Fall Bulletin 2006 Vol. 22, No.3

Articles:

Introduction
The Gulf: One Year Later
Plenty Belize GATE Program
News from Plenty Austin (includes an update on Central American projects)
Kids to the Country
Growing Plenty

Dear Friends of Plenty,

One of the problems plaguing American children according to Richard Louv in his excellent book, Last Child in the Woods, is an ailment he calls “Nature Deficit Disorder.” Kids are losing touch with the natural world. We should expand that diagnosis to include adults. We’re losing touch with Mother Earth. Katrina was another loud wake up call. The more we study the effects of Katrina, now classified as the “worst natural disaster” in US history, the more we realize this was also man-made disaster. For one thing the levees were poorly constructed but, even more critically, we’ve been destroying the natural hurricane defenses, the barrier islands and wetlands, along the Gulf Coast for decades. Throw a little global warming into the mix and wham bam, 1,500 dead, 350,000 homes destroyed, 200 billion dollars in damages. And Katrina was only a category 3, a "moderate" hurricane as hurricanes go.

At the rate we, as a species, are destroying the forests, rivers, lakes and natural habitat around the planet, you can see where humanity is infecting itself with nature deficit disorder by shrinking nature — paving it, polluting it, developing on top of it and cutting it down. Almost every relevant geo-political-social-environmental treatise I’ve read in the past ten years is basically saying the same thing. It’s crunch time for humanity on planet earth. We’re on a suicide path and we need to turn around and, like it or not, we have to change how we live if we want the earth to be habitable for our children’s children.

I actually believe projects such as Plenty’s Garden-Based Agriculture for Toledo’s Environment (“GATE”) in Belize with a focus on education can make a more lasting, sustainable difference for feeding people and reversing nature deficit disorder and protecting the earth for our children than a so-called “Green Revolution” imposed top down by any coalition of governments, academics and billionaires. (More on Green Revolutions, pros and cons.) GATE goes into the village schools in southern Belize and gets teachers and kids to create gardens where they learn how to grow food without using genetically modified seed, chemical fertilizers or pesticides, without cutting and burning the rainforest which is all around them, and without polluting the rivers which would then carry toxins into the sea impacting coral reefs and ocean life. They're also getting exercise and having a lot of fun. A project like GATE should be mandatory for every school in America.

Each year, all the schools in the Toledo District gather in the coastal town of Punta Gorda where the Plenty Belize office is located. Each school builds a three dimensional display to illustrate a principle or fact about the environment like the causes of erosion, or the importance of wetlands or the need to protect the rainforest. All the displays are exhibited at a fair, which is open to the public. My impression is that these kids in this very poor country are more environmentally aware and are getting a better environmental education than many kids in the United States. Our children of course are the decision makers of tomorrow, and helping them understand the importance of sustainable agriculture and protecting the environment while, at the same time, producing a healthful supply of fresh food is a direct route to addressing some of the most difficult problems confronting humanity in the 21st century.

Thank you, as always, for your friendship and support.

Sincerely,

Peter Schweitzer
Executive Director