October 2008

TOPIC:  Living with Nature: Lessons from the Napalese Himalaya

SPEAKER:  Jeffrey Potter

WHEN:  Tuesday, October 20

TIME:  7:00 pm Refreshments
TIME:  7:30 pm Program

WHERE:  Capitol Lakes Retirement Community -- click for map
333 W. Main Street, Madison

PARKING:  Free – ramp across the street
Lower levels – must use unmarked spaces or those labeled “DNR”

PRE-MEETING DINNER:  You are invited to join Madison Audubon board members and friends at the pre-program dinner with our speaker beginning at 5:15.

Paisan's 131 West Wilson Street

QUESTIONS?:  Please call the MAS office at (608)255-2473.

What does living with nature really mean? For the people of Benchong, a remote Himalayan village in northeast Nepal, it means nearly everything comes from land on which they live. With few natural water sources, no electricity, no roads or healthcare and a limited food supply, the community is eager for development. While there is one school, there are no businesses, no shops, and no employment beyond farming.

Life in this remote village is blessed by cooperation and simplicity, but complicated by the burdens of isolation and terrain. Daily activities are work centered, punctuated with ceremonies, stories and songs. Black smiths, spinning wheels, and flint and steel, technologies that Americans abandoned generations ago, still thrive. Televisions, auto mechanics, and air conditioning seem impossible dreams. And nature, for better or worse, is ever present.

Jeffrey Potter, a former Peace Corps Volunteer and Fulbright Scholar to Nepal, has spent more than four years living and working in Benchong, part of the conservation buffer zone of the Makalu-Barun National Park. Because We Were Born Here . . . , his 30-year research project, seeks to document the living history of one Himalayan village as it struggles to 'develop' itself and join the 'modern' world. Using images and video from his research, Jeffrey will talk about the region's ecosystem and how people have lived (and thrived) in communities completely isolated from everything we take for granted in the US.

Jeffrey Potter is graduate of NYU Film School and holds a Master's in Asian Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has lived in Asia, including Nepal, for nearly five years. He currently lives with his wife and daughter in Madison where he works for the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin.