OceanValley
  • Home
  • Contact
  • Home
  • Contact

Help seed-fund this visionary project!

(Personal) Crowd Funding Page

Picture
I'm Erik Dalhuijsen, physicist with a 30 year career in many aspects of Petroleum Engineering, oilfield development, IT, and now sustainability. My work has included specialised technical advice and engineering, team building, integrated project management, and operations troubleshooting. In 2012 a CCS (carbon capture and storage) project made me look into Climate Change and its connections to industry and economy. This led to starting www.aberdeenclimateaction.org and the question: what are critical skills to progress implementation of sustainability? Now I'm several years into this transition, learning from those more experienced, and adding my own nuggets where possible, pursuing the big idea to implementation.
Who's Talking? [click image for more]
Sustainability – doing what does not destroy future possibilities
We know it needs doing, yet have made little progress overall the last 40 years.
If we could apply what we collectively know, small or big, things could really improve.
My years of experience with tech consultancies shows:
access to knowledge & experience, and a way to share it,
gives much better results.

What I’m trying to do:

Creating the “shoulders of giants” for *all* to stand on, so we can progress rather than reinvent.
Making already-working examples visible and replicable, facilitating co-learning. All in the sustainability context: from agriculture to waste water to energy to transport to attitude to currency to economy to construction to industry & tourism to soil to discussion to communities to marketing to frameworks and agreements. Scalable, shareable and “free” to access.
This is not just a database - it is the entire process of establishing a working system, getting inputs, outputs, quality control, eventually with distributed "management" by the users. Though individuals can use it, it will require communities to function optimally.

How I’m going about this:

Location
A place small enough to work with, large enough to be an example, pleasant enough to work in, with a common language, and some understanding of local and global presence. The Island of El Hierro in the Canary Islands, Spain. Tentatively Europe..
Location - progress to date: I’m now on El Hierro, Canaries. 5-10,000 inhabitants. Marketed as “sustainable island”, which it isn’t. Next to La Palma Island with ~70,000 people, other Canary Islands up to 1million. It has no mass tourism, plenty unused farm land, a failed economy based on half-hearted eco tourism with little eco to offer, and on conventional banana and pineapple crops based on subsidies. It is hampered by the young generation all leaving for lack of relevant jobs, is massively subsidised without pursuing the long term vision. It is beautiful, with a kind climate, accessible by water and air, good infrastructure. Great people, potentially positive government. Spanish. <El Hierro – ¿mentira o empieza?>
[click image for more]

Picture
[click image for more]
Connect
Connect with people who have made good things work. Connect with government which can make good things work. Find blockers, reasons for failure. Connect with those who already pool skills and knowledge. Ask them to share this knowledge for free. Connect with people who fund, market, propose, and do worthwhile sustainable things.

Get a tool, Get Information
Build a tool + management system to store, share and update knowledge publicly. (open source, public domain, some aspects of an advanced wiki) Backfill with information, allow evolutionary improvement of tool. Stimulate adoption of the tool locally. Test and update, expand to multiple locations. Include a forum with originators and learners as “helpline” for starters. Roll out globally via established networks.
Picture
[click image for more]

Picture
Some unused places on the island: a demonstration "granja" cattle shed in an (unused) park, a nearly finished (9 yrs halted) conference centre, & a privately owned monastery (11 years empty) [click image for more]
Set up the HUB
A local connection place to build the big picture, access management support. A cross between a cooperative, a business management team, a project office, and a community hall. Connected with international mirror groups. Also a base & incubator for specific application projects. Also a centre for locals and visitors to see what's going on, what's working and what not (yet), and how it is all connected.

Make assets available -
Land, facilities & skills where possible, and illustrate how to replicate this elsewhere. Willing starters can then pursue their branch of interest, improve with experience, and share. All projects in the end need to be of sufficient value to sustain the effort, whether by income, by demand or by regulation.
Picture
A successful avocado farm, in the midst of long-term unused & abandoned farmland. Irrigation water is available nearby. Most of the farmland on the island is similarly abandoned. [click image for more]

What I still NEED:

Paying my bills: How do I eat? I’ve eaten up my savings over the previous few years, have few needs but do need transport, harbour fees (I currently live on a boat), expenses and food.
Assistance: A few energetic and/or skilled people joining me, investing their time, would really help – there is much to be done, not enough hours & not enough me, and feedback is invaluable.
To help in person, or just know more, email me! <contact>
Project Financing: Both for the overall project and the many possible sub-projects multiple avenues seem possible, but nothing concrete yet. Lines of subsidies and investment are likely available, but I need an angel with time to help find & develop these!
Picture
Please help with a donation.
If you can help in person, or want to know more, email me! <contact>
To save Paypal's 3%, contact me for bank details! <contact>

Home

Contact

OceanValley Ltd, Copyright © 2017,18,19,20 21