community

EcoPeace Middle East: Environmental Peacemaking for transboundary water management in Israel, Palestine, and Jordan

Citizens of Israel, Palestine, and Jordan know about borders. Crossing between these regions requires rigorous checkpoints and determination. However, the waterway shared between these neighbors, the Jordan River, knows no political boundary. Recently, the Jordan River Basin has experienced massive declines in quality –93 percent of its original flow has been diverted by neighboring states; it is also affected by pollution from sewage, agricultural runoff, and fish pond effluent [...]

Anna Kusmer2017-03-02T17:30:58+00:00community, Conservation, Integrated social-environmental, Social-Ecological Seeds|Comments Off

Grassroots Economics: Complementary Currencies for community resilience in Kenya

Money is a powerful force in complex societies. It represents access to food, security, and health. In some cases it represents freedom itself. Money is credit, and in the case of national currencies, a piece of money (whether it be a dollar, a rupee, or a yuan) represents an IOU from the government. Money’s ultimate power lies in our collective faith in its value. The movement of money allows products [...]

Anna Kusmer2017-02-22T23:03:59+00:00community, Social Seeds, Technology|Comments Off

Philippi Horticultural Area Food & Farming Campaign

How can a unique agricultural area on the urban fringe of Cape Town, South Africa be protected to provide ecosystem services, fresh produce for low income city dwellers, and a local model of agro-ecological farming? The vast green fields of the Philippi Horticultural Area are an incongruous sight, in the midst of one of the most densely settled areas of the Cape Flats, an expanse of gritty, peri-urban townships [...]

Megan Lindow2016-07-23T01:31:30+00:00community, Food, Food system|Comments Off

Idle No More: Indigenous activists call for peaceful revolution

How can Indigenous peoples bring environmental sustainability and social justice issues together into a single transformative movement? Idle No More activists at the Peoples Climate March 2014 Photo by Allan Lisner It all started in 2012 when four Canadian women (primarily Indigenous) wanted to protest against federal legislation which threatened protection of traditional lands and waters. They felt as if conventional negotiation tactics were not resulting in meaningful [...]

Anna Kusmer2016-05-26T13:00:31+00:00community, indigenous, social movement, stop destructive action|Comments Off

Lüneburg 2030+ Participatory Urban Sustainable Futures

How could the city of the future be designed and constructed to enable more sustainable pathways of development? City of the Future Lüneburg 2030+ is a project that aims to envision the future city of Lüneburg, Germany in a way that it turns into more sustainable, livable and fair place. The project has been jointly developed by the sustainability oriented University of Leuphana, the local government of the Hanseatic City of Lüneburg, [...]

bertamartinlopez2016-05-20T07:59:33+00:00community, europe, infrastructure, transdisciplinary research|Comments Off

Puffin Patrol

How can a community work together to protect an endangered species threatened by local development? If you find yourself in Witless Bay, Newfoundland, on a cool late summer night, you are likely to see a strange sight: little puffins, wandering around the town, seemingly lost, less than one foot tall, meandering around cars and light posts. This remote Canadian region is home to the largest Puffin colony in North America [...]

Anna Kusmer2016-04-26T15:05:58+00:00community|Comments Off

Community Based Radiation Monitoring

How can people to do respond to crisis, when they don't trust official responses? Japan towns, villages, and cities around the Daiichi nuclear plant. The 20km and 30km areas had evacuation and sheltering orders, and additional administrative districts that had an evacuation order are highlighted. From wikipedia. In 2011, the Great East Japan earthquake triggered a large tsunami that killed over 15,000 people and triggered meltdowns in the Fukushima Daiichi [...]

Garry Peterson2016-04-11T00:03:31+00:00community, Education, Food, Food system, health, Skills Development|Comments Off

Cascoland

How do we challenge people's deeply-held beliefs about how the world works and all the associated behaviours that go along with these? Cascoland is an international network of artists, architects, designers and performers sharing a fascination for interdisciplinary interventions in public space, promoting mobilization, participation and networking through artistic exchange and collaboration. Projects are executed with multi-disciplinary teams of artists and designers. Cascoland activates public space through artistic interventions, construction [...]

ciararh2015-12-15T20:25:17+00:00art, community, Social Seeds, transdisciplinary research|Comments Off

GIVEWATTS

Can aid that focuses on decreasing reliance on traditional energy sources be a sustainable solution? GIVEWATTS is a non-profit organisation / Social Enterprise bringing clean and safe energy to people in developing countries, starting with East Africa. GIVEWATTS distributes solar lamps and efficient stoves in places that would otherwise rely on daylight, firewood and kerosene. The GIVEWATTS vision is to make renewable energy available to all households across the off-grid [...]

ciararh2015-12-02T21:10:50+00:00climate change, community, Conservation, Education, health, infrastructure, Integrated social-environmental, sustainable living, Technology|Comments Off

Community Dialogue Sessions in the Urato Islands

How can new ways of discussion trigger action towards sustainability? Community dialogue sessions were organised by sustainability researchers in the Satoyama Initiative to discuss rebuilding and revitalisation of the Urato Islands after the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami on the 11th of March 2011. These sessions were key turning points for the rebuilding process of the Urato Islands. Two dialogues were held, the first in 2012 and the second in 2014. Strong collaboration between local [...]

Garry Peterson2015-10-22T13:13:00+00:00community, Food system, Integrated social-environmental, Social-Ecological Seeds|Comments Off

Seeds are existing initiatives which hold potential to shape the future. They are likely not widespread nor well-known. They can be social initiatives, new technologies, economic tools, or social-ecological projects, or organisations, movements or new ways of acting that have that appear to be making a substantial contribution towards creating a future that is just, prosperous, and sustainable.

We gather seeds from diverse research disciplines, communities of practice, and individuals that have different world-views, values, and problems. This diversity means that not everyone will agree on the importance or value of every seed.