Time to sum up Estonia !
kicki bobacka
Hopefully all of you had a great relaxing summer holiday period...
Now it is time for us at Holma Folk High school who are responsible for the the project Healthy Baltic Sea Lifestyle to sum up how the work in the working groups has gone.
We have a little project money left after the Estonia event. Would you be able to realise an EU application if you and some selected others were able to meet again? Do you have some other idea so that we can reach the goal of 6 funding applications submitted to the EU, Nordic Council of Ministers or similar?
Many project embryos were presented in the April meeting in Estonia. How have they developed? Have you turned in any applications in the areas discussed in Estonia?
Zivile presented a project called "Ecovillages" which 6 organisations (5 attended the Estonia meeting) were involved in. That project for 1.4 MEUR was approved last week. Are there other projects, bigger of smaller, that have been approved?
It would be good if the different working groups and initiators of project ideas could use this IT platform to give us all an update on the current situation. By the way, did the IT group apply for support?
Many that didn't attend in Estonia are interested in joining us. For this to work they need to see what is going on. A home page would be good to show external parties what we are doing. We need to present ALL our ideas. I hope you all can help with this!
Warm regards,
Kicki and Robert
Zivile
I hope that everyone is doing very well!
We are very satisfied that Monitoring Committee of BSR Programme
supported our Ecovillages idea and approved our project.
Our Institute have one project idea for Elder generation. For some of
you I told about it during our meeting in Estonia. This idea and
activities are very important for Baltic Sea strategy and we think that
we also can prepare an application for the next call of Baltic Sea
Region Programme 2007-2013. If any of you would be interested to
participate and we could organize meeting that would be great! Kicki
mentioned in last letter that maybe it would be possible to organize
meeting and discuss about this project and agree about preparing an
application. Time to submit this application will be first part of next
year (probably end of March). Call for this programme will be end of
November at this year. I attach short description about this project
idea. I am waiting for your comments!
Have a nice week!
--
Best regards,
Živilė Gedminaitė-Raudonė
Lithuanian Institute of Agrarian Economics
V. Kudirkos g. 18, LT-03105 Vilnius
Tel. +370 5 2617978, Mob. +370 683 65994
Fax. +370 5 2614524
E-mail: ziv...@laei.lt
sirp...@saunalahti.fi
Congratulations Zivile and your group!
I was in the group of "traditional yearly folk festivals" together with Laysan, Tonia, Karmena, Kadri and Masha (Hello!!), and we have not yet advanced, which does not mean, that I had forgotten the idea, or my companionship. The summer for me is the busiest working time in the year, because I lead (creative) traditions camps in the countryside. And now, first and foremost, I have to assure the continuation of our work in my association Rootlife, that organizes the camps, by making new proposals for future to the Finnish Ministry of Education.
One of the aims is to get translated our web-pages in English :), unfortunately they are until now only in Finnish: http://www.juurielo.fi/
But thanks for reminding us all Kicki and Zivile, lets get newly in touch among the groups and between us all!
Greetings and power to your works,
Sirpa Räsänen
Finland
[ziv...@laei.lt] kirjoitti:
> Dear Kicki, Robert and other Colleagues,
>
> I hope that everyone is doing very well!
>
> We are very satisfied that Monitoring Committee of BSR Programme
> supported our Ecovillages idea and approved our project.
>
> Our Institute have one project idea for Elder generation. For some of
> you I told about it during our meeting in Estonia. This idea and
> activities are very important for Baltic Sea strategy and we think that
> we also can prepare an application for the next call of Baltic Sea
> Region Programme 2007-2013. If any of you would be interested to
> participate and we could organize meeting that would be great! Kicki
> mentioned in last letter that maybe it would be possible to organize
> meeting and discuss about this project and agree about preparing an
> application. Time to submit this application will be first part of next
> year (probably end of March). Call for this programme will be end of
> November at this year. I attach short description about this project
> idea. I am waiting for your comments!
>
> Have a nice week!
>
> --
> Best regards,
> }ivil Gedminait -Raudon
> Lithuanian Institute of Agrarian Economics
> V. Kudirkos g. 18, LT-03105 Vilnius
> Tel. +370 5 2617978, Mob. +370 683 65994
> Fax. +370 5 2614524
> E-mail: ziv...@laei.lt
>
> --
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Toomas Trapido
Stamatios Christopoulos
Dear All,
Our wonderful visit at Raudsilla resulted to a feasible project idea
regarding alternative and nature-friendly lifestyle.
Together with a group of people, we have managed to develop an idea for a
project that aims to analyze the alternative eco-living lifestyle (e.g.
eco-villages, Transition Towns).
Very Briefly: The core of the project would be to quantify and compare the
environmental performance of alternative settlers to this of
"conventional" ones. This should be done in two different pillars, the
theory pillar and the practice pillar (i.e. what people think they do in
terms of environmental protection, and what do they actually do in reality
towards that direction).
The project idea is currently inert, as I have not been able, due to my
affilliation status, to take things further. The people that we worked
together at Raudsilla are informed.
The plan is to submit the application to the BSR Authority by the end of
March 2011, but I do not know whether any other initiative was taken, by
other members of the team, towards that direction.
Anyway, there is still some time to figure this one out, but this is how
things look like at the moment.
Γειά σας κι αέρα στα πανιά σας!
Stamatis
ALTENERGO
I am very glad that our communication have positive ideas and results.
From the side of our international community "Life Environment" we are ready to support in projects concerning educational centers for informational and experimental support of social organizations and municipal institutions concerning ecology and energy saving, and also to unite legal and privat pirsons, interested in development of ecovillages.
We invite you to participate in discussion "Educational centers network in field of sustainable siciety development and ecotechnologies" to our stand on exibition "Environment and Energy", wich will be in Riga, Latvia October 14-17. Please send applications to participate till 2010, October 10 to alte...@altenergo.lv.
Eduard & Mark.
Have a nice week!
--
Tora Råberg
Congratulations to the financiation of your projects!
I was the initiator/coordinator of the Baltic Sea agroforestry/forest garden project idea, sharing the responsibility with Joel. A letter of invitation to the group was sent out by mail to all the persons that had signed the poster at our meeting. We received many replies from our Finish colleges and some from Sweden as well as Denmark, but it has been rather quiet from our more eastern friends. It would be fantastic to add some of you to my list for future collaboration in the project. Marianne has told us that Denmark has an interest in applying for the founding, but I don´t know what has happened since then.
I have had a busy summer as well which made things move slowly. At the moment I have a list of e-mail addresses to persons with pilot farms/gardens and persons that wish to coordinate the project in their countries. It is my wish that several of us keep on working for this project to be realized so that we can exchange knowledge and plants.
Best wishes,
Tora Råberg
Malmö
Sweden
Piotr Kamont
Project Manager
Pomorskie Stowarzyszenie >>Wspólna Europa<<
80-858 Gdańsk, ul. Wałowa 26/4
tel./fax (58) 303 01 00
mail: pka...@pswe.org
outianne tuomela
I was the one who came a day later to Raudsilla and in the very end of the meeting was hanging around forest garden group.
I do already work years 2009-2012 in a Central Baltic Interreg Project called: "Promonting Natural Materials Know-how" (see more: www.lumoverkosto.fi; www.pronatmat.eu).
In this project we do some experimental forest gardening, next course by Jerome Osentowski from The Central Rocky Mountain Institute USA.
In future we could share a lot of learning, knowledge, experience, experimental forest gardening etc in this cool climate area.
My workpalce is LUMO-centre very close to Turku City (Finland) and I am a member of the Ecovillage Livonsaari (www.yhteisokyla.net) 35km from Turku.
I hope to hear something from the Forest Garden Group, so please keep me in the mail list? (I have not got any post from the forest garden group yet).
Colourful autumn days from very windy Finland now,
Outi
otuo...@gmail.com
Tora Råberg
I now understand that some of you have not been reached by the letter of invitation I sent out concerning the group formed to work with Baltic Sea agroforestry/forest garden, even if we have sent out mails (strange how that happened..). We now send it out to this list in order to reach all interested. If you are interested to join this working group contact me or Joel in order to organize us for preparing an application for funding. Those of you that we have already been in contact with us is on our mailing list. The low activity will hopeful accelerate after this call.
Best wishes,
Tora Råberg; tora....@gmail.com
Joel Holmdahl;jo...@holmdahl.nu
And here is the letter of invitation:
Dear agroforestry/forest garden colleges of the Baltic Sea region
I have met some of you in the meeting of “Healthy Baltic Sea Lifestyle project” in Estonia the 23-25 of April this year. Others receive this mail because someone who knows you has recommended you as a keyperson in a Baltic Sea knowledge network on agroforestry. The idea is to organize a Baltic Sea group and apply for EU-funding to cover expenses at meetings and conferences in order to share knowledge in this subject.
Definitions
In this case we aim to explain agroforestry as agriculture/horticulture purposely mixed with trees and forest garden as a vegetable garden with trees. It doesn’t really matter if trees are in a line or a cluster, if they exceed a certain amount etc. What is important is that they are planted or left were they grew because we have come to realize their multifunctionality, it’s ecosystem services* and how it contributes to the food production.
Background to our interest in Baltic agroforestry and forest gardens
Many traditional European agroforestry systems disappeared during the 20th century. Intensification, mechanisation and land consolidation were the most important incentives for tree removal from cultivated areas. Isolated trees, trees in hedges, and low-density tree stands (such as traditional high-stem low density orchards) were massively removed.
The loss of many traditional agroforestry systems in Europe has had unfortunate
consequences:
- loss of know-how by farmers,
- simplification and standardization of landscapes,
- increased environmental problems such as soil erosion and water pollution,
- significant carbon release,
- reduction of biodiversity,
- loss of habitat for natural enemies of crop pests,
- and the loss of a source of alternative income for farmers.
In some areas in the Baltic Sea region there are still older systems that exist today and we need to identify them in order to protect them and pass on the knowledge.
Plenty of information can be found on tropical or subtropical agroforestry since many years back. Some decades ago various persons in England started to build up forest gardens and published films, homepages and literature of their gained knowledge. There is a large Europeen group called SAFE (silvoarable agroforestry for Europe) working with central and south European agroforestry. The climate in the Baltic Sea region is in some places similar to England, but in most areas the winters are colder and the summers are less humid. This is the reason why we need to gather information concerning cultivation in our climate region.
*Humankind benefits from a multitude of resources and processes that are supplied by natural ecosystems. Collectively, these benefits are known as ecosystem services and include products like clean drinking water and processes such as the decomposition of wastes. While scientists and environmentalists have discussed ecosystem services for decades, these services were popularized and their definitions formalized by the United Nations 2004 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, a four-year study involving more than 1,300 scientists worldwide.[This grouped ecosystem services into four broad categories: provisioning, such as the production of food and water; regulating, such as the control of climate and disease; supporting, such as nutrient cycles and crop pollination; and cultural, such as spiritual and recreational benefits.
Strategy
In Estonia we realized that we need to identify key persons in contact with places were agroforestry is used and were the care takers are interested in receiving visitors. This type of pilot-farms should have an interest in receiving and sharing information of successful and negative experiences with crops and trees. It is important to map the farms in order to know if the climate is coastal or continental. As a group of persons from the Baltic Sea region is created we will apply for money to finance a database for plants and methods that can be translated into at least five relevant languages. There is already a database of this type initiated in Sweden, but it needs much more work to be filled with information. The goal is to hold several EU financed conferences and hopefully work out ways to share plant material.
So now my question to you is if you are still interested to take part of this group or if you know someone else that has a wish to contribute to the group.
Best wishes,
Tora Råberg
Agroforestry association of Sweden
Permaculture association of Sweden