CURITIBA

“The city is not the problem, it is the solution! And, more and more, I’m convinced that it’s not only a solution for a country but it’s a solution for the problem of climate change..."

 

Jaime Lerner, TED TALK 2007, Monterey, California 2007

 

Find out how Curitiba could be improved even more, by urban ecology and permaculture projects and processes. To turn it from "the Greenest city on Earth" (as referred to by THE ECOLOGIST magazine recently) to the worlds leading eco city.. That is the dream of this project

 

We dont have an exact definition as to what constitutes an ecocity, lots of different groups have diferent views, so this tour is about opening up this discussion, trying to get more people thinking about the issues and sharing ideas about what an eco city might be. Since COP15 talks at Copenhagen, Denmark in 2009 the world leaders have finally agreed that we do have a climate problem. Since 2006 over half of the worlds population are now urban dwellers. Currently cities are part of the problem of Climate Chaos, they suck up natural resources, demand massive amounts of energy to maintain them, create huge amounts of wastes and destroy the eco systems around them. But of course, this does not have to ramain the way. We believe that cities are actually the front line of the battle to sustain life. Its possible, with a bit of intelligence, creativity and passion for positive change, we will make the change. Some factors that matter for the creation of more sustainabile cities for our planet: ecological sustainability, mobility, waste disposal, water, density, connectivity, social inclusion, personal security, wellbeing and happiness, education, connection with nature...

 

A million fruit trees for Curitiba ECO CITY.

We have a plan to plant fruit trees during some of our tours, we had an idea of planting 10,000 but felt this number was too low, so now we are going for 1 million fruit trees for the city, thats 1,000,000 trees. This is part of the project to increase urban resilience and to attempt to build up local groups that can start to make positive changge in their barrios (neighbourhoods). "Greening the city, connecting communities" is part of this strategy, the plan is develop local groups along the "Transition Towns" model. Working at building up the culture that thinks along permacultural lines, we hope that soon we will start to develop EDAP's (Energy Descent Action Plan) with these communities.

 

One of the best groups that have been working in this area for many years are ECOCITY BUILDERS..  They started out of Berkley in California, a major hub of radical ecological thought for a long time now, with the "Centre for Ecoliteracty" network also based there, set up by a major thinker in this field; Fritjof Capra. Since 1990 ECOCITY BUILDERS have been having global conferences on the theme, in 2000 it happened in Curitiba, Brazil.

 

In IBQP, Brazil's smart cities node in Curitiba, we have created an ECO CITY GROUP, which is part of the "Impact Innovation Labs" (iiLABS) project. Here we hope to start creating more projects in the city of Curitiba and continue our support of other projects in this area. Previously with the #CheerForPeace campaign we did projects in the favelas (Brazilian shanty towns / squatter communities) of Vila Torres in Curitiba and Rocinha in Rio do Janeiro. Prior to this, Duncan worked on Permacultural projects and ECO CITY GROUP projects in the following places in Europe;

- Banja Luka, Bosnia 2003 

- Botanic Spine, Dublin, Ireland 2005

- Barcelona, Spain 2010

 

We hope the tours appeal to both general tourists who come to Curitiba, specific groups that come for conferences, especially in the areas of ecology, urbanism, architecture etc... and also groups related to many of the educational and business bodies in the city. But we also hope that the tours will appeal more and more to local people, as part of a growing world of local eco tourism, whereby the social aspect of spending time together with goal of improving the actual ecological performance of our own areas becomes more prominant.

 

Eitherway, we hope that whatever happens in terms of Curitiba actually becoming an eco city, that we enjoy the process and have a fine adventure in trying to "be the change, we wish to see in the world"...

VIVA LA PACHAMAMA