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I’ll be honest, the first few times I heard the words social innovation, I tuned it out. These days social is so often pasted onto fundamentally bad things to make them...
The 8 Acadian Forest species most likely to thrive as the climate changes
Climate Change in the Acadian ForestHere in New...
Navigating the gulf between idea and reality - Pemba Island, Zanzibar. Photo: Zach Melanson
In the...
Creating a Bee Field – Method 1: Plantings
Choose a site with poor soils and good sun exposure - a fallow field, ditch, wet spot,...
Words of advice on work and learning in the network era from...
Sun Catcher by Max Rymsha of Ukraine, 2016.
...
Smog over Almaty city, Kazakhstan - Igors Jefimovs
The competition is now closed. Thank you to all who contributed. Please check...
No one gets 100% of the proposals they write. No one.
So what can we do to ensure that we are as successful as possible,...
Someone recently told me that being an entrepreneur is all about seeing greatness within yourself. Don’t get me wrong, I love a hero as much...
Handmade yurt - Rural Innovation Campus, Whaelghinbran Farm, New Brunswick, Canada
Sometimes running a startup feels like a bit...
Have you ever wondered what a centuries-old, tried and tested permaculture system might look like? How it would influence the...
Boiling down good project design into a set of simple rules and tools is like trying to define good farming by a list of best practices and machinery. In both cases the...
STEM CUTTINGS
Cuttings are clones of a plant and are genetically identical to the parent plant. This is an easy way...
Tanzania’s Zanzibar islands were once a bastion of the global spice trade, an exchange that drove the world’s economy from the Middle Ages into...
The next generation won’t look back at us and wonder how we dealt with a prolonged economic recession, a deficit or the question, to frack or not to frack? Future...
If you’ve been following the work of Community Forests International recently you may have noticed an increasingly ‘rural’ focus. We built a
The problem . . .
The rise of renewable energy has to be one of the most inspiring revolutions of our time. It offers hope for transitioning to a low-carbon...
Building community isn’t simple. As we adapt and pilot new technologies in an ever-changing world how do we hope to achieve success when the variables are unknown?...
How can we protect nature? It’s a longstanding question of conservation, maybe even the question of conservation. But I’d like to see it reversed. How can...
Building a cold frame or greenhouse bed in your backyard will allow you to have instant access to fresh vegetables in both the early spring and late fall. The...
As part of CFI’s Plant Nursery project, we will be sharing our adventures in propagating plants (or reproducing) by seeds, cuttings, potting up and...
We often get asked how we choose the communities we support in Pemba. It’s a great question with a simple answer – they choose us. We’ve worked...
One of the more innovative features of the Nomadic Cabin is in its name: its transportability.
The Nomadic Cabin is designed to be able to move around. The cabin is...
Today’s richest nations, the economies which have been leading global development and innovation for hundreds of years on end, bear responsibility for contributing the...
by Madeleine Smith
Since I was a small child, I've had the dream of building my own house. Back then I envisioned something between a castle and a log-cabin with...
It’s no secret – we need a concerted effort among rich and poor nations and a whole lot of precious money to properly address climate change. The wealthier...
A relationship between two things in which each exerts pressure on the other, shaping each other’s development over time, is a coevolutionary relationship. It's...
"You have the ability to create narrative, to create mythology through these buildings."
- Jane Thompson
At...
It isn’t the first time that humans have been forced to adapt to a changing climate. On countless occasions throughout history we have innovated our culture or,...
We are going to continue to restore the...
If there’s anything I’ve learned since I’ve been with CFI, it’s that you’re going to meet some serious roadblocks when you’re trying to save...
When most people think of ‘conservation’ they think of pristine landscapes; nature at the epitome of ecological health, unchanging and unblemished by human...
We started Community Forests International from scratch. We saw a...
Often development flows from the so-called “developed world” to the undeveloped. Experts and volunteers from countries like Canada are supposed to have all the...
Whaelghinbran Farm - South Branch, New Brunswick
Work for yourself. Buy land. Take over the family farm or woodlot. If you...
There are many people who believe that we are approaching the end of growth, notably
We’ve been talking more and more about innovation here at CFI.
There are fewer systems in our world that need huge innovations more than our energy systems:
...
'Earth-mound' charcoal production. US-PD.
Tanzania has enormous potential for a diversified renewable energy...
'The daily grind' - Andrew Moore of Navigator Stove Works.
I recently reached out to Andrew Moore, founder...
Circle Pivot Irrigation, Satellite Image of Crops in Kansas USA, NASA (2001)
A drought across the Great Plains and Canadian Prairies that...
Every time I give a talk about our work in Pemba the question comes up.
What do I think about
You may have heard about the recent announcement by the New Brunswick government to provide an additional 660,000 cubic meters of softwood to industrial licensees from...
Salty aboard W. Atkin "Ingrid", Washington State, USA - Copyright 2001 Navigator Stove...
Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time, but this massive problem presents an equal opportunity to transform struggling communities and society. ...
You may have seen headlines, maybe you read an article, but there is a stark...
The Pemba tree-planting project grew very quickly. As more and more villagers joined the movement and more trees were planted I realized that we needed to put an organization...
At the CFI office over the past few months we’ve been talking a lot about how we can bring innovation into rural communities. Although the focus is global, Community...
1st Place – The Whaelghinbran Nomadic Cabin (Entry #014)
Designer: Nathan Fisher, B.Arch Sci, M.Arch
...To foster environmental stewardship internationally by establishing community forests, promoting sustainable forestry techniques and initiating environmental education.