Since Wendell Berry has opted out of the computer age in favor of a simple life it is up to us bloggers to do what we can with his deep wisdom here in the blogosphere.
Here are his 17 rules for a sustainable community. May it inspire us to get up and walk away from our computers, into the forests and fields.
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.
Get the poster from YES http://store.yesmagazine.org/other-products/17-rules-for-sustainable-community-poster
I agree that Sustainable has become an entirely nebulous term. when I studied at Sterling College Professor Farley Brown used to call it a 'sexy buzzword'.
ReplyDeleteI think it is important to clarify what it is we are talking about therefore here are some general definitions about the concept of sustainability:
... development that meets the needs of current generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs and aspirations. (WECD, 1987)
... the capacity of a system to maintain output at a level approximately equal to or greater than its historical average, with the approximation determined by the historical level of variability. (Lynam and Herdt, 1989)
Sustainability = ability of a system to exist in some preferred state and continue to deliver its products over time (Clayton and Radcliffe, 1996)
The concept of sustainable Agriculture
A sustainable agriculture is one that equitably balances concerns of environmental soundness, economic viability and social justice among all sectors of society. (Allen et al., 1991)
Sustainability refers to the ability of an agro-ecosystem to maintain production through time in the face of long-term ecological constraints and socioeconomic pressures. (Altieri, 1995)
Sustainable land management is ....a system of technologies and/or planning that aims to integrate ecological with socio-economic and political principles in the management of land for agricultural and other purposes to achieve intra- and intergenerational equity. (Hurni, 2000)
Sustainable agriculture = the management and conservation of the natural resource base, and the orientation of technological and institutional change in such a manner as to ensure the attainment and continued satisfaction of human needs for present & future generations.
Sustainable development (in agriculture, forestry & fisheries) conserves
- land
- water
- plant and animal genetic resources
and is
- environmentally non-degrading
- technically appropriate
- economically viable
- socially acceptable
(FAO, 2004)
Allen, P. et al., 1991. Integrating social, environmental, and economic issues in sustainable agriculture. Am. J. Altern. Agric. 6:34-39.
Altieri, 1995. Agroecology: the science of sustainable agriculture. Westview Press, London.
Clayton and Radcliffe, 1996. Sustainability: A systems approach. Earthscan, London.
Hurni, 2000. Assessing sustainable land management (SLM). Agric, Ecosyst, Environm 81:83–92.
World Commission on Environment and Development. (WECD) 1987. From One Earth to One World: An Overview. Oxford University Press.