It seems Darwin was a permaculturist!

In his days globetrotting aboard HMS Beagle, Darwin set in motion the transformation of a dead, volcanic island rock – Ascension Island, described by nearby islanders as "a cinder" – into a green, rain-creating oasis. How did he do it?

Ascension was an arid island, buffeted by dry trade winds from southern Africa. Devoid of trees at the time of Darwin and Hooker’s visits, the little rain that did fall quickly evaporated away.

Egged on by Darwin, in 1847 Hooker advised the Royal Navy to set in motion an elaborate plan. With the help of Kew Gardens – where Hooker’s father was director – shipments of trees were to be sent to Ascension.

The idea was breathtakingly simple. Trees would capture more rain, reduce evaporation and create rich, loamy soils. The "cinder" would become a garden.

So, beginning in 1850 and continuing year after year, ships started to come. Each deposited a motley assortment of plants from botanical gardens in Europe, South Africa and Argentina.

Soon, on the highest peak at 859m (2,817ft), great changes were afoot. By the late 1870s, eucalyptus, Norfolk Island pine, bamboo, and banana had all run riot. – BBC

And he did it by breaking what is to some a cardinal rule, the rule of not using non-native plant species. (This island never had any ‘natives’, as it came into existence from being vomited up out of the ocean through volcanic activity.)

Dr Dave Wilkinson is an ecologist at Liverpool John Moores University, who has written extensively about Ascension Island’s strange ecosystem.

He first visited Ascension in 2003.

"I remember thinking, this is really weird," he told the BBC.

"There were all kinds of plants that don’t belong together in nature, growing side by side. I only later found out about Darwin, Hooker and everything that had happened," he said.

Dr Wilkinson describes the vegetation of "Green Mountain" – as the highest peak is now known – as a "cloud forest". The trees capture sea mist, creating a damp oasis amid the aridity.

However, this is a forest with a difference. It is totally artificial. – BBC

Imagine what could happen if people could see the earth-transforming potential evidenced here – and take up the urgent challenge and joy of utilising intelligent plant assembly to create productive food forests everywhere!

Dr. Wilkinson seems to be excited:

"What it tells us is that we can build a fully functioning ecosystem through a series of chance accidents or trial and error."

In effect, what Darwin, Hooker and the Royal Navy achieved was the world’s first experiment in "terra-forming". They created a self-sustaining and self-reproducing ecosystem in order to make Ascension Island more habitable. – BBC

Have you ever tried to instill a concept in a child or adult, and got excited to observe an apparent spark of realisation in their eyes, just to see your excitement suddenly dissipate when the person speaks… when you realise that ’spark’ was totally off base? Unfortunately Dr. Wilkinson appears to have come to a remarkable conclusion – the island’s cobbled-together eco-system should be studied, not for re-greening all the dead spaces we’ve created on the Earth, but for colonising Mars instead.

Wilkinson thinks that the principles that emerge from that experiment could be used to transform future colonies on Mars. In other words, rather than trying to improve an environment by force, the best approach might be to work with life to help it "find its own way".

Believe me Dr. Wilkinson – if you got out the gardening gloves and put a thousand spaceship loads of mixed plants on the red rock, you will not a habitable planet make.

How about people take more notice of such discoveries to do something real and viable, right here on terra firma? And to the BBC – please… for everyone’s sake – get with the program….

Further Reading:

• The Biology of Global Warming
• Greening the Desert
• The Development of Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration
• A Call to Large Scale Earth Healing and Lessons from the Loess Plateau

EcoExplorers Madagascar 2010 from Shannon Kohlitz on Vimeo.

Here we are past July’s time for fleece, hat and socks, wouldn’t you believe! Manintsy – cold (25/16 °C day/night or less) was the semiarid southwest Madagascar in winter; winter in the dry southwest where ‘it never rains’. Well, never say ‘never’ and/or be prepared for rain in the no rain season and for beautiful double rainbows arching gently over the glowing morning skies….

Since our last update in February, ho avy has been on a ‘high season rainbow ride’ – exciting in a way, admittedly speedy and bumpy some of the time – more like a downhill slalom race against time, where falling over exposed tree roots is unavoidable. Retrospectively, it’s been a valuable growing time: our trees are growing and we are growing with them.

We especially enjoyed the rainbow of colors left behind the pens, pencils and brushes of Eco-Explorers – talented undergraduate students of the University of Michigan’s School of Art and Design. These young students overflowing with creativity came to Madagascar expecting no rain. Although they got some, they seemed to greatly enjoy this mad ride, and so did we on ho avy & Madagascar Eco-Explorers’ tour and project service work in Ranobe.

A double rainbow morning

Some truly beautiful pieces of art were born on this three week long trip from mid May to June, exploring Madagascar and spending five days doing projects with ho avy in Ranobe. The students painted two interpretation panels: one for the native tree nursery and another one for the reforestation research center. Several oxen carts (and finally also oxen horns) were colorfully painted. Without doubt, the favorite motif is Star Wars. With pride this cart has been riding to the next village and the city of Toliara! Bar relief sculpturing on adobe walls on the reforestation center has adaptively used the wet walls leaving our planned spiny forest mural for another occasion in the future. A treadle pump for easier and playful water access has been built during the days of the group visit and another one completed in even shorter time by one volunteering student staying beyond the expedition.

Bar relief

Deep impressions have anchored in minds and hearts of these young people exploring Madagascar on their first step out of their secure homelands into the unknown. Madagascar is quite an experience.

Wildlife theme on centre

The 19-person art student group was the largest we’ve hosted in Ranobe since last December, adding significantly to the 4 Czech, 2 American, 1 French, 4 Israeli, and 2 Spanish visitors already spending several weeks with us – sharing their skills and expertise to advance various aspects of our program, from forest habitat description, GIS to business development. They have been a refreshing change for ho avy as well as our hosting community.

The most recent partner of ho avy was a team of four engineering masters students from the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan (www.hazomanga.org), who came to Madagascar with the group of the art students. The engineers give sustainable energy assessments and make conservation management recommendations. They collected solar data, built housing for ho avy’s solar system, designed and built a solar dryer, water filter and evaluated the feasibility of biofuels. The students interviewed the Ranobe community on wood, charcoal and water use issues. Mapping of land use, deforestation and forest recovery, set a good ground for a long-term monitoring research. Being a well organized, dynamic and enthusiastic team with women in majority, they creatively filled their free time with experimental baking in our solar box oven. Banana bread, chocolate chip or oatmeal raisin cookies, among others, turned out being delicious field yummies. Nicely done!

Clair, Brennen and Olivia taking solar data

Patty and Brennen constructing solar dryer

Ho avy’s daily interactions with the villagers since October 2009, with international visitors and cultural and language exchange, have been raising environmental awareness and building capacity. Needless to say, information starvation and curiosity is apparent among villages of all age groups. Ho avy has been collaborating with the GTZ and Sokapila organizations on implementing the Kit Mad’ere, a tool introducing environmental education to schools and community. A workshop was held in early April for teachers from the schools in Ranobe and Ambolimalailaka. In March, ho avy organized a workshop to improve farming methods: introducing the system of rice intensification (SRI). The workshop has been well attended and the method is now practiced on several FIMPAHARA fields.

Olivia with Tsiforse and Malai mapping deforestation

Improved and alternative technologies brought by ho avy seem to get adopted: the fuel efficient stove was in full operation, the biogas digester has been producing methane for the ladies to cook with for several months now. The output of the biogas digester is an excellent fertilizer and FIMPAHARA used it for their crop fields. Ho avy’s well, installed in December last year got a manual pump and has been in non-stop use by the villagers. Results of interviews show, the pump is greatly appreciated for easing everyday chores. The solar box oven has not had a break and delicious variations of bread, cakes, muffins, or roasted peanuts for snacks indicate a growing appreciation of solar energy as a passive cooking option.

Housing for solar panels designed by the MSc students

Speaking of solar – ho avy’s solar system is now located on the second floor of ho avy’s research center. Ho avy spiny forest research center will generate knowledge about how to conserve biodiversity through research, sustainable development and forest restoration. The center has been under construction over the last months – largely natural building, designed by Anthony, who has worked closely on it with the FIMPAHARA men. The building progress has been exciting, considering the tool limitations, e.g. a non-functional drill, so much of the building was done creatively – by hand and off the grid, with local wood, rock, roofing material, bamboo and adobe mix. The building is not far from being completed; we plan for an inauguration by the end of this year. The center’s surroundings are developing into a demonstration site of integrated sustainability, home gardening, multi-crop plots, agroforestry and more.

Agroforestry has been our focus activity since March. We raised fruit trees along with native trees in three tree nurseries on an area of 184 m2. Nearly 10 000 native trees and 5500 fruit and multi-purpose trees have been nurtured. FIMPAHARA collected 75 species of native and 5 non-native species for medicines, non-invasive fast wood propagation and oil-rich seeds. Up to June 2010 over 800 native and 750 fruit trees have been planted on 1.35 ha of FIMAHARA land: on edges of forest, in agroforestry polyculture plots and in live fences/hedges. Jointly with FIMPAHARA, we planted diverse fruit trees on ca 3 ha of crop fields. These efforts, i.e. planting indigenous and fruit species on disturbed forest edges and reforesting in belts, aim to assist ecological forest recovery. We want to create ‘ecotones’ (transitional habitats) favoring wildlife colonization and assisting seed dispersal. Planted trees have been monitored for survival and growth.

Just hanging out in the village

The local community has been enthusiastic to participate and support these agroforestry trials. The planted species included native fruit trees ofen harvested from the forest, locally planted bananas, papaya, mango, guava, lemons and tamarinds and tested varieties of species that are on the market, but not grown in Ranobe, such as litchi, clementine and orange, cashew, annona, passion fruit, pomegranate, avocado, loquat, date and coconut palms.

The community helps build the reforestation center

Ho avy’s involvement on site for the last quarters of a year has been an invaluable experience which allowed observing and figuring seasonality in terms of food growing. One has to skin-experience it, especially when coming from completely different climate. By living through the ‘cold’ parts of the year – we got it right now with April/May potato planting time. Besides potatoes, 1 ha of garden has onion and garlic, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, red beets and radishes, carrot and parsley, basil, lettuce, spinach, swiss chard, a variety of beans, peanuts, sesame, flex, several kinds of squash and melons. A few sunflowers have made our gardening efforts more cheerful. Malagasy people like rice, but they also like flowers and so do we. This is indeed a very exciting step forward to community-scale gardening, greater diversity of food production and important dietary supplements, that have been largely lacking.

Watering the nursery

For filling these gaps, we need to continue our mission; we let the exciting energy of the upcoming spring enter: rising temperatures, new beautiful flowers and fresh leaves or magnificent courtships of birds, bring inspiration to the next phase of ho avy’s efforts in Ranobe. We have a few exciting goals and future prospects and will mobilize our efforts to reach them before this year’s end, moving step by step towards a sustainable future. Stay tuned if you’d like to hear more in few months….

Photo galleries:

• Forest, wildlife and research
• Eco-Explorer’s art student trip
• MSc. students
• Ho avy and community interactions
• Technical alternatives
• Center construction
• Nursery, agroecology, agroforesty & gardening

The consultation on its own, however, is deserving of a post. It was highly interesting for many reasons that I shall outline here.

Permaculture designer/teacher, Geoff Lawton, looks at water pumped from
an aquifer under Jordan’s famous Wadi Rum desert region.
All photographs © copyright Craig Mackintosh

Background

The Wadi Rum desert in the south of Jordan happens to be the site of Jordan’s largest mixed farm – Rum Farm. It might, for good reason, seem odd that this beautiful but largely abiotic location would host a large scale farm, let alone Jordan’s largest, but it begins to make sense when you learn that under the Wadi Rum desert (and stretching under the border mountains and well into Saudi Arabia) is a large aquifer. In fact, much of this desert nation’s water supply is dependent on this single water source.

Captured from a bus window, while crossing the no-man’s land between
Jordan and Israel/Palestine, the once-mighty Jordan river is today just
a murky trickle (see bottom centre of image) that wouldn’t
flow at all today if it wasn’t for the pollution poured into it….
It is estimated that the Jordan River will dry up completely
by the end of 2011.

In what is now potentially the most water starved nation on the planet, to say this aquifer is a precious resource is like saying an atomic bomb is a ‘little noisy’. It’s a major understatement. This water is blue gold, and it’s being pumped at a furious pace.

As most of our readers will know, using reductionist, industrial agricultural ’systems’, as opposed to intelligent, bio-diverse permaculture design symbioses, means huge amounts of water gets polluted and wasted. Soils with poor soil structure lack the spongy characteristic that holds and filters the water they receive. Here in the desert, where evaporation is many times greater than precipitation, the wastage is multiplied manifold. Turned and churned soils hasten that evaporation process, and plantings of monocrop species without taller support species to provide shade from sun and shelter from drying winds do likewise. Salinity increases, and food production becomes a finite endeavour based on costly and finite artificial inputs.

The Wadi Rum desert

Running large scale monocrop farming anywhere should be seen as madness. Here it’s insane. Yet, a large part of Jordan’s food supply is produced at this farm – before being trucked north hundreds of kilometres through the desert to the capital of Amman and other centres in refrigerated trucks.

Head south across the border, into Saudi Arabia, and the situation is the same.

Centre pivot farming in Saudi Arabia

The precariousness of this situation is not completely lost on Jordanians, however, and thus Geoff finds himself being invited to consult on transition possibilities.

We meet in Amman to talk with Rum Farm and Astra Farm managers.
From left: Sijal Majali (Rum Farm Managing Director), Sirin Al Masri
(daughter of Mr. Sabih Taher Darwish Al-Masri) and Kamil Sadeddin
(Astra Farm Managing Director, Saudi Arabia).

Transitioning one of the world’s largest mix farms – Astra Farm, Saudi Arabia

Rum Farm is owned by Astra Farms, who have what is possibly one of the largest mixed farms in the world, in the Tabuk region in the north of Saudi Arabia. To give you an idea of scale, they have 3,000 workers, producing 10,000 tons of grapes per year, 22 million quail per year, and the list goes on with dozens of other crops.

Saudi Arabia is under intense agricultural pressure. Although similar can be said about many regions in the world, I would describe the Middle East, in particular, as being a powder keg of unrest, just waiting to blow. As we head deeper into a perpetual recession, where oil revenues will become volatile and ultimately dry up along with Saudi’s remaining reserves, it will become increasingly expensive to import food. Yet Saudi Arabia recently announced that it would phase out all domestic wheat production in favour of importing, and has been buying up land in other countries in an attempt to ease a growing water crisis. Reducing water and energy consumption while maintaining, no, increasing, food production is of paramount concern and will be the nation’s ultimate challenge.

The good news is that Kamil Sadeddin, Managing Director of Astra Farms, told us that since a 2004 consultation with Geoff they have been progressively transitioning their 3,200 hectare farm to organic production. Today, Kamil says, a full 25% of Astra Farms is chemical free – and they’re producing over 700 tons of compost per month!

Now eyes are on Jordan to begin a similar transition.

Making a start – Rum Farm, Jordan

An almost 180 degree view of just a portion of Rum Farm’s 2000 hectares of
mixed crops. Click picture for larger view.

Astra Farm’s little brother is mere kilometres from the Wadi Rum tourist township – where thousands flock for tours of some of the most beautiful desert landscapes in the world.

Rum’s Managing Director, Sijal Majali, took Geoff and I on a tour of the property. After climbing into his air-conditioned Toyota Landcruiser, and transfering his Glock from his shoulder harness to the glove box for even greater comfort, he settled down to tell us more about the farm as we drove across some of its 2,000 hectare expanse.

Most of the workers are Egyptian, some Syrian, he said, as we passed dozens of labourers working in dusty, shadeless conditions. He went on to explain that the farm employs between 300-600 workers seasonally – who produce 1,800 tons of grapes, 20,000 tons of potatoes, 10,000 tons of onions, and thousands more tons of apricots, nectarines, peaches, pears, tomatoes, figs, olives, corn, lettuce, oranges, mandarin, grapefruit, cabbage, broccoli, squash, loquat, dates and more…. Some of these crops are entirely for export (like grapes), and some almost entirely for domestic consumption (like potatoes).

The farm even has its own internal, armed police station – to maintain order amongst the migrant worker community.

Tomatoes

Cool storage and packing facilities

As we drove my thoughts wandered to the future – projecting how Jordan would fare if this aquifer were to dry up, or if the economy collapsed over massive fuel price hikes. (Jordan doesn’t have its own oil reserves.) These large scale, centralised farms – based on massive inputs and mass-transit – would falter, with ominous consequences for the nation’s burgeoning population.

I considered how the Permaculture ideal is small scale, family managed, biodiverse land holdings – not big farms like this. And I thought about, as I often do, the need to move society towards such an ideal, to get more people onto the land. I thought about land redistribution and the corresponding need to educate those people in sustainable, permaculture systems.

Grapes

Sitting in this big, flashy Landcruiser – complete with water bottles chilling in the built-in refrigerator between the seats – I had to ask myself "where does consulting for such a behemoth farm fit into this picture?"

But, I already knew the answer.

After watching contemporary business-as-usual attitudes to critical, converging problems – seeing the complacent, ponderous and reactive nature of governments and the aggressive, resource-consuming, true-cost-externalising, extractive behaviour of industry – I knew that the work that needs to be done will never happen in time. Thus finding methods to transition large systems like this is not only essential to maintaining some order, and, ultimately, peace, but it can also serve as an excellent opportunity to get permaculture concepts onto board room tables, onto fields, and into the minds of farm managers and labourers. As resources diminish and climate change exacerbates stress on our arable land base, regardless of what industrial or political shifts occur it is essential we get more agricultural workers familiarised with permaculture systems, and how to replicate them.

Showcasing these systems at some of the world’s largest agricultural sites has to be a good thing.

The consultation

Geoff talks to Sijal Majali (Rum Farm Managing Director), standing on
the five hectare section that permaculture will transform.

Geoff was given five initial hectares to design. It will be a pioneer section prior to subsequent, larger transitions on the farm. During the consultation process, I have to say I was impressed with Geoff’s boldness. Rather than compromise and water down permaculture principles through an assumption these agribusinessmen would go at it only half-heartedly, Geoff expected much, and got it.

As Geoff explained his plans, Sijal began to emanate palpable excitement.

Geoff described a biodiverse plant procession starting with leguminous and other support species, interspersed with crop sections, to create a biodiverse system of alternating crop/tree corridors – with a trellised swale running through each food forest section. He spoke of the necessary orientation of the system so the trees and bushes will protect crops from the harsh prevailing winds and afternoon sun. He described how the support species will ultimately give way to a succession of protective and productive food forest bushes and trees, which will themselves be crowned with a date palm overstory.

Alternating food forest/crop corridor profile
The crop is sheltered from sun and prevailing wind

Such a design as this allows natural soil creation processes to blossom. Leaf litter from the food forest and crop residues can combine to create humus rich soils – which in turn gives health and vitality to plants, making them less attractive to ‘pests’, and enabling the soil to hold much higher moisture levels. The plant biodiversity allows beneficial workers (insects) to take up residence and keep any of their kind from becoming ‘pests‘. Their human counterpart, the farm labourers, will also benefit from a much improved and shaded environment.

A grid of swales will be fed from a tree-shaded pond (deep and narrow to reduce evaporation) that is fed from the aquifer. This pond will overflow into the swales and can be diverted through simple gates. The swale ends will have a swivel flush pipe so swales can be drained during flood events, or to pass water on to the next section.

Drip lines for initial food forest establishment and for ongoing maintenance of the crop rows will be supplied from computer controlled solar-powered, batteryless pumps.

Aerial view of food forest section
A river trellised swale runs through it…

Salad and other annuals and perennials can be positioned in the crop sections according to their respective shade needs and sun tolerance – with respect to the sun’s aspect over the fields.

Detail of the three lines of food forest trees on each side of swales

Beginning with a high proportion of ‘non productive’ support species, soil, water and humidity conditions will arise to nurse food crops into vitality – allowing these to establish and grow until the proportion of non-food plants can shrink to virtually nil.

Rum Farm is now beginning initial stages of implementation – planning earthworks according to Geoff’s procedure manual. In the meantime, crop residues will no longer get burned. All green matter and shreddable carbonaceous material will be composted.

My primary purpose for writing this post is to encourage permaculturists everywhere to be bold and achieve much. The world needs you like never before. Fill farmers with an holistic vision and they’ll be unstoppable. With enough permaculturists out there consulting like this, we could see the kind of ecological magic that can turn sand into food transition us into a healthier, more stable future.

A different future awaits?

Further Reading:

• Report on our Iranian Consultancy Trip of December 2008
• Greening the Desert

Map of fires in Russia

As I type, half of Russia is on fire after its hottest summer on record, Pakistan is dealing with the biggest floods in living memory and Australia is still in the clutches of a decade long drought. The last decade, worldwide, was the hottest since records began, and 2010 may break the records of 1998 and 2005 to become the hottest year we’ve ever known. We could spend weeks just examining the extreme weather events going on on a country by country basis.

Today we are crossing thresholds in our destruction of nature that will make all our subsequent efforts at earth healing even harder than they ever should have been. We have removed eco-systems, and their services, to such an extent that dangerous feedback loops are in progress. Climate is fast becoming a runaway train – and we’re its passengers.

Consider the fires in Russia, for example – millions of rain-producing trees are going up in smoke, taking their carbon with it. Trees growing in the ground are a carbon sink. On fire, they’re a carbon source. The Pakistan floods kill trees and plants likewise. These will later dry out and much of it too will end up in the atmosphere. With less trees in place, flooding events will occur even more often, and the soils these plants held in place will be washed away. The arctic permafrost is melting, releasing the powerful heat trapping gas, methane, at unprecedented levels – promising even more temperature increases. Our oceans are acidifying, threatening to turn the world’s largest carbon sink into a carbon source. And so on….

The dominoes are falling. It’s like nature is shouting to us: "If you don’t appreciate the services of these systems, then I’ll remove them all entirely".

We are facing crises on an unprecedented scale. Atop the foundations of an energy crisis, a climate crisis and a soil, water and biodiversity crisis, rests that mother of all crises – a food crisis. Crops are going up in smoke or are being washed away in deluges, our precious soils with them, while world grain stores are at their lowest levels and production is in decline whilst demand is rising. Such a food crisis, in the context of today’s population levels, translates, in turn, to a social/political/economic crisis on a scale that will make the convulsions of WWII look like a walk in the park.

It’s getting ugly, yet many are still not even awake to the perfect storm that is upon us. And of the few who are, many are discussing light bulbs and hybrids, cap and trade and recycling. They’re discussing being a little ‘less bad’, not recognising the urgent need for us – all 6.8 billion of us (and counting, at a rate of 1 billion every twelve years…) – to immediately become a positive element within our biosphere. And we must move fast! (The proverb ‘a stitch in time saves nine’ really rings true when considering these feedback loops….)

There is a solution though! That being a widespread, collaborative effort to assist nature in restoring, at scale, the biological processes that have, until today, kept this world stable for millennia. The solutions are in design, and in the observation and replication of natural symbiotic systems. We don’t need just less cars, we need more biology – more photosynthesis and more life! We might not be able to have rainforests everywhere, but we can certainly have food forests everywhere! The video clips below share a glimmer of hope along these lines. It documents an incredible journey of restorative transition for a 35,000 square kilometre area in the Leoss Plateau in the north of China. It is a journey that begins with completely eroded, overgrazed land where floods were a constant nightmare, and ends in terraced green hills, flood and food stability and prosperity. And, it only took ten years.

Give it a watch, and, as you do, consider what kind of social/political/economic systems would be the most conducive to achieving similar results in other places worldwide. It’s an interesting mix of top-down ‘interference’ (both in terms of blanket regulations and financial investment) combined with land ‘privatisation’, and participatory involvement at all levels. It reinforces for me the need to build resilient, localised, holistically educated and politically engaged communities whose members don’t discard government, but who through greater involvement in the decision-making process (including choosing their representatives) effectively become government and self-determine to build a world based on land stewardship and voluntary simplicity. We cannot act as individuals alone, working in our own self-interest, and achieve the kind of results you’ll see in the video below. We need to work collaboratively, and sometimes sensible, holistically discussed decisions will need to be enforced on individuals who either can’t see the big picture, or who don’t care.

Further reading:

• The Development of Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration
• The World’s Largest Water Harvesting Earthworks Project
• The Biology of Global Warming

Sometimes you end up wishing you had a resource at hand to make it easier to apply Permaculture principles. This was the case for myself when it came time to start thinking about beneficial groupings of plants and those groupings that do not go well together.

This is what I often find lacking with the current publications on offer from PRI and from those in the community. There is a lot of good knowledge locked up that could benefit so many of us in applying permaculture principles.

A simple A3 or A4 information sheet or booklet of a small number of pages is easy to mentally digest and take in and very handy to have as a reference, either printed out and hung up on the wall or on the computer when we sit down and start thinking about designing our gardens or food systems.

That is why I was so happy to learn about the IDEP Foundation, a non-profit non-government organisation in Indonesia. IDEP maintains a host of produced small documents on permaculture from free training guides and tools to teach the very basic of permaculture principles to students to information on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO), gardening, composting, waste management, health and nutrition, seed saving, seed propagating, and community based disaster management. Best of all, they offer their materials free of charge to the wider community in English and Indonesian languages.

I would like to call out special attention to the A3 poster on companion planting. This chart is just fantastic. It communicates so much, so easily and is a tool of great benefit to many.

More important we should make more of these brochures even more expanded in coverage by adding listing items for E (edible) N (nitrogen fixing) and G (green manure). We can break these down by climate zones so that anyone who needs help getting started can find the lists of plant resources to get them started on the right footing in their move to a more sustainable and permanent way of living.

In September 2007 I met a group of motivated, hardcore volunteer gardeners. When I say hardcore, some of these guys where involved with the guerrilla gardeners. They turn unused trashy areas and transform them into edible, self-sustaining gardens.

It started like this….

Some groups even go to extremes like dressing up in council uniforms or go out in the middle of the night and load their vans armed with fruit tree seedlings, compost and shovels.

Why are they doing this you might be questioning? Let’s go on a journey back to your childhood…. Do you remember the days of discovering and climbing a mulberry tree and climbing up to pick the abundance of fresh fruit and eating them with your friends – coming home covered head to toe in purple stains? These are the kind of memories that bring me the most joy from my childhood.

Now I see why these guerrilla gardeners volunteer their time for future generations. Imagine a future with fruit trees lining the streets! These people inspired me so I enquired to our landlord about the old unused car park down the back of our shop, Threeworlds, and proposed a community garden. They said YES! So there was born Urban Eden, right here in Mermaid Beach, Gold Coast, Queensland.

It’s been three years in the making….

This old trashy car park was covered in graffiti, piles of smashed beer bottles and weeds. There was even a guy living in a van out there! So we called local businesses who then donated materials such as soil, seedlings and a shade cloth. We even got a water tank donated and installed!

Together with local artists and donated paint we transformed the graffiti covered wall into an eye pleasing delight!

The word spread like wildfire, so we organised a working bee day to create garden beds, an area for workshops, music, fire twirling and other fun life-inspiring activities.

Not long after the Gold Coast Bulletin, Channel 9 and the ABC Radio somehow found out about the project. They were amazed to hear that the garden was made from recycled and donated materials.

In a year and a half the papaya trees had at least 30 fruits on them and we had basil, passionfruit and chillies coming out of our ears!

In June 2008 we held Eco Inspiration Week in the garden, organised by local wonder woman Kandy McCouat. It was a week full of activities, workshops, art and music. It was a huge success with over 100 people attending on the garden open day. Even the Burleigh Heads counsellor, Greg Betts showed up and donated local bush tucker plants.

Late February 2009 saw the introduction of the beautiful worm farm that was proudly donated by a demolished hotel down the road in Burleigh Heads. The worm farm is a productive way to transform veggie scraps from the kitchen into healthy, nutrient rich soil that looks like chocolate mud cake – the plants love it!

Today, Urban Eden is flourishing with people and plants and hosts the Threeworlds Organic Café – adjacent to the garden. The café started on a ‘pay as you feel’ basis in 2008. Yes, that means you could pay what you thought the meal was worth… just put the money in a box. I bet you’re thinking, that’s the craziest idea ever! Did it work? In all honesty it did work, but left people a little confused and baffled. Most people felt guilty so they put extra money in the box. From a business perspective it served as a great way to get the word out there – people where talking everywhere about the restaurant and how it works on a pay as you feel basis.

In September 2009 we came up with a ‘brainwave’. We put prices on the food!

Today Threeworlds is flourishing with heaps of workshops like laughter yoga, full moon bonfires and storytelling, organic gardening and Permaculture workshops, cooking classes, worm farming – not to mention the African drumming, fire twirling, didgeridoo, juggling and meditation classes that we hold every week. We also have concerts and live music in the garden. Next month we host open week – it’s jam packed full of these activities, free of charge, or if anyone is interested in coming on a tour on the Bongo Bus through the streets of Surfers Paradise… here we come playing our drums just for fun!

The spirit of Threeworlds is about community, bringing people together through teaching awareness and having fun. I look forward to seeing you all here!

For many years they’ve been seen as a symbol of pride in Australia. Expatriate writers in the 50s and 60s would write about returning to Sydney by ship and about being greeted by the smell of wafting gum tree leaves as they waxed lyrical about the nostalgia they felt for home.

Authorities still plant them everywhere. In parks, next to footpaths, street corners, new housing development estates, Eucalypts are as Australian as the Emu and the Kangaroo. They are seen nearly everywhere and nobody seems to take them as a threat in Australia.

But should Eucalypts be re-examined as a noxious weed?

Supporters of Natural Sequence Farming describe Eucalypts as:

• It is invasive
• It burns
• It’s alleolopathic
• Its residue fails to break down
• It’s a monoculture
• It’s poisoning and killing all of our catchments
• It prevents biodiversity from growing beneath it

Peter Andrews thinks so and gives them a blast at Mulloon Creek recently whilst we were filming at the field day held there. In this video clip he gives a frank assessment of their worth in planting along river beds. Oddly enough its the humble Willow tree that he loves and has plenty of time for, replanting them along creek beds. This has brought him at odds with Government authorities who have declared willows as noxious weeds and are ripping them out of creeks and rivers.

We filmed Mr Andrews hugging the trunk of a willow for the cameras as he said,

“If I had a daughter, I’d name her Willow!’

Government authorities in Land, Parks & Conservation declare Willows as rampant invaders and believe Peter Andrews’ methods are disruptive of biodiversity and the natural ecosystem. Tony Coote of Mulloon Natural Creek Farms where willows are grown on the creek beds is a firm supporter of Peter Andrews and his methods of land management and sees no evidence of Willows threatening landholders downstream.

This video can be downloaded in high resolution from Vimeo (see ‘About this video’ section on lower right side’).

I hope you’ll enjoy this clip. More, I hope it encourages you to dare to be different, and dare to have your work noticed. The garden we profile in the video above, as you’ll discover after watching it, has just won a national competition held by the Jordanian Department of Education – for schools who incorporate environmental projects into their curriculum. This means that thousands of schools, in what is arguably the most water-stressed country on the planet, now have the possibility to learn from this humble example of permaculture in action – and get inspired to do similar.

Special thanks to Lesley Byrne for her enthusiastic support, and to Nadia Lawton for her vision and determination to help her own people – and in so doing setting such an excellent example for us all.

Food forests are at the heart of Permaculture and fast becoming a hot topic in many areas of debate as people realise the their full potential.

Let’s face it, with our all-consuming global problems, there aren’t many natural solutions out there that can halt and reverse deforestation, stabilise the climate by returning carbon to the soil where it belongs, solve poverty & extreme hunger, all in one hit, are there?

Yet this is exactly what the food forest is capable of, and provided people understand it and are at the centre of the system, they can go on living off that land forever.

Here is a video of Geoff Lawton showing a series of food forests that have been planted at Zaytuna farm over successive years.

And note that PRI sells the excellent Establishing a Food Forest DVD which is a full 90 minute DVD featuring Geoff Lawton as he demonstrates how to grow a food forest from start to finish.

From October 26th to November 5th, 2010

After the earthquake that severely damaged Haiti in January 2010, we have the opportunity of acting in a concrete way to show solidarity with our Haitian sisters and brothers. We firmly believe that the real richness we can bring is in the improvement of the fertility of the soil, creating biodiversity and providing an ecosystem that will raise the amount of water in the environment as well as creating a food forest for the people to enjoy. Haiti suffers from extremely arid conditions. As a result, food production is low and the country is forced to import approximately 70% of its food. [Editor's addition - there are other factors too!] After the recent disaster Haitian people are even more dependent on foreign aid and imports.

From the 26th October to the 5th of November 2010 people from different parts of the world, together with local people from Haiti, will meet at the international ecovillage community of Sadhana Forest Haiti (www.sadhanaforesthaiti.org) in Anse a Pitre, Haiti, to learn how to make different types of seed-clayballs and throw them together on the land. We will all contribute to the recreation of an indigenous forest that will bring life and fertility as well as human solidarity. We will all live together as a big community.

The event, including all activities, workshops, vegan food and filtered water will be completely free.

“May there be many more forests to grow people”

Sadhana Forest Haiti is a vegan no-smoking community focused on reforestation, sustainable living and spiritual growth. We are a daughter-community of the 6 years old and ongoing, acclaimed project Sadhana Forest India.

Alcohol and drugs are not a part of the Sadhana Forest experience!!!

Workshops and activities:

Reforestation: We will learn how to recreate an indigenous forest that will give local people the opportunity to live in an harmonious and productive ecosystem that will improve their living conditions. In our project in India we have planted more than 20,500 Tropical Dry Evergreen Forest plants of 150 different indigenous species, and we are constantly mulching and caring for them. Survival rate on average is between 80% – 90%. Survival rate does not fall below 70% even on the most degraded soil.

Natural farming and seed clay-balls: Masanobu Fukuoka, the philosopher-farmer that developed the method of natural farming and the seed clay ball, devoted his life to serve nature creating a method of agriculture that proposes to work with nature rather than against it. He travelled the world with the mission of stopping the desertification process by throwing clay seed balls in deforested areas in order to bring them back to life. He is the author of “The One-Straw Revolution” among other titles. He passed away at the age of 95 on August 16, 2008. We feel lucky and honoured to continue his work in serving nature for the sake of the entire world.

Permaculture: There will be a two day Permaculture Workshop.

Day one: – Defining permaculture ethics and principles, and introducing the design process.
Day two: – will include additional design tools and hands on activity.

In addition we will be living and learning in and around Permaculture design.

Organic gardening: Learn a variety of skills to create organic gardens integrated with water conservation techniques, which can be applied to large or small scale farming in a variety of environments. We will also learn how to create a small highly productive urban balcony garden for city inhabitants.

Water conservation skills: The conservation and the harvesting of water are fundamental for creating a healthy system for plants and animals and to prevent desertification and erosion. Without water there is no life. You will have the opportunity to learn valuable water conservation techniques.

… and more…

Please contact us to receve all the necessary, updated information!

For information, visit our website www.sadhanaforesthaiti.org and email us (specifying Haiti in the subject) here: sadhanaforest (at) auroville.org.in

Or call us: 001-809-787-2233 or 001-809-752-2233

Facebook page (please share!)

We are looking forward to meet you in Sadhana Forest Haiti!!!

Warmly

The Sadhana Forest Haiti Family