Central Connecticut River Valley Institute, Inc.

Creating a Culture Rooted in a Deep Connection to Our Place

7 School Street
Shelburne Falls, MA 01370

Phone: 413-625-2525
Fax: 413-625-8485

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What We Are About

The Central Connecticut River Valley Institute (CCRVI) exists to create educational programs and innovative social, cultural, and economic institutions which encourage people to experience the physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual benefits of living intimately, indigenously, and in deep connection with the natural world where they live, with themselves, and each other.

CCRVI works primarily in the Central Connecticut River Valley, that is, that portion of the Valley which contains the “transitional forest” located between the northern boreal forest and the mid-Atlantic forest. Our Bioregion is very roughly comprised of the following six counties: Cheshire and Sullivan in New Hampshire, Franklin and Hampshire in Massachusetts, and Windham and Windsor in Vermont. In addition, CCRVI will promote these ideas in other bioregions.

Two of CCRVI's main areas of focus are creating bioregionally-based, sustainable, and affordable sources for basic human needs such as food, water, energy, housing, clothing, transportation, education, etc.; and (2) promoting sustainable forestry; the conservation of natural resources; the use of earth-friendly building construction materials and methods; the recycling and reuse of everything; and the conservation and preservation of land.

What We're Working On Now

We are currently working on the following projects:

1.  Our Community Food program is intended and designed to help foster:  (A) a deeper awareness of the interrelationships between us and the natural world which surrounds and feeds us as well as (B) a stronger experience of community (that is, a very real sense that “we are all in this together”) regarding our food supply.

Community Food initially encompasses several interrelated projects that build upon and support each other as a whole system and each will serve as a pilot project and model for larger-scale implementation beyond our Village.    Community Food will initially focus on three projects:  the Shelburne Falls Food Survey and Plan, the Perennial Food Project, and the Multifunctional Species Research Project.  The first project will be undertaken in collaboration with the Conway School of Landscape Design and other local educational institutions.  The latter two projects will be primarily initiated and run by The Apios Institute (see next item).  Read the Community Food proposal.

2.  We are sponsoring a newly-created organization, the Apios Institute, which promotes research and education regarding perennial gardening.

3.  We plan to develop educational programs which will offer classes in tracking, hunting, fishing, wild medicinals/wild foods, “primitive” survival skills, wildness awareness, and other related skills; and

4.  We plan to develop a wilderness and community-based initiation  experience for teenagers.

We are interested in supporting other projects which further our purposes in the Bioregion or elsewhere. Talk to us about your ideas. Contact Will Flanders, President.

What We've Done

Since becoming active in September 2004, CCRVI has undertaken the following projects:

1.  We supported a volunteer community mapping project in the Montague Plains (a unique ecosystem in located in Montague, MA) which identified the environmentally- destructive human usage patterns in the Plains - including where people dumped trash, where they rode ATVs which cause erosion problems, etc.. The project resulted in a map of the Plains which allowed the citizens of Montague to address these problems more coherently and clean up the Plains. CCRVI, through a grant from Northeast Utilities, obtained and provided to the project, a set of PDAs with attached GPS units. The PDAs used mapping software developed by a CCRVI volunteer. The Montague volunteers used the PDA/GPS/mapping software units to identify sites on the ground whichwere then be located on the map. The mapping gear is available for other community-based mapping projects in the Bioregion.

2.  We provided grants to the Red Eagle Lodge, a Montague, MA based group which brings Native American teachers/elders to the Bioregion and sponsors related activities.

3.  We sponsored the week-long Earth Story conferences of environmental activists held at Earthlands, in Petersham, MA, in 2005, 2006, 2007, and will be sponsoring the 2008 conference. And,

4.  We sponsored the ReNew Building Materials & Salvage project located in Brattleboro, Vermont, during its start-up phase. ReNew is a non-profit, tax-exempt building materials recycling store, started in September 2005, which hand-deconstructs unwanted buildings for salvage materials, sells a variety of used, surplus, and green building materials, supports the development of affordable housing in a number of ways, and provides related educational programs.  ReNew became an independent 501(c)(3) organization in 2007.  Click here to learn more about ReNew.

5.  We supported the development of an educational program, including lectures, DVDs, and slide presentations which describe (a) the current crisis state of the financial system in the US and the world, (b) the current global crises in food, water, energy availability and global warming, diminishing and/or deteriorating natural resources (including oil, forests, grasslands); (c) the benefits of shifting to a more locally-based and ecologically-wise culture, and (d) ways that local communities can begin to move toward a more locally-based and ecologically-wise culture.  For more information see: www.chrismartenson.com

Posting # 446 Expires: January 1, 2010