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Fri 18 Jun 2010

Living Lightly 7

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Living Lightly 7
Summer 2010 News

Spreading Permaculture in the North

This spring saw the first ‘Introduction to Permaculture’ course at Glenhordial Permaculture Farm, Omagh in Northern Ireland.

The course was facilitated by Hannah Mole and Marella Fyffe who both participated in a recent accredited Training of Teachers course (T.O.T.).

On the weekend of April 18/19 a small gathering of 9 relatively local people from all walks of life converged at Glenhordial. Over the two days we used creative teaching methods to explore permaculture’s ethics, principles & design processes, we also completed practical sessions on surveying (land) & creating a forest garden.

At the end of the course we received valuable feedback from the group, which we aim to incorporate into future events.

On foot of this event we have accepted an invitation to facilitate another 2 day course in Belfast on the 25th & 26th September where we are looking forward to an even better weekend.

Roscommon happenings

We are also preparing to host a similar course in Strokestown (Co. Roscommon) this autumn.

Please contact livingpermaculture@mail.com for further information on these events
Also here in Strokestown there is a very exciting new Permaculture-inspired educational project in the making. ‘Finlough Farm’ is a new venture led by Finn Murray (of the Hopsack health food store, Dublin) that will shortly play host to a number of inspiring courses, workshops & other events.
Keep an eye on the facebook page and check out www.hopsack.ie for updates and more information.
Posted by Hannah Mole, Strokestown
New! Permaculture Ireland Facebook Page

There is now a new ‘facebook‘ page up and running.

We hope that ‘Permaculture Ireland’ will facilitate connections between people in Ireland who are Permaculturally inspired. We are also posting details of all permaculture related events in Ireland on the page. We invite you to join, and if anybody would like to post an event please email details to livingpermaculture@mail.com
Posted by Hannah Mole, Strokestown
Letters

Hello Ms. Moore,

How do you do?

So, first off, I’d like to thank you dearly for writing these books,

particularly Stone Age Farming and Sensitive Permaculture.  I live in the United States and recently attended a Permaculture Teacher Training Course with Dave Jacke.  In this course I gave a talk on “Rewilding* Permaculture” in whice I spoke about restoring humankind to our role of a “keystone species.”  One of the ways I spoke of applying this perspective to our Permaculture Designs and Teaching was through using Geomancy to dowse for sacred spots on the land to inform our Zone allocations.

One of my fellow students came across your books on the web and sent word of

them my way. I did not know about your books beforehand and am now very curious to read from your experience, as I am a beginner in both Permaculture and Geomancy.  I feel excited to learn from you and glad that another sensitive permaculturalist exists!  I plan to buy both books – do you recommend getting both books or does Sensitive Permaculture cover the information provided in Stone Age Farming?

I wish I lived closer to attend a course and meet you, as I feel I could learn so much from being in your presence.

I assume you are familiar with the work of another person who inspires me:

David Yarrow – http://www.onondagavesica.info/gateway_ol.htm

Thank you for everything you do,

From the heart,

Matthew Bennett

USA

Dear Matthew,

Thanks for your kind words… Those 2 books are similar but quite different too. Hoping that all my books will be available on Amazon in the new future. For now, it’s only ‘Sensitive Permaculture’ that you can order online. (It’s printed on demand in UK and USA.)
_
Signed copies of Sensitive Permaculture can be purchased by Irish and UK readers direct from the author at a cost of €15 including postage and packing:

For all other places, order Sensitive Permaculture HERE
Hi PIE,
I wonder if you guys have any information on soil remineralisation? I was thinking of experimenting with the process on a small plot of land  – I’ve been trying to grow a hedge and it’s very slow going – the soil is quite poor I think. Are there any organisations in Ireland (ideally Cork or Dublin) that specialise in this, sell the materials etc?

There is a quarry in the area – am I right in saying that ideally quarry dust from the local area would be ideal?
Hope you can help,

Best Wishes,

Michael Cosgrave
Hi Michael,
My book Stone Age Farming is all about using the rock dust in the garden or farm. It’s best to use the volcanic basalt! So many minerals and trace elements!
There are relatively few quarries in Ireland with the basalt. One is (or was) the Dan Morrissey Quarry in Rathdrum, Wicklow. There are 3 quarries in Rathdrum, make sure you have the basalt one. Up in the North it’s easier to find and there are plenty of basalt quarries in Co. Antrim – the whole county is mainly basalt!
If you are really stuck you can access the rock dust that probably comes from the SEER centre in Perthshire, Scotland (they have an amazing garden running on the rock dust and do a lot of good promotion on soil remineralisation, have a website too). The Chase Organics people in the UK (used to be called the Henry Doubleday Research Association – what a mouthful! – is a charity for organic growing) sell off their website – www.organiccatalogue.com – bags of basalt dust, 20kg to spread over 40sq. m., are sold for £13.25, but postage must be a horrendous price!
Let us know how you go!
Alanna
Articles
What is Sensitive Permaculture?
This is a sneak preview of the outline of Alanna Moore’s presentation for the 10th Australian Permaculture Convergence being held near Cairns, Queensland, September 24 – 28th 2010
For over 25 years permaculture farmer, geomancer and author Alanna Moore has been a specialist in discovering the subtle energies that pulse throughout landscapes and how they affect plants, animals and people. Her work provides a point of connection between ancient European cultural mindsets and the continuing geomantic perceptions of Aboriginal people in Australia and elsewhere.
The concept of sacred stewardship of the land stems from a sensitive appreciation of place. It engages our emotions as well as our senses, and deep connection to Country places us in a position of responsibility for its protection. The industrial mindset that swept away the tenets of sacred custodianship, regarding it as being at odds with monotheistic religion and the new Capitalist regime, has unfortunately held sway. Thus today, western geomancers are usually ignored, trivialized, or tormented.
But what if their authority was restored and local councils employed a geomancer to work with environmental and heritage officers in assessing development proposals? Could we not then foster a more harmonious environment? This is a dream that Alanna Moore holds firm to.
“When we recognize, honour and care for the energetically special places, the sacred sites in particular, we help to maintain the holistic integrity of the landscape”, she suggests. “With a geomancy survey we can identify the local power centres and the vibrant connections between such places, and avoid severing them, just as the Chinese traditionally avoid cutting the limbs of the Dragon, a personification of the Earth’s subtle forces.
“In a powering-down world a geomantically informed view calls for ‘new eyes’. It ushers in the re-assessment of the value of a locale, helps us find the magic in the landscape around us. We won’t need to fly off to some remote location for our holidays when we discover that sacred places are all around, waiting for us to discover them. And when we visit them on a regular basis, we can begin a beautiful relationship with Country, one that refreshes, informs and nurtures us, just as we can nurture it.
“We may also incorporate geomantic principles into our permaculture gardening for enhanced plant growth. Improving the energy (feng shui) in our garden means we can enjoy being there so much more, and be energised ourselves in the process,” she enthuses.
Alanna Moore has introduced thousands of people to this energetic approach to farming and gardening and for many this gentle ‘wow!’ factor has re-inspired them in their working with the land, often through times of great struggle (such as the 14 year drought in southern Australia). Her own gardens have often been spectacular (if not neglected from too much world travel), as the accompanying photo of Alanna admiring Big Max, her giant cabbage, will attest.
Alanna’s latest book – ‘Sensitive Permaculture – cultivating the way of the sacred Earth’ focusses on practical ideas to help us develop greater sensitivity in working with the land. Listening to the land, finding out what is its greatest possible potential is far wiser than rolling out a rigid set of ideas onto it and hoping it’ll work out, she believes.
“Loosening up one’s thinking and freeing oneself from the predominant mindset of a colonial culture is an initial imperative. This is very important for permaculturists who plan to help out in tribal communities, where discovering and honouring local geomantic lore will greatly assist in the strategic planning of their designs. To not address the local geomancy is to fall into the same trap that brings so much shame on Australia’s colonial past. As permaculturists, we would not want to be accused of a colonial mentality, foistering inappropriate ideas onto others, those who also might have so much of value to be teaching us!
“It is sensitivity, not science, that will save the environment. We need to engage our minds and our hearts in this work. We need positive energy to counteract the negativity and gloom that abounds. We have infinite power to make the world a better place. Each individual needs to act now and together we can all make a huge difference, despite what our government gets up to! People can lead the way and eventually governments will have to follow.

“But first we need to develop a deep awareness of and love for our environment, be touched by its magic, such that we would go to its defense if necessary. And, in the process, we’ll be counteracting the sea of deadly apathy that has crept up, threatening to engulf us.”
Signed copies of Sensitive Permaculture can be purchased by Irish and UK readers direct from the author at a cost of €15 including postage and packing:

For all other places, order Sensitive Permaculture HERE
Will Humanity Awaken and Give Generously to the Earth in Time?

By Don Weaver • earthdon@yahoo.com

• www.remineralize.org

November 24, 2009

This beautiful November day in Northern California found me in the vegetable garden, spreading mineral rich rock dust and compost teeming with microbial life. Together, they nourish exceptionally fertile soil. The new seedlings of lettuce, kale and arugula will thrive in such soil. It was a simple, conscious act of generosity by a human being, and Nature’s response will be generous in kind, following powerful laws of reciprocity and abundance.

I learned of these natural laws from studying ecology and working with the soil, and from others who had immense respect for Nature, such as Alan Chadwick and John Hamaker.

Chadwick said that giving back to Nature at least as much as we borrow is the fundamental guideline of the wise gardener or Earth steward. I co-authored The Survival of Civilization with Hamaker, who implored us all to stop fighting each other and give more to the soils and tree cover than we take, until we’ve repaid our debt to a depleted Earth. He warned us of what to expect if we did not succeed in doing so: increasing soil depletion and erosion, malnutrition and disease, weather and climate extremes, forest insect/disease epidemics and fires, CO2 build-up to increasingly dangerous levels, and every form of social and economic degeneration that can be expected when the foundations of health, sanity and peace on Earth are allowed to crumble.
Walking from the garden back to my cottage, I felt admiring gratitude for the many hundreds of fruits turning to bright orange on the Fuyu and Hachiya persimmon trees. Recalling the permaculture video with Bill Mollison, “In Danger of Falling Food,” I strategically harvested to prevent another big branch from breaking under the weight of so much fruit.
What Happens When We Take More Than We Give?

At this writing, I’m reviewing a range of recent papers on the state of the world, and reading of the worsening droughts in Africa, one of the major global climate changes successfully predicted by Hamaker from the early 1970s until his passing in 1994, and which I further documented in my book To Love And Regenerate The Earth (published in 2002). Millions need emergency food aid in 30 countries, including 20 in Africa. Soils there are mostly dry and depleted from natural demineralization since the last glacial period.

The other primary cause is human neglect and abuse, including soil over-cropping with minimal replenishment, over-grazing and deforestation. Extractive chemical agriculture has accelerated the depletion and erosion, and famine rides the wind, grimly reaping children, women, men, and animals. More warning signs for all humanity. According to the U.N., a record one billion people go hungry worldwide. How many more of our 6.8 billion population are malnourished or have “hidden hunger” because of soil demineralization and unnatural food choices? We should find out and take the right actions to eliminate our malnutrition “from soil to psyche.” Desperate people, apparently lacking the knowledge and means to replenish the land and their lives, further strip the land of trees and grass for building and cooking, and burn even more trees to make and sell charcoal.
A Call for Heroic Earth Regenerators

Scattered across Africa and the world are people making heroic efforts to reverse the tide of soil depletion, deforestation and climate change, but millions today and billions tomorrow need a real, collective commitment to remineralize, re-green and regenerate the Earth. If there is no will, there is no way! Even now, malnutrition, disease and famine are more common than high-level health, and we find it much harder to generate the will for positive change, and to encourage it in others. However, when we see a downward degenerative spiral, we must use our intelligence, wisdom and strength to nourish the forces of regeneration within the soil, the Earth, ourselves and each other.
Jacques Diouf, director general of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, says more “aid” to agriculture for greater food production is essential. $44 billion annually is what they suggest. That could do a lot if wisely used for remineralizing the soils and creating vital farms and orchards producing superior quality produce, even though it is only a small fraction of the money spent by the world’s militaries on “defense.”

If wisdom prevails, and the world makes the commitment to Biosphere regeneration, CO2 withdrawal and climate stabilization, hundreds of billions of dollars should be shifted from “killingry to livingry,” as Buckminster Fuller put it in his book Critical Path. For a more in-depth view, read my article entitled “Restoring Our Earth to Vibrant Health” (Vibrance no. 1) and my open letter to the Obamas and everyone, titled “Earth Regeneration for Climate Balance and a Healthy World.”

While it is somewhat inspiring to see an accelerating movement toward a “green” economy and society around the world, we should be seriously concerned about the limited time Nature can grant us to wake up and become active co-creators of a truly green and fertile, healthy, regenerating world. Hamaker and I documented the dying of the trees throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and as long as soil demineralization and acidification continues, trees weakened by malnutrition will increasingly die from climate extremes, insect/ disease epidemics and worsening fires sending trees up in smoke and CO2. This worsens our “climate chaos” and the degeneration of our interdependent global ecosystems. Here is just one example illustrating why we need to become pro-active Earth regenerators, remineralizing and re-planting the agricultural and forest lands before they become terminally ill:

“From Colorado to Washington state, an unprecedented, years-long epidemic of mountain pine beetle has killed 2.6 million hectares (6.5 million acres) of forest. The insect has struck even more devastatingly to the north, in British Columbia, where clouds of beetles have laid waste to 14 million hectares (35 million acres)—twice the area of Ireland. It is expected to kill 80 percent of the Canadian province’s lodgepole pines before it’s finished.” (from “Beetles, Wildfires: Double Threat to Warming World” by Charles J. Hanley, 8/24/09 AP article at http://www.commondreams.org/print/46171)
Since You Are the World, What Will You Do?
What can you, as someone who cares about human and whole Earth health, do about a world in ecological crisis and too often failing to focus on building health and preventing and solving problems? There is much you can do! You can educate yourself, share what you learn, and start now to contribute more to the regeneration of the soil and the natural foods of your garden and orchard and thus the whole Earth.
Remineralize the soil. Compost. Plant. Tend. Observe and learn. Enjoy the miracle of life and growth. Savor the harvest. Regenerate yourself and your family. Regenerate the Earth. Celebrate the opportunity, for it may have an expiration date! We can all wisely and generously do this. Thank you for playing your uniquely important part!

Don Weaver is co-author with John Hamaker of The Survival of Civilization, author of To Love And Regenerate The Earth, and a regular contributor to Living Nutrition/Vibrance magazine. Both books are free to download in the Agriculture section of the Soil and Health Library: www.soilandhealth.org.

Don also assists the non-profit Remineralize the Earth, Inc. and helps people start organic gardens, orchards, and Earth Regeneration Centers. Don gardens on the San Francisco Peninsula and has enjoyed 32 years of ecological living and vibrant health on a 100% raw vegan diet. He welcomes feedback on his writings and ideas for cooperative projects to nourish personal-and-planetary health:

earthdon@yahoo.com

or Don Weaver, POB 620478, Woodside CA 94062.
Permaculture Project in Southern Ethiopia

My name is Alex McCausland. I have set up a Permaculture project in Southern Ethiopia in the last 3 years. This is our website www.permalodge.org

I am originally from Derry, family have a house in West Cork (Beara Peninsula) where I spent much of my childhood and still go there most of the time when in the region (ie to avoid London). I gave a talk in Kinsale to Graham Strout’s group on our project in Ethiopia in January last year. Here’s an article on our project in Ethiopia.

It was a moment of fulfillment for us at Strawberry Fields Eco Lodge (SFEL). The head of the Konso Woreda Education Bureau, Mr. Geyeto Gedeno, stood in front of those gathered, his fumbling speech soon beginning to gather momentum:
We now want to see this program expanded to all the schools in Konso, making us an example to the whole society and the rest of Ethiopia! Permaculture shows us how to achieve food security and environmental preservation, how to improve our nutrition and benefit our ecology, all through direct community action!” We all clapped and cheered heartily.
Gathered around the training room were teachers, parents and children from the three schools where the Permaculture in Konso Schools Project (PKSP), pilot project, had been underway since May 2009, when it began with training of teachers at SFEL, in a PDC that was part funded by a former volunteer (and a good friend of ours, Sarah Davis from Austin Texas) and part funded by Save the Children Finland (STCF).
Tichafa Makovere, our lead trainer, who had lead the pilot project, now stood before that selection of people from around Konso, and repeated The Parable of the Sparrows, his own analogy for inspiring community empowerment and breaking the mentality of aid-dependence, which has become so deeply ingrained in southern Ethiopia that it seems as much of an obstacle to the development of food sovereignty as climate change or population growth.

God feeds the birds of the air! But he does not let them sit in their nests while he comes and puts food in their mouths. Unless they fly out of their nests to scratch the ground in search of their food, they will go hungry.
The analogy sums up Tichafa’s approach to the development of food security in Africa. As opposed to the (mostly) well-intentioned, but counter-productive, habit of most westerners, individuals and organisations alike, of splashing around hand-outs to “the poor starving Ethiopians”. Tichafa, a Zimbabwean of the Shona ethnic group, knows better about what will benefit Africans in the long-run.
Empowering communities is about getting them to provide for their own needs, not just giving them whatever they ask you for so they become dependent on you.
It was when he had visited his first Konso school, in early 2009, with an Italian NGO Director, that he had first confronted the Konso community with The Parable of the Sparrows. The school principal had been complaining to the Italian that he had not delivered them the furniture that he had been promising (not delivering on promises was a habit of this particular Italian), but Tichafa stepped in to his rescue:
Don’t embarrass me! I am an African like you. We are not beggars! Look at all these Eucalyptus trees you have here, they are destroying your soils. You should cut these down and sell them, then use the money to buy your own furniture. And plant better trees at the same time!

At this the Italian pricked up his ears.

Oh, I need Eucalyptus for beelding my new conference hall!
Such is the mentality of self reliance that SFEL’s Permaculture instills. While many NGOs are throwing around thousands and even millions of dollars into white-elephant projects (such as superfluous conference halls), there are often far simpler solutions to the chronic needs of communities on the ground that they could solve by themselves, if they were able to make more effective use of the resources. This is the key aim of the Permaculture in Konso Schools Project (PKSP) the pilot phase of which culminated with Mr Geyeto Gedeno’s speech last Saturday.
The format of the PKSP is similar to that of the ReSCOPE and SCOPE programs, which Tichafa lead in a number of countries around southern Africa over the past 15 years with great success; two key teachers from a school are given the full 72-hour Permaculture Design Certificate course, during which they produce designs for “retro-fitting” their school grounds. The follow-up then brings in the kids and parents, to implement those designs (with input from Tichafa, where necessary) on the ground. The whole community gets involved – hauling in manure from their animals, mucking in together and singing in great spirits as they do – intensive gardens, tree nurseries, soil and water harvesting infrastructure are all laid out on the ground and channels are dug to run rain-water from roofs into keyholes where banana suckers soon explode into lush thickets. Moringa, papaya and mango (the first 70 seedlings provided by SFEL) will soon close a canopy over the flourishing vegetable beds in the intensive gardens. Permaculture is included on the school curriculum, with resource materials designed for the purpose, so kids gain theoretical insight as well as being involved practically. Within a year the school can supplement its children’s diet with fresh fruit and greens and gain income from sales of vegetables and tree seedlings to the community. The skills are also taken home by the kids, so penetrate into the community for the long-run. The bare school yard soon becomes a lush and fascinating jungle for the exploration of the young mind, and these people are taking control of their own destiny, no longer sitting by the roadside waiting for UN grain convoys to roll in with hybrid wheat over-produced on the other side of the planet – the solution lies right here, in their own back yard!
A program of monitoring and evaluation continues over the following 24 months, with exchange visits between the schools, bi-annual refresher courses for the teachers at SFEL, visits to our own model farm to promote new ideas and improve motivation. The culmination of phase 1 (the pilot) was the competition between the schools which came in February 2010 with SFEL’s most recent international PDC, the participants of which were asked to judge between the schools for the best implementation, as part of their own PDC training.
The PDC had a multinational complexion with American Peace Corps sending two Ethiopian-American officers, an Ethiopian estate owner from Norway, two freelance American volunteers, a Swedish SFEL volunteer for five months, an Italian couple, a British volunteer on a mission to develop a windmill for SFEL, a Welsh lady working the Karrayou Tribe from the rift valley in East Shoa, and a veterinary surgeon – a Karrayou also working with the Welsh tribe. Criteria for the participants appraisal of the schools, included:
* The presence of the design map on the wall

* The presence of a tree nursery

* Effective intercropping of species to reduce disease and promote companion relationships

* Evidence of innovation in water harvesting

* Evidence of eating the vegetables produced in the gardens

* Evidence of gaining an income for the school from sales of produce
Overall it was decided that Sawgume (the same school where Tichafa had first embarrassed the teachers with the parable of the sparrows a year ago) deserved to win the competition, but all three schools were given prizes as an encouragement. The prizes were donated by local businessmen, such as Mr Yonas Mahetemu, the owner of Bella Abyssinia Tours, a customer of SFEL, who agreed to contribute 3000 Birr for exercise-books, pens, watering cans, spades and hoes, which were awarded to the teachers and most industrious parents and kids of the three schools.
And the PKSP pilot phase has been proclaimed a resounding success! The Konso Education Bureau are keen to see its expansion to all the schools in Kosno. STC Finland have agreed to include two more schools in their program in 2010, however we at SFEL are keen to go beyond that. If more NGOs, GOs or individuals will involve themselves, by adopting or sponsoring schools in various ways, we can keep Permaculture actively growing in Ethiopia in the coming years. We are ready to work with you.
You can also support our activities by joining our next international PDC in at SFEL in Konso: Permaculture for the Rural African Environment – Oriented towards food security development for rural communities lead by Tichafa Makovere Shumba, at Strawberry Fields Eco-Lodge: April 05 – 18, 2010.

For more information please contact info (at) permalodge.org also visit our website www.permalodge.org and see more photos of project work here.
 

Wed 10 Feb 2010

Living Lightly 6

Posted by peter under Living Lightly
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Living Lightly 6
Contents:
Editorial
Article: The Joy of Sensitive Living
Book Review: ‘One Straw Revolution’ by Masanobu Fukuoka
News: Pee to help make your garden grow
Letters: Gardening advice wanted, ‘Compassionate Lifestyle’ project, Morocco Project
Editorial
Welcome to the Imbolc / Spring edition of Living Lightly.
I imagine you are all itching to get out in the garden, now that the long cold winter is over!
You might be inspired to see our sustainable food gardens and alternative building project in County Leitrim – they are featured on the tv on Wednesday Feb 10th at 7pm on the Nationwide RTE1 programme (and on the RTE website subsequently).
We have some permacultural courses lined up for the summer, so check them out on our workshops pages.
And you might like to check out our latest YouTube film of an act of guerilla planting in Leitrim, with a song that I wrote especially.
Contributions to this site are encouraged.
Enjoy!
Yours permaculturally,
Alanna Moore
‘The Joy of Sensitive Living’
By Alanna Moore
February 2010
alanna
For the past 26 years I have worked as a geomancer, assessing and balancing the subtle energies of places with pendulum dowsing and meditational attunement. It’s akin to feng shui, but not formula oriented. A geomantic reading of a place seeks out the actual inherent energies there, so it’s rather more indigenous than informed by Chinese cultural conditioning, as feng shui is. It thus requires openness and keen sensitivity.  You never know what might show up. I often find high-tech radiation, or geopathic stress from unhealthy underground energies; or perhaps a desecrated sacred site that’s causing ‘bad vibes’.
On the other hand, beneficial energies can also be created or amplified, harnessed for enhancing plant growth in the garden or for making one’s own backyard sacred site. Thus the hundreds of ‘Towers of Power’ I’ve been helping to create around Australasia and elsewhere (modeled on the ancient Round Towers of Ireland) have had some noteworthy effects for farmers and gardeners. I wrote a book on the subject in 2001 – ‘Stone Age Farming – ecoagriculture for the 21st century’.
For the past 22 years I have also been a keen permaculture practitioner. Permaculture is the ethical design of sustainable culture, mostly practiced in the form of eco-smart gardening systems. Developed in Australia in the 1970’s, it has gone on to have a very positive impact on food security in many parts of the world. But this sustainable system of land development may lack sensitivity in its implementation. A macho approach to bulldozing can often leave a bad vibe in a place, for example.
However, even earthworks can be done with sensitivity. Implementing a geomantically informed permaculture design for sustainable living may alleviate environmental problems on many levels. I’m finding that the more sensitive, spiritual approach to land planning and Earth care is gaining a welcome resonance amongst people who are weary of the negativity and unsustainability of today’s society. It can be a celebration of the sanctity of Mother Earth, indigenous Earth lore and the traditions of nature based spirituality.
The invisible dimensions of landscape are not merely energetic. They are also characterized by varying levels of consciousness, epitomised by universal traditions of the fairy realms. I divide my time between Australia and Ireland, both places where knowledge of geomancy and the fairy world has survived relatively well, in understated undercurrents at the least. The Australian Aborigines and native Irish are highly intuitive peoples. Like other animist societies, the Irish believed that fairy beings help to care for their crops and livestock and thus the ‘Good People’ must always be thanked, and their homes and pathways respected. The Aboriginal people were (and often still are) acutely aware of the nature spirits around them and they may be intimately connected to the totemic nature beings that act as familiars to them. (It’s interesting that elements of totemism linger on in modern Catholicism, that most pagan of Christian forms. Equating Jesus with wheat/bread, for example, is a direct rip-off from animist mystery traditions of sacred agrarian culture.)
Nature spirits (also known as devas) continue to be a dynamic force in landscapes, I’ve discovered in my life of professional dowsing experience, travel and teaching around the world. By dowsing and attunement I find exactly where the nature beings are stationed and thus help people to avoid disturbing them. I also seek the co-operation of the fairies to ensure harmonious co-existence. Swedish dowsers I’ve met have taken this approach further. They regularly consult with10 metre tall European forest trolls and they actively help the local devas to overcome debilitating effects of high-tech radiations, such as from mobile phone masts on hilltops. (This is the subject of a short film I have posted on-line, amongst my other Geomantica Films at YouTube.)  Not just affecting the devas, sensitive people too (such as myself) suffer in the presence of such phone masts. Clusters of people reporting ‘Microwave Sickness’ symptoms are found in the vicinity of these insidious installations. Clearly, such energetic insults are not sustainable for continuing human existence.
Avoidance of such problems is always preferable and I actively defend sacred sites from such desecration wherever I can. In Australia in 2004, with a small group of determined locals, we fought a David and Goliath battle against Telstra erecting a 34m tall phone mast on top of the iconic Mount Franklin, the ‘Uluru’ of central Victoria, where I live (and famously depicted on Mt Franklin water bottles). After several days in a Melbourne VCAT tribunal, Telstra was defeated – for the first time ever! It was thanks to the heritage overlay on the mountain that acknowledged its sacredness to Aboriginal people. That you can’t screw with registered sacred sites this way is law in Australia and Telstra hadn’t done its homework. Other such victories against phone towers elsewhere have followed from this precedent. (I wrote about this saga in my 2004 book ‘Divining Earth Spirit’; plus there are many other articles of mine on related subjects on-line in Geomantica magazine at www.geomantica.com.) However the proliferation of debilitating high-tech radiation in our beautiful landscapes in still increasing, thanks to industry thrusting ever higher levels of (typically unnecessary) technological complexity at us, such as digital tv and wireless broadband, also massive wind farms and the like. We lap them up at our peril!
In my seventh and latest book – ‘Sensitive Permaculture – cultivating the way of the sacred Earth’*, I explain how eliciting nature’s help in the garden can foster harmonious feng shui, as well as nourish our own inner, spiritual gardens. It focuses on an energetic and loving approach to sustainable land planning. For when we connect to the sacred dimensions of life our activities can become positively life-affirming, festive and joyful. This is our universal heritage.
* ‘Sensitive Permaculture – cultivating the way of the sacred Earth’
This book is now available from Amazon UK and Amazon USA and it and Alanna Moore’s other books are described at www.pythonpress.com
Book Review
by Alanna Moore
‘One Straw Revolution’ by Masanobu Fukuoka
Permaculture has been called a ‘revolution in gardening and living’ and it was no doubt informed by Fukuoka’s classic, radical manifesto of the development of his own revolution in broadscale farming in Japan. First published in 1975, this book was recently republished (by New York Review Books), with up-to-date prefaces by other astute writers, in 2009. It is as relevant today as it was back in the ‘70’s.
Fukuoka (1913 – 2008) describes his discovery of ways to produce grain crops naturally, with his methods based on keen observations of nature and the shunning of both chemicals and the tilling of the soil. As a result of implementing his ideas he was able to harvest crops in equal, if not greater amounts, to the best chemical farmers of the district and for more than 20 years. His system involves seeding several crops at once in a field and always maintaining a cover crop of clover or grain (in his case – rice grown without permanent inundation, plus barley and rye). Seeds that must wait patiently for the right season to germinate are pelleted with clay to avoid predation by birds, mice etc. After harvest all the straw is returned to the field to nourish it and also protect the seeds below. A little chicken manure is sprinkled over it all to help the straw to break down. (Originally he put a flock of ducks into the fields after harvest and they did a good job of fertilization and weed control, but a highway was built through there and prevented this from continuing.)
Fukuoka once said in an interview – “The real path to natural farming requires that a person know what unadulterated nature is, so that he or she can instinctively understand what needs to be done and what must not be done – to work in harmony with it’s processes.” Elsewhere in the book he stated that one should “…serve nature and all is well. Farming used to be sacred work… When the farmer began to grow crops to make money, he forgot the real principles of agriculture.”
Fukuoka’s mission to reform agriculture back to more sustainable traditions of the past encouraged many others to follow suit. His system can be adapted to anywhere that crops are grown in succession. And his gentle philosophy of life is evermore needed today. It is an important exposition of Slow Living.
In the preface by Francis Moore Lappe one learns of a 2007 study by the University of Michigan which projected that overall food availability could be increased by about half if the whole world moved to “ecologically sane farming”. She also states that it was estimated in the 1970’s that a third of the total amount of grains produced in the world were fed to livestock.
Fukuoka determined that one of his quarter acre fields growing grains could support 5 to 10 people, each investing less than one hours daily labour (using his natural farming methods). However if the produce of that quarter acre was only pasture for livestock or if the grains grown there were fed to cattle, then only one person could be supported.
“If we do have a food crisis it will not be caused by the insufficiency of nature’s productive power, but by the extravagance of human desire,” Fukuoka wrote.
This is one of the all-important messages in the book, which I think is essential reading for all concerned planetary citizens.
Pee to help make your garden grow
Gardeners at a National Trust property in Cambridgeshire UK are urging people to relieve themselves outdoors to help gardens grow greener.
A three-metre long “pee bale” has been installed at Wimpole Hall. Head gardener Philip Whaites is urging his male colleagues to pee on the straw bale to activate the composting process on the estate’s compost heap.
He said the “pee bale” is only in use out of visitor hours, since “we don’t want to scare the public”. By the end of the year, the estate estimates that it will have saved up to 30% of its daily water use by not having to flush the loo so many times.
Rosemary Hooper, Wimpole estate’s in-house master composter, said: “Most people can compost in some way in their own gardens. Peeing on a compost heap activates the composting process, helps to produce a ready supply of lovely organic matter to add back to the garden. Adding a little pee just helps get it all going; it’s totally safe and a bit of fun too.”
Extracted from: BBC
Of course – households don’t need a 3m long strawbale to do this. On a smaller scale, a bucket with a lid, half filled with straw or sawdust or leaves, will do the trick (and the organic matter in it will ensure no splashback and reduce odours).  And it’s female friendly too. With it you can make perfect compost, with no need for animal manure!
LETTERS
Hello,
I am researching permaculture and organic gardening in Ireland and I am having trouble finding resources.  Can you recommend a guide book with monthly planting and harvesting instructions/information and a good resource to learn about permaculture in Ireland?
Many thanks in advance,
Jackie Kilroe
Perhaps readers may have some suggestions for Jackie?
Hi Alanna
I have just started a community project concerning the ‘Compassionate
Lifestyle’, vegetarianism and solutions to climatic changes.
So far I have designed a flyer and one web-page, as well as organized a few meetings. Please view our flyer (in pdf) on www.karunaflame.com/veg.html
From 4th January we intend to start a national campaign of ‘Meat-free
Mondays and Fridays’ in Ireland to help to slow down climatic changes,
brought in part by global life-stock farming industry.
Soon we will have a new website, entirely dedicated to this issue.
Love and Light

Kris
karunaflame@eircom.net
Morocco Project
Hi,
This might be of interest to Irish permaculture people.
The project is in Morocco, but we are Irish based.
We are building a permaculture project to restore an entire watershed in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. We’re starting off with a small plot where we are building a school and community centre, which will serve as a base for the wider project, and provide permaculture training and internet facilities for the local people, as well as the design certificate courses we will be running as part of the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia’s Permaculture Centres Worldwide initiative.
There’s more about the centre HERE
and the course page is HERE
The main purpose, apart from returning the area to fertility, is to help make connections between the traditional Berbers and other communities in Ireland and elsewhere. This would be done via the courses, but also by linking the school with schools here, and through travel exchange opportunities, trading of goods like herbs and spices, and other things the people themselves want to do.
All the best,

Andy
andy@tribalnetworks.org
 

Tue 1 Sep 2009

ECO-LIVING FESTIVAL REPORT

Posted by peter under Living Lightly
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ECO-LIVING FESTIVAL HELD IN LEITRIM

By Seamus McGoldrick

“Be Part of the Climate of Change” says Permaculture Ireland, at their first ECO-LIVING FESTIVAL, in the well equipped Drumsna Resource Centre, 8kms outside of Carrick-on-Shannon June weekend, 6th – 7th last.

The organisers hosted talks, trips and demonstrations to spread the word on the real essence behind the much feared climate change phenomenon. Gatherers were wowed by advice and expertise of stall owners, children were entertained by the visiting Drumshambles Street Theatre Troupe who had travelled back in time a la Phillias Fogg just for the event. Musicians were along to keep the atmosphere lively.

“Use your materials wisely, and don’t waste it” urged longtime besom-maker Michael Hentschel, who creates and sells tools for making kindling bundles from pruning waste, from your home or farm. Besom Brooms use birchtwigs fastened to stouter poles of Ash or Hazel. It is a versatile tool for clearing barnyards or gravel paths. The tradition of the country tradesmen known as a Besommaker is a genuine one dating back 1500 years to Saxon times. Mr. Hentschel deals in besom brooms, wood stakes and line for planting neat gardens or growing shrubbery or saplings and simple garden ornaments. And when old and worn, unlike the now standard plastic pan and brush, besom items simply add to the firepile.

The festivals promotion is designed to help us relinquish our dependence on clearing houses like Homebase or Tescos garden section, that offer cheap but never sustainable superdeals. We were told we could truly come back to ourselves by engaging in traditional crafts. The experts and organisers are recommending a revivalism of some of Ireland’s oldest and best traditions and the Festival showed these traditions are alive and well in Leitrim. Lime and white washing go back a thousand years and natural linseed oil paints were predominately used 600 years ago. Gerald Greene, Dublin based artist and expert on natural paints, is one of the only people actively encouraging this practical tradition in Ireland. “The are still the most high quality, breathable, aesthetic, long lasting, cost effective and environmentally friendly paints available. The widespread use of these paints went out of fashion when petroleum based tinned paint began to be mass produced in factories in the late 1800s, gradually phasing out traditional paints.” Mr. Greene reported of the festival “It was a wonderful venue here in Drumsna, it’s great people could experience so much in two days”. When asked would there be another year for this simulating event, he replied “It looks that way, it needs to be that way. Things need to change from the slow motion we have with people starting up eco-living.”

Creators of Tripmi.ie gave a talk on Ireland’s new Carpooling website. Less is more, with Tripmi users and can join up to a carpool journey online or create their own. Other talks covered seed saving, composting and how to build your own wind turbine. New Irish company EIRBYTE installs and sell solar panels and wind turbines to power your broadband or conserve energy bills. Their talk focused on teaching how to make and install your own wind turbine. There was information aplenty on the current online organisers and innovative designers in the North West. The idea was to offer positive solutions for anyone interested in getting up and running with sustainable living. On hand were grounded plans and programs to help people see past buzzwords such as Bio- Eco- Renewable and Sustainable that are bandied about quite a bit. Trips were organised, with a hundred visitors Sunday, the Peter Cowman’s Living Architecture Centre, close to Drumsna, where all the ideas of the ECO-LIVING festival could be explained and experience in situ.

Peter Cowman, who lectures in Econospace design, has a special interest in mortgage-free self building. The Econospace design is a 25 square meter area building easily constructed for a variety of everyday uses such as a gym or office, and offers the aspiring sheltermaker a vehicle to help them realise there dream of creating their own comfortable, sustainable home. The unit can be standalone or come part of a larger building project, and because of its size requires no planning permission.

Mr. Cowman, Architect and Writer, began teaching people to build their own homes in 1989 and today runs the Living Architecture Centre that provides grassroots training to construct simple and proven timber framing ideal for self builders.

Peter and wife Alanna Moore, another expert in sustainable and holistic living, jointly run the website PermacultureIreland.ie and lecture and teach extensively here and overseas. Permaculture Ireland are facilitating summer workshops on topics covered at the festival. You can learn how to make no dig garden beds, include food growing into the home, Econospace making and Low Tech Living weekends and permaculture gardening.

Andrew St. Ledger came to the festival to give a talk on a NGO he helped set up called the Woodland League. In the last month the Woodland League put together their proposal on the future of Forestry in Ireland.

“Overall we were just delighted” says event organiser, Peter Cowman. “To get the word out on the direction we are looking in, drawing people together and staying positive.” Mr. St Ledgers talk on the Woodland League’s proposal came across as the big issue at the 2009 Eco-Living Festival, Drumsna, Co. Leitrim. Mr. Cowman called it, “Pivotal; the Woodland Leagues has an excellent proposal saying it is the forest that will nurture rural development. It makes so much sense.”

Check out

www.livingarchitecturecentre.ie

www.tripmi.ie

www.eirbyte.ie

www.woodlandleague.org

 

Tue 1 Sep 2009

Living Lightly 5

Posted by peter under Living Lightly
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Hi people,
Autumn comes too soon. I look at the rampant growth of the vegetable garden and think what a great summer it was for growing in Ireland! The tropical style bright sun interspersed with electrical storms and heavy downpours really got things growing and maturing fast. The cabbages have firm heads, the tomatoes are reddening up. Of course all that growth was helped along by sound permaculture principles – for instance, we cycle our own nutrients, don’t have to buy in fertilizer, our diluted urine is far superior!
cabbage1
One giant cabbage and three normal heads in our permaculture garden
Plants are mixed together, not in regimented rows of single species. The oak leaved lettuces have been giving us a few leaves every few days for many weeks now, with no sign of bolting. They are sheltered by a few zucchini plants. They do like a bit of shade.
The garden is such a source of joy. We love to watch the many insects hovering around the flowering mizunas (that’s a wonderful Japanese salad veg, in case you haven’t come across it). Little birds are diligently at work eating insects and the frogs from the nearby frog pond have done a great job reducing the slug population.
You may not be surprised to hear that the summer weather was sunnier and wetter than usual, with up to 2 or 3 times the normal rainfall. I have hardly had to water the garden at all! This tropical type weather also happened last year and with increased rainfall predicted by Climate Change scenarios, it augurs well for gardeners! However last summer was a bit too wet and many cereal crops just rotted and the grains were even sprouting on the heads, a disaster for the croppers (although oats can handle a lot of damp and are such an excellent food!)
Obviously these conditions are not good for traditional farming here. Nor is the removal of REPS subsidies, which have constituted up to half of the incomes of many County Leitrim farmers, the Leitrim Observer recently noted. Artificial props for unsustainable systems tend to fend off reality. Leitrim land tends to be poor, mismanaged, boggy etc for viable traditional farming. The damp and fertile soils, however, are brilliant for many crops. Ireland desparately needs greater food security, so with farmers leaving the land and farmland prices no doubt tumbling, the opportunity is growing for a new breed of farmers to come on board, people who use thoughtful, creative design to produce food. Permaculture principles can be applied for new and diversified crops. Small plots can be viable again…
I have had a productive summer myself, with time well spent writing a new book – ‘Sensitive Permaculture – cultivating the way of the sacred Earth’, hopefully soon to be available via Amazon. Will keep you posted.
EconoSpaceMaking
Peter is running a LIVE EconoSpaceMaking Course on the weekend of September 19/20th.  Participants can learn all about the design and construction of this planning-free, low-cost building.
This is the perfect way to positively embrace the issue of sustainable living and to explore the possibilities of mortgage-free living.
The current EconoSpace utilises clay-straw – the ultimate low-cost, environmentally-friendly building material.
Booking & Enquiries 076 602 6046

Please let us know of anything nicely permacultural happening so we can publicise it and if you want to get the odd email from us, ask to be put on our emailing list. We do love correspondence!
Happy gardening and eco-living!

Alanna Moore

Editor

27/8/09
LETTERS

Letter a reader, Jane Christie –

Hello,

I found your website and thought you might be able to help!

I am soon to move back to just outside Derry onto my Dad’s dairy farm.

I have done my permaculture design course and am really interested in putting it into action on the farm.

I’d really like to get in touch with other permaculture people in northern Ireland, do you know any?!

Thanks,

Jane

Email – janechristie1@hotmail.co.uk

* Jane was happy for us to publish her letter. We are also keen to know of any other relevant permaculture groups or activities in Ireland, so please tell us too!

We have offered Jane to go to Derry next year and give a talk on permaculture to motivate/focalise a bit of permaculture action there. Would anyone else like to organize a talk for us to give? Or a one day permaculture gardening or natural building course?

* Another reader wrote in to say that she found it confusing to find that there are two Permaculture Ireland websites. Agreed! Let’s just say that the .org site is not an organization at all (neither are we, but we don’t pretend to be!)


NEWS

VEC Permaculture course about to start in Wicklow Town:

PERMACULTURE

DESIGN

Part-time course

County Wicklow Vocational Education Committee

Community Education Programme

About the Course:

Successful participants may achieve

accreditation of a Minor Award at FETAC Level

5 in Permaculture Design.


Course Aims

• Develop an awareness of the importance of practical solutions-based approaches to environmental problems

• Be familiar with the practical application of Permaculture Design to a wide range of situations

• Be capable of assembling the appropriate elements of a Permaculture System in the most effective way possible

• Be able to carry out Permaculture Designs to a high standard

• Be empowered and inspired to apply what you have learned to your own lives


Units

PERMACULTURE PRINCIPLES

THE INTENSIVE FOOD GARDEN

THE GREEN HOME

THE SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITY

SUSTAINABLE LAND USE

PERMACULTURE DESIGN


Course Details

This is a one year part-time course running

from September 2009 to May 2010.

The course will be held on Tuesdays from

7.30pm to 9.30pm, (within normal term

times) in Co. Wicklow VEC Further Education

Campus, The Murrough, Wicklow Town.

The course will include site visits.

The tutor will use collaborative teamwork

and groupwork rather than lecture style

methodology.

The fee for this course is €125. Students

who are in receipt of Unemployment

Benefit/Assistance or have other social

welfare entitlements will pay a subsidised

fee of €20.


Who can Apply

Anyone who is interested in, or involved in

environmental sustainable community

projects.

Short-listing may apply for this course, and

places will be reserved for those in receipt

of Unemployment Benefit/Assistance, and

those with other social welfare entitlements.


Contact:

Mary Mooty

Community Education Section

Co. Wicklow VEC

The Murrough Education campus

The Murrough

Wicklow Town

tel: 0404 32574 | 086 0460510

Fax: 0404 32476

Email: mmooty@wicklowvec.ie
ARTICLES
Eco-Living Festival Report
by Seamus Mc Goldrick
As published in the Leitrim Observer
 

Sun 12 Jul 2009

ECONOSPACEMAKING

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THE ECONOSPACE CONCEPT
LIVE EconoSpacemaking Courses in August & September – see below for details
‘EconoSpace’ is an abbreviation of ‘economical space’. This relates to the design and construction of small buildings of the type which can be made by people themselves on minimal budgets. Learning how to create small buildings in this way is essential for anybody wishing to embrace a more sustainable life.
The EconoSpaceMaking process has been configured to be practical and realistic in respect of the time and resources people might have available to them. When these skills have been mastered a person then confidently tackle into the more demanding task of creating larger buildings.
Econo 1
Almost all modern building activity is subject to legislative control administered by local authorities. This means that one has to obtain some form of permission in order to build something. However there also exists a category of building activity which is largely free from legislative control called ‘Exempted Development’.
Exempted Development is designed to facilitate small scale works within the boundaries of existing properties – for example the building a shed or a studio behind an existing house. Generally there are limits to the floor area, the height, position and the use to which such small buildings can be put. EconoSpaces are designed to fall within Exempted Development limits.
THE ECONOSPACE ON IRISH TV
In some cases a building of 25sqm can be constructed with a ridge height of 4m which is quite a substantial size. Even a building of 10sqm, if it is well thought out, will facilitate many different uses and can be built very economically.
The EconoSpace design and construction process can be carried out with very little in terms of equipment.
Econo 2
Watch the EconoSpaceMaking action and hear the feedback LIVE!
DOWNLOAD ECONOSPACE BOOKLET
LIVE EconoSpacemaking Courses
Co. Leitrim, Ireland, Summer 2009
Sat/Sun August 22/23rd and September 19/20th
€150/Couples €250 (incl. lunch)
For bookings/further details:Phone  076 602 6046 [Ireland]  020 3287 2949 [UK]
Or email: sheltermaker @ gmail.com (leaving out the blanks)
Learn the secrets and skills of self-build, sustainable, low-impact, planning-free sheltermaking!  Based on the EconoSpace Design, a 25sqm building which can be configured for a variety of everyday uses, this workshop will forever change how you see and experience architecture and life!
❖ Learn how to configure your own EconoSpace design
❖ Discover the tools, materials and techniques of sustainable sheltermaking
❖ See how to set up a workshop and learn how to construct building components
❖ Help to assemble and erect a building frame
❖ Learn about making and installing windows and doors
❖ Get hands-on experience of the finishing-out process
❖ Discover how your can create your mortgage-free architecture
BOOKING AUGUST 22nd-23rd

BOOKING SEPTEMBER 19th-20th

These weekend LIVE Courses will cover Design and Construction allowing you to confidently tackle into creating your own EconoSpace.
Limited place available
FURTHER DETAILS OF THE ECONOSPACE CAN BE VIEWED HERE
 

Sun 12 Jul 2009

MAYO ENERGY AUDIT

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MAYO ENERGY AUDIT
Andy Wilson, director of Mayo’s Sustainability Institute and editor of Sustainability Magazine, along with colleague Paul Lynch, have produced a fascinating insight into what the future holds energy-wise for Ireland’s third biggest county.
This in-dept audit examines in detail Mayo’s current and projected energy demands paying close attention to the practicalities of applying the latest technological solutions to replace current fossil fuel dependence.
The primary conclusion of the Audit, apart from the usual call for reductions in consumption, is interesting in that it highlights the potential of forestry in providing for a range of needs, including energy, but not confined to that alone.
This is interesting as it pinpoints the needs for all solutions to future energy demand to have a social as well as a commercial aspects to them.
The Audit also clearly states that the State’s position regarding the ‘unlimited’ potential of Ireland’s wind and wave energy resources ‘do not stand up to serious scrutiny.’
This is a wake-up call not just for Mayo but for the entire country.
However it is the Audit’s focus on simple and affordable solutions that underwrites its success – for example the planting of 50,000 hectares broadleaves and conifers to provide not only for future energy needs but also to provide a firm foundation for the future social and economic development of the county.
ORDER MAYO ENERGY AUDIT
 

Sun 12 Jul 2009

Bring back the Wild Woodlands!

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Bring back the Wild Woodlands!

By Alanna Moore June 2009
(This is an extract from my forthcoming book – ‘Sustaining the Sacred – permaculture design for sensitive souls’)

We owe so much to trees. Trees have provided a multitude of benefits from their wood, leaves, bark, flowers and roots, giving us foodstuffs, timber and shelter, weaving materials, paper, fuel and medicinal products. They also protect the soil, create rain and are essential to healthy water catchments. They give us oxygen to breathe and they purify the atmosphere, with trees such as conifers able to absorb air pollution. They give us beautiful environments and habitat for wildlife. Trees have been central to human culture, the engine of ancient economies, until the last ones were felled…

There is nothing more anguished than the feeling of shock and annihilation when forests have been clear-felled and the land left in a wounded and impoverished state. In Ireland forest clearance was extensive from thousands of years ago, but although at a much slower pace, the long term effects are similar. In many cases lands cleared in the Bronze Age then enjoyed a flush of fertility for agriculture. But that often only lasted a few hundred years. The changing pollen records tell us that pasture land for grazing then predominated, or there was a natural return to trees, or the climate got wetter, after which vast bogs of acidic soil with an impervious iron podsol developed, the land’s fertility lost.

Like Ireland, most of northern Europe was originally totally forested. The last remaining natural Irish woodlands were lost between 1500 and 1700, as a result of colonisation. This left the land bare and the people more impoverished. There were even laws enacted in the seventeenth century banning people from harvesting timber from trees, when once, under the ancient Brehon laws, everyone was entitled to access to trees, enough to build their homes and satisfy their simple needs.

Nowadays only around 10% of Ireland is devoted to forestry, this being the lowest level in the EU. A total of just 2% (130,000ha) is native woodland, according to a recent National Forest Inventory, CRANN reports. But the plantations (they are not really forests) managed by the state are mostly monocultures of non-native conifers with only about 4.2% of the 10% being of mixed species and not necessarily native ones, explains Ireland’s Woodland League.

When the predominantly Sitka Spruce stands are clearfelled there are enormous negative effects on biodiversity, the nutrient depleted and acidic soil is then extremely vulnerable to erosion and landslips, while wildlife habitat and drainage patterns are destroyed. It’s basically total devastation.

The ugly cycle is repeated when more trees are afterwards planted, with liberal amounts of fertiliser sloshed around, much of which runs off to pollute watercourses that are not allowed the protection of vegetation on their banks. This typical style of Irish ‘forest management’, plain for all to see when you travel around the countryside, is minimal and gung ho, as they have managed to sidestep EU requirements for independent monitoring of watercourses and the like.

It’s almost as if the colonial mentality from 800 years of British occupation has been indelibly etched on the national psyche and, in terms of callous exploitation of the land, the Irish have become their own oppressors. Originally it was illegal to harm a tree, now, it seems, there are no adequate laws to protect them at all.

The ghastly spectre of Irish national forestry is a world away from Sustainable Forest Management, which says that ‘Forest resources and forest lands should be sustainably managed to meet the social, economic, ecological, cultural and spiritual needs of present and future generations.’ This is from the Forest Principles of Local Agenda 21, Principle 1 (b), a Blueprint for Sustainable Development in the 21st Century that was adopted as part of the Rio Convention of 1992. Ireland was a signatory to these principles, although perhaps it has slipped from their memory.

Andrew St Ledger of the Woodland League informs us that “One of the issues that they may not want to have had investigated [by the EU] is that despite the state forest company Coillte, who monopolise Irish forestry, having had Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification for nine years – they have no forest standard in place”. Such unsustainable forestry practises, as are the norm in Ireland, are endemic the world over as well. It’s happening under our noses and when we all know better.

What to do? A forest revolution is needed! St Ledger told me that the EU has decided that an ideal approach towards sustainable forestry is to encourage processes of natural regeneration and species succession. And this can happen with an almost ‘do nothing’ approach. John Seymour, the English self-sufficiency pioneer, wrote about these processes happening on his own land back in 1982.

“I fenced off five acres of land on my farm in Pembrokeshire against farm animals fifteen yeas ago,” he said. “…The ground soon got covered with gorse and bracken, the gorse gradually winning from the bracken, and then, after about five years, I noticed thousands of young birch beginning to grow through. Among these there was a sprinkling of alder, in the wetter parts, and ash in the drier. In one or two places there were young sessile oaks. …I shall be surprised, if I am still alive, if in 50 years time the area is not predominantly ash and oak – chiefly oak – and that this will become the ‘climax forest’,” he wrote.

Natural woodlands are not the only rare ecosystem in Ireland and elsewhere. We need to also recreate habitats such as wildflower meadows, as well. Let the native flowers bloom each spring, inviting in the wildlife, bringing helpful birds and bugs that can then patrol your food gardens. (Beware of cheap wildflower seed imports from somewhere else however, stick to local sources!)

If you end up with your own diverse meadows and woodlands you might want to encourage others to follow suit by becoming a seed supplier yourself. Not to mention all those wonderful by-products that a sensitive approach to small scale commercial mixed forestry might provide – such as timber, firewood and coppice rods, wild mushrooms, resin, herbs and honey.

But the backyard is not going to be big enough. In a sustainable future community based local economies need to have community forests to supply many of their needs. Natural forestry will be the key to survival, St Ledger concludes. When there is no more oil to burn and plastic to mould we will need to become wild woodsmen and women again!

References:

Waddell, John, ‘The Prehistoric Archeology of Ireland’, Galway University Press, Ireland, 1998.

Kelly, Fergus, Early Irish Farming’, Institute for Advanced studies, Dublin, Ireland, 1998.

Seymour, John, ‘The Lore of the Land’, Corgi Books, UK , 1982.

‘Pilot Project Proposal For Integrated Sustainable Forest Management in East Clare’ and ‘The Case of Ireland Funding Forests into the Future’ by Andrew St. Ledger & Kevin Hurley of the Woodland League, Ireland, download from www.woodlandleague.org

Wilson, Andy and Lynch, Paul, ‘Mayo Energy Audit 2009-2020’, Sustainability Institute, Ireland, 2008 (contact – office@sustainability.ie)

CRANN- Ireland’s Tree Magazine, no 85, summer 2009. www.crann.ie

 

Thu 9 Jul 2009

Living Lightly 4

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Dear Readers

Welcome to the fourth edition of Living Lightly this July 2009. We are happy to report a successful Eco-Living Festival held last month, which was attended by over 100 people each day and covered the cost of putting it on. It was worth our weeks of promotional work in the lead up just to see those happy faces and receive the lovely feedback, with everyone buzzing and wanting more!

img_2197-09-05-42

img_2187-09-05-42img_2191

The weekend was fun and informative, while behind the scenes there were some challenges to make things run smoothly. Last minute cancellations of several speakers resulted in surprise alternative presentations that filled the gap beautifully, so it was a very organic smorgasboard of events and a great occasion for social gathering and gluing. We didn’t get as much voluntary assistance as we wanted, but hopefully if there is a repeat helpers will be more forthcoming and would-be stall holders will actually turn up. (Volunteers receive a free weekend pass.)

For a second Eco-Living Festival, we think it would be grand to host one on the Lughnasa/August 1st weekend 2010 with a theme of Bringing in the Harvest, a first fruits celebration, as was enjoyed at this time of year in days of old. We would plan to offer more of the same (see Seamus’s Festival report following) especially the gardening workshops, as they were in great demand.

There’s a flavour of the forest running through this edition of LL. I hope you enjoy it. If you would like to be on our emailing list to find out when LL is coming out and what else is in store from Permaculture Ireland, do drop us a line. And we love feedback too!

Yours for a sustainable future,
Alanna Moore

FORTHCOMING EVENTS

BRING BACK THE WILD WOODLANDS!

MAYO ENERGY AUDIT

ECONOSPACEMAKING

 

Tue 12 May 2009

Living Lightly 3

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Welcome to the third issue of Living Lightly, in May 2009 it’s coming at a time for high action in the garden. As you make busy sourcing all those wonderful, organic heritage seeds and plants to grow, don’t forget to mark your calendars for June 6 – 7th, when our biggest event unfolds- the Eco-Living Festival, being held at Drumsna, Co. Leitrim.

At the festival we’ll be screening a wonderful film from the Seed Savers of Australia, about the amazing diversity of food gardens in Papua New Guinea, Asia and Pacific regions: ‘Seeds Bilongum Yumi’ (seeds belong to you and me). You are sure to be totally inspired to see people with some of the oldest and most sustainable gardening systems in the world (going back around 9000 years).

After the Festival we can all relax and enjoy the long summer days and lush garden growth. Here at our green meadow base of Sheeoge, in south Leitrim we’ll be building an Econospace cabin and developing the permaculture gardens. You can have a chance to see them at the Eco-Fest and also during some of the workshops we’ll be presenting in sustainable food and shelter over summer / autumn. For workshop listings, check out the events pages at this website.

Happy gardening!

Alanna Moore, editor.