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  • From: Wesley Roe and Marjorie Lakin Erickson <lakinroe@silcom.com>
  • To: "permaculture" <permaculture@franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: PERMACULTURE IN MACEDONIA
  • Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2001 13:35:53 -0700


Hi everyone
I have collected articles on the Permaculture Project in Macedonia from UN sites and more.
I went to Louisiana and heard four of the Macedonians working on the Project give a talk plus Australian Permaculture Teacher Designer Geoff Lawton. Also present where Andrew Johnson (Permaculture Graduate) Manager of the Cegrane Refugee Camp largest Refugee Camp in the Balkans. For more info go to Northern Louisiana Commerce Center website at www.nwlcc.com and check out there newsletter. NWLCC are hoping to establish a Permaculture based Training Education Center for International Aid at the former Military Base . Here is a Workshop posting "The goal would be to further understand the current need for an educational training center for emergency aid and post crisis development" This is just one approach. Hope this will help the discussion
Wes Roe Santa Barbara Ca
ps below is a radio interview with some of the folks

PERMACULTURE IN MACEDONIA http://www.loe.org/archives/000721.htm#feature4

TOOMEY: It's Living on Earth. I'm Diane Toomey.
Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians fled the
war in the former Yugoslav republic of Kosovo last
year. Nearly 50,000 of them camped near the
northern villages of Cegrane and Forino in
neighboring Macedonia. After the refugees returned
to Kosovo their camp was left in shambles, but
international aid workers and local residents
decided to rehabilitate the site and give it a new
mission. It will soon be a facility to teach the
principles of something called permaculture, a
design for living that makes sustainable use of the
land and its waste. Cindy Shiner reports from
Cegrane, Macedonia.

(Hammering)

SHINER: Workers at the Rudina mountain site are
laboring feverishly in the dry midday heat. Some
are assembling the frame of the new library and
teaching facility.

(A chainsaw revs up)

SHINER: Others are perched on top of the building's
skeleton, cutting wooden beams down to size.
They're rushing to finish before an upcoming party
to celebrate the end of phase two of the Rudina
permaculture project. When Albanian refugees left
the 125-acre emergency camp last year to return to
their homeland, tent poles, wire, and scrap metal
remained as monuments, both to the refugees and
to the money spent to house them. Now, with
donations from CARE International and other
organizations, a plan is underway with a few goals
in mind: to rework the land, establish a
permaculture demonstration and teaching center,
and foster local economic development.

(Water flows)

SHINER: Standing next to a man watering one of
thousands of fruit trees planted on Rudina ,
National Manager Patjim Saiti is inspecting the
mountainside through dark rectangular sunglasses.
Trees are growing, grass is sprouting, vegetables
are flourishingÂ….

(Digging)

SHINER: Â…all in an area whose name means "dry
mountain."

SAITI: This might have been dry for centuries, I can
say, and no products have been produced here.
With our working less than eight months, now we
have our products, and we have changed the
history. We are proud of that.

SHINER: Permaculture is a concept derived from the
words "permanent" and "agriculture." Ecology is
used as the basis for designing integrated systems
of food production, housing, technology, and
community, that can continue without degrading
the environment. Since the idea was developed in
Australia in the 1970s, hundreds of permaculture
sites have sprung up around the globe, including
the United States. Environmentalist Dave Clark
wants to spread the word about permaculture. He
says it's necessary to help offset damage caused by
conventional agriculture, or monoculture, whereby
the soil is depleted of its nutrients.

CLARK: We're losing our soil at an incredible rate.
It takes nature, in a good situation, maybe 100
years to build up a couple of inches of topsoil. And
the wheat fields of west Australia and other parts
of the world are losing soil at the rate of an inch a
year. That's 1,000 tons to the acre per crop. The
production of sugar, for every ton of white sugar
that goes on our tables, we lose 53 tons of soil
forever, into the sea. This is obviously not
sustainable.

SHINER: Permaculture, he says, can help. Through
mulching and planting a diversity of vegetation, a
couple inches of soil per year can be saved.

(Footfalls)

IZAIRI: Behind you.

SHINER: Xhemile Izairi is a leader of one of the
women's on-site teams. Here, she plucks weeds
from around frilly heads of lettuce in a flourishing
garden that makes use of the permaculture
techniques of companion planting and curved
garden beds. In companion planting, different types
of plants growing together help one another, sort of
an agricultural democracy. The strong scent of
marigolds wards off some pests, and the roots of
one plant harvest the nutrients another needs. Few
women had ever held jobs in the Muslim community
around Rudina before this project began. Many of
them were already good gardeners, and the high
pay was something their husbands couldn't ignore.
Improving gender relations was an unexpected
social benefit of the permaculture program.

(Gathering straw)

SHINER: Recycling is another key component of
permaculture. Straw, for example, is a waste
product of agricultural production. Here at Rudina,
it's baled and used for building, because it's big
and easy to handle. This makes for thick walls,
which help with energy efficiency. Something
important in a poor area like Macedonia, which has
bitter winters and scorching summers.

(Clanking)

SHINER: The bales are secured with cement and
chickenwire. Architect Samantha Smith says all of
the buildings on the site were built with recycled
material, including some of the thousands of
blankets donated during the war.

SMITH: One of the big parts of this project was to
find a use for this junk. For the roofs, for example,
in those roundhouses is old fencing wire that's not
good for fencing any more, and refugee blankets
dipped in concrete and strung out over the frame.
And then we cover them in thatch to make them
look pretty, because while using the refugee
blankets was a good idea, though it wasn't very
pretty.

SHINER: But it was economical. Each year hundreds
of millions of dollars go toward relief efforts around
the world. Emergency refugee camps are often built
on poor-quality land. And grading it for temporary
housing damages the ground further. Reversing that
costs money. Some international donors see Rudina
as a model for how to respond to future refugee
crises. Patty Culpepper is with the U.S. Bureau of
Population Refugees and Migration, a key funder of
the Rudina endeavor.

(Milling voices)

CULPEPPER: This project is, basically it's a
benchmark of how you can use what's available in a
former refugee camp. Used in a positive way to
build something lasting for a community that used
to be a host community. I think the important thing
that I've seen in this particular project is how the
project leaders have sought to ensure that the local
communities feel that they are participants in the
project, and that they understand what's going on,
and they are part of the decision-making. And that
sort of grassroots decision-making, grassroots
democratization is really, I think, something that
sometimes is overlooked.

SHINER: And in a politically volatile area such as
the Balkans, that makes the potential benefits of
permaculture that much more striking. Rudina
Project Coordinator Brooke Watson says
permaculture is about working together and
improving lives.

WATSON: We've got recycling and we've got
harvest reduction and education courses, and all of
these things are ways in which the community can
make money on an ongoing basis. So our idea is to
try and empower the community, not only to deal
with their own issues but to help other communities
deal with their issues.

(Milling voices, laughter, shouting)

SHINER: Hundreds of people from the communities
surrounding Rudina pass through the site's gates to
celebrate the permaculture project, and remember
the refugees. The guests dip their hands in blue,
white, and green paint, and leave their hand prints
on two entrance walls: a symbol of working
together and the refugee plight.

(Music plays amidst the voices)

SHINER: The crowd files past the gardens, fruit
trees, and straw bale buildings, and settles back at
the site's amphitheater. Among the guests are two
mayors from rival political parties. All here to enjoy
the progress of this permaculture community.

(Music continues)

SHINER: For Living on Earth, I'm Cindy Shiner in
Cegrane, Macedonia.

(Music continues, up and under)

TOOMEY: You can hear our program any time on our
Web site. The address is www.loe.org That's
www.loe.org. And while you're online, send your
comments to us as letters@loe.org. Once again,
letters@loe.org. Our postal address is 8 Story
Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138. And you
can reach our listener line at 800-218-9988. That's
800-218-9988.




  • PERMACULTURE IN MACEDONIA, Wesley Roe and Marjorie Lakin Erickson, 10/14/2001

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