IBA : The aim :

INTERNATIONAL BERNICA ASSOCIATION

Locally, the project is to set up
a centre of research in sustainable development
and a platform of services and activities,
via a network of knowledge sharing, collective thinking and territorial experimentation
serving all actors of development:
individuals, enterprises, elected representatives, administrations… 

 
 
Mail : association.bernica@gmail.com

 Synopsis
                                                                                                                             Pages 
I FUNCTIONING MODES 3 
 
II ACTIVITIES AND SERVICES 3 
      II.1. Activities and associative services: 3
                  II.1.1. Research and rationalisation 4
                  II.1.2 Experimentation and transfer of information 4 
      II.2. Activities and Cooperative services: 5
                  II.2.1 Activity fields 5
                        II.2.1.1.   Sustainable Agriculture 6
                        II.2.1.2.   Craft industry, ecological conception 7
                        II.2.1.3.   Cultural and educational activity 7
                  II.2.2 Payoff from Cooperative services 7 
 
III ASSETS AND ECONOMICAL POTENTIAL OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 8 
      III.1. Growing recognition 8
      III.2. Exponential potential 9
                  III.2.1.   Payoff for the people 9
                  III.2.2.   Payoff for institutions 9
                  III.2.3.   Payoff for enterprises 10 
     III.3. The Association as eliciting and feeding new projects 10 
     III.4 The Association as a tool to expand sustainable development 10 

IV CONSEQUENCES FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 11

I. FUNCTIONING MODES

      The goal of the Association (law 1901) is to promote the application of Sustainable Development (SD), an ethical principle aimed at «meeting the needs of the present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs». The Association will adopt the basic principle of SD, «think global, act local», and will explore its demands and potentialities in order to realize efficient SD projects.
      Having the charge of durably protecting and developing a life-site of patrimony, the Association will elaborate: 
      -A charter for environment settlement,
      -A socio-professional contract of cohabitation,
-by collecting information,
-elaborating an exchange network,
-setting up collective think tanks,
-and promoting transfer of knowledge about SD.
      Finally, the Association will manage a Cooperative Society of Collective Interests (CSCI) centred on agriculture, crafts and cultural matters, thus providing an ethical model oriented towards:
-High Environmental Quality (HQE) production,
-Continuous improvement of achievement quality,
-Perspective diversification,
-Financial, energetic and material autonomy.

II ACTIVITIES AND SERVICES
 
 
II.1 Activities and associative services:
 
 
      The center of research for social and environmental parameters of SD necessitates to built an efficient network of knowledge and skill sharing so that collective rationalization of information be possible, in partnership with all players of development.
 This will rest essentially upon the various media tools used with and towards all kinds of audience (educational, institutional, professional, associative…), and on organizing meetings, workshops and conferences.
      In order to materialize projects by connecting distinct activity fields, the Association will constitute and manage a Cooperative Society of Collective Interests (CSCI, SARL-type) having multiple goals. 

            II.1.1. Research and rationalization 
 
The associative SD centre of research will be designed to:
      - Elaborate an overt, interacting and evolving network aimed at sharing information issued from all fields of knowledge, skills and activities of all players of development (scientific, political, humanist… individuals or groups – in other words, world citizens). The goal is to unable global contacts reinforcing links between cultures and generations, so as to mobilise social body at large. 
      - Solicit public opinion on collective matters, with:
-Polls, investigations, and questionnaires
-Collect of complaints and suggestions, help for setting up « cantonniers collectifs» [traduction???]
-Organization of meetings, debates, workshops, film presentations
      - Build up a data base on SD :
-Describe present ecological and social conditions
-Study sociological, historical, cultural, juridical, economical, and educational problems
-Study environmental problems (ecology, geography, energy)
      - Facilitate access to territorial problems, with
-Collective analyses and reports on specialists’ accounts
-General-public reviews, translations and multi-media adaptations
-Production of educational, cultural, ecological and artistic broadcasts
-Creation of information aids and softwares oriented toward creating «evolving geographical ontologies1 »[Traduction ???]
      - Create interactive and evolving GIS (geographic information systems) on Internet and other media, to offer information sharing and favour access to:
-The understanding of territorial problems (general view, variety of interactions…)
-Collective thinking, awareness of socio-ecological conditions and of related responsibilities
-Participatory democracy. 

                  II.1.2. Experimentation and transfer of information

The Association will create an associative and multi-partner centre of territorial experimentation designed to develop proper conditions for SD, with various means: 
      - Good ecological and social practice experimentation through the CSCI and multiple partnerships : a comprehensive farm-inn will be elaborated. It will put traditions and innovations in synergy, and will bridge complementary activity fields.
      - The creation of a Counselling agency in SD, designed to
-Welcome the people, associations, institutions, and professionals
-Help one to elaborate projects oriented toward SD and solidarity-based economy
-Train individuals to traditional savoir-faire and to fitted innovations. 
      - Communication of SD and its promotion through the media, enabling enhancement of its potentialities on professional and economical aspects, and of its educational and cultural output:
-Enhancing inter-generation human link between cultures and structures, with oral communication and new tools for information transfer
-Explaining SD conditions and potentials
-Favouring professional and cultural decentralization and gifts emergence
-Bringing to light local specificities and patrimony. 
      - Training to audio-visual techniques, in order to
-Facilitate the understanding of media-based manipulation, by both an educational approach and experimentation of techniques
-Enable the making and production of reportages, investigations, reviews and leading articles, create radio and TV broadcasts designed to describe what social and environmental factors condition SD.
-Promote the projects, products, and rationalized activity which increase one’s awareness on consumption matters and encourage individuals and groups to take responsibilities in social and environmental matters. 

 
II.2 Cooperative activity and services 

 
      The CSCI will apply global analyses in the local context, and will create a platform of services and activities of increasing output.
 
            II.2.1 Activity fields 

The major goal is to create a dynamic model of productions in harmony with the conditions proper to social and environmental flowering.

                       II.2.1.1. Sustainable Agriculture: based on bioethical and demonstrative farming, with both traditional and novel practice respecting ecological balance, lands and landscapes, and enabling to preserve and communicate biodiversity. This involves concrete options such as:
-Input managing oriented toward autonomy as concerns fertilization and processing: use of a « biodigest  machine» [trad.??], of composting, spreading, worm breeding, Terra Preta, …
-Rainwater recycling, fitering marshes,…
-Complementary culture, to feed lands and harmonize environment
-Gathering, eat-in, …
-Selection of certified and original productions liable to attract local and international trading, tourism industry, hotel and catering business, and as well supply gardens, cuisine, markets, and local art crafts.

                        II.2.1.2. Craft industry, ecological conception: Craft production will be in harmony with biological, energetic and cultural resources. Interaction with other activity areas and promotion of products and savoir-faire from patrimony will be searched. In particular … [cite local examples]
     Among ecological options are optimal garbage managing, material recycling, bio packaging, and green energy sources (solar, thermal, photovoltaic and wind energy, decay gas collect, latent cold stocking…) that will develop over time based on the progressive settling of landscape-integrated structures.
     This will favor information sharing and creativity, by means of communication between craftsmen and people, development of multiple partnership, and elaboration of educational programs. 

                        II.2.1.3. Cultural and educational activity : This line will focus on conditions of SD development, based on one’s awareness of social and environmental link and of ensuing responsibilities. Promotion of cultural and environmental patrimony will be carried out by:
-Meetings, conferences, debates, festivals,…
-Access to documentation and to Internet
-Approach of media techniques: photo, audio, video, elaboration of newspapers, radio and TV broadcasts
-Educational activity: teaching courses, school support, exhibitions, workshops, familiarization with body arts and cooking, partnership with National Education on ecological and social matters, on the basis of programs such as EESD (“Education to Environment and SD”, 2005)
-Aid for SD projects.

            II.2.2 Payoff from cooperative services : improving living environment and promoting human resources and professional potential

     Increasing awareness of SD necessity fits with the ecological and social approach of the Cooperative, thus ensuring its relevance and durability.
     The Cooperative covers large fields of action. It strengthens innovation and stability by varying its products, marketing methods, activity and services. With its multiple contracts and partnerships, it reaches autonomy for production, transformation, marketing, and promotion of its products and services. It strengthens a type of production adapted to natural and cultural resources by settling proper energetic structures. It rests on the sharing of ancient and new savoir-faire in order to integrate traditional buildings into the ecological and cultural patrimony. Moreover, it favours inter-cultural exchanges and continuing education.
     Payoff will thus be tangible on two essential aspects: the Cooperative will improve living environment and promote human resources and professional potential. Individual skills will be developed in the context of evolving and interactive tasks guided by experts of various fields.
      The objective will be to promote an HEQ (high environmental quality) way of life respecting ecological and cultural diversity, and to extend SD concept to the entire social body. An «SD site » integrating traditional material and savoir-faire could be created and proposed as a model for other types of environment.

III ASSETS AND ECONOMICAL POTENTIAL OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

      The payoff issued from the associative/cooperative links will be proportional to research and development potentialities. It will first be dependent on subsidies and on the interest this project will obtain from aid agencies and local authorities [see local and governmental agencies for funding, partnership and legal aspects].

 
III.1 Growing recognition

 
       »SD  » meets the needs of the present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs».
     This statement comes from « Our Common Future», a report presented in 1987 to the general Assembly of the United States of America. It gave the funding definition of SD concept and marked the onset of action, following trends that were developing from the early seventies around notions of environment and eco-development.
      SD concept was then fuelled by debates and summit conferences in Stockholm, Nairobi, Rio in 1992  (Agenda 21, Convention on biodiversity and climate), Kyoto (Protocol on climate change), Johannesburg (2002), Kyoto (World water forum ,2003).
      Present ecological and social urgency stresses the primary importance of global thinking for local actions. SD is deemed by all institutions and is core to recent laws on territory organization and development [cf. in France la loi d'orientation sur l'aménagement et le développement durable du territoire (LOADDT), la loi relative à la solidarité et au renouvellement urbain (LSRU), la loi relative au renforcement et à la simplification de la coopération intercommunale, et la loi d'orientation agricole (LOA). (Eve Ancelin, Diagnostic de territoire durable de la commune de Saint-Paul.)] 

  
III.2. Exponential potential 

 The Association has the possibility to connect action with global thinking, which will warrant its legitimacy, durability, high potential and payoff. Major assets are the increasing consideration allocated to SD and the ethical line of the project:
-exploration of socio-ecological parameters of SD
-access to virtual investigation fields linked to practical application of experimentations, thus developing consciousness of SD issues
-efforts toward collective rationalization combined with transfer of skills and knowledge.

            III.2.1.   Payoff for the people :  
      The Association is non-profit-making and of social vocation. It is designed to be a tool to increase consciousness of SD-related problems.
      Its democratic management, based on research and transfer of information, makes it a guide for « conscious consumption». Its legitimacy is founded on labels and certifications achievement, but also on its availability to people and its trend toward interactive communication.
      The outcome of researches and activities of the CSCI will be open to all, thus adding value to the selected site.
      Locally, this also settles direct connections with social life and cultural, professional and economical development. Among others, the project may include building a polyvalent park with gardens, music, relaxation area, and sports. Of primary importance are workshops for training, research and documentation. 

            III.2.2.   Payoff for institutions :  

      The Association can be useful to the administrations in charge of public-oriented activity and land settlement, as it offers a site dedicated to information and interplay, and more tightly connects communities, associations and experts of all disciplines to the entire social body.
      With its local researches and international connections, the Association can greatly help one to deal with administrative procedures and to search the funding, investments and partnerships required by any SD or other project of public interest. (Voir IV.) 

            III.2.3.   Payoff for entreprises : 

      Having economic goals, the enterprises need to communicate on their image, their action and innovation power, their solidity and their durability.
     Good image is warranted by high value (achievement quality, ethics) and promotion. The Association helps one to obtain labels, certifications, grants, partnerships, and other signs of confidence.
      The large number of activity fields and contacts within the Association enables one to benefit from various skills and expertnesses, novel ideas, partners, and assets for production, distribution and promotion of products and services. Interconnections also enhance recognition and support from various sources, such as institutions, cooperatives, associations, media, and consumers.
      The Association facilitates collective consciousness of social and environmental interplays that make SD necessary. The enterprises which follow this line guarantee their durability and continuously improve both their performance and relevance. Their economic success then gives them an exemplary value, which in turn strengthens the output in terms of SD.

 
III.3. The Association as eliciting and feeding new projects

 
      The multiple tools open to public within the Association will elicit new projects and will help in developing those already initiated. Available are aids in logistics, materials and techniques, in addition with a network of useful contacts and advices regarding structures, systems and “SD good practice”. Market researches will be carried out to discover how optimally develop the SD potential of each enterprise. For any adaptation required by SD, the Association will propose progressive transformation accompanied by negotiation of public aids.

 
III.4 The Association as a tool to expand Sustainable Development

 
      The synergy achieved between knowledge and savoir-faire coming from all types of publics will, first of all, enhance the discovery and diffusion of SD. To this aim, the Association proposes media tools and training on audio-visual techniques. It offers help for production and creation of broadcasts promoting ethic projects. It regularly organizes meetings, debates, workshops, thematic days and actions, teaching sessions, and festivals, so as to familiarize a large audience with SD. In the same line, it has continuous partnership with media, educational frameworks and administrations. 

 
 
IV CONSEQUENCES FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
 
 
      Partnerships for research and for the transfer and application of information, knowledge and skills will cover a large range. They will strengthen a collective approach of the parameters necessary for social and environmental fulfilment and of an evolving definition of what is sustainable public interest, and which modifications this interest requires. In turn, the outcome is to offer novel tools with which the synergy between efforts and activities can be refined.
     In this partnership framework, the various existing models of development will be studied. Their relevance and outcome in terms of quality of life will be evaluated. Effort will be devoted to clarify the social and environmental links that determine quality of life and collective interest. Moreover, other studies will be focused on the material and cultural patrimony of the region, its history, diversity, and originality, its ecological and multi-cultural balance, its human and environmental resources.
      These lines of activity will lead to elaborate an interactive and scalable guide for SD, rooted in a network of territorial experimentations and international researches, in view of determining which schemes are most relevant and which means are most adapted to local action.
      This guide will include GIS, in addition to media and educational tools. In parallel with territorial experimentations, thinking will be conducted in partnership with research organisms of countries where SD is already important (Island, Danemark, Australia, Japan…).
      The guide should also enhance people knowledge about the region involved, which then will gain increased potential in research and SD, because of:
-increased readability of its structural capacities, sources of renewable energy, and productions, whether organic, handcrafted or cultural
-emphasis on its geological, ecological, energetic and economical flows
-greater value granted to its diversity and to its ecological and cultural patrimony
-emphasis on its multi-faceted perspectives (green tourism, international trading, technological and cultural innovations)

     In sum, the guide should designate the selected region as a site proper to experiment SD and solidarity-based economy, and liable to national and international connections.
      Taken together, this will offer
-a logistical asset for land settlement, designed to protect, organize and give greater value to natural spaces (by sharing savoir-faire in crafts, landscapes, architecture and agronomy, as well as by research on and development of sustainable technologies) and to create SD habitat and structures (bioclimatics, energetic autonomy, garbage managing, material and savoir-faire fitted to protect cultural patrimony, landscapes and satisfying ways of life,…). Project will involve training, professional exchanges, employment with high-valued, evolving and long-lasting occupations, and “l’aménagement de collectifs cantonniers” [trad.???]
-a tool for cultural and professional decentralization, giving way to a pool of jobs and training, to sustainable services and activities, to HEQ products, and to the creation of a model farm-inn demonstrating the potential of SD with respect to economy and global quality of life.
-a tool for more conscious consumption, favouring the understanding and collective managing of common interests, and participative democracy.
-a tool for intercultural bridging, enabling, first, global familiarization with the challenges of SD and, second, the sharing of the efforts and skilfulness that SD requires from all players of development. By this way, individuals and collectivities will thus be familiarized with social and environmental responsibilities. 
      In conclusion, partenarial activities will contribute to enhance the value of human link and will stress communication and experimentation-dependent consciousness as ideal vectors for the transfer of knowledge.