What does sustainable island living mean?
Is “sustainable” just a trendy buzz-word meaning “green?” Does “sustainability” really just refer to organic vegetables, bio-diesel and photovoltaics?
I believe the answer is “no.”
Don’t get me wrong-these particular subjects are worth discussing. At the moment, we are considering a wind-powered generator (although I’m not sure where we’ll find the money), I’m pretty energy-conscious and, as my neighbors know, I am an eager proponent of recycling, repairing, re-using, even dumpster-diving.
More to the point, though, I am a year-round island resident, with no other home. I make (together with my husband) just a living. I have no investments, no pension, no trust fund, no property elsewhere. All I have is here; if anything happens to this community, it happens to me.
I would like to suggest two considerations as we discuss sustainability. First, that there is more to a sustainable lifestyle than virtuous eating and alternative energy. If we are talking about isolated island communities, there are sustainability issues that no amount of “greening” alone will address. Secondly, we should remember that much of what we might call “sensible, simple living” hearkens back to the lifestyles of our New England grandmothers and grandfathers. Getting through the winter on no more than we really need was not just invented by this generation.
The Bangor Daily News ran several pieces this August about high energy costs and the interest in alternative energy on some islands. The Island Institute is hosting a conference on sustainability in November. Island residents are putting up wind power and photovoltaic systems, investigating the formation of purchasing co-ops, and starting recycling programs. Well, some island residents are.
Remember that islands are tiny municipalities, with social dynamics often misunderstood by those who live elsewhere. Sometimes island communities are perceived as marginal, barely viable, and in need of every bit of charity and advice they can get. To some, islands are charming anachronisms, time machines where life resembles the small mainland towns of years ago.
Frequently, the people residing on an island are assumed by mainlanders to be of one mind about everything, to be in some sense an “intentional community,” perhaps like a group of condominium members who agree to the by-laws, or like a commune. This is most inaccurate. An island is not a single-minded corporate entity, but rather a town, in some senses like any other. The people of an island town are almost guaranteed not to agree on everything.
All that having been said, what do we mean by “sustainability?”
To call a community sustainable means that there is confidence in the long-term viability of that community, in its ability to provide for the needs of its members, and in the careful stewardship of its resources so that they may be used for the longest possible time.
To live a sustainable lifestyle indicates that you can provide for yourself and your family, all year round, without exhausting resources that future generations will also require; it does not mean you prefer brown bread to white or anything else so specific.
Many of us do produce some of our own food, choose a low-impact, environmentally conscientious lifestyle, and endeavor toward simpler economic choices. That does not mean that we own the rights to the word “sustainable.” We might recycle with a passion, go barefoot until Thanksgiving and eat home-grown kale until Christmas; this may make us obnoxious, or it may make us saintly. Still, we must not stick our noses in the air and (as some have done) suggest that driving a pickup truck indicates some basic moral weakness.
Not everybody on this island would sport a “save the whales” bumper sticker, yet they are all interested in the long-term viability of their hometown.
This discussion also must not alienate those of us who just make a living and no more. It is counter-productive, and a bit offensive, to hear it intimated that “having the right technology,” whether it be a Prius, a windmill, or a photovoltaic setup is the only way to work toward a “sustainable” lifestyle.
Let us recall the generations of island and other rural ancestors lived largely by the seasons, ate salt pork and beans all winter, had a huge pile of firewood, a cellar full of mason jars and a couple of deer in the freezer, and taught their skills and trades and knowledge to their children. That lifestyle, without intending to make a political or social point, was reasonably “sustainable.”
It was also a lot of damn work.
Those who have the means to invest in state-of-the-art “green” technologies should absolutely do so, but if we are really talking about a sustainable community rather than just one’s household, it is not enough to talk about material “stuff.”
We cannot sustain year-round rural communities with extra insulation and farmer’s markets alone. We need to find ways to have both our old island pickup trucks and our bicycles; our existing electricity and our wood stoves and our experimental alternative energy infrastructure and our marine diesel engines; our handicraft shops and our organic gardens and our lobster boats. We need to look at what makes each community tick, examine each island’s own characteristics, and pay attention to how those few who manage a year-round, low-impact, work-for-a-living lifestyle do it.
We who actually work on the islands are the ones for whom “sustainability” has a real (not a buzz-word) meaning. If our lifestyles are not sustainable, we are in trouble. If we taint our single-source aquifers, exhaust our local fisheries, make families with children feel obligated to leave, lose our postal service or transportation options, or in some way “foul our nests,” we are in trouble. We are in much bigger trouble than are the vacationers, as upset as they might be to see their delightful island harmed.
What is required for authentic community sustainability? We need families
and children to feel that they can stay. We need utilities and transportation, and them not priced out of sight. We need to be patient; island life may mean the cell phone doesn’t work; we’ll survive. Most importantly, we need year-round, adequately-paid, reliable and satisfying employment (not lots of jobs mowing the grass for the summer homes).
Personally, I am wary of too much reliance on grants, charity, or the well-meaning support of a wealthy few. If a community cannot support itself but must be cultivated like a hothouse tomato, requiring long-term financing or direction from outside itself, it is hard to make a good case for calling it “sustainable.”
Sustainability must become “our” project and not be written off as some bit of bark-eater, do-gooder nonsense, a project for the retired or the wealthy. It might mean Mainers selling property to young locals instead of to vacationers, and accepting far less profit on the sales. It might mean backing down on the speed of the lobster boat to save diesel fuel, even though there’s a lot of pride (and fun) in going “wide open.” It might mean understanding that children (enrolled in a very tiny island school) can grow to be well-adjusted members of society without ever being on a soccer team.
The issues of “sustainability” must be, and must become, the concerns of the working residents, because it is their families, their properties, their livelihoods and their cultures, which are most affected if resources are squandered or the sense of community deteriorates.
Eva Murray is a resident of Matinius Island and will be part of a panel talking about composting, recycling and solid waste at the Island Institute’s Sustainable Island Living Conference, held Nov. 8 in Belfast.