Report from the Appalachian region

By Steve Owen
Appalachian Coalition for Just and Sustainable Communities

Conference panel: (l to r) Richard Couto, Marc Edelman, Barbara Ellen Smith, Arturo Escobar, Dorothy Holland, Helen Lewis, and Pat Beaver

Finding common ground with Latin America

Appalachian State University, in Boone, North Carolina was the site for a unique conference bringing together Latin American and Appalachian scholars to find common ground in these differing parts of the world. The conference was entitled "Whose Development? Whose Movement? What Justice? What Sustainability? Perspectives from Latin America and Appalachia".Jeff Boyer, a CitNet steering committee member and founder of the Goodnight Family Sustainable Development Program at ASU, organized the event. Panelists were: Richard Couto, Arturo Escobar, Marc Edelman, Steve Fisher, Dorothy Holland, Helen Lewis, Barbara Ellen Smith, and Carol Smith. Co-facilitating with Boyer, were other ASU faculty, Pat Beaver and Cynthia Wood. The conveners are working on proceedings to be released shortly.  

Appalachian sustainability best practices database launched

The Southern Appalachian Man and the Biosphere (SAMAB) project has been working for the past year to develop an online resource capable of matching regional best practices for sustainability based on the criteria you specify. The site is called Finding Sustainability Practices in Appalachia. The Appalachian Coalition has been participating in the project and would like to include your best practices. Please provide us with an abstract and we will add it to the site. Visit the database at www.nbii.gov/datainfo/bestpractices/.

Coalition member interviewed in documentary film

Wilburn Hayden, who directs the master of social work program at California University of Pennsylvania, was interviewed for the 3-part documentary series, The Appalachians. The film had its first public screening at the American Conservation Film Festival, in Shepherdstown, WV, on November 6. Read about the film at www.sierraclub.org/appalachia/film/

Film circulation reaching deep into community

The Appalachian Coalition has started a film loan program that is working very well. In rural areas it is often difficult to attend a formal film screening, but this loan program connects neighbors, builds local networks, and keeps informative films circulating in rural communities. End of Suburbia, a film about peak oil and the economic and social relocalization has been a very powerful discussion piece in the screenings we have had so far. We have a few DVD versions and would like to circulate them far and wide—free and on the honor system. We are planning a Peak Oil/Community Development series for 2005.

Coalition partner Rural System seeks collaborators

Rural System is the culmination of years of experience and thought, and the brainchild of Bob Giles in Blacksburg, VA. Bob's many years on the faculty at Virginia Tech's School of Natural Resources led him to see the relationships between environmental preservation and economic wellbeing and Rural System is the result. To learn more, you may access the website through at www.ruralsystem.com. If you have an interest in developing this concept and want to join the conversation, please contact Steve Owen.