In January of 2018, the first-year students at Bard’s Center for Environmental Policy (CEP) travelled to Oaxaca, Mexico to visit and learn from indigenous and local communities. We had an opportunity to talk about methods for environmental conservation as well as practices that make life easier (to that same end) …
By Mika Endo Our relationship with Ben and Konomi Campbell and their Sophia Farm Community began when a former student and now alumna went to their farm in Honbetsu, Hokkaidô in the summer of 2015. Over the past few years, Professor Nate Shockey and I have been organizing a program …
This January, Bard CEP students visited the state of Oaxaca, Mexico to study watershed management and sustainable development. While traveling to the Pacific coast, we met with Omar Gabriel Gordillo Solís, a Director at the National Commission on Protected Natural Areas (CONANP). Omar told us about the history and …
This January, first-year Bard CEP students went to Oaxaca, Mexico for a course examining resource management, sustainable development and international trade dynamics. The activities of the trip highlighted how community dynamics and global economic drivers influence resource management and the sustainability of development. One approach to sustainable development that I …
During the Bard CEP Oaxaca course trip I learned about a new technology that I’ve been fixated on since: dry toilets! I’ve always specialized in waste management, but I’ve never had much exposure to human waste management. When we visited the community of Cieneguilla, our hosts mentioned dry toilets as …
Mist billows up from the valley, swirling around the green mountains of San Miguel Suchixtepec. Standing by the snow-white superadobe house of Don Claudio, I see a kaleidoscope of alternating bright greens and dark greys, as the sun breaks through the clouds and then ducks behind them again. Looking out …
The state of Oaxaca, Mexico might not be the first place I think of when I am considering innovative sustainability strategies, but, as the Bard CEP class of 2019 found out, it’s full of surprises. One such surprise was the Rancho Alternativo, a small business run by an indigenous family in …
This past January, I and my fellow Bard CEP classmates went on a two week research trip to Oaxaca, Mexico. During our time in the Sierra Sur region of Oaxaca, we visited the town San Miguel Suchixtepec, where we spent time at a local public school with a high regard …
It’s been two weeks since I returned from the Bard CEP field course on watershed management in Oaxaca, Mexico, and the trip feels surreal now. Surrounded by snow andpreoccupied by schoolwork, sometimes I catch myself daydreaming about the beautiful Sierra Sur mountains, my favorite place from our journey. We spent …
As I reflect on my recent field work in Oaxaca, Mexico with the Bard MBA in Sustainability I am most struck by the work grassroots groups are doing to develop community-based solutions to the environmental and social issues they face. Due to the lengthy dry season from November through June, …
