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By Simmons Buntin, April 5, 2010 11:55 am

Join Terrain.org at the nation’s largest literature conference: the Association of Writers and Writing Programs’ annual conference and bookfair this week, April 8-10. AWP 2010 will be held in Denver, at the Colorado Convention Center, and you’ll be able to find us there, as well.

Here’s what’s going on for Terrain.org:

Table at Bookfair

Join us at Exhibit Hall A, H9 from Thursday through Saturday. We’ll be right next to the table for Hawk & Handsaw: The Journal of Creative Sustainability, and we’re also dedicating a corner of the Terrain.org table to The LBJ: Avian Life, Literary Arts.

Wild Lives / Raucous Pens: Readings from Terrain.org and Hawk & Handsaw

Join us Thursday evening, April 8, from 8 to 9:30 p.m. (reception with free beer/wine begins at 7:30 p.m.) for a joint reading held at the Tivoli at Auraria Campus (Adirondacks Room).  Facilitated by Hawk & Handsaw editor Kathryn Miles and Terrain.org editor Simmons Buntin, the reading features Patrick Burns, Alison Hawthorne Deming, Scott Elliott, James Engelhardt, Suzanne Frischkorn, Andrew Gottlieb, Luisa Igloria, John T. Price, Ben Quick, Suzanne Roberts, Jeffrey Thomson, and Arianne Zwartjes. View flyer, with walking directions.

We hope to see you in Denver!

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By Brian Awehali, March 22, 2010 2:06 pm

High tree line, Nantou County, Taiwan. Everything just grows here.

By Brian Awehali

I was taken on a lovely tour of the fog-wreathed high mountain tea country in Nantou County, in the central and only landlocked part of Taiwan. Here, especially in the east, near the Hualien coastline, it’s easy to see why the Portuguese dubbed this place “formosa,” which means “beautiful island.” Butterflies and lush vegetation abound.

One must dwell in beauty when contemplating strategies for military conquest and brutal political suppression.

Among the many interesting natural sites, I also saw the “bamboo house” that Nationalist (KMT) leader Lord Chiang would retreat to in the years after he lost his struggle against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and was forced to flee mainland China. I’m not sure if he went here before or after he contracted the gonorrhea that would eventually sterilize him and leave him with only one biological son, but it was definitely before he imprisoned or executed upwards of 140,000 people for opposing the KMT in Taiwan.

After the tour, I was invited to visit a local tea aficionado to learn more about the history, process, art, and etiquette of Taiwan’s second-most-acclaimed product (the first being the creation and modern defense of a functioning democratic Chinese society and government).

We entered and began the tasting: Spring and Winter varieties of Rose Oolong, Jasmine and Black teas were in the offing, and it was surprising just how distinct the flavor of each season’s tea was. I learned that the best tea is grown at the highest altitudes, where it takes the longest to mature. Winter tea is the most prized, and most expensive, though I personally favor the spring tea for its greener, and more precisely chlorophyllic aroma and color.

Chushan tea master, pouring

I am a mostly unapologetic hedonist, and I often have as much trouble limiting my enjoyment of something pleasurable or delicious as I do stopping an interesting conversation, or leaving a beautiful place. So I kept accepting one cup of fine tea after another as my host offered them. I was at this tasting with my partner F. and her parents, and courtesy dictated that if I accepted more, more would be served. I was having a grand and fabulously caffeinated time, completely engrossed in asking as many questions as came to mind while everyone translated for me. What was the difference between black tea, green tea and oolong? (They’re all from the Camellia Senesis plant, but black tea is fully fermented/oxidized, oolong to a lesser extent, and green tea not at all). Why was the first short steeping of the tea always discarded? (To “wake” the tea and to wash away any residue on the leaves before drinking). Why were there so many steeps of each tea, and why such tiny cups? (We were performing a ceremonial method called gongfucha, and the exacting chemistry and temperature of the ceremony dictates smaller cups with hotter water). Would a person get fat from eating so many of these delicious biscuits, peanuts, and cookies between each serving of tea? (“Not as long as they’re consumed with tea!,” chirped my comfortably stout host.)

"You cannot get fat, no matter how much you eat, as long as it's while you're drinking tea!"

I also learned just how intensive the human labor of tea (especially oolong) is. The vast majority of it is picked by hand, a pound of tea requires tens to hundreds of thousands of leaves, and pay is generally very low. Taking this into consideration, the slower and more deliberate consumption of tea makes perfect sense.

It was not until many hours and maybe 50 cups of tea (small ones, but really: 50) that I realized just how very much tea had been consumed.  When we finally tore ourselves away, my obviously great love of tea led our host to offer me a very fine traveling tea set and some lovely spring tea from the high mountains of Nantou to take with me on my travels. Score!

The first ten cups make you smile, the second twenty make you talk. The twenty after that may give you tachycardia.

That night, I worked merrily through the night while F. and her parents complained bitterly the next morning about insomnia and bad sleep. 

It is not simply national chauvinism when the Taiwanese tell you, as they often do, that the very best tea is from Taiwan. The choicest tea they produce is bought up by men doing business in mainland China, who use it to bribe Chinese officials and thereby grease the wheels of commerce. This is so common, I was told by a merchant for one of Taiwan’s largest tea producers, that it’s very hard for the average Taiwanese to get any of their prized winter tea. I noticed that the Wikipedia entry on oolong tea does not mention this fact. Then again, as great as Wikipedia is, you can’t be too trusting of anything you read online…

NEXT: Ten days working on a WWOOF-affiliated “organic” farm in Chunan, on the northwest coast of Taiwan. ABC’s of Japanese-style organic fertilizer! The genius of birds relative to that of insects! How to cut and harvest bamboo without getting eaten alive by vicious little bugs! (That is, vicious little bugs other than the Taiwanese vampire mosquito.)

~~~~

Brian Awehali, a former editor at Britannica.com, founded and edited the North American magazine, LiP: Informed Revolt (anthology: Tipping the Sacred Cow, AK Press). In 2010, he will be traveling through Taiwan, China, and Mongolia, writing diffusely about culture, sustainable development, and emerging “green” technologies. He curates LOUDCANARY: One interconnected journey through everything and nothing. He is a half-Irish member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma.

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By Simmons Buntin, February 28, 2010 12:44 pm

We’re just over a month away from the nation’s largest literature conference: the Association of Writers and Writing Programs’ annual conference and bookfair, April 8-10. AWP 2010 will be held this year in Denver, at the Colorado Convention Center, and you’ll be able to find Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built & Natural Environments there, as well.

Here’s what’s going on for us:

Table at Bookfair

Join us at Exhibit Hall A, H9 from Thursday through Saturday. We’ll be right next to the table for Hawk & Handsaw: The Journal of Creative Sustainability, and we’re also dedicating a corner of the Terrain.org table to The LBJ: Avian Life, Literary Arts, a great little literary bird journal that wasn’t able to get a table of its own.

Wild Lives / Raucous Pens: Readings from Terrain.org and Hawk & Handsaw

Join us Thursday evening, April 8, from 8 to 9:30 p.m. for a joint reading held at the Tivoli at Auraria Campus (Adirondacks Room).  Facilitated by Hawk & Handsaw editor Kathryn Miles and Terrain.org editor Simmons Buntin, the reading features Patrick Burns, Alison Hawthorne Deming, Scott Elliott, James Engelhardt, Suzanne Frischkorn, Andrew Gottlieb, Luisa Igloria, John T. Price, Ben Quick, Suzanne Roberts, Jeffrey Thomson, and Arianne Zwartjes.

We hope to see you in Denver!

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By Simmons Buntin, February 5, 2010 6:53 pm

Award-winning travel entrepreneurs share practices to preserve authenticity of place and local character

Geotourism at Loreto Bay, Baja California Sur, Mexico. Photo by Simmons Buntin.

WASHINGTON (Feb. 4, 2010)—The Second Annual Geotourism Change Summit at  National Geographic headquarters showcased travel leaders from around the globe presenting success stories from both major cities to countrysides, all with the mutual purpose of preserving the character of the world’s special places and furthering sustainable travel.

The  200 attendees on Feb. 2 heard inspiring presentations by the winners of the 2009 Geotourism Challenge, sponsored by National Geographic and Ashoka’s Changemakers, as well as speakers discussing advances in geotourism and other new trends in sustainable travel.

Geotourism is defined as tourism that sustains or enhances the geographical character of a place — its environment, culture, aesthetics, heritage and the well-being of its residents.

“The forces of globalization are making places look just like the next one.  The Summit   honored those who have not bowed to mass tourism — in fact, they are offering the most authentic experiences possible,”  said Jonathan Tourtellot, director of National Geographic’s Center for Sustainable Destinations.

Award-winners ranged from river.India.com, the world’s first outfitter on the challenging Siang River, that has trained locals to be river guides, to Evergreen Brick Works in Toronto, which took an abandoned brick factory and has turned it into a vital part of the city, with farmer’s markets, summer camps and an ice skating rink.

Tourtellot noted that despite terrorist threats, a shaky world economy and the increasing inconvenience of air travel, people are still traveling, and the number will likely top 1 billion international trips within very few years.

Other news from the Geotourism Summit:

• Economist James Gilmore, coauthor of the books Authenticity: What Customers Really Want and The Experience Economy, provided the keynote address.  He said that the world is moving out of the “service economy” into what he calls an “experience economy” – a desire by consumers for authenticity and memorability. His message to travel entrepreneurs at the Summit: consumers now desire a combination of the “four E’s”:  entertainment, education, esthetic and escapism.

• National Geographic unveiled its Geotourism Impact Map Concept, to be integrated into the Center for Sustainable Destinations website, and a testament to the proliferation of geotourism around the world. It will become a huge aggregate for geotourism practices and existing maps, available to both businesses and travelers.  It will also identify regions where geotourism activities are unknown and need help.

• Details of the 2010 Geotourism Challenge were announced. The theme will be  “Places on the Edge: Saving Coastal Destinations.” Tourtellot noted the world’s coast lines, more than any other geographical feature, are under pressure from tourism.

• Vanessa Healey, vice president, global brand marketing, InterContinental Hotel Group, was a member of the panel devoted to destination stewardship strategies. She shared how the hotel group has fully embraced geotourism, including training their 60,000 employees in how to help visitors “go local.” Information cards on local activities and history are often left at night on guests’ pillows.  Other comments from panelists:  “We must move from Joe Tourist to Joe Citizen;  “follow the locals’ lead”;  “travel is a life value.”

• Geotourism Challenge-winner Alex Khajan, CEO of Nature Air in Costa Rica, conveyed the passion of Summit attendees to preserve the world’s special places.  “We are rebels by nature and want to be catalysts for change,” he said to the group when accepting his award.

The Geotourism Challenge is a global competition of tourism-related projects that promote natural and cultural heritage while improving the well-being of the local people. The 10 finalists honored at the Summit are the best of 610 entries from 81 countries,

“The Geotourism Change Summit offers an opportunity to showcase the true nature of tourism. These 10 innovators demonstrate not only that tourism needs a major rethinking, but also that these pioneers have already done it and are now leading initiatives to help alleviate poverty, conserve natural and cultural assets, and provide enriching experiences for visitors. If we want to know what the future of travel looks like, this is it,” said Charlie Brown, executive director of Ashoka’s Changemakers.

The three Geotourism Challenge winners — Nature Air (Costa Rica), PEPY (Cambodia), and Wikiloc Community Maps (Spain) — were selected by online voting. Each received a $5,000 award at the Summit.  The winners:

• Nature Air, the 100 percent carbon-neutral airline in Costa Rica, offsets 100 percent of its greenhouse gas emissions to encourage reforestation of tropical forests in Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula.
• PEPY (“Protect the Earth, Protect Yourself”) is Cambodia’s Educational Volunteer Tourism Program, providing adventure bike tours and on-site volunteer projects, like building rainwater collection units.
• Wikiloc Community Maps in Girona, Spain, created by a software engineer with a passion for travel, is built on maps, photos and video submitted to offer honest impressions about destinations.

The seven Geotourism Challenge runners-up:

• Ger to Ger Foundation, Mongolia, links visitors with genuine nomadic families.
• Evergreen Brick Works of Toronto, Canada, is an adaptive re-use of the heritage structures at the Don Valley Brick Works.
• Virgin Islands Youth Heritage Exchange Farm Excursions, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, focuses on food as the basis of youth identity and education.
• Context Travel, based in Philadelphia, offers walking seminars in major European cities, encouraging sustainable ways to visit urban destinations.
• RiverIndia.com’s Bamboo Eco-Lodge River Trips, Arunachal Pradesh, India, help protect India’s Siang River through locally guided expeditions.
• Trout Point Lodge, Nova Scotia, a Five Green Key-designated nature retreat in Canada, has revitalized backwoods and Acadian French cultural tourism.
• Reality Tour Viagens e Turismo Ltda’s Route of Freedom, Rua Bom Jesus, Brazil, commemorates the African Diaspora in Brazil.

For more details about the innovative work of all 10 finalists, go to www.changemakers.net/geotourismchallenge.

The Multilateral Investment Fund (FOMIN) joined forces with the National Geographic Society and Ashoka through the Changemakers Geotourism Challenge 2009 “Power of Place” competition. The goal was to capture regional creativity and demand as well as provide co-financing opportunities for small geotourism initiatives in Latin America and the Caribbean that benefit local communities by improving the competitiveness, social use and sustainability of the tourism sector. The FOMIN received 319 proposals from 24 countries, selecting seven projects for co-financing.

About Ashoka’s Changemakers

Changemakers is an initiative of Ashoka, an organization with over three decades of finding, funding and expanding the work of social entrepreneurs across the globe. It is a global online community of action that connects people to share ideas, inspire and mentor each other, and find and support the best ideas in social innovation. The Changemakers online community builds on this history and expands the Ashoka vision by creating an “Everyone a Changemaker” world through networking, relationship-building and the sourcing of funding opportunities. Through its collaborative competitions and open-source process, Changemakers has created one of the world’s most robust laboratories for launching, refining and scaling ideas for solving the world’s most pressing social problems.

About National Geographic

The National Geographic Society is one of the world’s largest nonprofit scientific and educational organizations. Founded in 1888 to “increase and diffuse geographic knowledge,” the Society works to inspire people to care about the planet. It reaches more than 375 million people worldwide each month through its official journal, National Geographic, and other magazines; National Geographic Channel; television documentaries; music; radio; films; books; DVDs; maps; exhibitions; live events; school publishing programs; interactive media; and merchandise. National Geographic has funded more than 9,200 scientific research, conservation and exploration projects and supports an education program promoting geographic literacy. For more information, visit nationalgeographic.com. To learn more about the mission and work of the Center for Sustainable Destinations, visit www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/sustainable/.

About the Multilateral Investment Fund

The Multilateral Investment Fund (FOMIN) is an autonomous fund composed of 38 member countries that is administered by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the main source of multilateral financing for development in Latin America and the Caribbean. Since 1993, the FOMIN has been providing grants, loans and equity investments for innovative projects that promote economic growth and poverty reduction through private sector development, focusing primarily on micro, small and medium enterprises. It is the largest private sector-focused development donor in the region, with an extensive network of over 650 local executing agency partners. Created in 2004, the FOMIN’s sustainable tourism cluster is a group of 27 projects in 19 countries aiming to increase the competitiveness of locally owned micro, small and medium enterprises by mainstreaming sustainability in the tourism sector.

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By Simmons Buntin, June 9, 2009 8:43 am

The full Victoria and Vancouver Island photo gallery by Terrain.org editor Simmons Buntin — shots taken before, during, and after the ASLE conference and field trips — is now online:

http://www.simmonsbuntin.com/images/gallery/2009/victoria/index.html

Enjoy!

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By Simmons Buntin, May 10, 2007 4:23 am

Planning Conversations from Coast-to-Coast — cross country on U.S. 50 by day; blog updates by night

Do planners face the same issues in Maryland as they do in Colorado, in Ohio as in Kansas? That’s part of what Wayne Senville, editor of the national Planning Commissioners Journal will be finding out during a six-week cross-country trip along U.S. Route 50.

Between the Memorial Day weekend and July 10th, Senville will be meeting with planners and planning commissioners in more than two dozen communities in the 12 states (and the District of Columbia) that Route 50 crosses.

Why Route 50? As Senville puts it, “Route 50 goes through an amazingly varied mix of cities and towns. From the beach resort of Ocean City, Maryland through our nation’s capital, and then on through small cities in states like Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, Kansas, and Colorado, as well as the major hubs of Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Kansas City, Route 50 offers as good a reflection of the United States as can be found on any one roadway.”

Discussions along Route 50 will focus on the most challenging planning and development issues communities are working on, highlighting both obstacles and opportunities.

According to Senville: “In conversations I’ve had with planners in setting up this trip, I know I’ll be reporting on many critical issues facing cities and towns, from the revitalization of downtowns and urban riverfronts to dealing with the effects of explosive growth. I’ll also be covering a diverse range of concerns: tourism and its impacts; inner-city economics; neighborhood efforts to make it easier for residents to ‘age in place;’ how to promote citizen involvement in local planning; and much more.” And, adds Senville, “of course, I’ll also be talking with planners about the challenges they face in dealing with roads and highways.”

One of most innovative aspects of this trip — indeed as far as we know the first time it’s being done to report on coast-to-coast planning issues — is that Senville will be posting daily online reports on what he’s hearing. Through a combination of text, photos, video, and audio clips, visitors to the Route 50 blog site: www.Rte50.com will be able to follow Senville as he works his way West. Visitors to the blog are encouraged to leave comments on any of the postings.

The best place to find out more is by visiting the blog site. Again, that’s www.Rte50.com

About the Planning Commissioners Journal

Now in its 16th year, the Planning Commissioners Journal is the principal national publication for “citizen planners” — including members of town, city, county, and regional planning boards. With subscribers in all 50 states and across Canada, the quarterly “PCJ” — based in Burlington, Vermont — is independently owned and operated. For more on the PCJ: www.plannersweb.com.

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By Simmons Buntin, February 24, 2007 8:37 pm

Look for Terrain.org flyers at the annual AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) conference, in Atlanta, Georgia, from March 1-3, 2007.

There you can also find Terrain.org’s editor, Simmons Buntin, who is leading the “What’s the Conversation Rate of Euros? Americans Publishing Abroad” panel on Saturday, March 3, from 9 a.m. to 10:15 a.m. That’s at North Court East, 2nd Floor, Hilton Atlanta.

And check out the Tucson Literary Orgs “Tucson Heat: A Big Sexy Reading” on Thursday, March 1, from 8:00 to 10:30 p.m. at the Midtown Tavern, 554 Piedmont Avenue. Terrain.org editorial board member Deborah Fries is one of many poets who will read. Get more info at AWP Bookfair table #270.