When the Lights Go Out

[Keela]

There is nothing mystical about Permaculture.

Agreed.

However unfortunately it does seem to attract some folk who are attracted to the mystical stuff....

Also I think that "we" with our western knowledge should not assume that we always know better. It could be that Haitians know fine well what is needed but have no resources with which to implement their plans.

Also just because we "know" certain things are "bad" (either for our health or the health of our environment) does not necessarily mean that we will act on that knowledge.

There is no easy answer to Haiti's long term problems.

[biffvernon]

Haiti is not far from Cuba. Now which has the more resilient system?

I hear that the USA has just invaded Haiti.

[JohnB]

Permaculture Design is for Disaster Relief, Not Just for Gardens

I was helping on a Permaculture Design Course yesterday, and there seemed to be a pretty normal bunch of people there. I'm doing a Permaculture Teaching Course next month, so I'll have to see how many weird people I come across when I'm let lose on further courses, but I don't think there will be many.

[emordnilap]

Remember way back when - ooh, 8, 9 years ago maybe? Not much more, anyway. The good old days, when Michael Eisner 'earned' more at Disney in a single day than he would pay one of his Haitian workers in 1,000+ years for making soft toys?

What did those Haitians squander all that money on? Chainsaws, obviously. Not food - they couldn't afford that.

I hear Disney's offered a measly $100,000 to help them in the aftermath of the earthquake. The cheek of it. It disney bear thinking about.

[contadino]

I would think that all the aid agencies have there own flowcharts, not to mention spread sheets and databases, to enable them to control the flow of aid into the country and to ensure that they have the correct materials going in.

Permaculture is very good at rehabilitating land and with the almost complete lack of tree cover in Haiti now, rehabilitation is just what is needed. Things like on-contour berms and ditches on hillsides to control the flow of surface water and top soil until trees can be reinstated are at the heart of Permaculture thinking. These will retain water in the landscape, making it available to plants for longer, and reduce lowland flooding. Fruit and nut trees planted on the berms will stabilise the berms and give food and fuel. They will help reduce the impact of intense rainfall on the soil and give shelter to a whole range of smaller food crops. Re-treeing of slopes at risk in hurricane rainfall using a mixture of food, fodder and fuel trees serves a dual purpose of , as above, surface water control and food provision.

There is nothing mystical about Permaculture. It is just a series of joined up common sense strategies that modern farming has lost. It takes the best of many methods of farming and gardening and brings them together in a homogeneous way of thinking and design. Permaculturists may not be needed in the, rescue, first stage of work in Haiti but they have a tremendous amount to offer in later redevelopment stages.

If we just leave Haitians to there own devises we will be feeding them and rescuing them every time a hurricane blows within 50 miles of the island. If we can help them to rehabilitate their island there is a possibility that Haiti might become a little more like their neighbours, the Dominican Republic, and not the basket case they are at the moment, vulnerable to every peak and trough of the global economic cycle.

If Vortex read a little about Permaculture I am sure he would see the common sense in all of the practises preached. As I said, there is nothing mystical about it at all, although some of its results may seem mystical to people accustomed to the failures of modern farming methods applied in inappropriate conditions.

Precisely. Fresh water and food are a lot more useful to the Haitians than a flowchart at the moment.

The Google news feed alert message about Permaculture I get every day has about 90% of the articles selling permaculture design and training, so by that measure it's far more "talk" than "walk." It's been that way since I subscribed 4 years back.

There is nothing new, or modern about permaculture either. It's nothing more than a series of gardening techniques that have been collected from different cultures, and rebranded as something that will change the world.

[Aurora]

There is nothing new, or modern about permaculture either. It's nothing more than a series of gardening techniques that have been collected from different cultures, and rebranded as something that will change the world.

I couldn't agree more Contadino.

To listen to some of these 'new-age experts', you'd be forgiven for thinking that they'd invented sustainable agriculture.

My father taught me how to be a successful gardener back in the late fifties/early sixties. I've always managed to produce a reasonable crop of nutritious vegetables and have even been known to make my own commotion lotion from some of the fruit we've harvested over the years.

Come back Percy Thrower, all is forgiven.

Strange that so many of these 'new-age evangelists' feel the need to preach, isn't it?

I'm afraid I'm a lost cause folks. I guess you could say that I'm more hippy spliffy than happy clappy these days.

[contadino]

Permaculture Design is for Disaster Relief, Not Just for Gardens

I was helping on a Permaculture Design Course yesterday, and there seemed to be a pretty normal bunch of people there. I'm doing a Permaculture Teaching Course next month, so I'll have to see how many weird people I come across when I'm let lose on further courses, but I don't think there will be many.

What can permaculture offer? All the low impact techniques like hygienic compost toilet design, blackwater and greywater recycling are obvious. Then the provision of low energy devices like rocket stoves and solar cookers is vital. These cost little and can be made out of old tin drums and satellite dishes. They reduce the need for wood and protect the natural environment. Then there is the planting of instant gardens and planning of sustainable urban and rural agriculture.

I've got news for you John. Compost toilets, water cleaning & reuse, rocket stoves, and solar cookers, and quick crops were around hundreds of years before Permaculture training courses. Sustainable building was the norm a few hundred years ago.

[biffvernon]

Nothing new!

The gardening book that I use most often is

"A Practical guide to Garden plants, Containing Descriptions of the Hardiest and Most Beautiful Annuals and Biennials, also the Best Kinds of Fruits and Vegetables" John Weathers, published 1901

Amazingly, I see there is currently a copy for sale on ABEbooks for just £8
It's 1192 pages!

http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/Searc ... &kn=&isbn=

Grab it quick - other copies are around £30

I inherited mine from my grandfather.

[snow hope]

Cheers Biff - just ordered it! Late Christmas gift from my middle son

[JohnB]

I've got news for you John. Compost toilets, water cleaning & reuse, rocket stoves, and solar cookers, and quick crops were around hundreds of years before Permaculture training courses. Sustainable building was the norm a few hundred years ago.

Many of the techniques aren't new. They're relearning, and adapting, things that were done for centuries, and have been lost in the last century or so. It's a way of bringing these techniques back into use, and improving on them, in a planned way, rather that just being done on a small scale by one or two people, while the rest of the world collapses trying to maintain BAU.

What is new, is creating a structure of ethics, principles and design around it, so it can be done more effectively. People largely used to do things because that's the only way they knew, because it was local tradition, or because it's the best they could do to survive. And many of these ways were inefficient and very damaging to people's health and the environment. Permaculture helps to look at the big picture, make connections between systems and use resources efficiently, while minimising harm to people and the environment. So it goes way beyond just using a traditional technique that you read about in a book.

Sustainable building may have been the norm in the past, but it bloody well isn't now. I took some of the cement render off my house yesterday to find the cause of a crack. The house is built of stone, with earth mortar that must have been made from clay dug on site. It was rendered about 40 years ago. I also stripped some gypsum plaster put on by the last owner within the last 7 years, to find the wall seriously wet under it. What would most people who bought the house do about it? Certainly not what I hope to do. They just follow the fashion, and what's available at the local builders merchant. Once you "get" Permaculture, you think in a different way, and I'm looking at ways I can solve the problem with the least impact, and integrate it into my plans for the whole site.

And I can't waffle on more about it because I need to be doing stuff!

[contadino]

I've got news for you John. Compost toilets, water cleaning & reuse, rocket stoves, and solar cookers, and quick crops were around hundreds of years before Permaculture training courses. Sustainable building was the norm a few hundred years ago.

Many of the techniques aren't new. They're relearning, and adapting, things that were done for centuries, and have been lost in the last century or so.

It's a way of bringing these techniques back into use, and improving on them, in a planned way, rather that just being done on a small scale by one or two people, while the rest of the world collapses trying to maintain BAU.

Not IME. Monty Don met plenty of people using 'the old ways' in his Round the World in 80 Gardens series. The Argentinian who lives near me understands all about Terra Preta, Adobe building, berms, canopies, etc.. I've learnt loads from him. He tells me that these things are commonplace in Latin & Central America.

There is a network of Villagi Ecologici in Italy who use many of the techniques discussed in the permaculture books. One near me was founded by a group of Berliners, and is now a mix of a dozen or so nationalities.

What is new, is creating a structure of ethics, principles and design around it, so it can be done more effectively.

Now that's just arrogant, and I don't believe it is true. I've read about too many failed permaculture projects to believe there is anything more reliable about the design principles of permaculture, than just understanding a lifestyle and using common sense. My garden is much better since I ditched the zones that I'd setup when I moved here, and just took the advice of my neighbour, who had known my garden for the last 60 years, and gave me better advice about where individual plants grow well.

People largely used to do things because that's the only way they knew, because it was local tradition, or because it's the best they could do to survive. And many of these ways were inefficient and very damaging to people's health and the environment.

Err..maybe you could elaborate. Pick a technique and explain how it is "very damaging to people's health and the environment." I can't see how composting, bioswales, seedballs, or maintaining a shade canopy, for example, can be in any way detrimental. They're all techniques, gleaned from diverse cultures, and plagurised by permaculturalists.

Permaculture helps to look at the big picture, make connections between systems and use resources efficiently, while minimising harm to people and the environment. So it goes way beyond just using a traditional technique that you read about in a book.

What, it goes beyond what's in a permaculture book? Which book are you talking about?

Sustainable building may have been the norm in the past, but it bloody well isn't now. I took some of the cement render off my house yesterday to find the cause of a crack. The house is built of stone, with earth mortar that must have been made from clay dug on site. It was rendered about 40 years ago. I also stripped some gypsum plaster put on by the last owner within the last 7 years, to find the wall seriously wet under it.

So your house is made of (in all likelihood) local stone, and local mortar? What's unsustainable about that? That someone's recently rendered it in non-breathable cement doesn't mean the house suddenly becomes unsustainable.

What would most people who bought the house do about it? Certainly not what I hope to do. They just follow the fashion, and what's available at the local builders merchant. Once you "get" Permaculture, you think in a different way, and I'm looking at ways I can solve the problem with the least impact, and integrate it into my plans for the whole site.

That's just cobblers. So a conservation architect is an implicit permaculturalist, because they don't just shop at B&Q? The green building movement was chugging along nicely before permaculture decided to hijack their work and brand it as it's own. The same for smallholders, organic gardeners throughout the world, people living "off-grid", those creating eco-hamlets, the self-sufficient, anarchist communes, etc... The list goes on and on.

[kenneal - lagger]

What's all this fuss about a name, for god's sake? This thread could be rewritten with conventional farmers talking about organic agriculture, the amount of venom and spleen that's being vented.

Permaculture is about teaching people a bunch of methods and a whole bunch of common sense that have been largely forgotten or completely ignored for many years, just like organic farming. Yes, if you know it all you don't need permaculture, but if you don't know anything, permaculture is a good place to start.

[contadino]

What's all this fuss about a name, for god's sake? This thread could be rewritten with conventional farmers talking about organic agriculture, the amount of venom and spleen that's being vented.

Permaculture is about teaching people a bunch of methods and a whole bunch of common sense that have been largely forgotten or completely ignored for many years, just like organic farming. Yes, if you know it all you don't need permaculture, but if you don't know anything, permaculture is a good place to start.

1. As soon as someone introduces a qualification scheme, the name matters. Suddenly people none the wiser are asking for qualified permaculture consultants, when they actually just need some advice on gardening organically.

2. The number of failed permaculture projects is far higher than people failing to garden organically.

3. Listening to permaculture evangelists, theirs is the only way to solve problems in everything from town planning, to agriculture. That's just lies. If the same level of exaggeration were made about a savings account, for example, they'd be hauled over the coals by Advertising Standards.

4. If someone came up with 'Fulcrum Oil', which turned out to be exactly the same as Peak Oil, many on here would be pretty pissed off, as it only serves to confuse and dilute the messages that PowerSwitch wants people to understand. That is exactly what "Permaculture" is doing to "Organic."

[biffvernon]

The word 'organic' has been somewhat hijacked too, as it now has a legal status and unless one has jumped through some prohibitively expensive hoops one is not allowed to sell produce labelled as organic. Some 'organic' farmers are a very long way from permaculture.

[Keela]

The "organic" word meant something entirely different when I was at Uni.

We studied organic chemistry and it was then the study chemistry of carbon based molecules. Mostly the starting point for these molecules was oil and oil derivatives!

So now that the organic movement shuns oil based fertilisers it is hard for chemistry students to understand what we mean by "organic" chemistry!