KLAMATH SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES
a group of people working for a healthy future in the Klamath Basin through education and community activities.
Our focus is community well-being, environmental stewardship, and economic prosperity.
"If you make a decision and wonder how it will affect your children, then you are thinking
sustainably."
Leslie Lowe, Founder, Klamath Sustainable Communities
HELP ENVISION A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE FOR THE KLAMATH BASIN!
Monday March 8, 7:00 - 8:30 pm --- 409 Pine Street - first floor conference room.
We will be discussing a vision of a sustainable Klamath community in 2020, and steps to realize that vision.
Feel free to come and share your ideas.
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Our Winter 2010 Newsletter is available
** click on NEWSLETTER-Current in the site menu above
Check out the Klamath Green Welcome Wagon website
and help us build a community website devoted to sustainability!
Check out the Forums for information on the Local Food Network and more!
Klamath Green Welcome Wagon
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A DEFINITION OF SUSTAINABILITY:
A SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITY respects its own diversity, values the complexity of the natural
world, and accepts responsibility for the social, economic, and ecological
well-being of present and future generations through individual and
collective actions. It balances regenerative and degenerative processes
by applying the following principles:
- Rates of use of renewable resources do not exceed their rates of regeneration.
- Rates of use of nonrenewable resources do not exceed the rate at which sustainable renewable substitutes are developed.
- Rates of pollution emission do not exceed the assimilative capacity of the environment.
A sustainable community advocates an economy that equitably provides satisfying livelihoods in a safe, healthy environment that protects its natural resource base and the viability of natural systems on which all life depends.
Specifically, sustainable communities:
- Have levels of pollution, consumption, and population size that are in keeping with regional carrying capacity;
- Share an ethic of responsibility to each other and to future generations;
- Reflect the social and environmental costs of the provision of goods and services in the prices charged for them;
- Encourage informed democratic participation and deliberation in their system of governance, education and civic leadership;
- Enhance neighborhood livability and access to greenspace in their design of markets, land use, and architecture;
- Make sure that housing is affordable and interrelated with employment, recreation, and shopping areas;
- Integrate principles of sustainability into the community's Comprehensive Plan and into other planning policies and procedures
- Foster business development policies and procedures that support a sustainable community;
- Encourage inter-jurisdiction planning that supports sustainability; and
- Encourage innovative and creative approaches to sustainability.
This definition was adopted by the League of Women Voters of Klamath County on April 25, 1998.
