Being a permaculture farmer.

[Hughe]

I'm studying permaculture or natural farming on my house property, and a farm land. People call me an idiot or insane man. Ah~ I don't give a damn about it. Permaculture is like Free Energy technologies in agriculture IMHO. When I see and Bill Mollison and Masanobu Fukuoka's video and after reading 'The One-Straw Revolution', it struck me really hard by the revolutionary perspectives. "That's it."

Local farmers are busy of exploiting soils when the season starts. They dig up the soil by heavy machines, spread chemical fertilizers, and spray pesticides for weed/pest control. Korean farmers put seven pesticides on rice plants at least. I couldn't get organic seeds so far. I bought five bags of processed seeds by Made In China at a government farm agency. Farmers pretty much became slaves nowadays. They barely own seeds for planting anymore. If the government can't or won't supply seeds coming year, entire population will be in poverty because farmers do not grow vegetables or corps except rice. Humans poison new born babies with vaccines, they also poison seeds too.

Most farmers are so ****ing stupid, ignorant, no empathy towards nature and life forms. It makes me sick sometimes but macroscopic mind control made them to be such way over thousands years. Nowadays we are at the pinnacle of death worship, slavery civilization. I began to understand the sorry feeling and the question of "why" while I was looking for farmers nature destroying behavior. Korean farmers love to destroy trees, kill animals, do whatever the government tell them to do spreading pesticides, toxic chemicals, artificial fertilizers.

When I lived in Canada, I got surprised at how all the house owners spend money and energy to take care of the lawns, which is artificial, wasteful weeds. They have to do it because let the house property be covered with weeds or other natural plants, the government will punish them. So pathetic, distorted sign of present nature destroying culture.

Well this stupid lifestyle nowadays become world standard. Upper class Asian people push it to next level. Rich Koreans usually build artificial garden on their expensive houses putting huge rocks, big trees, and some nice looking flowers and green lawns .

The permaculture masters wholeheartedly say "Respect nature and work with it. We are still so primitive stage compared to billions years old biosphere." A handful of natural soil contains millions of microbes. It has proven system of life perpetuating mechanism built-in. Can humans build a helpful virus yet? I doubt it.

Permaculture farmers are lazy and relax, work with nature. They are a designer of an eco-system for food/animal production. Instead spending money and demanding labor, and exploit nature, they create environment that produce various food in natural way.

No pesticides
No digging the soil
No chemical fertilizer
No usage of heavy machinery
No planting of single or few corps/vegetables.

Masanobu Fukuoka claimed doing natural farming liberate farmers from heavy labor once and for all. Farmers will enjoy life and appreciate the nature which provides stuff more than enough. He suggest once a natural farm established, and begin to produce food as is farmers only need to work less than average two hours per day - 10 to 15 hours per week. Isn't it wonderful way of living like wild animals? I'm convinced it already and I've been working on it two months ago. Whenever weather is fine, I go to my home in countryside, fixing the house building and property.

Anyway I would recommend spending some times to watch Permaculture videos on Youtube. Bill Mollison and Masanobu Fukuoka's are considered as legend in permaculture.

I often ask "Why now Free Energy technologies and permaculture reveals themselves in public domain? Why these never had been spotted?" I thought once I have a FE power generator, I'll be invincible. But it turned out I was wrong in farming. Working against nature will bring disaster.

Permaculture: A Designers’ Manual, Bill Mollison

Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture by Toby Hemenway

The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It by John Seymour

The One-Straw Revolution: An Introduction to Natural Farming
by Masanobu Fukuoka

There are already enough materials and organizations for English people. So you can find or meet real permaculture farmers in North America or other English using countries. Some places offer training courses. City dwellers have limited choices in this aspect. So many stupid laws and regulations.

My goal for this year to plant as many vegetable plants, edible weeds, fruit trees on my property around the house. I wanna pack at least hundred species into the food garden including weeds. I destroyed a section of concrete fences and planted a medium size tree near the entrance of front yard. I don't want to waste any space for the car parking lot. Instead using electric water pump, I use manual pump. Composite toilet, a small pond for water reservoir, and good house insulation using organic materials that I find locally are on my list. I do it all by myself.

Provided there are plenty of raw materials for house building, less than $1,000 investment of money for tools make one build or fix a house. A good power tools: a drill, a saw, a grinder would cost about $400 to $500. Then you buy manual tools and measuring devices. Don't go for anything that uses batteries or electricity. Wear the Safety glasses all time. I mean it. A pair of mechanic gloves is handy.
I work on electrical stuff too. Hot wire is very dangerous: 220V, 30A. If you are uncomfortable electrical stuff, hire a electrician or get a help from a capable person.

Permaculture for food.
DIY skills for house and property/machine maintenance.
Independent clean, reliable energy can be achieved by hybrid grid integration for now: emergency backup system by wind/solar/hydro power or human powered generator with the grid system. Having a HHO generator is handy too.
I believe in the FE power generator will come out one day. Then, it's end of the story. ^^

[bluestflame]

cool was at a local permaculture meeting yesty , good way to network skills, and resources

[Timreh]

I enjoyed reading your post Hughe, love your work!

[modwiz]

Great thread with wonderful spirit, Hughe. Thank you for the inspiration. I am with you in your move to independence and honoring Nature to be able to reap the rewards, which are many. Some of them intangible but very worthwhile .

[Cjay]

Hi Hughe, you're onto a winner. Permaculture rocks! There are many in this forum who are very interested in permaculture. I haven't posted on the subject for months. While I don't want to take anything away from this thread, there are several other threads where permaculture is discussed, with links to lots of videos and other resources.

The following are the main threads where permaculture is discussed (there are other threads too). If you read these threads and external resources linked to from these threads, you will find a wealth of information about permaculture.

Biochar and Permaculture - many posts starting here:
https://projectavalon.net/forum4/show...l=1#post187057

Food Foresting: https://projectavalon.net/forum4/show...l=1#post230610

Grow your own — Food Self-sufficiency for you: https://projectavalon.net/forum4/show...l=1#post321984

I encourage everyone who is interested in gardening, farming or growing your own food to study and practice permaculture. The results can be quite spectacular.

[Atlantean Avatar]

Hi Hugh. Like you I am a student of Permaculture. For more than 30 years it has been the driving passion in my life. I studied under David Holmgren and the one underlying thing that gives permaculture its strength is community. As individuals we have power, but when we cooperate and coordinate in a sustainable and stable way we can achieve just about anything. I have found that sometimes friends, family, neighbors and local farmers are good starting point for collecting seeds. The older people in your community may have a particular seed they have been growing for years and are usually more than willing to share seed to ensure its future survival. They are probably also a fountain of knowledge when it comes to growing that same seed stock. Local garden clubs are also a good source of seeds and plant stock. It is important to grow much of what you eat and to save seed for next season, but it is of equal importance to share our excess seeds as well as produce with others.

Happy gardening

[Cjay]

Permaculture (permanent agriculture) is a concept originally developed by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in Australia in the mid 1970s, based on their observation of natural ecosystems. Their first book, Permaculture One, was published in 1978. Since then, permaculture has spread around the world because it works so well.

Permaculture works WITH nature rather than against nature. Permaculture can be used in the smallest of gardens or the largest of farms.

Using permaculture techniques, it is possible to turn the most barren soil - even soils that have become severely degraded or heavily salted by destructive farming techniques - into incredibly fertile soil, very quickly.


Permaculture Two by Bill Mollison, is available here (20 Mb download):
http://www.cd3wd.com/cd3wd_40/JF/413/05-201.pdf
I found Permaculture Two on this page, which is an absolutely MASSIVE library with hundreds of free downloads: http://www.cd3wd.com/cd3wd_40/cd3wd/index.htm


This is, perhaps, the ultimate permaculture resource -
The Permaculture Research Institude of Australia
(started by Bill Mollison and now run by Geoff Lawton):
http://permaculture.org.au/


And this site, by David Holmgren, is an outstanding resource:

http://permacultureprinciples.com/principles.php


This free e-book by David Holmgren is an excellent introduction to permaculture.
Essence of Permaculture:
http://www.holmgren.com.au/DLFiles/P...f_PC_eBook.pdf
Hebrew, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese and French versions of the e-book are available on this page:
http://www.holmgren.com.au/


The One Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka
http://files.uniteddiversity.com/Per...Revolution.pdf


A date to mark on your calendar:
International Permaculture Day - May 6, 2012

More info: http://www.permacultureday.info/

[Alie]

Let me throw in an alternative view about farmers.

I used to be a dairy farmer. I even have a degree in Animal Science. This was a LONG time ago. We were not stupid in the way we ran our dairy farm. We were using best practices as taught in agricultural universities and enforced by government agencies. At this time, 2012 --- I would agree that what we believed to be best practices don't promote the wellbeing of the earth, animals or people, but I would also say the family farmer is simply thinking and doing what he/she thinks necessary to survive.

I think this Permaculture movement should be started in the "county projects" when NEW thinking has arrived.

As we look around at the CORRUPT things in every aspect of our lives, we have to understand farming is just one of the areas that needs clean up.

I believe you should start this movement.

[panopticon]

G'day All,

What surprises me about the Project Avalon forum is the number of Permaculturists lurking around.

There are a lot of Aussies here and what many non-Australians may not be aware of is that Permaculture is fairly mainstream here. It is taught in Primary Schools, High Schools, Vocational Colleges (TAFE) and at University. It has TV shows on during peak viewing times about it. It is on the radio, in the papers and magazines.

Permaculture is not a "fringe" science in Australia and many farmers here (in Tasmania specifically but Australia in general) make use of its principles as being "best practice" for diversifying revenue streams and increasing farmland fertility. People living in built up urban areas make use of it in their back yard gardens. The bloody thing is everywhere and the conservatives pretty well hate it but Aussies traditionally don't listen to authority figures so there's not much they can do except say that it's "just a form of gardening". That's the beauty of Permaculture. It teaches people to feed themselves, live closer to nature and share. It teaches how to develop decentralised communities without actually saying "look over here, we're developing a decentralised autonomous community". It just sort of sneaks up on people and next thing they know they're living in a community not a sub-division...

Anyway, enough "preaching to the choir"...
Here's a transcript of a 1980's Permaculture Design Course given by Bill Mollison:
http://www.southampton.ac.uk/~doctom...PDC/index.html
and a downloadable PDF version of same:
http://www.rivendellvillage.org/Perm...ign-Course.pdf

Permaculture isn't just about designing for "permanent agriculture" it's also about developing and encouraging a "permanent culture".
I congratulate anyone who adopts it.
Kind Regards,
Panopticon

[Alie]

Posted by panopticon (here)
G'day All,

What surprises me about the Project Avalon forum is the number of Permaculturists lurking around.

There are a lot of Aussies here and what many non-Australians may not be aware of is that Permaculture is fairly mainstream here. It is taught in Primary Schools, High Schools, Vocational Colleges (TAFE) and at University. It has TV shows on during peak viewing times about it. It is on the radio, in the papers and magazines.

Permaculture is not a "fringe" science in Australia and many farmers here (in Tasmania specifically but Australia in general) make use of its principles as being "best practice" for diversifying revenue streams and increasing farmland fertility. People living in built up urban areas make use of it in their back yard gardens. The bloody thing is everywhere and the conservatives pretty well hate it but Aussies traditionally don't listen to authority figures so there's not much they can do except say that it's "just a form of gardening". That's the beauty of Permaculture. It teaches people to feed themselves, live closer to nature and share. It teaches how to develop decentralised communities without actually saying "look over here, we're developing a decentralised autonomous community". It just sort of sneaks up on people and next thing they know they're living in a community not a sub-division...

Anyway, enough "preaching to the choir"...
Here's a transcript of a 1980's Permaculture Design Course given by Bill Mollison:
http://www.southampton.ac.uk/~doctom...PDC/index.html
and a downloadable PDF version of same:
http://www.rivendellvillage.org/Perm...ign-Course.pdf

Permaculture isn't just about designing for "permanent agriculture" it's also about developing and encouraging a "permanent culture".
I congratulate anyone who adopts it.
Kind Regards,
Panopticon

That is so encouraging. I hope we can start this going in America. Of course there's lots of folks doing it, but I dare to say it's not mainstream.

Here's something I found on Alex Jones ... Farmeggedon --- there's a book and a movie and here's the resource page:

http://farmageddonmovie.com/whats-at-stake/resources/

[panopticon]

Posted by Alie (here)
That is so encouraging. I hope we can start this going in America. Of course there's lots of folks doing it, but I dare to say it's not mainstream.
Here's something I found on Alex Jones ... Farmeggedon --- there's a book and a movie and here's the resource page:
http://farmageddonmovie.com/whats-at-stake/resources/

G'day Alie,

Thanks for the link.
Agri-business is one of the centralisation techniques adopted by corporations following the ironically named "Green Revolution".
There is so much that can be said about that one topic all on its little lonesome...

My personal belief is that over the next few decades the loss of cheap phosphate will limit fertiliser production. This in turn will limit food production and corporate profits leading to their withdrawal from the market place and/or increased prices to compensate for increased production costs. Because of the increased prices people who know how to produce food will share this knowledge with their friends and this will help break the corporate control of food production... That's why it's important to be aware of local seeds, participate in "heirloom seed" collecting and learn what is suited to your environment/conditions.

One local farmer who was an early adopter of many of the so-called "alternative" farming techniques is ol' Bert Farquhar.

Earthworms aerate soil and make it more fertile. This increases production and profits. Bert increases worms by moving some from an area where they are flourishing to an area where they're not. What technological advances are used in this mammoth project? How are the logistics worked out? What are the concentrations of worms required for maximum production? Ever the pragmatist, Bert takes a few clumps chucks them on the tray of his quad and moves them from one paddock to another. The worms move out of the clump and into the soil. More cows mean more manure, more manure mean more worms, more worms increase soil fertility and allows for more feed stock plantings leading to more milk production... It ain't rocket science:

Bert Farquhar, a Tasmanian grazier, planted out walnut trees on his properties Wyambi and Rushy Lagoon. He says that the flies are repelled by the smell of walnut trees. Bert also emphasised the necessity for reducing stress in livestock, not just for health reasons, but for the all important economic ones. His yards are all set up to allow the stock to be mustered facing into the wind. He says that when the wind comes from behind, it lifts their coats and they become fractious and more difficult to handle.

There's lots of information available about Permaculture on the web but really the only way to learn is to do. Remember, make small changes at first and always aim for a harvest. The harvest may at first "just" be in good communication, skill learning and mutual respect but I'd say these are some of the most valuable.
Kind Regards,
Panopticon

Links and Further Information:
Baker, Geoff (2004). 'Managing Earthworms as a Resource in Australian Pastures' in Earthworm Ecology edited by Clive A. Edwards.
http://www.abc.net.au/rural/legends/stories/13_2.htm
http://vro.dpi.vic.gov.au/dpi/vro/vr...alth_worm_wise
http://www.ecogrowth.com.au/farmfert6.html

[Cjay]

The vast majority of farmers are definitely not stupid. Universities were brainwashed by greedy, stupid people (the PTW) to teach destructive farming methods.

We know now that the following practices - and many others not listed - have very negative impacts on the health of the soil, the health of the plants and animals we grow, the health of streams and rivers (and all life in them) and the health of humans. Try to avoid:

• clearing land (completely removing all the trees)
• burning the trees/shrubs/weeds/crop residue
• ploughing and tilling
• applying chemical fertilizers, chemical pesticides, chemical fungicides
• growing single species crops
• planting GMOs
• "industrial" animal farming
• injecting (or feeding) animals with hormones and antibiotics

Most farmers wrongly believe that it is very expensive to revert to organic farming and that they will reduce thier productivity. That is what "they" (the PTW) want us to believe so we will continue to buy expensive chemicals that severely degrade and poison our farm land, our food and ourselves.

The truth is, it is not difficult to revert to organic farming. Organic farms produce more food of much higher nutritional value than chemical farms. Organic farmers save a fortune from not having to buy and apply chemicals. Organic farms become more productive each year while chemical farms become less productive each year.

So, how do you make the transition back to organic farming? For starters, educate yourself in everything to do with organic farming and permaculture. There is already at least a year's worth of study material on this page (including all the links to other pages and videos on those other pages). It might seem overwhelming at first but if you do an hour's study every day, you will accumulate an enormous amount of knowledge in a year.

Knowledge alone will not make any difference. We must un-learn the destructive chemical farming techniques of the 20th century and practice the organic farming and permaculture techniques.

The movement started 35 years ago. Soon, permaculture/organic farming WILL be the mainstream and chemical farming will fade into history.

[panopticon]

G'day All,

@Cjay: couldn't agree with you more.

Before I wonder off to bed here's one of my favourite permie films. 'Farming with Nature - A Case Study of Successful Temperate Permaculture' is about the amazing Austrian farmer Sepp Holzer and his farm (at an elevation in excess of one kilometre!!!):

[GOOGLE]-6656144440632078205[/GOOGLE]
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...44440632078205

For more videos and information about Sepp Holzer's farm and his techniques try this page:
http://www.richsoil.com/sepp-holzer/...rmaculture.jsp
Kind Regards,
Panopticon

Further reading:
http://permaculture.org.au/2011/06/1...ture-a-review/
http://www.richsoil.com/sepp-holzer/...rmaculture.jsp

[Atlantean Avatar]

The Permaculture Research Institute has a great forum with many progressive thinkers. It was the first forum I joined and I found the members to be very aware of the realities of our society. During the past year I was enlightened as to how far we permies have spread. In South Australia there are now many people who have done there PDC (Permaculture Design Certificate) including many Lecturers in our Universities, CSIRO, Local Government, Government department Heads, Architects, Builders, Engineers, Doctors, Farmers, Mums and Dads etc... Permaculture is a way of thinking and living your life. I have been eating organic food for most of my life. It has always been affordable as I buy from local farmers. The food is fresh (a few hours old at most). When I have bought fruit and vegetables from the supermarket my children take one look at the food, decide that it's not edible and toss it in the compost. My neighbourhoood was designed as a dormitory for people who sleep here and commute for an hour to get to work. More of us work or find our purpose locally. We also have diverse skills - hunting and butchering, fishing, raising animals (chooks, ducks, rabbbits, guinea-pigs) gardening, cooking, preserving,bottling, drying, sewing, knitting, building, carpentry, logging, mechanics, child-minding etc... We share skills, knowledge, excess produce and meat and fish. We also share child care duties. When my neighbors children are at my place I feed them and care for them as I would my own and vice versa. We also use the opportunity to pass on skills and knowledge to the next generation eg: cooking, gardening, swimming etc... We are currently working on rehabilitating our footpaths/verges (Permaculture Principal 11 - USE EDGES AND VALUE THE MARGINAL- David Holmgren Permaculture Principals & Pathways Beyond Sustainability). I have gotten the neighborhood kids to plant some quick and easy crops such as lettuce. When we have improved the soil with the droppings from the kids guinea-pigs, rabbits, chooks and ducks as well as compost we will begin planting fruiting trees and bushes. We have collected seed from a neighbor's loquat tree and now have 12 seedling ready to go in next spring. By involving your neighbors and sharing information we can build our streets into communities which are human friendly (Producing food and an environment that nurtures us and feel good to be in. Instead of the constant desire most people have to escape to the SHOPPING MALL, MOVIE THEATRE OR OTHER PAID ACTIVITIES to fill the void in our lives that used to be filled by our local environment and community.)

[Conaire]

I have been thinking a lot about permaculture lately so I'm very happy to see this thread. Thanks.

Last night I watched a great, informative video about forest gardening. Well worth a watch.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=b_fhAch5qiY

[Cjay]

Hi Atlantean Avatar, welcome to Project Avalon and thanks for sharing your story of what sounds like an idyllic life. In some ways, it reminds me of my childhood and reminds me of the life I wish to return to. I look forward to hearing more from you.

Please don't be offended but we often have requests in the forum, particularly from users of hand-held/portable devices, for long blocks of text to be broken into smaller paragraphs because that makes it much easier to read.

[Hughe]

Most farmers wrongly believe that it is very expensive to revert to organic farming and that they will reduce thier productivity. That is what "they" (the PTW) want us to believe so we will continue to buy expensive chemicals that severely degrade and poison our farm land, our food and ourselves.

In addition, they are corrupted by money and profit after all. If money is good, farmers do whatever they can do like corporations. My home village's ground water contaminated by few industrial animal farms. I'll post the ugly look of the village one day. I have two relatives who are very successful farmers. They encouraged me to be a farmer cause "You can make good money!" I told them clearly I will sell left over corps and vegetables locally. They don't understand my perspective about farming. It's complicated business. I don't hate them but I can't follow their lifestyle.

I understand human being as a complex energy processing machine. Human need to eat food for energy, and electricity for running machines. I disagree with going back to primitive lifestyle honestly. There must be reasons why humanity has advanced sciences and technologies to this far. I think the humanity's destiny is to become the custodian that take cares of life forms on Earth. When I saw a group of people turned the desert into green land simply using a permaculture technique, it was something.

Garbage in, Garbage out...**** hope! **** hope!

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=qxsQ7jJJcEA

There exist definitely hopes that George wouldn't or didn't see. People are working on them: Permaculture, Free Energy technologies.

[panopticon]

G'day All,

I agree with Cjay and want to welcome Atlantean Avatar to Avalon. I am interested in hearing more about your community group and its organisational structure (or lack thereof).

Posted by Hughe (here)
I think the humanity's destiny is to become the custodian that take cares of life forms on Earth. When I saw a group of people turned the desert into green land simply using a permaculture technique, it was something.

Good point there Hughe (though I prefer the term "steward" over custodian as it doesn't imply ownership).

Are you referring to Geoff Lawton's projects in the middle east?
Here's the documentary on it called 'Greening the Desert':

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=8gPvsl9ni-4

Kind Regards,
Panopticon

[Cjay]

Joining the dots
I hope this post will join the dots for a lot of people, particularly those who feel hopeless and helpless about the devestation humans have caused to our planet Earth. I would like to reassure you that every problem has a solution, even if that solution hasn't been found yet.

If we love our planet and love each other, we can fix things, much faster than it took for us to mess things up so badly.


In Geoff Lawton's Greening the Desert (video in post above) we see an outstanding example of what can be achieved with permaculture, in hyper-arid conditions, in a fairly short time.

In the next video, Geoff Lawton visits a 2,000 year old food forest in Morocco, proving that the concept is sustainable.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=hftgWcD-1Nw

In How we re-grew a rainforest, Willie Smits shows us what can be achieved on a larger scale, in just a few years, and the positive impact it can have on local climate and the lives of many thousands of people:

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=3vfuCPFb8wk

This very successful model has been taken several steps further:

The Masarang Foundation
The aim of the Masarang Foundation is to save the environment through the active participation of local people. Through its projects, the foundation works on solutions for the most pressing problems the world currently faces: climate change, extinction of plants and animals, destruction of ecosystems, poverty and underdevelopment.
Masarang manages projects that achieve maximum improvement for the people and nature at a minimum cost. The projects link the possibilities of nature, the potential of local people, local traditions and customs, science and technology.

The Masarang Foundation was founded in 2001 by Willie Smits (Indonesian, born in The Netherlands). The organization is strongly rooted in the local Indonesian community and currently has about 40 local employees. In December 2010 Masarang International was launched, which makes the Masarang projects in Indonesia visible outside of the country. This foundation is run solely by volunteers.

Masarang has experience, most projects have been running for several years. For the good results Masarang and her staff have received a number of environmental awards. The foundation won the Padma Award 2009 granted by the Indonesian Ministry of Energy and was a finalist in BBC World Challenge 2007 for charities (was among the top 12 charities in the world). In addition, three individual employees have won the highest environmental prize in Indonesia, the Kalpataru, handed out by the president. Willie Smits has received nine awards and is often asked for his opinion as an expert by (international) media including the BBC, National Geographic and CNN.


Objectives Masarang

• Protecting nature by providing alternatives to the local population
• Preserving the unique biodiversity of Indonesia and keep endangered plants and animals from becoming extinct
• Replanting and expanding the forest and make better use of its ecological and economic potential
• Implementing (agricultural) production methods that do not pollute, strengthen nature and give a better output for the local population
• Offering the local population education and development opportunities to fight poverty, increase self reliance and contribute to the preservation of the environment.

Activities Masarang
The foundation currently has several environmental and social projects in North Sulawesi, Indonesia. Its activities include reforestation, education and research, saving wildlife and sustainable production. Masarang takes many initiatives to educate the local population and offer sustainable alternatives. In the projects the local people, wild animals and nature influence each other in a positive way so that they all win. Local environmental solutions can have a global impact because they can be applied elsewhere as well. For more information, visit the project page.

Masarang is a small foundation whose (non-profit) activities cost money but are creating a great return for nature, the development of locals and in the end: the world. So far, Willie Smits has paid much of the funding by himself. Due to insufficient resources it is often hard to keep the projects running, while we actually would like to expand them in order to have a bigger impact on a better environment and social conditions. The people in the West also benefit from preserving ancient forests and biodiversity. This is the main reason Masarang International was founded: to inform more people about the distinctive approach and projects in Indonesia and to receive foreign donations.


Working method and approach Masarang

• Participation of local people

Environmental protection is carried out with the cooperation of, and in the interest of the local population. Nature preservation can only be sustainable if the locals will benefit and support it. The organization is rooted in the local community.

• Balanced integrated Approach

Masarang does not look at an environmental issue in isolation, but provides solutions which tie various interests together. The environment must be saved, but salvation should both yield money and be supported by the local community. To do this, knowledge, technology and scientific insights are linked and used. Finally, the approach has to work in a local, e.g. legal, context. (see accompanying figure).

• Masarang has innovative solutions that work

Masarang detects not only problems but also implements smart and innovative solutions which have been shown to work. Masarang fights not only the symptoms of an environmental problem, but tackles them at the core and implements sustainable solutions that work long-term. Since the years of its founding, the organization has proven that its approach works and has made concrete progress and results.

Source (and much more information): http://www.masarang.nl/en/about-masarang/index.jsp?USMID=70



REPARING THE EARTH - Getting proactive
Drawing inspiration from Bill Mollison, David Holmgren, Geoff Lawton, Sepp Holzer, Masanobu Fukuoka, Peter Andrews, Jack Herer, Willie Smits and many others, I am planning large numbers of similar projects worldwide to restore large areas of severely degraded land while maximising biodiversity in what will effectively be hundreds of gene banks. Any helpful input/contribution/participation is welcome.


BIOCHAR will be an important part of the plan.
Approximately 10% of the soil in the Amazon is man-made, using biochar and compost - that's approximately 9 million hectares of man-made soil which is among the most hyper-fertile soil on earth. Imagine what we can achieve with modern technology.

Biochar has many important properties, including:

• improving soil fertillity
• improving fertilzer retention in soil
• reducing the need for chemical fertilizers
• improving soil biomass/ecosystems (micro and macro organisms)
• improving soil aeration
• improving soil drainage
• reducing soil erosion
• rehabilitating huge areas of degraded farmland
• making barren land fertile
• growing much healthier plants
• reducing the need for pesticides and fungicides
• improving water quality (by reducing chemical fertilizer and pesticide usage and reducing their run-off as a result of natural carbon filtration)
• reducing atmospheric CO2 (by sequestering carbon from biomass, in soil for thousands of years)
• reducing emissions of other greenhouse gases from soil
• growing a lot more food of much higher quality (many tests in different parts of the world have shown increases in crop yields of up to 900%. We can turn totally unproductive land into highly productive land within a very short time.)

[GOOGLE]8993313723654914866[/GOOGLE]

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=nzmpWR6JUZQ

Read more: https://projectavalon.net/forum4/show...l=1#post187057


When making large amounts of biochar, equally large amounts of smoke are produced - 100% of the smoke can be captured and processed to produce large amounts of:

• liquid organic fertilizers
• bio-diesel
• bio-kerosene (aviation fuel)
• cumbustible gases (mostly hydrogen and methane) which can be used to:
• generate large amounts of electricity - and whether we burn the liquid fuels or the gases to generate the electricity, we can capture 100% of the exhaust for re-processing.

We can make biochar and all of the above by-products, from any plant or animal "waste". Nature has no waste, so why should we?


With permaculture, we are working WITH nature, not against it - we are giving nature an accelerated, low-input, low-maintenance, jump-start. The technology exists TODAY. Most of it is actually relatively low-tech.

Ok. Roll-call time. Who wants to get their hands dirty? (literally or metaphorically). We can all help in different ways. Who wants to help and HOW can you help?

[Hughe]

This is a little off topic. I realized why peace is so important for us. Will majority of population fed up against the warmongers and say 'No'? It will has to be come pretty soon.

If any organizations are up to what they say, first of all they should disclose all the information for general public. Only capable individuals can attend their seminar, courses physically and have face-to-face learning from them. I've spent at least few hundred hours related to Permaculture.

Putting aside construction of infrastructure, the most important thing is the localized edible plants/trees database. It will takes few years for me to build a sounding plant database that Koreans use it without trial errors. Suppose people can access such information anywhere in the world, anybody who has chunk of farm land or property can buy bunch of seeds and plant them.


@panopticon

I watched old videos of Bill Mollison and Masanobu Fukuoka.