They flourish all over the world: shared gardens in urban areas, simple vegetable gardens, pleasure or wild gardens, green roofs or facades… From Germany to the United States, from Singapore to Brazil, a “green revolution” is underway, on the initiative of citizens, researchers and sometimes politicians, writes The time in the formidable investigation that opens the file of this double issue, the last of July, before our traditional summer break.
And if the gardens were one of the plausible (and peaceful) answers to the crises which multiply: climatic, food, policy… It is all the demonstration of the German weekly. “Gardeners of all countries, unite”, even throws The time by evoking a utopia that “goes far beyond the strict framework of allotment gardens”.
“Today, More and more of us are dreaming of a new approach, which would sprout new hopes and allow the implementation of concrete steps to resolve the ecological crisis – which, then, would no longer seem so insurmountable. To dream of a kind of modern-day paradise, of a pocket biodiversity, already more or less present in certain places.”
It is no longer just a fad but also a real social phenomenon. The gardens have become the laboratory for climate change and sustainable agriculture. We test the resistance of endemic species, organic farming methods… “The specialists of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization themselves evoke a new agricultural revolution placed under the sign of gardens”, gets excited The time.
A space for social innovation and learning, the gardens are also the place for new forms of solidarity. As in South Africa, where the news site New Frame went to meet the “sidewalk gardeners”, which allow the most precarious to ensure relative food self-sufficiency. And beyond that, sometimes, to reconcile the communities. “If the first step is to grow your food, the second is to share it. Thus, apartheid and class barriers, which still exist today, will disappear.” wants to believe a sidewalk gardener from Pretoria.
With the current heat wave and the water restrictions imposed in several departments, this file could seem out of place; on the contrary, it seemed to us more necessary than ever. For what he gives hope.
Utopias, dystopias: this is somewhat the leitmotif of the series of reports brought together in this issue. In Lebanon, the Ahwak café in Tripoli offers a haven of peace for minorities, says Newlines Magazine. In Ukraine, the massive mobilization of civilians has profoundly transformed society, deciphers UnHerd. In Central America, cryptomillionaires dream of building autonomous private cities. But their libertarian plans are actually far from ideal, explains the MIT Technology Review. In South Africa again, a journalist from Sunday Times went to Orania, where, under the pretext of autonomy and security, white communities have been perpetuating apartheid for thirty years. Chilling.
Finally, with this issue, we offer you, for the third time, teen mail, a 32-page notebook, four of which are devoted to games on the news, in which you can happily immerse yourself. It is particularly about the madness of manga (a global phenomenon), but also the way journalists work in Ukraine, a secret school for girls in Afghanistan or the 100th anniversary of the Haribo bear. A number built on the same principles as Courrier international, with a particular effort of pedagogy.
Good reading.
With all the editorial staff, we wish you a very happy holiday. Thank you for your loyalty and see you for the next issue of the weekly on August 11th. In the meantime, our site does not stop and continues to cover all the news on a daily basis. From Ukraine to the fires ravaging Europe, from the charm of Brittany to the joys of laziness, seen by the foreign press, find us on courierinternational.com.