The Buckminster Fuller Prize

Dr. John Todd wins the first Buckminster Fuller Prize for his Plan to Renew the Land and Economy of Appalachia

Appropriate to the storytelling culture of Appalachia, Dr. John Todd began his presentation on his winning proposal for the Buckminster Fuller Challenge (http://www.bfi.org/) by spinning a yarn. He told a “Tale of the Future”. In his tale, an air traveler lands on a mountain in Appalachia to visit the region where his airplane was built. He is welcomed by a vibrant community, reforested mountains, publicly owned utilities and locally-owned land. Todd’s vision of the future Appalachia was beautiful and utopian, but he went on to show us how it was also more than just a story.

After his story, Todd slipped back to the present, showing slides of the desecrated earth of mountain top removal sites.

Then, establishing his track record, he introduced us to his work in Massachusetts, creating a series of bio-diverse water tanks that treat raw sewage. He said in contemplating the solution to treating the sewage, he had a slow-dawning Eureka moment - that nature performed miracles by having all seven kingdoms of life work together. Indeed, his inspiration bore fruit. The images of the tanks were beautiful, spilling over with life. All heavy metals were sequestered from the water and it came out 99.9% pure from the final tank.

His “eco-machines” as he calls them can treat up to 80,000 gallons of sewage a day. He took these machines to a town in South China, stitched through with a series of clogged and polluted canals that made the whole city stink. The transformation he achieved through his eco-machines was thrilling. Not only do they “eliminate” what is unsightly, they make the process beautiful by bringing life in to make it happen. It is not dangerous chemicals that clean this water, it is plants and fish and algae and bacteria.

The next step up from Todd’s eco-machines are Agricultural-Ecological Parks. He has built one of these in Burlington, Vermont where he teaches. These Agro-Eco Parks incorporate eco-machines in their food webs. The Vermont Park currently creates twelve different foods and has already sprung four new food companies. Todd sees these Parks as the basis of a new agriculture that can be placed in the midst of an urban setting.

Building up from a network of such Agro-Eco Parks, Todd imagines creating a durable economy in Appalachia. His vision for Appalachia was the winning submission for the first ever Buckminster Fuller Prize. He describes this type of economy as ecologically-designed and carbon neutral “in a bioregional and successional framework”.

Todd envisions six stages to the process of renewing the land and communities ravaged by mountaintop removal mining:

Stage 1 - Creating world-class soils
Stage 2 - Treating Toxic Mine Waste
Stage 3 - Establishing Natural Resource Base: Forestry, Biomass, Agriculture
Stage 4 - Renewable Energy Infrastructure and Resource-Based Manufacturing
Stage 5 – Land Ownership transfer to the local stewards
Stage 6 – Development of co-operative structures among owners

He also outlined six stages of progressive leadership to guide the changes in the land and economy:

Stage 1 – NGO’s, Governments, Land Trusts,
Stage 2 – Academic and Entrepeneurs
Stage 3 – Land Holding Trusts
Stage 4 – New corporations
Stage 5 – Land Trusts become financial organizations – Land ownership is transferred to the New Land Stewards

In 2009, at a regional conference held by Appalachian Voices, Todd will be laying out the Appalachian Business and Education in a public forum. He said that he and others are currently in the process of procuring a 40-mile tract of land in Appalachia on which to begin his plan.

Todd’s plan brings technological insight and long-term planning into harmony with the miraculous powers of nature to renew itself. He realizes the importance of keeping food, energy and business local to make sure that whatever choices are made that affect the land, affect the people too. Wendell Berry, acclaimed poet and culture-keeper of Appalachia said, “What I stand for is what I stand on.” Re-connecting to the land that feeds us and provides our resources is the surest route to healing our relationship to nature and ensuring our future on earth. Todd’s plan shines a light of hope on Appalachia that is much more than a story, it is a future that we can hold on to.