A Cause For Celebrating Life

By Pert Peeters
Permaculture Designer
Cabiokid Foundation
Cabiao, Nueva Ecija
Philippines

Permaculture is not very well known in the Philippines. Some may say that it is too much dealing with the complexities of life and would be therefore less appealing for those who haven’t gone to school. That may be a plausible explanation, but after years of development work, I came up with my own reasons why it is so hard to get permaculture’s simple yet powerful message across.

- Permaculture is a cross discipline science cutting across all academic fields and picking up bits and pieces of everything. It is hard to root at the academic institutions since their behavior is often departmentalised. Ironically, nature never behaves that way.

- For politicians, permaculture is less attractive since the knowledge behind it is so simple and readily available that it would leave little or no room to control people. They would have to learn to understand the technologies and principles behind the science as explained and adopt it immediately; therefore removing dependence. Our world is an open university, if only we could learn to read the signs.

- And lastly, permaculture is very much captured by the upper middle class as an alternative way to produce food, but not per se as a real holistic alternative to life and class divisions.

Yet even if these reasons may be true, the fact remains that much has already been written about permaculture, most of it abroad. So is there still anything to share or to say, while much remains to be done and most of it may be urgent while facing the challenges of global warming. Our world is fast changing its face and attitude (and altitude for that matter). Global warming is the biggest challenge ahead of us. Melting ice, rising waters, and changing climates offer new perspectives but also make us reflect about the comfort zones that have seemingly always been there. Resources around the globe are in grave danger of shifting or disappearing altogether.

Now, if everything would be so negative, why are we still writing, why still bother to be disturbed by the facts; well for the simple reason that with the right dose of ethics and principles we can ensure that our changing world will continue to provide for humans and flora and fauna to thrive. Permaculture has simple and doable answers to offer for transforming landscapes or to add the necessary flavors so as to respond better to climate change.

Where do we situate permaculture

Permaculture can best be described as a system for Permanent Cultures. As stated, humans play an important role. They are stewards, designers, caretakers and consumers in a system that ensures long term sustainability. The context of this suatainability is the survival of the environment as a holistic system in which we play a minor, but indeed, important role. Permaculture is a design system that taps its knowledge from natural systems. Permaculture is careful about the energy used in the system and puts a premium on all energies effectively absorbed by the system. Every action done to ensure sustainability needs to result in the highest possible effect.

Permaculture is all about learning from nature and our surroundings. The higher and more complex the system, the richer and the more we may observe and learn from what went wrong or on how, for instance, to improve degraded landscapes. Permaculture offers great and simple solutions for often complex problems.

How should it be implemented

In order to comprehend the complexity of Permaculture we may have to imagine ourselves at the time when we were learning to walk. It all started with some small steps before setting foot in the larger world. Likewise, permaculture is best experimented on in small plots nearby homes or areas of residence where one may check developments on a regular basis. This approach will moreover offer great insights on the interrelatedness of species and how such relations may benefit us within the limits of a larger system.

Permaculture comes in diverse, small scale and in easy-to-digest sizes. There is hardly any wrong or right way in implementing it as long as there is a clear plan on what and how to get started. The plan in itself will be the theoretical framework of our experiments in and with nature. The plan would form a skeleton interlinking all aspects and components into a productive and stable system; a symbiosis of life-producing components.

What difference does it make

So why is permaculture different and what sets it out against other systems? Permaculture is a design system that stresses personal creativity and knowledge as the driving force behind development. It’s gains are rewarding and do not primarily focus on economic profits. However, permaculture offers great economic benefits once all aspects in computing gains are included and when one is not purely focusing on the short term financial effects.

Permaculture offers an interesting play at life and living things that will eventually benefit us, provide for our needs, and be a guiding force for future actions. Permaculture is great at ensuring long term sustainability if carefully adapted. Like in nature where all small things are highly adapted to changing conditions, permaculture also greatly improves the output in smaller plots by stacking more plants together in a beneficial guild. Permacultured landscapes are a beautiful sight to behold, since they teem with life and better yet, provide a comfortable survival for many species.

Yet, permaculture to the fullest will also come with an assessment on the way we consume resources and on how sustainable our current lifestyles are. We may impact positively on a small place, but we are still connected to a larger guild of players and resources, on which we may decide to impact our positive influence at a later stage.

The Cabiokid example

When permaculture was coined in Australia in the 1980s, it was quickly adapted by the middle class who by then were searching for comfortable alternatives to a progressive lifestyle. A return to the land would fit well and have a positive impact on health and well being. Many aspects of permaculture hovered on the level of agriculture and food production, while little experimentation went beyond implementing its principles in the world of business, organizations, and a systems approach.

When just focused on food production and economic gains while being surrounded by a vastness of poverty and misery, it would be rather difficult to achieve positive results with permaculture. If any breakthrough has to be made it would be through implementing permaculture at the level of the common people and at the level of communities which are in touch with life’s mechanics on a daily basis.

Cabiokid is a permaculture production site in Cabiao, Nueva Ecija located in the central Luzon plains about 90 km north of the capital city of Metro Manila. It is the brainchild of some frustrated former development workers, aspiring to create a doable and result-oriented project; a project that would take away the assumption that sustainable development is like chasing the idea of a perpetuum mobile. Thus, Cabiokid set out to change an existing rice farm into a productive permaculture landscape.

Starting out as a farm area, the landscape was immediately improved by adding water holding bodies. Then, crops and plants were diversified and trees were added as an essential component to the overall system. Furthermore, major areas throughout the farm ecosystem were devoted to developing wilderness. In the span of a little more than 4 years, the area has become a little paradise surrounded by a green desert of mono-cropped rice lands.

Technologies or not-technologies within a permacultured landscape

Visitors to Cabiokid, never cease to be amazed by the variety of life and ecosystems that are present at the relatively small area of a little more than 5 hectares. These have all been simple additions to a once boring rice monoculture. At present, the area looks as if it has always been this way. It just feels good and often in unexplainable way. But far more amazing are the opportunities that the site is offering. From basic agricultural land, the area now boasts of building materials like bamboo and wood, has extensive livestock and vegetable areas. Fishing grounds are abundant, while breeding of native animals and a haven for rescued birds top the list. Then, there are all the yet-undeveloped potentials like honey production, spices and fiber production or the current craze to set up bio-fuel production areas.

All Cabiokid buildings and facilities put into action simple technologies that are soft on the environment. As there are grey and black water treatment systems, rainwater collectors, compost toilets and natural air conditioning. These are often so simple that they may be taken for granted. These technologies may cost a fraction of their engineered counterparts. Sadly, these engineered appurtenances of modern living are the most amazing and expensive technologies that are more visible in our society and receive much more credit than is actually due to them.

We are amazed by the technologies that may do things that do not necessarily improve our life, nor offer great benefits. Often, such amazing technologies may even prove to be very taxing on the environment and may cost much more energy to make than what they actually return. Permaculture prioritizes simple technologies, which may even seem ridiculous to some, but which are sustainable and yet offer rewarding results.

Consider a man blowing leaves with machine. This machine is expensive, consumes a lot of energy and the only thing it does is blow leaves. By putting the leaves on the side within a screened box it will be neat and clean, while you can just wait for them to slowly decompose. Compost, its end product, is then great for use in gardening or providing food for vegetation.

The power windows of your car are fancy just as is the air conditioner, the GPS, or the other high tech gadgets that come with modern cars. However, necessity is something else and leaves much to ponder about. A simple mechanism can do the same job and would be much easier to repair, easing on expensive maintenance costs.

We all hear complaints about expensive chemical fertilizers or pesticides, yet nature has very simple solutions to any problem. Unhealthy plants are naturally put to the test and within a diverse system production output, is shared by several plants. Naturally developed crops also offer a greater resistance to pests than their over-bred genetically pushed counterparts, which, moreover, offer a very nice snack for insects or animals.

In a natural system, staying alive all depend on one’s capacity to cooperate. Though we more easily tend to see competition in nature, the real score is all about cooperation. Lions stick together to get their prey, herds of grazers do the same, while plants devise ingenious systems to allow their seeds to germinate in the wild and dense undergrowth. You take away all these relationships and you may end up with a dead system that lacks the support to ensure its survival. A diverse and complex system will support life to the fullest.

A real permaculture system will therefore mimic the intrinsic relationships observed in forests and other rich ecosystems. Any degraded ecosystem or monoculture is crying out for change and support. Humans possess the capacity to repair and enhance degraded systems to a certain extent. Climate will remain a limiting factor, but eventually it will be creativity or the lack of it that determines the real score.

With all the money being generated, spent and traded in the Philippines, wouldn’t it be nice if the local or national governments and businesses would start investing in

• Building forests as to MEGA malls
• Constructing roads using compacted trash as to expensive and destructively mined cement roads.
• Segregating waste and set up composting facilities instead of sending it off to sanitary landfills where all trash ends up useless.
• Building energy-wise buildings instead of air conditioned and energy inefficient bunkers
• Setting up grey and black water facilities instead of continuous dredging streams, canals, and rivers silted with human muck and industrial waste.
• Creating green lungs along paved spaces
• Incorporate renewable energies into daily life instead of using coal fired or fuel based generators.
• Paying fair salaries for fair work for all government employees as to let them suffer and push them in poverty supported by graft and corruption.
• Dividing wealth equally and putting stipends on stewardships of natural resources instead of glorifying overseas contract work for Filipinos.
• Education that fuels critical thinking instead of a mass of economic opportunists.

To be continued...

Put a little permaculture in your lives and flavor the day! The Cabiokid experiment is just a small effort to undo some of the damages inflicted on our environment. There are many other isolated efforts. Cabiokid has banded together in a network that is called BOND and where ways of cooperating among organizations that follow the principles of permaculture arfe explored and discussed. New networks are in the making and information is shared freely among the network members to ensure a stronger lobby against hardheadedness and foolishness .

There are indeed many ways to invest our efforts and to reap the gains. Profit comes in the form of support, food supply, abundance, healthy flora and fauna, good soil, abundant water, cooperation, technology support, and networking among different levels of society. Just think about spicing up this country with permaculture to ensure its long term survival in times of global warming and other looming disasters.

Note: Bert Peeters is a Belgian (married to a Filipina) who has been involved in development projects in the Philippines since the 1980's. He recently received his Diploma in Permaculture Design. He may be reached at bertpeeters@skyinet.net. Check out his website: www.cabiokid.org