Local residents join forces to promote sustainability
By ALEXANDRA BISSONNETTE Special to the Daily Press
DOWNTOWN There were no disposable dishes or utensils to be found at the West Coast Permaculture Group’s meeting at the Santa Monica library on Monday. For this group, sustainability is key and the three R’s — reduce, reuse, and recycle — are paramount.
The group met this week for the second time, intent on bringing the community together and sharing ideas and goals.
“We want to take action to green our community,” said Sean Jennings, a member of the group’s steering committee.
The meeting opened with a basic overview of what permaculture is and an outline of its central tenets.
“Permaculture is more than a new way of gardening — it's a sustainable way to live on planet Earth,” said Bill Mollison, the father of permaculture, in 1991.
Despite its long history, permaculture is just now gathering momentum in Santa Monica.
Permaculture aims to care for the planet, and seek peace. All capital, intelligence, good will and labor should be invested to serve those ends, said Traci Reitz, community sus-tainability liaison for the city.
In her presentation, Reitz showed the documentary, "The Power of Community — How Cuba Survived Peak Oil," which illustrates how Cuba turned to urban gardening to respond to an oil crisis. With U.S. gas prices creeping ever closer to $5 a gallon, sustainable living is becoming increasingly popular.
Permaculture actually encompasses several aspects of sustainable living. It is a lifestyle that encourages the use of self regulation with respect to nature’s resources and relies on creative responses to change.
There were a wide range of ideas being presented as innovative methods of adapting to our scarce resources. One man was able to use the sun and a satellite dish to cook a chicken in an hour. Other proposals included installing living walls along freeways with plants that efficiently absorb carbon dioxide, building rain gutters that drain into your garden, shopping at farmers’ markets, and turning resource consuming lawns into gardens that grow food.
While the meeting was abundant in imaginative solutions, the main goal seemed to be to make community members aware that small and slow solutions can make big changes.
“Permaculture can help you be your true self,” said Ray Cirino, a hands-on manufacturer who procures materials from junk yards for what he calls, “natural building.” Sustainable living allows you to “wake up in the morning and know you are doing the right thing.”
The concept requires us to change how we think about things, Cirino said.
“We need to train ourselves to think about problems as solutions,” he said, recounting a time when he used dogs that love to dig up yards to dig him a hole to plant his trees. “They dug my hole, I planted my tree.”
The idea of finding creative ways of accomplishing tasks by using renewable resources is central to the philosophy.
Although Santa Monica is known for being an environmentally active city, the Sustainable City Report Card for 2007 highlighted some serious shortcomings. Although the city received an A for effort in nearly all areas, the actual grades for things like sustainable transportation, housing, and resource conservation were C’s and D’s.
“We have done a lot of sustainable landscaping,” said Dean Kubani, environmental programs division manager for the city. “Within our own projects, the city is doing much more to ensure native and sustainable landscaping.
“The city has a landscape ordinance for both residents and commercial businesses regarding what type of plants can be used. We have regulations to enforce the use of drought tolerant plants,” Kubani said.
In addition, there are grants available for independent projects that design and install sustainable landscaping.
Despite the fact that Santa Monica received less than stellar grades in performance, one resident was quick to point out that many other cities are graded much lower.
There was also a general feeling that the city has been supportive of efforts to enhance sustainability. Despite the mention of a few cases of “guerilla gardening,” bringing the city and the community together was considered favorable.
“The city does a lot,” Jennings said, “but we want to bring the community into it. Together, we can do a lot.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 27, 2008. Read the original PDF.