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.

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.

Flashlight of the CAP

All Plants Bulletin is deeply interested in how the Common Agricultural Policy 2014-2020 is shaping up.

It's not just the fact that we have some rural development communication background. It's easy to see, that EU funding is deeply affecting the food we eat, the countryside we walk on, the livelihoods of people living still outside the urban areas. The air, the waters, the animals, the plants. It's extremely important, yet, the debate is raging on largely outside the public's attention.

The new CAP is almost done, here is how Friends of the Earth describes the situation:

• Members of the European Parliament voted to reject attempts to scrap most of the European Commission’s wish to ensure that farmers carry out some basic environmental measures in order to get public subsidies;
• The rotation of crops, crucial to protect soil and water, reduce emissions, and preserve wildlife, and beneficial for both farmers and the environment, is not included. This will lead to the further expansion of monoculture farming practices and an increase in accompanying pesticides use;
• Large industrial farms will continue to receive the lion’s share of the subsidies while small farmers will find it harder to survive;
• Developing countries will still be expected to deliver cheap raw materials for the European food industry and will not be protected from the dumping of Europe’s surplus production on their markets.

We will be back with more updates on the subject soon. Meanwhile, direct your hardest questions to your MEPs!