Are you a Bioneer?

Posted by farmfresh

Posted: September 25, 2008 - 10:57 am

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The 5th annual Bioneers in Alaska conference is just around the corner. If you are interested in creating vibrant local economies, home scale renewable energy, holistic health, and food security in AK this conference is not to be missed. This year, as with past years all meals will be made from local organic foods highlighting some of Alaska's Vegetable, Meat and Dairy producers. There will also be two local workshops on agriculture and local food systems in Alaska. See the descriptions at the end of the post.

What is Bioneers?

The Bioneers in Alaska conference brings together Alaskans to explore practical and innovative ways to live more sustainably and strengthen our communities. Highlights of the 2008 conference include: keynote speakers David C. Korten and Lisa Dolchok, workshops on renewable energy for Alaska, growing community through local food, protecting the health of present and future generations and other vital issues of our times, presentations via satellite from the 19th Annual Bioneers Conference in California (see speaker list below) and abundant networking opportunities.

Academic and CEU credits available. Scholarships and Work Exchange opportunities available. Bioneers in Alaska is for everybody! For more information or to register, visit Bioneers in Alaska or email info@sustainak.org. Phone: (907) 677-9087. Bioneers in Alaska is a project of the Alaska Center for Appropriate Technology

This year Bioneers in Alaska Conference "Creating Sustainable Communities" October 17-19, 2008
will be hosted by the University of Alaska, Anchorage

Local Food Workshops:
Building A Food System that Works for Alaskans; Root Cellars & Farmers’ Markets: Re-building Alaska’s Food System One Choice at a Time; Kim Sollien, Ally Barker, and Kathy Ciarimboli

What is food security and how do we know when we have it? What are the ecological, economic, and health factors involved with localizing our food system and what are the consequences if we do not? This workshop will explore root cellars and pig tractors, visit a few local farms via photo journal, and discuss concept of vibrant local food systems as sustainability. Participants will leave the workshop with a clear picture of agriculture in Alaska including how each of us can actively participate in strengthening this valuable renewable resource.

Growing Community Through Local Food; Tom Zimmer & Susan Willsrud; Calypso Farms

This workshop will explore methods of engaging all members of the community through local food. We will start by examining Calypso Farm and Ecology Center and our outreach programs (our Schoolyard Garden Initiative and Food Access projects) and provide ideas for building community through food in your neighborhood. Then using small discussion groups, we will assess local food resources, identify local partners, creative small scale food projects and determine pertinent outreach methods. As we discover and build the components of community food projects we will begin exploring the challenges and advantages of food production on a small scale. We will identify resources for direct implementation of projects from

Satalite Presentations include
PAUL STAMETS
Solutions from the Underground: Using Fungi to Help
Save the World
One of the most brilliant explorers of the fungal realm and authorof six books including Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World, Paul Stamets illuminates some potentially world-changing fungus-based ecological, medicinal and nutritional
technologies. (www.fungi.com)

RAY ANDERSON
Sustainability in Action
Arguably the most inspiring green business leader in America, Ray Anderson is founder and chairman of a $1 billion global carpet manufacturing company which is nearly half-way to a zero environmental
footprint by 2020. (www.interfaceinc.com)

DUNE LANKARD
Sustainable Solutions Over Centuries: A New Business
Model
This Eyak Athabaskan native and lifelong commercial fisherman from Alaska’s Copper River Delta became a community activist after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. He describes the preservation of ecosystems and people as the way to maintain thriving economies and communities into the future.

JANINE BENYUS
Nature’s 100 Best: Top Biomimicry Solutions to Environmental Crises The brilliant naturalist, author and founder of the Biomimicry Institute reminds us that our prime directive as living beings is always to seek to create conditions conducive to life. What are
Nature’s 100 Best (her book-in-progress) revolutionary solutions to the world’s most vexing challenges?
(www.biomimicryguild.com)

GREG WATSON
Twelve Degrees of Freedom: Lessons Learned from
Thirty-five Years of Environmental Activism
Long one of the most effective environmental leaders on the East Coast, Greg Watson has now taken the helm of one of the nation’s most important alternative energy projects, the Offshore Wind Collaborative. (www.masstech.org)

CHRISTINE LOH
The “Development” Imperative for Asians
How Asians look at development will have a great impact on Earth’s ecological future. With the threat of climate change, the world must collaborate much more meaningfully, but will that happen fast enough? An internationally acclaimed environmental
activist who as worked extensively in Chinese business and government, Christine Loh shares her perspectives on key levers for restorative development in Asia.

DAVID ORR
Some Like It Hot, But Lots Don’t: The Changing
Climate of US Politics
One of the nation’s most important pioneers in the sustainability movement, David Orr will outline a national climate change policy for the incoming administration developed by the Presidential
Climate Action Project (PCAP).

KAVITA RAMDAS
Shakti, Shanti, Sangam: Power, Peace and the Politics
of Change
The president and CEO of the Global Fund for Women explains how listening to and learning from women community leaders is the key to building sustainable and effective movements for social
justice, equality and peace.

ERICA FERNANDEZ
Si, Se Puede! (Yes, We Can!)
This remarkable eighteen-year-old environmental justice activist helped mobilize her community in Oxnard, CA to defeat the placement of a liquefied natural gas facility just offshore.

SANDRA STEINGRABER
The Environmental Life of Children—from Placenta
to Puberty
Author of the award-winning books Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment and Having Faith: An Ecologist’s Journey to Motherhood, this ecologist/biologist and cancer survivor explains why pediatric environmental health activism is
the civil rights movement of our era.

RICK REED
Collaborating on a Grand Scale: Think Systemically
and Act Cooperatively
As co-founder of RE-AMP, a seven-state network of nonprofits and foundations, Rick helped to orchestrate a ground breaking collaboration to transform the Midwest from a leader in emissions to a leader in clean energy.

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