permaculture

[Rain Tenaqiya <raincascadia@yahoo.com>]

The first permaculture principle that comes to mind here is to turn a problem 
into a solution: eat them.  If you can't bring yourself to do that than my 
experience with each of these is the following:
 
1.  Moles- aren't much of a problem except where they mess up foundations, 
paths, or greywater pipes, etc.  They are carnivores and pretty much leave 
plants alone.  If necessary, underground mole traps or a cat work pretty well.
 
2.  Voles- the bane of my existence, making it very difficult to establish 
trees and impossible to have an annual garden.  Trapping is the only 
guaranteed solution for an annual garden, but a cat can be good enough for 
perennials.  Vole population and behavior vary widely by climate, vegetation, 
population dynamics, etc.  I am in a Mediterranean climate with oak savannah. 
 Simply observe where voles are currently active and put regular mouse traps 
in their tunnels and paths, covered with buckets or pots to keep out cats and 
to make a safer-feeling environment for the voles.  The traps with the wide 
plastic ramp-triggers work best.  Trees and other perennials must be planted 
with aviary wire all the way around their roots and the upper six inches of 
trunk to be totally safe, though I often just use plastic bottles with their 
bottoms cut out around small plants, with three or more inches sticking above 
the ground for small or cheap plants that
 voles seem less interested in.  During dips in the vole population, you can 
sometimes get trees or shrubs established without much trouble, but this is 
very risky and voles have been known to topple mature trees like figs.
 
3.  Gophers- similar to voles, though fewer in number, thus making them 
easier to trap.  Traps usually must be specifically made for voles and all 
tunnels are underground, making the setting of traps trickier and more 
laborious.  
 
4.  Deer- fencing deer is the only long-term solution, other than killing 
them.  Depending on the topography and population density, fencing must be 
more or less elaborate.  I've used two inch mesh chicken wire on posts set 15 
ft apart with the fencing only six feet high with few problems.  The plastic 
fencing also works great, though degrades faster if in the sun.  Eight ft is 
recommended in more densely populated areas, though you can get away with 
shorter fencing by putting lines of twine above the fencing, spaced every ft 
or so.  White flagging helps the deer see the twine.  Two four foot high 
barriers spaced four feet apart also works, and one or both of these can be 
hedges, so fencing can be reduced by live barriers over time.  Dense bamboo 
can work, for example.  Fencing with ground receding on the outside works 
better than the opposite.  Less sturdy fencing requires more observation and 
maintenance.  Trained dogs can also keep deer
 away.
 
For trees out in the open, I've used five ft high fencing cut in seven ft 
pieces to make rounds that are secured on one or more stakes.  This is the 
minimum protection trees need to grow above the browse level, and most 
branches within the fence will eventually get chewed off by the deer.  I 
often have to use sticks to direct the branches up and away from the fencing. 
 Wider fencing would be better, but would require more stakes.  Eventually, 
the fencing can be removed, but you need to watch for deer destroying the 
trunks by rubbing their antlers on them during the rutting season (Fall).  
This is more common in open country, and may require basically permanent wire 
mesh or other barriers on the trunks.
 
Keep in mind that everything I've said is from my experience on the US West 
Coast, and conditions may be different elsewhere.  Also beware of gimmicky 
recommendations like putting scents out to deter beasts, or those silly solar 
vibrator things (which may work on a limited scale when move around 
frequently).  For real subsistence food growing situations, "easy" solutions 
will not work over time, in my experience.
 
Good luck,
 
Rain



>From cory8570@yahoo.com  Mon Nov  1 17:57:25 2010
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Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2010 14:57:03 -0700 (PDT)
From: Cory Brennan <cory8570@yahoo.com>
To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
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Subject: Re: [permaculture] hierarchies and networks
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In some of the projects I've been involved with, we haven't had time to get 
consensus - there were too many life and death situations and sometimes we 
just acted without asking anybody, because we knew what to do to save lives 
and even simply explaining to someone who didn't understand it or agree with 
it would take too long. 

In less grim situations, I've seen consensus minus one, or 85% majority, or 
other non-unanimous varieties work well and not be abused, personally. Maybe 
it is the groups I've been in. We never used it to ignore the concerns of the 
holdout - part of the deal was to allow the dissenting parties to state why 
they are dissenting. I found that people would communicate to that person 
after the meeting and continue to try to work with the person to meet their 
concerns. In one case, the person was clearly intent on disrupting the 
activities of the group to get what they wanted, and we asked the person to 
leave, but only after giving them several chances to work it out. The project 
could have been seriously disrupted if we had continued to try to accomodate 
this individual. I do not feel that one person should be able to hold up the 
forward progress of an entire group if the rest of them are working smoothly 
together and making progress toward a mutual goal. That
 person should, instead, find a group he/she can agree with and work with. 
There are lots of tribes out there! 

I like that juries must reach consensus to convict. There are certain 
decisions that I feel consensus should be used to make. Being able to discuss 
a matter and reach consensus on it is a very useful skill set, but I've also 
found hierarchies quite useful. 

Cory

--- On Mon, 11/1/10, jamesdavid Sneed <harvestcircle@hotmail.com> wrote:

> From: jamesdavid Sneed <harvestcircle@hotmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [permaculture] hierarchies and networks
> To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> Date: Monday, November 1, 2010, 11:00 AM
> 
> I wonder if the division between heirarchy and
> decentralization is sometimes too "either-or", when small,
> decentralized heirarchies may be an avenue to use strong
> leadership. Consensus without strong individuals can
> SOMETIMES lead to weak groups, vulnerable to outside
> conditions that end up "steering the drifting boat".
> I do think that small heirarchies that are limited in their
> vertical intgration must have a common theme to be
> effective, be it philosophical, spiritual, familial, or
> other. But then, groups using consensus also need that
> cohesion. Also necessary for those limited heirarchies is
> the true willingness of the leadership to consult and listen
> to all members, with real inclusiveness. This is probably
> less possible if a group exceeds fifty or so members.
> One ptfall I found that ruined several groups run by
> consensus was the silly idea of "consensus minus one" which
> was promoted as a way to avoid being bogged down by a
> stick-in-the-mud individual but always became a way of
> ignoring the wisdom or concerns of the last holdout to
> consensus. Consensus minus one is nothing like consensus and
> denatures the whole purpose.
> How do other permaculture groups deal with this?
>  
> > From: toby@patternliteracy.com
> > Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2010 14:54:09 -0700
> > To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> > Subject: [permaculture] hierarchies and networks
> > 
> > One subject we touched on in the recent certification
> thread was new and old tools for change, and the difference
> between hierarchical and decentralized organizations and
> tools. I'd said that I once had high hopes for decentralized
> leadership tools, like consensus, but was disappointed by
> how rarely they live up to their promise. I've been
> skeptical of the value of these and similar methods to
> actually produce change, and have found the older
> tools--strong leadership, old-style voting--at least as
> effective (though I still prefer inclusive versions of these
> tools to exclusive).
> > 
> > I was catching up on a stack of New Yorker magazines
> this morning, and in the Oct 4 issue there's an article that
> fits right in to this conversation, "Small Change" by
> Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell is known for his book "The
> Tipping Point" and in general being a whole systems thinker.
> He's made the points I would have liked to have made. I was
> intrigued that he feels network tools aren't good for doing
> design, and that they are better at preserving the status
> quo than changing it. So here's a quote from the article. 
> > 
> > "Unlike hierarchies, with their rules and procedures,
> networks aren’t controlled by a single central authority.
> Decisions are made through consensus, and the ties that bind
> people to the group are loose. This structure makes networks
> enormously resilient and adaptable in low-risk situations.
> Wikipedia is a perfect example. . . .
> > 
> > "There are many things, though, that networks don’t
> do well. Car companies sensibly use a network to organize
> their hundreds of suppliers, but not to design their cars.
> No one believes that the articulation of a coherent design
> philosophy is best handled by a sprawling, leaderless
> organizational system. Because networks don’t have a
> centralized leadership structure and clear lines of
> authority, they have real difficulty reaching consensus and
> setting goals. They can’t think strategically; they are
> chronically prone to conflict and error. How do you make
> difficult choices about tactics or strategy or philosophical
> direction when everyone has an equal say?
> > 
> > "The Palestine Liberation Organization originated as a
> network, and the international-relations scholars Mette
> Eilstrup-Sangiovanni and Calvert Jones argue in a recent
> essay in International Security that this is why it ran into
> such trouble as it grew: “Structural features typical of
> networks—the absence of central authority, the unchecked
> autonomy of rival groups, and the inability to arbitrate
> quarrels through formal mechanisms—made the P.L.O.
> excessively vulnerable to outside manipulation and internal
> strife.”
> > 
> > "In Germany in the nineteen-seventies, they go on,
> “the far more unified and successful left-wing terrorists
> tended to organize hierarchically, with professional
> management and clear divisions of labor." . . . They seldom
> betrayed their comrades in arms during police
> interrogations. Their counterparts on the right were
> organized as decentralized networks, and had no such
> discipline. These groups were regularly infiltrated, and
> members, once arrested, easily gave up their comrades.
> Similarly, Al Qaeda was most dangerous when it was a unified
> hierarchy. Now that it has dissipated into a network, it has
> proved far less effective.
> > 
> > "The drawbacks of networks scarcely matter if the
> network isn’t interested in systemic change—if it just
> wants to frighten or humiliate or make a splash—or if it
> doesn’t need to think strategically. But if you’re
> taking on a powerful and organized establishment you have to
> be a hierarchy . . . .
> > 
> > "But [network-based activism] is simply a form of
> organizing which favors the weak-tie connections that give
> us access to information over the strong-tie connections
> that help us persevere in the face of danger. It shifts our
> energies from organizations that promote strategic and
> disciplined activity and toward those which promote
> resilience and adaptability. It makes it easier for
> activists to express themselves, and harder for that
> expression to have any impact. The instruments of social
> media are well suited to making the existing social order
> more efficient. They are not a natural enemy of the status
> quo. If you are of the opinion that all the world needs is a
> little buffing around the edges, this should not trouble
> you. But if you think that there are still lunch counters
> out there that need integrating [Gladwell mentioned civil
> rights activists] it ought to give you pause."
> > 
> > The full article is at 
> > http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all
> > 
> > Toby
> > http://patternliteracy.com
> > 
> > 
> > 
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