A-B-Seas

In today's Philippines Starweek magazine Nathalie M. Tormada has written about the Sailing School of the SEAs, an extension of the experiential training center on the environment, renewable energy, and sustainable living in Bantayan, the biggest island in the Visayan Sea.

The banca uses solar and wind power. Fresh water supply is not a problem as the roof is reworked into a catchment for rainwater. Fuel use is minimal as the banca is fitted with sails. It takes care of waste disposal with its own septic tank. There’s also a hanging organic mini-garden to exhibit how, in the event of climate impacts, one will still be able to have food.

But more than just its host of eco-friendly features, the sailing school, true to its name, is on a single-minded mission to educate, going on roadshows around the coastal towns.

In a previous blog we asked "So if one is living on a tiny island, a bangka, how does one propose to fill basic human needs?" The work by the people at Sailing School of the SEAs contains suggestions and is a real model.

By focusing on a banka, thinking of it as a tiny island, we can prototype on a human scale the sort of efforts that need to be envisioned and ultimately implemented on a global scale. First we must satisfy basic human needs on an animal level, Maslow's physiological needs . Until we do that people will, in order to survive, focus upon those needs and let the devil take the environment. Thus basic human needs (economy) and ecological demands (sustainability) cannot be separated.