Tuesday 21st March

Alan Bird, who has several decades of experience in
water management worldwide, will talk about the work that he is currently
doing in the Philippines: planning for sustainable usage of water and land
resources in the Agusan River Basin in Mindanao. Alan did extensive
fieldwork there in 2002 and 2003, to assist in drawing up a long-term
management plan. He is there again now (he's due back in Britain just three
weeks before the meeting) attempting to put the plan into action. Agusan is
one of the most important natural freshwater wetlands in Asia with complex
problems including pollution from gold mining, land rights of indigenous
people, and forest clearance.

There will be slides to illustrate this talk - and anyone who came to
Alan's previous talk will remember that he is a superb photographer.

Tuesday April 18th

Gabriele Reifenberg will be talking about maintaining
the balance between traditional and modern in rural Ladakh. This is a
good-news story, thanks in large part to the many decades of work by ISEC
(the International Society for Ecology and Culture), an unusual NGO that
was the brainchild of independent campaigner Helena Norberg-Hodge. ISEC
champions 'localisation' and traditional, sustainable ways of life, in many
different parts of the world. ISEC has encouraged the Ladakhi people to
value their traditional methods of building and agriculture, which have
great advantages in the fragile mountain ecosystem, while introducing
modern techniques such as solar power that can improve people's lives. ISEC
runs an interesting education programme, in which Westerners can spend time
living and working in a Ladakhi village, experiencing the rich community
life of a 'zero-waste no-cash economy', while Ladakhis undertake tours of
the West, seeing not just the tourist sites but also the down-side of the
affluent society: desolate housing estates and run-down inner-cities. The
idea is to counter the strident message they get from advertisements and
films, that everything Western is wonderful, and life is perfect. The
Ladakhi local government, influenced by the work of ISEC, actively promotes
renewable energy and organic agriculture, in stark contrast to the policies
that prevail in most of the rest of India.

Gabriele has spent a great deal of time working in Ladakh, and knows the
countryside intimately. She will show some of her slides to illustrate the
talk.

Tuesday May 16th

What motivates us to take political action or make
personal changes for the general good ? - A discussion meeting. To start
the meeting off, and stimulate discussion, there will be short
presentations from a few of the Cambridge Forum regulars. They will talk
about the changes they have made in their own lives, and the actions they
take - what they hope to achieve, why they do it, and what they feel about
activism more generally.

Meetings planned for later in 2006 will include:

- population growth
- globalisation and 'Localisation'
- the future of the UN & proposals for an alternative world parliament
- human rights vs business interests in countries such as Nigeria, Burma and Papua New Guinea

Do forward this programme to anyone you know who might be interested.