An unusual call for help

Yesterday our crowdfunding campaign finally went online!

We’ve been looking for a way to get financial support, which is crucial in the beginning phase of a project like ours. Most projects go through a difficult phase of financial distress once the initial capital is used up, and mostly the project is far from making any considerable profit at that point. We are at this point now.

Money

Money is a difficult topic. Even though we would love to live in a world with a kind of gift economy where we can exchange goods for other goods or services (without taking the detour over money), we are yet living in a world quite different from what we wish it to be.
Fact is, we still need money to a certain amount.

• Since we are not yet fully sustainable (it’s a long way if you start with a palm oil plantation) we still need to buy some additional food to ensure we have a balanced diet.
• Starting with an ecologically devastated environment also means you have to invest a vast amount of work and money to be able to replace the lost nutrition.
• We would also like to fulfill the basic human need of communicating with friends and family, which in our globalized world requires the use of the internet – which in turn can be useful to spread the word about alternative lifestyles, educate yourself, and share information.
• Furthermore, there are currently just the two of us, so we can’t possibly keep up with doing everything. Our natural buildings need to be maintained – natural materials have a great performance, but relatively short durability. For example, it is a lot of work to make roof tiles from grass or palm leaf, so we much rather pay some of the village’s elders who have the time and the skills to produce them faster than we ever could.
• There are obsolete electrical gadgets that desperately need to be repaired or replaced with more energy-efficient ones.
• We have future plants to expand the project and help our partner project Numthang III in Ratchaburi.

Most alternative lifestyle experiments are funded on a no- or low-profit basis, which means that, through holding up an ideal of an alternative to consumer capitalism, they don’t even try to be competitive in an economic sense. This makes sense when we consider what globalized consumer capitalism does to the environment.

Why support us?

It is obvious at this point in history that something is fundamentally wrong with the way we live. We are in desperate need for an alternative to ensure the survival of humans and millions of other species on this planet. Around 10,000 species go extinct every year, we lose an average of 30 soccer fields of top soil per minute, the Amazon rainforest is being cut down at a rate of 50 soccer fields per minute,  irreplaceable resources are extracted and burned at an ever accelerating speed, accumulating an ever increasing amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which in turn threaten more species and destroy more biodiversity.
The biggest challenge of our time – mitigating the effects of climate change, which will otherwise lead to droughts, wildfires and crop failures, rising sea levels, but also increased likelihood of storms, hurricanes, floodings, landslides – is yet to be seriously approached on a global scale.

If you feel helpless and hamstrung in the face of such utter destruction, be advised that you are not alone. You’re not the only one who fears the continuation of this devastating trend and what it might do to the Earth in the years to come. Deep inside you know we have to do something as soon as possible, but you don’t really know what. You could, like us, try to create an alternative –  take radicals steps to reduce consumption, strive to become independent from global trade and industry, and heal your landbase: plant trees, restore the topsoil, and help creating a stable ecosystem around you. But this is easier said than done.
You might not yet be able to make radical changes in your own life.
This is okay, take your time. It is a big step to go into a more sustainable direction, and the preparations need some time.
You might not even want to make radical changes in your own life.
And that is alright. You don’t have to. But it is important to support those who do, even if it’s just to ensure the continuation of your standard of living. Most certainly the resources and the available space wouldn’t be enough if all 7.5 billion of us pursue a western middle-class standard, so it is important to open up an alternative for those willing to consume less and live more locally.
After all, the planet can sustain some of us living a western middle-class lifestyle, it just can’t possibly support all of us living that way.

In every case, it is of immense importance to support the people who already try to make a change. Those people, like us, often find themselves in financial difficulties, since they do not take part in the pursuit of money in the global running wheel of the economy – at least not more than they absolutely have to. This doesn’t imply laziness, it just means that those people work for something else than money – if you work for the health of your landbase, you usually don’t receive paychecks, but get rewarded with singing birds, elegant butterflies, chirping crickets, beautiful flowers, delicious fruit and clean water.
If you don’t want to burn all bridges and live an isolated life as a forest hermit, but still want to be a member of this society to some extend, you need to use some money.

Everyone who works a regular job and has an average income has a surplus of money that can be used at will. We carefully suggest that at least a tiny part of this financial surplus could be used to directly or indirectly aid our dear Mother Nature, who in turn selflessly supplies water, air and food.
A few dollars less might make no considerable difference to you, but it can do wonders when used in an effective manner by those who dedicate their life to Nature and therefore already know how to best heal their landbase – if just enough people heal their local landbases, we have a chance to make a difference.

Patreon

Patreon is a platform which, as opposed to regular crowdfunding platforms, doesn’t give you a one-time boost, but rather regular small financial injections. We chose it because our project has no real end, but needs steady support until we’re finally self-sufficient.

Link:
https://www.patreon.com/FeunFooPermaculture

Other projects worth supporting are:

Feralculture in Alaska

Indigenous Sustainability Project

Chris and Dawn

If you want to make a one-time contribution, you can of course do so using our PayPal account:

Thank you for taking your time to read about our efforts.