Stevens Point Eco-Municipality
The City of Stevens Point recently passed legislation to
become
Wisconsin’s 17th eco-municipality. This was made
possible with help from UWSP students, faculty, and staff
who conducted research, presented facts and ideas, and
attended meetings in order to persuade the city to go in
this direction. Some of the steps they would like to take
include building more bike lanes and community gardens and
ridding the city of plastic bags.
*Definition
of eco-municipality according to
www.wisconsinplanners.org: An
eco-municipality aspires to develop an ecologically,
economically, and socially healthy community for the long
term, using the Natural Step framework for sustainability as
a guide, and a democratic, highly participative development
process as the method. An eco-municipality becomes the
driving force for involving citizens and sectors of the
larger community in the change process toward becoming a
sustainable community. An eco-municipality collaborates with
other communities regionally, nationally, and
internationally both to learn from others and assist others
in their change process. An eco-region consists of several
eco-municipalities in the same region working together
toward these objectives.
*Natural
Step – A book written by Sarah James and
Torbjorn Lahti about eco-municipalities and how to live in a
sustainable community. The book offers guidelines to help
any city become an eco-municipality.
*Sustainable
Communities: Lessons from Wisconsin and Sweden
- UWSP professor Anna Haine's article explaining what
Wisconsin communities can do to move toward a sustainable
future.
