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  • From: Wesley Roe and Santa Barbara Permaculture Network <lakinroe@silcom.com>
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [permaculture] For Haiti Discussion/ Sustainablity in a War Torn Nation by Rosemary Morrow/Hopedance Magazine
  • Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2010 08:21:45 -0800

Global Sustainabilty Reports- Hopedance Magazine 2005?

This column encourages observation of cultures around the world with the hope of seeing positive sustainable patterns we in our own communities might adopt. Sustainablity is a worthy goal, but can it survive something as destructive as war? What can even a practical system like permaculture hope to contribute in situations as difficult as these? And is it possible to counter powerful forces that want and need the resources of weaker developing nations? We continue our look around the globe with a focus this time on Cambodia and the permaculture project trainings of Rosemary Morrow.

As always, readers are encouraged to submit their own observations for future columns. Column Editor, Margie Bushman



Sustainablity in a War Torn Nation
by Rosemary Morrow


I have been teaching permaculture for nearly 16 years and during that time I have examined many other types of sustainable living practices. I have studied biodynamics, organic gardening and farming, systems agriculture and so on. Not one is as comprehensives as permaculture. It has so many facets that it is very difficult to find it all together in one place. Teaching it in developing nations is a challenge. In effect some things work in some places, in some climates and with some people. Lots of techniques fail. It can take years for sustainable practices such as intergrated pest management (IPM) to begin working. Soil building, although a quicker process through permaculture than nature, also takes time. But can poor farmers afford the time and loss of crop while they wait? Who will subsidize them while they are repairing the land from devastating things like war?
Cambodia is often called the country of the `secret war’, the country USA bombed heavily without ever declaring war. War is a serious destroyer of sustainability and social coherence, and the genocide which followed the war in Cambodia further reduced sustainability. Bombing destroyed natural resources, cultivated areas and cultural heritage.
War also reduces the ability of a country to withstand undesirable foreign influences. Neighbours who illegally cut forests, people who traffic in women and children, and a corrupt military can reduce respect for the law and the country’s confidence in its culture and ability to control its own future. Greedy and ruthless industry enters the vacuum left by war, then hard sells cigarettes, pharmaceuticals, fertilizers, seed and a range of other non-sustainable products. Foreign and disinterested world monetary organizations direct fiscal policy and reconstruction with no regard to sustainable outcomes, and blame the country for its poverty or inability to cope with their decisions. Sustainability finds itself in crisis and crisis requires relief.
Quaker Service Australia (QSA) has a long history in Cambodia, having arrived early and served as a de facto consulate while the rest of the world was boycotting the country because the Vietnamese were occupying it and fighting the Khmer Rouge. For some years they offered English language training because the people, emerging from trauma and genocide, needed a common language to confer with the rest of the world. Soon, QSA switched to offering permaculture training projects to rural provinces. This has been a small and certainly step-by-step, process.
I was sent to Cambodia by QSA, where I spent some weeks discussing the possibilities of introducing permaculture into the country. There were talks with many organizations and finally QSA approached the Cambodian Women’s Union (later the Ministry of Women’s Affairs) which had a network that reached into all the villages from province, to district, to commune. I asked whether some provincial staff would like to learn permaculture in Phnom Penh and do training of trainers, and they agreed. At this stage there was no commitment for any further project but just three months later a four week course was held in Phnom Penh.
At the end of the Permaculture Design Course, several women asked very specifically for permaculture training in their own province. QSA decided to work with one of the most able provincial women’s unions which later became the Department of Women’s Affairs(DWA) in Pursat province, and some months later ran a Permaculture Design Course to selected staff. There were 16 district and Pursat town staff women chosen by the director who would later train other women and farmers in the communes and villages.
In the meantime, another course had been asked for by Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and participants from this course who had tertiary agricultural training now translated key chapters of my book into Khmer language. So those who could read now had a reference book to refer to afterwards.
The Australian Embassy made a grant and a third course was held and this was open to agricultural staff of other NGO's and IOs. A sustainable agriculture centre soon opened in Phnom Penh assisted by Japanese volunteers. However the main problem was there are no models of permaculture in a country which has been devastated by war. So where to start? One condition of the training was before starting extension to farmers, all participants would design and make their own gardens. Classic permaculture items such as tire ponds and herb spirals were not included. A tire pond where there are no spare tires and it is bone dry and not one drop of rain falls for 3-4 months is not useful. However metre-square beds, kitchen door beds and raised compost piles are. And generally little effort was made to teach specific techniques, instead participants were given the principles and some strategies and then asked to develop new or to use old techniques. So a type of indigenous adapted permaculture was developed.
Trainers were then offered assistance in making learning materials which consisted of trainer’s books, posters and leaflets. These could be used for literate, newly literate or illiterate farmers. In this way the trainers really used their experience of developing a garden and ensured they knew the curriculum.
The project started small with a one year trial among some farmers, then developed into a three year project. There were millions of problems, however essentially weaknesses were identified, then special refresher courses given. Trainers learned how to monitor. Then the trainers were asked to train other NGOs.
Later some farmers who grew surplus food participated in a food processing project and were able to generate income. Today about 80% of those who farmers who learned permaculture are still practicing it. Many have gone beyond it with new techniques and strategies. With other NGOs, government officials and more awareness on TV and radio, the boundaries of who learned what and where are now blurred. A very strict evaluation was not possible, nonetheless one was attempted and the Department of Women’s Affairs in Pursat considers that the permaculture project was their most successful for rural people.

Rosemary Morrow works as a consultant on permaculture programs run by Quaker Service Australia in South East Asia. She is passionate about the right of everyone to have enough food to eat and her life is dedicated to simplicity and the right sharing of world resources. She lectures, writes books, and runs workshops on Permaculture in her home country of Australia, and is very absorbed with Alternatives to Violence programs. For more articles on her work with QSA, see www.quakers.org.au

-END-




  • [permaculture] For Haiti Discussion/ Sustainablity in a War Torn Nation by Rosemary Morrow/Hopedance Magazine, Wesley Roe and Santa Barbara Permaculture Network, 01/14/2010

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