Turtle Talk
Voices for a Sustainable Future

Publisher:  New Society Publishers & The New Catalyst, Gabriola, Canada
Year Published:  1990
Pages:  133pp   ISBN:  ISBN 1-55092-001-4
  Dewey:  639.9
Resource Type:  Book
Cx Number:  CX4523

A collection of interviews with activists who offer insights into the crisis of the industrial world, and into what might be done to redirect society upon an organic, regenerative, sustainable course.

Abstract: 
The New Catalyst alternative magazine was initiated in 1985 by co-editors Judith and Christopher Plant from the remote interior mountains of British Columbia. The quarterly magazine has now spun off a "bioregional" book series.

Turtle Talk is a collection of interviews with activists who variously address the multiple themes that the turtle image suggests. To illustrate: "the animal that carries its home on its back", slow but persistent, teaches us "that you can get ahead only when you stick your neck out".

Some of the themes presented here issue from conscious bioregionalists -- who have adopted the turtle as an official emblem -- while others have their sources in viewpoints as diverse as anarchism and witchcraft, feminism and Buddhism. Together, they offer unique insights into the true depths of the crisis of the industrial world, and into what might be done to redirect society upon an organic, regenerative, sustainable course.
The current movement known as bioregionalism seeks to "resuscitate" culture with emphasis on self-government without hierarchy; on process, consensus, and "bioregions... as an alternative to nations". This perspective is counterposed against the old adage that "the means justify the ends".

Other resonant and important themes include the essential task of getting in touch with nature; the need to identify with Native peoples and their "non-civilized truths about satisfactory living"; and the necessity for society to outgrow its "dominance disease". And most of all, the essential job of translating these ideas into a "politics of the possible".



Table of Contents

Foreword
1. Slow and Steady Saves the World: An Introduction
2. Regenerate Culture!
3. Bioregional and Wild! A New Cultural Image
4. Bending the Energy: Spirituality, Politics and Culture
5. Mutual Aid: The Seed of the Alternative
6. Celebrating All of Life
7. Becoming the Forest in Defence of Itself
8. Deep Ecology Down Under
9. Wings of the Eagle
10. Working Together: Natives, Non-Natives and the Future
11. Consensus and Community
12. Salmon and Settler: Toward a Culture of Reinhabitation
13. Breaking Free: Building Bioregional Economies
14. Cities, Councils and Confederations
Further Reading