Here we are again, close to the end of a very hot summer in Ibiza and like most of the plants and trees in our centre, we’re still quite exhausted from the experience.
Many other places in the world, including most European countries have also suffered dramatic heat waves and droughts, so we’re not the only victims of what could also be described as a massive ‘wake up call’ for humanity in general. No longer can we fail to see that our weather is becoming more erratic, but also that there are other enormous changes taking place which are equally disturbing. With the constant and imminent threat of war, famine and civil unrest threatening to disturb even the most prepared individuals, it’s plainly clear that we need to ‘find our tribe’ and work on some radical solutions to the escalating problems, before our vital energy and will to react is dissolved into despair and compliance.
Of course, some of us saw this scenario evolving a long time ago, but as the human race has a habit of ignoring the truth until coming face to face with its ugly reality, we have left things too late as usual and now need to run fast to avoid total disaster.
At the moment, it’s quite difficult not to worry for the future of humankind on our little planet, but somehow we must find the courage and stamina to climb out of the mess we’ve let ourselves be drawn into. This will require that all of us need to change our lifestyles and we’ll need to think even more seriously about defending the whole of our common life support system, not just the part we are occupying on a personal level. Short term solutions can no longer be accepted as viable, so unless we can somehow ‘all see the same big picture’, we may get lost in the avalanche of different ideologies and fail miserably to find a suitable path towards a more promising future.
We need to see our world for what it is, a truly magnificent but highly complex organism, just like ourselves. We should realise that small changes on a global scale can result in huge positive or negative effects, which may not seem so obvious at the time, but will either help us to save ourselves, or further reduce our chances of survival. It’s clearly time to take control of our own lives and not leave this vital task in the hands of greedy, unscrupulous leaders and bureaucrats who are so intricately involved in the profiteering business, they can’t see that the destruction of our communal home will also affect their own future in a way they don’t seem either willing or able to imagine.
Since Ibiza is a well known cosmopolitan hub of variety, with over a hundred different nationalities living in what could be described as an ‘acceptable harmony’, it should be possible to invent some kind of socio-political system which would serve the interests of the whole population, without anyone feeling left out of the equation.
Of course, Ibiza has its problems just like everywhere else in the word, but it also has a wealth of solutions which are not so difficult to apply, if only we could somehow come together and make things happen a bit faster than at present.
After being resident in Ibiza for more than 35 years (half of my life), I’m convinced that I’m in the right place on the planet and like many of the people I know here, we’d all like to participate in making the kind of world where we can enjoy living.
Here we have a lot of extremely talented individuals and we live in relatively perfect conditions. However, as I’ve said many times before, we seem to need some kind of ‘big spark’ in order to get the communal energy flowing, join all the dots and make Ibiza that ‘example’ of a tourist destination which is both profitable and regenerative.
Regenerative Agriculture
Speaking of regenerative movements, I recently joined a rapidly growing Whatsapp group called ‘Regenerative Agriculture’, composed of mostly local people, many of whom are actively involved in food production here on the island.
Actually, they are planning to have a meeting in Casita Verde on the 28th of this month, so I'm very much looking forward to that.
Greenheart Guide to Ibiza
Another very promising way to join all those involved in the environmental movement, is our new digital Greenheart Guide to Ibiza, which should be published and available for everyone to use at the beginning of next year. At the moment, having listed all the possible entries, we are busy travelling around the island to meet all those who we would like to be included in our guide. This is a very interesting part of the program, but naturally takes a lot of time and energy, on top of all we have to do in order to keep the Casita Verde centre in good condition.
If all goes according to plan, our work on the guide will never finish, as it’s an evolving project, but hopefully it will achieve several goals at the same time. It will give much better visibility to all those entities who are trying to make the world a better place to live, plus it will enable any residents, or visitors to connect directly to the growing offer of environmentally friendly businesses and services on the island.
Hopefully, it will also act as a kind of funnel, into which we can channel all the good energy which is now being generated by so many people who truly wish to help in this restorative and regenerative movement, leading to a more optimistic common objective.
Casita Verde Granada
After our recent visit to the second Casita Verde in Granada, we were encouraged to see many positive improvements to the infrastructure of the centre, including two beautiful yurts, a very stylish shower made from upcycled materials and a more permanent structure to house the solar energy equipment. We also saw that Rey and his team have been very busy taking care of all the olive and almond trees on the property, plus restoring the soil quality. Like its older brother in Ibiza, this more recent creation will take a few years to evolve into a fully operative ecological centre, but we have no doubt that they will eventually arrive to fulfil the original dream and hope that all continues to develop well as time goes on.
As planned, towing our lovely little caravan, we also visited some friends with a project near Cadiz and made a tour of some beautiful ecological centres on the South Western coast of Portugal.
The idea is to use Casita Verde Ibiza as the centre of a new Association, joining a variety of different projects in the Southern Mediterranean and Iberican peninsula. To begin with, these will include the ‘Orada’ centre, the ‘Quinta Alma’, the ‘A Terra’ project and the new project called ‘Assoreiro’, being developed by our Permaculture teacher friend George Cristofis who ran a couple of Permaculture courses at Casita Verde Ibiza and who introduced us to his colleagues in the same area.
Hopefully, our first official meeting or ‘Summit’ will take place during the first two weeks of November this year, but this has still to be confirmed by the other members. More on that story in my next blog!
Casita Verde Ibiza
Having spent the last three years managing most of the maintenance and repair jobs in the centre by myself, together with help from friends, I now feel that it’s time to invite one or two more people to live here and share that responsibility. Also, unfortunately, I damaged my left arm at the beginning of the summer this year and am finding it difficult to do many physical jobs which need two strong arms to perform.
Right now, I’m basically on the look-out for a suitable Spanish speaking male person, who would like to join us here and who is willing to exchange some hours of work each day for food and accommodation. Actually, this is how we’ve operated the Casita Verde for many years in the past and it usually worked out very well for both the centre and the participating volunteers. However, in the summer of 2019 and after more than 20 years of receiving volunteers, we decided to close the weekly fund raising event every Sunday and also to discontinue our volunteer program until we could decide on a suitable new function for the now complete eco centre.
Actually, this proved to be quite a wise move, especially as the Covid Pandemic arrived at the beginning of 2020 and we would have had to close the centre anyway!
These days, we are planning to use the existing installations for periodic workshops and meetings, including the use of some of the accommodations to offer to guests coming from outside of the island.
Meanwhile, Casita Verde continues to be actively involved in the Alianza por el Agua, as well as participating in events like the World Clean-up day, which was held this year on Saturday the 17th of September and co-ordinated by Ayelén Alonso from Plastic Free Ibiza. Following our Ibiza Limpia slogan of ‘Where we go we clean’, myself and a group of four lovely ladies managed to clean the seven kilometres of rural roads from Casita Verde down towards San Antonio, a route I take at least once a week when I go and visit the ibicenco owners of the Casita Verde.
Also, I recently made a presentation about reusing and recycling our waste, which took place in the Royal Plaza Hotel, where I was invited to participate in a special event on the subject of waste prevention organised by the Ibiza Preservation Foundation and supported by the Island government.
Of course, if you would like to visit our centre for a guided tour, or want to know how you can be a more eco-conscious citizen, please get in touch by email, sending your request to info@casitaverde.com, or calling our main office on 608838190 (English and Spanish)
With warm greetings from Casita Verde,
Chris Dews – coordinator
https:/www.ibizafenix.org
https://www.greengorillas.eco