What’s Eco-Pasturing? It’s an ecological way of managing a piece of land by making it a pasture. There’ll be sheep. And an emphasis on education.
This is a project called “Biquette à Montréal” that’s hoping to get funding through local non-profit La Ruche’s newly announce crowd financing competition.
Seven projects are competing in the program, which is supported by the municipal government at Mouvement Desjardins and whose mission is to preserve the integrity of the Radio-Canada costume collection.
The other projects include a new video app, a book for teachers, parents and kids about kindness, a yoga expo for the city, a food waste elimination app, and the production of stuffed animals based on a collection of children’s books.
What you need to know about La Biquette
The goal is to create pastural zones in Pélican Park in Rosemont La-Petite-Patrie for a one-month period; to educate visitors through a pedagogical space around urban agriculture, with sheep as the tool; and to uplift the park by creating a new, participatory meeting point with agriculture that bridges the urban and rural divide.
How’d you dream of planting sheep in a Montreal park?
The woman behind the idea is Marie-Ève Julien-Denis, who studied sheepkeeping (shepherding?) in 2013 and heard about similar projects in Europe and the US. She has a masters in urban ag and a love of cheese. She’s working with Laurence Barchichat on the project, who loves sheep and specializes in management. Her credentials include Terra Perma and the Coco de l’Union Paysanne.
According to Barchichat, the arrondissement wants the sheep, but she needs $5,000 to build the enclosures, bring the sheep to Montreal and keep them healthy for the one-month term of the project. The enclosures will be small but built with temporary fencing so that they can be moved from park to park in the Rosemont area.
How to contribute
Go to the La Biquette crowdsourcing site and choose your gift for donating (according to your donation amount). Gifts range from coffee with the team, to macarons, to an invitation to the launch, to some high quality compost (guess where it comes from?). You can even adopt a sheep!!!
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