Did YOU Turn Your Lights Out?

Of course you did . . . right?  And now you're wondering what to do next?  Why not commit to an hour of world changing, earth saving action every day between now and Earth Day on April 22nd - that's 26 days ... 26 hours of making a difference!  Imagine what you'll achieve!!

Need some inspiration?  Here's 26 ideas to help get you started:

1. Go for a walk
   Get to know your neighbourhood, get some exercise and give your car a rest!
2. Cook up a storm
   Get together with a few friends and fill your freezers with delectable dinners and tasty snacks.  Its fun, its real food - and it will save you money and make eating in easier than take-out!
3. Attend a Council meeting
   Find out what the issues are in your community.  Attend local government meetings.  Have your say.  Get involved!
4. Plant something
   It can be basil on the windowsill, tomatoes in the patio, a tree in the backyard or a glorious edible landscape.  Join a Community Garden (or start one), engage in guerrilla gardening, get some dirt under your fingernails and enjoy the beauty and bounty of nature!
5. Play board games
   Turn of the TV and have a night in with the family.  Board games are fun and teach kids to take turns, to count, to strategise, and to win (and lose) with grace - among other things.
6. Shop local
   Have yourself a local meal - with nothing on the plate that comes from further away than 100 miles.  Invite your friends and neighbours and help spread the word about the great food producers you have on your doorstep.
7. Volunteer
   Donate an hour or two of your time to a good cause.
8. Clean Up
   Take a walk around your neighbourhood picking up litter, or clean up your favourite spot in nature.
9. Read Aloud
   "When parents take time to read aloud, children are touched not only by the stories, but also by their parent's love" Calm and Compassionate Children by Susan Usha Dermond
   And you don't have to stop just because your kids can read for themselves.  Some of my most vivid and comforting childhood memories are of my father reading to me as a 'big kid'.
10. Make Do
    Do you really need new?  Or will what you have already do the trick?  Can you borrow from a friend or neighbour?  Can you repurpose something else to do the job?  Making do isn't just about doing without or being frugal, its creative too!
11. Pay AttentionMake a point of noticing the good things that happen in your day, share them with your loved ones and encourage them to do the same.  Keep an eye out for the beautiful, the unexpected, the inspirational, those little things its so easy to miss as we go about our busy lives.
    "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."- Albert Einstein
12. Go Without
    Try 26 days without buying anything new, or without buying any chocolate/coffee/shoes . . . and use the savings to help pay off any debts or donate it to a cause that moves you.
13. Give
    Give something away every day between now and Earth Day.  Make a point of being generous.
    
14. Bring Your Own
    Take your lunch to work each day.  Take a reusable coffee cup for your morning coffee on the way to work.  Make sure you have reusable cutlery in your drawer at work so you can say no to plastic stuff if you get a take-out lunch . . .
15. Get Rid of Clutter
    Clear out your closets and cupboards of things you no longer need - hold a garage sale, list your goodies on FreeCycle, hold a swap party or donate them to charity.
16. Be Prepared
    Put together a 'going green kit' stocked with reusable grocery bags, a BYO lunch kit, Compact Flourescent Lightbulbs, a water bottle, a travelling coffee mug, a selection of green cleaning products . .
17. Start Composting
    You don't have to have a big back yard to be able to compost your food waste.  A Bokashi system can fit under your bench, or you could set up a worm farm on your patio.  And if you don't have room for much of a garden you can always donate the results to your local community garden or share it with your neighbours. 
18. Build a Community
    Invite your neighbours over for a board games extravaganza, organise a street party, play charades, start a food co-op, have dinner with friends.  Connecting with others is good for the soul!
19. Watch a Movie
    Get inspired, get outraged, get informed.  Invite your friends around to watch a documentary about an issue that you are passionate about or that you feel you need to know more about.  It could be coffee, dolphins, capitalism or sustainable living . . .
20. On Yer Bike
    Ditch your car and bike to work. 
21. Smile
    Make a point of smiling at people.  Even when you don't feel like it.  Especially when you don't feel like it!!
22. Swap Your Old Books
    Update your library with a book swap.  You can do it online, or organise your own neighbourhood book swap.
23. Make It Yourself
    Make your own jam, knit your own socks, bake your own bread . . . pick a project and perfect a new skill over the next 26 days.
24. Help Someone
    Mow your neighbour's lawn, share your umbrella, look after your sisters kids for an hour.  Go out of your way to lend a hand every day for the next 26 days.
25. Do It By Hand
    Do you really need a machine to do that?  Get out your shovel to clear the snow from you driveway, use a rake to tidy up the autumn leaves in your back yard, try opening the cans with a manual can opener, get out of your chair to change the channel.  There are gadgets for everything - and sure they can make life easier, but they use power and make us less active.  How much technology do we really need to live happy, productive lives?
26. Spread the Word
    Tell as many people as you can reach what you are doing to change the world between now and Earth Day.  Share your actions in the comments below, on your blog, with your work colleagues, family, neighbours, the guy next to you on the bus . . . Who knows what movement you will inspire :)

April 2009 Update from SALVEASERRA

By Roberto Lamego - Project Director, April 13, 2009 10:39 AM

Dear donors and project friends,

Once again thank you for your support and donations that makes all this possible.

As we are about to finish our year plantation operations we want to share with you what we are do with our forests and the donated seedlings. Since 1995, SALVEASERRA recovers forests with agroforestry plantations methods in an effort to attract and convince economically land owners and cattle ranchers to protect the environment with the use of these ecological and economical possibilities that brings profits to them and avoids deforestation. As farmers have very little information about these agricultural techniques and procedures, our pilot demonstration areas are used in courses and field training programs to show students and land owners that it is possible to preserve the forest, protect biodiversity and obtain income doing things like we do. We add value to the forest with our planting methods.

All the work starts at the tree nursery and our nursery produces low cost seedlings and costs very little to maintain since it was built under the forest shade and with local materials. We have produced countless seedlings since we started planting and when we buy seedlings they are brought here until definitive planting. From the nursery the seedlings are taken to a place near the plantation areas and then separated by species before planting. Each tree species is planted in its best appropriate ecosystem condition. In our plantations, trees, palm trees and fruit trees are planted in squares that have 3 or 4 meters sides and a great quantity of new plants can be introduced in a small area. This year we opened three new areas for different agroforestry system planting plots. In two of them timber trees were mainly planted and the other one was directed to fruit trees. Remember that when you plant agroforestry systems you never stop planting and there is always room to plant something else in the same area. All plants must have an economical and ecological interest to be there and because these areas are ecologically balanced areas there are no pest attacks and ants are rarely a problem.

But maybe this is the easy part of the act of planting trees as people always forget that if we want these baby trees to become mature trees they have to be inspected and cared for at least 2 times a year and during 4 years. If you don't do this, there is an enormous chance that these very fragile seedlings will die, be it by drought, by fire, eaten by ants, crushed by branches or tree trunks, swallowed by lust vegetation or stepped up by cows. What I want to say is and it is absolutely necessary to have this always in mind, is that for at least 4 years, it is not possible to abandon these young trees after they are planted otherwise many plants will not survive and this international effort in resources and manpower to aid the environment will be useless and meaningless. I am very much concerned with this plant abandon situation because I have witnessed this happen many times here in Brazil and I would not like to see this happen with GlobalGiving Green so dearly donated trees. Donor must consider that in many situations one dollar one tree is not enough to make this sapling become a big, mature and reproductive tree.

I am writing this update in the middle of GlobalGiving's fundraising campaign, “Give a Little Green" and you can be sure that if you want to contribute, every extra dollar our project can obtain from this campaign will become a nice tree, timber, palm tree or fruit tree.

Who knows if some time donors will be able to visit the planting areas and plant a few trees with their hands?

Thank you all very much and all the best,

Roberto Lamego

The "Give A Little Green" campaign at GlobalGiving runs until 28th April. Every donation made before then is elegible for a 50% match - which means you have 50% more impact!!

There is also a "Green Challenge" running until the 28th of April - GlobalGiving Green projects are competing for additional funding. The three projects receiving the greatest number of donations will receive bounty prizes of $5,000, $2,500, and $1,000, respectively - so donate to SALVEASERRA and spread the word!!

You can also help SALVEASERRA by purchasing a WE ADD UP organic cotton t-shirt - 10% of your purchase will be donated to SALVEASERRA.

By downloading and using the How to Make a Difference Toolbar you will generate donations for SALVEASERRA - all at no cost to you!

Take the Earth Hour to Earth Day Challenge

The cool folk at Cool People Care have issued the Earth Hour to Earth Day Challenge. Between Earth Hour on March 28th and Earth Day on April 22nd they're challenging us to do one thing each day that educates someone else as to the very green changes they could make in their life.

Are you up for it?

If you are I want to know. Leave me a comment and tell me what you're doing so I can help spread the word. I'll be posting my EH2ED update every day from the 28th March to 22nd April.

If you're stuck for ideas Cool People Care have a few to get you started:

• Post on your blog what you're doing to make it from Earth Hour to Earth Day
• Send a tweet to your followers that includes a link to an informative article about climate change. (Follow me on Twitter here)
  
• Join a Facebook eco-conscious cause or group each day, or use some of the great eco-conscious Facebook applications.
  
• Send daily text messages to your friends to reduce, reuse or recycle
• Upload pictures of the earth's beauty to your Flickr account
• Tell the world via YouTube about an environmental cause you care about
• Change your email signature, sending people to an informative Web site
  

What will YOU be doing?

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