Today we have made progress. I'm going to organise a 'presentation event' to inform and recruit people that are willing to help to accomplish our goals.

We can use a part of the www.deoudebieb.nl and the owner is going to alert the local news, political party's and the municipality to give is more power.

So I'm writing my presentation now and soon i'll present a flyer for this event.

​Thank you Wenda, for the support and creative thinking.

​

Today the petting zoo of an elementary school in the Netherlands (Zevenster Zeewolde) was re-opened.

This is a perfect opportunity to have a short evaluation about how local participation and possibilities in creation of green projects are organized and coming together.

There is often enough will power to enhance the area but in practice it seems rather difficult to take steps.

Today i talked with a few volunteers and a representative our local municipality about the possibilities of using this willpower and organizing the finance. I conclude from this two main subjects that seem to be the key factors in developing or enhancing green projects initiatives that i would like to share with you:

A: line up a serious green regional coordinator
to align all activities and communications a coordinator is crucial. There are always people who would like to participate in the opportunity, but without coordination the effort is just enough for basic maintenance. When the basic features like, writing down the tasks and members, are managed then there is room for new idea's and expansion of more initiatives.

This role is also backed by our municipality for other green expansion projects. Area coordinators seem to be one of the major game changers/key players in developing more nature. The coordinator gives control to the municipality and answers and guidelines to the participators.

Currently i'm thinking about ways to create more coordinator roles in area's where there is room for expansion of nature. Working from a normal home of even with their own, grid independent earthship like, home when the area is more remote.

B: Communicate!
To tap into more participation and will power the people need to know first what is happening in the area. You need to start giving answers to the following questions:

• Are people allowed to help?
• With what and where and when?
• Where can they apply?
• Who is the primary point of contact?
• What is needed (funds, materials, kind of action?
• News

These kind of topics need to be shared over the various media like a facebook page, blog, twitter, e-mail list etcetera.

Conclusion of the day
When a coordinator and communication are in place, things can really start to happen and expansion and participation will follow. Every municipality should at least have ONE local green expansion coordinator, or more regional coordinators that

• embody and enable the expansion and participation of nature
• communicatie about it in various ways to the people that are interested or want to participate. 
• create and manage funds for the entity

In case you missed it, there is a man in India who planted a forest by himself since 1979. This man is a great example for global reforestation.  This is possible everywhere on the globe if the land is suitable, and sustainably available. He planted tree by tree and now has created 1400 acres wide nature reserve full of wildlife, see the story yourself:

Today it was Tree planting day in the Netherlands. Almost all elementary schools (group 6 students) were planting new trees today. In our municipality 12 schools participated and planted 2000 trees in our forest.

Since i spoke to the major of the municipality of Zeewolde i'm going to discuss my green vision to create even more space for people to plant more trees in local area's.

Here is a short movie in dutch (english subs will arrive later)

We don't have a lot of forest in the Netherlands but we have a new strange phenomenon in the Netherlands called designer forests.

We have teams who are working for forest ' maintenance' organizations who claim to have the right to decide how forests should look like and that trees must be cut down massively. 

Paint is sprayed on trees that they find redundant and in a later stage the demolition team comes to winkle out those trees from the forest. At first it seemed to happen at small scale, but right now at end 2015 and start 2016 it's reaching large proportions. Everywhere i walk in the forest they are cutting trees and collecting the wood.

Can you even imagine someone doing this in for example Canada? Trees (and nature in general) can naturally take care of itself, as it did for millions of years, and needs no human intervention. But these organizations find it really necessary to maintain the forest and 'give space' to other trees.

What is forgotten is that

• We breathe oxygen, produced by those same trees
  
• Cutting trees contributes to the Co2 problem, because we have less Co2 absorbers (trees)
• It takes over 40-50 years to grow a tree like the ones they are cutting over here, and a lot more in the amazon district.
  
• They are not acting strategically with planting trees 40-50 years ahead. Its even worse. They are not compensating by planting any tree at all.
• Young upcoming trees are destroyed with the machines that are used
  
• Tree cutters produce even more Co2 with all exhaust of the machines
  

With the current climate change we are not in the luxury position of cutting more trees, we need to turn this around into getting more trees on earth, instead of less. This is not rocket science.

For all this damage we need to grow into a National, European or even worldwide policy that for every tree to be cut we have te plant x10 trees instead to do some sort of retroactivity of the damage that is taking place.

How odd that we have a Co2 problem. How could it be possible that we have a huge climate issue around the world. Well, if you cut the Co2 absorbers like madness it's not so strange.

We really really need to start thinking strategically on tree cutting and planting. Stop cutting and start planting with all our effort. This only will make the difference the world needs.