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

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

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.

by Christine Jones, PhD

The number of farmers in Australia has fallen 30 per cent in the last 20 years, with more than 10,000 farming families leaving the agricultural sector in the last five years alone. This decline is ongoing. There is also a reluctance on the part of young people to return to the land, indicative of the poor image and low income-earning potential of current farming practices.

Agricultural debt in Australia has increased from just over $10 billion in 1994 to close to $60 billion in 2009 (Fig.1). The increased debt is not linked to interest rates, which have generally declined over the same period (Burgess 2010).

Fig. 1. Increase in agricultural debt (AUD millions)
1994-2009 vs interest rates (%pa)

The financial viability of the agricultural sector, as well as the health and social wellbeing of individuals, families and businesses in both rural and urban communities, is inexorably linked to the functioning of the land.

There is widespread agreement that the integrity and function of soils, vegetation and waterways in many parts of the Australian landscape have become seriously impaired, resulting in reduced resilience in the face of increasingly challenging climate variability.

Agriculture is the sector most strongly impacted by these changes. It is also the sector with the greatest potential for fundamental redesign.

The most meaningful indicator for the health of the land, and the long-term wealth of a nation, is whether soil is being formed or lost. If soil is being lost, so too is the economic and ecological foundation on which production and conservation are based.

The soil carbon sink

In July 2009, the Portuguese government introduced an AUD$13.8 million soil carbon offsets scheme based on dryland pasture improvement, compliant with Article 3.4 of the Kyoto Protocol.

The scheme will pay an estimated 400 participating farmers to establish biodiverse perennial mixed grass/legume pastures (upwards of 20 species) to improve soil carbon, soil water holding capacity and livestock productivity in an area of approximately 42,000 hectares (Watson, 2010).

The Portuguese scheme has been designed to comply with Kyoto’s strict criteria of additionality and permanence. Coordinator of Project Extensity and Terraprima project leader, Professor Tiago Domingos, has calculated that the area of agricultural land in Portugal amenable to soil carbon offsets could collectively sequester more than the current Portuguese national emissions deficit under existing Kyoto arrangements (Watson 2010).

The mediterranean-type climate of central and southern Portugal is very similar to that in many parts of south-eastern, southern and south-western Australia. The Portuguese Terraprima data illustrated in Fig.2 show that under sown perennial pasture, soil organic matter increased to a level of 3% over 10 years, from a starting point of 0.87%.

Fig. 2. Accumulation of soil organic matter (SOM), shown as percentage
by weight, in soils under three pasture types:
SG = sown perennial pasture;
FNG = fertilised annual pasture;
NG = unfertilised annual pasture
(from Watson 2010).

The Portuguese soil carbon offsets project aims to sequester 0.91 million tonnes of CO2 from 2010 to 2012 (Watson 2010). This equates to the sequestration of 10.85t CO2/ha/yr.

In addition to the carbon payments they receive, participating Portuguese farmers are reported as “enjoying the environmental spin-offs of greater biodiversity, higher soil fertility, higher water infiltration rates, less erosion, less desertification, fewer fires, less floods, improvement in water quality, less dependence on concentrated feed for their herds in protracted dry periods and better milk and meat quality” (Watson 2010).

US study on soil carbon sequestration rates under perennial grassland

Recent research by United States Department of Agriculture (Liebig et al. 2008) investigated soil carbon sequestration under a perennial native grass, switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) grown for the production of cellulosic ethanol.

Despite the annual removal of aboveground biomass, low to medium rainfall and a relatively short growing season, the USDA-ARS research, averaged across 10 sites, recorded average soil carbon sequestration rates of 4t CO2/ha/yr in the 0-30 cm soil profile and 10.6t CO2/ha/yr in the 0-120 cm profile (Liebig et al 2008).

The best performing site was at Bristol, where soil carbon levels increased by 21.67 tonnes in the 0-30 cm soil profile over a 5 year period. A soil carbon increase of 21.67t C/ha equates to the sequestration of 80t CO2/ha.

At the three sites where carbon was measured to 120 cm, the USDA research found relatively high sequestration rates below 30 cm. The sequestration rate was higher for the 30-60 cm increment than for the 0-30 cm increment (18.2t CO2/ha vs 16.5t CO2/ha, respectively). A possible interpretation is that the deeper the sequestration, the greater the likelihood that the carbon be protected from oxidative and/or microbial decomposition.

There were virtually no ‘biomass inputs’ to soil in these trials, as all aboveground material was removed for ethanol production. This suggests the liquid carbon pathway (Jones 2008) as the primary mechanism for soil building.

Carbon trading in the real world

The recent demise of the Federal Government’s proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme provides an opportunity to reflect on the true meaning of a carbon-based economy.

For some time, analysts have tipped carbon to become the world’s most traded commodity. The reality is that it has been the world’s most traded commodity for millennia.

A great variety of life forms require liquid carbon – referred to in the scientific literature as ‘dissolved organic carbon’ (DOC) – for their growth and reproduction. The growth of trees, crops and pastures, for example, requires the transport of dissolved carbon via sap within the plant; animal growth is dependant on the digestion of carbon containing foods and the transport of dissolved carbon to cells via the blood; the formation of topsoil is dependent on photosynthesis and the transport of dissolved carbon, via a microbial bridge, from plants to soil.

Carbon is the currency for most transactions within and between living things. Nowhere is this more evident than in the soil. Here, carbon is king. Mycorrhizal fungi, which are totally dependant on dissolved organic carbon from green plants, trade carbon with colonies of bacteria located at their hyphal tips in exchange for macro-nutrients such as phosphorus, organic nitrogen and calcium, trace elements such as zinc, boron and copper, and plant growth stimulating substances (Killham 1994, Leake et al. 2004).

By means of an extraordinary physiological process known as ‘bidirectional flow’ nutrients are transported to roots at the same time as dissolved organic carbon moves through fungal hyphae in the opposite direction (Killham 1994, Leake et al. 2004). Indeed, mycorrhizal roots are significant sinks for carbon, transferring as much as 15 times more carbon to soil as adjacent non-mycorrhizal roots (Killham 1994).

Impoverishment of agricultural soils

Mycorrhizal fungi and associative bacteria are very strongly inhibited by excessive soil disturbance and the high levels of water-soluble phosphorus and nitrogen commonly used in modern agriculture (Killham 1994, Leake et al. 2004). Where soils have been subjected to cultivation and/or the application of MAP, DAP, superphosphate, urea or anhydrous ammonia, the suppressed mycorrhizal colonisation of plant roots significantly reduces carbon flow. The structural degradation of agricultural soils, accompanied by mineral depletion in food, has largely been the result of the inhibition of this natural carbon pathway.

When carbon supply is limited by the loss of the primary pathway for sequestration, the physical, chemical and biological functions normally performed by healthy soil are markedly reduced.

Historical levels of soil carbon

Noted Polish explorer and geologist, Sir Paul Edmund [Count] Strzelecki, travelled widely through the colonies of south-eastern Australia during the period 1839 to 1843, collecting minerals, visiting farms and analysing soils. One of the questions Strzelecki posed was, what factors determine soil productivity? He collected 41 soil samples from farmed paddocks of either high or low productivity. The analyses revealed that the most important determinant of soil productivity was the level of soil carbon (measured as organic matter in Strzelecki’s day).

Of the 41 samples analysed, Strzelecki (1845) found …

The top 10 soils in the high productivity group had organic matter levels ranging from 11% to 37.75% (average 20%). The lowest ranking 10 soils in the low productivity group had organic matter levels ranging from 2.2% to 5.0% (average 3.72%)

The soils with the highest organic matter levels also had the highest moisture holding capacity, with an 18-fold difference in capacity to hold moisture between the lowest and the highest (Strzelecki 1845).

Strzelecki’s data indicate that organic matter levels in the early settlement period were around five to ten times higher than in many soils today. The soil test data from Strzelecki is consistent with the writings of first settlers, who described soils in the early settlement period as soft, spongy and absorbent. The 1840s journal of George Augustus Robinson, for example, contains numerous references to the extremely fertile and productive soils encountered by pastoralists in the mid-1800s (Presland 1970).

Soil carbon and soil moisture

In addition to enhancing nutrient availability, carbon performs many other functions in soil, including the maintenance of soil porosity, aeration and water-holding capacity.

Glenn Morris (Morris 2004) extensively researched the water holding capacity of humus (an extremely stable form of soil carbon) and concluded that within the soil matrix, one part of soil humus could, on average, retain a minimum of four parts of soil water.

From this relationship it can be calculated that an increase of 16.8 litres (almost two buckets) of extra plant available water could be stored per square metre in the top 30 cm (12”) of soil with a bulk density of 1.4 g/cm3, for every 1% increase (in absolute terms) in the level of soil organic carbon. This equates to 168,000 litres of water that could be stored per hectare, in addition to the water-holding capacity of the soil itself (Jones 2006).

The flip side is that the same amount of water-holding capacity will be lost when soil carbon levels fall. Low soil moisture and low levels of soil organic carbon go hand in hand.

Soil organic carbon levels in many areas have fallen by at least 3% (in absolute terms) since the time of European settlement, This reduction in soil carbon content represents the LOSS of the ability of soil to store around 504,000 litres of water per hectare.

Mycorrhizas and water

It is well known that mycorrhizal fungi access and transport nutrients in exchange for carbon from the host plant (Killham 1994, Leake et al. 2004). What is less well known is that in seasonally dry, variable, or unpredictable environments (that is, most of Australia), mycorrhizal fungi play an extremely important role in plant-water dynamics.

Mycorrhizal fungi can supply moisture to plants in dry environments by exploring micropores not accessible to plant roots. They can also improve hydraulic conductivity by bridging macropores in dry soils of low water-holding capacity (such as sands). In these situations, external wicking along the hyphae is of greater importance than cytoplasmic flow (Allen 2007). Mycorrhizal fungi can also increase drought resistance by stimulating an increase in the number and depth of plant roots.

Soil carbon and soil nitrogen

Aside from water, nitrogen is frequently the most limiting factor to crop and pasture production. It is one of the great ironies of agriculture that the atmosphere is around 78% nitrogen, but not one single molecule is directly available to plants. There are approximately 78,000 tonnes of nitrogen gas sitting above every hectare of land. Apart from small accessions via lightning, this nitrogen cannot be accessed without a microbial bridge.

Nitrogen-fixing bacteria – be they free-living in the rhizosphere, confined to nodules on plant roots, or existing as endophytes in leaves or stems – derive most of their energy from liquid carbon fixed during photosynthesis.

Adding water-soluble nitrogen in the form of urea, anhydrous ammonia or nitrate destabilises the plant-soil ecosystem by reducing the activity of mycorrhizal fungi and free living N-fixing bacteria (Killham 1994). The presence of high levels of water-soluble nitrogen in soil sends a signal to plants to reduce the supply of liquid carbon to microbial symbionts, effectively inhibiting the microbial associations that would otherwise supply atmospheric nitrogen for free.

This contradicts the widely promoted belief that nitrogenous fertiliser needs to be added in order for stable soil carbon to form. Indeed, the opposite is true (Khan et al. 2007, Larson 2007, Mulvaney et al. 2009).

Soil test data show that as soil carbon levels increase in microbially active soils, availabilities of P, K, S, Ca, Zn and B commonly increase, while levels of nitrate nitrogen are often reduced.

If plants are mycorrhizal, they don’t require nitrogen in a mineralised form, that is, in the form of nitrate or ammonium. In order to transport mineralised nitrogen, mycorrhizal fungi have to convert it to glutamate, which represents an energy cost. For this reason, nitrogen is preferentially transported in an organic form, generally as amino acids such as glycine and glutamine (Leake et al. 2004).

Utilisation of organic nitrogen by mycorrhizal fungi closes the nitrogen loop and prevents soil acidity, as well as preventing volatilisation of nitrogen to the atmosphere and leaching to aquifers, rivers and streams. Changes to soil chemistry and nitrogen dynamics in microbially balanced soils also reduce the abundance of ‘weedy’ species such as annual ryegrass, capeweed, mustard weed and thistles. The germination of these species is stimulated by the ready availability of nitrate nitrogen.

Soil as a methane sink

Wetlands, rivers, oceans, lakes, plants, decaying vegetation (especially in moist environments such as rainforests) – and a wide variety of creatures great and small – from termites to whales, have been producing methane for millions of years. The rumen, for example, evolved as an efficient way of digesting plant material around 90 million years ago.

Ruminants including buffalo, goats, wild sheep, camels, giraffes, reindeer, caribou, antelopes and bison existed in greater numbers prior to the Industrial Revolution than are present today.

There would have been an overwhelming accumulation of methane in the atmosphere had not sources and sinks been able to cancel each other over past millennia.

Although most methane is inactivated by the hydroxyl (OH) free radical in the atmosphere (Quirk 2010), another source of inactivation is oxidisation in biologically active soils. Aerobic soils are net sinks for methane, due to the presence of methanotrophic bacteria, which utilise methane as their sole energy source (Dunfield 2007). Methanotrophs have the opposite function to methanogens, which bind free hydrogen atoms to carbon to reduce acidosis in the rumen.

Recent research undertaken by Professor Mark Adams, Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture at Sydney University, found that one hectare of pasture land could oxidise as much methane as emitted by 162 head of cattle in an entire year (Cawood 2009). The highest methane oxidation rate recorded in soil to date has been 137mg/m2/day (Dunfield 2007) which, over one hectare, equates to the absorption of the methane produced by approximately 1000 head of cattle.

In Australia, it has been widely promoted that livestock are a significant contributor to atmospheric methane and that global methane levels are rising. However, there is no evidence to suggest that methane emissions from ruminant sources are increasing. Indeed, it would seem there has been no clear trend to changes in global methane levels, from any source, over recent decades.

The increase in global methane levels from 1930 to 1970 was due to emissions from the production, transmission and distribution of natural gas (Quirk 2010). There was a tenfold increase in the use of natural gas through the 1960s and 1970s. The source of many of the natural gas emissions, such as leakages from the Trans-Siberian pipeline, have since been rectified (Quirk 2010). Measurements over the last 25 years show concentrations of atmospheric methane are merely exhibiting natural variation, with no significant trends in any direction (Fig.3).

Fig. 3. Variations in annual changes in atmospheric methane concentrations
from 1983 to 2009, from Dlugokencky et al. (2009).
Measurements are in parts per billion per year.

There is therefore no scientific basis for selectively targeting ruminants for a ‘methane tax’, or worse, interfering with this natural process. Farming in ways that enhance, rather than inhibit, soil biological activity, would improve the capacity of agricultural soil to act as a methane sink, helping balance the greenhouse equation. The issue with today’s industrialised approach to agriculture is that methanotrophic bacteria are chemically sensitive. Their activities are reduced by nitrogenous fertilisers, herbicides, pesticides, acidification and excessive soil disturbance (Dunfield 2007).

Soil carbon and human health

The nutritional status of soils, plants, animals and people has fallen dramatically in the last 50 years, due to losses in soil carbon, the key driver for soil nutrient cycles. Soil health and human health are more deeply connected than many people realise. Food is often viewed in terms of quantity available, hence ‘food scarcity’ is not seen as an issue in Australia. However, food produced from depleted soils does not contain the essential trace minerals required for the effective functioning of our immune systems.

Routine premature deaths from degenerative conditions such as cardiovascular disease and cancer have become prominent when they were once relatively uncommon. The cancer rate, for example, has increased from approximately 1 in 100, fifty years ago, to almost 1 in 2 today. The effectiveness of the human immune system has been compromised by increased exposure to more and more chemicals coupled with insufficient mineral density in food.

The low nutritional status of many basic food items is highlighted in data from the UK Ministry of Health. Depletion in the level of minerals in vegetables for the period 1940-1991, for example, shows copper levels reduced by 76%, calcium by 46%, iron by 27%, magnesium by 24% and potassium by 16%. Deficiencies in plants translate through to deficiencies in animals. A piece of steak now contains only half the amount of iron that it would have contained 50 years ago.

Vitamin and mineral deficiencies in food indicate that the symbiotic relationship between plants and soil microbes, whereby minerals are exchanged for liquid carbon, has been disrupted.

The best national health policy would be a national soils policy. But we don’t have one.

Our hospitals are over-filled and our health system is struggling to cope with illnesses that are highly correlated to the lack of essential vitamins, minerals and trace elements in our diet. The availability of these nutrients is determined to a large extent by the integrity of the soil food-web and the microbe bridge, which in turn are dependent on active soil sequestration of dissolved organic carbon.

Food labelling and a ‘Soil Integrity Index’

Food choices can have very significant effects on the kind of food produced and how it is produced. Currently, it is not possible for consumers to choose foods high in minerals, grown on healthy soils, as there is no labelling for food quality.

It is proposed that a ‘Soil Integrity Index’ with index parameters of

1. level of microbial diversity
2. soil carbon content and
3. soil water holding capacity

be used as the basis for a food labelling system.

The labels would need to be simple, with perhaps a star system (as in one, two or three stars). If a food labelling mechanism was in place, Australia’s largely city-based population could use food choices to improve not only the health of their families, but also the function and resilience of agricultural soils, thereby actively participating and supporting biology friendly farming.

The future landscape

The challenge for the future prosperity of Australian agriculture is to convert soil from its current status as a net source of carbon, to a revitalised state as a net carbon sink.

Agricultural research tends to focus on conventionally managed crop and pasture lands where intensive use of agrochemicals has dramatically reduced the number and diversity of soil flora and fauna, including beneficial microbes such as mycorrhizal fungi. As a result, the potential contribution of microbial symbionts to agricultural productivity has been greatly underestimated (Allen 2007).

Building soil carbon does not require adding biomass to soil. While crop stubbles and mulch are important for protecting soil from wind and water erosion and buffering temperature extremes, their contribution to soil carbon is limited by eventual decomposition to CO2.

The first step to restoring soil function is ‘do no harm’. A simple change from high-analysis N and/or P fertilisers to biological products such as worm leachate (vermiliquid), compost extract, seaweed extract and/or fish emulsion, applied as a seed dressing and/or a post-emergent foliar spray, will support microbial diversity, increase plant photosynthetic rate, increase the flow of liquid carbon to soil and enhance humification.

As the soil chemistry adjusts and nitrogen is converted to an organic form (freely available to mycorrhizal fungi but not to annual weeds) the incidence of pests, weeds and diseases that are stimulated by low levels of microbial diversity and high rates of water soluble nitrogen, will decline. As a result, there will be less reliance on the use of pesticides and herbicides that reduce the ability of soil to act as a sink for carbon, nitrogen, methane and moisture.

Changing the face of agriculture

Since 1960, global food production has doubled. At the same time, the soil resource on which food production is based has become seriously degraded.

The impoverishment of agricultural soils through depleted levels of biological activity and reduced carbon flow poses a greater threat to human existence than climate change.

In many regions of Australia, the effects of lower than average rainfall over the past decade have been compounded by loss of soil resilience and reduced moisture-holding capacity (Fig.4).

Fig. 4. Cropping over an old fence-line clearly demonstrates the extent to
which soil has been depleted by conventional farming practices. Paddocks
on either side of the fence have a history of high nitrogenapplication
(Photo Richard May).

It has been calculated that in the next 50 years, the planet will need to produce as much food as it has in the entire history of humankind. The way we produce that food will require a radical departure from business as usual.

At the beginning of this paper it was noted that the level of agricultural debt in Australia had increased almost 6-fold over the last 15 years. The amount of money invested by the farming community on non-biological inputs increases every year. Many of these products inhibit microbial diversity, preventing natural carbon flow to soils. Cessation of carbon flow reduces soil integrity, the mineral density in food and human health. It also prevents the processes of humification and topsoil formation from operating to any significant extent. The end result is even greater expenditure on agrochemicals in attempts to control the pest, weed, disease and fertility problems’ that ensue.

The statement that small farmers need to ‘get big or get out’ overlooks the fact that profit is the difference between expenditure and income. In years to come we will perhaps wonder why it took so long to realise the futility of trying to grow crops in dysfunctional soils, relying solely on increasingly expensive synthetic inputs.

Economic development is only sustainable if it strengthens, rather than depletes, natural resources.

The soil’s ability to produce nutrient dense, high vitality food – which after all, is agriculture’s real purpose – depends on appropriate management. Enhancing the natural flow of carbon to soils will result in increased microbial diversity, improved nutrient cycles, enhanced soil water-holding capacity, greater resilience, improved catchment health – and a more satisfying, profitable future for farmers.

The longer we delay undertaking regenerative changes to land management based on biology friendly farming practices that rebuild carbon-rich soils, the more soil carbon and soil water will be lost, exposing an increasingly fragile agricultural sector to escalating production risks, rising input costs and vulnerability to climatic extremes.

Its time to move away from depletion-style, high emission, chemically based industrial agriculture and get serious about grass-roots biologically based alternatives.

The future of Australia depends on the future of our soil – and our willingness to look after it.

Rebuilding soil productivity via the restoration of natural carbon flow and the sequestration of stable soil carbon is the only means of saving agriculture’s bacon – and ensuring a future for human society as we know it.

Literature cited

• Allen, M.F (2007). ‘Mycorrhizal fungi: highways for water and nutrients in arid soils’. Soil Science Society of America, Vadose Zone Journal. Vol 6 (2) pp. 291-297. DOI:10.2136/vzj2006.0068.
• Burgess, N. (2010). Agricultural debt from 1994 to 2009. Sourced from Westpac Economics& Reserve Bank of Australia. nburgess@westpac.com.au
• Cawood, M. (2009). ETS lifeline: soils capable of absorbing cattle methane. The Land, 3 September 2009.
• Dlugokencky, E. J. et al. (2009). Observational constraints on recent increases in the atmospheric CH4 burden. Geophysical Research Letters. 36, L18803, DOI:10.1029/2009GL039780.
• Dunfield, P. F. (2007). The soil methane sink. In D.S. Reay, C.N. Hewitt, K.A Smith and J. Grace, eds. Greenhouse Gas Sinks. pp. 152-170. Wallingford UK.
• Jones, C. E. (2006). Carbon and catchments. National ‘Managing the Carbon Cycle’ Forum, Queanbeyan, NSW, 22-23 November 2006. http://www.amazingcarbon.com
• Jones, C.E. (2008). Liquid carbon pathway unrecognised. Australian Farm Journal, July 2008, pp. 15-17. http://www.amazingcarbon.com
• Khan, S.A, Mulvaney, R.L, Ellsworth, T.R. and Boast, C.W. (2007). The myth of nitrogen fertilization for soil carbon sequestration. Journal of Environmental Quality 36:1821-1832. DOI:10.2134/jeq2007.0099
• Killham, K. (1994). ‘Soil Ecology’. Cambridge University Press.
• Larson, D. L (2007). Study reveals that nitrogen fertilizers deplete soil organic carbon. University of Illinois news, October 29, 2007. http://www.aces.uiuc.edu/news/internal/preview.cfm?NID=4185
• Leake, J.R., Johnson, D., Donnelly, D.P., Muckle, G.E., Boddy, L. and Read, D.J. (2004). Networks of power and influence: the role of mycorrhizal mycelium in controlling plant communities and agroecosystem functioning. Canadian Journal of Botany, 82: 1016-1045. DOI:10.1139/B04-060
• Liebig, M.A, Schmer, M.R, Vogel, K.P. and Mitchell. R.B. (2008). Soil carbon storage by switchgrass grown for bioenergy. Bioenergy Research 1: 215-222. DOI:10.1007/s12155-008-9019-5
• Morris G. D. (2004). Sustaining national water supplies by understanding the dynamic capacity that humus has to increase soil water-holding capacity. Thesis submitted for Master of Sustainable Agriculture, University of Sydney, July 2004.
• Mulvaney, R.L, Khan S.A, and Ellsworth, T.R. (2009). Synthetic nitrogen fertilizers deplete soil nitrogen: a global dilemma for sustainable cereal production. Journal of Environmental Quality 38:2295-2314. DOI:10.2134/jeq2008.0527
• Quirk T. W. (2010). Twentieth century sources of methane in the atmosphere. Energy and Environment, 21(3), pp. 251-256.
• Strzelecki, Paul Edmund de, (1845). Physical description of New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land: accompanied by a geological map, sections and diagrams, and figures of the organic remains / by P.E. de Strzelecki. Printed for Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, London. (Note: prior to 1851 the state of Victoria was part of the colony of New South Wales).
• Watson, L. (2010). Portugal gives green light to pasture carbon farming as a recognised offset. Australian Farm Journal, January 2010, pp. 44-47.

The view from the course site ‘Ourthane’ which means ‘gardens’

Background

In 2004, during my first visit to Morocco, one night in the desert with the full moon at its zenith I climbed an enormous dune with Francois and Vincent, two Québécois I had met on the bus journey south.

Ascending that great pile of sand, every step forward seemed to take us three steps back. Our beleaguered progress was painfully slow. The nameless mountain of sand we were climbing stood far above neighbouring dunes to shelter a small and equally anonymous oasis a few hours slow and ponderous journey by camel from Merzouga, a small, one road collection of pisé houses and auberges that sit amidst the bleak and stony Hamada. The only movements to catch the eye was the shimmering heat rising from the Earth and the tall, thin and spectral twisters that listlessly faded into existence only to fade out again, as if exhausted under the unforgiving glare of the desert sun from the effort of giving form to the eddying winds of the Hamada.

Earth bricks dry at the oasis of Oaroun near Guelmime, southern Morocco

In the midst of that seemingly abiotic plain lay the Erg Chebbi. A favourite with tourists and travellers, this patch of Saharan dunes seem to have wandered off from the true Sahara to the south, or from nearby Algeria, in search of a new home. It was this nomadic patch of sand that I found myself surveying while my companions and I stopped to catch our breath after reaching the summit of the great dune. The entire scene that lay before us was coloured an iridescent midnight blue – a sea of sand frozen in time, bathed in the milky glow of the full moon.

What had really struck me as I travelled the length of the country was how different the many parts of the country actually looked and felt. The Mediterranean coast and the Rif Mountains, the Atlantic coast, the middle Atlas and the east, Marrakesh and Central Morocco, the Souss, the Anti Atlas and the Western Sahara are all unique in their peculiarities of climate, endemic species and subsistence patterns. I was surprised at how green much of Morocco can be and how much food is grown in the mountain valleys by the tribes who live there. Visiting the old cities of Morocco you feel a great sense of the grandeur of antiquity. Palaces, tombs and Kasbahs abound.

Courtyard garden, el badi palace, Marrakesh

Ceiling detail, el Badi palace – it took Artisans 14 years to complete their work

After piecing together the order of the dynasties who built them, that either swept into Morocco with the green tide of Islam or erupted from within, I began to look at the wider landscape and what it could tell me about how it had been used. Which land use strategies had fallen into disuse and which were still being practiced? How much had human activity shaped the country as I saw it now? How did Morocco look and function a hundred, five hundred or even a thousand years ago and which elements and consequently functions/ecosystem services had been lost. During my first visit these questions were still only in an embryonic form and despite my enthusiasm for Permaculture, I didn’t have the right eyes with which to comprehend what I was seeing. I wasn’t ready to understand the relationship between humans and the land holistically.

Once I began to think about the historical ecology of Morocco, and after experiencing the most heartfelt warmth and genuine hospitality of its people, I found I was irrevocably and unashamedly hooked.

Calf at the Tuareg camel souk, Guelmime

What is truly remarkable about that desert experience is how, despite reflecting what is often depicted as the archetypal Moroccan adventure, it represented an incredibly myopic vision of the country – a classic case of ‘the map is not the territory’. I had been sold an arid land of desert and Kasbahs; inevitably Morocco is a far more complex and rewarding place than I had previously understood it to be. I feel it important then, that I provide some general information on Morocco, the challenges the country faces and to clearly demonstrate why Permaculture aid projects, such as that being undertaken by the Permaculture Research Institute and Tribal Networks, are appropriate responses.

Exhausted, salted land. Biomass burned after harvest. Guelmime.

Morocco’s 2,008km (1) coastline stretches along the Mediterranean in the north, round past Tangiers and down alongside the Atlantic to Tarfaya in the south. Depending on which map you happen to be using, La Guera at the southernmost tip of the disputed Western Sahara region can be considered the southern limit to Morocco, in which case this extends the country below the tropic of cancer by approximately 280km and bringing the total length of the country’s coastline to around 3,500km (2). With such a vast coastline and with much of its economic activity being primarily fishing and tourism, clustered around coastal areas, Morocco is particularly vulnerable to predicted rises in sea levels.

The two mountain ranges of Morocco – the Rif, where I had travelled in 2004, and the Atlas (where Tribal Networks arranged the first PDC in Morocco) – feature prominently not only in the topography of the country but also in the national psyche. The Rif Mountains skirt the Mediterranean for most of their 290km, home to fiercely independent tribes that have resisted attempts to subdue their independence at every turn throughout recorded history.

The Atlas Mountains act as a dividing line between the two main climatic zones, the Mediterranean northern coastal regions, and the southern interior which borders the Sahara. As in many countries throughout the world that have suffered successive colonial occupations, these two mountainous regions have long been strongholds of Berber tribes, their traditions and culture.

Understanding the land use patterns and the movement of the many tribes and peoples in Morocco are no simple matter. Communities that seem well established may actually have originated elsewhere. Patterns of subsistence may have changed many times as tribes migrated across the country. Some sedentary tribes are in fact long established whilst others may have settled more recently and many were nomadic for at least part of the year moving with their flocks from lowland to highland pastures. Certain tribes used to speak Berber and now speak Arabic whereas for other tribes they began speaking Arabic and now speak Berber. What is clear is that of the 31,627,428 (3) Moroccans, 99.1% are of Arab-Berber ethnicity. Berber, or Tamazight as it is increasingly becoming referenced as, is only in recent years gaining more respect as a language and as a respected core element of Amazigh culture. There are a few Tamazight language newspapers and television broadcasts. Yet despite some positive developments and comprising at least 45% of the population, Imazighen (plural of Amazigh) are still, for the most part, socially and economically marginalised (4), suffering high illiteracy rates and chronic under investment in historically deprived areas (5).

Harvesting wheat in the Souss

The main environmental issues faced by Imazighen are deforestation, erosion, water resource depletion, erratic rainfall and subsequent flash flooding interspersed with prolonged periods of drought and the dumping of raw sewage into water courses.

Deforestation

Deforestation in morocco merits close attention not only as an environmental catastrophe as it does anywhere in the world but because of the colonial narrative upon which much of modern thinking on desertification and deforestation is based. All of this has demonised, displaced and disrupted indigenous land use methods in Morocco for the last hundred years.

Sparsely wooded foothills. Is this a natural or entirely manmade landscape?

Authoritative commentators such as the 16th century travel writer Leo Africanus writing in his ‘A Geographical History of Africa’, and historians of antiquity; Herodotus, Pliny, Procopius, Strabo and Ptolemy have all been quoted time and time again to support the now dominant view of North African historical ecology when in fact the conventional environmental history of North Africa most widely

…accepted today was created during the French colonial period. Before the conquest of Algeria, North Africa had been most commonly depicted in French and European writings as a fertile land that had lapsed into decadence under the “primitive” techniques of the “lazy natives.” (6)

During this period the Arab chronicler Ibn Khaldoun was often selectively quoted so as to racially stereotype Arabs and Berbers as destructive and therefore undeserving of their own lands.

In less than two decades, there emerged a colonial environmental narrative that blamed the indigenous peoples, especially herders, for deforesting and degrading what was once the apparently highly fertile “granary of Rome” in North Africa. The declensionist story that quickly developed was used throughout the colonial period to rationalize and to motivate French colonization across North Africa. This narrative and its utilization reached their apogee between 1880 and 1930, precisely the period during which colonial activities caused the most deforestation. (7)

It has now been established that until approximately 1000 BCE forest cover varied considerably from region to region throughout the Mediterranean and the Middle East (8). The physical evidence available today such as carbon-14 dated pollen core analysis suggests ‘that there has been a long history of a comparatively treeless landscape with a dynamic and migrating vegetation’ (9).

Morocco has in fact been the subject of more paleoecological research than any other country in North Africa. Whilst there is evidently disparity between depletion of natural forest cover and new cover provided by replanting initiatives, modern data suggests there is no definitive overall pattern of massive deforestation on the order of the frequently claimed 50 to 85 percent over the last two millennia (10). Some species such as the deciduous oak declined sharply around three thousand years ago probably due to climatic conditions however other species have increased in number, with minor fluctuations, including oaks, cedar, juniper, pine, and other trees.

Forests cover 5 814 000 ha, made up of 63 percent deciduous species (holm oak [Quercus ilex], cork oak [Quercus suber], argan [Argania spinosa] and Saharan acacias [Acacia spp.]) and 20 percent conifers (cedar [Cedrus spp.], thuya [Tetraclinis articulata], juniper [Juniperus spp.], pine [Pinus spp.], Atlas cypress [Cupressus atlantica] and fir [Abies spp.]), while the remaining 17 percent are low formations (scrub and secondary species)… (11)

There are reforestation initiatives in Morocco, ‘planted forests cover nearly 500 000 ha and are expanding at an average annual rate of 8 percent’ a year however this is ‘well below the optimal rate (15 to 20 percent)’(12) for maintaining a basic, functioning level of ecosystem services.

In the U.K where we replant and manage (the efficacy of which is debatable) what forest cover we have left, deforestation still wreaks ecological havoc. The 2007 flash floods cost the U.K over £3 billion with scores of people yet to return to their flood damaged homes. Moroccan plantations, even if implemented as part of a well designed system, cannot replicate the ecosystem services provided by natural forest cover overnight. Land repair takes time. Permaculture design aims to facilitate and speed up the natural process of regeneration by creating the ideal conditions for the land to heal itself.

It is important to balance research and established opinion with indigenous knowledge and personal intuition. In researching for this article I found many supposedly authoritative sources echoing the colonial narrative despite finding contemporary academic studies that provided data to the contrary. It is clear that though Morocco is the most highly forested country in the Maghreb it is suffering from deforestation and environmental degradation. Undoubtedly there are multiple threats to forests in Morocco; felling for timber and fuel (for home use and particularly for Hammams) and non coppice based charcoal production. Yet in accepting without question the flawed and defunct colonial fiction of Morocco’s environmental history we perpetrate the further demonization of Imazighen. The very people we need to work with and learn from in order to repair damaged landscapes in Morocco.

Erosion

Erosion around a seasonal watercourse. High atlas.

Erosion in Morocco is wide spread and highly destructive. Without forest cover to mop up run off in the highlands, seasonal and increasingly erratic rainfall careers unchecked through the landscape – causing flash floods which claim lives every year. Vital roads are regularly washed away and rebuilt and washed away. Some indigenous land use strategies that have been disrupted from the colonial period onwards can be seen as contributing to the erosion problem: concentrated as opposed to sustainable nomadic grazing, cultivation of marginal and brittle landscapes, timber extraction for fuel and charcoal production and the loss of the labour force needed to maintain traditional agricultural systems such as terracing. The over grazing of goats is often ironically singled out as a major hindrance to natural regeneration and as a major cause of erosion and soil depletion. Inevitably this is an overly simplistic account of the situation and an attempt to neatly parcel off the problem as yet another tragedy of the commons. However goats are an essential part of the rural economy throughout Morocco. Argan trees, a major economic resource, are browsed by goats and the nuts are traditionally processed only once they have passed through the animal’s digestive system. I have personally seen Carob trees thriving above a goat browse line. If managed properly as part of a considered conservation grazing plan, they are an essential feature of the landscape which can be highly beneficial to the maintenance of the systems they inhabit.

Water

Debris, left over a metre above water level by flash flooding

Water is becoming an increasingly scarce resource in Morocco. Over 80% of the surface water is used by agriculture, often in flood irrigation systems. In the south this is usually done under plastic. In marginal croplands the ground becomes heavily compacted and salinated. Once the use of chemical inputs becomes ineffectual the land is abandoned as worthless and cultivation is moved to another area. Up until the 14th century irrigation was provided where needed, apparently sustainably, primarily by the use of canals and diversions from larger water courses in lowland areas, and the diversion and redistribution of springs and rivers in mountain communities. A good example of an indigenous water management system is the Khettera.

Dave Spicer & Olivier Vuillemin investigate the Khettera at the
Brainseeder project near Guelmime

After the breakup of important economic centres, such as Sijilmassa (A.D. 757-1393) (13), which often acted as hubs for water harvesting and distribution, the Khatterat system was widely employed as a way of sustainably harvesting and democratically distributing water – predominantly in the plateaus, plains and deserts of Morocco. Khatterats are underground galleries dug at a gentle slope and intersected with deep service shafts. Khetterats draw water from an aquifer, often at the place where mountains meet the level ground in an alluvial fan, and can stretch over 20km to carry water to agricultural settlements such as Oases (14, 15). The Khetterat…

… management system … operates on the basis of utilizing a man-made gradient to draw water from aquifers. Water withdrawal in such traditional systems: (a) is achieved under gravity and without application of an external power source; (b) minimizes evaporation losses because water storage and transport is mostly underground; and (c) can only withdraw water which is available in the aquifer through natural recharge, avoiding any over-exploitation of groundwater resources. This traditional technology is a particularly effective system considering the water scarcity, weather conditions and low-level technology generally available in this region. In communities working together to maintain these systems, long-term benefits can be enjoyed by all without a major capital investment and with nominal operation and maintenance cost. (16)

Very Large disused Khettera, at the Brainseeders project site near Guelmime.
Evidently still the most hospitable place for plant life.

Socio-economic changes in Morocco have altered land use strategies and ‘globally important agricultural heritage systems’ (17) are being gradually abandoned in favour modern water management systems. As systems such as the Khettera fall into disuse, so declines the knowledge of how to manage and repair them. Major water infrastructure projects such as the construction of dams, have lowered the water table available to Khettera user communities. The green revolution and the subsequent introduction of petrol pumps have only served to lower water tables even further. (18)

Continue on to Part II

References:

1. http://earthtrends.wri.org/pdf_library/country_profiles/coa_cou_504.pdf
2. http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/Blogs/atlantic_rising/321827/atlantic_rising_adapting_to_climate_change_in_morocco.html
3. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/mo.html
4. http://www.amazigh-voice.com/history.html
5. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/03/16/MN145053.DTL
   (RESURRECTING THE GRANARY OF ROME — 2007, Environmental History and French Colonial Expansion in North Africa, By Diana K. Davis.)
6. http://www.ohioswallow.com/extras/9780821417515_chapter_01.pdf
   ibid.
7. http://www.ohioswallow.com/extras/9780821417515_chapter_01.pdf
   ibid.
8. http://www.ohioswallow.com/extras/9780821417515_chapter_01.pdf
   ibid.
9. http://www.ohioswallow.com/extras/9780821417515_chapter_01.pdf
   ibid.
10. http://www.ohioswallow.com/extras/9780821417515_chapter_01.pdf
    ibid.
11. http://www.fao.org/forestry/country/57478/en/mar/
12. http://www.fao.org/forestry/country/57478/en/mar/
13. Moroccan Khettara Dale R. Lightfoot
14. Lessons Learned from Qanat studies: A Proposal for International Cooperation – Iwao Kobori
15. UNDERGROUND WATER GALLERIES IN MIDDLE EAST AND CENTRAL ASIA: Survey of historical documents and archaeological studies, Renato Sala, Laboratory of Geo-archaeology, Institute of Geology, Academy of Sciences of Kazakhstan
16. Seeing Traditional Technologies in a New Light, Using Traditional Approaches for Water Management in Drylands The United Nations World Water Assessment Programme, Insights, World Water Assessment Programme Side publications series INSIGHTS United Nations, Cultural Organization
    Edited byHarriet Bigas, Zafar Adeel and Brigitte Schuster United Nations University International Network on Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH)
17. http://www.fao.org/nr/giahs/en/
18. The Ground swell of Pumps: Mulitlevel Impacts of a Silent revolution, Francois Molle, Tushaar Shah and Randy Barker.

The Ghanian branch of the Australian Edge 5 Permaculture company, in partnership with the permaculture network in Ghana, has, since the year 2006, been supporting indigenous tree seed collection, communities tree nursery and forestation, tree plantings in schools and planting trees along rivers in Ghana.

The following activities in Ghana are causing the deforestation of vegetation cover, the drying out of river bodies, desertification, erosion, rainfall, lost of medical plants and animal habitat.

1. Chain saw operators
2. Conventional farming activities
3. Bush fires
4. Overgrazing
5. Farming along river banks

Edge 5 permaculture and the Ghana permaculture network are now working with fifty communities who are doing tree nursery work and planting trees to protect their river bodies which have been the only source of drinking water for communities. We would be happy for donors to come to our aid to support these communities. The research conducted so far has seen in these communities it is the women and children who suffer most as they must search for drinking water at large distances from their homes. With your financial and material support we can reach thousands of communities in Ghana who depend upon rivers as their source of drinking water.

To assist, please contact:

Paul Yeboah (Edge5 Permaculture Ghana manager, and Permaculture Ghana Network president).
Box TM 390, Techiman – B/A, Ghana – W/A
Email: yeboahpual70 (at) yahoo.com or paul (at) edge5.com.au
Mobile: +233 24 370 2596

Permaculture solutions have come to life at a Wagga Wagga farm in the midst of a heated debate over water. What Kevin Rudd Claim’s will help the Murray Darling River system and the Lower Lakes region has some farmers in the area fuming. Farmers and residents throughout the Murray Darling region have larger concerns over the Australian government’s 3.1 Billion Dollar irrigation buyback scheme. The Rudd government is reacting to reduced productivity in the area and increasing demand for irrigated water downstream. Yet, some local farmers are curious as to how the proposed plan will affect production in the area, and reports show that many aren’t feeling optimistic.

After years of drought-affected production losses, the government’s buyback seems like a kick in the teeth to some selected local farming and ranching economies. A Canberra Times article reported on an ABARE (Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics) study that modeled the effects of half of the buyback. The study was Rudd’s reaction to growing criticism about the buyback. Their report showed that between 2008 and 2011 the program would only pick up an estimated 6% of surface water entitlements. The study predicted that “larger regional centers” with a diverse economy would be less effected by this purchase and, potentially, be cushioned by the economic boost. Still they admitted, ”Some of the smaller towns more dependent on irrigation could be less resilient to a decline in irrigation,” and “The model results also suggest that the buyback will result in water prices being around 13 per cent higher in the northern basin and around 18 per cent higher in the southern basin than they would have been in the absence of the buyback.” Favoring the buyback, the ABARE study seemed to suggest that production decline was largely due to drought and not their buyback. Still, some aren’t so sure and suggest that deeper thought needs to be given to the program.

So while some residents and farmers resort to scratching a furrowed brow, others have resorted to taking the furrows to the land, with permaculture. Seeing the potential benefits of permaculture water harvesting and food production techniques, one Wagga family, The Allsopps, have taken action, and they’re seeing results. The BBC reports that a 20% drop in rainfall equals a 70% drop in stream flow, and as a long time Wagga Wagga resident, this would be no surprise to Richard Allsopp. Richard has seen the value in slowing, spreading, and sinking water on his site. Seeking advice from Australian experts such as Geoff Lawton, Matthew Kilby, and Peter Andrews, Richard has developed a ranch that is unwittingly becoming a demonstration of sustainable land management.

With the recent development of a multi-gigaliter dam connected to swale systems and several gabions using boulders and timber from his land, Richard has seen a marked difference in the health and vitality of his pastures and streams. Currently grazing anywhere from 30-40 head of cattle for management, Richard is now researching ways to continually improve the site with native tree corridors and swale planting for animal forage and stability. Seeing the success of the rock gabion installation last year, he’s also been talking with fellow permaculture designer Nick Huggins about the addition of several living bamboo gabions to slow the rapid erosion of stream banks. And just last week, Nick Huggins and I designed and installed an 800 sq meter orchard and 400 sq meter veggie garden on their site for Richard, Anna and their 3 children. “I think it’s important that the children get the experience of understanding where food comes from, … it just makes sense”, said Richard.

Near one of the older dams on the property, a fenced off area included the proposed site for the permaculture style veggie garden and orchard. Most of the veggie garden and orchard lie within the dam’s catchment on the downward slope of the cow paddock. Seeing the opportunity of the slope, Nick and my design focused on utilizing contour bank garden beds, small tree berms, native leguminous support species, and deep mulch seeded with cover crop. Our hope was to slow and sink the surface runoff from the paddock area on its way to the dam, making best use of the nutrient flow. In the orchard food forest we used a net and pan style planting, interplanted with tree lucurne and a variety of acacia species. Around the orchard we added Southwest and Southeast bamboo windbreaks which will double as a living nursery for their future bamboo plantings. A windbreak on the West side included a aesthetic windbreak of Silver Birch. At the northern end of the 4 contour beds with sunken footpaths, we added a mandala herb and salad garden which they plan to cover with a shade cloth to protect against Wagga’s intense sun and 40°C summer heat. After planting out the veggie garden and trees, almost the entire area was later covered with a cover crop of lucurne, red and white clover and then coated with a thick layer of salvaged local straw. Already decomposing, we could see the straw would create a nice start for microbial action as well as a multifunctional mulch.

While he’s received some criticism from other locals who haven’t yet wrapped their heads around how permaculture can work for them, Richard knows he’s on to something positive. Richard, also a helicopter pilot, often gets a bird’s eye view of what the land around him has devolved into, and it doesn’t look good. “I want to help show people what can be done… and I’m willing to help people do this.” And while he wouldn’t call himself a Permaculturalist, it is obvious he’s got a passion and commitment to improving his land and the land around him. Through his endeavors in permaculture design and sustainable land management, he’s seeing the evolution of abundance when others are feeling hung out to dry.

Regeneration – an Earth
Saving Evolution
How biological farming builds healthier
soils, healthier plants, healthier animals
and certain hope in an uncertain world.

In a kind of army style ‘about-face’, society is increasingly turning away from the reductionist, extractive agriculture that rushed onto the world after WWII. Today people are, thankfully, realising that you cannot convert biodiverse natural systems into monocultures – into a factory floor environment – and expect success. With the soils that support all life on this planet getting rapidly eroded and diminished in critical organic matter, people are realising that farming is far more about biology than it is about chemistry, more about feeding the soil than feeding the plant, and are realising that our futures, our very survival, depends on our coming to grips with biological processes and learning to harness them.

I’ve just uploaded the new Regeneration – an Earth Saving Revolution DVD to our online store. This DVD examines the thoughts and work of some of the many individuals who are now leading the way forward in farming techniques that are simultaneously highly productive and entirely sustainable. It’s an inspiration-packed DVD that’s worth circulating to all.

Our survival now truly depends on how fast this kind of information can be made to pervade society at all levels, and how rapidly we can rebuild society to accommodate, integrate and harmonise with it.

Trailer to follow:

Last week Permaculture consultant Nick Huggins spoke to Anne Delaney from the ABC Riverina Breakfast radio program in Wagga Wagga, NSW. Listen here:

Nick Huggins Talks to ABC Radio About Riverina’s Water Blues

A backgrounder: Two Permaculture consultants, currently drought proofing a property in Livingstone, are calling for an end to the Australian Government’s water buy-back scheme, saying turning off the taps rather than helping farmers repair degraded landscape is selling the Riverina’s future short.

Over 9 days, Nick Huggins and Paul David Stockhausen from the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia (PRI) are implementing a plan to turn a degraded property in Livingstone into a drought-proof landscape that will see it use less irrigation water as each year passes while still growing ever more productive.

Nick says the project is an example of how the Riverina could take the little water that’s left in the region and get back to full production.

“With a proper management plan there is enough water available to get this area looking like the sunshine coast but instead 60 farmers have been encouraged to sell their irrigation entitlements, effectively locking their land into a permanent dry and degraded state.”

Geoff Lawton implemented a series of swales 12 months ago. Paul said “A year on and the results are clear, the swales and dams are full and there are springs popping out of land that was brown and dusty a year ago.”

On the buy-back scheme, Nick said “The Australian Government’s plan of buying back water and turning off irrigation channels may free up water in the short term but it won’t fix the environmental damage caused by years of over-grazing and chemical agriculture.

“If the government continues promoting this program it may worsen environmental problems, destroy communities and could ultimately lead to less food security for Australia.”

They both believe the Government needs to look at the bigger picture and put a renewed focus on sustainable agriculture.

“Implementing Permaculture principals has turned this farm green again with relatively low inputs, it wouldn’t take much to do this across the whole region and it can only improve the situation”, said Nick.

“Over the next 40 years we need more food not less, but if we just stop using water what future does the Riverina have? They might have to shut the post office down as well!”

Geoff found the discussion of great interest, and ended up being interviewed by Michael Mackenzie of ABC radio on the issue – it makes for a very interesting listen.

Click play below to hear the talk: