Eternal Spring - History

In September 1997, Jef Crab delivered the Ecological Manifesto to Honorary Senator, Maurits Coppieters, and Norbert De Batselier, Chairman of the Flemish Parliament (Belgium)

This Ecological Manifesto was written with the help of Northern and Southern workgroups, organisations and individuals as a continuation of the former published work of Senator Coppieters and Mr. De Batselier, entitled Het Sienjaal (The Signal). In this book, they both pleaded to give the highest priority to a new policy in which the ecological contract would be of primary importance. At the request of Maurits Coppieters, Jef Crab brought the ecological aspect of this project into an integral framework. 

The Ecological Manifesto offers an integral approach on sustainable development in which the ecological contract is of primary importance. The Manifesto combines ecology, education, international co-operation and social structures into one integral approach. The work was expanded with two appendices: One is from the pen of Hugo Vanderstadt, a Belgian engineer on environmental and bio-ecological architecture, offering a current model for an European eco-village for 3000 inhabitants. The second is written by Rainer Rothfuss, a German social geographer, who describes with clarity the contemporary policy of the Brazilian State Governor of Amapa, José Capiberibe. The latter transformed Amapa from a impoverished dependent state to an exporting one in less than four years after putting the social and ecological aspects of his policies in the forefront.

For several reasons - principally because of a severe illness of Senator Coppieters, and secondly because of the political climate surrounding the dioxine-crisis in Belgium - the Manifesto did not make it to the larger public. Nevertheless, the small circle of politicians who received the Manifesto reacted very enthusiastically. Cardinal Danneels, for example, ordered 10 copies and presented it on the Conference of Bishops in Belgium.

In early 1999, after consulting Maurits Coppieters, nowadays Honorary Chairman of the Flemish Government, Jef Crab decided to formulate again his ideas in a more elaborate version of the Ecological Manifesto. This as a result of a question of South-American workgroups and reporters. 

Now we are ready to present this new publication auguring an integral approach towards sustainable development, entitled Eternal Spring, Living with Enough in a World of Abundance.