PROJECT DESIGNS FOR HEALING THE EARTH:
rain-water harvesting to support community-based reforestation
Submitted by Zia Parker, MA, CMT
In our times, a perennial question is how do we scale our Earth Care projects so they match the scale of need? «Water and a Forest for every Village» is a grassroots initiative that carries a new vision for Earth Care.
If we are to recognize and bring deep respect to the complex web of relationships that exist in nature, then we must sync with nature’s patterns to truly assist the healing process. Part of it is remembering that we ARE nature. This project’s focus on rain-water harvesting to support community-based reforestation is a holistic system-oriented approach. A collaboration of veteran Permaculturalists and indigenous people that are reclaiming their ancient techniques, this project weaves across cultures and across time.
This interview explains the project. Griselda, the interviewer, is a former Wall Street paralegal from the Dominican Republic, bringing a unique point of view. She is interviewing Zia, the current project coordinator. Zia has been involved in Permaculture since the early 80s and has experience as a Permaculture teacher, designer and project coordinator in 7 distinct latitudes/ climate zones.
GG: Zia, tell us a little about your background that has led to this project.
ZP: My path has been one of weaving together holistic healing with Earth Care. I have been very involved in Permaculture since I trained as a teacher in 1991. In Permaculture, we are working with shaping the land, for the purpose of retaining water and nutrients to serve soil fertility. My other career path and life long passion has been as a Movement Therapist, where we work with shaping the topography of the body. Upgrading movement patterns is amazingly effective for relieving pain. Both are system-oriented and call for ongoing observation of the many influences on the system. Both of these studies have influenced this project that I’m coordinating now—for water harvesting to support eco-system recovery and reforestation for the valley that is now our home, Vilcabamba Valley in Southern Ecuador
I have delightful memories of homesteading in British Columbia in the 70s, when we could walk out the back door, and not run into a sign of civilization for 150 miles. Living so close to nature, direct kinesthetic sensing of the world around me became infused in my nervous system. Later, my career lead me to weaving together the health of the planet, and of our bodies, one of my M.A. thesis, on Wellness Design in ’83, brought to light that the health of the people is in the grips of Big Pharma, cousin of Big AG, and their daddy, the arms industry, and that awareness has been a driving force for me ever since.
GG : Community-based reforestation, funded with crowdfunding. That is a big bite. Why have you been motivated to do this now?
ZP: My years living very close to nature in British Columbia helped me to melt the shields that kept me from being able to feel Nature and then to understand that I am a part of Nature. The Permaculture principles are profound, once we actually embody their wisdom, but even more fundamental is the phenomena of bonding with nature. We talk about the Earth as our mother as if it is a metaphor. I believe that much of our current global dilemma stems from the societal rupture of our bond with our mother, the Earth. From that feminine perspective, I believe that an initiative that grows from the grass-roots has a better chance of healing Nature. We generally leave reforestation efforts to governments, then are critical if they don’t get it right. But if we leave it to the governments, it will be too little, too late. And the approach is likely to be too linear, too monoculture.
The well-known quote from Masanobu Fukuoka comes to mind, «those who break off a piece of nature lay hold of something that is dead, and, unaware that what they are examining is no longer what they think it to be, claim to understand nature.» We all know that some very basic changes are being called for and urgently so! To get down to cause, we really need to have a holistic vision.
What if we take back our power to act as a citizens-force to bring healing in some key crisis area? I’m saying, «Let’s see what we can do if we work together as a community to address this issue.»
GG: How would this project be different? How would it apply a system oriented approach?
ZP: Many ways. First, by the questions we ask. How can we support nature to heal?
Observation is the first step, and must be a constant.
Vilcabamba Valley is the chosen site of this project, so, observing the valley as a whole living system, and each watershed within the valley as a whole system, and each property also as a unique entity. Obviously, each watershed and each property has to be addressed as highly unique with specific profiles that must be addressed.
Our basic aim is healing the water cycle, and if we want to heal the water cycle, we need trees. Why? Because condensation on leaves brings –85% of the water DOWN to Earth/ evaporation & transpiration from the leaves takes 85% of the water UP to cloud formation. Bill Mollison’s great illustrations of this dynamic are something that my Ecuadorean farmer friends get, and make the connection that reforestation is a critical piece of the puzzle for climate stabilization.
To have successful reforestation in a climate zone that has up to 5 months of dry season, we need to provide a way to store water in the earth so the basic need for water is supported. Water retention landscaping with contour canals, swales, and small contour ponds will accelerate healing of the valley radically, but is also relevant almost everywhere—that’s where the “Every Village” comes in. Replicating this project around the globe could have a massive effect on climate change. And for all types of Earth Care projects, Let’s dream big!
Our idea here in Vilcabamba is to work with existing organizations to identify interest, such as water juntas and farmer’s organizations. Also to work with local government and NGO organizations to assess what areas have the highest potential for helping to stabilize the climate, then prioritize key action areas. In the early phase of this project, we will be establishing protocols and guidelines for how to address the distinct watersheds in the valley. Later in the project, these protocols and guidelines will be the basis for training local trainers. We will need guidelines for things such as acceptable levels of slope; and degree of slope relative to width/ depth/ drop of the swale and soil type.
We have built relationships with indigenous people who have a long history of working with these concepts of shaping the land so that rainwater can penetrate into the land, that is, water retention landscaping.
GG: How would you include input from indigenous people?
ZP: There are two Original Pueblos, or First Nations peoples in this area that used systems of water retention landscaping in precolonial times. They are the Saraguru and the Palta. Both of these groups managed to maintain their cultural identity during the Incan Empire by migrating into the highlands. They both made clay-lined compacted reservoirs, often on the ridgetops, lined with a specific cactus to keep animals out. There was no inlet or outlet, they were filled by rainwater in the rainy season, with the purpose of feeding down-mountain springs and aquifers through penetration into the reservoir bottom.
We have relationships with both of these groups. Our project is aiming at a cross-cultural collaboration to arrive at training protocols. Our vision is to bring in varying perspectives from these groups: Invite these two indigenous groups to engage with the project by creating pilot designs on their choice of one of the local watersheds. A third model would be designed by Permaculturalists. There are some good Earth Works designers here. Bill Mollison offered some early training here. A fourth pilot design will come from water engineers. These four groups would tour and discuss their models with each other to arrive at a protocol and guidelines to be used by the project. Pluralistic collaboration is valued in Ecuador.
GG: And your video shows a model that you have at your farm.«>Spanish
ZP: Yes, we have a half-hectare Permaculture teaching farm that is a small watershed or cuenca (Spanish). A 25 minute walk from the village of Vilcabamba, it could be considered a semi-urban intensive Permaculture model of multi-story polyculture. As well as harvesting our roof-water, we havest run-off from the road and farm uphill from us, and capture it in a series of sediment tanks that are designed to give us the option to direct it to any of three different sections of our farm. It is an example of intensive water retention design, appropriate for small-scale intensive growing. Most of our paths are also swales, or, water retention canals. In a larger property, swales would be more dispersed.
We grow food for the table, for us and for volunteers, and grow for our market products. However, our main product is education, and we have hosted the Permaculture Design Course here annually since transplanting ourselves here in 2012. We are extending our model so we can include ponds as well as opening the project so more members can join us in growing a small land-based community and eco-school.
GG: In your budget, which can be seen at www.vidaverde.info, you mention creating other bigger models
ZP: Yes, a respected member of the Saraguru community, Victor Macas is on the project team and his 140 hectare farm will be one of the model farms. He is excited about the support that his people will receive in helping them implement their traditional knowledge of water retention landscaping through this project. Another team member, and life-long Biodynamic farmer Walter Moora, who guides the 500 hectare Finca Sagrada will be participating as a large-scale model. They are able to sponsor the design and implementation on their land. To complete the range of models, we are looking for a farm that is in the 10-20 hectare range that is Ecuadorean owned.
GG: In one of your video’s you posted on the Indiegogo site, you talk about other successful models with these methods.
ZP: Yes, there are many successes with these common-sense simple methods. Two of the most famous models are Greening the Desert, the very difficult ecosystem in Jordan which was turned around by the brilliant work of Geoff Lawton and team and the Loess Plateau in China which John Liu’s videography work has made famous.
GG: Is there anything else you would like to add?
ZP: This can work. Our crowdfunding campaign is over, but donations can be made via Paypal, using the email :ziaparker@yahoo.com. Just tag it to be directed to «Water and a Forest for Every Pueblo». And dream big for your Earth Care project. If the people lead, the leaders will follow.
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«Seeds have a greater sense of humor and bravery than humans. They obey long, long drawn-out plans, plans beyond the mind of men, that come down written inside the seeds, by their having to adapt to every kind of ice age, drought, wind, climatic cycles, the impacts of ice-tailed comets, deep serpentine primordial strata of earlier underground seas, cloudbursts, hurricanes,and more; mutating together and obeying the roll of the dice of the knee bones of the Grand Female of chaos whose womb’s offspring is Time.» «The people knew that not only were they dependent on the generosity of animals and plants that regularly died to sustain them but that their own life cycles were relegated thereby to the same rules as followed by plants.» Martin Prechtel «The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic»
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