forget sustainable. Africa’s Great Green Wall of Trees
Africa is turning to desert. Studies show that as much as two thirds of the continent’s arable land could become desert by 2025 if current trends continue. But a bold initiative to plant a wall of trees 4,300 miles long across the African continent could keep back the sands of the Sahara, improve degraded lands, and help alleviate poverty. Living on Earth’s Bobby Bascomb reports from Senegal.
Full story at Living on Earth’s website: here.
This initiative is a great example of permacultural thinking can create Aid & Development Solutions that are appropriate, replicable, and create impacts that magnigy beyond the target group of beneficiaries for a given project.
Highlights from the article:
- “It’s more related to agriculture, rural development, food security and sustainable land management than planting trees.”
- ”…following a devastating drought in the 1980s, farmers decided to allow the natural vegetation to grow and planted food crops around it. The result was a surplus of food and 12 million acres of trees, an area the size of Costa Rica. “
- “In ten to 15 years this will be a forest. The trees will be big and this region will be completely transformed. We are already seeing animals come back that haven’t been here for years. Mostly deer and many species of wild bird, even jackal.”
By working with what is already locally available, resources can be re-organized into design solutions that can be easily adopted, adapted, and evolved by communities.
Similarly, knowledge can be more easily transferred and new skills more readily developed if they are culturally appropriate.
Even if the garden only produces a cabbage in a flowerpot, you’ve succeeded in protesting, feeding yourself, cutting carbon emissions, and eating healthier. Today I’m starting carrots in an 18” deep flowerpot.
on my 100 sqfoot balcony, Ive grown (from seed) strawberries, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, carrots, radishes, kale, 7 kinds of lettuce, edible flowers and every herb imaginable. Ive also got a 4.5 foot tall fig tree, and this winter I have sprouted an avocado, lemon and apple seeds that will get planted this spring :)
(via wakeupandlive)
Sustainably sustaining sustainability?
‘Cloudhead’ harnesses artistic creativity to contribute to community
Leigh Shulman and partner Noah Edelblum parlayed their love of travel, writing and art into an Argentina-based NGO which marries art, education, and technology to build community through art.
Cloudhead has taken the time to articulate their own principles of how they will conduct business and express the values they hold dear, and has found a lot of synergy with the Principles of Regenerative Business we’ve articulated so far.
Interesting too, how so many of us are out there so passionately engaged in our own unique expressions of what is ultimately the same underlying fundamental principle - How to maximize our positive impact upon the planet.
Photo: Leigh shows some of the kids in Hickman how to use the camera. They received their own cameras to use, but many used their big Nikon.
BeyondSustainabilitymag.net: How did ‘Cloudhead’ begin?
LS: We formed Cloudhead as a logical next step to what we were already doing. Noah and I traveled with our daughter Lila for three years and during that time, we couchsurfed, hosted people (whenever we had our own place) and volunteered with NGOs, institutes and schools.We figured, why not turn what we love doing into a way we can support ourselves.But how does one create a clear business with a well-defined product when working with so many different types of people and groups?
Photo:Noah working with the kids at Kickmann during their first visit.
BeyondSustainabilitymag.net: How are the principles of Regenerative Enterprise reflected in Cloudhead?
LS: People first. Profit later. This comes naturally. If we can host someone in our home or connect someone with a resource they need – great — we’re happy to do it.Business, though, doesn’t come as naturally. It’s strange to think of asking people to pay for things we’ve always done. As our project grows, though, we realize we need money to fund it. We pay for gas to drive up to the community where we’re building a garden. We need to pay for server space for our website so we can market and make sales. We will need money to bring artists from the other side of planet to work with us in our communities. It is because we believe in what we do, that we are truly doing something of benefit not just for ourselves but for the place we live and hopefully the world in general, that we can ask for money.Our two main products-for-profit at the moment are the Wichi/H20 photos and our Summer Leadership program, but we believe in what we do beyond our ability to profit from it. That’s the only reason we are able to go out there and sell.The Principles of Cloudhead:
Photo:This girl loved having her photo taken. Most were either shy. Or wanted to take photos. She was the only one who clealry wanted to pose.
Everyone Has Something Of Value
If travel has taught us anything, it’s that every person and place in the world has something to share with the rest of the world. In more economically developed countries, there’s a surplus of technology and resources but often a lack of time and space. In places like Panama and the less developed regions of Argentina, time has a very different meaning. People don’t live by the clock and while there may be a paucity of resources, those that exist are used creatively and with less waste.All places have art and culture, and in every place there are people curious to share their work and learn from others.
Collaboration Is Key
Every Cloudhead project facilitates collaborative art and education. Through technology and social media, we create a dialogue between the different communities, paving the way for them to share resources and ideas. We employ this same principle when marketing, publicizing and selling our products. It would be costly and time consuming for us to create our own Cloudhead community or e-commerce site. Instead, we connect with existing communities on Facebook, ArtSlant, Openhouse Gallery in NYC and others who are already selling or willing to market for us.
Photo: Student photos from an exhibit at Salta’s Casa de la Cultura of the Hickmann kids’ photos called Originarios. (Original People).
We Are Not A Charity
Photo: A couple of the artists behind the lens discuss their work.
Money is not the only currency.
What we give: Time and energy.In our Jovenes Construyendo Con Jovenes program, we teach media studies and English in Barrio Solidaridad, an underserved neighborhood in the south of Salta. Our students learn skills that will allow them to effectively compete in a rapidly changing economy as Salta shifts from agricultural to tourism and technology.What we receive: We are building a name, connections and credibility while we refine our methodology.In return, we have made connections in the Argentine Ministry of Education and other areas of government, both vital when building any program or business in Argentina. The Barrio Solidaridad students will also play a crucial role when we launch our Summer Leadership Program in June 2012. Students from the US will join us in Argentina to learn about art, photography and culture in part through a language exchange with our Salta students. In addition, we have a platform where we test and research our program methods as we continue to develop them.__________________________________________________________________
BeyondSustainabilitymag.net is a place to showcase and discuss businesses & enterprises whose focus lies in maximizing their positive impact upon the planet.
Join the conversation (and tell us about your own Regenerative Business or Enterprise) by download our free eBook here.
Regenerative Design emulates healthy ecological systems to create human systems which produce restorative impacts upon our planet and increasingly flourish over time.
Banana leaf sheet mulch!
Banana leaves have many uses in the Islands (and in all traditional cultures where banana plants grow), though here’s one you may not yet have considered: a natural, locally & readily available, biodegradable weed barrier for sheet mulching.
In urban and suburban Honolulu, cardboard is a readily available waste product that can easily be upcycled as a biodegradable weed barrier for sheet mulch gardenbeds and paths, though in remote Hana there is nowhere near the amount of waste cardboard available for us permaculturists!
There is, however, and abundance of banana plants (which love the chocolatey-volcanic soils and moisture), and therefore an abundance of banana leaves…
…which brings us to the point of this post:
Appropriate Design.
(an excerpt from Rick Coleman’s essay ‘The Role of Permaculture in Sustainable Aid’)If you are going to introduce a new technology / technique / tool, these are some things to consider:
- Can you use materials that are inexpnsive or free, that are easily accessible and safe?
- Will it have a tangible positive effect on the community (as well as the aid organization)?
- Most importantly is it able to be repeated (if you build a grand-darble-dooble-funky and leave it, can anyone build a new one?)..
- How can the technology be integrated to solve other problems or be connected to other elements (in the system) and therefore become more productive?
… which, of course, now leaves us with the question:
- What else could we use banana leaves for?
While we ponder that one, here’s another example of a locally appropriate material being deployed for use in a sheet mulch garden being built in the drylands of Mexico:
Banana leaf sheet mulch!
Banana leaves have many uses in the Islands (and in all traditional cultures where banana plants grow), though here’s one you may not yet have considered: a natural, locally & readily available, biodegradable weed barrier for sheet mulching.
In urban and suburban Honolulu, cardboard is a readily available waste product that can easily be upcycled as a biodegradable weed barrier for sheet mulch gardenbeds and paths, though in remote Hana there is nowhere near the amount of waste cardboard available for us permaculturists!
There is, however, and abundance of banana plants (which love the chocolatey-volcanic soils and moisture), and therefore an abundance of banana leaves…
…which brings us to the point of this post:
Appropriate Design.
(an excerpt from Rick Coleman’s essay ‘The Role of Permaculture in Sustainable Aid’)If you are going to introduce a new technology / technique / tool, these are some things to consider:
- Can you use materials that are inexpnsive or free, that are easily accessible and safe?
- Will it have a tangible positive effect on the community (as well as the aid organization)?
- Most importantly is it able to be repeated (if you build a grand-darble-dooble-funky and leave it, can anyone build a new one?)..
- How can the technology be integrated to solve other problems or be connected to other elements (in the system) and therefore become more productive?
… which, of course, now leaves us with the question:
- What else could we use banana leaves for?
While we ponder that one, here’s another example of a locally appropriate material being deployed for use in a sheet mulch garden being built in the drylands of Mexico:
Solar Dryer extends harvest and creates microenterprise opportunity
Elyse Peterson is an experienced food scientist in the dairy, seafood, meat, and soft drink industries, Elyse served two terms in the Peace Corps helping promote sustainable food security solutions. As part of her work in the Peace Corps, she helped to develop a Solar Food Dryer which became the catalyst for a community-based food security and economic development project in in Antigua.
We talked to Elyse about this technology, which is highly appropriate for many tropical areas, and may have application into other climate zones:
TBG: How does Solar Food Drying work?
Solar drying is a low cost method of drying food. It is important to understand moisture in food and the properties of the air around us.
TGB: What kind of Solar Dryer Designs have you developed?
There are three basic designs of solar dryers that you may follow when building your own solar dryer: direct absorption, indirect heating, and mixed mode. In this project a direct absorption solar dryer was designed because it was found to be the most sustainable for Hawaii’s needs.
In these designs the food is placed inside a cabinet or “hot box” which allows the rays of the sun to heat up food and air around it. A compartment with a transparent roof and insulated walls is used, but if designed properly all the walls can be transparent. These may also use reflectors at the bottom of the compartment to increase light (metal or foil).
Ventilation holes are required to promote proper air circulation. Indirect heating dryers dry the food with heated air collected by a “solar panel”. The food is placed in an insulated heating chamber with proper air circulation.
These models are effective but cost a lot of money. Mixed Mode dryers are a combination of the other two designs. Food is heated directly by the sun but additional heat is collected with the “solar panel”. These can cost about $1300EC to build, effective but expensive.
Businesses attempting to expand and produce higher quality products should look into building one of these models (for the purposes of this project and the situation in Hawaii the direct absorption model is the best fit). When constructing your dryer be sure to follow the design carefully, because the angles achieved are vital for efficient processing.
TGB: How do we select produce to dry?
When selecting food to process in the solar dryer it is important to remember that drying will not improve the quality of the produce. Only produce that you would consume fresh should be dried.
Produce with cuts, bruises, or other evidence of contamination should not be used. Select fruit that is ripe yet firm. Using over-ripe fruit can cause the final product to come out brown and sticky. Ripeness is about 2/3 ripe.
TGB: How do we prepare produce for drying?
Produce shall be soaked in a bleach solution to remove microbial contamination (1 tsp bleach in 1 gallon water). Peel fruits and cut into appropriate sized pieces. The smaller the size piece the faster the drying time. As the size of the piece increases the time for drying grows exponentially.
Example: A slice or piece two times larger with take four times longer to dry. Experiment with your dryer to see what size piece is the best.
TGB: Doesn’t that mean we will be eating bleach?
There are alternative methods for sanitation, but bleach is the most available and inexpensive. One must remember that bleach is highly volatile. It evaporates into the air, so there is essentially no bleach on the product by the time we eat it. This is a standard practice in the food industry that many of us don’t know about but owe our safety to.
TGB: Does it work in the rain? How long does it take?
No. The dryer should only be used on days with consistent powerful sun as to reduce the time required for drying. Depending on the results you may find it necessary to rotate the trays throughout the day so every tray gets equal amounts of direct sun exposure.
Drying should take about 12 hours of full sun power (possibly one day with good sun). Optimal temperature for solid drying is 110-120°F but 130°F will be the most effective temperature. Putting a thermometer in the dryer during processing is a safe way of monitoring the efficiency of your dryer.
Keep a close eye on the produce towards the end of drying because drying happens at a faster rate just before it’s reached 10% moisture. To test for doneness you should see that vegetables at about 10% moisture will be brittle and easily can be broken apart.
Fruits should be soft and chewy, but test the moisture content to verify 5-8% moisture (refer to Principles of Solar Drying). There are a few quality issues that need to be considered when solar drying produce.
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For more information and detailed instructions on how to build your own Solar Food Dryerin Hawaii, download the Solar Dryer Manual here:
Food Security and Food Culture
“Food security has been defined as …access by all people at all times to sufficient food for an active and healthy life.
Food security includes at a minimum: the ready availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods, and an assured ability to acquire food in socially acceptable ways (without resorting to emergency food supplies, scavenging, stealing and other coping strategies for example).”
[(Online), Dieticians Association of Australia, www.daa.asn.au (2006.)]
Food Culture refers to how we experience our food – from field to plate – and how it impacts our health, happiness, and sense of community.
Perhaps the best way to explain the impact of food culture upon our wellness is to think of the way you feel, hear, smell, taste, and see another culture when you experience it through their cooking; so much of our cultural values are expressed in the way we grow, prepare, and share food. Indeed, most of our major holidays and celebrations are centered around the experience of sharing a meal.
Food culture and food security are closely linked: threats to one affect, and are affected by the other.
A society which marginalizes the importance of celebrating and enjoying its food, also marginalizes the importance and richness of the living systems which support and create food.
The ‘fast food culture’ of modern society has distanced most of us from this richness of experience, with sobering results. The Slow Food movement was spawned out of a response to the globalization of food production, and promotes sustainable food production by small local businesses to preserve and celebrate local and traditional food cultures.
A society which celebrates the importance and richness of its food culture, creates resilient, happy communities: there is much data to indicate that average reported happiness is consistently lower in countries with a pervasive fast food culture [such as the USA] than in countries such as Cuba, which embrace and celebrate a locally produced, organic food system.
When a community is unable to provide for its own food needs, individuals are disempowered, despair sets in, and food aid must be imported. The community must be rebuilt with the knowledge and practical skills to produce enough of their own food to meet their needs, or a cycle of dependence can develop.
Agricultural yields are arguably at higher levels than ever in recorded history, yet in our world today, 1 out of 7 people will fall sleep tonight without access to enough food to lead an active and healthy life.
A solid understanding of food culture and food security issues are important to a wellness practitioner because it will equip you with a foundation to act on a local scale, and know that you are improving the wellness of humanity on a global scale with your contribution.
“Stupidity is an attempt to iron out all differences, and not to use them or value them creatively.”
- Bill Mollison -
The long-term impacts of the modern conventional food system, which has only been in existence for the last 40 years or so, are only now starting to become more apparent. Obesity levels and diet-related disease are at epidemic levels in the developed world, regional economies are being drained of their livelihoods by big agribusiness, while social and environmental impacts are being reported on by filmmakers, journalists, bloggers and other activists all over the world.
Once we understand the limitations and challenges created by the conventional food system, we can begin to identify opportunities to flourish within, while operating from outside the system: first, by producing enough of our own food to meet our survival needs, then to generate sufficient surplus to share in our local communities.
It is here than we can access markets most efficiently, here that we can develop our most loyal customers, and it is here that the economic activities of our enterprise will make the most difference, because money will be cycled around local suppliers, distributors, and sellers to ehance and strengthen our community.
‘Market’ does not mean ‘places where we can sell crap’ to a permaculturist. Instead, we view ‘markets’ as a vibrant community of people [think of your local farmer’s market], who share common needs that we can help to meet.
When we can identify and meet these needs responsibly, ethically, and sustainably then we are rewarded with surplus cashflows to reinvest into our people, our enterprises, and our community.
For example, we can look for local heritage varieties of crops that have adapted to growing conditions in the area, and develop a niche demand for varieties that are unavailable on supermarket shelves because they may not be suitable for long-term transportation or storage.
Or, we can look for high-value crops that can be integrated into our polycultures, increasing the biodiversity and resilience of our system, while increasing the diversity and resilience of our economic yield.
Only when when our enterprise is able to competently serve the needs of our local community, should we look to developing our system to generate further surplus. We expand our operations and systems organically, by careful observation, continuous improvement, and constant adaptation to changing long-term trends; and always, always conduct ourselves with respect to the ethics of permaculture, which underpin all of our work.
It is vitally important that we look at what our land offers us, rather than impose our will upon the land. For example, deciding arbitrarily that ‘I want to grow chamomile’ because there may be a market for it would not be in alignment with the permaculture ethic of Earth Care, while paying our employees less than a living wage would violate our ethical principle of People Care.
Finally, hoarding all of our profits and not re-investing surplus back into our local communities not only serves to isolate ourselves from our basic need to connect meaningfully with other human beings around us, it would not honour the third ethical principal of permaculture: Resource Share.
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by Matthew Lynch
‘Essays on Permaculture and Wellness’
