| The question that must be addressed, therefore, is not how to care for the planet, but how to care for each of the planet's millions of human and natural neighborhoods, each of its millions of small pieces and parcels of land, each one which is, in some marvelous and precious way, different from all the others. Wendell Berry |
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Mission
Our mission at Tierra del Sol is to implement and disseminate alternative methods of organic food production, ecological restoration and environmental education in order to contribute to the creation of a sustainable society.
Vision
We seek to create a place of reconnection with the natural world, where people interested in caring for the earth and society can exchange knowledge, experiment, learn and develop abilities to:
- Restore and maintain the health of the eco-systems in their local environment.
- Apply and disseminate solutions to demonstrate the big potential of diversified and small-scale food production methods to satisfy the subsistence needs of human communities.
- Influence the decision-making processes in our community, so that individuals involved in organized groups or the government can stop the current destructive process of our Mother Earth, and propose alternative solutions that support sustainable living.
Objectives
- To develop an intensive organic food production system, using simple methods that can be replicated and adapted to the local dry-tropics conditions, to cover the nutritional needs of the permanent residents and volunteers at Tierra del Sol, with the least use of resources and in the smallest possible space.
- Implement simple processing methods and an alternative marketing scheme for selling our surplus organic food production to our local community.
- To carry out ecological restorative work to naturally improve the fertility of the soil and contribute to increase the biological diversity at our site.
- Apply and develop appropriate technologies to carry out our daily work using clean, renewable energy while reducing our carbon footprint to the minimum.
- Establish a permanent nature-based education program for ourselves and other members of our community, especially school age children and youth from Oaxaca, in order to provide a tool to increase the conscience, learning and practice of sustainable living principles.
- Implement an internship program to facilitate an exchange of experiences among participants, and sees to it that the construction, maintenance and development of our site is executed in a timely, efficient and economic way.
- Contribute to our community in such a way that we inspire cooperation and creativity in the face of the challenges presented by climate change and the decline of energy resources at the beginning of the 21st century.
Values
The health of individuals and the welfare of human communities depend on the health of the planet´s ecosystems. The modern vision, that assigns economic values to nature’s sacred elements and living systems, thereby reducing them to mere material goods and services for human consumption, is the cause of the massive extinction of species and the profound economic, social and moral crises of our time.
At Tierra del Sol we hold ourselves to three principles of Permaculture:
1.Care of the Earth
2. Care of the People
3. Share surpluses equitably.
If you want to know more about David Holmgren´s work or download the essential principles of permaculture in a free e-book in English or Spanish in PDF format, go to: http://www.permacultureprinciples.com/freedownloads_essence.php
