Volunteer groups pull together for green effort

On a warm August day, Nick  Harrison worked to install new
fans in the office.

“It’s not really my area of expertise,” said Harrison, an environmental lawyer for the Indiana Forest Alliance. However, it’s just one of the many ways he volunteers his time at the Caldwell Eco-Center in Bloomington.

The Center, which is named after Lynton K. Caldwell, a former IU professor and co-author of the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act, relies on volunteers to solve environmental issues at the grassroots level.

“There is always a need for interested volunteers,” said Joe Davis, an organizer with the Center for Sustainable Living.

The Caldwell Eco-Center, 323 S. Walnut St., houses several environmental organizations eager for student involvement, including the Indiana Forest Alliance, the Center for Sustainable Living, Greenpeace and the Local Growers Guild.

Center for Sustainable Living

The Center of Sustainable Living, incorporated in 1992, began earlier when community members wanted to create a sustainable culture in Bloomington, said Lucille Bertuccio, president of the Center for Sustainable Living and faculty member at IU.

A culture where “you don’t throw away products until they can be recycled” is what the Center attempts to model for others in transportation, housing and food, explained Bertuccio.

“We buy stuff we don’t really need,” she said. For example, she said many IU students choose to buy new furniture each year rather than having to move or store it for the summer, and the old furniture is thrown away when it could be reused.

Bertuccio said, however, the Center is very excited about its latest effort in making Bloomington a Community Wildlife Habitat, which means about 300 homes, businesses and churches have provided food and shelter for local wildlife, rather than mowing or chopping down natural habitats.

“We’re trying to educate people. It’s very simple to live sustainably,” she said.


Indiana Forest Alliance

Several times a year, Rhonda Baird said she heads out to the Morgan-Monroe and Yellowwood state forests.

Interestingly, these trips aren’t for leisure, but to protest.

Baird is the director of the Indiana Forest Alliance, whose mission is to protect and restore state and national forests.

“State forests are logged fairly heavily and sold to private business. We watch to make sure all state and federal laws are followed,” she said.

Several times per year, when public bids are announced, Baird and other volunteers will protest timber sales on public land, which is auctioned off to private companies. During “non-confrontational protests,” the Alliance volunteers will talk about the economic and environmental losses caused by logging, “holding up a mirror to the process,” Baird said.

She said the ultimate goal is to stop commercial logging on public land and establish sustainable forests.

“They really leave it to the forest to recover itself,” she said. “What we have is precious; it’s our natural ecosystem.”


Greenpeace

The southern Indiana chapter of Greenpeace will host the Rolling Sunlight solar truck at 8 a.m. Saturday at the Bloomington Farmers’ Market.

The truck is part of the Global Warming Story Tour presented by Greenpeace, which has been traveling to cities across the country to help people learn about the issue and discuss how global warming is changing their lives, said Lisa Ramsden, Global Warming Field Organizer for Greenpeace.

Ramsden said the goal of Greenpeace is to make sure Congress passes legislation that minimizes the effects of global warming, promotes renewable energy, increases fuel efficiency in cars and reduces the use of “dangerous energy sources,” such as coal and nuclear power.


Local Growers Guild

The Local Growers Guild not only benefits local farmers, but also the environment.
“Our goal is to strengthen the local food economy,” said Guild organizer Maggie Sullivan, which causes less environmental impact. Supporting local growers is also beneficial to the consumer by providing fresher, healthier and tastier food, and it keeps money within the local economy, she said.

The organization sponsors “dine local nights,” where local restaurants feature menu items with local, in season food. In the future, Sullivan said the Guild would like to open a commercial kitchen where they could make food to sell using locally grown produce.

“If we’re working toward sustainability, food production is certainly part of that goal,” she said.  

With all of the organizations housed under one roof, including the I-69 Listening Project, Heartwood and the Caldwell Center for Culture and Ecology, the organizations save money and increase public awareness.

“People can learn not just one piece of the puzzle, but about several issues in one place,” Harrison said.