxg, for shelterbelt creation is that the loss in income from growing the shelterbelts on productive agricultural land is compensated for by the value of the biomass produced from the newly created shelter, the improved yield of existing crops, and additional ES benefits resulting from shelter effect and habitat creation.

Mandating Ethanol and Biodiesel Consumption in The

Furthermore, as well as increasing farm income and sustainability, the external costs to the farm operation are reduced.

United Kingdom 1–43 (Institute for Sustainable Development, Geneva, (2012).

7. Stromberg, P & Asparatos, A. Biofuels at The Confluence of Energy Security, Rural Development and Food Security: A Developing Country Perspective

Acknowledgements The prime source of funding for this New Zealand-based Mxg shelterbelt research was provided by Westland Milk Products Ltd, Hokitika, NZ, largely due to the efforts of Chris Pullen, their Environmental Manager.

Further funding was provided by DairyNZ and the Bio-Protection Research Centre, Lincoln University.

Thanks must also go to Mark Williams, the farm owner of the commercial dairy farm used in this research, and to Samuel Dennis at AgResearch for his advice and loan of equipment for the pasture yield analysis work.

(Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2012).

8. Gasparatos, A, Stromberg, P & Takeuchi, K. Sustainability impacts of first-generation biofuels.

Animal Frontiers 3, 12–26 (2013).

9. de Oliveira, MED, Vaughan, BE & Rykiel, EJ. Ethanol as fuel: energy, carbon dioxide balances, and ecological footprint. BioScience 55, 593–602 (2005).

10. Hill, J, Nelson, E, Tilman, D, Polasky, S & Tiffany, D. Environmental, economic, and energetic costs and benefits of biodiesel and ethanol biofuels.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 103, 11206–11210 (2006).

11. Hill, J. Environmental costs and benefits of transportation biofuel production from foodand lignocellulose-based energy crops: a review.

Agronomy for Sustainable Development 27(1), 1–12 (2007).

12. Carneiro, P & Ferreira, P. The economic, environmental and strategic value of biomass.

Renewable Energy 44, 17–22 (2012).

Previous research suggests that integrated farming systems have the potential to improve the energy and GHG balances and biodiversity compared to both organic and conventional systems.

13. Tinprabath, P, Hespel, C, Chanchaona, S & Foucher,

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Planting plan of Mxg bioenergy shelterbelts at a commercial dairy farm on the Canterbury Plains, New Zealand.

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Mageau, M.T., Radtke, B., Fazendin, J., and T. Ledin. (2015). The Aquaponics Solution. Solutions 6(3): 51-59. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/the-aquaponics-solution/

Feature

The Aquaponics Solution

by Michael T. Mageau, Baylor Radtke, Jake Fazendin, and Tony Ledin

Victus Farms

Vertical hydroponics systems at Victus Farms.

In Brief Our current industrial food system is unsustainable. Demand for food continues to grow while soil erosion, groundwater depletion and climate change are constricting supply. In addition, intensive use of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, water, fossil fuels, and genetic engineering are eroding human, community, and environmental health. The rise of local, sustainable food systems present solutions to many of these problems, but these approaches are unable to consistently provide quality food on an annual basis. Aquaponics holds the promise of solving this fundamental problem of local food systems, and does so while requiring far less land, water, fertilizers, pesticides, fossil fuels, and genetic engineering. This article reports on a novel, sustainable, and economically viable model for aquaponic food production year-round, even in locations with harsh winter climates.

www.thesolutionsjournal.org | May-June 2015 | Solutions | 51

G

lobal food production is having a hard time keeping up with demand, and trends suggest that it is only going to get more difficult.1 Global demand for food is growing as human and grazing animal populations increase, as more people are changing their diets to include more meat, and as more crops are used for biofuel production. On the other hand, it is getting more difficult to continuously increase annual agricultural yields as the downward pressure of soil erosion/degradation, aquifer depletion, and irrigation water supply complications due to melting glaciers begin to outpace technological advances in agricultural production.2 Many new problems have arisen as producers try to meet these challenging trends by squeezing ever more production from remaining agricultural lands.

The majority of our food and animal feed now comes from largescale industrial crop production using a mono-cropping approach. This involves growing a single crop over a large area of land. This method became widespread in most industrialized countries in the 1940s and 1950s, at the expense of the small family farm, as farming became more commodity- and less subsistence-based. This approach increases mechanization, and demands the use of fossil fuels, fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, irrigation water, and genetic engineering. All of these factors decrease the need for human labor, and ultimately reduce crop prices. While proponents of industrial agriculture claim to have modernized and streamlined the production of food in the United States, such evolution has been at the expense of environmental, human, and community health.3 Industrial farming practices have generated numerous environmental impacts including soil erosion and degradation, water pollution, air pollution, and biodiversity loss. These environmental impacts have led to

numerous human health problems, including the ingestion of pesticides, herbicides and hormones, increased allergens and antibiotics-resistant bacteria, infectious disease incubation and dispersal, and a wide range of respiratory problems from exposure to air pollutants (including particulates, hydrogen sulfide, and ammonia).

Key Concepts • Our current industrial food system is environmentally and socially unsustainable.

• The rise of local, sustainable food systems presents solutions to many of these environmental and social problems, but most are unable to provide consistent supply on an annual basis.

• Aquaponics holds the promise of solving this fundamental annual supply problem while requiring far less land, water, energy, fertilizer, pesticide, and herbicide inputs than conventional farming.

• Victus Farms is a large aquaponic facility designed to serve as a research, educational, and proof of concept system that has been operational for two years.

• Wicked Fin Aquatic Farms has emerged from lessons learned with Victus Farms. It was designed to serve as a small, inexpensive, efficient, and economically viable model of aquaponic production to be duplicated around the world in an effort to strengthen local and sustainable food systems. This replication has already begun.

Finally, industrial farms typically import most necessary inputs and export products, leading to local economic stagnation. Surrounding property values also decline significantly as the result of odor, pollution, and their associated human health problems. When these local economies degrade, their community infrastructure (schools,

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parks, etc.) soon deteriorates as well.

In this vicious cycle, environmental and human health problems work together to degrade the communities surrounding these large-scale farming operations.4 More sustainable food production techniques offer many solutions to the problems of industrial farming outlined above, but have difficulty generating reliable, adequate production (amount and variety) for a given region over the course of an entire calendar year. This is where the aquaponic solution enters the equation.

Aquaponics offers the potential to reliably generate large quantities and varieties of food from very small urban spaces, in any season. If aquaponic food production methods can be made environmentally sustainable and economically viable, this approach could be used in combination with more typical sustainable farming methods to bring us far closer to a more competitive local food system.

There are currently many groups in the Midwestern United States attempting to do just that.5

Aquaponics Aquaponics refers to the combined production of fish and plants in what is known as recirculating aquaculture.6 Nutrient-rich wastewater from fish supports plant growth, while plants clean the water so that it can be safely returned to the fish.

The concept has grown increasingly popular in the last few decades, and aquaponics is now regarded by many as the future of food production. It holds the promise of becoming an economically viable way to consistently grow sustainable, local, and organic food.

Modern aquaponics dates back to early work at the New Alchemy Institute and three key university projects. The first physical project undertaken by the New Alchemy Institute was a geodesic dome greenhouse that contained fish

and plants growing synergistically.

William McLarney published a series of articles and, ultimately, a book documenting this pioneering work from 1974-1984.7,8,9,10 Mark McMurtry and Doug Sanders from North Carolina State University began their aquaponics system in the mid-1980s.

Their system contained tilapia along with tomatoes and cucumbers growing in a sandy medium which doubles as a reciprocating biofilter. They have used this system to demonstrate sand culturing of plants on fish wastewater,11 water use efficiency, and the economic improvements of combined fish and plant operations versus either in isolation.12,13 Also in the mid1980s, Dr. James Rakocy developed a modified aquaponic system at the University of the Virgin Islands. Dr. Rakocy added rotating mechanical bio-filters between the fish tanks and the plant growth troughs to replace the sand medium, and developed the first raft aquaponic system. Raft aquaponics refers to growing plants on floating rafts with roots extending into the water below. Dr. Rakocy has made numerous contributions (fish feed, key scaling metrics, nutrient dynamics, pest/disease control, solids removal, and bio-filtration) to auquaponic knowledge over the past two decades.14,15,16 Dr. Nick Savidov, at the University of Alberta’s Crop Diversification Center in Brooks Alberta, started an aquaponic system in the mid-1990s modeled after Dr. Rakocy’s, but modified for cold-climate applications.

Savidov developed a method for recycling all solids in-situ, eliminating the difficulties of sediment removal and disposal, and regenerating more internal nutrient to support plant growth.

Savidov also demonstrated that plants grew better on fish wastewater than on conventional hydroponic nutrient solutions, and continues to this day in his search for the ‘missing ingredient.’17 Researchers for the University of

Victus Farms

Hydroponic production of lettuce at Victus Farms.

Minnesota, Duluth visited Dr. Savidov and his system in the summer of 2011, and designed Victus farms using his as a model.18 In addition, numerous private aquaponic ventures have recently emerged. A few major examples from the Midwestern US include Future Farms, which was started by Steve Meyer, Chad Hebert and John Vrieze in Baldwin, Wisconson.19 As dairy farmers, the three have slowly developed a large and profitable working raft aquaponic system

fueled by methane from the farm’s animal waste. More recently, they have begun to make the transition away from aquaponics in favor of hydroponic methods. Garden Fresh Farms was created by Dave and Bryan Roesers in Maplewood, Minnesota.20 The operation is located in an old warehouse, and is totally dependent on artificial light. They have been experimenting with alternative plant growth techniques such as vertical walls and drums rotating around a single tube of light.

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Victus Farms

Vertical hydroponics rack at Victus Farms.

Nelson and Pade, Inc. was founded

by Rebecca Nelson and John Pade in Motello, Wisconson.21 They have a working aquaponic system and design and sell aquaponic production systems and system components around the world. They also do a great deal of educational training and coordinate an online aquaponics journal.

Growing Power was founded by Will Allen in Milwaukee, Wisconson.22 Growing Power’s mission is to inspire communities to build sustainable food systems by providing hands-on training, on-the-ground demonstration, outreach, and technical assistance.

Finally, Urban Organics, founded by Dave Haider and Fred Haberman in 2013, is located in an old brewery in St. Paul, Minnesota.23 This operation uses a closed loop, recirculating agriculture system to produce a variety of produce exclusively indoors. Each of these operations has an established track record and all have become major contributors to advancing aquaponics.

Version 1.0: Victus Farms The University of Minnesota, Duluth’s new aquaponic system located in Silver Bay, Minnesota was modeled after the systems described above, but has several key distinctions.24 The first is the attempt to integrate algae and duckweed into the conventional fish/plant symbiotic relationship. The algae hold the promise of introducing a bio-fuel revenue stream while also serving as a source of valuable oxygen and high protein fish feed. The inclusion of duckweed significantly reduces the need (and thus costs) for external fish feed. Our system is also approximately four times larger, allowing it to better serve as a research, training, and proof of concept facility.

The farm has received over USD $1.7 million in funds to date for project feasibility, design, construction, research, and early operations.

The aquaponic production system is housed in a 9,000-square-foot facility.

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One third of this space contains a wellinsulated building to house the fish tanks and filtration equipment, along with a lab, bathroom, utility room, and processing area. The other 6,000 square feet are devoted to an attached greenhouse. The fish are grown in nine 2,000-gallon tanks at high density (up to .5 lbs/gallon). The fish tank water requires constant treatment (60 minute residence time) to prevent oxygen depletion and ammonia toxicity. The fish wastewater flows through four 7,500-gallon troughs to support the hydroponic growth of basil, tomatoes, peppers, and lettuce as well as algae and duckweed.

Together, the plants, algae, and duckweed remove nutrients and add oxygen to the water before it is returned to the fish to complete the cycle. Currently, algae are harvested on only a very small experimental scale, and used to explore various methods of algal harvest, oil separation, and biodiesel production, as well as their use as a potential direct food source for the fish. Duckweed is also grown and harvested on a very small scale to explore its use as a potential feed source for the fish. Suspended sediments resulting from undigested food and fish feces are re-mineralized within the system. This integrated production system contains approximately 30,000 gallons of water.

Victus Farms has three primary project outcomes. The first is to demonstrate a local, job-creating, economically viable, and environmentally sustainable method for producing healthy food and clean bio-fuel. The second is to develop and deliver a range of educational opportunities for a wide variety of potential learners. Educational efforts at the technical college and university level will be aimed at training the workforce required to fuel the anticipated commercial expansion of this concept.

The third is to continuously monitor and report system performance, as well as to develop an interdisciplinary research team to attract funds and

Victus Farms

Seedlings are kept in a warm room.

conduct research aimed at improving system performance, sustainability, and economic viability.

Sustainability System inputs include heat, electricity, water, fish feed, and solar energy. Two biomass boilers (and a backup natural gas boiler) heat the water to 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Electricity use will be offset by a 20-kilowatt wind turbine scheduled for installation in spring 2015.

Daily water loss (two percent, or 600 gallons) from evaporation and harvest will be replaced by filtered rainwater stored in large tanks (37,000 gallons) located under the plant and algal troughs. The algal remains (after oil extraction), along with duckweed, are used to offset the use of external organic fish feed. Passive solar energy is used for space/water heating and growing plants and algae. Future research efforts

will be aimed at minimizing these heating, electricity, water, and external feed demands, and ensuring renewable energy sources can completely cover these needs. System outputs include only fish, produce, and soil. The system generates no waste other than compostable plant and fish remains after harvest, plus any emissions from our natural gas and biomass boilers.

In more water-scarce environments, any wastewater generated from washing produce could easily be recaptured and treated for use in the system. The system requires no nutrient additives, herbicides, pesticides, or hormones. All produce has been organically certified by the Midwest Organic Services Organization, and is sold and delivered daily to local restaurants, grocery stores, and individuals.

The project is truly a model of sustainable community development.

Economic Viability: Capital and Operational Costs The current building/production system requires the following utilities and operational costs: water use currently averages 7,000 gallons of water per month with approximately 70 percent supplied by filtered rainwater. The energy required for heating (using the natural gas boiler) currently averages 1,100 therms per month. In addition, propane is used for supplemental greenhouse heating on an as-needed basis. Propane use averages 600 gallons per month. Current electricity use averages 5,500kwh per month. Finally, fish feed inputs average 400 lbs per month, with 20 percent of this need covered by algae and duckweed produced internally. Therefore, the current building/production system requires the following costs per month in USD: $150 for water, $900 for natural gas heating,

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$300 for propane heating, $450 for electricity, and $400 for fish feed. This results in total input costs of $2,200 per month. In addition, approximately $600 per month is spent on travel costs to cover the 100 mile round trip from Duluth to Silver Bay five days per week, and $800 per month is required for basic operational maintenance and supplies. Finally, $6,000 per month is spent on labor costs. The average total monthly costs comes to $9,600.

Economic Viability: Production and Sales Revenues Victus Farms currently produces the following yields, with all costs listed in USD: 2,000 heads (at $1.25/head) and 200 pounds of lettuce (at $4/lb), 100 pounds of basil (at $12/lb), 200 pounds of fish (at $4/lb), 100 pounds of tomatoes (at $3.50/lb), and 100 pounds of cucumbers (at $1.5/lb). This core production is being sold wholesale to local restaurants and grocery stores.

Total sales revenue from this core production sums to $5,700 per month.

In addition, a ‘Saturday Morning Market’ sells directly to consumers at retail prices approximately 80 heads of lettuce (at $2.00/head), 40 ounces of basil (at $3/ounce), 40 pounds of fish (at $4/lb), 20 pounds of tomatoes (at $4/lb), and 20 pounds of cucumbers (at $2/lb). Direct consumer sales total $560 per month. Therefore, average total sales revenues from current production systems sum to $6,260 per month, and continue to increase steadily as production is increased.

Several research and operational grants now bridge the gap between sales revenues ($6,260/month) and total operational costs ($9,600/month).

Version 2.0: Wicked Fin Aquatic Farms New Greenhouse and Production System Design A great deal has been learned from the first two years of operations at Victus Farms, resulting in dramatic

Victus Farms

Four 7,500-gallon troughs support the hydroponic growth of basil, tomatoes, peppers, and lettuce as well as algae and duckweed at Victus Farms.

improvements in both production system design and the building that contains it. Using horizontal columns instead of the conventional raft approach improves both growth rates and plant quality. This substitution allows for the growth of approximately ten times more plants per square foot of greenhouse space, and enables the relocation of the fish from individual tanks to growth troughs beneath the horizontal plant columns. These simple improvements eliminate the need for large and expensive fish tanks, as well as the associated plumbing. It also allows for a dramatic reduction in water volume for the overall production system, resulting in far less water to circulate and heat. Finally, it reduces the required space for the production system by approximately 75 percent.

In Duluth, a new building was recently designed and constructed to take full advantage of the improvements outlined above.25 This building

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is far smaller, less expensive, and more efficient than the existing facility in Silver Bay. The installation of the new fish/plant production system described above is currently being completed. The building is a very simple 1,152 square foot greenhouse.

In-floor heating is provided with a conventional 40-gallon hot water heater. Additional space heating and de-humidification is provided by a woodstove as needed.

The simplified production system consists of three (10' x 12' x 1') troughs.

The troughs will be constructed with two layers of green treated 2" x 12" lumber planks and lined with a dense pond liner. Each trough will contain 1,000 gallons of water (to support approximately 200 pounds of fish) and have its own simple filtration system as well as an electric in-line heater. Four PVC horizontal column racks (each containing eight 10-foottwo-inch PVC pipes with 12 plant

Victus Farms

The fish tanks at Victus Farms.

holes each) will be suspended from the ceiling above each trough for lettuce and basil growth. A single pump running five minutes every hour will feed trough water into the top of the horizontal columns. The water will cascade through the horizontal column racks and return to the trough below by gravity. Another pump supplies water to 80 feet of four-inch PVC lines along the south wall of the greenhouse for tomato, pepper, and cucumber growth.

The production system also contains a 100-square-foot warm room for seedlings, and a 36-squarefoot cold room for produce storage.

The warm room is heated to 78 degrees Fahrenheit by heat generated from grow lights. The cold room is cooled using a small air conditioner coupled with a ‘cool-bot’ controller.

Supplemental lighting, which will only be needed in the four winter months, is provided by LED grow

lights. Finally, an 800 gallon rainwater storage tank and associated filtration system provides needed water additions to compensate for evaporation and transpiration losses.

Capital and Operational Costs The greenhouse and the fish plant production system contained within was constructed on a heated gravel floor for under USD $25,000, plus labor costs. This smaller and far more efficient building/production system will dramatically reduce utility needs and operational costs. Water use will be reduced from 3,500 to 900 gallons of water per month with 80 to 90 percent supplied by filtered rainwater.

The energy required for heating will be reduced from an average of 1100 therms to 300 therms per month.

Heating will be supplied by a small electric hot water heater and three in-line electric spa heaters running as needed. Electricity will be reduced

from 5,500 to 3,000 kwh per month, despite the shift from natural gas and propane to electric heat. Finally, fish feed will be reduced from 400 to 100 lbs per month with an additional 40 pounds per month coming from algae and duckweed produced internally.

Therefore, the new building/production system will require only water (USD $50/month), electrical (USD $400/month) and food (USD $100/ month) inputs.

Total utility and feed costs will be reduced from USD $2,200 to $550 per month. In addition, travel costs are reduced from USD $600 to $50 per month, and basic operational maintenance and supply costs are reduced from USD $800 to $400 per month. Finally, the labor requirement is reduced to one full time job at a cost of USD $4,000 per month.

Total costs for our new production system are reduced from USD $9,600 to $5,000 per month.

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Wicked Fin Aquatic Farms

The beginning stages of construction for the smaller, more efficient Wicked Fin Aquatic Farm.

Production and Sales Revenues We expect our new production system will generate the following, with all costs listed in USD: 1,200 heads of lettuce (at $2/head), 40 pounds of basil (at $12/lb) and 80 ounces of basil (at $3/ounce), 120 pounds of fish (at $4/ lb), 80 pounds of tomatoes (at $4/lb), 80 pounds of cucumbers (at $2/lb), and 80 pounds of peppers (at $3/lb). This core production will be sold mostly to individuals and groups at retail prices.

Total sales revenue from this core production sums to $5,040 per month.

A Promising Solution Therefore, a USD $25,000 capital investment plus approximately USD $25,000 worth of expert labor to design, construct, install, and train new users, generates a facility capable of producing USD $60,000 per year in fish and

produce sales revenues. Of this revenue, approximately USD $12,000 per year covers operational costs, leaving USD $48,000 per year for labor costs. These facilities are showing initial promise that may lead to economic viability, based on minimal fish feed, electrical, and water inputs. They generate only rich compost as a waste product. No fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, or growth hormones are required. A production facility can be located in any urban or rural setting as long as electricity, water, and sunlight are available. In the cold Midwest region, demand for these small-scale, local production systems is rapidly intensifying. Similar systems are already being installed for individuals, restaurants, hospitals, schools, and community groups in Northern Minnesota. If it works in Northern Minnesota, it can work anywhere!

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Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank the following organizations for providing significant project funding: Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA); Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board (IRRRB); Minnesota State Legislature; Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (MN DEED); Minnesota Lake Superior Coastal Program; the University of Minnesota’s Northeast Region Sustainable Development Partnership (NMSDP), Healthy Foods Healthy Lives Institute (HFHL) and the Institute for Renewable Energy and the Environment (IREE); University of Minnesota, Duluth’s College of Liberal Arts; Lake County, Minnesota; Silver Bay, Minnesota; and the Lloyd K. Johnson Foundation. We would also

Wicked Fin Aquatic Farms

The simplified production system at Wicked Fin consists of three troughs with suspended PVC racks for basil and lettuce growth.

like to thank our project partners from Silver Bay, Minnesota for their continuous project efforts: Lana Fralich, City Administrator; Bruce Carmen, City Project Consultant; and, Mayor Joanne Johnson. Finally, we would like to thank all the students from the University of Minnesota Duluth that have worked at Victus Farms.

5. Grundahl, DM. After the Oceans. Minneapolis St. Paul

14. Rakocy, JE. Vegetable hydroponics and fish culture:

6. Timmons, MB & Ebelling, JM. Recirculating Aquaculture (Cayuga Aqua Ventures, Ithaca, 2007).

1. Brown, LR. Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization.

(W.W. Norton and Company, New York, 2009).

2. Brown, LR. Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization.

(W.W. Norton and Company, New York, 2009).

3. Sustainable Table. Grace Communications Foundation [online] (2015) http://www. sustainabletable.org/.

4. Sustainable Table. Grace Communications Foundation [online] (2015) http://www. sustainabletable.org/.

A productive interface. World Aquaculture 42–47 (Sept 1989).

7. McLarney, W. Integration of Garden Vegetables with Fertile Fish Pond Water. The Journal of the New

15. Rakocy, JE. The Status of Aquaponics, Part I. Aquaculture Magazine 83–88 (July/August 1999).

Alchemists Vol. 2, 134 (1974).

8. McLarney, W. Further Experiments in the Irrigation of Garden Vegetables with Fertile Fish Pond Water.

The Journal of the New Alchemists Vol. 3, 130 (1976).

16. Rakocy, JE. The Status of Aquaponics, Part II. Aquaculture Magazine 64–70 (Sept/Oct 1999).

17. Savidov, N. Personal Communication (2011).

18. Future Farms [online] (2009) www.afuturefarm.com.

9. McLarney, W. and J. Parkin. Open System Fish Culture. The Journal of the New Alchemists Vol. 5, 155

References

13. Sanders, D & McMurtry, M. Fish increase greenhouse profits. American Vegetable Grower 32–33 (Feb 1988).

Magazine 90–96 (May 2013).

19. Garden Fresh Farms [online] (2015) www.gardenfreshfarms.com.

(1979).

20. Nelson and Pade Inc. [online] (2015)

10. McLarney, W. The Freshwater Aquaculture Book: A Handbook for Small Scale Fish Culture in North America

www.aquaponics.com.

21. Growing Power [online] (2014)

(Hartley & Marks, Point Roberts, WA, 1984).

www.growingpower.org.

11. McMurtry, MR et al. Efficiency of water use of an integrated fish/vegetable co-culture system. Journal of World Aquaculture Society Vol. 28, No. 4, 420–428

22. Urban Organics [online] (2015) www.urbanorganics.com.

23. Victus Farms [online] (2015) www.victusfarms.org.

(1997).

24. Victus Farms [online] (2015) www.victusfarms.org.

12. McMurtry, MR et al. Sand culture of vegetables using recirculating aquacultural effluents. Applied Agricultural Research Vol. 5, No. 4, 280–284 (1990).

25. Wicked Fin Aquatic Farms [online] (2015) www.wickedfin.org.

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Sattler, C. and B. Schröter. (2015). Living by Strict Rules: Co-Management as a Way to Prevent Eviction from a Conservation Area. Solutions 6(3): 60-68. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/living-by-strict-rules-co-management-as-a-way-to-prevent-eviction-from-a-conservation-area/

Feature

Living by Strict Rules: Co-Management as a Way to Prevent Eviction from a Conservation Area — the Case of the Marujá Community in Brazil

by Claudia Sattler and Barbara Schröter

Claudia Sattler

The beach at the Cardosa Island State Park.

In Brief Economic growth is a paradigm foreign to most traditional communities, as their culture is closely connected to a sustainable way of living that keeps natural resources intact over long periods of time, and is based on group rather than individual welfare. With changing frame conditions such communities often struggle to find ways to maintain their traditions and cultural identity. This paper describes a case where a small community managed to deal with two different threats: eviction from a state park conservation unit and increasing environmental degradation through effects of mass tourism. This was achieved through a process of self-organization and entering into a co-management agreement with the local state park, where both parties now function as allies for nature conservation under the premise that the community follows a set of strict rules limiting their economic activities and maintaining their status quo.

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T

he Marujá community is located inside the Cardoso Island State Park (Parque Estadual Ilha do Cardoso, PEIC) at the border between São Paulo and Paraná states.

The region is extremely rich in biodiversity with vast areas of continuous Atlantic Forests, which includes large stretches of mangroves as well as sensitive dune ecosystems. Marujá is home to 60 families with about 180 inhabitants. The community members consider themselves to be ‘traditional people’ (Caiçaras), an ethnocultural mixture of indigenous people and descendants of Portuguese colonizers and former African slaves. ‘Traditional people’ in Brazil are defined as groups who are culturally different and who recognize themselves as such. They depend on natural resources for their cultural, social, religious, ancestral, and economic activities.

“We live in harmony with animals, because we need them, and the nature, and they need us. In fact, we need more from nature than nature needs from us.” [Marujá Caiçara] The use of natural resources is based on traditional knowledge that has been passed down through generations.1 Although recognized, in contrast to indigenous people, traditional people lack protection by the Brazilian constitution. Geographically, Caiçaras are distributed along the coastline of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Paraná, and northern Santa Catarina state.2 In terms of ecosystem services, they rely on a diverse range for their livelihoods. These not only include provisioning services such as growing crops and catching fish for self-consumption, but also extraction of natural materials (e.g. wood, roots, seeds, shells, etc.) for handicrafts, and regulating services such as water filtration for wastewater treatment. Cultural services are also important, as their cultural identity is closely linked to nature and the belief that they are the caretakers of the ecosystems that they depend

upon.3 Caiçaras usually have close relational ties, and their interaction is based on trust and collective action for the common good. This is expressed by activities of mutual support and help (Mutirão) to solve community and individual problems.4 The Caiçaras’ way of life is seen as self-sustaining and sustainable. For example, for fishing, they use a traditional device made of wooden poles called cerco.5 It ensures that only older and bigger fish get trapped inside the cerco, while younger and smaller fish can escape through the poles.

within the PEIC. Many feared that they would not be able to hold on to their traditions once they were removed from their ancestral territory.

“Quietness, breathe fresh air, no pollution. The way of life here is great…Here no one starves …There is fish, there are oysters, seafood for you to pick up…Not in the city.

If you don’t have cash in your hand, there is no way to survive.”

[Marujá Caiçara] In the late 1980s and continuing until the 1990s, the area was put under more and more pressure as large numbers of tourists were attracted to the region for its natural beauty. This resulted in severe land speculation for real-estate development and illegal construction was observed within the park boundaries.6 The process was reinforced by the construction of a major highway, which suddenly linked urban centers to the region.

At this point, the state park could not effectively prevent these developments as it lacked adequate human and financial resources.

Key Concepts • In response to environmental degradation caused by mass tourism, a local community in Brazil entered into a co-management agreement with the State Park in which it resides to prevent eviction from a conservation area.

• The community agreed to maintain their status quo and to live according to a number of strict rules restraining their economic activities, while committing themselves to support the State Park in achieving its conservation mission.

“Supervision is the responsibility of the Park, but they have too few people to control. I think they have three. Imagine, if they had 100, they still wouldn’t manage.” [Marujá Caiçara]

• In return, the State Park waived its right to evict the community from the area as required by law for this type of conservation unit.

• This co-management agreement has proven to be effective; however, it may be fragile in view of anticipated future developments.

The Problem: Looming Mass Tourism and Eviction from the State Park The PEIC was created 50 years ago in 1962. Per definition, a state park does not allow inhabitants and requires the relocation of existing communities.6 Although enforcement was low at that time, about one-third of the communities decided to leave the region.

However, the Marujá community and several other communities persisted and maintained their communities

Tourists were also drawn to the Marujá community, causing a number of environmental and social problems.

Illegal camping and construction occurred close to the beach areas, profoundly impacting sensitive dune ecosystems and mangroves.

“There was no control. Anyone who wanted could come. They [tourists] used to camp where they wanted.

They used to leave a mess…That was not what we wanted. We want a sound tourism, tourists who come to enjoy nature.” [Marujá Caiçara]

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Authors

The Marujá community is located inside the Cardoso Island State Park at the border between São Paulo and Paraná states.

Areas of primary forest were cleared for illegal development to meet the demands of the tourism industry.

Seasonal accommodations were constructed for visitors, and soon a number of tourists decided to stay for longer periods of time, building summer domiciles or taking up permanent residence in the community.

In consequence, the wastewater treatment, not designed for so many people, broke down. On top of that, the former tourists and new residents were not dedicated to the traditional way of life. Previously, community members produced almost no unrecyclable waste. As the number of new residents grew, large amounts of plastic garbage resulted, simply left in the environment. Soon problems with sewage and wastewater treatments as well as garbage collection became unmanageable, causing severe sanitary problems. New residents were also known to fish and hunt with modern gear ‘just for fun,’ taking more resources than needed for self-consumption and leaving unused resources to spoil in the environment.

“…They take all the fish, and what they don’t want, they throw on the beach.” [Marujá Caiçara] In parallel to these environmental problems, social problems developed.

The community segregated into the old community of traditional people and the new residents, both with colliding lifestyles. As this happened, the relationship between the two changed from initial equality to dependence, as the traditional people increasingly became employees of the new residents. They worked either in their private residences as chambermaids, gardeners, etc., or in the newly established tourist businesses as cooking or cleaning personnel.

“If there were no rules, for sure, there would be hotels…Caiçaras would end up being employees of the guys who have the money.”

[Marujá Caiçara] In the new market created by the tourism boom, the local traditional people lacked the necessary mindset

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and financial resources to set up the businesses for themselves or to pursue new economic activities. As the divide became more apparent, criminal offences such as thefts, rows, and domestic violence were noted, associated with alcohol and drug usage formerly unknown to the community.

Gradually, the culture in the community shifted from the overall concept of subsistence to economic growth.

Notably, economic benefits were mainly enjoyed by the nonlocals while the traditional people drifted into a position of economic dependence.

Overall, the situation could be described as highly problematic from two perspectives. First off, the park lacked the means to effectively enforce the existing environmental legislation, that is, to see to the relocation of existing communities in the state park, and also control the environmental damage inflicted by the increasing numbers of visitors to the region. Second, the livelihood of the Caiçaras was threatened by the imminent enforcement of the environmental legislation that

Barbara Schröter

The traditional cerco used for fishing ensures that only older and bigger fish get trapped inside, while younger and smaller fish can escape through the poles.

stipulates their eviction from the state park. Additionally, their traditional lifestyle was challenged by the growing number of outsiders in their community who did not adhere to a life led in harmony with nature.

The Solution: Co-management to Prevent Eviction from the Park In response to the increasing environmental degradation and social disintegration, the traditional community members organized themselves and founded a community association

called AMOMAR (Associação dos Moradores do Marujá). AMOMAR’s three main aims are laid out in their statutes and include the following: to fight for the right to stay in the Park for traditional Marujá residents (Article 1), to ensure their quality of life based on their traditional lifestyle (Article 2), and to conserve the surrounding natural resources (Article 3). AMOMAR was used as a forum to deliberate the most pressing problems and to discuss possible solutions and strategies. The main concerns centered on the question of how they could best

defy the imposed growth mentality carried into the community by the outsiders and preserve their traditional way of life, while legally remaining in the state park. Decisions were taken by majority vote. Nontraditional community members were allowed to participate in the meetings but were excluded from voting. After a time of consolidation, the group contacted the state park to make their concerns heard. This was followed by a long process of communication and argumentation before both parties reached an agreement.

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Claudia Sattler

A stretch of Mangroves in the Marujá region.

Through this process, the community negotiated its right to remain in the state park. This right is valid only for Caiçaras. To be considered a Caiçara, one has to meet two criteria: first, having family ties to the region, either by birth or through marriage, and second, being committed to the traditional Caiçara culture. For the traditional people, the right to remain was only granted under the condition that the community now follows a strict steady-state and no-grow strategy based on a number of rules. These rules, still valid today, stipulate that the annual number of tourists allowed to visit the community is restricted.

In this way, the community is able to manage additional wastewater and

garbage, but it is still allowed to gain income from small-scale tourism.

Several rules relate to the economic activities that are allowed in the park. While small-scale fishing with traditional gear for self-consumption and collection of small amounts of specific resources (e.g. certain wood species, shells, etc.) for handicrafts is granted, other activities such as hunting and farming are strictly prohibited.

Surrendering agricultural and hunting activities was a significant concession for the community, because these activities had been an inherent part of their culture for generations. Similarly strict rules apply for construction.

Illegally built houses need to be demolished and the areas in which

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they were built must be reforested.

New houses can only be built in designated areas and in a traditional fashion (small, one-story houses) upon consent from the state park. Existing houses cannot be modified or improved, such as by adding a bathroom, unless there is approval from the state park.

For these reasons, tourists are now assigned to households, either for camping or in-house accommodation, on a rotating basis throughout the community.

In the case of a rule violation by a community member, the community has the right to define the sanctions based on decisions made through AMOMAR. Sanctions include fines, additional input asked for the joint

efforts (Mutirão), demolition of illegally built structures, and in rare cases, being cut off from resources, such as water from the community water reservoir. In addition, the rules state that the community is not supposed to grow any further. The only way additional members can be accepted into the community is through marriage. Visitors are only allowed to stay for a maximum of three months. If a member of the community is absent for more than one year, the right of residence is lost and can only be re-affirmed through negotiation with AMOMAR and the state park.

In exchange for adherence to these rules, the state park has surrendered the right to evict the traditional people of Marujá as originally required for this type of conservation unit.

However, all visitors not considered to be Caiçaras were requested to leave. In return, the state park gained an ally for its conservation mission, as the community agreed to perform monitoring activities for the Park.

“The law is a matter of interpretation. Some say there shouldn’t be people, full stop. I don’t agree. To say that people should not be in a park is a bit crazy…I believe in the park model with traditional residents, with the goal of conserving the nature in the park, but also with saving the traditional culture.”

[Cardoso Island former director] The residents of Marujá now work in conjunction with the state park to report violations of park policies, both within and outside of the community.

Operating with limited resources, the support of the Marujá residents was crucial to the success of the state park in monitoring this region. The community members have proven to be ideal partners in this cause, with an excellent knowledge of the local territory and an understanding of where rule violations will most likely occur, such as illegal fishing or hunting

grounds, places where palm hearts are illegally cut, orchids are taken, etc.

Thus, with the help of the community, those violating the state park rules are far more likely to be held accountable for their offenses. Punishment includes destructions of illegally used materials, such as hunting and fishing gear, fishing license withdrawal, fines, arrests, and lawsuits.

“They [the Marujá community members] help us a lot: passing on information, showing the locations, it’s important…as the area is extensive, we can’t be everywhere.”

[Cardoso Island environmental police] The complete negotiated agreement was documented in an environmental management plan (Plano de Gestão Ambietal), or MP. The first MP was approved in 1998 and was valid for two years in all six communities in the Park. An amended MP entered into force in 2000. The current MP is open for negotiation every five years, but no further amendments were made in either 2005 or 2010. For the renegotiation process between the state park and the communities, a new institutional structure was created called the Regional Council. The Council consists of representatives from the state park, each community, and other local actors. In cases where rule exceptions are asked for (e.g., for construction activities, reinstatement of community membership after absence, etc.) the Regional Council must be consulted for a decision. “[The MP] was the way to ensure that the residents could stay. I think with the management plan you can at least legally claim something, you can rely on something.”

[Marujá Caiçaras] Overall, the negotiations were time consuming and not without conflict. For instance, in the beginning

of AMOMAR, a two-list system with two competing teams was in place to elect the members of the AMOMAR board. But with this system it always turned out that the competing teams were from two different family clans, with the risk that the elected team would favor family members in their decisions. For this reason the system was changed to a one-list system with one team composed of members from different families.

Furthermore, conflicts between community and state park arise on a regular basis whenever exceptions from existing rules are asked for (e.g. construction activities). As those need to be granted through the Regional Council, it is generally a lengthy process that elicits loud complaints from community members. However no direct challenges to the process have arisen.

“For me, if there is consensus, there is something wrong. The diversity, the different perspectives, the reality of each is different, the point of view.

When you go to a place where everybody says ‘amen,’ something is wrong…Disagreement is constructive…to have a position…and then it takes a joint decision…I strongly believe in a participatory process.”

[Cardoso Island director] Overall, the agreement is seen as beneficial to both parties. It put an end to the harmful invasion of the region by outsiders and allowed the community to stay in the Park and to preserve their traditional way of life as Caiçaras.

“Here everything is good for me.

I feel good here. I do not want to leave. I do not want to go back to the city. It was a bad experience working in a family home. I had no freedom. Here you have freedom for all. I felt very sad when I came to spend the holidays here and already on the way back, I began to cry.”

[Marujá Caiçara]

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Claudia Sattler

Community members gather outside of an AMOMAR meeting.

The community was able to retain its integrity, while supporting the state park in its conservation mission. The co-management agreement increased the effectiveness of monitoring and protection of natural resources.

Thus, the agreement challenges the paradigm of top–down conservation politics based on the assumption that conservation can best be achieved by creating designated areas without human settlements.7 Moreover, as proven by the Marujá case, conservation aims can actually be better achieved by the inclusion and the support of the local population.

“We work together, it strengthens the ties, we share opinions and together everyone wins, the Park, the community…a management of the community where all parts work together.” [Cardoso Island environmental monitor]

Conclusions: Come so Far… and Now? Co-management agreements between communities and public authorities can lead to governance outcomes that benefit all involved actors.8 As shown in this case study, both parties can

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gain much if willing to compromise.

Nevertheless, there is also evidence that the current agreement can be fragile in terms of longevity, as younger community members may opt out of the arrangement. Attracted by higher standards of living more in line with the paradigm of economic growth, the younger generation increasingly perceives the traditional Caiçara culture as old-fashioned and out of tune with current developments. This causes great concern among the older community members, as they fear the young will lose their traditional roots and the close connection to nature.

Claudia Sattler

A traditional one-story Marujá house, with increased sustainability from power generated by solar panels.

“It’s hard to make the youth stay.

They want to follow what’s happening outside of the community.”

[Cardoso Island environmental monitor] Another uncertainty is related to the continued future demand for small-scale and eco-friendly tourism, which forms part of the community’s income. As they can no longer grow crops and hunt, they need the extra income for their livelihoods.

Finally, a possible reclassification of the conservation area from state park to a ‘Sustainable Development Reserve’ (SDR) has been discussed.

As the SDR category allows for settlements and is also less restrictive on the types of activities, the frame conditions for the agreement would completely change. On one hand, it would allow the community to resume some of the traditional activities that are prohibited under the current MP, such as growing agricultural crops and hunting. On the other hand, it would become impossible to keep people from again moving into the region, as there would no longer be a legal argument to keep them out. How the Marujá community will react and adapt to these possible developments remains to be seen.

Acknowledgements The paper is based on personal interviews conducted with community members (18 interviews) and members of the state park authorities (six interviews) in the period from September 2012 to February 2013. We wish to thank the community members of Marujá for participating in the interviews and for their great hospitality and support during several field visits. We also thank the state park, the Forest Foundation, and the Coordination Office of Environmental Technical Information, Documentation and Research for interview participation

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Claudia Sattler

A bromeliad plant in the rain forest. The region encompassed by the state park is rich in biodiversity.

and additional access to data.

Furthermore, we thank our Brazilian research partners Camila JericóDaminello, Karla Sessin-Dilascio, and Paulo Antonio de Almeida Sinisgalli from the University of São Paulo, as well as Ademar Ribeiro Romeiro, Ranulfo Paiva Sobrinho and Lucas Ferreira Lima from the University of Campinas for their support in the case study work. The research underlying this study was conducted through the CiVi.net project, funded by the European Commission within its 7th Framework Program under project ID 282750.

Supplementary Material A participatory movie on the Marujá case study is available on YouTube: http://youtu.be/Y-40eydIbKE

Participatory movies involve the community in the process of movie making. The project team simply functions as a facilitator of the process by teaching participants how to use the movie equipment to direct and film videos and do interviews. The footage is selected at daily screenings for a period of about 10–14 days. While classic movie production focuses on the final product, participatory movie production focuses on the process of making the movie and its meaning for the participants and the process of learning and exchange that brings for the whole team.

2. Diegues, AC. Enciclopédia Caiçara, Volume I, O Olhar do Pesquisado (HUCITEC, São Paulo, 2004).

3. Gadelha, C. Proibido trabalhar: Problema socioambiental dos filhos da Ilha do Cardoso/SP (PhD thesis, Anthropology, University of Campinas, 2008).

4. Willems, E. A Ilha de Búzios (HUCITEC, São Paulo, 2003).

5. De Oliveira, FC & Hanazaki, N. Ethnobotany and ecological perspectives on the management and use of plant species for a traditional fishing trap, southern coast of São Paulo, Brazil. Journal of Environmental Management 92, 1783–1792 (2011).

6. Barbosa Beccato, MA. Elaboração Participativa de uma Proposta de Reestructuração do Sistema de Tratamento de Esgoto da Comunidade de Marujá - Parque Estadual da Ilha do Cardoso, SP (Master thesis, Environmental Engineering, University of São Paulo, 2004).

7. Agrawal, A & Gibson, CC. Enchantment and disenchantment: the role of community in natural

References 1. Decreto No.6.040., Art. 3, I. Presidency of the

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resource management. World Development 27, 629–649 (1999).

8. Berkes, F, George, PJ & Preston, RJ. Co-management:

Republic of Brazil [online] (2007) http://www.

the evolution in theory and practice of the joint

planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ato2007-2010/2007/

administration of living resources. Alternatives 18,

decreto/d6040.htm.

12–18 (1991).

Rotkin, M. (2015). A Practical Alternative to the Corporate Growth Model. Solutions 6(3): 69-71. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/the-local-economy-solution/

Reviews Book Review

A Practical Alternative to the Corporate Growth Model

by Mike Rotkin REVIEWING Sustainable Communities: Creating a Durable Local Economy

by Rhonda Phillips, Bruce Seifer, and Ed Antczak

I

n the public mind in the United States today, local politics, and especially local politics as they relate to economic development, is often portrayed as a forced choice between doing what is right and what is effective. We are led to believe that the economy is a zero sum game in which one can take public resources and make decisions to support livable neighborhoods, social welfare, and environmental protection, but that such decisions will inevitably come at the expense of jobs and the revenue generation necessary to support public goods.

In most communities, where growth coalitions of landowners, banks, and corporate media dominate, often with unions as junior partners, economic development is nothing more than a question of bowing to the dictates of outside investors who have the capital to stimulate various kinds of business activities and often at the expense of the concerns of neighbors, small business owners, and residents.

This is the logic that drives communities across America to compete with each other for car dealerships, big box stores, and where the wage structure allows it, other forms of large-scale industrial production.

This accessible and exciting book

by Rhonda Phillips, Bruce Seifer, and Ed Antczak presents a compelling

challenge to that ideology. Put most simply, they make a persuasive argument that communities can create durable economic growth by focusing on doing the right thing and not accepting that profit maximization by large corporations is the only path to economic success. Using the experience of Burlington, Vermont, a community in a region that is quite accurately characterized as the “rust belt,” they show how a community that focused on creating and sustaining local, socially responsible businesses, providing for general social welfare, focusing on inclusivity for diverse populations, embracing a vibrant alternative culture, and integrating urban, environmentally sustainable agriculture was able to build a local economy that would be the envy of most communities in this country.

The strength of the book is the concrete examples they share of how the community of Burlington made this happen over the past few decades.

An attempt to describe even the most important of the initiatives that were undertaken in Burlington would result in simply reproducing the book itself.

But there are a few central ideas that are worth emphasizing. Perhaps the most important is that it is possible and essential that communities actually plan their development.

Routledge

This is by no means a common assumption of most communities, who imagine that they have no choice but to depend on the decisions of large outside investors for economic development. The authors demonstrate that Burlington was able to make difficult decisions about what kind of a community they wanted to be and then make use of local government institutions to create a context that invited the kind of development they wanted.

Eschewing what appeared to be quick-fix solutions to various economic barriers, the community made a plan and stuck with it until they got the outcomes they really wanted.

Planning, which in Burlington was a process of community engagement, became a very real alternative to the “invisible hand” of market forces.

The book emphasizes the importance of public–private partnerships, but these relationships in Burlington clearly have been under the control of the public sector.

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Reviews Book Review

Jared Benedict

The book features Burlington, Vermont as an example of a city that has successfully built a strong, sustainable, and socially responsible local economy.

The book also emphasizes the synergistic nature of the economic activities that were promoted. By themselves, none of the detailed programs described in the book would have led to the kind of sustainable economic growth that Burlington has experienced, but together the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. So, for example, providing social workers out on the streets to actually address the needs of people with mental health challenges turns out to create a more successful downtown business climate. Providing job training for immigrants and unemployed single mothers created a workforce that supports many of the economic initiatives being undertaken by local businesses.

It will be impossible in the span of a short book review to give the reader a full appreciation for the practical nature of what is being presented in this work. The authors don’t just tell the reader what they accomplished, but they explain how they were successful. In each of the areas they cover, they describe the opportunities they had, the obstacles that had to be overcome, and how they overcame them. They offer a nuanced and programmatic map of how the political work was integrated with the realities of market forces to effect the desired outcome. In each section of the book, they provide concrete case studies and an impressive list of references and

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resources for those who might like to implement similar programs in other communities.

As a former five-time Mayor of the City of Santa Cruz, California, I would say that no planner, public official, or urban community activist in America should be without this book. It provides a healthy antidote to the idea that democracy and progressive social values must ultimately surrender to the power of corporations and the values they promote. If the readers of this journal are, as its name implies, looking for actual solutions to the economic problems being faced by their communities, they will find this book an invaluable resource.

Reviews Media Reviews New Apps Push Back Against ISIS

by Audrey Pence Over 20,000 foreign fighters have joined the conflict in Iraq and Syria, including around 3,400 from the Western world, according to a recent report by the International Center for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence.

ISIS’s digital presence and online strategy are largely attributed to its success in attracting foreign fighters, but Affinis Labs is working to combat this trend.

Shahed Amanullah and Quintan Wiktorowicz launched Affinis Labs in February of this year to foster talented Muslim entrepreneurs in creating businesses and nonprofit programs to contribute to their community. They are currently working on addressing

the issue of extremism plaguing parts of their community. By using worldwide hackathons, participants are assigned a security or social issue and given several hours to solve it with innovative ideas and prototypes. The ideas with the most potential are aided by Affinis Labs and taken on as projects. “We are excited about bringing together untapped, innovative talent and providing them with the funding, mentorship, and market connections they need to get off the ground,” said co-founder Amanullah in a report by PRWEB. One of Affinis Lab’s projects is ‘One 2 One,’ an app that can help identify people with extremist tendencies.

Young Muslims trained for such work can then use the app to counsel those identified and build an open line of communication.

Another initiative is ‘Come Back 2 Us,’ a website working on an underground railroad of sorts for anyone wishing to return from ISIS. It provides a space for people who have gone to Iraq or Syria to post messages for their loved ones and offers a panic button that will provide information to government contacts who can then act to return them home. This app is currently still in development.

Co-founder Amanullah is working to create an online community for young Muslims where they can find support and explore their identity, particularly for young Muslims living in the West. Amanullah said in a report by Newsweek, “I want to build a community that has so much going for it a person doesn’t have to leave for some illusory utopia.”

Matylda Czarnecka / hackNY.org

Affinis Labs sponsors worldwide hackathons to encourage young Muslim entrepreneurs to design innovative solutions to security and social issues. www.thesolutionsjournal.org | May-June 2015 | Solutions | 71

Rosenthal, G. and M. Basij-Rasikh. (2015). Many Environmentalisms from New York to Kabul, from the Past to the Present. Solutions 6(3): 72-76. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/many-environmentalisms-from-new-york-to-kabul-from-the-past-to-the-present/

Solutions in History

Many Environmentalisms from New York to Kabul, from the Past to the Present

by Gregory Rosenthal and Marjeela Basij-Rasikh

Stephen Melkisethian

Many more environmentalisms exist globally than those that were represented at the September 2014 People’s Climate March in New York City.

W

e are proud to have marched side-by-side with approximately 400,000 others on the streets of New York City in the People’s Climate March in September 2014. We are less proud that we squirmed through a police barricade on 42nd Street to enter a Cold Stone Creamery at Times Square in the midst of the march.

When we re-entered the procession— ice cream bowls in one hand, plastic spoons in the other—we marched for climate justice with ice cream in our mouths: a strange display of 21st century environmentalism, indeed! A few days later, after returning home respectively to Brooklyn and Vermont,

we emailed news stories about the march to one another, including an article about the trash that climate marchers left behind on the streets of Manhattan.1 We not-so-proudly contributed two paper bowls and two plastic spoons to that mountain of rubbish.

As absurd as it sounds, our stop at Cold Stone reveals deeper and more complex worlds of past and future environmentalisms—a mosaic of narratives that rival the rainbow coalition on display in the march itself. Hidden from the streets that day were the workers inside the Cold Stone who made our snacks.

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Their environmentalism may be the struggle for adequate nutrition and housing in a city in which most service workers make less than a living wage, where calls for a US $15/hour wage are getting louder as workers organize, picket, and participate in walk-outs and sit-ins. Then, there are the sanitation workers who picked up our Cold Stone trash. They know New York’s waste problems better than anyone: what eight million people’s trash looks like in sum, and how it smells, and where it goes after the truck pulls away. Then, there are the dairy farmers who produced the milk that became our ice cream.

Solutions in History Their environmentalism may focus on issues of economic survival in America’s changing rural landscapes: how to afford agricultural land amidst sprawl, questions of land use and regulations, and how to find a market for their products where local businesses are eviscerated by supermarkets and chain stores. Behind our snack are many hidden struggles—many environmentalisms—not all represented by the uniform message of the climate march. Or, to put it another way, we think Naomi Klein’s phrase, “this changes everything,” might be retooled as, “everything changes everything.” Instead of calling for worldwide intersectional solidarity in support of climate justice, we believe it is equally important for climate activists to heed the call of other struggles, other environmentalisms. The fight of workers, women, farmers, indigenous peoples, and so many others—not just for survival, but for vibrant and resilient communities—represents the many manifestations of environmentalism across the world.2 We are, respectively, a historian (Gregory) and a scholar of environmental studies and policy (Marjeela); a professor and a student; a native New Yorker and a lifelong citizen of Kabul, Afghanistan. In this essay, we seek to articulate the variety of bottom-up environmentalisms that sprout from New York to Kabul, both historically and in the present. Urban environmental issues, particularly water pollution and sanitation, absorb our attention as we consider what economically marginalized peoples face in their home and work environments, and reflect upon the unique potential of the “environmentalism of the poor” to shift conversations about environmental action in this country and beyond.3 The struggle for human rights is, actually, so often a struggle over the environment: access to food and clean

water, sanitation and hygiene, adequate housing, community control over land and water as a commons. Look at Afghanistan—major environmental issues include water pollution and scarcity, deforestation, urban pollution, soil degradation, loss of biodiversity, air pollution, and food insecurity, all of which have put most Afghans at risk.4 Afghanistan is a geo-political soccer ball, kicked from one foreign interest to another, and, because of this political instability, the environment is not a governmental priority and therefore air pollution is insufferable, urban waste is increasing, and access to clean water is an urgent problem. The deforestation caused by three decades of war has denuded forested lands, contributing to environmental pollution and land degradation.5 All these crises are interrelated, and all amount to an attack upon Afghanistan’s most vulnerable citizens. Those who already suffer from poverty and other structural inequalities (such as ethnic discrimination, gender inequity, political corruption, and rampant nepotism), are disproportionately affected by these environmental crises.

As a landlocked country with an arid to semi-arid climate, water pollution and unequal distribution of potable water is one of Afghanistan’s most pressing environmental and human rights issues. Why does water matter? The following quote from poet W. H. Auden sums it up: “thousands have lived without love, no one without water.”6 There is a strong connection and interdependence between public health and environmental health. Until a country commits itself to attaining an adequate level of public and environmental health, it is unrealistic to expect its people to focus on social and political reform, much less to participate in global forms of environmental activism. First comes water.

Water plays an essential role in the

livelihoods of Afghanistan’s farmers.

Irrigation water is a valuable resource, especially during the hot, dry summers and years of periodic drought.

Simultaneously, due to increases in population density in urban areas and decreased water availability, people in the city and rural communities are progressively exploiting various sources of surface water and mining the water tables via deep wells. Afghan people need access to clean water, not only to drink, but also for agricultural production. Agriculture plays a crucial role in Afghanistan’s economy, accounting for 25 percent of the country’s GDP in 2012.7 After the fall of the Taliban regime, in the years between 2001 and 2015, more than 5.8 million Afghan immigrants returned home from abroad.8 In the past ten years alone, Kabul has grown from 700,000 people to somewhere between 3.6 million and 5 million residents.9,10 Despite this growth, Kabul lacks adequate urban environmental policies. Therefore, due to urban crowding, urban centers such as Kabul contain the highest concentrations of air pollution and waste.

The environmental history of water access, urban pollution, and human poverty in 19th century New York presents an interesting and potentially productive parallel to that of 21st century Kabul. New York’s water problems began with the Collect Pond, a surfacelevel, spring-fed lake that once existed in lower Manhattan. The lake was used as a sink for the deposition of human and animal wastes, even as it served as Manhattan’s main source of fresh drinking water. When the pond was drained and filled at the start of the 19th century, this site of environmental pollution became home to a notorious slum, the Five Points, where impoverished Irish working-class immigrants and AfricanAmerican families lived amidst the detritus of an old dumping ground.11 In Kabul, the most disenfranchised, such

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Solutions in History

Lauras Eye

A young girl collects garbage off of the street in Kabul. Impoverished children in the city are exposed to severe health threats as they search through trash for anything of value.

as internally displaced Afghan refugees, similarly live dangerously close to sites of environmental degradation with horribly poor sanitation.12 Polluted areas of the Kabul River and dump sites around the city have become hubs for impoverished children, who are exposed to health threats as they sift through piles of trash to find metal for selling, and paper and plastics to use as fuel for their homes. On the other hand, a lack of police surveillance combined with visible pollution in the Kabul River has kept the general public away

while attracting drug addicts who find abandoned spots, such as underneath bridges, to do drugs.13 Back in New York, a water-born disease, cholera, was the scourge of 19th century residents, although it affected poor people with much greater vehemence than it did the rich. Improvements in urban sanitation finally brought the disease under control, but change came only alongside racist and sexist diagnoses of immigrants and the poor as ‘dirty’ and ‘uncivilized.’14 In Kabul today,

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due to the lack of urban sanitation and sustainable waste management infrastructure, pathogens find their way into the surface water, contaminating the water that people drink.

In developing countries around the globe, including Afghanistan, there are increased pathogen concentrations in wastewater that may contribute to higher rates of endemic gastrointestinal disease.15 Therefore, improving sanitation will have immediate benefits for public health. As Mike Davis notes in Planet of Slums, sanitation is also a feminist issue. In a city without adequate toilets, women must go out at night in groups to relieve themselves, always fearful of voyeurism and the threat of sexual violence by men.16 Sanitation is a feminist issue in Kabul as well, where most young girls are expected to do the home chores at the expense of pursuing an education.17 The gendering of labor, from 19th century New York to 21st century Kabul, determines that issues of cleanliness, water, and urban sanitation are labeled as ‘women’s issues.’ As such, these problems are frequently excluded from the environmentalism propagated by men.

Lastly, in 19th century New York, poor people relied on the city’s rivers and estuaries as a fishing commons, extracting clams, crabs, and other food from the sea to supplement meager wages. As rivers became polluted, however, much of this ‘natural food’ was either extirpated or poisoned. On the way to Jalalabad, along the upper reaches of the Kabul River, especially by the Mahipar Dam, it is an old tradition for Afghan travelers to stop by roadside restaurants to eat fresh fish from the river. However, those fish are now disappearing. The causes of this fishery crisis are unclear, but decreasing water levels, increasing pollution, and inadequate management of the Mahipar Dam are the likely culprits.18

Solutions in History As we look from New York to Kabul, from the past to the present, it is clear that different communities across both space and time have faced, and continue to face, widely disparate environmental problems. It follows that there must be many different environmental solutions, and not just one top-down, catch-all answer.

Even as we remember our Cold Stone ice cream snack in New York City, we are reminded that in Kabul, ice cream vendors hand out wooden, rather than plastic, spoons. Local practices, even on so small a scale as the neighborhood ice cream shop, offer environmental solutions that call our attention to new ways of thinking about the human relationship with nature. In our review of these many environmentalisms, we humbly propose the following solutions for rethinking ‘environmentalism’ in the 21st century.

First, environmentalists must focus on human problems. People who are struggling for survival are not empowered to engage in more abstract issues such as ‘climate change,’ at least not until immediate environmental crises are solved. This is as true for New York’s working poor as it is in Kabul’s slums. While conditions and contexts vary, poor people’s environmentalisms demand our attention in every community. Environmentalists should focus on creating systems of support and solidarity that empower local communities to diagnose and tackle their own problems.

This means supporting grassroots, horizontal democratic decision-making and governance structures, so that traditionally marginalized voices—such as those of women, workers, and ethnic minorities—are heard alongside the voices of elite men. To take this approach is to recognize that, for most of the world’s people, there are more pressing issues than just climate change. Until poor and marginalized peoples can survive and thrive and raise their voices from a

South Bend Voice

Environmentalists must create systems of support to include the environmentalisms of people across space and experience, by empowering communities to achieve local solutions to local problems.

position of collective power, they will never be able to fully participate in ‘first world’ environmental actions. A grassroots approach means focusing on human solutions—the empowerment of everyday people—before those with means take action on behalf of so many voiceless others.

We want systemic change, not just humanitarianism. People do not need handouts: they need the tools, skills, and technical knowledge necessary for diagnosing environmental problems and achieving solutions in their own communities. We support communitybased management principles that recognize the importance of local and indigenous knowledge, foster the democratic participation of all segments of society, and keep power in the hands of locals rather than outsiders.

Humanitarianism presupposes that outsiders have the answers, and when they leave, local peoples remain dependent on that outside expertise. We believe, rather, that local people hold the answers, and that institutionalized educational, economic, and political inequalities are what stand in their way. Therefore, we echo Naomi Klein’s call for a ‘people’s shock’—a ‘blow from below’—but, we simultaneously

recognize that most people are fighting for more basic human rights than just climate change, and that environmental solutions must start with the struggle of the oppressed for survival.

Finally, we believe that history and historians can play an important role in these conversations. The power of history is to show that environment means different things to different people, and mainstream environmentalism will not solve the world’s problems (and it may very well create some of them). The task of historians is to find out how people experienced the past. Similarly, the task of 21st-century activists should be to find out how people relate to nature today, and how they care about it in their own lives. Before prescribing top-down solutions, we might look to history to see how well-intentioned environmentalists have screwed things up in the past. We might note how environmentalist efforts have too often sidelined women, people of color, and the poor. Historians are now identifying many environmentalisms, and recognizing the movements of marginalized peoples to effect change.

We look to them for inspiration, in New York, in Kabul, and beyond.

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Solutions in History

Spozhmai Atash / Canada in Afghanistan

An Afghan woman cooks bread in her home. Sanitation remains a feminist issue in Afghanistan, where women are still expected to do the home chores. This premise is frequently excluded from the environmentalisms promoted by men.

References 1. Evans, L. People’s Climate March Leaves Trail of

The World Bank [online] (2014) http://www.artf.

Trash. Gothamist [online] (2014) http://gothamist.

af/images/uploads/ASR_PPT_for_ARTF_Strategy_

com/2014/09/22/climate_march_trash.php.

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3. Martinez-Alier, J. The Environmentalism of the Poor: A Study of Ecological Conflicts and Valuation (Edward

in the Antebellum City (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2014).

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Afghanistan. UNHCR [online] (2015)

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Flynn, K. (2015). Gardening for Victory: One Battle for Urban Food Security. Solutions 6(3): 77-80. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/gardening-for-victory-one-battle-for-urban-food-security/

On The Ground

Victory Gardens

by Kate Flynn

Hamilton Victory Gardens

At the height of the growing season, yield from the gardens can reach over 400 pounds daily.

W

hile food insecurity often brings to mind global issues and struggles in developing countries, there are many examples in developed countries of local gaps in food security.

In the post-industrial city of Hamilton, Canada, there is an obvious lack of healthy food choices for low-income residents who rely on food banks.

Concerned citizens looking to address the issue of food insecurity came up with a novel idea to grow and harvest local produce for food banks and hot meal programs using only volunteer power and unused urban land across the city.

The site behind the one-level grocery store set against the backdrop of shuttered factory grounds seems an unusual place for a large vegetable garden. The acre of land is located deep in the inner city of Hamilton, next to a rope factory and a few meters uphill from a set of railroad tracks that once symbolically separated this north-end neighborhood on ‘the wrong side of the tracks’. In early spring 2012, volunteers from a small community organization, called Hamilton Victory Gardens, broke ground on that same acre for a garden plot. By mid-summer they had a thriving garden, and, by

December, volunteers had harvested and donated 12,600 pounds of fresh produce—all from a piece of land that had lain dormant and neglected for years.

Urban Food Insecurity on the Rise A city of 504,000 located 70 kilometers southwest of Toronto, Hamilton had seen its fortunes rise and then fall with the dramatic collapse of the steel and manufacturing industries. The number of steady, full-time jobs declined rapidly and poverty rates increased.1 Today, nearly one in five Hamiltonians

www.thesolutionsjournal.org | May-June 2015 | Solutions | 77

On The Ground lives in poverty,2 and, for many, the lack of steady income presents itself at the kitchen table. Nearly 12 percent of Hamilton households report food insecurity due to insufficient income.3 In response, many families and individuals rely on food banks and other emergency food services. This month alone, approximately 20,000 people will use food banks in Hamilton, 6,000 of whom are children.4 In response to the growing demand for emergency food services, social service providers in Hamilton have expanded their food banks, meal programs, and hours of operation. Once thought to be a temporary solution to an emergency need for food throughout North America, food banks continue to experience an increase in demand. While the demand for emergency food continues, many food banks rely heavily on large corporations and private individuals for in-kind and monetary donations. The food itself is often donated by chain stores and can include unhealthy options such as energy drinks, gum, candy, frozen pizza, and pasta.5 While food bank managers often try to encourage donations of healthier options and sometimes purchase healthier food to augment the number of available choices, a sustainable supply of healthy food at food banks is greatly needed.

Sowing Seeds of Change Hamilton Victory Gardens is a volunteer-based non-profit that uses urban agriculture to grow fresh produce for local food programs. The organization has grown from one site to 12 urban garden sites located throughout Hamilton. In response to the need for fresh produce by low-income residents, they take under-utilized spaces throughout the city and turn them into productive gardens managed by volunteers. All of the produce grown

Hamilton Victory Gardens

The Victory Gardens rely on hundreds of volunteers to build, plant, and harvest the garden beds.

in the gardens is donated to local food programs to provide a source of nutritious food to community members in need. As of the end of 2014, in only three years of operations the Hamilton Victory Gardens has grown and donated 91,450 pounds of fresh produce. Seeking to alleviate food insecurity, the organization continues to provide a sustainable, local solution to the problem of providing fresh, nutritious food to those in need.

Each of the 12 gardens is built on land that is leased, rent free, to the Hamilton Victory Gardens by the landowners. Typical sites include church yards, lawns outside of corporate buildings, and gardens outside of community centers. Before breaking ground at a new location, a garden is designed in consultation with the owners of the property using a system of raised beds. The beds are each outlined with concrete bricks, lined with landscape fabric, and filled with soil. A typical garden bed is 16 feet by 4 feet.

78 | Solutions | May-June 2015 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

It costs about CAD$150 to construct a garden bed that provides approximately 85 pounds of produce a year.

The smallest garden sites contain only five to ten beds; larger sites can include over 125 beds. Everything grown in the Victory Gardens is donated to local food programs, including food banks and hot meal programs along with student nutrition programs and community health initiatives. During the 2014 season, Hamilton Victory Gardens regularly provided fresh produce to 10 food banks and five hot meal programs across the city.

The organization’s infrastructure is incredibly lean, even by current standards. The organization is run by a dedicated board of directors, in partnership with an operations manager who oversees the day-to-day operations of the gardens. The operations manager is the only full-time employee, assisted seasonally by student interns. She coordinates and supports volunteers and develops the harvest and planting

On The Ground

Hamilton Victory Gardens

The Victory Gardens host educational programming for children, allowing them to get hands-on experience in the gardens while learning about nutrition, growth cycles, and the importance of giving back to the community.

schedules. The board of directors manages all other tasks usually assigned to non-profit staff such as financial planning and budgeting, public relations, fundraising, and strategic planning. As a fast-growing organization, the lean staff structure allows the organization to focus the majority of its funding on the gardens, which in turn, creates opportunities for higher levels of production and larger donations of produce.

The organization’s impact would not be possible without the hundreds of volunteers on which the Hamilton Victory Gardens relies. Ranging in age from school children to seniors, volunteers continue to be essential to the organization’s success. In 2014, over 250 people volunteered in the gardens.

Volunteers are invited into the gardens six days per week, for three-hour

‘work bees.’ Supervised by dedicated volunteer site coordinators, volunteers work to build, maintain, plant, and harvest the hundreds of garden beds throughout the city. At the end of each work bee, volunteers weigh and deliver the day’s harvest. At the height of the growing season, donations from the four largest sites can reach beyond 400 pounds daily.

Digging Deeper The gardens do not only provide food to those in need, but they have also quickly become spaces of urban renewal, personal growth, and education. Hamilton Victory Gardens takes blighted land and turns it into a public garden space, often with picnic tables and a gazebo. The gardens have become places for families to picnic and for children to play. Many

community members have said that they feel proud of the garden sites and are appreciative to Hamilton Victory Gardens for helping to improve local neighborhoods.

In 2014, the Hamilton Victory Gardens hosted children and youth from four inner-city schools. Children received hands-on experience in the gardens, along with recreation and volunteer opportunities. Students are taught about the nutrient cycle, the vegetables grown, and the importance of giving back to the community in which they live. They have an opportunity to dig, plant, and harvest food. The effects of this educational programming are hard to measure, but the hope is that by learning about nutritious food, children will better understand where their food comes from and feel empowered to make healthier food choices. For example, during one school session in the gardens, a student was offered a cookie as a snack. He proudly declined the treat and bit down on a freshly harvested carrot instead.

Gardening for Good Hamilton Victory Gardens continues to grow. In 2015, the organization plans to grow more than 65,000 pounds of produce for local food programs and build two more garden sites in locations in eastern and western parts of the city. They also plan to expand their education programming by working directly with local schools and with community partners to provide food literacy programs in the gardens.

Hamilton Victory Gardens demonstrates that underused urban space can be transformed into productive gardens that provide an essential service to the community.

Spaces that appear unattractive or underdeveloped can be transformed, by a dedicated group of volunteers,

www.thesolutionsjournal.org | May-June 2015 | Solutions | 79

On The Ground

Hamilton Victory Gardens

Hamilton Victory Gardens have turned blighted and idle city lots into public spaces enjoyed by all members of the community.

into urban agriculture sites that produce thousands of pounds of food. Within a matter of hours, the produce harvested can be served to community members in need.

The success of the Hamilton Victory Gardens continues to rest with the dedication of its volunteers, who donate their time and hard work during the busy season. By growing thousands of pounds of food within city limits and donating it all to local food programs, Hamilton Victory Gardens volunteers demonstrate the capacity for a local, community-based solution to answer the demand

for accessible, nutritious food in emergency food programs. This is an easily implementable solution that can be applied in almost any urban setting, and Hamilton Victory Gardens can serve as a model for any city that simply has motivated citizens. In the long run, the hope is that household food insecurity will no longer be an issue and that every individual will have access to nutritious, culturallyappropriate food at all times. Until then, volunteers of the Hamilton Victory Gardens will continue to get their hands dirty, gardening for the greater good.

80 | Solutions | May-June 2015 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

References 1. Mayo, S. Recession Impacts: Employment.

Hamilton’s Social Landscape Bulletin (2013).

2. Report: Close to one in five Hamiltonians are living in poverty. CBC News [online] (2012) http://www.cbc. ca/news/canada/hamilton/news/report-close-to-onein-five-hamiltonians-are-living-in-poverty-1.1196223.

3. Wells, J. Hungry: Food insecurity in Hamilton.

The Hamilton Spectator [online] (2014) http://www. thespec.com/news-story/5215875-hungry-foodinsecurity-in-hamilton/.

4. Wells, J. Hungry: Food insecurity in Hamilton.

The Hamilton Spectator [online] (2014) http://www. thespec.com/news-story/5215875-hungry-foodinsecurity-in-hamilton/.

5. Energy drinks, gum among offerings at Hamilton food bank. The Hamilton Spectator. [online] (2014) http://www.thespec.com/news-story/4765198-energydrinks-gum-among-offerings-at-hamilton-food-bank/.

EARTHACTION

Gund Institute

for Ecological

Economics

University of Vermont

The Alliance for Appalachia

National Council for Science and the Environment Improving the scientific basis for environmental decisionmaking

Associated  Socie0es  International Society for Ecological Economics

FRIEND A FARMER EAT LOCALLY Maddy Avino / maddyavino.com / Green Patriot Posters

Purchasing and eating locally grown food is good for the environment, the local economy, and your body. Locally grown produce that does not need to be transported is harvested at its optimum nutrient content, making it healthier than produce that has been shipped from remote locations. Locally grown produce can be found in cities, too. Seek out urban gardens and farmersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; markets, and befriend a local farmer!