Students:Group Two: Martin, Petr, Aggie

After having breakfast we went to Riegersburg castle. There, on the top of the hill Mario Diethart and Marlene Mader introduced the region of The Styrian Vulkanland to us. The way which local people started to involve the whole community in the local politics was more than inspiring. Their approach was based on many small projects which had influence on the entire community. In effect the poeple of Vulkanland started to be proud again of their region wchich is not the richest or the most industrial but it's sustainable and independent because of many local producers with original products. We missed someone local who would enrich the lecture in personal experiences. There are similar projects in Czech Republic. For example Tradice Bílých Karpat in Carpathian Mountains which works on a smaller scale. They maybe should attract more local people.

Instead of having lunch we visited the Zotter chocolate manufactory where local Willy Wonka alias Josef Zotter produces many kinds of 100% Fair trade and organic chocolate. The manufactury is unique in it's approach to the self-sufficency of production and in it's provocative promotion. They also lay emphasis on the well being of their employees as well as their suppliers. They also provoke people with their "Edible ZOO" next to the factory where visitors can watch farm animals and afterwards eat local meat at a restaurant in the middle of the yard.

The only thing to criticize was suprisingly our unsustainable violent gluttony during the free tasting of chocolate.

The last stay was in Ecoregion Kaindorf, where Joachim Ninaus presented successes of their work and the local sustainable efforts. They for example managed to replace plastic bags with paper bags in all shops. They built a charging station for electro scooters and new cycle ways of "no-oil asphalt". The using of the mainstream way of advertising products and projects is an unusual mathod that could be put into practice in CZ where similar projects don't have very attractive and cool advertising. They might focus more on common people and youth without fear of using commercial ways of promotion.

There's one fact that we find surprising. Austrians are very proud of using photovoltaic energy. There's nothing bad in it unless you talk about the bad impact on the Third world of conventional power plants and you give photovoltaic power plants as a solution like in Kaindorf. As photovoltaic is a quite contraversial source of energy because of using precious or dangerous components gained in the Third world and because of their complicated recyclation.