Natural Elements International Blog

REGISTRATION IS OPEN for "Theory and Practice of Sustainability!"

2011-02-26T21:01:00.000-08:00

This Collaborative Journey between Natural Elements International and Portland State University's Leadership for Sustainability Education program is open to all graduate students at PSU. Come enjoy an inspiring journey June 13-22, 2011!

Program Description:
This four credit, graduate level course shows the application of theories and models in sustainability design, social justice, and bio-cultural diversity. Through hands-on workshops, personal stories, lectures, and discussion, students experience real life examples of how individuals and institutions have developed a vision and implemented that vision in various areas of sustainability including: Education, Community Leadership and Governance, Food Systems and Policies, Indigenous Practices, and Appropriate Technology. Through group and individual reflection, students explore how they can integrate these experiences and perspectives into their own practice of sustainability education.

This program will take place primarily at Punta Mona Center for Sustainable Living and Education in Costa Rica. The course includes theoretical foundations, concrete examples and workshops, and experiential learning in deep ecology, permaculture and whole systems design, and living intentionally in community. Students will engage in daily hands on learning about permaculture design, organic gardening, cooking and composting, herbal medicine and appropriate technology. In addition to time spent in active learning, service, and reflection at Punta Mona, students will have the opportunity to participate in a larger service project off site, and will experience several other Costa Rican communities before and after traveling to Punta Mona.

Theory and Practice of Sustainability in Costa Rica will offer students an opportunity for education in areas that are fundamental to Leadership for Sustainability Education (LSE) goals including: a commitment to multiple perspectives including global perspectives, the capacity to collaborate with diverse others, and the fostering of hope and resiliency through relationships within global contexts. By living and learning for a short time within a different cultural setting, students will gain a more comprehensive understanding of sustainability within other contexts, and an appreciation for
a variety of approaches to sustainability leadership, education and solutions. Learning to integrate the theory and practice of sustainability within a diverse community-based learning setting will further enhance students’ abilities to reflect on their own leadership.

Through participation in this program students will:
• Understand principles of sustainable living by observing and actively participating in a sustainable community
• Understand and describe deep ecology, including ecological and social justice issues as they relate to sustainability
• Learn skills related to permaculture design, sustainable food systems, and appropriate technology and reflect as a community of learners on these hands-on experiences
Learn about sustainable theories and practice in a cross-cultural setting outside the United States; compare and
contrast this learning to previous life experience and graduate work
• Experience sustainability as bio-cultural diversity; build relationships and collaborate on projects with diverse (Costa Rican) leaders in sustainability
• Synthesize in writing critical reflection on ecological consciousness, sense of place, and cultural diversity as they relate to deep ecology and sustainability education
• Contribute to a final written group project designed to deepen reflection on: experiential learning, and
understanding of deep ecology and sustainability in multiple settings

How Children Benefit from Ecoutourism Experiences

2011-02-03T09:26:00.000-08:00

Hello Everyone,

Natural Elements International welcomes and encourages whole families to join our journeys to Costa Rica. These trips are full of wonder and excitement for parents and children. Enjoy the following article and contact us to register for the next Multi-Element Journey on December 18-22, 2011.

http://www.yourtravelchoice.org/2011/02/how-children-benefit-from-an-ecotourism-experience/

Inspiring Tomorrow's Sustainability Educators

2011-01-20T09:21:00.000-08:00

Natural Elements International has partnered with Portland State University's Leadership for Sustainability Education Master's program to offer a 10 day practical study abroad course on the caribbean coast of Costa Rica! From June 13-22, 2011 graduate students will have the unique and exciting opportunity to study sustainability methods while living and contributing at the Punta Mona Center for Sustainable Living and Education, a intentional permaculture farm in Manzanillo-Gandoca Wildlife Refuge. Students can look forward to waking to yoga and farm fresh breakfast, then onto service learning on the farm and the surrounding communities. They will also enjoy nightly thoughtful reflection on their experiences while in Costa Rica. Oh yeah and some time for adventure and relaxation!

the 17 rules for a sustainable community

2010-03-30T22:42:00.000-07:00

This comes from Wendell Berry's website The Briarpatch Network http://briarpatchnetwork.wordpress.com/2007/09/21/seventeen-rules-for-a-sustainable-community-wendell-berry/.

Enjoy!

From Wendell Berry

A community economy is not an economy in which well-placed persons can make a ‘killing’. It is an economy whose aim is generosity and a well-distributed and safeguarded abundance.

WENDELL Berry is a strong defender of family, rural communities, and traditional family farms. These underlying principles could be described as ‘the preservation of ecological diversity and integrity, and the renewal, on sound cultural and ecological principles, of local economies and local communities’:

1. Always ask of any proposed change or innovation: What will this do to our community? How will this affect our common wealth.

2. Always include local nature – the land, the water, the air, the native creatures – within the membership of the community.

3. Always ask how local needs might be supplied from local sources, including the mutual help of neighbours.

4. Always supply local needs first (and only then think of exporting products – first to nearby cities, then to others).

5. Understand the ultimate unsoundness of the industrial doctrine of ‘labour saving’ if that implies poor work, unemployment, or any kind of pollution or contamination.

6. Develop properly scaled value-adding industries for local products to ensure that the community does not become merely a colony of national or global economy.

7. Develop small-scale industries and businesses to support the local farm and/or forest economy.

8. Strive to supply as much of the community’s own energy as possible.

9. Strive to increase earnings (in whatever form) within the community for as long as possible before they are paid out.

10. Make sure that money paid into the local economy circulates within the community and decrease expenditures outside the community.

11. Make the community able to invest in itself by maintaining its properties, keeping itself clean (without dirtying some other place), caring for its old people, and teaching its children.

12. See that the old and young take care of one another. The young must learn from the old, not necessarily, and not always in school. There must be no institutionalised childcare and no homes for the aged. The community knows and remembers itself by the association of old and young.

13. Account for costs now conventionally hidden or externalised. Whenever possible, these must be debited against monetary income.

14. Look into the possible uses of local currency, community-funded loan programmes, systems of barter, and the like.

15. Always be aware of the economic value of neighbourly acts. In our time, the costs of living are greatly increased by the loss of neighbourhood, which leaves people to face their calamities alone.

16. A rural community should always be acquainted and interconnected with community-minded people in nearby towns and cities.

17. A sustainable rural economy will depend on urban consumers loyal to local products. Therefore, we are talking about an economy that will always be more cooperative than competitive.
~~

U.S. backs Costa Rican carbon neutrality plan with $100,000 grant

2010-01-07T12:06:00.000-08:00

Check out the following article from the Ticotimes.com site! http://www.ticotimes.net/daily.htm#story3.

Costa Rica: the Happiest Nation on Earth

2009-08-02T22:05:00.001-07:00

After spending a good bit of time in Costa Rica, it is no wonder that it has been voted as the happiest nation in the world! Using the "Happy Planet Index" it stands at the top of the list of nations with the happiest population, the second highest life expectancies in the Americas and one of the smallest carbon footprints of any nation. Check out the links below for more information:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/07/05/costa.rica.happy.nation/index.html

http://www.happyplanetindex.org/news/archive/news-2.html