permaculture

[Steve Hart <stevenlawrencehart@gmail.com>]

Yep...too true LL...most of these examples you speak of if not all..and I
have visited many are very isolated and do not blanket entire countries or
even regions but small pockets..these people I include in the gifted
percentage I suggest. And yes look at the mongrels destroying such habitat
to support the western consumerist society driven primarily if not
absolutely by the economic regime we have been hedged into since the Mont
Pelerin Society formed and locked us all in their straight jacket. Its time
for another group to meet at Mont Pelerin to formulate a new policy. Who
are the comentators on Green Economics ? Daly, Lovins,  Henderson, Louge,
Kenedy, Atkisson, ? who else...its time to call that conference...otherwise
we are just perpetuating the same deficant...Steve Hart

On 29 November 2012 20:04, venaurafarm <venaurafarm@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> On 11/29/2012 12:35 AM, Steve Hart wrote:
> > I'd like to move this debate into another plane in suggesting that of the
> > potential 9 billion 8.8 billion don't deserve to exist on this planet.
> This
> > mass have no concept of any argument that they being members of species
> man
> > and their manner of living is perpetuating the deficant that will
> suffocate
> > their very existence. This majority exists at every level of society.
> > Although most of the argument of saving the planet has shifted finally to
> > saving the species  this large majority has no knowledge or understanding
> > of the peril of their existence. This also applies to all levels of
> > society. So the reality in my mind is prepare for extinction by running
> > workshops on how to bend over and kiss your arse good bye. I prefer to
> be a
> > realist and an optimist as I always have been rather than a pessimist as
> I
> > may now appear. But if we look hard at all the facts in front of us the
> > outlook is all too obvious. The society this species has evolved is one
> > totally dictated by the economic policy we exist in. It has been
> designed.
> > And now needs to be redesigned if we desire to evolve towards any degree
> of
> > sustainability and survival as a species....more sooon. Steve Hart
>
> Tell you what, Steve. I think you may be describing a problem that
> exists with Westernized culture, Western civilization. Go here and take
> a long look at these people.
> http://pinterest.com/gr2food/asia-food-agriculture/
>
> These people know how to survive and stay healthy. They have been doing
> these same thing probably for thousands of years.
>
> The people described in this article, the way they farm and nourish
> themselves, put us Westernized souls to shame. Ant yet some of the worst
> elements of Western civilization threaten their land and their ability
> to survive on it; but they seek ways to preserve what they have for
> perpetuity. It is amazing to think of how quickly thousands of years of
> work and naturally evolved ecosystems can be lost or destroyed in a few
> months or years:
>
> aquaculture in Phillpine rice terraces PBase
>
> NATURAL FARMING IN THE PHILIPPINES:
> TRADITIONAL FARMING SYSTEMS AND LOCAL EFFORTS TO SAVE THEM
>
> http://www.terraquaculture.net/articles/Workman_Natural%20Farming%20in%20the%20Philippines_2011.pdf
>
> Like traditional forest dwellers the world over the Kalanguya's way of
> life is exposed to many threats
> and the introduction of coffee to their forests was a strategic response
> to a major environmental threat.
> The planting of coffee in these forests began in earnest in the 1970′s
> when the introduction of cattle
> grazing threatened to destroy the forests and the entire terraqueous
> system. Insightful farmers realized
> that in order to save the forests they needed to develop more cash crops
> that required forest cover and
> began to plant coffee widely. Initially the plan was a success with the
> grazing of cattle quickly
> abandoned but a crash in coffee prices in the 1980′s and subsequent
> fluctuations have exposed the
> forest to new threats. When prices are good the coffee, a plant that
> naturally grows in the shade of
> forests, provides a good income and encourages the maintenance of forest
> cover in the mountains.
> When prices fall the less scrupulous farmers become susceptible to the
> suggestions and practices of
> outsiders more focused on exploitation than sustainability.
> Most recently Filipino government agricultural advisors have been
> encouraging the forest farmers to
> cut down patches of forest in order to grow coffee plants in the open –
> a practice utilized for increased
> production of coffee through the faster maturation of the plant and
> short cycles of plantation
> regeneration, i.e., an industrial monocultural approach to coffee
> production that requires the destruction
> of the forest and the subsequent depletion of fertility in order to
> increase productivity marginally for a
> short time. But, as Sandor Ellix Katz points out, “it does not make any
> kind of sense for the people (or
> the land) of any place to grow massive quantities of stimulants for
> export rather than nutritious food for
> local consumption. It only happens by the exercise of force and the
> alienation of people from the
> land.”2
> The origins of slavery and colonization are to be found in the
> production of stimulants – chocolate,
> coffee and sugar – for the Western world and it is in the production of
> these same commodities that
> slavery persists to this day. And while we may believe that colonizing
> armies are a thing of the past, in
> Figure 3: Community rice harvest, Bulpog
> truth, the methods of military persuasion have merely been exchanged for
> the economic persuasion of
> the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade
> Organization, transnational
> corporations and Third World debt.
> The true beneficiaries of deforestation and open coffee plantations will
> not be the Kalanguya, not even
> in the short run, but Nestlē, the main buyer of coffee in the region.
> Coffee production in the Philippines
> is one of globalized free market capitalisms all too familiar tragic
> tales. From the villages just thirty
> minutes walk from the forests where the Kalanguya grow their high
> quality, organic, shade grown
> coffee to throughout the whole of the Philippines people are consuming,
> in great quantities, Nescafē
> 3'n'1 – low grade instant coffee premixed with milk powder, sugar and
> artificial sweeteners and
> ubiquitously accompanied by slick advertisements featuring film,
> television and pop stars.
> Again the Bulpog clan of the Kalanguya are formulating a response to
> these latest threats in order to
> protect their way of life and the forests of which they are a part.
> In 2007 the Julia Campbell Agro-forestry Memorial Park (JCAMP) was
> founded on the land of the
> Puguon family.3 The idea for the park grew out of the group Indigenous
> Farmers for Sustainable
> Agriculture, founded by Gerald Puguon Jr., with the mandate of
> protecting the traditional farming
> systems of the area and the environments of which they are an integral
> part.
> The vision of JCAMP is the formation of an expanding area of land where
> traditional natural farming
> techniques are practiced and the environment on which they depend is
> conserved. The park currently
> covers 100 hectares and numbers 100 households. In joining the park the
> members agree to a few basic
> rules; no slash and burn agriculture or clear cutting, no chemicals and
> no hunting. Although the rule
> against hunting may seem a little incongruous for people of the forest
> it is required to protect the civet
> cat (a cat like mammal native to the tropics of Africa and Asia although
> introduced to the Philippines)
> which processes coffee beans by eating the flesh of the fruit and
> leaving the bean behind in droppings.
> Civet coffee demands a very high price and is viewed by the JCAMP
> families as a valuable resource to
> be protected. The no hunting rule also serves to protect the birds of
> the forest and it is aimed, not so
> much at the families living within the park but at hunters that stray on
> to their land. As Gerald Puguon
> Jr. explains, the people of Bulpog, with their largely vegetarian diet,
> domestic chickens and pigs, are
> not dependent on hunting and it is usually done as sport and often by
> poachers.
> Families that join the park and operate within its few basic rules are
> able to sell their civet coffee
> directly to a Texas based coffee roaster and distributor, Bantai Civet
> Coffee.4 While the price JCAMP
> members receive from Bantai for their civet coffee is relatively high
> civet coffee, as it is wild harvested
> from the droppings of a wild animal, is very time intensive and can only
> be supplied in relatively low
> quantities. JCAMP members are able to supply organic, shade grown
> arabica and robusta coffee in
> much larger quantities but are finding it very difficult to break in to
> the fiercely competitive world of
> fair trade, organic coffee. Without the resources to gain certification
> or even to send samples overseas
> the Bulpog Kalanguya need to find partners to provide the minimal
> financing required to give them
> access to international markets. With the nearest internet access 2
> hours journey from their village the
> Bulpog Kalanguya face severe disadvantages in operating on the
> international stage on to which they
> have been pushed.
> Given the size of the domestic coffee market in the Philippines an even
> better alternative might be for
> the coffee to be sold locally by community owned companies.
> Unfortunately, the omnipresence of
> Nescafē and their manufactured preference for sweet, milky instant
> coffee make this an even harder
> market to crack.
>
>
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-- 
Kia ora

[image: Picture]
*Steve Hart*
Ecology Architect
skype: stevenlawrencehart