Brooklyn Queens Land Trust

UN visits BQLT Garden and three other Brooklyn Sites May 10

Apr 29, 2008

Hello Friends of the Hollenback Community Garden,

Please join us in the garden for a party on Sat May 10th @ 2:00 pm to celebrate our recently completed composting toilet.

Brooklyn Queens Land Trust (BQLT) garden, Hollenback Community Garden will host visitors from the United Nations this Saturday, May 10. The UN is interested in sustainable agriculture and it is part of their Agenda 21 (explained below).


After nearly 18 months of hard work put in by garden volunteers, the Hollenback Community Garden is proud to unveil its Clivus Multrum M54 Trailhead Composting Toilet.

This toilet will replace the costly, smelly and chemical filled port-o-potty they used to rent for the summer months. This composting toilet is chemical free, flushless and sustainable. With only basic maintenance of occasionally adding woodshavings and a sprinkling of water, this system will turn our human waste into harmless, nutrient rich compost that is safe to use on our trees and flowers.

The process has been reflected in numerous photos, publicized in the press, there is even a youtube video. To add to excitement, the UN Commission on Sustainable Development is bringing 60 international guests to visit the garden earlier on the same day of this momentous unveiling!


Though the BQLT is a relatively new nonprofit, the many of the member gardens have been in existence over 30 years. The gardeners have varied interests and each garden has a distinct personality, as do the surrounding Brooklyn and Queens communities.

Hollenbach Community Garden is a Rainwater Harvesting demonstration sites, features a large composting system and a composting toilet. Below, the gardeners speak for themselves (from their Clinton Hill blog, last year.

The garden is located at 460 Washington Ave., between Gates & Greene Avenues.


Planting the Seeds of Hollenback

The Hollenback Community Garden began in 1980, through the hard work and dedication of community members who saw possibility in a lot rendered empty by the fire that destroyed the Hollenback Mansion.

Brick by brick, and wheel barrow by wheel barrow they cleaned up the site and then seed by seed, they created beauty from destruction.

To learn more garden history, come in and ask to speak to Gertrude. She is one of the concerned citizens who started the garden, and she has been gardening at Hollenback ever since.

Who are we?

We are currently about 40 gardeners, each working in individual plots as well as sharing responsibility for communal areas used by the garden membership and the larger community. Our garden is part of the Brooklyn Queens Land Trust, a coalition of 34 community gardens.

What do we do?
☼ We create a place for garden members from the community to produce locally grown food.

☼ We preserve a flourishing green oasis for the community to visit and enjoy, contributing to overall neighborhood beautification.

☼ We make all garden decisions democratically at monthly meetings.

☼ We offer several community events every season, including live music, movies, BBQs, garden workshops, tours

☼ We share our gardening knowledge and experience with the community

☼ Environmentally speaking, we harvest rainwater from a neighboring rooftop, and store it in a 700 gallon tank, reducing both our use of potable water and the amount of rainwater that goes into the city?’s overworked sewer system. You can find more information on rainwater harvesting in the city at waterresourcegroup.org

☼ We are very proud of our compost system. We not only compost garden compostable materials, but we also process the food waste of over 50 community members, as well as for the Fort Greene Farmer?’s Market. Compost collection lessens the amount of waste that ends up in landfills, and converts that waste into a valuable fertilizing material. The compost we produce is used in our garden and neighborhood tree pits, as well as by community members. Our compost piles have been used as a learning tool by New York City?’s Master Composting Class from the Queens Botanical Garden, as well as by the Lower East Side Ecology Center and the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. It has even been featured on Japanese television. To learn more about our compost, come in and ask for Charlie Bayrer, our head composter.

Where are we going?
☼ We are currently involved in a composting toilet in our garden. This will allow us to provide restroom facilities for visitors and gardeners, without having to depend on the non-sustainable, chemical, and costly involvement of a rented port-o-potty. We feel that a composting toilet is safer and more environmentally friendly. We also hope that the presence of the composting toilet will serve as a further platform for our garden, and our community, to learn more ways to harness every resource we can when it comes to supporting our planet from the strain we place upon it.

What can you do?
☼ Any time the front gate is open, please come in for a visit. Stop in, smell and admire the flowers, talk to gardeners, sit and read or just relax in the shade. Bring your family and your sketchbook. Share your knowledge and your questions.

☼ Respect the hard work of all the gardeners by not picking any fruits, vegetables or flowers. Also make sure to let them know that their hard work is noticed and appreciated.

☼ To help you plan a visit, we have regular Garden Open Hours, which are:
Wednesdays: 6pm to 8pm
Saturdays: 3pm to 7pm
Sundays: 10am to 12pm
and 3pm to 7pm

T☼ To get more information, inquire about membership, join our mailing list, find out how you can help, learn about community events, ask a question, or make a request, you can reach the garden coordinators at hollenbackcommunitygarden@yahoo.com
Cara Perkins at 917-701-2875
Mark Trushkowsky at 917-804-0414








Travel Directions: C or G subway to Clinton-Washington, take Washington Ave exit ...


from the UN website's Division for Sustainable Development

website address: http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/sdissues/agriculture/agri.htm

Agriculture

Chapter 14 of Agenda 21, on sustainable agriculture and rural development (SARD), notes that, by the year 2025, 83 per cent of the expected global population of 8.5 billion will be living in developing countries. Yet the capacity of available resources and technologies to satisfy the demands of this growing population for food and other agricultural commodities remains uncertain. Agriculture has to meet this challenge, mainly by increasing production on land already in use and by avoiding further encroachment on land that is only marginally suitable for cultivation.
CSD and Agriculture

Major adjustments are needed in agricultural, environmental and macroeconomic policy, at both national and international levels, in developed as well as developing countries, to create the conditions for sustainable agriculture.and rural development (SARD). The Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) first reviewed these issues at its third session in 1995, when it noted with concern that, even though some progress had been reported, disappointment is widely expressed at the slow progress in moving towards sustainable agriculture and rural development in many countries??E Sustainable agriculture was also considered at the five-year review of implementation of Agenda 21 in 1997, at which time Governments were urged to attach high priority to implementing the commitments agreed at the 1996 World Food Summit, especially the call for at least halving the number of undernourished people in the world by the year 2015. This goal was reinforced by the Millennium Declaration adopted by Heads of State and Government in September 2000, which resolved to halve by 2015 the proportion of the world's people who suffer from hunger.

In accordance with its multi-year programme of work, agriculture as an economic sector was a major focus of CSD-8 in 2000, along with integrated planning and management of land resources as the sectoral theme. The supporting documentation and the discussions highlighted the linkages between the economic, social and environmental objectives of sustainable agriculture. The Commission adopted decision 8/4 which identified 12 priorities for action. It reaffirmed that the major objectives of SARD are to increase food production and enhance food security in an environmentally sound way so as to contribute to sustainable natural resource management. It noted that food security-although a policy priority for all countries-remains an unfulfilled goal. It also noted that agriculture has a special and important place in society and helps to sustain rural life and land.

Agriculture is included as one of the thematic areas along with rural development, land, drought, desertification and Africa in the CSD's 3rd implementation cycle (CSD-16/17) in 2008-2009.

See also website information under Rural development, Land, Drought and desertification and Freshwater.

Coordination and Cooperation

Another recommendation of the WSSD is to strengthen and improve coordination of existing initiatives to enhance sustainable agricultural production and food security. This was a follow-up to CSD-8's decision to invite the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the CSD secretariat to continue the stakeholder dialogue on SARD in preparation for the 10-year review of Agenda 21 in 2002. FAO has continued to serve as lead agency in the UN system for Chapter 14 of Agenda 21, as well as other relevant chapters, in particular, Chapter 10 on land issues. To further international coordination, FAO has initiated and provides the secretariat for the UN System Network on Rural Development and Food Security. In addition, FAO helped launch, at the WSSD, a Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development (SARD) partnership between Governments and civil society. FAO, with IFAD, WFP and other partners, also developed and supports the International Alliance Against Hunger to accelerate action to reduce world hunger.

For more information on these initiatives, see http://www.fao.org/wssd/sard and http://www.iaahp.net/.