Foxfire is the term for the bioluminescence created in the right conditions by a few species of fungi that decay wood.

As a kid, I remember my Grandfather’s Foxfire books, which were an effort  to document the lifestyle, culture, and skills of people in southern Appalachia in a mixture of how-to information from first-person narratives and oral history. The series of Foxfire books come from the Foxfire Magazine, which was created in the late 1960s by Eliot Wigginton and his students in an effort to record and preserve the unique traditional folk culture of the Southern Appalachians. This particular type of knowledge is a kind of social science but, can also be referred to as Appropriate Technology,  as it was specific to the region and needs of its people.

There are regions all over the world in which the needs of its local population vary, but are similar to the needs of other regions. All of these appropriate technologies are very simple and sustainable in their practice. Another term for this phrase could be “sustainable technology” as well.

List of Appropriate Technology Links

• Backwoods Home Magazine – practical ideas for self-reliant living
  selected topics: Building, Energy, Farm and Garden, Self-Reliance
• Journey to Forever is a pioneering expedition by a small, mobile NGO involved in environment and rural development work, starting from Hong Kong and travelling 40,000 kilometres through 26 countries in Asia and Africa to Cape Town, South Africa. There are many resources from their projects which include:
  Appropriate technology, Community development, Rural development, City farms, Composting, Small farms, Small farms library, Biofuels, Biofuels library, Solar box cookers, Trees, soil and water, Seeds of the world.
• Mother Earth News – The Original Guide to Living Wisely
• The Farm/Institute for Appropriate Technology
  Appropriate Technology Library, Permaculture Blog
• Farm Show Magazine – previous samples page. There are a lot of articles on appropriate technology which are pretty agri-centric and unfortunately require clicking through individual issues, but here are some examples; She Uses Compost to Heat her Greenhouse, Simple System Turns Waste Oil into Diesel Fuel

more to come…