Elkington Forest Blog

Last week, we had two very different opportunities and two very different media outlets for telling the Living Forest story.
Aaren Madden, writes a monthly article in Victoria’s Focus magazine, entitled “Dream City”, see page 36, in which she interviews people with interesting ideas on how we could improve our cities, and provide for a more sustainable planet. This month she interviewed me and we talked about watersheds, nature deficit disorder among kids, and how most of urban life is so cut off from the wildness of nature that we don’t even know the first facts about our regional ecologies. Most of us don’t know what watershed we are a part of. Do you? I didn’t mean to put Aaren on the spot, but it seems to me that this is a crucial piece of information if we are to take care of our neighbourhoods.

So our conservation communities at Elkington Forest will be a deliberate attempt at re-connecting us with the various features of our watersheds, and then examining the impacts of our lifestyle choices on that watershed.

Then on Thursday, Feb 25th, I presented 20 slides to a packed house at the Victoria Event Centre and told a short concise story about Living Forest Communities. For each slide I was allowed twenty seconds to speak; no more. The structured format of Pecha-Kucha (Japanese for chit-chat) is challenging but fun. It is amazing what information is not essential when you only have 6 minutes, 40 seconds. So what is the priority message for the Living Forest Communities adventure? Saving special places, producing food, building a memorable sense of community, creating forest based jobs, and preventing industrial deforestation — these are the biggies.

Two very different formats and two different angles on the same message: what is it that we have lost in our current urban life, and what is it we need to regain?

Talk to you again, shortly.

Doug
PS, I really like this image of a direct connection between kids and the food they eat.

Kids love having a connection to the food they eat!

Filed under: Doug Makaroff on March 1st, 2010 | No Comments »

On Thursday, January 28th, we were in Vancouver at the home of Joel and Dana Solomon for a joint presentation with Paul Richardson of Renewal Partners. If you don’t know about the Renewal 2 Fund and the 15 year track record of delivering solid returns while investing in socially responsible enterprises, then you should have been there. Or you could just look them up online…and then get in touch.

Here is a firm that has invested equity and provided valuable management input to companies such as Small Potatoes Urban Delivery (SPUD), Happy Planet, New Society Publishers, and Stonyfield Farms. These are emerging new products and services needed for advancing sustainability. Their annualized IRR over the long run has been an impressive 12.2%

Paul and I both gave 15 minute power point presentations about our respective investment opportunities, and then we answered questions. You know there are some intelligent people in Vancouver.

The evening was topped off with delicious food from One Planet Catering, a company that sources locally, has a zero waste policy, and makes everything taste and look wonderful. Michael Kraus, the genius behind OnePlanet, was born in Munich, Germany in 1966 as the grandson of a master baker. His passion for cooking and knowledge of food started at a very early age in the vegetable garden and the kitchen of his grandmother. He completed extensive formal training in Germany as a Chef and Pastry Chef and immigrated to Canada in 1992. Since then he has been promoting well being and environmental awareness through the medium of food. Thanks Michael. You provide a wonderful gift.

Filed under: Doug Makaroff on February 1st, 2010 | No Comments »

Welcome to the New Year. This is going to be a wonderful year for Living Forest Communities. We are pushing forward on technical, engineering solutions to create light footprint dwellings. Our lives have also been enriched with soul lifting beauty and scenes of splendor.

We are currently exploring a variety of sources of renewal energy for heating and cooling. On the site, we have discovered a massive aquifer, with a proven supply of 100 gallons of water per minute, for 100 days without recharge. This source would be adequate for all of the domestic water requirements, as well as a looping geo-thermal heating/cooling system. We are currently looking for either a private/public partnership or a joint venture partnership to capitalize this utility.

On the other hand, there is a large amount of slash from previous timber operations on site and close by, which could be used in a high-efficiency bio-energy heating plant. As part of the forest management program under FSC certification, we will be doing a certain amount of on-going thinning both for the health of the forest and to reduce risk of forest fires. The reduction of “ladder fuels” will prevent a ground fire from jumping into the canopies. While it is important to leave some material on the ground for soil replenishment, excess thinning can be used as part of a bio-energy program.

Also, the cost of solar panels has decreased and the efficiency has dramatically increased. So we have a lot of options and we are looking into all of them.

The more we spend time examining the options for creating a sustainable conservation community at Elkington Forest, the more we bond with the land. Anyone who is thinking of living at Elkington Forest, (and I know there are lots of blog readers who are contemplating this) you should join us on the site visits that we regularly organize so that you can really get to know the land.

For how can you really take care of the land and love it, if you don’t know what is there? Where does the snow melt first? How does the water get filtered as it passes through the various ponds and streams? Where are the Arbutus trees? Have you seen one of the relatively rare red-legged frogs? Have you been inspired by the beauty and charms of this lovely hillside in all of its seasons and colors? These are just some of the things that we observe during the site visits. What other inspirations you take away… well that is up to you.

On our way up the hill recently, we were greeted by this beautiful scene. It stopped me cold…I thought “How many people in the world have a front door like this?”

Here is the main road up to the top of Elkington Forest

Please stay in touch, both through this blog as well as through our facebook page. And a big welcome to the 80 new facebook page fans who have joined in just the last 10 days.

Doug Makaroff

Filed under: Doug Makaroff on January 12th, 2010 | 2 Comments »

On Monday, Dec 14th, I went to the wonderful Fernwood Inn for the annual Christmas Dinner for the BC Sustainable Energy Association. After dinner, and some singing led by BCSEA President, Guy Dauncey, they asked for a quick 5 - 10 minute update from three different projects. Living Forest Communities was the third to present and all of the BCSEA members seemed pleased to hear that we were making progress, and getting closer to an actual ground breaking ceremony. Most of the executive had been up to the property in August as part of the annual summer field trip.

After I spoke, Michael Nation, the Chair of the Victoria association, said something very interesting. He said that he had always felt like he knew what a sustainable community looked like. It was something like Dockside Green or one of the other laudable platinum LEED projects. But he said, more than 66% of BC is covered with forests and Vancouver Island has a similar percentage of coverage. He asked,

“What does a sustainable community look like in a forested rural region? Do we really know how to do rural sustainability?”

Because if we don’t have a well thought-out model for a sustainable community in a forested rural setting, then we are not applying sustainable principles to the majority of our region. Even though we live in this forested region, we are not applying what we know as sustainability professionals in BC, to one of our most severe problems - deforestation. He concluded by saying that we need to support the concept of conservation communities, and support the Living Forest Communities model.

It struck me that the LFC business model started as a means to finance a replacement to industrial clear-cutting, but it has become much more. With the new emphasis on food security, fire prevention, alternative energy, clustered hamlets, localized economic development, eco-tourism and minimizing single occupancy vehicle trips, we are now creating a climate change demonstration model community. Elkington Forest is a community planning for a transition to a low carbon future.

Thanks Michael, for a simple Christmas gift.

And to all of you, who read these blogs, some of you quite regularly, I want to wish you all a peace-filled Season of reflection and warmth, kindness and joy. Thanks for the support and encouragement.

Doug

Filed under: Doug Makaroff on December 21st, 2009 | No Comments »

Beautiful views from the Ridge View Hamlet platform

Yes, with the great weather, we have been doing some preliminary layout of the lots, mostly in the Trailhead Hamlet, but also within the Ridge View areas. Tim Hewett, on the left, just finished his Master’s degree in sustainability planning, and is starting a volunteer internship with us. Currently he is compiling our GIS (Geographic Information Systems) data with our lot layout information, so that it can be handled more easily on a GPS (Global Positioning System). Now it is easier to envision where the homes will be located, where the central courtyard will be and how they relate to the Trans-Canada Trail and amenities.

We frequently have people offering to provide free assistance or technical/manual labor for this concept - and we appreciate this grassroots level of support. Alison Clark, one of our part-time administrative assistants also came to us initially through a year long volunteer internship that she did while she was finishing her degree at UVIC. Thanks to Tim and Alison for their generosity.

I also have really enjoyed the days spent bushwhacking and cutting line. This takes me back many years to when I did surveying/engineering work as my first job out of university.

Doug Makaroff

Filed under: Doug Makaroff on December 10th, 2009 | No Comments »

November 16th

On a wild and stormy night, at the Anderson Green Plan offices at 1655 Cedar Road in beautiful downtown Cedar, I made a presentation to the six of eight Board members of MISSI who were able to attend.

The organization - http://www.missimidisland.com/ - is examining sustainability options in light of the surrounding community’s interests, rural character and land use options as well as a proposal developed in the 1980’s for a biosphere reserve extending through the Gulf Islands and the surrounding coastal area. With present deliberations underway for a National Marine Conservation Area to be established to the north of the Southern Gulf Islands National Park, the Cedar-Yellow Point area may serve as a natural area for a complimentary buffer and land component.

The organization is contributing to the RDN Regional Growth Strategy and Official Community Plan reviews. Their vision is global and they are concerned about the larger challenges such as global climate change, food security and peak oil. They act locally and are taking steps to help determine the best practices which could guide sustainable community development in the area.

The discussion after the presentation focused on the applicability of the Living Forest Communities model of Conservation Communities to a forest corridor stretching from Yellow Point to Cedar. Both Jack and Doug are excited about this initiative and committed to working with the group and landowners in the area to help achieve this goal.

Jack Basey

Filed under: Jack Basey on November 23rd, 2009 | No Comments »

vancouver-island-sustainable-wood-products-conference-and-tradeshow1

This friday there will be an interesting conference in Nanaimo for all sustainable value-added wood manufacturers on Vancouver Island. In fact, this conference will be of interest to anyone who loves wood or who cares about creating more sustainable forest practices in BC. I have been asked to present at the panel of Architects, Designers and Developers.

If you are located up island, please consider attending. Gord MacDonald of MacDonald & Lawrence Timber Framers will be there as well.

Filed under: Doug Makaroff on November 18th, 2009 | No Comments »

I absolutely loved the conference at Regent College this past weekend. It was interesting to see all of the folks keen to put theory into practice and start transformational enterprises. Most of the participants recognized that a social enterprise is a complex venture to undertake because of the various social/ecological or other values that are in the forefront.

In presenting Living Forest Communities as a case study, I was answering questions about how I got started and what were the biggest obstacles. A major question was to define in what ways was a social enterprise different from “business as usual”.

In our case, the donation of the timber rights and a sizable portion of the profits to the Trust for Sustainable Forestry, means that the entire business revolves around the larger mandate of expanding and enhancing the practice of ecosystem-based management of the forests.
see:

http://conferences.regent-college.edu/marketplace/

Filed under: Doug Makaroff on November 15th, 2009 | No Comments »

Pamela Irving’s Trip to Vancouver IslandI wanted to thank Pamela Irving for again mentioning Elkington Forest in this Nov 4th article  that appeared in the Alberta-based Country Market paper. That was a brilliant day and Pamela really seemed to understand and cpature what we are trying to do by creating conservation communities. This is the fourth or fifth article that has hit Alberta.

Hey, if you are from Alberta, give us a call, or better yet respond to the blog. Lately we have had a lot of blog readers from Alberta, and a good number who come to visit the Elkington Forest site when they are on vacation here.

Thanks

Doug

Filed under: Doug Makaroff on November 6th, 2009 | No Comments »

Filed under: Doug Makaroff on November 1st, 2009 | No Comments »