Courtesy of Oak Bay News
Photo: Clare Attwell and Gary McDougall are hosting a six-week series of conversations called Re-imagining Life In A One Planet Region for people in Greater Victoria. (Travis Paterson/News Staff)
Humans act as if we have several planets to sustain us when in reality we only have one – that’s the motive behind a new six-week series of Monday evening conversations called Re-imagining Life In A One Planet Region.
It’s a participatory learning program and a pilot project to focus on solutions for people in the south Island to explore new ways of living to sustain life on the planet for future generations.
“In global terms we’re using three to four times our fair share. We need to shrink down to one planet’s worth. At the same time, how do you do that while maintaining a good quality of life,” said Trevor Hancock, of Conversations for a One Planet Region, the group running the program.
The concept of the series is to learn, discuss, understand, imagine, design and create. The six-week pilot explores how residents might live within the limits of the one small planet in a way that is socially, culturally and ecologically just.
The original idea was to hold a series of kitchen conversations, but the pandemic put a pin in that, Hancock said.
“We’re looking at how to create an ecologically sustainable civilization, and we’re not that great at open conversations,” said Clare Attwell, another organizer, who lives in Gordon Head.
A few years ago Oak Bay resident Gary MacDougall quit his job and took a chance on life. He turned over all the grass in his front yard and now farms a small but productive urban garden. He mentors others online who are doing the same.
“The concern is we’re slowly beginning to talk about climate change but not talking about loss of biodiversity, pollution, loss of soils. We’re losing billions of pounds of topsoil each year,” McDougall said. “We radically changed our way of living. There are (everyday) things we can do. We can build carbon-rich soils. This is about discovering how we fit into the model.”
Space is limited to 12 people to keep the conversations going but the goal is to blow the conversations up well beyond 12.
Visit oneplanetconversations.ca for more information.
reporter@oakbaynews.com