What if Tour, Faro Event, Portugal
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Rob Hopkins Tour – What If?

Rob Hopkins founder of the Transition Movement is touring Portugal starting in the North and reaching Faro on the 26 October. “Transition is a movement of communities coming together to reimagine and rebuild our world.” The tour will include interactive workshops, discussions and conversations. Central to this tour is the theme of imagination, especially in…

Community Garden Visit Spain
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Community Garden and Mobility Plan Update

Yesterday, 13 April I was blessed (I am not sure that is the right word) but anyway it was a gift, to be able to go to visit Community Gardens in Spain. I will do a separate blog post and add more photos and write about the trip tomorrow. But for now the important message…

Community Garden Regulations - Consultation
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Community garden – regulations consultation Tavira

Community gardens are becoming the backbone of communities, which is no less the case locally in Tavira. I recently watched a video from New Zealand about community composting, and it has fired me up because the benefits to the soil and human interaction are enormous. I wonder if Tavira could add a community composting club/project…

More trees less cars
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Mobility plan Tavira Consultation response

We have sent in a personal response to the mobility plan consultation before the deadline of 31 March 2024. Below is the response from CEAT and Ecotopia Activa. See attached document links in English and Portuguese. The Citizens’ movement for CEAT and Hortas Urbanas de Tavira and the association Ecotopia Activa, based in Tavira, announce…

Raised metal bed
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Water, Water, not everywhere

It is raining so I am writing. Jim made a spreadsheet of our water bills yesterday and we talked about what we could do to reduce our consumption, which includes encouraging people who visit to use less water. Tavira Verde is switching off our second water meter on April 10. From June 1st through to…

Mobility Plan - Protest 210324
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Mobility plan – consultation document

I am working my way through the 98 page Mobility Plan for Tavira. I have already sent in a response before the deadline of 21st March. But now because the deadline was extended after the protest outside the Camara I plan to rework my response into something much more coherent and considered. Jim and I…

Water is Life, but it can come to an end poster
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Drought, World Water Day and Saharan dust

On World Water Day, 22 March, the Municipality of Tavira sent out details of a new awareness and information campaign entitled “Water is Life, but it can End.“ I was puzzled at first because this theme is taken from the Lakota phrase “Mní wičhóni” “Water is Life” which was the protest anthem from Standing Rock….

Mobility Plan Protest
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Protest in Tavira – Mobility plan

About 60 citizens and residents turned up at 9:00 a.m. this morning, March 21st, outside the Tavira Council house to register their concerns about the mobility plan. If you have not already looked at the plan, today would have been the final day of the very short eight-day consultation period.  During the protest, two people…

DRAP Tavira
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Are the community gardens in Tavira under threat? – Voicing your concerns

I was contacted by the association ACTIVE ECOTOPIA to translate documents and help spread the message about a possible threat to the Community Gardens in Tavira. Jim and I were part of the protest a few years ago to save the historic Agricultural Centre in Tavira where the Community Gardens are now flourishing.I have translated…

Christopher Columbus Museum
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Solar and Cuba

Electricity has occupied my thoughts in the last week. Solar electricity and charging stations to be more accurate. To help the planet, we invested in an electric car, mainly because we are more or less 100% solar at home. Last week, we took off through the dry, red Alentejo countryside to Evora – a Roman…