PRI
Get our news via RSS!
Or, subscribe to posts by email. Enter address:

Fresh From Our Contributing Authors What's a "contributing author"?

Anaerobic Indigestion

Comedy Break, Consumerism, Society, Waste Systems & Recycling — by Marc Roberts August 7, 2010


Click for full view
Courtesy: Marc Roberts

The Uk may have to import waste to burn as it builds more incinerators than we can use, whilst waste pickers in the majority world – the poorest of the poor – complain that their livelihoods as recyclers are being destroyed by incineration plans. Oh – and there’s a car that runs on shit.

Comments (2)

Letters from Jordan – On Consultation at Jordan’s Largest Farm, and Contemplating Transition

Commercial Farm Projects, Conservation, Dams, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Irrigation, Land, Plant Systems, Rehabilitation, Swales, Trees — by Craig Mackintosh August 6, 2010

Preamble: From my recent trip to Jordan, I shared with you all the news, with loads of pictures, about the International Permaculture Conference (IPC) that will be held there in September 2011. I also slipped over the border to take a quick peek at Murad Alkufash’s work in the West Bank, and took video of the Jawaseri school garden project. In my bid to multitask, I also had opportunity to accompany Geoff Lawton on a consultation in the Wadi Rum district in the south of the country, where we combined the consultation with our investigations for a campsite for the IPC (photos of the latter can be seen via the first link above).

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.

Click for more…

Comments (15)

A Call to Large Scale Earth Healing and Lessons from the Loess Plateau (Video)

Alternatives to Political Systems, Biodiversity, Community Projects, Conservation, Consumerism, Dams, Deforestation, Economics, Food Shortages, Gabions, Global Warming/Climate Change, Land, Plant Systems, Population, Regional Water Cycle, Soil Conservation, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Swales, Terraces, Trees, Village Development, Water Contaminaton, peak oil — by Craig Mackintosh

The world is coming unglued. The world burns. What are we going to do about it?


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.

Click for more…

Comments (12)

Making The Case For Earth Repair Work – Part 2

Biodiversity, Deforestation, Development & Property Trusts, Economics, Ethical Investment, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, People Systems, Population, Rehabilitation, Society, Soil Conservation, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Village Development, Water Contaminaton — by Rhamis Kent August 5, 2010

Over the past couple of years, there has been quite a bit of attention paid to the purchase of massive amounts of agricultural land by rich countries and corporate entities in the developing world. Craig Mackintosh wrote about this on this site, as have many other very informative reports and press stories.

To summarize, there has been approximately US$100 Billion mobilized to purchase somewhere between 40 – 50 million hectares (roughly 100 – 125 million acres) of agricultural land worldwide.

Click for more…

Comments (6)

PermaCooking – Meat, Marmalade and My Execution Meal

Animal Processing, Processing & Food Preservation, Recipes — by Marcelo Severo August 4, 2010

The Meat Situation

The meat situation is this – we’ve got a good part of a cow in the freezer, a couple of lambs coming along, and lots of birds that need processing. For the vegetarians out there, I offer you potato gnocci later on for dinner (without the beef ragu of course) and cumquat marmalade on sourdough toast for morning tea. For now though, let me indulge the more carnivorous of you with….

Click for more…

Comments (6)

The Art and Science of Making a Hugelkultur Bed – Transforming Woody Debris into a Garden Resource

Compost, Conservation, Fungi, Rehabilitation, Soil Biology, Soil Composition, Soil Conservation, Structure, Water Harvesting — by Melissa Miles August 3, 2010


Wooden debris will decompose faster,
(and be transformed into a resource)
when hugelkultur techniques are
employed.

Used for centuries in Eastern Europe and Germany, hugelkultur (in German hugelkultur translates roughly as “mound culture”) is a gardening and farming technique whereby woody debris (fallen branches and/or logs) are used as a resource.

Often employed in permaculture systems, hugelkultur allows gardeners and farmers to mimic the nutrient cycling found in a natural woodland to realize several benefits. Woody debris (and other detritus) that falls to the forest floor can readily become sponge like, soaking up rainfall and releasing it slowly into the surrounding soil, thus making this moisture available to nearby plants.

Hugelkultur garden beds (and hugelkultur ditches and swales) using the same principle to:

Click for more…

Comments (9)

Mining Madness – We Need Help Here in South Africa

Community Projects, Economics, News, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Water Contaminaton — by Santa van Bart

In May 2010 life changed dramatically for the community here at Groot Marico, South Africa. We became aware of a prospecting and mining company called ‘African Nickel’ and its plans for us.

The lifeblood of our area is the Groot Marico River, which begins a few kilometers south of the historical town of the same name.

The Marico River is graded as an A/B (least impacted) river, and is one of the few remaining such rivers in the country. This means that the water is clear and safe to drink! In fact the town of Groot Marico and all the farms along the river derive their drinking and household water directly from the river.

Click for more…

Comments (9)

PDC Interview, Part 5: Jarrod, Liz and James

Courses/Workshops, Podcasts, Society — by Harry Schnur


Zaytuna Farm
Photo © Craig Mackintosh

Harry Schnur from Taipei, Taiwan, recently completed his PDC with Geoff Lawton at Zaytuna Farm.

He has two shows on the only English community radio station in the region and did a series of interviews for one of his shows during his time at the farm.

Below is part 5, an interview with PDC students, Jarrod, Liz and James. Click play to listen!

PDC Interview, Part 5 - Jarrod, Liz and James

 

Comments (0)

Decoding Pattern

Building, Energy Systems, Food Forests, General, Land, Plant Systems, Retrofitting, Waste Systems & Recycling — by Adrian Buckley July 31, 2010

by Adrian Buckley

The modern-day education system is almost entirely bent on creating an army of university professors and other specialists. We have been systematically trained to specialize, and as a result we approach problem-solving by studying parts of a whole, where the connections between them are commonly ignored.

Click for more…

Comments (13)

Whale Tale

Biodiversity, Comedy Break, Global Warming/Climate Change, News, Water Contaminaton — by Marc Roberts


Click for full view
Courtesy: Marc Roberts

With phyloplankton levels crashing and the whole marine food chain going belly-up, perhaps marine life should follow this whale’s example, and be a bit more pro-active.

Comments (0)

Companion Planting Guide

Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Land, Medicinal Plants, Plant Systems, Trees — by Peter Dilley July 30, 2010


IDEP’s Companion Planting Guide
Click here for full PDF

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.

Click for more…

Comments (12)

Whose Trees Are These?

Consumerism, Deforestation, Economics, Society — by Ernest Partridge

Copyright by Ernest Partridge. Published here with permission of the author.

A few years ago, I taped a broadcast of National Public Radio’s "All Things Considered" for listening at a more convenient time later in the day. That broadcast contained a report by Alan Sapporin on the old-growth timber controversy. The logger’s remark which opens this essay is written exactly as I heard it. Unfortunately, this was neither the first, nor the last, time that I have heard such a remark. (EP)

"It’s here to be harvested, and God put it on this Earth to do that, and that’s the way it is."

For logger Archie Sawyer (not his actual name), these trees are for him. It is God’s will.

"The Earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof," saith the scripture. Not so, says Archie Sawyer, who claims, in effect, that the Earth is his, and that God gave it to him. Thus it would seem downright ungrateful, even sacrilegious, for him not to take it.

Click for more…

Comments (6)

PDC Interview, Part 4: Lindsay Dailey

Courses/Workshops, Podcasts — by Harry Schnur


Lindsay Dailey (right), at Zaytuna Farm

Harry Schnur from Taipei, Taiwan, recently completed his PDC with Geoff Lawton at Zaytuna Farm.

He has two shows on the only English community radio station in the region and did a series of interviews for one of his shows during his time at the farm.

Below is part 4, an interview with Lindsay Dailey, permaculture designer and PRI student, at PRI’s Zaytuna Farm. Click play to listen!

PDC Interview, Part 4 - Lindsay Dailey

 

Comments (2)

From Little Things Big Things Grow

Consumerism, Courses/Workshops, Food Forests, Food Plants - Perennial, Food Shortages, Land, Markets & Outlets, People Systems, Retrofitting, Social Gatherings, Society, Trees, Village Development, Waste Systems & Recycling — by Matt Lees

Have you ever grown your own food? Studies have shown that people who eat organic produce from their own garden have an increased sense of well being and good health.

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.

Click for more…

Comments (4)

Looking Back at a PDC in Southern Ethiopia

Aid Projects, Community Projects, Courses/Workshops, Demonstration Sites, Education Centres — by Pierre Theriault July 29, 2010

A personal account from taking the Permaculture Design Course at Strawberry Fields Eco-Lodge, Konso, Southern Ethiopia, 9-15 June 2010

Together with three Ethiopians and eight other international participants, I recently attended a 72-hour permaculture design course hosted by Alex McCausland and the Strawberry Fields Eco-Lodge in the Konso province of southern Ethiopia.

Click for more…

Comments (1)