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Port of Call |
LAST UPDATE March 12, 2008
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| site design imagesparkle.com |
| February 12, 2008 |
Cape Town, South Africa – Working Toward Sustainable Lifestyles |
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An exhibit at the Footprints Environmental Centre explains that just 8.7 plastic bags have enough embodied petroleum energy to drive a car for one kilometer |
One month into the 60th voyage, the ship rounded the Cape of Good Hope and made port in Cape Town, on the southern tip of the African continent. During the call, a group of Peace Boat participants elected to investigate the environmental situation in South Africa and local conservation methods through participation in a study tour that highlighted sustainable lifestyles through visits to different organizations. |
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Participants watched the construction of earthworm compost bins using old car tires, one of many programmes organized by Footprints to reuse garbage |
Peace Boat first visited the Footprints Environmental Centre, a non-profit, community-oriented organization located just outside of Cape Town. Established in 2003, Footprints aims to provide the motivation, tools and opportunities to enable people to reduce their ecological footprint, focusing specifically on the wise use of resources and the prevention of pollution. Through education about resource management, Footprints teaches people to “relook” at their garbage for reusability, “rethink” their decisions as consumers, and “recycle” whenever possible. Through the “Waste Art” programme, “waste artists” reuse items like aluminum cans and bottle tops to create products to sell to the public, such as bags, accessories and lamps. At Footprints, participants toured the recycling facilities, then joined activities such as helping to dismantle computer keyboards to separate reusable and recyclable parts, and making flowers out of empty plastic bottles. |
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| In the Driftsands community gardens, participants helped plant spinach, lettuce, beetroot, spring onions and beans. |
The next stop was a soup kitchen organized through Soil for Life, a non-profit, non-government organization that aspires to create healthy soil, healthy plants and healthy people. Using techniques to maximize production in small spaces, conserve water and make use of all available resources, Soil for Life works in places where people would otherwise not have access to healthy, affordable food. Soil for Life helps people earn their own money, deal with economic inflation, develop problem-solving skills, and create healthy family environments, starting with food gardening programmes. Peace Boat participants shared a meal at the soup kitchen made from local ingredients, and then helped weed, hoe and plant in the community gardens. Participants enjoyed the opportunity to work with the earth and learn about life in an economically disadvantaged township. |
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| Participants visited the elementary school at Lynedoch, attended by about 450 children of local farming families |
Though apartheid ended nearly 15 years ago, economic status continues to separate the white and black populations in many parts of South Africa. However, nestled among the towering mountains of the Cape lies the Lynedoch EcoVillage, a community working to transcend ethnic and economic differences between people. Residents come from a variety of different backgrounds and ethnicities, and partial government subsidization allows people with disparate economic resources to join the community. At Lynedoch, the Sustainability Institute works to make the community environmentally sustainable and increasingly self-sufficient. In addition to the use of solar panels and windmills for electricity, the institute also converts waste products into methane gas for cooking and heating water. By utilizing intelligent building orientation and innovative ventilation, the institute’s buildings require very little artificial heating and cooling. To conserve water, the institute collects rainwater and employs a natural filter system to reuse this water for crop irrigation and use in bathrooms and laundry facilities. |
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Munehiro Osawa, who helped enthusiastically on the EcoVillage construction project, was impressed by the ingenuity used at the EcoVillage to surmount the challenge of limited resources in gardening and building projects |
The small hamlet contains 42 ecologically designed houses that accommodate families that work in or near Lynedoch, and are built from adobe bricks produced in the EcoVillage from local materials and sun-baked to eliminate the need for artificial heating. Peace Boat participants helped mix a natural mud-based mortar and lay bricks for an inner wall of a new house currently under construction. Through this experience at Lynedoch and the visits to Footprints and Soil for Life, participants on this tour had the opportunity to learn about different conservation methods and environmentally sustainable lifestyles in South Africa. While these isolated efforts may be globally insignificant, each of these lifestyle changes and conservation techniques contribute to the creation of a global society that will use the earth’s resources more wisely. |
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Witnessing efforts to effect positive environmental and social change in South Africa impressed participant Sakura Ida, who hopes to see similar changes made in Japan and other economically advanced countries. |
To learn more about Soil for Life, visit: www.soilforlife.co.za
To learn more about the Sustainability Institute at the Lynedoch EcoVillage, visit: www.sustainabilityinstitute.net
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