The Search for Sustainability in the Negev
Aid Projects, Community Projects, People Systems, Society, Village Development — by Alice Gray February 2, 2012
The Bedouin of the Negev are an ancient people whose cultural history spans centuries, if not millennia. Historically, the Bedouin have been semi-nomadic pastoralists, who made the desert their own through a combination of dry-land farming of forage crops and cereals, rainwater harvesting and seasonal mobility: rotating their presence between their winter and summer grazing grounds. When water and forage ran short, they would move on to another place where they knew they could find what they needed – a cistern that would probably be full, an area where small shrubs would be abundant.
Like all people, everywhere, they created a complex cultural landscape through their activities: modifying the environment they lived in to suit their needs. Like all people, everywhere, they developed their own codes of conduct for sharing the resources upon which they depended among themselves, between different families and tribal groups. Grazing rights, water rights and rights of safe-passage were enshrined in cultural codes, tribal territories were known and respected (or disrespected at the peril of transgressors).
Comments (9)Bustan Qaraaqa, West Bank, Seeks Two Permaculture Interns
Aid Projects, Community Projects, Project Positions — by Alice Gray
Bustan Qaraaqa is a community permaculture project in the Palestinian West Bank. The project consists of an experimental permaculture farm in the town of Beit Sahour close to the historic city of Bethlehem, and several community projects where staff and volunteers work together with Palestinian community groups and individuals to implement permaculture initiatives that have been tried and tested at the farm.
The project has been in operation for almost 4 years now, and as well as building a functioning and attractive permaculture centre for staff and volunteers to live in, we have built up a great network of local partners and become a local landmark in our host town.
In fact, things are going so well that we are feeling the need to extend our team to cope with the workload that we now have. This is an exciting opportunity to be part of a cutting edge permaculture project in a fascinating country – ideal for anyone who wants to build up their practical experience.
Comments (3)Extended Permaculture Design Course in the Negev
Aid Projects, Courses/Workshops — by Alice Gray
What: Extended Permaculture Design Course
When: The itinerary is based on weeks of 5 days where the weekends are free for advancing individual projects, rest or travel in Israel. Program starts on the 11th of March and ends on 15th of August 2012.
Where: The course and accommodations will take place at the Eco khan of Qasr A-Sir, a Bedouin village next to Dimona, Israel.
Vision for Bustan course:
This is going to be a very special permaculture course, that goes way beyond the remit of the normal 2 week intensive Permaculture Design Certificate. In the course of their 5 month stay in Qasr A-Sir, the participants will live and breathe permaculture; have time to absorb, process and discuss the information they are receiving; delve into the historic cultural journey of the human race; see examples of how ancient cultures dealt with their environmental problems and engage in the struggle of contemporary people to deal with theirs; and eventually actually design and implement some permaculture projects, leaving behind a legacy of enhanced sustainability and access to resources that will improve peoples’ quality of life in the host community, and gaining practical experience and know-how that they can take with them when they leave. This will not be just any course – this will be a life-changing experience.
Comments (0)Update on Permaculture Pygmies – Introducing Solar Ovens, Water Filter and SODIS
Aid Projects, Biological Cleaning, Community Projects, Energy Systems, Potable Water — by Xavier Fux February 1, 2012
We built a solar oven made out of cardboard, and showed the pygmies how to purify water through a solar disinfection unit (the SODIS System). We also showed them how to make a filter with a bucket full of sand, gravel and active carbon.
by Xavier Fux
Who said last days weren’t productive? Before leaving, we wanted to provide the pygmies with some very useful tools that can greatly simplify things for them:
- Simple, easy-to-build solar ovens (to reduce the need for firewood and all the negative implications that come with it)
- Sand-gravel-charcoal water filter (to clean the water from the 20,000L pond in order to use it for washing and other uses)
- Solar disinfection system for water (to purify water from the 1000L tank)
My First Week at Thailand’s Newest Permaculture Farm
Aid Projects, Community Projects, Demonstration Sites, Eco-Villages, Education Centres, Village Development — by Theron Beaudreau January 26, 2012
In a rural village at the Southwest corner of the Isaan Plateau, just over an hour drive south of Thailand’s second largest city, Korat, a band of tenacious permaculturalists have just arrived at the site of their new home.
Over the course of the next year, infrastructure will be erected, community and teaching spaces will be established and a traditional corn and rice farm will undergo a dramatic metamorphosis. The work here has already begun… and I’d like to take you along for the ride!
Comments (11)A Step and a Stride: From Academia to Abundance
Aid Projects, Community Projects, Courses/Workshops — by Graham Calder January 17, 2012
How exactly did I get here? When did I embark on this journey of abundance? Here I am looking back on my life, and seeing how it all started….
Raised on 75 acres of subsistence farm I was an unlikely candidate to moving to the big city of Montreal at age 20. After five years studying the discouraging field of Environmental Science and Human Environment, I found myself at a loss for solutions. Academia only paralyzed me in face of environmental challenges, and with my employment with Environment Canada preaching contorted, underwhelming solutions and finger wagging, it was all taking its toll. My studies and career where failing me greatly.
Comments (6)John Hardy: My Green School Dream
Aid Projects, Building, Community Projects, Eco-Villages, Education, Education Centres, Energy Systems, Village Development, Waste Systems & Recycling — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor January 16, 2012
Comments (0)Join John Hardy on a tour of the Green School, his off-the-grid school in Bali that teaches kids how to build, garden, create (and get into college). The centerpiece of campus is the spiraling Heart of School, perhaps the world’s largest freestanding bamboo building. — Ted.com
Greeks Reclaim the Land to Ease the Pain of Economic Austerity
Aid Projects, Community Projects, Compost, Consumerism, Courses/Workshops, Economics, Food Shortages, Fungi, Rehabilitation, Salination, Society, Soil Biology, Soil Composition, Soil Conservation, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Village Development, Water Contaminaton & Loss — by Beatrice Yannacopoulou January 13, 2012
Editor’s Note: The recently-formed PRI Hellas (Greece) team are making good progress in difficult times, as evidenced by this nice piece from The Ecologist below. If you want to support this work, whilst having a great learning experience in an incredibly beautiful location, be sure to check out their April 23 – 29, 2012, Intensive 6-day Permaculture Seminar & Workshop on the island of Kefalonia, Greece.
A group of community-minded gardeners have turned a former Athens airport into a blooming vegetable plot, showing how Greece’s eroded soil holds the keys to a revival in farming and a way to buck the jobless trend.
by Beatrice Yannacopoulou. Article originally published on The Ecologist
All photographs courtesy: Dimitris.V.Geronikos
"If we want to survive on this land we must first help to heal the earth," said Nicolas Netién, agro-ecologist, teacher and co-creator of the NGO Permaculture Research Institute Hellas. He was talking to a group of some fifty people of all ages who had gathered for two days of workshops on self-sufficiency, how to self-organize, agro-ecology and composting. This small gathering was taking place on a beautifully sunny autumn day at the former Athens airport, Ellinikon.
Comments (3)Yemen: On the Permaculture Map
Aid Projects, Building, Courses/Workshops, Village Development — by Samuel Bonello January 4, 2012
The view flying into Tarim
The country of Yemen has not been featured much on the PRI blog page. It has only been mentioned briefly in some articles discussing water shortages in the region and it has made the list of exotic destinations to apply knowledge gained in a PRI Aid Workers course. I think this is about to change.
The last days in Tarim, Yemen have uncovered a real treasure of permaculture potential. I anticipate that natural building techniques, still widely used in Yemen, will no longer be the only reason for Yemen to be on the permaculture map.
Comments (12)Greening the Desert Video – now also with French Subtitles
Aid Projects, Community Projects, Compost, Conservation, Demonstration Sites, Education Centres, Food Forests, Fungi, Irrigation, Plant Systems, Rehabilitation, Salination, Soil Biology, Soil Conservation, Swales, Urban Projects, Village Development, Water Harvesting — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor December 2, 2011
Many thanks to Jeremy, Christina, Erik, Lamia and Kristen for all the work that went into creating the French translation subtitle file for both Parts I & II of the Greening the Desert video below. As a result, I’ve been able to upload a version suitable for your French-speaking friends and family, should you have some.
After clicking play, click on the ‘CC’ button at bottom
of the video to enable the French subtitles
And, a big thanks must also go to Frank Gapinski for the Greening the Desert Part I video that has turned so many on to permaculture concepts. It’s amazing the impact a few minutes of video can have on the world!
P.S. Because of the hard-coded English subtitles in the original version of the video embedded above, English speakers would be better to watch it instead.
Comments (1)Vacancies at Stockholm Resilience Centre
Aid Projects, Project Positions — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor November 30, 2011
One of our readers sent this through — I thought I’d post it, as anything we can do to help capable permies get financed to continue their permaculture evangelisation is good for us all.
I don’t know more than what the website says, so will just leave you with the link. If neither of these two positions are suitable for you, perhaps you know someone who would fit the brief?
Comments (0)Post-doctoral on impacts of water harvesting adoption in Sub-Saharan Africa
The centre is seeking to recruit a post-doc for a project on in "Potential water resources and environmental impacts of smallholder water harvesting adoption in Sub-Saharan Africa". Application deadline 3 December 2011.
Post-doctoral on water harvesting in Sub-Saharan Africa
Stockholm Resilience Centre is seeking to recruit a post-doc in "System analysis of drivers for change of water harvesting adoption in Sub-Saharan Africa". Application deadline 3 December 2011.
Update on Karat Primary School’s Permaculture Progress, Ethiopia
Aid Projects, Community Projects, Developments — by Alex McCausland November 19, 2011
The ‘after map’ design — does not resemble the actual implementation
This is an update on my recent post on new school projects here in Ethiopia. We visited Karat Primary School again as a group on Friday 28th October 2011. The group comprised Alex McCausland, Tichafa Makovere, Rhamis Kent (an international permaculture trainer accredited by the PRI Australia) and five permaculture students; two Ethiopians from Fiche, North Shoa, two Mexicans and one American, who were participating on an international Permaculture Design Certificate course at SFEL.
Comments (0)Letters from Slovakia – a Photo Update on the Homeless Camp
Aid Projects, Building, Community Projects, Land, Urban Projects — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor November 17, 2011
Daniel Diškanec checks out his new edible friends
Photos © Craig Mackintosh
I should have shared these pictures back in August, when the pictures were taken, but was too tied up with preparations for the Tenth International Permaculture Conference (IPC10) in Jordan. Though late, I trust you’ll appreciate them anyway.
If you didn’t catch them already, be sure to read the previous two posts on this homeless camp in the mountainous north-central part of Slovakia (here and here). It’ll help you appreciate my personal satisfaction from seeing the magic of developing abundance with this project — one that can truly use the additional health-giving produce pictured and the increased economic resiliency it brings.
Comments (1)Jordan Valley Permaculture Project Update: Post IPC Happenings
Aid Projects, Building, Community Projects, Conservation, Demonstration Sites, Education Centres, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Irrigation, Land, Plant Systems, Regional Water Cycle, Rehabilitation, Salination, Storm Water, Swales, Terraces, Waste Systems & Recycling, Waste Water, Water Harvesting — by Dan Lewin November 11, 2011
An aerial view of the site
Although the landscape here could be seen as a model for scarcity, what there is an abundance of is rocks. The baked dusty earth barely passes for soil and during the summer there isn’t rain here for over six months. With valuable agricultural resources seemingly at a minimum, rocks can be incredibly valuable in the design of a sustainable human settlement. In the case of the Permaculture Research Institute of Jordan’s site (PRIJ), rocks have formed the main building blocks of the swales that form the back bones of this small farm. They surround the heavily mulched planting pits for the many varieties of trees here and they also can be used for another useful function which litres of my sweat has been testament to! They make up the substrate of the grey water system into which reeds are planted that feed on the water flowing through from the sinks and showers in the washing block.
Comments (3)Murad Alkufash: “Marda Permaculture Farm: Planting Seeds of Hope in the Occupied Territories”
Aid Projects, Community Projects, Conferences, Courses/Workshops, Demonstration Sites, Education Centres, Presentations/Demonstrations, Society, Urban Projects, Village Development — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor
Murad Alkufash is a dedicated permaculturist. Considering where he lives, he must be. Or, perhaps because of where he lives he must be — as permaculture is a truly logical, and the only really lasting, solution to the problems surrounding him. Murad lives in the West Bank, and directly under one of the largest illegal settlements in Palestine. The biological and climatic environment he faces is quite challenging, yet the political environment is even more so. It’s one of the most complex political environments to be found in this tired old world.
Murad attended the recent Tenth International Permaculture Conference & Convergence (IPC10), and gave the following presentation on his work at the convergence in the Wadi Rum desert. As well as the video below, if you want a bit of background on Murad and his situation, you can read a feature post I did on this a while back.
Resources:
- Download Murad’s presentation (27mb PDF)
- Letters from the West Bank – Seeds of Hope Scattered from the West Bank’s First PDC
