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Integrated Sustainability Analysis |
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June and Andrew HoskingWe moved to Mauke end of 2008 with a mission previously developed in prayer and discussion with the family - kia TAERIA (in Cook Islands' Maori meaning "to reach for and achieve"), a proactive acronym for our mission "Towards Awareness of Environmental Responsibility and Individual Action". We came onto a land isolated from others with no power, phone, water, or income, but with the dream of creating a sustainable lifestyle not only for ourselves, but for the benefit of others. To effect change by example. Via media and educational programmes in Mauke and Rarotonga we encourage others to be proactive in reducing negative impact on the environment, and hope families will be encouraged to come home where life is good even though jobs and money are scarce. To realise the potential of the outer islands (which are suffering the effects depopulation & remoteness), whilst ensuring care and healing, where need be, of our environment. Our developing sustainable lifestyle encompasses rainwater harvesting, stand alone solar & wind power system, building a pole house against possible sea surge or rise in the future, designing for passive cooling, wheelchair accessibility, using renewable timber resources and reduced sand usage by requiring less need for concrete. For protection of ground water and lagoon we manage carefully grey water, human waste, fertilisers and our very limited introduced soil via nutrient capture, recycling (bio trench, waterless composting toilet, worm farms, composting, mulching etc based on permaculture and biological agriculture ideas), and living approx. 80% off the land. Nothing beats firsthand experience. Take for instance, the human waste issue. For years people have associated water with cleanliness and so a toilet that doesn't flush can't possibly be hygienic! Anyone who has seen our waterless composting toilet now knows this isn't so. In 2008 we read that 80% of human waste is water, but when we actually saw in 2011 for the first time what was once a 65cm pile of waste now reduced to just 13cm it really hit home just how much of a problem we don't have if we don't add water to human waste.
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