Category Featured

Gonâve island, fifteen kilometres wide and sixty kilometres long, lies under the Haitian sun. What once would have been a rich ecology is now as seriously degraded as the mainland. Even in its degraded state 50,000 sought refuge there after the 2010 earthquake.

While most refugees have since returned to the mainland, there are 100,000 people who live permanently on the island. Most live a subsistence life based on charcoal production, agriculture and fishing, but after decades of charcoal production the island’s fertility and water resources are seriously degraded. Locally produced foods still include flour (mainly cassava), coffee, fruit and fish, but ninety per cent of the island now relies on food imported on the local ferry, mostly unhealthy products or aid food.

There is no running water or sewerage and as the level of groundwater has dropped many village wells now have reduced inflow. Many households survive on meagre amounts. A 2011 survey showed the average water use per person was only 7 l/person/ day. This is one of the most waterpoor communities in the world. One household offered their ‘coping strategy’ as saving their urine each night so they could use it the next day if they couldn’t find water. Many households use dirty water, as that’s the only water available. Water-borne diseases of diarrhoea and typhoid are common and cholera outbreaks have also been occurring. There is extraordinary human deprivation in these communities. There is only two kilometres of paved road on the whole island and electricity only in the main town between 6 pm and midnight, most days. There are virtually no government services of schools, roads, police, electricity, reticulated water or health services. The communities fend for themselves.

A regular part of our work at Good Life Permaculture is based around community development and social permaculture principles. We’ve found that when you work with people to improve knowledge, skill, health and wellbeing, other problems are also solved or lessened; and this can ripple into the community and the world beyond. You get the idea: from little things, big things grow.

Live and Learn is an adult education program initiated by Sustainable Living Tasmania (SLT), which focuses on providing practical skills in living sustainably, to decrease the cost of living and increase the quality of life. The course usually runs over six weeks, covering a different topic each week including: gardening; transport; water; waste; health and wellbeing; and building and energy.

In early 2014, SLT partnered with The Phoenix Centre (part of the Migrant Resource Centre) to offer a tailored Live and Learn program to some in the local refugee community. The course was based on producing food in a cold climate – refugees from hot countries were baffled by the Tasmanian weather. Good Life Permaculture was engaged to deliver the program, which we loved doing. Here are some of our reflections about why we support ‘social permaculture’ projects.

We designed the project so that we didn’t have any time inside lecturing people.

The word permaculture has different flavours for different folk. My favourite flavour is that of design. I see permaculture as an amazing design system helping people and landscapes partner to look after each other, each providing the other with a significant amount of what they need to thrive, now and into the future.

My main experience in applying this flavour of permaculture relates to what I do for a living: for the last five or so years I have been collaborating with friends to design and create edible gardens in and around Melbourne. In this work we use a permaculture design process to bring people and space together in backyard edible ecosystems.

The design process we use starts by tuning in to the people and then the site. Next, we find suitable spots for desired areas (like orchards), and then things within those areas (like apple trees). Taking a cue from nature’s book, we make mutually beneficial connections among these areas and things. We also consider harmonious access and circulation patterns throughout the site. All the while, we wriggle back and forth between patterns and details, problems and solutions, observations, interpretations and new design ideas. It is a fluid and beautiful thing, and you never know exactly where it will take you.

In this article I will focus on just one part of the design process. I want to share our starting point, and why our experience has taught us that it matters.

The original toilet was probably a hole in the ground – a waterless composting toilet. Human excrement left lying on the ground will decompose (compost) the same as any other animal excrement, and any other way of dealing with it is a refinement of the basic process. The main reason we have to deal with human waste in more sophisticated ways is population density. The level of complexity of a waste management system is generally directly related to the volume of waste needing to be treated. In a small rural dwelling on acres, a simple system will suffice; whereas a multi-story apartment block, housing up to hundreds of people, needs a complex system to ensure a healthy environment.

The basic principle of minimum impact treatment is to keep liquid separate from excrement. This is important, as it is the excrement that is the major source of bacteria, germs and viruses; if liquid is mixed with excrement the pollution factor is multiplied many times.

The development of the flush toilet was possibly the greatest factor in creating the massive problems currently experienced with sewage outfalls in our waterways. Avoiding the flush toilet is the best step that can be taken to solving sewage-based pollution.

There are various commercial suppliers of composting toilets, and most models supplied are approved by NSW and Victorian health authorities.

The aim of this article is to explain why sometimes actions fall short of professed high ideals, or even contradict them. It’s about psychological processes rather than just competence, some at a subconscious level, which can disappoint and lead to cynicism over time.

I believe it is important to prevent subconscious interference from undermining the theory and practice of permaculture. It became clear to me, many years ago, that most practitioners were held back by ‘unhealed psychological stuff’. This was affecting their creativity, and led to unfortunate tendencies to: promise too much, postpone action, blame others, fail to collaborate, and eventually suffer from burnout. So I started offering workshops on ‘Permaculture of the Inner Landscape’.

Psychology Basics

Everyone is psychologically ‘wounded’ during their lives, and few recover properly. Meaningful action originates from the psychologically ‘unwounded/ healed self’. Most of what we do is compromised by subconscious censoring of our unwounded thoughts, and by the patterns of behaviour that, paradoxically, enabled us to survive our hurts (e.g. denial, pretending, postponing, changing the subject, blaming others).

This year is International Year of the Family Farm, and two recent reports, from United Nations and European constituencies, make the case for a return of support for smallholder farmers.

The reports argue that an empowered population of smallholder farmers is a more direct route to alleviate poverty and restore depleted environments. They acknowledge that smallholder households are a huge human resource equipped with local knowledge which should be recognised for their contribution to food supply and local environmental management, and suggest that international aid needs to focus on helping smallholder farmers to improve their agriculture skills and water and land management.

Hunger and malnutrition are mainly related to lack of purchasing power and/or inability of rural poor to be self-sufficient. Meeting the food security challenge is thus primarily about empowerment of the poor … the world needs a paradigm shift in agricultural development from conventional, monoculture-based industrial production towards mosaics of sustainable, regenerative production systems … the fundamental transformation of agriculture may well turn out to be one of the biggest challenges of the 21st century.

UNCTD Trade and Environment Review 2013

Permaculture is a design system for sustainable living and land use that is being applied to every aspect of life, but it is best known in its application to food production, at scales from the garden to the farm.

The focus on food in permaculture is not just an accident of history or publicity. The globalised food production/consumption chain is the greatest contributor to environmental impact, while food security remains the most critical issue in human wellbeing and social stability. Food security is a condition that ‘exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life’.1

Through the 20th century the industrial system increased agricultural productivity and capacity for processing, preservation and distribution, by accelerating direct and indirect use of fossil fuels and precious mineral reserves. In the process it has degraded soils and polluted waters globally.

What is permaculture? Is it gardening, is it chooks and composting, or as one concerned Japanese mother put it ‘angry people growing vegetables’? It must be something more. How did two plant lovers in Tasmania create something that grew so big?

It is nearly forty years since Bill Mollison and David Holmgren began piecing together the jigsaw puzzle that became the permaculture concept during the 1970s. Since then it has been practised by millions of people globally, and become a household name.

Permaculture (permanent agriculture) is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and nonmaterial needs in a sustainable way.
– Bill Mollison

Many projects start with a champion: someone who believes enough in an idea to take those perilous early risks. In our community that was Natalie Meyer. She was the team leader and able to draw on the resources of the Nimbin Neighbourhood and Information Centre (NNIC), a membership-based not-for-profit organisation that does a lot of community work at all levels.

Community services typically focus on crisis relief, counselling, referrals and other support. The NNIC wanted to expand the scope of that work to include capacity building.

The idea is that if we have a resilient community that is self‑determined, self‑supporting and highly connected we are all going to have a better life now, and be less likely to need those emergency social services when things get tough; we will be supported more organically through our strong community networks. Refocusing

After the three most unsustainable days of my life, spent mostly in aeroplanes and hotel rooms, we arrived in Cuba for the eleventh IPC in late November and early December last year.

First up was a conference held over three days in Havana. We were treated to a great overview of permaculture from speakers from around the globe, in both English and Spanish. Day 1 was ‘Permaculture on islands’. Day 2 focused on ‘Climate change’ and Day 3 was on ‘Urban permaculture’ with examples of inspiring community-based projects and organisational structures.

Following the conference there was a day of urban tours. The food gardens were inspiring, combining permaculture with other areas of life – one with anti-violence education, another a car detailing business!

The highlight was Organoponico Vivero Alamar, a commercial food production system in the suburbs which brought approving gasps