Description:
Portland Permaculture Guild's meetings are held at Pacific Crest Community School at NE 29th and Davis.  The optional potluck starts at 6:00 p.m, and the meeting topic starts at 7:00.  Please bring your own plate/cup/utensils for the potluck.  Everyone is welcome to attend.  Now, read on for Rosi's description of her presentation. . .

 

I have recently returned from a trip to Israel, along with a friend, Gabrielle Chavez who accompanied me in the second part of the trip. We will be presenting at the Portland Permaculture Guild April meeting, 4/21/08.

 

In Israel, I toured North and South Israel, and presented at two mini-workshops. My primary permaculture investigations were in the far south, about agricultural issues, water resources, sustainability, and multinational networks across the desert for peace around environmental issues. These are framed in the extremely saline, arid conditions of the Arava desert, close to the Jordanian border, where the effects of global warming are already being felt. Desertification issues are a threat there, but a reality in the Sub-Sahara regions of Northern Africa. We spoke with a phenomenal botanist, teacher and researcher who is working with people from Tibet, Palestine, Jordan, Morocco, and Egypt, saving trees threatened with extinction, and sustainable crops for the world’s food supply. And we stayed at a kibbutz that is part of the Global Ecovillage Network.

 

Part I: a brief overview of the geography, history, and politics of the region; Israel’s hesitant steps towards green living; more developed energy self-reliance; major challenges, especially with the historical conflicts and current inequities in access to scarce water and energy resources; and Israel’s kibbutzim, communal agricultural settlements.

 

Part II--Applications of permaculture principles: Kibbutz Lotan, and their courses in Peace, Justice and the Environment, Green Apprenticeship, Mud Building, and Permaculture Design; Kibbutz Ketura and Elaine Solowey, a modern day George Washington Carver or Luther Burbank in her dedication to medicinal properties of desert plants and developing trees and plants that can provide a living for peoples threatened with desertification; academic programs, nonprofits and multinational cooperative programs such as the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, Biodiversity Environmental Research Center (BERC) in the West Bank and Neve Shalom--Wahat al-Salam cooperative village.

 

We will close with some of the challenges of using common environmental and sustainability concerns as a bridge for peace in this warring region, and the glimpses of hope that the Arava desert brings.