permaculture

[Marsha Hanzi <mhanzi@yahoo.com>]

 

The recent research which shows quality of life for gatherers ( who do eventual hunting and not those who do largescale hunting)  goes back to the case that if your ecosystem is rich and full, you can live well with little.  Of course it also has to do with re-defining what happiness is, as I said in another posting.

 

Our agroforest work here in Brazil is basically to re-invent this lifestyle, ceating fully rich productive ecosystems which, after about 3 years of management, can perfectly well tick along on their own indefinitely.  Of course if you manage more, you can enhance production if you so desire...

 

Along with this implementation of agroforests, normally on bare pasture or  degraded farmland,  we set about to learn about the local plants and animals which inevitably spring up in our systems- who they are, and how we can interact with them...In the end we become more hunter-gatherers ( as these systemas are ALWAYS rich in fauna-very difficult to be a vegetarian here..) than farmers...

 

Although many people get into agroforests with the intention to "produce for the market" somewhere along the way something magic happens, and they sort of just settle into another lifestyle, where market  concerns become secondary, and the sheer pleasure of living and working in such a system dominates...

 

This certainly is what I am aiming for in my7 hectares that I am implementing in the drylands- a really neat place which will support about 5 people , on the basis of going out in the morning with a basket and asking Nature- "what will we eat today"? In my case, a cash crop will be cashew nuts, which one gathers up from the ground, puts in bags, and sells like that, or processes, as well as a marvellous native drylands palm whose seed tastes something between coconut and nuts... I  aim to have this all rich and ticking before I get too old to work ( 20 years from now?) 

 

The rest of the time I can do patchwork and music, or shell nuts, or visit with neighbors or guests...Or just goof off and watch the clouds...And when it gets REALLY too hot, to do anything, maybe visit other communities in other climates....

 

OF COURSE the neighbors are looking, astonished, over the fence, and beginning to think about certain techniques I have used, such as recycling coconut shells, abundant in the neighborhood but normally burnt.  In fact the  mason's assistant told me that two neighbors had said to him that "Of all the things I had done up till now, that was the best idea":-)...So although I am working towards an ideal lifestyle, a sort of  localized neo-primitivism,which is in balance so we dont have to move on to  new ground, it is having certain repercussions in the neighborhood, and will even more when my land is greener than the neighbors- which is already happening, even in the first year..  And they always stop to ask over the fence what am I doing and why I am doing that...

 

Our "forest guru", Ernst Gotsch, has been living this lifestyle for about 15 years now, and I have seen many lives changed just from visiting him...So   such examples can have a social impact,  in many different degrees... It seems to me that this was what Bill Mollison was originally aiming at when he created Permaculture...

 

I would LOVE to live in a forest and wander, near a river, foraging-- these spaces are not so  available any more.  So we are trying to create the next best solution... And it  is fun!

 

Marsha Hanzi

Bahia, Brazil.

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