Friday, November 23, 2007

The Green Tree Foundation

Writing this blog first from Japan then from Canada, it is all too easy to forget that there are regions of the world that are faced with environments that are severely damaged. One such region is Andhra Pradesh, India. Once a lush, sub-tropical environment, it has been reduced by inappropriate land use to drylands with evapotranspiration (evaporation combined with transpiration of vegetation) exceeding rainfall. These dryland environments are the final act before full desertification takes hold.

Luckily for the people of the Anantpur District of Andhra Pradesh there is the Green Tree Foundation. Their goal is the re-greening of the district to provide more food and fiber for the local residents. Their additional aims are to establish more water harvesting infrastructure in the area and, on a global scale, do their part to combat global warming through carbon sequestration.

The Green Tree Foundation has surveyed the local situation to identify the problems faced by the public and used that knowledge to work out strategic solutions to those problems. The most visible strategy employed is the establishment of vegetation in and around villages.

The simple act of planting trees can increase food supply, provide shade, harvest rainfall, repair soil hydrology, increase soil health, and increase precipitation both through capture of condensation and through increased transpiration, leading to increased downwind precipitation.

The man who started this effort is Gangi Setty, a local teacher. Growing up in Andhra Pradesh, Gangi Setty is no stranger to hunger and has seen the local environment grown increasingly arid and impoverished over his lifetime. Since the founding in 2004, he has managed to put together a team of two nursery technicians, two program officers, one civil engineer, one computer operator and about 200 volunteers from locals, who help out in the field with the difficult work of land assessing and planting, to people overseas such as myself who provide technical advice and assist in grant requests.

So far the Foundation has been operating on a budget of approximately 120,000 Rupees, which has come entirely from local donation. That such fantastic results can come out of such a small budget is testament to the sensibility of the Foundation’s strategy of partnering with nature to achieve its goals.

What follows are images of the Green Tree Foundations recent tangible achievements:

Young volunteers getting an almond tree into the ground.

Nursery stock of Arjoon sadura (A.K.A. Terminalia glabra, A.K.A. Terminalia arjuna, edible seeds and the bark is mixed with milk to make a beverage), one of the Bauhinia species (depending on the species, the edible parts can include the nectar, leaves shoots flowers and flower buds, seeds and sap), almond and a plant Gangi Setty identifies as tachoma.

A village leader plants bamboo, excellent for providing food and fiber.

Shade and food are provided for this outdoor kitchen thanks to a bean-covered trellis. The Green Tree Foundation has planted more than 20,000 plants in residential kitchen gardens.

The founder, Gangi Setty, and some volunteers find a strategic microclimate for Cassia fistula (edible flowers, leaves and fruit, also a mild laxative) and Jujupus luluba. Planting on hillsides such as this helps control erosion, goes a long way towards reestablishing the local water table, provides shelter and food for wildlife, and supplies a commons area with food to help provide for the whole village.

A villager walks away with a free Bauhinia tree.

In a very clever strategy to distribute plants, this taxi driver was given saplings to give to his customers.

The foot of this hill has been planted with of Arjoon sadura (A.K.A. Terminalia glabra, A.K.A. Terminalia arjuna).

Kitchen gardens planted providing food and shade.

A Leucaena species going into a strategic microclimate. (These species have edible seeds, leaves and flowers.)

All people of all religions are welcome. Here Muslims take Bauhinia to plant at a Mosque.

Fruit trees stand on what was once barren earth.

Gangi Setty on a street that he has helped to regreen. Shade, food, erosion control and soil rehabilitation are all in place thanks to the efforts of the Green Tree Foundation’s volunteers.

This pharmacist handed out 100 productive trees to people in one day. Such strategies make the regreening effort much easier and more wide-spread.

As a birthday gift, this boy receives a food and fiber source that, with proper care, will provide for his descendants many generations down the line.

Sesbania (a nitrogen-fixing forage tree that also providing edible flowers, leaves and young fruit, and it makes an anti-tumor, anti-helminthic tea) and papaya growing in this kitchen garden.

This teacher took 50 trees to plant at the school.

A group of about 40 volunteers from the Green Tree Foundation dug pits to assist in water harvesting for 700 trees which were planted at the Yogi Vemana channel.

I greatly admire Gangi Setty and his dedicated and knowledgeable team and hope that one day I may travel to Andhra Pradesh to assist in their efforts. But with North America rapidly becoming hotter and drier (parts of the Great Lakes have fallen over 4 feet due to decreased rainfall), and our energy-hungry society facing a future with diminishing energy reserves, the day may come when we may need experienced people like Gangi Setty and his team to come and repair our damaged landscapes.

If you would like to contact the Green Tree Foundation or donate to their cause, they can be contacted at

Gangi Setty, Green Tree Foundation,Poola Bazaar,

Talupula (Post and Village) ,Anantapur Dist,

Andra Pradesh,

India, PIN: 515581

gangisettygtf(at)gmail.com

http://greentreefnd.org/

Read about my project with the Green Tree Foundation HERE



Thursday, November 22, 2007

The Green Tree Foundation

An article posted earlier this year was posted specifically to assist India's Green Tree Foundation. The following is a profile of this organisation and the great work they are doing.

PLEASE NOTE: Somewhere along the march of time, the images for this story have decided that they have been on display long enough and have left for a well deserved vacation. We apologise for any confusion this creates.

Writing this blog first from Japan then from Canada, it is all too easy to forget that there are regions of the world that are faced with environments that are devastated. One such region is Andra Pradesh, India. Once a lush, sub-tropical environment, it has been reduced to drylands with evapotranspiration (evaporation combined with transpiration of vegetation) exceeding rainfall due to inappropriate land use. These dryland environments are the final act before full desertification takes hold.
Luckily for the people of the Anantpur District of Andhra Pradesh there is the Green Tree Foundation. Their goal is the re-greening of the district to provide more food and fiber for the local residents. Their additional aims are to establish more water harvesting infrastructure in the area and, on a global scale, do their part to combat global warming through carbon sequestration.
The Green Tree Foundation has surveyed the local situation to identify the problems faced by the public and used that knowledge to work out strategic solutions to those problems. The most visible strategy employed is the establishment of vegetation in and around villages.
The simple act of planting trees can increase food supply, provide shade, harvest rainfall, repair soil hydrology, increase soil health, and increase precipitation (both through capture of condensation and through increased transpiration, leading to increased downwind precipitation).
The man who started this effort is Gangi Setty, a local teacher. Growing up in Andhra Pradesh, Gangi Setty is no stranger to hunger and has seen the local environment grown increasingly arid and impoverished over his lifetime. Since the founding in 2004, he has managed to put together a team of two nursery technicians, two program officers, one civil engineer, one computer operator and about 200 volunteers from locals, who help out in the field with the difficult work of land assessing and planting, to people overseas such as myself who provide technical advice and assist in grant requests.
So far the Foundation has been operating on a budget of approximately 120,000 Rupees, which has come entirely from local donation. That such fantastic results can come out of such a small budget is testament to the sensibility of the Foundation’s strategy of partnering with nature to achieve its goals.
What follows are images of the Green Tree Foundations recent tangible achievements:
Young volunteers getting an olive tree into the ground.
Nursery stock of Arjoon sadura (A.K.A. Terminalia glabra, A.K.A. Terminalia arjuna, edible seeds and the bark is mixed with milk to make a beverage), one of the Bauhinia species (depending on the species, the edible parts can include the nectar, leaves shoots flowers and flower buds, seeds and sap), almond and a plant Gangi Setty identifies as tachoma.
A village leader plants bamboo, excellent for providing food and fiber.
Shade and food are provided for this outdoor kitchen thanks to a bean-covered trellis.
The founder, Gangi Setty, and some volunteers find a strategic microclimate for Cassia fistula (edible flowers, leaves and fruit, also a mild laxative). Planting on hillsides such as this helps control erosion, goes a long way towards reestablishing the local water table, provides shelter and food for wildlife, and supplies a commons area with food to help provide for the whole village.
A villager walks away with a free Bauhinia tree.
In a very clever strategy to distribute plants, this taxi driver was given saplings to give to his customers.
The foot of this hill has been planted with of Arjoon sadura (A.K.A. Terminalia glabra, A.K.A. Terminalia arjuna).
Kitchen gardens planted providing food and shade.
A Leucaena species going into a strategic microclimate. (These species have edible seeds, leaves and flowers.)
All people of all religions are welcome. Here Muslims take Bauhinia to plant at a Mosque.
Fruit trees stand on what was once barren earth.
Gangi Setty on a street that he has helped to regreen. Shade, food, erosion control and soil rehabilitation are all in place thanks to the efforts of the Green Tree Foundation’s volunteers.
This pharmacist handed out 100 productive trees to people in one day. Such strategies make the regreening effort much easier and more wide-spread.
As a birthday gift, this boy receives a food and fiber source that, with proper care, will provide for his descendants many generations down the line.
Sesbania (a nitrogen-fixing forage crop that also providing edible flowers, leaves and young fruit, and it makes an anti-tumor, anti-helminthic tea) and papaya growing in this kitchen garden.


Friday, September 21, 2007

Jordan: The Kafrin Site, Part 2

In Part 1, we saw that the Kafrin site was very arid and extremely salty. In this part, we will look at some of the steps taken by Geoff Lawton and his team to repair the devastated land on the site.

To tackle the problems of extreme salinity and “absolute scarcity” of water present at the Kafrin site, the capture and storage of water was of the utmost importance. As deserts are regions were evaporation exceeds rainfall, reducing evaporation was also of great concern.

To capture every drop of rainfall possible, the site was surveyed to provide a detailed map of the site contours. Once the contour lines were identified, swales (water-harvesting ditches placed on contour) were planned for the site to capture as much of the runoff rain to allow it to sink into the ground where it is most easily stored for the benefit of soil life and vegetation.

There were 8 swales dug into the site with a total length of 1.5 km, and ranging from 2 to 3 metres wide and made 50 cm deep. Additionally, the top swales catch water runoff from the road. The downhill sides of the swales were uncompacted to facilitate water absorption; and they were heavily mulched with organic waste from local farms help combat evaporation. Along the south end of the site, there is an erosion gully. Each swale connects to the erosion gully via pipes to collect the rainfall from them during large rain events, which occur a few times a year.

On the upper side of the swale, fast-growing, pioneering support trees were planted to improve soil conditions. Among the species planted were nitrogen-fixing wattles (also good as poultry fodder), leucaena species (saline-tolerant and good for fodder and fuel), Cercidium microphyllum, AKA palo verde, which is a nitrogen-fixer (also producing edible seeds), nitrogen-fixing casurinas (which can be coppiced for fuel), and nitrogen-fixing Sesbania sesban (which can be used for fodder or fuel and the leaves can be used to make an anti-tumor, anti-helminthic [i.e. anti-parasite] tea).

On the lower side of the swales fruit trees were planted. Among these trees were fig, olive, guava, dates palm, citrus, mulberry, pomegranate, carob, tuna cactus, and grapes. Bananas, the world’s largest herbaceous plant, were also planted on site.

When starting any project, the initial stages require extra care. In this case, the young trees required additional irrigation (apart from rainfall) to get them established on the site. A mulch-covered drip irrigation system was set up to supply each tree with water. The water for the drip system is supplied by a raised goose pond. Nutrient-rich water from the pond supplies “fertigation” for the trees. And as the pond is raised, the water can be moved to the trees without the aid of pumps. Also, the pond itself is shaded to reduce evaporation and provide better shelter for the geese.

The area between the swales is planted with vegetables and grains. The grains include barley for fodder and nitrogen-fixing alfalfa . Organic material from plant production, leaves, stems, etc, is used as mulch to improve soil conditions and help retain moisture in the soil.

As mentioned, there are geese on site, but also chickens, pigeons, turkeys, ducks and rabbits. As the site matured and was able to produce enough forage, sheep and a dairy cow were added.

On site, there is an education centre building made from local materials (sandstone and cob) with sustainability in mind. The character of the building is in keeping with the local aesthetic while having design features appropriate to the climate. The building employs a wind chimney which scoops up oncoming winds and channels them over trays of wet charcoal to create an evaporative cooling effect. From there, the air is drawn out the top of the building via a solar chimney. The stone walls of the building also have a thermal flywheel effect. They slowly draw up the heat of the day releasing it at night, warming the building at night. Then in the morning the stones are cooler than the surrounding air providing a cooler environment during the day. The overall effect is to moderate the extreme desert temperatures.


In Part 3, we will have a look at the results of the project.



Friday, September 14, 2007

Daniel Jaramillo Interview 2005

The following interview was conducted on October 15th, 2005 at the University of Melbourne. Apart from being one of my heroes, Daniel is one of few designers and teachers out there putting permaculture to its full effect: redesigning society. Apologies for making you wait so long to see this.

Douglas Barnes (DJEB): Could you give us a brief outline of your permaculture history?

Daniel Jaramillio: Alright. I learned about permaculture in 1997, while studying agronomy in Costa Rica, from Introduction to Permaculture and I thought it was very interesting. I had been going that way. I had been studying agronomy for 2 years and I realised how there were a lot of nutrient cycles and energy cycles that were just broken by our own stupidity, really, you know? And that could be put together to make something that makes more sense. So I was thinking that way and then I found permaculture and I was really excited because then I didn’t have to figure it out. That would save me a lot of time, yeah? Someone had done it already, so I didn’t have to do it. So, I just started from there.

Then in 2000, I finished school and I was looking for what to do. I was living in the United States then ready to leave. And I found that they were teaching a course at Tagari Farms, Mollison’s farm. But the course was taught by Geoff [Lawton], and I applied for a scholarship. And they gave me a scholarship, so I flew into Australia and I stayed in Tagari Farms for a month and a half. I took the course and spent another month working. We were doing a lot of work with the chinampas.

Then I went back to California, which is where I was living, to meet my girl then. And my daughter was born in February and we moved down to Mexico to Guajaca, to the coast of Guajaca to work in a small village. It’s a little village on the coast with campesinos there. And we started doing a community project. We created a community compost piles, we introduced bamboo there because they used to use a lot of mangrove. But the mangroves were gone because of a hurricane. Anyway, I stayed there for that year then went to Colombia.

In 2002, I sent up a centre again in Mexico, a demonstration and education centre. We designed that and did the earthworks with Geoff. Geoff flew there. And then last year, I taught a course together [with Geoff] in Mexico again. And I registered myself as a teacher with the Institute in December. I taught my first PDC this year in March and here I am.

DJEB: You’ve done a lot of work in community building. Could you tell us more about that?

DJ: You’ll find a lot of ideas and approaches to permaculture. But I believe that if we are really into preparing the ground and set up for some kind of change, we need to work with the community. We have to stop thinking that very western way of thinking of fencepost to fencepost, yeah? Because it doesn’t work like that. It won’t work like that. I mean, we can’t keep on doing things in so selfish a way. So, I think one of the most important tasks in permaculture and what permaculture is really about is community work.

Obviously in community work, we use appropriate technologies or appropriate techniques that can be based on the permaculture ethics of care of the earth, care of the people and sharing the surplus. So, you kind of build up capacity in people. And it’s very clear how you can definitely make a strong statement to them of what the problems are. I’m in the third world, yeah? So, we definitely don’t have to look far to see the problems that we have there, yeah? How they suffer and how easy it could be to just solve those problems if we start being responsible for our own basic needs. That’s all it is about. But always from a community point of view, not in a selfish way. Then we can help each other because we don’t have to all grow our own potatoes, you know? There are many things that need to be done and many jobs that, if you spend your time growing your corn or your potatoes, you won’t have time to do. You know, each one of us has a role in the community and the bioregion.

So, I’m living in a community that is all doing community work, and that’s all we do, really. I mean, I have some private things, and also, well, the family is mine, but the family reaches out to the community because I feed, like, 40 families with organic vegetables. Some of them are in the rich part of town. But some of them are very poor people and they pay less or they actually pay me with other things. We barter, yeah? But because you cannot just grow organic food for the rich and let the poor eat chemically grow food. So, it’s all about, for me in Colombia, it’s all about healing community. And obviously you know the problems that Colombia has. You know Colombia is a very troubled country. There’s a lot of creativity in the people. It’s just that energy is put into war, so people just see war or drug trafficking, yeah? We can focus that in more creative ways that would heal our society, you know?

DJEB: In your presentation that you gave this week, you mentioned that in Northern Colombia, a village you were working in reached a food emergency state. What happened there?

DJ: Well bro, in Colombia you have a lot of coca. There’s coca growing all around to make cocaine, yeah? The United States through the Colombian government – this is the new type of dictatorship state – they have this spraying program, yeah? They are spraying Roundup and all sorts of things. Campesinos tell you like a year and a half ago, they started seeing all these little worms appearing in all their crops. And they are sure it came from the airplanes. But, supposedly, it says in the papers in the States that it’s just Roundup. Well, it’s not just Roundup. But still, we don’t know exactly what they are spraying.

But they sprayed this area, which has a lot of coca. It’s a very frontier area of Colombia, yeah? Where there is not much presence by the state. I mean, maybe there is presence of the illegal groups [right-wing paramilitaries] and with some of the groups you can clearly see how they cooperate with the state, yeah? And the only presence of the state is just the army that goes in and out and just wreaks havoc, yeah? But there is no presence of the state for health or social services – what people really need, yeah? So people need to look for a way to live and they were ripped of all their traditional knowledge, you know. And now they are dependent on money. Well, the only thing they can grow to make some money is coca, so they grow coca.

And the thing is that they are spraying this right now with Roundup. They’ve been doing that for many years now around Colombia. But they are now spraying even the national parks because some people have started to live in them in the frontier areas of the national parks planting coca and they [the government] just go and spray them, you know? There is no social program that would accompany that. So, people who are chiefs, are corrupt or are secure, they don’t really need that. They are just, you know, who knows the senator that is being supported by Monsanto which does all the lobbying – the United States senator says we’re going to spray down there. You know how those things are.

So, yeah, they are spraying all around Colombia. It’s United States contractors that they want to spray. It’s not the Colombian government spraying. It’s United States pilots, United States planes. Colombian army helicopters accompany the airplanes that spray. They not only spray the coca, they also spray the forests and the waterways. I mean, bro, there’s so much evidence and so many stories from the campesinos of what they are suffering with these sprays, yeah? Because all their food is gone. All the cash crop is usually gone, too. But the weird thing is they tell you and you see it too, and I’ve seen it with my eyes – I won’t be afraid to tell anybody this - you see big crops of coca high in the mountains not being sprayed. But the small ones low in the valleys, the small ones, the campesino ones are the ones sprayed along with their food.

What happens with these people is the war gets there, they hear these planes, they go to poor areas of the cities, you know? And they become really cheap labour to export [cheap goods] that work without any social benefits or anything. So that’s why I work with community in Colombia, yeah? Because we need to build capacity. And the state programs are not building capacity.

And we are pretty much like the lawn of the United States. They go there and do whatever they want to. If they did good things, they would be very welcome. But they are just ripping our country apart and killing our people.

So this community is in a food emergency. It was sprayed two weeks ago and as we speak they are in a food emergency. They don’t have any food. And the problem is that the paramilitaries, the right-wing paramilitaries, which do cooperate with the state army and police – they are illegal - they deal a lot with drugs and that’s well known all around Colombia in newspapers and magazines and the government knows that. But they also know, and I have seen it with my eyes, I have seen how they cooperate. There’s a roadblock, a police roadblock, but there’s a paramilitary telling them who to stop. So, they do cooperate. They don’t let food go up because the guerrillas live up in the mountains.

So these [villagers] are the people who are in between. I mean, they are confined, you know? And now they come and spray them, so they are in a food emergency. The only food that really reaches those parts is the food that is sent by the World Food Program or these humanitarian aid organisations backed up by the United Nations. But the paramilitaries don’t let any food go up, so it’s really tough, yeah? We were there. You know, we go up because we are being contracted by an international aid organisation, a human rights organisation. So, yeah, we usually have a very high political price, yeah? So, we can just go in and out. And usually all the permission is taken. We ask, we send messages and things.

And now that they have sprayed, their crops are gone, so they don’t have food. And we need people to know this. That’s why I’m not afraid of saying this because we need people to know this everywhere in the world because borders are really obsolete, yeah?

We get to a point where we know that if in Japan they pollute the air, that air is going to reach Colombia some day. Or that water, too. So we have to work together all around the world. Everybody has to know what is happening there as much as we have to know what is happening here. But people just don’t know. And the governments, the empires that are ruining the world and that we are supporting by the way we buy, by the way we consume, by the way we think, by the things we say, by the way we behave. All these things are doing those there, yeah? And we cannot support that anymore.



Thursday, August 16, 2007

An Angry Letter

The following letter was send today to the CBC Radio program Sounds Like Canada currently hosted by Kevin Sylvester. I am reposting it here in the hopes that it will demonstrate how we need to change our thinking towards the natural world and avoid getting into a battle with nature (for nature always wins in the end).

Dear Kevin,

While coming in and out of the shower today, I was distressed to hear guests of your show maligning plants - maligning being the sort of thing one does out of ignorance.

First off, there is no such thing as a weed. This classification is given only by people who are trying to do the wrong thing in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Nature does, however, provide us with a raft of plants that repair damaged landscapes. The field thistle (Cirsium arvense), mentioned by one of your guests for example, is an indication of overgrazing. So after damaging a field, this kind plant comes along and tries to repair the damage. And the thanks it gets? All out warfare against a soil-restoring plant with edible roots and medicinal uses as an antiphlogistic (anti-inflammatory), and liver tonic. And I could make similar comments for the ox-eyed daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare) and leafy spurge (Euphorbia esula).

One of the plants not mentioned, which has caused tremendous damage to Canadian agriculture is genetically modified canola; and we might throw in genetically modified corn as well. The former has caused great losses to Canadian canola sales and the latter, considering that it is wind pollinated and that they now use GE corn to "grow" insulin, may wind up killing you one day.

Or perhaps plants in the Gramineae (grass) family. People devote billions to this nearly useless plant polluting themselves and their neighbours with dangerous pesticides and the emissions from lawn mowers (which have no catalytic converter).

Labelling plants as "weeds" is the sign of either ignorance or lack of creativity. There is a place for all of nature, if only one bothers to discover what that place is.

Yours,

Douglas Barnes
Torrance, Ontario


Sunday, June 24, 2007

Please Stand By


No, we are not dead. And we have not abandoned the site. Scott and I currently find our plates full with what life has to dish out to us. Scott is using permaculture to convert a Japanese retreat near mount Fuji into a more sustainable operation. I am selling off a vacation property to establish a permaculture farm in southern Ontario, Canada. Reports from these activities will appear in time. We thank you for your patience and your readership.

Saturday, May 19, 2007

Permaculture Seminar in Tokyo

Thanks to all for making this seminar a success.

DJEB

Douglas Barnes will be participating in a permaculture seminar with fellow permaculturist Tomoko Sakano. The seminar will start from 7:15 pm on Friday May 25, and run to around 9 pm. The location is Noah's Cafe on Waseda Street in Nakano Ward. (Please click HERE for a map. For information in Japanese, please click HERE.)

The focus of this seminar will be on cooperative strategies for building community-scale permaculture systems.



Sunday, February 25, 2007

Healthy Life from Healthy Soil:

An intro to sustainable soil building
Pt. I
by Scott A. Meister

When we enter debates on human health, it’s easy to get caught up in discussions of diet, excercise, sleeping habits, modern medicine and lifestyle, but few people stop to consider or realise how our good health is dependent upon the very ground that lies underneath our feet. Furthermore, few people have stopped to ponder the life cycles that interact with each other both above and below the ground.

Although we may find it difficult to live without our i-pods, computers, CD’s, central air, and automobiles, clean air, clean water, and clean food are the absolute bare necessities for human survival, and all three are dependent upon healthy soil. Drinkable water does not come from a plastic bottle or a tap, but is produced by the earth’s hydrological cycle, in which plant-life, trees and the soil all play an interactive role. The clean air that we breath doesn’t come from air-conditioners with filters and fans, but from plants and trees that depend on healthy soil. Although many of our children today may think otherwise, the food we eat doesn’t come from cans, boxes or trays wrapped in plastic, sterilized with a blast of radiation, sitting on a super-market shelf or in a refrigerated cooler. Nor is healthy food made in a lab. Healthy food comes from the natural cycle that includes animals and plants which depend on healthy, productive soil.

For sustainable health, we must find ways of promoting sustainable soil productivity. Modern chemical agricultural practices provide the illusion of healthy soil through the use of massive petro-chemical inputs. However, without these inputs, there is no health or growth. Through chemical agricultural practices, soil erosion is promoted instead of being prohibited. “Each day 57 million tons of topsoil are lost to erosion.” (data from The Global Citizen by Donella H. Meadows published in 1991). Often these petro-chemicals wash off into our water supplies and are absorbed into the food that we eat, causing expensive health problems later in time. I could go on and on, but will resist the urge to do so. The point of this article is not to bash current agricultural practices, but rather to show how we can promote the building of sustainable productive soil through permaculture design.

When we talk about the health of soils, it’s important to consider the biodiversity of life within it, and to understand how these lifeforms interact with, or loop into the life cycles above the ground. It’s worth noting that “[T]here are more living organisms in a handful of fertile soil than there are human beings on this earth.” (Peter Lester -Biodynamic Perspectives Farming & Gardening from The New Zealand Biodynamic Association). In fact, there is more life below the surface of the earth, than above it.

We have recently come to understand, that stability and productivity are related to and dependent upon biodiversity. This might lead one to believe that the land with the highest biodiversity will also be the most stable and productive. The key, however, is interactive biodiversity. Renowned permaculture designer and teacher Geoff Lawton often says that, “Interactive diversity gives you real stability, which gives you real fertility which gives you an economy.” Yet, the laws of biodiversity are dependent upon the laws of physics.

Finding the Sweet Spot: Peak Productivity=Peak Interactive Biodiversity

If we recall what we know about chaos theory, network theory, etc. we will remember (or perhaps discover) that there is a tipping point, or an edge where volitile change can happen. In soil, this is the edge of productivity, or what we could call “peak productivity” which is directly co-related to peak interactive biodiversity.We now know that there is a tipping point where this peak biodiversity, after being reached, can fall out of balance. This edge is what we must look for to find good land, or to help us build productive earth out of sterile, infertile, or less than ideal land...or to help us keep soil from declining into infertility. We could call it the sweet spot of soil productivity and it’s located on the spacial, chemical, temporal, physical and biological edges of the earths surface. Our goal and duty as human beings is to design, build and sustain this healthy edge of productivity in the landscape so that we can continue to depend on it to support our lives. This can all be done through a little thoughtful design.

Please note that this article is to be used for attaining productive soil for the sake of human settlements. Therefore, it is not to be taken as a template for the entire surface of the earth. There are lifeforms, and eco-systems that depend on a certain soil type in what we humans may consider conditions that are less than ideal. However, those conditions are necessary to sustain that life and I do not mean to suggest that all the earth be blanketed with the same kind of soil or ecosystem everywhere. My hope is to point permaculture designers into a direction that will better serve human settlements.

There are many things that contribute to the productivity of a soil. Age, place, climate, topography, physical and chemical structure, existing biota and plant-life, pH, etc.

To understand how all the pieces fit together would take a book the size of my Grandmother’s ancient German Bible, and quite frankly, there have been many complicated books written on the subject already, as well as whole university courses taught on the subject. Therefore, I will not go into all the gruesome details here, however, I will go into the basics, so that we, the people involved with permaculture, can design a landscape around us to get the most out of our environment and our soil.

Getting a feel for it all (texture):
First of all, for us to stay alive, it is important that we get balanced nutrition, our nutrition comes from the soil. So, for us to have a nutritious life, there must be a balance of nutritious life in the soil. The basic necessities for life to exist in the soil are air, water, minerals, and an ideal pH. We humans also need a diverse diet full of a variety of nutrients, both vitamins and minerals. For us to get this, the soil must also contain a variety of nutrients, which means that both above and below the soil, there must be a diversity of life to provide that variety. Each plant and animal above ground provides different elements to the substance of the soil below them. Our job as human managers of the earth, is to build and maintain this balance, and insure that a variety of nutrients is continually returned to the soil.

For plants to grow, and soil biota to stay alive, there must be air and water in the soil. For air and water to exist in the soil, it must have the proper texture. If you have too much sand, there will be a lot of air, but water drains right through taking precious nutrients with it. If you have too much clay then water is retained, but there isn’t enough air therefore anaerobic conditions set in, decomposition and microbial activity come to a halt and productivity is severely slowed down. The ideal texture for plants to be as productive as possible, would be somewhere in the middle, in other words, a sandy clay loam. A sandy clay loam has a healthy balance in the ability to retain both moisture and air so that soil biota can exist, and travel freely throughout the soil moving nutrients around with them.

It’s important to have soil biota such as microflora and fauna (bacteria, fungi, actinomycetes, and algae) micro, meso and macro-fauna such as centipedes, worms and termites. These soil biota are the managers, or underground stewards of the earth. Some serve as highway makers, others as transporters, others act like the underground internet. Termites and ants are the earthmovers, as well as digesters and soil makers. Worms, specifically, break down organic material into smaller forms that can be digested by the smaller beings such as bacteria and fungi, in order that the minerals can be more easily taken up by plants. Worm castings (worm poop) are natures best fertilizer, and worms can create 60 tons of worm cast per acre per year. This seems to support what Darwin was known to have said, namely, that “worms create the soils of the earth.”

Earthworms, termites and ants (as well as prairie dogs and gofers) make tunnels that aerate the soil, and allow water to seep into it. 18% of rainforest foliage goes to the leaf-cutter ants nests, where it eventually decomposes in their own form of a compost bin where the nutrients are finally returned to the soil. For all of these creatures to continue doing their jobs, the soil must also have a good supply and variety of organic matter in the form of high quality and palatable plant and leaf litter. Variety of plant life is important, for if the leaf litter being fed to the soil is of but one kind, then the diet of the soil is out of balance.

Men, and women cannot live by bread alone...we must also have steak, veggies, sushi, fruit and (at least in my case) beer. Likewise, a healthy swath of soil (and the biota that lives in it) cannot exist on just the leaf litter of one plant, such as we see in monocultures of grass (the suburban tribute to waste and wealth...the lawn), rice, corn, wheat, soybeans, or any field born from the mind set of modern agriculture today.

Instead, each swath of soil, must also have a variety of plant and animal life above it for it to remain healthy. If a field returns only one plant to the soil, then expensive nutrient inputs will be required later on. The fact that we must remember, is that every life form provides food and nutritious elements for something else. When the balance of this supply and demand is lost, then the soil, and therefore the entire system, will eventually fall out of productivity.

Variations on a theme (soil types):

Now would be a good time to introduce the many different types of soils that make up our landscape.

There are basically variations of two types of soil surface. Mor humus, and Mul humus. The similarity in names can be a bit confusing. The difference is that Mor humus is typical of coniferous forests, usually where over browsing or some other disturbance or action such as fire has resulted in dominance of coniferous species who’s acidic litter is less palatable than trees with deciduous leaves. Needles tend to contribute to an acidic surface O horizon which is dominated by fungi (not bacteria), is noticeably without worms, and instead has a notably high number of mites and Collembola. These soils are “subject to heavy leaching and are characterized by low rates of decomposition and plant nutrient availability, and hence low plant productivity.” (The Biology of Soil: A community and ecosystem approach by Richard Bardgett pg. 3). The result, is a soil lacking in the biodiversity of life necessary to keep a soil productive. In contrast, a more productive and biodiverse soil is the Mul humus which can usually be found under grasslands (not lawns) and deciduous forests. Mul humus soils are formed on calcium-rich parent material, are brown in color, mildly acidic, and are characterized by an “intimate mixing of the surface organic and mineral-rich A horizon as a result of the high abundance and activity of soil biota, especially earthworms, leading to high rates of decomposition, nutrient availability, and plant growth.”(Bardgett pg. 6)

From the above passages, we can be led to believe that for a soil to be productive, it must have a high quality leaf litter containing a variety of nutrients which can then contribute to an abundance of earthworms, or other soil biota (depending on the climate) to make those nutrients available again to the plants. Coniferous forests can at times be seen as a sign of an older forest, or as a forest with a soil past its prime. The area had most likely reached a deciduous forest stage at one time but had possibly been over-browsed, or stripped of high-quality leaf litter(in one way or another), thus slowing decomposition rates in the soil surface and thus nutrition availability to plants.

"Fertile mul soils associated with productive ecosystems...tend to support a high level of plant, animal, and microbial diversity owing to ample provision of resources and a high level of heterogeneity, caused largely by the activities of the organisms themselves. In contrast, the harsh climatic conditions and abundance of recalcitrant organic matter typical of unproductive, mor type soils mean that fewer species are present (Ponge 2003)"(as per Bardgett pg. 55)

The moral of the story can be summed up in a phrase that I came up with just to help us all remember what soil is productive, and what soil is not.

“Mor humus needs more life and biodiversity. mul humus already has multitudes.”

Although coniferous forests are a thing of beauty in their own right, our goal is to build and maintain the optimal interactive biodiversity that exists on the temporal edge of deciduous forests and grasslands.
Soil Parents, or “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and seldom rolls up-hill.”

When looking for ideal and productive soil, we also need to consider the original parent material that created it. The brown, fertile and highly productive mul humus soils are formed from the weathering of basic (not acidic) lava. They “tend to be rich in minerals such as Ca, Mg, and potassium (K) [are] fine textured (clayey), and have a high ability to retain cations of importance to plant nutrition.” (Bardgett pg. 7)

The lesser productive mor humus is formed from acidic lava (for example granites and rhyolites), are sandy by nature, poorly drained, have a low ability to retain cations and are low in Ca and Mg.

Just as we can’t choose our parents, we can’t choose our soil parent material. If the parent material is acidic lava to begin with, it’s highly unlikely that it will turn into a mul humus all on it’s own. But it’s very possible, with a helping hand from permaculture design, that we can nurture the soil back into productivity. But to do so, we first need to look at what makes an ideal productive soil, and then find ways of assisting soil to reach and maintain that state. Permaculture has a big bag of tricks to actually build an ideal soil in less than ideal places. Look for more on how to do this in a later article.

The salt of the earth (acid or alkaline):

“Soil pH is of concern to the soil ecologist because it controls nutrient availability and it directly impacts on soil biota...availability of P in soil is typically low under acidic conditions, owing to the formation of iron and aluminium phosphates...[that] dissolve to release P into soil solution as pH rises, making it available for plant uptake; The availability of P is typically greatest between pH 6 and 7.” (Bardgett pg. 22) The perfect garden will be between pH 5 and 7. The more acidic a soil becomes, the less P is available. In old coniferous forests, the soil becomes acidic, therefore slowing productivity.

Unfortunately for us today, alkalinity is a problem. Modern agriculture has taught farmers to willingly salt their land through the practice of irrigation. When we mine rivers, lakes and aquifers of their water, and spray, or sprinkle it on our land, 80% of it vaporizes thus concentrating minerals like salt onto plants and the soil. The result is first an increase in alkalinity, and eventually (maybe not over the lifetime of one farmer, but indeed eventually) a decrease in productivity and finally, desertification. Furthermore, irrigation via pumped aquifers is unsustainable. Currently, the Ogallala Aquifer is being pumped at a rate causing it to lose over 1m of depth a year, while it is being recharged at a rate of 1cm a year.

Urban expansion, and treeless landscapes formed by large monoculture fields, have increased rainwater runoff, which increases erosion, contributes to flooding, which also contributes to an increase in alkalinity. Large dams which increase evaporation, have the same mineral concentration effect as aquifer depleting irrigation.

Rain, however, has a natural pH of 6.2 which is within the realm of the perfect pH for a garden of 5 to 7. Rain harvesting, via roof-top collection, tree-planted swales, small dams, and ponds, or drip irrigation would be a much more viable, healthy and sustainable option to insure that our soil has the proper pH and plenty of moisture.

I plan to go into quite a bit more detail on various ways to best adjust the pH of your soil, in a future article.

Life at the water’s edge:

In permaculture, we often study how to maximise the edge of water. For example, instead of making circular ponds on a standard garden, park or farm, we see star-like shapes in a permaculture landscape. The ultimate system for creating maximum water edge in a productive farming system is the chinampa of South America. Chinampas maximise productivity of a property by increasing the amount of aquaculture in cooperation with gardens made on fingers of created soil extended out into bodies of water. However, just by looking at land use, we are failing to see how the water’s edge actually enhances the productivity of the soil. Water is not just important for the sake of moving nutrients, and providing oxygen to soil biota and roots, but it’s necessary in the form of water features for the actual health and interactive biodiversity of a soil.

“The riparian zone (the zone between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems)...possess[es] an unusually high diversity ...maintained by a variety of [natural] disturbances (e.g. periodic flooding, drought, freezing, abrasion, erosion, and occasionally toxic concentrations of nutrients) that create a spatial and temporal mosaic with few parallels in other systems (Ettema et al. 2000)” (Bardgett pg. 45)

Keeping this in mind, it makes good solid sense to increase the amount of riparian edge to our soil systems (through the implementation of water features with lots of edge) not just to improve the productivity of our soil, but to increase the biodiverse yield of our systems. This interactive biodiversity increases the productivity of soil around or along the water’s edge. By including a large number of small aquacultures in our system, we also increase not just the productivity of the area, but the health and stability of the system as a whole. Keep in mind that in the zero gravity environment of water, life uses less energy for production, therefore increasing efficient productivity. There’s also an endless variety of stacking levels available through combinations of plants and aquatic life forms.

From the top to the bottom: Topography and Drainage

Since water always flows downhill at a 90 degree angle on contour, it is common sense to understand that the soil on top of a hill will be more freely drained than at the bottom, and the bottom will be more moist, if not boggy. Below keypoint (the point at which the hill switches from convex to concave) or toward the bottoms near rivers, streams and lakes, you will most likely find soil blueish-grey in color as a result of water-logging which causes anaerobic activity...often resulting in gley. This is also typical of places with a high altitude and precipitation which reduce microbial activity and rates of decomposition. There then tends to be a surface of organic material that is not decomposing, and not allowing drainage of water...thus anaerobic conditions ensue or gleying can occur thus further slowing the nutrient cycle and therefore reducing plant productivity.

Basically, the things to avoid are excessive drainage or waterlogging, and to avoid low temperatures which reduce microbial activity. We should strive to keep our soil warm with cover materials and insulation such as mulch or ground-covers, and strive to encourage decomposition rates. We should do what we can to encourage proper drainage where needed, and to avoid leaching via too freely drained areas. If you have a choice of where to put a garden, avoid the top of a hill, or the bottom. It’s an absolute must to avoid bare soil anywhere. Bare soil will be hammered by any rains that do fall, and will likely become hardpan, thus reducing absorption, and the return of nutrients into the soil.

Immature or Over the Hill (the age of soil):

New soils, such as those recently uncovered by retreating glaciers, have not yet had the chance to accumulate enough life to be truly productive, while old soils usually end with low plant productivity.

Just as children (both male and female) need to be taught to feed and even cook for themselves, so soil can be nurtured to be productive. Just as the elderly start to move slower, and often lose the will to eat, so does soil lose its physical productivity. Yet this need not be the case. Just as a healthy diet and exercise can aid longevity, so can we as designers and managers of our environment, both improve and maintain the productivity of both aged or immature soil.

To find soil that’s in it’s prime, we have to look at successions, or the seral stages that nature goes through to develop a prime and productive soil.

The first stage is bare soil. It’s interesting to note that just like at single bars, the earliest colonizers are almost exclusively predators (such as spiders) and herbivores and decomposers show up later. “In *these systems...inputs of insects potentially provide significant quantities of N and P to the developing ecosystem from the earliest stages of succession. That spiders entrap nutrients in such a way could be of high importance in early ecosystem development in these extreme environments.” (Bardgett pg.55)

(*these systems =Central Alpin glacier foreland of the Rotmoostal (Obergurgl, Tyrol, Austria))

This same phenomenon of spiders as first pioneers was also observed by a French expedition for the search of life on the devastated, ash covered island of Rakata after the eruption of Krakatau back in 1884.

As herbivores and birds appear, they return their feces to the soil, containing nutrients, and perhaps seeds from elsewhere. The soil is not in it’s ideal condition, so pioneering species appear first, usually in the form of grasses. Grasses develop massive root structure below ground, further improving the conditions of the soil. In fact, a full two-thirds of the grasses biomass is often below the soil. This root structure combined with the new biomass above ground regulates soil temperature, and creates the spongy texture necessary for air, water, and soil biota to exist.

Conditions eventually become ideal for other lifeforms, such as the decomposing biota, and bacteria and fungi that will appear. The pioneering species are the first plants able to germinate in otherwise uninhabitable soil. As they improve soil conditions (adding nutrients, improving soil structure, aeration, drainage and moisture content) eventually, the soil is ready for the seeds of other species to germinate. These would be the pioneering trees and shrubs, including nitrogen fixers (usually deciduous), as well as phosphorus and potassium accumulators that further improve the environment of the soil with deeper root structures than grass, which pump both water and nutrients such as phosphorus, potassium and sulfur from deep in the ground. Fungal hyphae spread millions of miles of their nutrient network within the soil, and the web of life expands horizontally and vertically in depth. This improves nutrient supply, variety and flow, biodiversity, texture and allows other more delicate or finicky species to germinate. The variety of microclimates created within a multi-storied, stacked system, further aid in creating conditions that suite a large variety of plant and animal life above and below the ground. This interactive biodiversity allows for a rich variety of nutrients to be returned to the soil.

Coniferous species appear with their often narrow root structure and their acidic (and thus unpalatable) leaf litter and begin to challenge the other species. Due to their lesser foraging popularity, they are less browsed and their leaf litter is left on the ground un-touched by worms and their co-workers. The soil becomes more and more acidic, and decomposers move away. Soon the soil is not ideal for the biodiversity of deciduous species that make a soil productive. As the system becomes less diverse and dominated by coniferous species, organic matter builds up, drainage is reduced, and leaching, or anaerobic conditions start to set in, and productivity slows down. P becomes occluded, and the soil is then over the hill.

As just stated, when soils age, P becomes occluded, thus becoming unavailable to plants and soil biota. "Prolonged weathering of minerals leads to the formation of Fe and Al oxides that have a strong affinity for P. This P limitation to vegetation is further exacerbated in old soils because low soil fertility sets in motion a feedback whereby reductions in biological activity in soil reduce decomposition of plant litter, further intensifying nutrient limitation." (Bardgett pg. 12)

Furthermore, as soils age, they go from Bacterial dominated systems to fungal dominated systems with AM mycorrhizal and Facultative AM or ectomycorrhizal taking up the middle, and Ectomycorrhizal dominating the oldest soils. Nitrogen availability to plants is optimal in the middle stages while (un-decomposed) organic matter slowly comes to a peak toward the end. We also find a peak of organic P being available in the middle as well.

When it comes to bringing a more youthful, productive bounce back into aged soils, we need to look again at what has just been described above. Organic matter is accumulating over time, usually because decomposition is slowing down. It looks as though the same thing is happening as with a deciduous forest turning coniferous. Plant diversity and quality leaf litter is disappearing from the system for some reason or another, probably browsing, human-caused elimination, or perhaps a natural disturbance such as fire. Perhaps there has been a decrease in soil-biota numbers due to use of bio-cides, thus causing a build-up of litter without decomposers to process it...resulting again in a slow-down of nutrient cycling, and therefore soil productivity. Either way, when a diverse quality of leaf litter is lost (a decomposers food base), the decomposers then disappear (or vice-versa), other litter is thus accumulated, and the system is thrown out of balance left to age with only ectomycorrhizal fungi to manage the abundance. Soil is no longer being built, nutrients are no longer made into soluble form for plants, and un-used products (i.e.-waste materials) are accumulating. Nutrient availability for plants is decreasing, and the productivity needed to sustain a biodiversity of plants cannot continue for long under those circumstances.

If left alone, the soil will still be there (until weather erosion takes it’s toll) but it will eventually lose its peak productivity, and will take years and years to cycle back into productivity. We, as good designers, stewards and managers of the earth can step in to nurture this productivity into existence, and maintain it indefinitely with good management. We can improve the leaf litter quality and assist in the re-introduction of appropriate and necessary native species that can aid in decomposition, whether it be AM mycorrhizal fungi, worms, ants, termites, grasses, trees, shrubs, squirrels, rodents or birds or simply compost. Whatever the case may be, through intelligent, eco-systemic design we can help nature create the sustainable habitat needed for productivity.

Sweet spot: The Edge Always Has The Best of Both Worlds:

From what we’ve read above, we see that the sweet spot of soil productivity would seem to be somewhere between grassland, water edge and deciduous forest. These are the edges where interaction between highly productive mul-humus soil and the above ground biodiverse activity is maximised.This is where permaculture has an edge (no pun intended...okay, yes it was) over the person who uses industrial chem-ag to create rather sterile monoculture deserts void of biodiversity.

Permaculture design strives to include a number all of these landscape elements within one property or plot of land. It strives to increase edges and interactions between these elements and to sustain the biological lifeforms within them. It does so through the creation of rain-water harvesting swales planted with trees, in cooperation with small dams, ponds, and chinampas to increase the highly productive riparian edge between soil and water and providing aquaculture yield.

Instead of one field full of straight lines of just one crop, permaculture utilizes both orchards and intercropped or multi-cropped fields, often together with a swale tree/shrub planting system on contour. This increases biodiversity of leaf litter, as well as overall yield and the health of the soil. Permaculture also strives to maintain a constant groundcover to maintain a moderate soil temperature and moisture in the soil, which will also protect it from becoming hardpan, and thus retain the healthy structure of the soil and all the lifeforms below.

Furthermore, permaculture design strives to use the right place for the right plant. Freely drained hilltops, and or ridgelines should be covered with drought resistant trees, if not just for soil stabilization, wind-combing and erosion reduction, but to manage the hydrological cycle, underground water levels and nutrient flow both down-wind and down-hill. Soil located mid-way down-hill, where soil is most productive, can be taken advantage of for highly productive and dense food planting. The bottoms can be planted with moisture loving phosphorus and potassium accumulators to avoid those elements leaching from the system, while also helping to avoid anaerobic conditions and reduce erosion.

A well designed permaculture landscape makes use of rain-water harvesting systems such as swales which drought-proof the land via absorption while recharging ground-water. Harvesting of rainwater with a naturally ideal pH avoids salinization of the landscape from irrigation. A permaculture landscape will incorporate drip irrigation and grey-water filtration gardens, making more efficient use of water with a beneficial pH while also eliminating the harmful practice of salting the land.

When looking at an effectively and properly designed permaculture landscape, you will not see just an orchard, field, garden, lake, or a massive prairie, but a combination of all these elements stacked next to and upon each other in an aesthetically pleasing flow of mosaic patterns and systems...physically, spatially and temporally.

Through proper management of a permaculture landscape, you will also see a biodiversity of plants, and systems working together to constantly provide a variety of high quality leaf litter and nutrients, often returned in the form of mulch or compost to therefore create a constant supply of nutrition for the soil biota, which will further turn those nutrients into a soluble form for plants. An ideal permaculture landscape creates a variety of microclimates to allow a larger number and variety of plant and animal species to co-exist, increasing interactive biodiversity, stability and therefore providing fertility.

With permaculture, when we work with soil (as we humans often do, and wisely should do), we constantly strive to maintain soil productivity. We look for what is missing, and then look for ways that nature would provide it for us. More often than not, there is always something we can do to help nature along these lines. Therein lies our labor of love, and our duty; to help nature stay healthy and in balance, so that our lives will be in healthy balance too.

The healthier our soil, the healthier our lives will be. The more balanced and diverse our diet is, the healthier we will be. The more biodiversity we have on our land, the more diverse diet our soil will have, and therefore, our diet will be richer and healthier for it. The more diverse systems we employ on the land, the more productive, aesthetically pleasing , stable and sustainable it will be. The more sustainable our systems are, the healthier both our environment and our health will be.

Be looking for further articles explaining how to manage forest, grassland, and aquaculture systems and how to harvest rainwater, and balance the pH of your soil.

Sources and further reading:

The Biology of Soil: A community and ecosystem approach by Richard Bardgett
Noah’s Garden: Restoring the Ecology of Our Own Back Yards by Sara Stein
Biodynamic Perspectives: Farming and Gardening by the New Zealand Biodynamic Association
The Diversity of Life by Edward O. Wilson
Restoring the Tallgrass Prairie by Shirley Shirley
Water: The Fate Of Our Most Precious Resource by Marq DeVilliers
The Global Citizen by Donella H. Meadows
Native Roots: How The Indians Enriched America by Jack Weatherford
Indian Givers: How The Indians of the Americas Transformed The World by Jack Weatherford
Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Theory of Networks by Mark Buchanan
Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell


Friday, February 09, 2007

Introduction to Permaculture Seminar



From Friday evening, March 23 to March 25th, 2007, The Robin's Nest Retreat will be hosting an Introduction to Permaculture Seminar by permaculturist Douglas Barnes.

The curriculum includes threats to the environment, the permaculture design process, patterns in nature, soil health, water, passive heating and cooling, permaculture in cold ares, and a practical design exercise. Accommodations and meals are included in the course fee of $296.80 (incl. GST).

Mr. Barnes holds two permaculture design course certificates and has been taught by Bill Mollison, the creator of permaculture, and by internationally renowned permaculturist Geoff Lawton. Douglas has designed and implemented permaculture systems in Japan and Canada as well as assisted projects in Japan, Canada, Australia and Jordan. He has been an educator for 15 years.

The Robin's Nest Retreat is a straw bale bed and breakfast on a 22 acre wooded lot located in Norwood, Ontario, near Peterborough.

For those interested in attending, please contact Gail Robins at gail@robinsnestretreat.com Please note that The Robin's Nest Retreat is a smoke-free, fragrance-free environment. For additional information, please see The Robin's Nest Retreat website.

Monday, January 22, 2007

Tokyo Permaculture Seminar

This seminar was held on January 26th.

For those in Tokyo this Friday (January 26th, 2007), Douglas Barnes will be participating in a permaculture seminar with fellow permaculturist Tomoko Sakano.

Time: from
7:00 pm, Friday, January 26th, 2007
Fee:
¥700 (includes drink)
Place: Noah's Cafe in Nakano-ku, about 5 minutes from Ochiai Satation on the Tozai line. Click here for map.
Topics: Personal strategies against global warming, including energy-saving strategies and water conservation.