ocyclo

On Tuesday the 10th of August we met with Svenja Fugmann in the Ökostation in Freiburg: a beautiful building in the middle of a Park, built with local materials to show how you can build and live sustainably. The Ökostation is over 30 years old and functions as an education centre. It welcomes people from all over the world, yet the core focus of the education is primary schoolchildren. Moreover, the Ökostation is an important node in the sustainability network in Freiburg and abroad. We talk about how the community of Freiburg is so engaged in sustainable development, and on how Svenja thinks that things are still not going fast enough, but still manages to stay positive.

An interview with Katy Fox, on how she founded the Centre for Ecological Learning Luxemburg: CELL. CELL has local groups as well as national and regional projects on i.e. permaculture, reconomy, sustainable buildings and urban gardening and has a focus on the involvement of citizens in the transition movement. How do you start such an organization? How has it developed from a group of volunteers to the professional organization with 20 employees as it is today? We also talk about Katy’s role as founder, her reasons to take a step back and leave CELL, and come back a few years later in a different role. And for all the people who sometimes feel overwhelmed or depressed by the climate crisis we’ve created, Katy has some poetry advice.

In Den Haag spraken we met Lotte Bronswijk van de North Sea Farmers, een non-profit beweging van meer dan 100 bedrijven en organisaties met zeewier als gemene deler. Ze zetten zich in voor het versnellen en versterken van de duurzame zeewier sector in Nederland en Europa. We spreken over hoe je zeewier eigenlijk teelt, waarom je dat tussen windturbines zou doen en waar je het allemaal voor kan gebruiken. Specifiek zoomen we in op voedsel, want hoe vaak heb jij al bewust zeewier gegeten en op welke manier gaat zeewier deel uitmaken van ons toekomstige eetpatroon?