A Hendy Woods Hobneelch

“Grab your applehead, get a new hedge, and get out of that can kicky mood! We're having a tidrick and it's gonna be a beemsch!” smiles Jenny Burnstad, Treasurer/Fiscal Director of the Cloud Forest Institute and co-coordinator for the upcoming Hobneelch for Hendy Woods.

For Boontling newbies, a Hobneelch is the Boontling description for a Saturday Night Dance. Though purported Boontling originators Ed “Squirrel” Clement and Lank McGimsey would probably have peppered the announcement with slightly more colorful language, Burnstad and event organizers hope this fundraiser will bring out fun seekers from the Valley and beyond, in support of Hendy Woods and Cloud Forest Institute.

The Hobneelch will take place on Saturday, June 16 at the Anderson Valley Solar Grange in Philo. World Rock Rebel Musicians Clan Dyken and The Mermen, purveyors of psychedelic instrumental surf music will be providing the evening’s entertainment. The event is being co-produced by Cloud Forest Institute and sponsored by Pete’s Sound Productions and the Mendocino Environmental Center.

Proceeds from the fundraiser will be shared between the Cloud Forest Institute and the Hendy Woods Community. The event was originally slated to be a Clan Dyken concert, but organizers had an opportunity to expand the show and share the proceeds. “We found out the Mermen were coming to the area and didn’t have a venue for Saturday night, so we decided to combine efforts in support of Hendy Woods,” says Burnstad. Though the Woods have been saved from the State Park chopping block, the work for the Hendy Woods Community has just begun, with the need for funds one of the first steps toward a new model of park administration and support. “I am so confident we’ll keep the woods open because the young people who grew up in this area jumped on board and made a commitment to save the park,” notes Burnstad.

The act of merging together community organizations for the greater good is not an unusual enterprise for Cloud Forest Institute, founded in 1996. The Mendocino County and Ecuadorian-based nonprofit organization focuses upon providing social and environmentally based service learning opportunities in Mendocino County and Mindo, Ecuador.

Additionally, Cloud Forest Institute acts as a bridge for local and internationally based community groups through the provision of fiscal sponsorships, with support provided to like-minded, environmental education groups and projects. ‘We fiscally administer funds so groups can accept tax deductible donations,” explains Burnstad, which enables worthy causes or up-and-coming non-profits to jumpstart a project, grow their organization or stay small, as they desire, with the Institute handling donations and the requisite administrative paperwork on their behalf. Collaboration- one of the biggest buzzwords in the non-profit world these days, has been a part of Cloud Forest's mission since its inception. “We think it’s the role of non-profits to be bridges. Our focus is upon community, education and conservation,” Burnstad continues.

Cloud Forest Institute has a synchronous relationship between its Mendocino home base in the north and its southern headquarters of Mindo, Ecuador, in the south. “It’s been a dream to be sister bio-regions. Mindo and Mendo. North and South tied together. Northern California is even a subtropical rainforest, similar in many ways to Mindo's cloudforest,” Burnstad explains.

Locally, one Mendo focus of the Institute has been the development of the MendoDragon community located near downtown Boonville. For years, Burnstad and an evolving group of people interested in sustainability, cooperative living and what is called the “intentional community renaissance movement” searched for property that could be developed as a new model for community living. Financial incentives for investing in a community lifestyle are compelling. “More people find their place in the country if they go in on it together,” Burnstad notes, “We looked for property with friends and strangers interested in defining agreements in a community setting.”

After looking for many years, the group found their home in Boonville. “We love being able to ride our bikes into town. Boonville is so friendly. It really feels like home,” says Burnstad.

Mendocino County has a long history of experiments in “alternative lifestyles.” MendoDragon’s name is a tip of the hat to the highly respected, wildly successful Mondragon cooperatives located in Spain’s Basque country. The Mondragon corporation is the seventh largest in Spain, employing over 85,000 people, where worker-members determine worker-to-owner salary ratios and the organizational philosophy is rooted in ten principles: open admission, democratic organization, the sovereignty of labor, Instrumental and subordinate nature of capital, participatory management, payment solidarity, inter-cooperation, social transformation, universality and education. Mondragon’s industrial and retail divisions gross billions of Euros annually, and in 2009, the United Steelworkers came to an agreement allowing Mondragon worker cooperatives in the United States.

MendoDragon is admittedly a smaller, more down-home enterprise but the vision and ethos of Mondragon inform their culture. Currently, Burnstad and four other individuals work with others interested in community enterprises, sharing the work, play and bounty of their land- pruning trees, chipping branches and learning how to live together with respect and honest communication. “Our philosophy- live lightly with humor, harmony and beauty,” Burnstad smiles.

“2012 is the International Year of the Cooperative and the Year of the Dragon,” smiles Burnstad. Her quiet, gentle enthusiasm and heartfelt concern for the environment and her local community are palpable and real. “We finally get to walk our talk, living in this intimate lifestyle and becoming family.”

The MendoDragon residents are finding their way into the fabric of Anderson Valley. “We’ve met some Boonville old-timers who have been so lovely,” says Burnstad. She joined the Grange recently and immediately jumped in to help the organization start a computerized accounting system. “The Grange is really the heart of the Anderson Valley Community,” says Burnstad.

Val and Steve Muchowski recently donated redwood fencing to MendoDragon. Donated materials are always appreciated, and right now, materials for the construction of an outhouse are needed. “We are learning about our land,” says Burnstad. “We hope to offer a Permaculture workshop in the future which will be open to the public. We’re trying to make the most of our Golden Years,” says Burnstad, laughing.

While she holds down the fort in Mendo, Burnstad’s daughter Freeda Alida is the force behind Cloud Forest Institute’s efforts to restore and preserve threatened, oil-damaged rainforest land in Ecuador. One of the organization’s most complex and successful partnerships has been with the Amazon Mycorenewal Project “The project investigates how mushrooms can be used to help clean up the oil pollution that is contaminating many regions around the world, especially the Ecuadorian Amazon,” says Alida Burnstad.

One of the world’s largest land-based oil spills in the world is located in the Sucumbios province of the Ecuadorian Amazon region. “Since the 1960s, Texaco and other oil companies have intentionally dumped petroleum waste products, failed to uphold safety regulations, and ignored degraded pipelines that spring leaks on a weekly basis,” says Alida, adding that an estimated 18.5 billion gallons of oil now contaminates the region. Local communities are well organized and are working for legal justice, addressing the resulting public health crisis, and fighting to prevent further spills.

Volunteers for the mycorenewal project are based out of Mindo, where they may sign on for one to three months of study and work. Labs and greenhouses are profuse with reishi mushrooms, known as the mushroom of immortality and used for medicinal properties. Tincture is being made. “Volunteers help with the growing and visit Lago Agrio, where the oil spill was most concentrated. It’s so extreme that mushrooms initially can’t help. Asphalt has dried on top of the pools of the spills. That has to be removed first, then the liquid petroleum gets scooped up. As a final phase, the oyster mushroom gets spored and does its work,” says Burnstad, adding that volunteers bring contaminated soil back from the Amazon to conduct experiments in the Mindo labs.

“People often ask if mushrooms can ‘absorb’ or ‘eat’ oil. In fact, the root-like component of mushrooms (called mycelium) actually breaks down petroleum by excreting extracellular enzymes outside of its body. This is how fungus metabolizes petroleum. Mycologists acclimate the mycelium we use in a laboratory so that it is accustomed to recognize petroleum as a nutrient. For certain types of contaminated sites, mycorenewal can be faster, more effective and much more cost effective than other remediation methods, such as those using bacteria and chemical bleaches,” Alida explains.

One of the goals of this project is to purchase polluted land so that researchers may work on projects year-round.

Mycelium can save the world, according to renowned mycologist Paul Stamets, and the Burnstad family agrees. “We held a ‘Shroomposium’ last fall in Boonville, thanks to the Senior Center’s generous offer of their building,” says Burnstad. The event was a convergence of “radical mycologists” and mushroom aficionados who learned and discussed everything from growing shitakes on oak logs to detailed lectured on some of the processes the Amazon Myco-renewal project is employing in Ecuador.

“This is technology working with nature and spirit. It is very fulfilling to incorporate these elements,” says Burnstad.

Mindo, Ecuador has been supported by the government with the construction of a state of the art technology center, and Alida has developed a memorandum of understanding with the center so that Cloud Forest volunteers can use its facilities and the site to present workshops for local students. She is working with universities in Quito and continues to collaborate in the hope of procuring additional grants and creating accreditation for the courses taught at CFI.

The Cambugan Foundation based in Quito, Ecuador, was one of the organization’s earliest partnerships. Their focus has remained the purchase, protection and preservation of the country’s rapidly decreasing virgin rainforest regions which are considered to be among the most biodiverse areas on the planet, yet in some cases up to 70% of the original habitat has been lost. Without protection, biologists estimate that 15-37% of animal species in the rainforests will be extinct by 2050.

Currently CFI fiscally sponsors about a dozen groups or projects. Locally based organizations supported by the Burnstad’s expert grasp of nonprofit accounting include Transition Ukiah Valley, the Mendocino Environmental Center, the Mendocino-County Bee Club, Common Vision, the Butler Cherry Ranch Project and the Mendocino Organic Network.

“Common Vision volunteers are teaching students how to grow their own fruit trees. What could be more worthwhile than that? Another group, InforAmazon is cleaning up the polluted rivers and teaching recycling in Brazil. The young people working in these organizations are like a New Age Salvation Army. They are tackling global environmental concerns on a community level and some are working toward obtaining their own non-profit status,” Burnstad explains, adding that most of the groups CFI supports are volunteer-based. “It’s amazing how much work is being done and how few paid staff are involved.”

This summer, CFI will be offering a variety of service learning opportunities in Ecuador. “We aim to offer programs to students at many levels including short and long-term workshops, university courses, internships and residency programs for artists, teachers and thesis students,” says Alida. Courses include an Introduction to Tropical Ecology, Cloud Forest Entomology, the Ornithology of the Cloud Forest, Conservation in Cambugan, Oil Issues: Healing Pollution for People and Planet, Oil and Indigenous Health, Introduction to Mycology and Remediation, Earthen Building and Permaculture Design Certification. Scholarship fundraising packets are available, and affordable fees offer the student, author or professional on sabbatical an opportunity to enjoy the resources and support of CFI while pursuing individual projects.

Tickets for the Hobneelch are $20 and will be available at the door. Music begins at 8:00 pm. Local beer, wine and homemade foods will be offered. For information on the fundraiser call 1-800-9DJPete. For information on the Cloud Forest Institute and their project partners visit www.cloudforest.org. For more about Hendy Woods visit hendywoods.org.