Niparajá A.C. y Raíz De Fondo A.C. te invitan a:

“Conferencia Pública de Cosecha de Agua de Lluvia y Reforestación Urbana”
Ponente Principal:  Brad Lancaster
Presentación:  7:30PM – 10:00PM viernes, 24 de mayo 2013, Jardín Comunitario Sabores De La Tierra (Nayarit #40, Col. Manglito, a media cuadra de la playa)
Intervención:  9:00AM – 1:00PM sábado, 25 de mayo 2013, Jardín Comunitario Encinas (Calle Guillermo Prieto 1016, esq. Encinas, Col. Centro)

Tú puedes crear tu propio OASIS en tu patio, en la banqueta frente de tu casa, en espacios públicos… Y lo puedes hacer con AGUA DE LLUVIA.

Este evento es gratuito y abierto a todo público, y será hablado en español y inglés simultaneamente.  ¡Invita a quien quieras!

Canalizando el agua pluvial correctamente y a muy bajo costo, podemos crear espacios verdes, recargar acuíferos y reducir inundaciones en sus espacios públicos y desarrollos.  En este evento se reunirá el sector público, turístico, de la construcción y el público en general para aprender de alternativas comprobadas que aumentarán la calidad de vida para todos que habitamos en Baja California Sur.

Brad Lancaster nos visita desde Tucson, Arizona, una región con un clima desértico y población muy parecidos a La Paz.  En su patio urbano de 500 m2 él logra recolectar más de 375,000 litros de agua pluvial al año para alimentar su jardín de plantas comestibles, medicinales y de sombra.  Autor de dos libros sobre el tema, Brad ha diseñado e instalado docenas de proyectos públicos y particulares para capturar, guardar y utilizar el agua pluvial para reforestar paisajes urbanos.

Este evento es gratuito y abierto a todo público.  ¡Invita a quien quieras!

Para mayores informes visita: www.raizdefondo.org
También, si quieres saber más sobre el tema sugerimos que veas la pagina de Brad Lancaster www.harvestingrainwater.com/ y este video en Youtube para tener una idea de que tanta agua podemos recolectar en La Paz….

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Public Conference on Rainwater Harvesting and Urban Reforestation

Theory: 19:30 hrs. Friday, May 24, Sabores De La Tierra Community Garden (Nayarit #40, Col. El Manglito, a half block from the beach)
Practice Installation: 09:00 hrs. Saturday, May 25, Encinas Community Garden (Guillermo Prieto #1016, corner of Encinas, Col. Centro)

You can create your own OASIS in your patio, on the sidewalk in front of your home, in public spaces… And you can do it with RAIN WATER.

This Friday and Saturday we’ll teach you how with BRAD LANCASTER, author of 2 books on the subject and leader in the urban reforestation in drylands.  This workshop is free and open to the public.  For more info visit www.raizdefondo.org   Invite a friend!

(This event will be spoken in English and Spanish simultaneously.)

Join Brad and the San Diego Sustainable Living Institute for this hands-on water-harvesting workshop!

WHEN:
June 29–30, 2013
9 am – 5 pm each day

WHERE:
Blue Sky Ranch
Lakeside, California

HOW MUCH:
$350 for both days
$200 for one day only

WHAT:
This 2-day workshop will teach people how to plant water back in the landscape to create abundant gardens that not only provide food, but also shade, habitat, community, and more—using rainwater and greywater!  When most people think about rainwater harvesting, the first thing that comes to mind is usually a barrel or a tank.  However, there is a far cheaper, more widely applicable, and larger storage capacity method for harvesting rainwater: passive rain gardens or earthworks.  A rain garden or earthwork is a term for sculpting the landscape to direct rainwater to where you need it and away from where you do not.  These rain gardens then fill up and accumulate water every time it rains.  There is no need to mess with hoses, plumbing parts, or expensive pumps. Just stand back and watch rainwater runoff walkways, driveways, patios, and other hardscapes right to where you need it.  In this way you can double or even triple the amount of water that your plants would naturally receive and eliminate erosion at the same time!

Combining seasonal rainwater harvesting with year round perennial household greywater ensures that our gardens and landscapes are hydrated and water abundant.  The greywater portion of the workshop will train people on how to best use greywater with the least amount of effort, materials, and energy.  Greywater is any water generated from a shower, tub, washing machine, or sink that is re-used again for irrigation or other uses.  Brad will show you how to design and install a simple, gravity fed greywater system from start to finish.

In this workshop, participants will learn everything they need to start harvesting rainwater and greywater.  It will be a great opportunity for those with previous experience in Permaculture to take their knowledge to the next level, in addition to providing an excellent foundation to those just starting out.  There will be a mix of theory and plenty of hands-on applications as all participants will assess the site and then install passive rainwater and greywater systems.

FMI: sdsustainable.org/event/rainwater-harvesting-earthworks

Complete information to come.

Brad’s “Plant the Rain” course at Woodbine Ecology Center to be followed by “Garden Like a Forest” with Eric Toensmeier.

Complete information to come.

Meanwhile, check out basic event info at www.sierraecosummit.org.

On Sunday, June 9, from 10 am to 4 pm, Brad will lead a hands-on workshop at Kalyx Studio Learning Center in Bernalillo County’s South Valley.

Participants will learn and practice earthwork techniques used in water-harvesting systems. The workshop will focus specifically on earthworks that can be implemented to improve the efficiency of acequia irrigation for the home garden.

Although we will be constructing a system that combines traditional desert-gardening practices with water-harvesting techniques as applied to acequia irrigation, all of the techniques relate directly to working with rainwater and greywater systems.

Additional information will be posted soon! Meanwhile inquiries can be directed to workshop organizer Leslie Buerk at info@kalyxstudio.com.

Brad will give his classic water-harvesting talk with new material on integrated design.

Time: 6–8 pm

Venue: Garcia Honda Auditorium—George Pearl Hall
University of New Mexico School of Architecture and Planning, Albuquerque

Cost: Free

Refreshments graciously provided by La Montañita Co-op.

We are crossing our fingers that the much-awaited new edition of Brad’s Volume 1 in the Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond series will be hot off the press and available for sale and signing after Brad’s talk. Volume 2 will be available.

FMI: Contact Amanda at Erda Gardens: info@erdagardens.org  |  (505) 610-1538  |  www.erdagardens.org

Thank you to the following organizations for making this event happen!

• Erda Gardens and Learning Center 
• Kalyx Studio
• Permaculture Institute
• Querencia Green
• University of New Mexico’s Sustainability Studies Program

Brad will be giving a version of his classic water-harvesting talk, updated to include more information on integrated design.

Date: Friday, April 12, 2013
Time: 6–7:30 pm

Location: Phoenix City Hall, 200 W Washington St, Phoenix
Room: Assembly Rooms A, B, & C

Free parking at City Hall garage if you arrive before 6 pm!

Event information can also be found on the City of Phoenix’s Water Services Facebook page, at WaterUseItWisely.com and on Water—Use It Wisely’s Facebook page (if not yet posted, it will be soon!).

Thanks to the City of Phoenix for hosting this event on behalf of ADWR and AMWUA as part of Water Awareness Month!

Click image below to visit Community Rebuilds’ website for event details and maps.

Click image above to visit Community Rebuilds’ website

Extreme Composting: Using Human Waste to Enhance Soil in Case Studies from Around the World

A free WMG webinar with Diane Austin and Sowmya Somnath

February 21, 2013

9–10 AM MST

Composting toilets are particularly useful in parts of the world with limited sanitation infrastructure, but there are many barriers to implementation, including social stigma, limited resources, and building community capacity to maintain systems.  Dr. Diane Austin of the University of Arizona and Watershed Management Group’s own Sowmya Somnath will discuss projects they have led in India, Burkina Faso, and Mexico and will discuss the challenges and successes of implementing community-based eco-sanitation projects.

Click here to register for this webinar.

Brad’s nephew Vaughan playing in the rain, the runoff from which is passively directed to our street-side food-bearing, native shade trees.

Climate change is real, it’s well underway, and we need to step up and make it a major part of the national dialog now, as we all work on solutions. The sooner we act, the easier it will be. The longer we delay, the more dramatically the difficulty increases. The better informed we are, the more effectively we can act. In that spirit:

Here are some very informative resources worth checking out which will help you grasp the problem and which offer some solutions:

1. TED talk: James Hansen: Why I must speak out about climate change

2. Bill Moyers & Company: Anthony Leiserowitz on Making People Care About Climate Change

3. “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math: Three Simple Numbers That Add Up to Global Catastrophe—and Make Clear Who the Real Enemy Is,” by Bill McKibben. Rolling Stone, July 19, 2012.

4. www.350.org

As we increase our understanding, the more apt we will be at choosing for ourselves and our families appropriate strategies to help address not only climate change, but other issues we are experiencing now.

Some strategies/solutions that are working for me include:
• Riding my cargo bicycle as my primary means of transport around town—this has greatly improved my health and spirit, while saving me over $7,000 a year.

• Drying my clothes with an old-fashioned solar clothes dryer (a clothes line)—this actually gets my clothes cleaner.

• Passively heating and cooling my home and office with appropriate winter sun access, summer shading, and passive ventilation—this has improved our interior air quality, reduced noise pollution (from air conditioners), and dramatically reduced our energy consumption and utility bills.

• Planting food-bearing, native trees within and beside street-side water-harvesting earthworks in my neighborhood to utilize street runoff as free irrigation for the street trees—this has produced delicious locally-grown mesquite flour, cooled summer temperatures in the trees’ shade by 10? F (5.5? C), reduced flooding, attracted two-dozen different species of song birds, beautified my neighborhood, and gotten more neighbors interacting and working together as a community.

• Powering my home and office with a grid-tied solar PV system, and heating my water with a solar hot-water heater—I no longer have an electric bill, nor a gas bill (energy-conserving strategies, such as the three directly above, enabled me to reduce the needed size and cost of our solar PV system by half.

The upcoming revision of my book Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 1, 2nd Edition, covers these and more solution steps, especially as they relate to the harvest of rainwater, stormwater, and household greywater—along with other simple strategies (such as passive heating and cooling) we can practice at home and in our neighborhoods.

And if you’d like still more climate change resources check out the following:

• The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth, by Tim Flannery, Atlantic Monthly Press, 2005.

• An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It, by Al Gore. Rodale Books, 2006.

• An Inconvenient Truth, video, 2006.

• Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World (and Finding New Ways to Get Through the Summer), by Stan Cox. The New Press, 2010.

• A Great Aridness: Climate Change and the Future of the American Southwest, by William deBuys, Oxford University Press, 2011.