It was the last week in August of 2003. The late-summer rains from Odessa were blowing over the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains, in the Ivano-Frankivsk region. Over two-hundred young, idealistic environmentalists from European and North American countries were making their way through the east-European hinterland toward Ecotopia, a gathering in the mountains near Sheshory - one of the oldest villages in western Ukraine.
We couldn't have had a better site, hidden up in rolling hills of a national park behind picturesque farmhouses and quaint villages. The ubiquitous paper and plastic debris that usually litters the Ukrainian roadside is noticeably absent up in the mountains. The nearby river was crystal clear, and I'm amazed to say that I drank water straight from the stream at our camp. That's something I would hesitate to do even in the U.S.
Many of these young activists would be coming for their first time to network and share information with likeminded, progressive, environmental types from other countries. Although Ecotopia was founded as an annual, week-long meeting in 1989, this year was the first time it was held in the former Soviet Union. This fact made it possible for many people from Eastern Europe to come - due to visa-free travel, and low transportation and food costs.
This year was truly a meeting between East and West, involving people speaking the languages of Catalan, English, Russian, Dutch, Romanian, Azeri, Armenian, Polish, French, and of course Ukrainian. It was to bring some misunderstandings along with all the learning and cross-frontier exchange.
Foreign organizers, based in Holland with the group EYFA (European Youth For Action) had tried to bring a decentralized leadership style to Ecotopia, meeting resistance with the local sponsors - NGOs from Kiev - who seemed to come from the opposite end of the organizational spectrum. Bureaucracy and financial burdens often forced the Ukrainian groups to act in ways that excluded foreigners from participation - the prime example was the rule that a licensed Ukrainian cook must be present at the camp's kitchen at all times, and must organize all the meals. At times it seemed like two incompatible models, that couldn't mesh, but in the end there was no other choice.
One of these foreign organizers, a bright young man from Spain, made me think of Kurtz from Joseph Conrad's famous novel about being lost in a bewildering jungle. He put up a good struggle trying to bring the idea of horizontal, consensus-based decision-making to all the Ukrainians he was trying to enlighten. But he came early, and was not eager to learn how things are done here. He was impatient with rules and hierarchies, and that is a problem if you want to live and work in this part of the world. Like Kurtz, I imagine him still out in those lush, green mountains eating roots and wild mint, planning his next move to liberate the Ukrainian people from their Soviet-style thinking.
Mornings began with breakfast. If Ukrainians prepared it, there would be milk and pasta, or milk and porridge. If Europeans were involved, there would be at least a little fruit. I think some people were wondering when somebody would make croissants and espresso for their breakfast. But this was an eco-gathering, and it would stand to reason that we should have been eating eco-type things. Like roots and mint. I mean, we were camping in a National Park, without any services for miles. What did we expect?
Let's face it; environmentalists are not all one and the same. Some are vegan, and some omnivore. Some environmentalists won't dare use an elevator or a taxi, and some are perfectly happy driving a sport utility vehicle and making a yearly contribution to their local Sierra Club chapter.
Exceptions had to be made for the eastern Europeans so that dairy products and hard alcohol would be tolerated at the camp (usually at Ecotopia these things are verboten), and people more or less got along with the army-style cooking, and the occasional lack of it.
What must have impressed some, if not others, was the beautiful simplicity of the solar-heated showers, composting toilets, recycling containers, gravity-powered drinking-water system, and the four solar PVC panels that generated enough power to run a few lights, a computer, a projector, and a television. These luxuries were essential for some of the workshops at the camp, including one given on the benefits of solar electricity. Every day there were half a dozen workshops on just about any subject related to youth or the environment. Just a few of the other topics included climate change mitigation, Belarusian anarchism and sexual politics, and the dangers of depleted uranium.
The locals usually came up the forest road to gawk and sometimes laugh at us as we started our so-called morning circle. This was an exercise in consensus making and conflict resolution on a macro level. We might have resembled the a group of diplomats in the European Commission, if they were to debate what time everyone in Europe should get up in the morning.
When you have two-hundred people in a group trying to decide on who should pick up the cigarette butts, and who should be the next day's facilitator - using hand-signals and multiple translations (such as from Spanish to English to Russian) - it tends to be difficult. It's good practice for managers of companies, I would argue, since one might never look the same way at an office meeting again.
Ecotopia is probably unique in its ability to simultaneously place such high and low expectations on its participants. A group of at-risk teens from Poland spent the week getting drunk and throwing their trash all over the woods, while a group of fifteen-or-so cyclists pedaled all the way from Warsaw, suffering several muggings and broken bones. I met Ukrainians who seemed to think the meeting was a tourist getaway, and it also seemed like some people were there just to work hard cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the facilities. I guess gatherings like this are what you make them, in many ways.
Our microcosm of human society up in those hills was a test to all of us there, I think, of our commitment to environmental work. It's work that most of us have found an uphill battle, especially in parts of Eastern Europe. It doesn't pay very well, and we have been easy targets for critics on all sides. But somebody has to do it, because there are few short-term benefits than can be realized by a corporation or government. These villages that I saw out there in the hills are there for the long term. Their environment is intimately connected with their lives, and although we don't often realize it in Kiev, it is intimately connected with our lives too. And Ecotopia is a bridge somewhere between the ideal and the real.
Editor's Note
Ecotopia is the name of a book by Ernest Callenbach, a futuristic book written in the 1970s about how people can live in harmony with nature. Ecotopia is the summer meeting of the European Youth For Action (EYFA), which is affiliated with the European Volunteer Service. EYFA is based in Amsterdam, and is run by volunteer youth from all over Europe. Their goal is to raise environmental awareness.
The gathering in Ukraine was co-sponsored by the NGOs "Green Dossier" and "SVIT"
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