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ecoCommunities about
taking immediate, local action on climate change ecoCommunities is a joint project of the Ontario Healthy Communities Coalition and ecoPerth, funded by the Ontario Trillium Foundation and Environment Canada. Between eight and 12 Ontario communities will be selected to participate in the ecoCommunities project, between April 2004 and November 2005. While many communities have joined, there is still room for more, according to Alfred Von Mirbach, a co-ordinator of the project and a founding partner of ecoPerth. ecoPerth has developed and implemented a wide spectrum of successful community actions over the last five years, which has been recognized with a number of national awards. These include awards from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ Sustainability Award and Wildlife Habitat Canada’s Urban Stewardship Award. The job of ecoPerth in the new partnership is to develop an eco-Community resource kit and develop workshop curriculum and resource materials, among other things. "We’re looking for communities that already have some capacity (to run workshops and programs)…but a community that doesn’t have many initiatives going," says Alfred. He says Peterborough would be hard-pressed to make a case for this, given the number of initiatives going on in the city. "Peterborough would have to make a pretty convincing argument" to be eligible for the program, says Alfred. The ecoCommunities initiative is not about any kind of strategic planning, he emphasizes. "It’s more like, ‘we like this, let’s get it going within two weeks.’ Everything moves very fast and is action-oriented," Alfred says, noting this has a great effect in attracting people. It creates excitement on the ground and attracts volunteers because it is quick and responsive, he notes. "Having just awareness of climate change is depressing," says Alfred, because people learn the scope of how much there is to do in the world. Conversely, when you’re quickly and immediately involved in a tree-planting initiative, involved in a local food box program or forming a bicycle-user group, one gets a sense they are making a difference. "And they really are," he says. "You don’t have to take the David Suzuki Nature Challenge to make a difference." Find out more about ecoCommunities |
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Peaceful Communities is reaching more people! The Grassroots Review |
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