UUFSMA: “Permaculture for Climate Change Resilience in San Miguel”

Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Sunday Service

“Permaculture for Climate Change Resilience in San Miguel”

Speakers: Ben-Zion Ptashnik, Victoria Collier

Sunday, July 3, 2022

10:30 am

Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/414604040

Password: 294513

By Joseph Plummer

UUFSMA Board Secretary

Communal action represents a vital response to climate change, and one impressive model of such work in San Miguel de Allende is the topic for this weekend’s UUFSMA Sunday Service. Guest speakers Ben-Zion Ptashnik and Victoria Collier will present the story of the Tikkun Eco Center, a local permaculture project and community farm.

Tikkun Eco Center promotes replicable solutions to climate change and ecological crises on three hectares dedicated to permaculture with organic gardens and orchards, reforestation, solar and wind energy, adobe construction, fish and chicken farming, composting, and water harvesting systems.

The center’s strategy experienced a major validation in 2020 and 2021 when Tikkun pressed two hectares of gardens into service to supply its COVID pandemic food bank and provided supplemental foods to some 60 needy families of mostly elderly people and single mothers. With the subsidence of that crisis, the center now focuses on expansion of rainwater harvesting systems to serve local villages, most of which already ration water while many have scarcely enough for cooking and drinking and none for livestock and gardens. Already showing impressive results, Tikkun’s water harvesting systems collected over a million liters during the 2021 monsoons.

Demonstrating the many dimensions of sustainable practices, in May 2022, Tikkun restored a community reservoir that once served four villages but no longer held water. With a replenishable water source, the project removed more than a thousand truckloads of rich soil from the reservoir basin and spread it on the fields of local farmers. Remaining soil will land on barren grounds for reforestation and a community park beside the reservoir.

Guided by Ptashnik and Collier, Tikkun is emerging as an inspiration for the people of San Miguel to become more resilient in meeting a future of ecological challenges.

An entrepreneur, human rights activist, philanthropist, and environmental leader, Ben-Zion Ptashnik retired as a state senator from Vermont in 2001 to pioneer solar and wind energy and mitigate the climate crisis in Mexico.

A writer, artist and grower, in the early 2000s, Victoria Collier co-founded and directed Tierra Lucero, a non-profit organization located on a permaculture demonstration site designed by Bill Mollison in Taos, New Mexico. She oversees the development of farm and community outreach programs at Tikkun Eco Center.

Unitarian Universalism is a liberal religion. Our Fellowship welcomes people of all ages, races, religions, sexual orientation, and gender identity. You can see what we are like and enjoy previous services at https://www.youtube.com/. Enter UUFSMA in the search box.  UUFSMA donates generously to support nonprofit organizations that provide health, educational, and environmental services for underserved communities in the San Miguel region. Please support this work by clicking on the website home page Donate button.

To participate in our online Sunday Service, visit www.uufsma.org and click on the Zoom Service button on the home page. If requested, enter password: 294513. Sign-in from anywhere Sunday mornings between 10:15-10:25 am CST.

In addition to continuing live Zoom services, UUFSMA has returned to limited in-person Sunday services. Reservations are no longer necessary. Space permitting, guests who show their vaccination card can join the in-person service (and be approved for future attendance).