Land for services?

One of the main themes of this week was sustainable development.  A term that is so important but certainly overused and misunderstood a lot of the time.  The problem with buzz words is that people just throw them in wherever it seems appropriate.

So many people showed up for the meeting it had to be held outside

Sustainable development is a huge and hot topic on the Wild Coast right now as the mining issue seems to have reared its ugly head again.  Honestly, before I go any further I have to say that the whole thing makes me feel sick.  The idea of this coast being mined and this community being destroyed is so far out of the realm of acceptabele or reasonable that it makes my head spin and my heart hurt.  Like throb hurt.  Anyhow, in the past week, the issue has been put back on the table.  As far as we all (and the community) knew, the mining rights had been revoked and the main issue right now was the threat of this toll road that they want to build right through the communities.  But just this past week there was very suddenly an announcement made that there would be a public participation meeting to discuss prospecting rights for one of the five blocks of potentially minable areas along the coast.  What was shocking to learn is that the prospecting for the other four blocks is actually going ahead without any public consultation as they had existing mining rights through some round about way.  The other shocking thing is that the mining company pretty much said to us that it doesn't matter what the people say, the public consultation is really just "ticking a box".  Otherwise why would they be there anyhow?  Because the community has already told them that they do not want any mining on their land and that it isn't negotiable.  The community is almost completely in agreement about this, other than a few people who have been bought off by the mining company. Anyhow, the mining company wont give up, and at the end of the day they don't care about whether the community wants it or not.

Most of these people do not want mining in their community

But what really pisses me off is that they make it sound like these people have to trade their land to get development.  This horrible man stood in front of 400 community members who had come from far and wide to participate in this meeting that had been announced at the last minute and basically said to them - don't you want schools? Don't you want a better road? Don't you want better health care? Don't you want your community to be better?  Well then you should work with us, because that is what we'll bring to you.  It is the government's job to bring development to this rural community NOT a mining company's!  They shouldn't have to trade their land, their way of life and their culture for basic services that the rest of the country gets at no cost.  It is absurd.  Can you tell I am angry?


True sustainable development is working with the community to develop themselves ... but possibly more on that later.

Can the economy and the environment be friends?

This whole environment versus the economy debate is getting a bit old. I remember thinking in university that everyone who does an environmental studies degree should also be required to do a degree in commerce (or at least a substantial number of courses), and that the same should be true for those studying business, economics or commerce. They should have to a double major or minor in environmental studies. Because what is the economy without the environment? And the reality of the world is that we still need to function under the current economic system, and business is running the show. So despite significantly differing worldviews the bottom line is that the economy and the environment exist hand in hand, and should not be siloized and then pitted against each other.

Owners of the lodge giving a presentation

Samkelo, the commerce student, MC'ing our final presentation

One of the boys that I am working with at the local school here made me so happy the other day.  He was on a field trip that I had organized for them to the eco-lodge and we had just finished listening to a presentation by one of the owners about the importance of eco-tourism and what sort of environmental initiatives were happening at the lodge.  This one boy put up his hand to ask a question at the end, but gave more of a thank you speech, saying that he was so happy with the work they were doing, and that they should keep it up and that it was such important work.  It was so touching and such nice kudos to the lodge.  But what made me truly happy about it was that 

out of the 24 students who were there, this was one of the two youth who are in the commerce program.  I put up my hand after and said that what makes me so happy and hopeful about the future of the world is that a young boy in a commerce program can see how important the environment is and has the sentiments that he had just expressed.  If people going into commerce to become businessmen can have that sort of awareness and worldview, we are on the right track.  It was a very nice moment and a great link to some of the topics that we were looking at during the course that week. 

To populate or consume...?

Our course this week is all about population.  We read an interesting article by Fred Pearce that was suggesting that the population bomb has in fact been diffused and that trends are actually towards fewer and fewer children.  There were only two places that people were still having so many kids - the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa.

It pointed out that the people in Africa were being rational by having so many kids though - they need them to work the fields, tend the cattle and look after their parents if they make it to old age (AIDS makes it less and less likely).  In fact, with the number of cases of HIV and TB in rural areas of Africa, I am surprised that population increase is of any concern at all.

It is true that people have a lot of kids here though.  And they have them early.  I was chatting with a friend of mine who is local and she was saying that if you didn't have kids by your late twenties people would think you were either infertile or gay, because they couldn't understand how you would choose to wait to have children.  Also, in South Africa there are these things called child grants, and so young women actually have an incentive to have children as soon as possible, because they get rewarded with money. It's a bit of a controversial issue...

Okay, so people here are having too many children... but really... is that the issue?  These people are living the most low-impact and sustainable lifestyle of anyone I have ever seen.  They probably have less of a negative impact on the earth than the most eco-friendly people I know back home, who live in off the grid cob houses and bicycle everywhere...

We might produce fewer babies, but we consume like maniacs.  I can't help but feel like that is the real issue when I look out over these beautiful rolling hills that are sparsely dotted with little homesteads and am supposed to be looking at an area where the population is exploding uncontrollably and contributing to all of man-kinds troubles.

I'm not saying that overpopulation isn't a problem.  7 billion people living on this planet is definitely a thought that terrifies me immensely.  But I have to say that I agree with Pearce when he says that in some cases they are being rational to have that many kids.  And as I look around I am not seeing the problem that it is causing.

A click of the mind

We are talking about ecological economics this week.  Is there any other kind?  Do we have an economy without nature?  Can we even survive?  These are rhetorical questions.  The answers are not up for debate.  But yet somehow we think that we should always pose the economy and the environment against each other.  I am so bored of this nonsense.  They are the SAME THING!!!  We can try to avoid this fact all the way until the demise of our species, but I suggest that we figure it out pretty darn quick.  The environment is our economy.  Deal with it. 

I guess what I'm saying is that we need to have a paradigm shift towards this way of thinking sooner than later.  Ecological economics needs to be "the way", not "a subject".  We must think about the environment whenever we think about "growth", "development" or the economy.  We can no longer afford to separate them, as they are indeed not separate.  

As you know I'm working in a rural school in Pondoland, on the Wild Coast of South Africa.  I work with the most amazing group of kids.  I am not sure yet how I will actually pry myself away from them to leave.  I am doing empowerment and development work with them using an ABCD (Asset-based community development) style approach to the workshops and the learning.  I want to be a facilitator and let them determine their own future.

But then I have a slight issue.  I also want to impart my views on these wonderful kids.  So I am left with a dilemma.  What do I do?

The other day they were drawing their vision for the future of their community.  They got to be the developers.  They had the ability to create any future they wanted.  Some of the drawings showed exciting and innovative developments in the community, but there were two things on every page that were the same.  A tar road, and power lines. 

Now what am I supposed to do?  Do I leave it at that?  It is their vision.  Do I have a right to share my own opinions? 

Well, I didn't think for too long about the ethics of it and I shared my opinion.  At least a little bit.  I simply asked them.  If you have power lines bringing you electricity, do you have to pay for it?  They said yes.  And once you pay for it, do you have to pay for it again? Yes.  Do you have to pay for it forever? Yes. And will it look nice to have these electricity lines through the community? No. Don't some people have electricity already? Doesn't this school have electricity?  Yes.  How? Solar.  What resource do you have in this community that is free?  The sun.  

That was basically the discussion.  We were talking about critical thinking and creative problem solving and how perhaps there were other ways to solve the problems that they had.  They wanted electricity, not necessarily power lines.  So I felt like I asked them a few questions to guide them towards some different ways of thinking.  I hope that was okay. 

An author by the name of Donella Meadows writes a lot about systems and how we can change them.  She has identified various leverage points where change can happen.  The number one leverage point is  changing people's paradigms. She says... "you could say paradigms are harder to change than anything else about a system, and therefore this item should be lowest on the list, not the highest. But there's nothing physical or expensive or even slow about paradigm change.  In a single individual it can happen in a millisecond.  All it takes is a click in the mind, a new ways of seeing."

I hope that when I work with these kids there are a few clicks in their minds, and that they are opened up to a new way of seeing.  

Preservation vs. Conservation

Oh the wilderness ethic - preserving wilderness for the sake of there being wilderness.
We've been talking about selfishness a bit in this class recently.  That combined with some events in my personal life have shown me that we are all ultimately selfish.  That's the bottom line.
So - if we want people to be "environmental", it needs to come from a selfish place.  Even those who want to preserve wilderness for its own sake usually have spent a fair amount of time in the wilderness and don't want to lose that option.  Or they know that we need wilderness as part of the larger system we exist in.  Whether it is leisure-based or self-preservation, it is still ultimately a selfish reason. But maybe that's okay.  At the end of the day we need to figure out as many ways as possible to get people loving nature and wanting to protect it.  Even if it is all for selfish reasons.

The question of a wilderness ethic and pure preservation is an interesting one, and not an approach that I tend to use in the environmental education I deliver.  I had the pleasure of helping to lead a weekend retreat for grade 10 students at the estuary where the lodge I am staying at is located. We split into two groups and went off for full day hikes.  In the evening we shared with each other.  My group brought back 2 shells, less than a handful of titanium sand from the beach, and a crayfish shell to use as examples to show the other group during their presentation.

Well, a kid from the other group had obviously been taught the philosophy of "leave no trace" and she started questioning my group very aggressively and accusing them of taking stuff from the beach, so how would her grandchildren be able to see those things one day??? My group was saying that they just took a tiny bit to use for educational purposes.  The impromptu "debate" was getting quite heated and I thought it was all a bit ridiculous so I was happy when I saw one of the local leaders of the program put up her hand and demand to speak.  I thought she'd set them straight and tell the girl in her group to chill out.

But no... she dramatically stated that the question the girl had asked was "very dear to her heart" and then she launched in to yelling at them as well and saying how could they take stuff?  If people wanted to see it they had to go there... and so on. She went so far as to say they needed a permit, because taking that sand was considered mining.

I finally jumped in.  I started jabbering away about systems theory and how humans are actually a part of nature, and how her cell phone is made of titanium and how much petrol it would take to bring people here to see things first hand and how sometimes sacrifices are needed for overall protection, like how ecotourism has an "impact" on the environment but is still the way better option than mining and how everything is connected and so on and so on.  I was shocked by the narrow, reductionist approach that she was using for environmental education.  She was scaring the kids out of having any love or curiosity for nature.

Finally the other local leader, who is a very well-spoken young guy, jumped in and delivered a beautiful, much more coherent speech than mine, all about preservation vs. conservation and that what they were talking about was preservation but that what is needed in this area is conservation.

The other group remained stubborn, but my environmental education philosophy and views about a wilderness ethic were strengthened.

Thinking a lot about development this week and what this actually means.  Obviously the word development means something different to everyone.  What does it mean on an ecological scale?  Can we ecologically develop?  Is the entire process of evolution a continuous process of development?

What does it mean for a small rural community to develop?  What kind of development makes sense?

As with anything, there are differing views on this.  Personally I think we need to take a more ecological view of what development means.  We can't continue to develop the way that we always have.  If we want everyone to develop to be like the rest of the world we need to screw our heads back on the right way.  7 billion people can NOT live in the way that we consider to be developed.  We need a new way of looking at the word develop, and a new model for how to get there.  Or perhaps many new models.

In one of our readings this week we were introduced to the concept of solving problems in a transdisciplinary manner.  Thanks Odum.  I think that this ecological concept can be applied in most cases, but definitely when it comes to development.  We must look for answers from all disciplines and especially from places that we don't even consider to be disciplines. Is the wisdom of the community itself a discipline? We so often belittle these people and don't think that they have the education to make rational decisions about their own lives and future.  In some technical details this can be true, but overall, they know what they need and what is going to work for them.

Example time... was chatting with a guest at the lodge I'm living at and he is a retired engineer.  He was trying to defend this evil toll road that is being proposed for this untouched area.  His rationelle - these people are poor, they need to develop, they need infrastructure.  How can they expect to have doctors in the clinics if the roads are so bad that the doctors can't get into town easily?

I told him that I agreed with many of his points about them needing running water, some electricity, doctors in the clinics etc. but that I had a totally different philosophy about how they should "develop" and how they should strive to get those things...

I lean way more towards a self-sufficiency model, and the importance of education as development, not infrastructure like roads.  Lets get doctors and teachers coming from these communities, so that this is where they want to live.  Why import doctors from the city, who need a road because they are so desperate to get out of this place?  Rather lets increase the educational opportunities for the community so that people who want to live here become the doctors and teachers for the community.

I led a workshop for the development committee for this community last weekend, and I did a big visioning exercise with them.  It was amazing to see the vision that they had, and was overly happy when someone said exactly that - they want engineers, doctors, teachers, lawyers etc. to be coming out of their community.

Education-based development over infrastructure.  Or with infrastructure.  Here is where the transdisciplinary comes in.

Alright, those are my thoughts for now.

A paradise called Pondoland ... and cigarettes

As an assignment for one of my courses we have been asked to keep a blog over the next 10 weeks that ties in our lived experience with the coursework we are exploring. I am excited to share these experiences and this perspective with you because I am currently living in a rural village on the East coast of South Africa doing youth leadership and activism training at a local high school. I have no doubt that much of what we discuss in my course will show up in my daily life over the next few weeks.

I have to drive 45 minutes to get to the nearest high school and on the way I am often asked for lifts (or hikes as they call them) as the villages in this area of South Africa called Pondoland are large and very spread out. Kids walk for 2 or 3 hours to get to their schools, and people will easily walk a couple of hours to visit a family member or friend. I love giving people lifts since I am already driving a long way to get to the school and I feel like my carbon footprint is minimally reduced by giving rides to people who have such long journeys to undertake all the time. It's also a great chance to attempt to chat with the lovely local people in this area.

In our course this week we have been talking a lot about consumption and the roots of our current ecological situation. One thing that came up was that conspicuous-consumption (or over-consumption) is something that is restricted to the leisure class, or those who have all of their other needs met. But a classmate of mine pointed out that often people don't look after their own needs before attempting to consume unnecessary goods. Advertising is so powerful that it seems people believe that they need certain products more than they need basic necessities like clean drinking water.

When I drove to the school yesterday I witnessed an example of this when a man waved the car down for a lift. At least I thought he wanted a lift, so I was happy to stop and chat with him. It turns out that he actually wanted money. When I said no, he asked for a cigarette. I am sure that was what he would have spent the 10 Rand that he was asking for on anyhow, and I drove off feeling so sad that the most significant thing that he thought I could do for him or give him was a cigarette – not only something that wont enhance his quality of life, but instead something that will negatively effect it.