From Sunset Strip to the Sierra Madre to a Nobel nomination
As the founder of the Huichol Center for Cultural Survival and a lifelong advocate for their cause, Susana Valadez was chosen by an Amsterdam-based nonprofit, the Drugs Peace Institute, to represent the indigenous Wixárika (Huichol) people, whom the group nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for “their efforts in favor of a sociable, ecologically friendly and peace-promoting use of mind-altering substances.”
How the Women of Standing Rock Are Building Sovereign Economies
For Sicangu Lakota water protector Cheryl Angel, Standing Rock helped her define what she stands against: an economy rooted in extraction of resources and exploitation of people and planet. It wasn’t until she’d had some distance that the vision of what she stands for came into focus. “Now I understand that sustainable sovereign economies are needed to […]
Restoring the Earth, One Camp at a Time
Over the past 150 years, poor land management practices, driven by industrial agriculture, has resulted in the loss of half of the earth’s topsoil. Soil is becoming so degraded that some scientists are predicting that in some parts of the world, such as the UK, we only have 60 harvests left. More carbon has been […]
Sovereign Sisters in Lakota Lands
Lakota Spiritual Activist Cheryl Angel believes in listening to her dreams – the ones that come to her at night as she sleeps, and the ones that arrive as messengers from the road as she travels the globe. She has been traveling extensively over the past two years, connecting with indigenous and non-indigenous women and […]
Inside each of us is a story of money. It is about a lot more than numbers—it is about our sense of self-worth, about power, influence, and security. I had an idyllic childhood in the forest of Vermont. I was nurtured by gentle and wise parents, and my sister and I would frolic through pastures […]
Striking Back Against Femicide in Costa Rica
Aude Mulliez is a woman for the new millennium. At 33, she has launched her own green social enterprise, become a continental ambassador for female empowerment and impacted lives in half a dozen countries – including her own. She’s tackled some of the thorniest issues of our time – migration, environmental degradation, extreme poverty, and […]
Restoring Paradise: Permaculture Meets Disaster Response
As permaculture educator and community organizer Matthew Trumm was evacuating from the raging Camp Fire in Northern California last November, his mind turned to a video he’d seen recently with one of his heroes, the ecosystem restoration expert and filmmaker John D. Liu. Just the week before, Liu had invited him to serve on a […]
Dismantling the Patrix with EcoSocial Design
Andrew Langford has been practising the art of hands-on learning since his early days in manufacturing, and then in his first solo enterprise as a shoemaker. He came to formal university education a bit late, and perhaps that’s why he was able to look at it more objectively than his younger counterparts. It was while […]
21 Planet-Friendly Holiday Ideas
As I was researching this story about being mindful of creating more joy and less waste during the holiday season, I had some lovely conversations with three women who have been working to reduce their carbon footprint for a long time. Yvonne Jacobs, Susie Hairston and Katy Katz left me with enough ideas to write a book – and some poignant thoughts, […]
Holidays are a time for giving – and increasingly, people are thinking about ways to give back to the non-human inhabitants of our planet. Mindful of the fact that we’re generating a million tons of extra garbage in that month-long space between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and that our runaway consumption is causing alarming devastation to the biosphere, we caught […]
For some, it was the baby albatross whose autopsy revealed a belly full of bottle caps and other plastic debris. For others, it was the video of the sea turtle with the plastic straw stuck in its nostril, a team of marine biologists trying to remove it with a pair of pliers as it struggled […]
By Tracy L. Barnett for The Washington Post Looking down from the hilltop through the palm fronds, the sight took my breath away: at least seven hues of blue, stretching out before me to a green-fringed horizon. This was the Lagoon of Seven Colors, and it was everything I’d been told, and then some. Set […]
Esperanza Project at a Crossroads
This year The Esperanza Project will celebrate nine years of life – nine years of bringing inspiration and hope to the work of environmental and indigenous rights journalism. We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished, and poised to take our work to the next level. Please read on to see our highlights, our exciting plans for […]
8 ways you can help build hope in 2018
Feeling a little hopeless about the state of the world today? It’s understandable. Most of the news you see these days doesn’t inspire a lot of optimism. But there are a lot of positive trends and uplifting initiatives that are putting us on the path to a better world. How can we nurture and grow […]
Left: Cayuco Maya, the venue for the XV Vision Council, “Call of the Water,” was held on the shores of Bacalar Lagoon. Foreground: The Rainbow Peace Caravan’s Circus Tent has been a trademark gathering space for two decades in Vision Councils from Peru to Mexico. BACALAR, Quintana Roo, Mexico — The XV Vision Council – […]
Fighting adobicide in post-earthquake Mexico
By Tracy L. Barnett Editor’s note: After the earthquakes of Sept. 7 and Sept. 19 in southern and central Mexico, scores of architects, builders, engineers, designers and other experts stepped forward to help. A nascent natural building movement – known as “bioconstruction” or “bioarchitecture” here in the Spanish-speaking South – is pushing back against the […]
Rebuilding Tradition in Hueyápan, Morelos
By Tracy L. Barnett Editor’s note: This article is part of a series on bioconstruction, or natural building initiatives, in post-earthquake Mexico. When the earthquake struck the adobe-rich town of Hueyápan in the foothills of Volcano Popocatepetl, a circle of mourners surrounded their dearly departed in the colonial-era Templo de Santo Domingo de Guzmán. When […]
A House for Mari: Bioconstruction to the Rescue in Tetela del Volcán
Editor’s note: This photo story is part of a series about “bio-reconstruction” or natural building initiatives that are springing up in the wake of the earthquakes in Mexico. To follow some of these developments see the Facebook page for BioReconstruye México, a network of natural builders around the country who are sharing techniques and coordinating […]
Bio-Reconstructing Mexico: Toward an Architecture for Life
By Tracy L. Barnett For ArchDaily.com Editor’s note: After the earthquakes of Sept. 7 and Sept. 19 in southern and central Mexico, a nascent natural building movement – known as “bioconstruction” or “bioarchitecture” here in the Spanish-speaking South – has stepped forward, seizing the opportunity to rebuild with an architecture that promotes long-term resilience and […]
Visionary gathering brings regenerative development to Caribbean shores
All the pieces are beginning to come together for the XV Vision Council – Guardians of the Earth “Call of the Water” gathering. This year, the itinerant ecovillage and high-impact social movement has set its sights on Mexico’s Caribbean coast near the border with Belize. The gathering is set for the shores of the magnificent […]
By Tracy L. Barnett For Global Sisters Report This article was the first in a 12-part series on the Web of Life ecospiritual retreat in Darien, Panama, and the many interconnected environmental issues that it touched on. In the tiny country where a slice through the Earth connects its two greatest oceans, Maryknoll Sr. Melinda […]
From Death Squads to the Web of Life
By Tracy L. Barnett For Global Sisters Report In February 2017, while researching the impact of hydroelectric dams on the rivers and rural communities of Panama, I happened across Melinda Roper, a Catholic sister who had played a part in history as the leader of the Maryknolls at the time the four American churchwomen were […]
Towards a New Jurisprudence of the Earth
“Coyote” Alberto Ruz Buenfil has devoted his life to nurturing the bonds that connect humans with the place we inhabit and its other inhabitants, from the beaver to the bee to the wind and the water. His ethic has been influenced by and has in turn influenced movements toward intentional communities, ecovillages and bioregionalism. He […]
By Tracy L. Barnett STEELE, N.D., Dec 8 – We only made it 70 miles from Oceti Sakowin Camp in Standing Rock when a whiteout and fierce winds forced us to seek refuge in this tiny town, where the Kidder County Ambulance District and a wonderful EMT nurse named Mona Thompson took us in like […]
A Historic Day for the Earth in Mexico City
Coyote Alberto on Mexico City’s historic adoption of the Rights of Mother Earth — and the celebration
Translating Transition: New book shares experiences of Spain and Latin America
By Tracy L. Barnett For Magis Magazine Rob Hopkins is one face of the Transition movement, but there are many more. In the Spanish-speaking world and particularly in Spain one of those faces is Juan Del Rio. Del Rio, author of a new book in Spanish on the movement of transition, La Guía del Movimiento de Transición (February […]
Other names, other colors: Transition, Latino style
Above: Transition Network founder Rob Hopkins, left, grants an interview to Raul Velez at the train station in Totnes, England, birthplace of the Transition movement. (Raul Velez photo) By Tracy L. Barnett For Magis Magazine One of the early Transition Town initiatives was launched in Ensenada, Baja California, by an American expat, Robert Frey. Frey went to […]
Rob Hopkins, Transition and the Power of Just Doing Stuff
By Tracy L. Barnett For Magis Magazine Once there lived a permaculturist, far from the city on an old Irish farm. Together with his wife and four children they had nearly finished creating the house of their dreams, a house of cob in a grassy ecovillage with an organic farm. By day he taught permaculture […]
‘The Seeds of the Future, Interconnecting’
FINDHORN, Scotland — It was a meeting of the minds that won’t soon be forgotten in permaculture and ecovillage circles. The Global Ecovillage Network 20th Anniversary Summit (GEN + 20) brought approximately 400 participants from 70 countries co-create a temporary weeklong global community, illustrating through its example the pillars of sustainability: to live together, work […]