The fungus among us.

Wednesday, 18 Oct 2000

HANNOVER, Germany

Today was supposed to be my day off, a day to be spent sleeping, exploring Hannover, and catching up on long-lapsed correspondence home. Would that it were so easy. To all my friends and family who I told I would write — my apologies.

My plans were foiled by what’s turning out to be one of the busiest weeks here at the ZERI pavilion and at the EXPO. Don’t Germans work? To my chagrin, I missed Michael McBride’s presentation on the first eco-brewery in Canada, but I was filled in later in the day.

Michael was inspired to start his do-it-yourself degree in mycology and beer after attending a ZERI meeting in Namibia in 1996, where he came to the conclusion that if mushrooms could be grown on beer waste in the desert in Namibia, it could be done in Newfoundland. He now cultivates high-priced oyster and shiitake mushrooms on spent grain from his Stormbrewing Brewery outside of St. John’s, Newfoundland.

Conventional brewing processes use about 20 liters of water for every liter of beer brewed, and produce about 18.5 kilograms of malted barley (or other grain) as waste. Only 8 percent of barley is typically used in the brewing process; the remaining grain has high amounts of lignin cellulose fiber and protein, and, although it is often fed directly to cattle, it’s actually difficult for ruminants to digest.

A solution? Mushrooms. Through years of experience, ZERI researchers — in particular professor George Chan — have developed a way to break down the lignin cellulose, making it easier for cattle to digest and creating economic value at the same time. Some projects — which are spread around the world from Fiji to Columbia, from Namibia to Mauritius — grow shiitake mushrooms, already a $2.4 billion industry worldwide, but you can also cultivate oyster mushrooms, reishi, or any number of valuable fungi. In fact a common thread among ZERI projects is to use mushrooms to transform conventional organic waste into more valuable products — from economic, social, and environmental perspectives.

I’m never going to look at boring button mushrooms in the grocery store in the same way. One of the guides here is a very knowledgeable mycologist from Brazil, and the other night I flipped through the catalogue of a mushroom supply company based in Olympia, Wash., Fungi Perfecti. Definitely a place I’ll visit when I’m back in that part of the world.

But these systems I’m describing aren’t simple linear ones. And that’s the beauty of them. They’re diverse, incredibly complex, and consist of many different parts, just like natural systems. The brewery in Namibia is akin to an ecosystem — chickens are raised, eight different varieties of fish are grown in wastewater treatment ponds, and protein-rich algae are grown in ponds and harvested (remember this the next time you’re see bottles of green drinks in a natural foods store or spot an ad extolling the vigor-inducing properties of spirulina).

When I think of these projects, I’m continually reminded that economies and ecological systems both need complexity and proper scale to be resilient and sustainable.

Some of the rest of the day is taken up by minutiae, socializing, and writing. Lunch is served and we congregate outside on the gravel beside the Sri Lanka pavilion. I learn a few more words of Spanish and we make plans for a tour of the Canadian pavilion on Friday and a party at the pavilion later that night.

There’s a completely different air at the ZERI pavilion than at other pavilions. Part of it is our small size, but it might also be because much of the day is spent in the open air, if not directly outside, or because of the big mural of humpback whales that we can see when we walk around, or because of the closeness and warmth of the staff. The cold and rain remind me of the west coast at home, and I complain sometimes, but on warmer sunny autumn days it’s wonderful.

Later in the afternoon a group of us leaves to visit an ecological community near the EXPO site. I’m amazed at the impeccable neatness of the farm. Never having been on a European farm, I’m not sure if it is geography or culture that is the reason for this. Human waste is treated with an onsite wetland, and waste from pigs and chickens and cows as well as waste from the slaughterhouse goes to a digester where it is decomposed anaerobically, producing the methane gas that provides the energy for the complex, where about 15 people live. When I learn that it’s an example built expressly for the EXPO, I’m not surprised at the spanking new feel to everything.

The sunset is phenomenal. We look to the east, where three Danish-designed windmills form a perfectly composed scene lined up against the light blue sky and pale flat fields. We pause at the top of a grassy knoll created as a sound barrier against the freeway that abuts the complex. It’s great to hear wind and grass again, since the background noise at the pavilion is pounding Euro-techno from neighboring pavilions and voices speaking in languages I don’t completely understand. Then the group of us heads back inside to test the beer brewed on site and back to the pavilion for our ride home.

Another educational seminar tomorrow morning should mean an early night, always an effort he
re since the company is so great.

Thursday, 19 Oct 2000

HANNOVER, Germany

For the first time in about a week, it’s sunny at 8:30 a.m. The pavilion looks stunning in this morning light, since it’s coming in at a sharp angle from the east, and I take a few pictures. The two-story round building, modeled after a mushroom, is airy and open. It was designed by Colombian architect Simon Velez, considered by many to be a world expert in bamboo architecture and construction.

I go upstairs to find a notebook I left there yesterday and spend a few minutes swinging in the hammock from Colombia, looking up at the exposed beams in the ceiling, before heading downstairs to meet others arriving for the seminar. The flooring here on the second floor of the pavilion is made from Thai bamboo by a German company, Elephant Parkett, and there’s also a large table used for meetings and seminars, a few bamboo plants sitting against the sides, and a few computers, ostensibly linking to the ZERI website, except they haven’t been working for the past few days. In a few weeks the second floor will be transformed into a Japanese Zen space and monks will be here for the day. I only hope that it’s this beautiful for the monks’ ceremonies.

A group of us walks over to the 3,600-square-meter Japanese pavilion next door, made almost entirely out of recycled paper and a cardboard frame, where we’re having this morning’s seminar. After staring at the outside of the building from the ZERI pavilion for two weeks, I’m finally getting to go inside. The gently vaulted roof is a graceful arched lattice made of thick paper tubes and steel, covered with a layer of special fire-resistant, waterproof paper which allows light to pass through.

Typical of what seems to be the unofficial modus operandi here at the EXPO, the person at the door knows nothing about our intended arrival and plans to use the conference room for something else, and everything is a bit chaotic for a few minutes. We finally find the right person and get escorted up to the conference room, sparely furnished, thoroughly supplied, and extremely neat and tidy. I sit down close to the rose placed on the table, and I think all of us in the group, about 25 in total, are glad to be inside after sitting outside for the rest of the week’s seminars. I make a mental note to myself to try and get some slippers before the next seminars.

Graham Harper, who works with ZERI Link in Japan, talks about his experiences and we all share our views about environmental education. ZERI Link is an educational program that creates and distributes curriculum for high school students based on the ZERI principles, and connects students with local companies so they can apply what they learn in the classroom. There are parallel programs operating in Sweden (at least six guides here have participated in that program), England, Japan, and, in a few months, Thailand, with some plans to develop programs in Italy and Canada. The programs are a bit ad hoc, varying in structure and size from country to country, but they all have the common elements of creating a dialogue between the corporate sector and high school students, allowing the students to gain practical experience in the theory behind ZERI.

In the Japanese program, Graham’s English class worked with Shiseido Cosmetics, identifying waste streams and trying to suggest ways of making industrial clusters and creating value from innovative uses of the company’s waste. Graham tells the story of how much of an impact the students’ work had. After listening to the students’ presentation of their final report, one of the senior executives expressed his epiphany out loud, saying that perhaps it was time for the company to change its ways. It’s impressive that a group of schoolgirls could have such an effect.

After the education seminar we wander back to the pavilion. I have a stimulating conversation with someone from New Zealand about the importance of experiential education, particularly in environmental education, but also in online education. All this thinking makes me thirsty and I get a couple of beers from the bar (not very unusual here, since Germans start ordering beer as soon as we open at 9 a.m.) and we continue talking and move on to our EXPO misgivings.

The fair is supposed to radiate with the themes of Humankind, Nature, and Technology. But most days I see an enormous consumer fest — a summer fair like those they have at home minus the carnies, with better coffee, pretzel carts instead of cotton candy, and more stylish people. Take for instance the Andorran pavilion, one of the most prominent here, representing one of the smallest countries at the EXPO. They’ve done a superb marketing job, since almost every 10th person has a pin or bag from the pavilion’s gift shop, but their pavilion contains little about technology, sustainable development, or nature. Cynicism aside, there are some gems here, including the ZERI pavilion, and the Finnish and Bhutanese pavilions.

Back to work at the bar and information booth. Customers like the menu — a variety of toasted sandwiches, coffeecake, beer, good strong Colombian coffee that comes from a ZERI project, and homemade lemonade. The sandwich bread and the coffeecake are both made from spent grain from the brewery in Cologne where we get the beer.

Finally, at about 10 p.m., a group of us leaves for one of the big concert halls here for a free show by the Buena Vista Social Club. Arriba!