regional economies Archives - Page 4 of 4 - Ecotrust

Streetcar in Portland.

Ecodistricts bring new life to North American cities

By Rob Bennett Last month, leaders from Austin, Bellingham, Boston, Charlotte, Cleveland, Guadalajara (Mexico), Mountain View, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Vancouver (B.C.) gathered at Ecotrust in Portland for the first-ever EcoDistricts Institute, a meeting to examine neighborhood-scale development projects in each of their cities. …

guest
June 19, 2012 01 October 2014

FoodHub meet market buttons

FoodHub builds a bridge over the urban-rural divide

“We are out on the farm; we’re out in the country. It’s really helpful to have technology that connects us to the cities to be able to sell.” That’s how folks at Unger Farms explained the benefit of using FoodHub …

Carolyn Holland
June 13, 2012 01 October 2014

Growing Power's aquaponics operation in Milwaukie, one of two dozen groups and places featured Douglas Gayeton and "Lexicon of Sustainability."

At the Natural Capital Center: The new faces of food

Douglas Gayeton’s zeitgeisty, alluring photographic compositions of unconventional farmers from all over the country are hanging in the Natural Capital Center. But he has no idea. Or at least, he didn’t, until we contacted him last week to find out …

Oakley Brooks
May 22, 2012 01 October 2014

Author of Change Comes to Dinner, Katherine Gustafson

At the Natural Capital Center: Gustafson brings fresh, hopeful stories to dinner

Katherine Gustafson traveled around the United States seeking working examples of how to build a more sustainable, satisfying, and fair food system. She documented her many stops, the people she met, and the solutions she uncovered in her new book, …

Lola Milholland
May 15, 2012 01 October 2014

Pints of bright red strawberries at a farmers' market

Zoë Bradbury rallies the New Farmers’ Movement

In February 2008, Zoë Bradbury left her job at Ecotrust, where she was a regular contributor to Edible Portland, to start farming on Oregon’s southern coast. Right after leaving us, she wrote, “I pulled up to my new greenhouse on …

Lola Milholland
May 7, 2012 01 October 2014

Dickey River as seen from airplane

Partnering with nature: How one city’s growth could be greened

Human life depends on the services provided by healthy ecosystems. As described in the UN-backed Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, these services include the provisioning of resources such as food, fiber, and raw materials; regulating services such as water filtration, storm buffering, …

Brent Davies
May 1, 2012 01 October 2014

Indian woman in field.

At the Natural Capital Center: Dr. Vandana Shiva, seed freedom fighter

On May 3, Ecotrust has the distinct honor of hosting a benefit luncheon with Dr. Vandana Shiva, one of the world’s leaders in the fight to save native seeds. At the heart of Dr. Shiva’s work is the connection between …

Lola Milholland
April 23, 2012 01 October 2014

Fishing boat at San Francisco's Pier 45

Future We Want: Community-driven fisheries

In 2005, an outspoken, gregarious San Francisco crab fisherman named Larry Collins wrote down his vision for a more prosperous future. It ran to 20 pages of handwritten scrawl but it boiled down to one idea: small-scale Bay Area fishermen …

Oakley Brooks
April 19, 2012 01 October 2014

San Francisco Community Fishing Association boat on the water

Future We Want: Ecosystem investment funds

The following is excerpted from Cache: Creating Natural Economies by Spencer Beebe (Ecotrust, 2010) In 2004, Ecotrust created Ecotrust Forests, LLC, a for-profit private forest investment fund. It embodies the “radical” idea of going back to a centuries-old model of …

Oakley Brooks
April 18, 2012 01 October 2014

Jobs of the Future

Last summer, the Brookings Institution tallied figures for jobs it categorized as clean or green: work in economic sectors that produce environmental benefits. It turns out to be a complicated, cloudy set of calculations. Brookings opted to include electric vehicle …

Howard Silverman
February 24, 2012 01 October 2014