Common Vision has been supporting the GreenFriends Tree Planting Project this winter in a reforestation project that has planted over 900 trees so far. This project integrates permaculture water catchment strategies that will help to water this forest through its life.
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Monday, January 26, 2009
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Benefit Tour
Thank you to everyone who supported the recent series of Common VIision’s Benefit Concerts by volunteering, attending, and spreading the word! It was a fun and busy week with four concerts in four cities across Northern California. The events were attended by over 1000 people. The music ranged from world electronic to Country mystic jam rock! Artists included, Youssoupha Sidibe, Cheb I Sabbah, Lynx and Janover, Jah Levi, Freedom, Diane Patterson, Arjun and Guardians, The Human Revolution and Shakina. The events raised more than $14,000!
Thank you to Nutiva for your sponsorship of the Green Fest after party event and thank you for your continued support!
Also thank you to Zak Human for sharing his artistic genius in support of the project.
The fliers were beautiful!
Can't see slide show? It's a problem with Internet Explorer. > Get FireFox It's free and better.
Thank you to Nutiva for your sponsorship of the Green Fest after party event and thank you for your continued support!
Also thank you to Zak Human for sharing his artistic genius in support of the project.
The fliers were beautiful!
Can't see slide show? It's a problem with Internet Explorer. > Get FireFox It's free and better.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Planting a Food Forest
Common Vision is continuing to support Amma's GreenFriends in their reforestation efforts at the Bay Area's MA Center. This summer Common Vision helped to establish a huge water harvesting feature to help sustain the trees through the summer. (read about this water harvesting) During the Thanksgiving week over 200 adults and children helped to plant 700 native trees and shrubs. Each of the species was chosen for its edible berries or is nutrient building capacity. The planting are the backbone of what will likely be the largest permaculture food forest in Northern California.The dense planting of ground-cover, nitrogen-fixing shrubs and trees, berry producing bushes, and nut- and fruit-producing trees is an attempt to mimic Nature's natural processes - except in fast forward. It would take Nature some hundred years to transition from grass land to forest. With a little observation of Nature's principles and processes, we expect to establish the foundations of a resilient forest eco-system within the decade. In addition to Native trees and shrubs, we will also be including some non-native human favorites like apples, pears, pomegranates, persimmons, and jujubes (Chinese dates).
If you would like to get involved in this project go to Green-Friends.org.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Catching the Rain, Growing a Forest
Can't see slide show? It's a problem with Internet Explorer. > Get FireFox It's free and better.
Common Vision, recently orchestrated a momentous workshop at the MA Center in Castro Valley with international environmental organization GreenFriends. Geoff Lawton, considered by many to be the world’s best Permaculture Designer and Teacher, flew from Australia to teach this 3-day course titled “Permaculture and Reforestation: Harvesting Rainwater, Growing Food Forests, and Planting Ecosystems.” Over fifty course participants, including MA Center Residents and environmentalist from across California and Oregon, learned from Geoff how to harvest thousands of gallons of water in the landscape, design a resilient ecosystem, generate soil fertility, and produce food and timber in abundance.
The MA Center has almost 400 acres under its stewardship. Over 150 of these acres are treeless with a clay soil that has been compacted from at least a half century of intensive and insensitive cattle grazing practices. The compacted clay coupled with the lack of trees makes the ground very susceptible to slumps and slides in the rainy season. Yet, by the end of the summer the hillsides are crusted over with a think shell of dry, hardened clay. Deer, pigs, gophers, and voles graze and burrow for any food sources remaining at the end of the harsh, dry summer.
During the 3-day workshop, Geoff made clear that in order to grow trees on these hillsides we need to “fast-track” an ecological regeneration. While nature may take hundreds or thousands of year’s to recovery in this area, human beings can support the successive unfolding ecological processes and see recovery in less than a decade. First step, says Geoff, is water design. Without water there is no life. Before the cutting of trees and soil compaction by the cattle, this land was a living sponge that soaked rainfall into the ground. Currently the majority of rainfall tends runs fast along the surface into the valley and out to sea.
To help soak water into the landscape, Geoff led the group on an exercise to site, survey, and dig a massive ditch on contour (level no slope up or down) to catch rainwater running down the slopes, slow it down, spread it out, and soak it into the hillside. With the help of Rusty Davis and his excavator, the course dug over 500ft of this on-contour trench, known in permaculture as a swale. With each rain, even if it be moderate, the swale will sink over 10,000 gallons of water into the soil. This water slowly travels under the soil, and remains available throughout the summer for trees to drink and grow.
The MA Center is becoming a model of sustainable design for ecological regeneration and reforesting Bay Area hillsides. We are learning that through knowledge of how ecosystems evolve and a willingness to support nature’s processes, human beings can truly be a positive force in the environment. Common Vision looks forward to supporting the GreenFriends planting trees with diverse people from across the Bay Area and to inspire the larger community into compassionate action for Mother Nature.
Common Vision, recently orchestrated a momentous workshop at the MA Center in Castro Valley with international environmental organization GreenFriends. Geoff Lawton, considered by many to be the world’s best Permaculture Designer and Teacher, flew from Australia to teach this 3-day course titled “Permaculture and Reforestation: Harvesting Rainwater, Growing Food Forests, and Planting Ecosystems.” Over fifty course participants, including MA Center Residents and environmentalist from across California and Oregon, learned from Geoff how to harvest thousands of gallons of water in the landscape, design a resilient ecosystem, generate soil fertility, and produce food and timber in abundance.The MA Center has almost 400 acres under its stewardship. Over 150 of these acres are treeless with a clay soil that has been compacted from at least a half century of intensive and insensitive cattle grazing practices. The compacted clay coupled with the lack of trees makes the ground very susceptible to slumps and slides in the rainy season. Yet, by the end of the summer the hillsides are crusted over with a think shell of dry, hardened clay. Deer, pigs, gophers, and voles graze and burrow for any food sources remaining at the end of the harsh, dry summer.
During the 3-day workshop, Geoff made clear that in order to grow trees on these hillsides we need to “fast-track” an ecological regeneration. While nature may take hundreds or thousands of year’s to recovery in this area, human beings can support the successive unfolding ecological processes and see recovery in less than a decade. First step, says Geoff, is water design. Without water there is no life. Before the cutting of trees and soil compaction by the cattle, this land was a living sponge that soaked rainfall into the ground. Currently the majority of rainfall tends runs fast along the surface into the valley and out to sea.
To help soak water into the landscape, Geoff led the group on an exercise to site, survey, and dig a massive ditch on contour (level no slope up or down) to catch rainwater running down the slopes, slow it down, spread it out, and soak it into the hillside. With the help of Rusty Davis and his excavator, the course dug over 500ft of this on-contour trench, known in permaculture as a swale. With each rain, even if it be moderate, the swale will sink over 10,000 gallons of water into the soil. This water slowly travels under the soil, and remains available throughout the summer for trees to drink and grow.
The MA Center is becoming a model of sustainable design for ecological regeneration and reforesting Bay Area hillsides. We are learning that through knowledge of how ecosystems evolve and a willingness to support nature’s processes, human beings can truly be a positive force in the environment. Common Vision looks forward to supporting the GreenFriends planting trees with diverse people from across the Bay Area and to inspire the larger community into compassionate action for Mother Nature.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Green-LA features Common Vision
Green LA is a non profit dedicated to unifying the environmental movement in Los Angeles. They strive to illuminate the vast spread of environmental organizations and projects at work in the city while promoting cooperation and broader grassroots participation. Green LA featured Common Vision in their five-minute trailer that is launching their project.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Permaculture/Reforestation at MA Center
The MA Center is the US headquarters for international humanitarian and spiritual leader Mata Amritanandamayi also known as Amma. The Permaculture and Reforestation course with Geoff Lawton this August will be designing this property and the laying the groundwork for a broad-acre reforestation project. The below information will introduce you to the design project in words, pictures, and interactive 3-D maps.
1. Download: Client Brief for the MA Center
2. View: Photos, the Topographical Map, and Google Earth Images of the MA Center with descriptions. In the Flickr slideshow interface, click the "i in circle" to reveal the information about each image. > Click here
3. If you are really ready to get to know the site, download these google earth places.
( Don't have Google Earth? Well, it's time. > Click here )
If you open these files with Google Earth than you can fly around them and get to know the lay of the land. This is a super powerful tool for Permaculture Design.
Download: All MACenter places in a .zip file
OR
Download them one at a time:
Property Boundaries
Topo Map
Design Area 1
Design Area 2
Cow's Pasture
1. Download: Client Brief for the MA Center
2. View: Photos, the Topographical Map, and Google Earth Images of the MA Center with descriptions. In the Flickr slideshow interface, click the "i in circle" to reveal the information about each image. > Click here
3. If you are really ready to get to know the site, download these google earth places.
( Don't have Google Earth? Well, it's time. > Click here )
If you open these files with Google Earth than you can fly around them and get to know the lay of the land. This is a super powerful tool for Permaculture Design.
Download: All MACenter places in a .zip file
OR
Download them one at a time:
Property Boundaries
Topo Map
Design Area 1
Design Area 2
Cow's Pasture
Reforestation with the National Forest Service
As May gave way to June, most of Northern California was experiencing summer. Meanwhile Common Vision and members of the National Forest Service traveled together up to nearly 8000 ft where the last snows were just melting and where just a few short years ago fire torched the forest.16 Volunteers from San Francisco, Grass Valley, Sacramento, Mendocino, and LA came together to replant 4 acres of the burn site and reconnect with our ability to heal ourselves and the earth. Our team planted over 1,000 red fir, white fir, and sugar pine trees to jumpstart the forest’s recovery from a 2006 wildfire.
The planting became even more of an adventure when the planters were joined by unexpected rain-clouds. Not to be deterred from reaching the day’s goal, planters donned trash-bags as ponchos and planted on!
The experience was so positive for both the Common visionaries and the Forest Service that Vicki Stoll, partnership coordinator for the Forest Service, urged the Common Vision staff to work towards inviting groups of urban youth to a planting project in 2009! We look forward to continuing stewardship of public lands and to help expand this collaboration to more organizations and tree planting enthusiasts!
Thank you to the National Forest Service and to all the reforestation participants for caring for our national treasure and for creating such a memorable experience! Special Thanks to Viki and Paul who were diligent in making this project happen. Your dedication to the forest is inspiring. Thank You!
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