permaculture

[Gary Higbee <garyh@darkwing.uoregon.edu>]

The following is a message I am posting for some friends.  Please contact 
them if you are interested in these courses.  They have more detailed 
information available.  In addition, I will send another post in a couple 
weeks, with more information.  Please pass this along to any person or 
organization you think might benefit from such a course.  These people 
have been at this for some time, and my experience with their other 
events has been very positive.


        CONTACT PERSONS:
        Ianto Evans or Michael Smith
        Zopilote Association
        Box 123, Cottage Grove, OR 97424
        Phone/FAX (503) 942-3021

Two Interconnected Courses in
ALTERNATIVE INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

        July 1-13 1995,  near Eugene , Oregon USA
        August 6-19 1995 in the mountains of Tlaxala, central Mexico 

        After fifty years of Overseas Aid and International Development, 
the world's poor are worse off than ever.  Attempts by governments and 
large organizations to develop traditional societies by making industrial 
consumers of the richly cultured Southern nations have accelerated 
environmental destruction and social chaos everywhere.  We create new 
poverty with every dollar we spend.

        But one small private group has a unique record of success in an 
alternative style of international development, based on bringing 
together mixed groups of professionals from the North and South to share 
perspective, skills, experiences and solutions.  Zopilote Association is 
a collaborative of architects, foresters, sociologists, agronomists and 
ecologists from Europe, North and South America.  All members are expert 
teachers, extensively traveled and experienced in rural development.  The 
core group have worked together since the 1970s offering training in 
permaculture, sustainable forest management, organic food production, 
appropriate household technologies, land restoration and rural 
self-reliance.   Zopilote Association takes no government or 
institutional funding, yet has provided a decade of service in Latin 
America, run more than thirty sustainable development courses, given 
hundreds of scholarships to Latin Americans, and influenced major shifts 
in national policies.

        In July of 1995, Zopilote will add an international course in the 
US.  We will bring skilled Latin Americans to Oregon to help us learn 
from their traditional systems of agriculture, land care and community 
life.  Then, in August we will take a dozen selected US/Europeans to 
Mexico and expose them to everyday realities by living and working 
closely with Latin Americans and Native Americans.  Both courses include 
keynote talks by international specialists and lots of field trips.  We 
emphasize hands-on learning, exploring the cooperative relationship of 
humans to our environment which we must develop if we are to survive the 
21st Century.  Specific topics include:  ecological food production, 
permaculture, erosion control, drought management, sustainable forest 
management, regenerative agroforestry, strategies for strengthening 
family and community, natural building and appropriate household 
technologies.  Both courses will be taught and translated in English and 
Spanish.

        The cost of the Oregon course is $750, Mexico $1150, both $1750, 
including tuition, all meals, rustic accommodations and field trips, but 
not travel to and from the site.  A $200 deposit ensures a place.  10% 
discount for 60-day advance payment, 10% surcharge for any payment mailed 
within 15 days of the course.  Some scholarships are available for Latin 
Americans, Africans and Asians, but we cannot cover transportation costs.