Barefoot Beekeeper

To an awesome workshop direct we humbly your attention today: Our friends since ancient times, the bees are the main protagonists of this event, located at the pictoresque village of Kisgyőr.

The yellow-black striped arthropods are essential catalysts in the love life of most plants, but this is not the single reason why we strongly recommend you register to this event by 31th of August, a quite strict-ish deadline for a November event.

Philip Chandler is the ex-beekeeper of the Abbey of Buckfast, leader of international organisation called Friends of Bees. Quite straightforward name for a group dedicated to alternative, organic beekeeping.

He will be presenting in a yet undisclosed location on 13th of November - which is the Hungarian name-day for Sylvia, and holds a three-day-course at the Természet Háza (House of Nature), Kisgyőr from the 14th to 16th about all there is to know about the Top Bar Hive.

The Top Bar Hive is a simple and effective method for alternative beekeeping, with growing popularity, although largely unknown in Hungary.

Mr. Chandler is of course going to be presenting in English, with a Hungarian interpreter, so this is a perfect event for an audience with versatile language skills.

For the lowly price of 5000 HUF you get 3 days of food and accomodation, as well as a Hungarian edition of Mr. Chandler's book, the Barefoot Beekeeper, and of course access to the workshop as well! Hard to imagine a nice and interesting long weekend for less material sacrifice.

If you don't want to miss out, apply at this e-mail address now.

Priorities Of The Culture We Live In

"This seemed to me to be pretty symbolic of the priorities of the culture we live in. Mass death of nonhuman life: 5 minutes. Arguments within the ranks of the governing party of the day about something or other: 10 minutes. It’s a nice little metaphor, and it makes me unspeakably angry.

In fact, I’ve been pretty angry all morning. Angry and despairing: I’ve been stomping around the house like a bear with a sore head. I feel a kind of rising inner rage which makes me want to tear something down, and I don’t know what to do with it. For me, and I’m sure for many other people, the bald and miserable facts in this report simply confirm what I’ve been seeing with my own eyes for years. I know from my own experience that there are far fewer butterflies and birds around than when I was a child, or even a younger man. I know there are fewer flowers growing by the streams and fewer fish in those streams. When I walk in the hills I hear fewer skylarks. This great dying is unfolding all around me: all around all of us."

Read the rest of the essay about being a footsoldier in the Empire you wish to dismantle on the Dark Mountain Project blog.

Make Sense!

Yesterday two french girls came in to GrundKert, a community garden in District 8 to check things out. Apparently they were looking for the Leonardo Garden, the project of KÉK, at the corner of Leonardo and Tömő, but ended up here at the Grund. It’s a quite common event, since the two community gardens are just a stonethrow away from each other, both identified easily by the nearby Corvin köz, a historic site of the 56 revolution, now dominated by a shopping mall.

They represent Make Sense, and are on a Central European tour to get to know people and organisations doing meaningful stuff. Check their tumblr about this amazing trip, here.

What is MakeSense?

Basically people post their world-saving projects, or humble initiatives focused on some social enterpreneurial project, You can check that out, and can offer help, which could mean a click on Facebook share, but could also mean you can contact the organiser and offer your dedicated work on the project, or you could also BOOM it, which means you yourself set up a Facebook event and invite others to discuss what can you do about this certain project you found on MakeSense, all this with a few clicks, integrated in the site.

It’s up to you.

All Plants Bulletin is endorsing You to go and find something which helps our common goal of peace and harmony for all plant and human life on the planet, but of course you can go and Make Sense of anything what makes you tick!

Woods of Dilijan

Part of being wired to the Budapest eco underground is getting to know a lot of cool international events.

If you happen to be between 18 and 25, one of most beautiful scenery of Armenia is waiting for you this summer. The objective is clear, getting together with other people from all over the planet, from your age group, and discuss with them about how to save it.

The event is run by Youth in Action, The Hungarian sender organization is Pandora Deep Ecology Association, if interested, contact them here.

Follow The Energy

If you are interested in maybe the most important challenges and questions human-industrial society is facing now, e.g., how can we cover our energy needs, we suggest you take a look at this elaborate article, winding from oil production history, peak oil, fracking, and methane hydrate - and where this all leads us. Great work, great read.

DunaVision

What do you want to do in you life? How mobile are we?

All Plants Bulletin is a news media dedicated for enhancing the human settlement - natural water - plant life dialogue through our embassy correspondance, which is open to the public in it's totality, so nothing has to get leaked.

We are watching the Római Part storyline closely, and are interested in the groups who want to better the quality of life of citydwellers bringing more of Nature's power within the walls.

As an important Danube-country (which is amongst the greatest rivers of Europe), Hungary is naturally involved in plenty of international projects where countries and cities on the coast of this mighty river can share their thoughts and create action.

DunaVision is just like that, focusing on sustainable solutions. One of their interesting initiatives is Caravan of Change. This trip runs all along the Danube countries, but you can take part in it using two distinct methods:

Stream G:

One is a bike + train tour, from Vienna to Maribor, Croatia, and back North again to Budapest. A pretty cool summer trip complete with workshops and interesting individuals, application deadline is today.

Stream H:

The other method is even more intimately connected to the river: a canoe ride from Vienna to Budapest! An experienced shipman will maneuver every canoe, and luggage is transported separately.


Row, pedal, exchange ideas, generate projects, and have fun with it.

Also, DunaVision is now preparing a summer camp in rural Hungary, which aims to be a follow-up of the highly regarded FöldKelte camp set in a medieval farm in Zirc, three years ago. This camp is rumored to be an important starting point and networking event for many of us involved in the Hungarian ecovillage- and sustainable living  scene. APB will provide more info when it becomes available.

Budapest Bike Mafia Wins 'Innovative Social Initiative' Award at SozialMarie

BBM, who we introduced to our readers earlier, became one of the projects awarded with 1000 euros at the SozialMarie Awards, in Vienna. It's exciting to see that a biker gang killing time with helping homeless people can gather that much awareness, support, and success. Hoo-ah!

But Budapest Bike Mafia is so much more than that. Taking part in the Szimpla Market, cooking and transferring the goods offered by the random buyers of the hip farmer's market to families with many kids is firming BBM's position in the civil underground of Budapest, and shows the vitality of the whole network.

Congratulations, BBM!



There are another developments from the news about the awards that fuel All Plants Bulletin's enthusiasm:

One is that Romani Platni also came home with an award. RP is about roma women of District 9 cooking for strangers and welcoming them for a traditional roma dinner in a homely environment. We could go on and on about breaking social borders and bringin cultures together, but we spare you from that for now. Romani Platni also visited Szatyor once, cooking from the high quality local ingredients of Szatyor's suppliers - a project that came into being from the humble idea and suggestion of the APB editorial.

And here comes the big stuff: 'Against Fuel Poverty with Biobriquette', another Hungarian project, focusing on helping poor families cut their energy bills with renewable, sustainable solutions won the first prize of this year's SozialMarie, and the 15 000 Euros it comes with - a huge boost for a low-tech enterprise, which we will examine a bit more later on here, on the pages of All Plants Bulletin.

What is SozialMarie?

"The objective of SozialMarie is to make innovative social ideas and their realisation known to a broad public. By means of these prizes, Unruhe Private Foundation encourages networking amongst projects. These projects can then serve as examples or models for other interested parties. For the ninth time already, the SozialMarie awards put social innovation before a broad public. About 1700 socially innovative projects have been submitted since the first SozialMarie edition in 2005 and 120 of these have won awards. Every year, outstanding socially innovative projects that strike by their innovative force and creativity compete for the prizes endowed with 42,000 Euro. Eligible for submission are projects from anywhere in Austria, Hungary and the Czech Republic. In Slovakia, Poland, Croatia, Slovenia and Germany for practical reasons projects must not be more than 300km (as the crow flies) away from Vienna." - according to their website.

Defend Your Community Forests

All Plants Bulletin is not stating that you should go out and defend your natural resources yourself, when they need it, forming militias and expressing general civic unrest if necessary, we only share this report about a mexican town where they did so, enhancing and strengthening the ties of the social structure of the settlement, practicing direct decisionmaking, growing trees in greenhouses, patrolling the woods, guarding it from illegal cutting.

Groves of The Florence Suburbs

After a sudden springtime sick-leave, All Plants Bulletin is alive and kicking again.  Let's roll back the wheel of time a few degrees. As we mentioned, we spent some days in Florence, at the very end of March. Our little teaser started off somewhere here:

On one of the last days, we decided to cross the Arno out in the suburbs, where our lodging has been, to reach the historical sites of the southwestern side of the old town from an unusual direction.

We quickly realised, that it's not all concrete and cobblestone, with the occasional parks thrown in. While Budapest was still slumbering under thick blankets of snow, Florence was awash with light rain, blown by quiet winds, with floating grey clouds hovering above with occasional sunlight checking in. The air was smelling of rain and lush pastures over here, which is probably similarly unconventional as March snowstorms in Central Europe. 

Handsome line of houses resembling a historical character, although only decades old.

But it made it all the more obvious, that what difference this plant life could mean in the hellish weeks of the mediterranean deep summertime weeks of July, or August. In the last few years, denziens of Budapest were forced to get accustomed to extreme heatwaves, when layers of African air drifts over the scorched city, and slowly settles in between the multistory buildings, spans wall to wall over avenues. Small parks, groups of trees like this could mean a difference between torment and inconvenience. 

Artificial bathouse, a comfortable resting spot for the summertime predators of mosquitos.

The trees did not disappear until the borders of the innercity. This row can be a much-welcome hideout from the heat, only a few tramstops away from the busiest streets.

The urban tribal marks, called graffiti, are a necessity in every large settlement. The playground is otherwise in perfect condition, and the barks wear no scars, showing peaceful coexistence of human and plant life here.

New Sprouts On The Ashes Of Spain's Crisis-Stricken Economy

"Barcelona is a laboratory for such experimenting with alternative, solidarity-based forms of economy. While many of the city’s businesses are closing, hundreds of cooperatives are being launched there. At the same time, initiatives to recycle equipment and materials are blossoming. In courses financed by the municipal administration, people are learning to sew, restore furniture, and repair household appliances. Neighbours cooperate in urban gardens to raise vegetables for their own consumption. Forms of collaborative consumption are also on the rise. Car sharing is very popular; people are bartering goods and services and jointly organizing children’s day care. Consumers are joining forces to buy directly from farmers in the region, bypassing middlemen. The growing popularity of this "consumo de proximidad (regional consumption) supports organic agriculture at the regional level. The crisis seems to have brought about a new awareness – a growing appreciation of raw materials and resources. But that is not all: the need for structures of solidarity and a fundamental social transformation is on the rise."

Forest fires renew the land, they say. Maybe the collapse of the global system based on consumerism brings a new era of vivid local communities? Spanish society shows signs that could very hardly be described as... decline, desolation, disintegration... much rather like, say, renewal?

Read the full article at the Böll Foundation's website, here.