permaculture

[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

Dryland Permaculture Design | Semilla Besada - shaping the future
http://semillabesada.wordpress.com/category/dryland-permaculture-design/

Semilla Besada – shaping the future <http://semillabesada.wordpress.com/>

Archive for the 'Dryland Permaculture Design' Category

Dryland Permaculture
Design<http://semillabesada.wordpress.com/2008/12/12/dryland-permaculture-design-3/>

Mediterranean mountainside in winter

One of the tenets of Permaculture design is to mimic nature. Nature creates
complex communities of life, in a dynamic and responsive relationship.
Despite development, biodiversity loss and desertification it is important
to try and ascertain how nature would have created her community of life in
any dryland environment before making any design decisions. There is enough
research and anecdotal information available to provide a basic portrait of
any area in which we may be designing.

Although, every Permaculture designer knows this basic tenet, it is amazing
how many of us make the assumption that what works in a tropical region in
one country will work in a dryland area in another. With great
goodheartedness and enthusiasm, we uplift practices which mimic nature in
quite a different environment and apply it, without modification, to
another ecosystem. We make assumptions that mulching and composting are
universal ‘good things’ and import these practices to regions all over the
world without ever asking “What natural system are these from?” and “Has
the area in which I am implementing my design evolved in the same way?”.

Nature has an infinite collection of location-specific community designs.

Norwegian sheep farm in autumn

They are dynamic and continually responding to change. These communities
have evolved with certain resonances which are unique to them. When we
apply a natural practice from an entirely different community, without
knowing how and why it evolved that way, and the impact it is likely to
have on its new host community, we are liable to create an ill-judged
design.

A simple example is the instance of a Mediterranean farm which applied the
practice of mulching trees to all those within a flood irrigated area. One
year, the farm was burnt out by a bushfire. Those trees that were not
irrigated and mulched, were burnt, but survived and resprouted the
following year. The mulch around those trees in the irrigated area,
however, was dry and provided additional fuel for the fire. It increased
the temperature of the fire around the trees, and kept it there longer,
with the result that all the trees were killed.

Mulching is something that nature does in temperate and tropical
environments, where the consistency of year-round moisture is such, that
dead plant material on the soil surface breaks down quickly. From there, it
is taken below the soil surface by other organisms to provide nutrients for
soil microbes and plants and to build a healthy soil structure.

In parts of the world that have low, inconsistent year-round moisture with
a period of drought during the growing season, it is a different story.
Dead, dry plant material that accumulates on the soil surface does not
break down in the same way, and if left unmanaged will suffocate the
potential for new growth, resulting in loss of biodiversity and movement
towards desertification. How did a dryland natural community evolve? What
can we learn from such a system? How does that impact on Dryland
Permaculture design strategy?

At Semilla Besada <http://www.holisticdecisions.com>one of our most useful
design tools is Permaculture.   However, it is vital to understand

Grazing animals as part of a natural system

 the principles behind many of the widely accepted and applied practices.
The reason is that every environment will respond differently.   For
example, mulching in a northern temperate or tropical environment is likely
to break down in a season providing fertility and structure to the soil:
in a dryland environment mulching will oxidise on the soil surface and may
even create a fire risk.   One of the principles that underpins
Permaculture design is* natural patterns.   *We are encouraged to look at
how our local environment evolved:  to discover the complex relationships
that existed between the plants, insects, animals, birds, soil microbiology
and so on.   When we discover the dynamics in any original natural system,
we can learn to integrate our needs without unbalancing that system.

In dryland environments, more accurately described as
brittle<http://www.holisticdecisions.com/semillabesada>landscapes,
grazing animals evolved harmoniously with all the other
elements of that natural system.   In fact, they were a key-player in
keeping the landscape healthy and fertile.   In brittle landscapes there is
not the consistent year-round moisture to break down dead plants, so
grazing animals cycle this material through their digestive systems and
obligingly it on the soil surface.   This is then taken into the ground by
such creatures as dung beetles, enriching the soil and providing fertility
for next season’s growth.

Semilla Besada <http://holisticdecisions.com>is the first location in
Europe that is developing Dryland Permaculture designs that are

Sheep turning grass into fertility appropriate to
brittle<http://www.holisticdecisions.com/pu_brittle_landscape.html>landscapes.
  As Permaculture enters the mainstream thinking it is becoming
increasingly important that aspiring designers understand the implications
of brittleness on their designs.   Unfortunately, no Permaculture Design
training includes this important environmental insight or understanding of
the Savory Brittleness Scale.

So, why is it so important?  Setting land aside or leaving things to nature
or completely resting land in a non-brittle environment is likely to lead
to the development of a forest.   In a brittle landscape, it is likely to
lead to the generation of a desert!   This is because there is not the
consistent year-round moisture in brittle landscapes to break down dead
vegetation and make it available for soil dwellers to take it below the
surface to nurture plant life and support soil microbiology.   In the
natural systems of old, grazing animals would eat dead vegetation and the
microbiology of their digestion would deposit fertility on the soil
surface, to be taken underground by creatures such as dung beetles.If
grazing animals are not allowed to play their part in a brittle landscape,
then dead vegetation builds up,

Spread of shrubs and bare soil suffocating new growth in perennial grasses,
allowing perennial shrubs to spread.   As their are no browsing animals to
prune the shrubs and keep them in good health, they do not live for long.
Unfortunately, due to the lack of consistent year-round moisture there is
no decaying dead vegetation on the soil surface to nurture plants above and
microbes below, there is simply oxidising material, which is blow away by
the wind or burnt by fire, leaving bare soil in their wake.   Bare soil is
dead soil, and ultimately with erosion by sun, wind and rain, becomes a
desert.

At Semilla Besada though, we have been using grazing animals in a
holistically planned way, as part of our Dryland Permaculture design, and
the difference between the land we manage and that we do not
is striking.   The comparative locations are in the same area, with the
same soil, same climate and even the same season, but the difference
is startling, as witnessed by the photo below.

Foreground Semilla Besada, background neighbouring land

This photo was taken in May, and as the summer set in, the perennial
grasses in between the grape vines went dormant (biscuit coloured) but the
vines continued to thrive and bring life to the soil.   The landscape
beyond, however, became more and more bare, with not even dead plant litter
on the soil surface to mitigate the affect of the sun.   All simply because
grazing animals were not being managed holistically, resulting in overall
degradation of the landscape.

Aspen  heaving a sigh of relief at the arrival of the first rains last
night.
  Dryland Permaculture
Design<http://semillabesada.wordpress.com/2008/08/11/dryland-permaculture-design/>

Foreground Semilla Besada as compared with neighborouring land

Permaculture practices developed in temperate or tropical environments
cannot be applied to dryland environments without a sound understanding of
the principles that underpin them.   Here at Semilla
Besada<http://www.holisticdecisions.com>,
we discovered this through experience.   When we moved to the Alpujarras in
southern Spain, we designed and managed our land along temperate
Permaculture practices.   Four years on, we had less biodiversity and more
bare soil.   This was definitely not the direction in which we wanted to
go!   It was then that we heard of the pivotal environmental insights of
Allan Savory, and his holistic decision-making framework, Holistic
Management.   We realised that our ignorance of where Semilla Besada was on
the Savory Brittleness
Scale<http://www.holisticdecisions.com/pu_brittle_landscape>,
and its implications for our farm design and management.

When we shifted our focus from trying to generate a ‘forest garden’ to a
‘grazed orchard’ and introduced grazing animals, holistically managed, we
quickly saw the return of Semilla Besada’s landscape to robust health.
Four years have passed and the results of our management is startling when
compared with the landscape that surrounds us, which shows increasing bare
ground and only supports grasses which are sown annually and fertilised
with chemicals.    By contrast the foreground shows perennial grasses,
which have been managed with holistic planned grazing, together with a
vineyard of over 100 plants.