BARBETS' DUET

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The underlying assumption of the Barbets' Duet is that we will only protect ecosystems if we are rewarded for doing so. At present, it is easy to make money by cutting a forest down, but no one gets paid for leaving a forest standing. We therefore need to invent the institutional rules and market mechanisms which will reward people who protect habitats and maintain or increase valuable biodiversity. The Barbets' Duet is a network of learning sites where people are experimenting with new ways of managing the land: environmentally, economically and socially.

Basic introduction

Brief concept note: This two-page note states the long term goals of the Barbets' Duet and the basic rationale behind the programme. It identifies the people and places who have joined this experiment.

Full concept note: The full concept note includes a description of achievements so far and future plans. It includes brief descriptions and photographs of the founding Barbet Learning Sites in East Africa and short biographies of the people organising them.

Brief graphical introduction: This illustrated talk is used to introduce the Barbets Duet to new people.

Barbet Learning Sites

During 2009, an effort will be made to photograph and document the work being started on the different Barbet Learning Sites. These more extensive descriptions will be posted here. Where the technology, skills and time exists, these descriptions will also function as on-going logs of activity and progress.

Advisors

The thinking behind the Barbets Duet has been developing slowly since 2004, with the help of many different individuals, mostly in East Africa and the United Kingdom. Their support and contributions have been invaluable and continue. A few of them are named here....coming soon

Events

Invention Convention.

The Barbets Duet held its first convention in Mlingotini, Tanzania in October 2009. Because it is the first convention, and marked the formal initiation of the Barbets Duet. it is called the "Invention Convention". People from all the East African Barbet Learning Sites attended. They were hosted by Mwajuma Masaiganah and the Msichoke Seaweed Farmers Cooperative. Invention Convention Summary Invention Convention Full Report 31 Mar 2010

Barbets Game

One of the tools for learning currently being developed is the Barbets Board Game. The game is one where the players invent the rules. It is currently being tested with adults and children in various parts of the world. The team or individual who wins the game has the greates biodiverstiy on the board. Please get in touch if you are interested in helping to test and develop the Barbets Game.

Evolution of an idea - Progress Reports, Presentations, Correspondence

The Barbets Duet is an experiment which is evolving all the time. Everyone who joins is actively engaged in social and individual learning through reading, observing, conversation and hand-on-work. In the interest of stimulating others to engage in similar learning, this section provides a record of reports, presentations and correspondence that document the evolution of the Barbets Duet as an experimental space for social learning and invention.

2004 Letter to Dick Nyai Oct 04

2006a Progress Report Aug 06

2006b First Conceptual Framework Oct 06

2007a Sabbatical Report SUMMARY Jul 07

2007b Sabbatical Report FULL Jul 07

2008a Graphical Intro New Markets New Livelihoods Jan 08

2008b Just Begin emails & attachments Feb 08

2008c Short Graphical Intro Barbets Duet Apr 08

2008d Progress Report May 08

Further Reading

Between 1999 and 2008, Barbara Heinzen was working closely with the Society for International Development to develop long-term scenarios describing alternative futures for East African societies. SID brought people together in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and the East Africa region as a whole to research and write these stories of the future.

For each scenarios project, a team of people from the country or the East African region worked together closely for 2-4 years, first in small teams of 20-30 people, then in dialogue with wider society. The conversations were not easy, and the ideas that developed were often hard to articulate. However, the thinking that was done, and the relationships that developed, provided important foundations for the Barbets Duet.

While working in East Africa, Barbara Heinzen was also researching and writing Feeling for Stones: learning and invention when facing the unknown. This book explores the process of creating a new social and economic system when there is no model to follow. Many of the lessons of that book, and the lectures developed around it, underpin the ambitions and processes of the Barbets Duet.

Links to the SID scenario work, as well as to Barbara Heinzen's writing and lectures, are provided below through the headings.

Society for International Development - East Africa

(2000) Kenya at the Crossroads

(2003) Turafika Tanzania

(2004) The Story of Uganda

(2006-2008) East Africa: What do we want? What Might We Become?

Feeling for Stones (2004)

Excerpts

Inventing Ecological Societies

(1997e) Can Markets Manage Ecosystems?

(2000c) Is Technology the Only Driver of Change?

(2002b) Arts & Invention