A former beautiful, bustling and touristy coastal town in Chile clings to an uncertain future after being engulfed by the 2010 tsunami.

A Dichato fishing boat scene, in waning evening light, exudes a serenity that
belies the realities of the almost complete destruction behind.
All photos © copyright Craig Mackintosh

Up to 90% of the buildings of Dichato were destroyed, creating a graveyard
of rubble, peppered with dilapidated buildings – many of which may soon end
up the same way.

Yesterday I visited the little coastal town of Dichato. A few months ago, such a trip might have included a bare-footed wade along the town’s tranquil beach, and, depending on the time of day, could have included a friendly wave or greater interaction with some of the smiling local fishermen bringing in their hauls. Afterwards I might have had a nice meal at one of the sun-drenched seaside restaurants or a coffee break in one of the town’s modest cafes, frequented by sea-loving tourists from near and far. It’s the kind of place many could envision themselves retiring in, or where you might establish a small business to accommodate a more leisurely lifestyle choice. Framed by green hills and groves, lined by a long sandy beach, and embraced by a beautiful natural cove that passively calms the restless South Pacific ocean, Dichato was, simply put, a very nice place to be.

Entire blocks were wiped out

Two months on and the cleanup seems barely started

But children find a way to play anywhere

The idyllic harbour’s natural calming effect on the sea is ironic, as two months ago these natural land formations worked instead to funnel and focus a quake-powered tsunami – creating a series of mammoth waves that engulfed the town of 3,000 people in a way that defies belief. Waves reached heights of 10 metres according to mainstream media reports, while some locals we spoke to pointed at salt water tree damage at heights that had to have been up to 14 metres. Either way, these are said to have been the highest surges and waves reported from the February 2010 Chile earthquake.

Waves washed right over these two story apartments.

The harbour’s shape intensified the tsunami and increased its destructiveness.

Compared to the physical destruction, loss of life was rather light. Locals here are experienced with earthquakes, and aware of the great waves that can follow. Indeed, municipal road signs – crudely portraying people fleeing with oversized waves behind – clearly mark tsunami danger zones and encourage retreat to higher ground. As a result, only about fifty people died in this particular town, and many of those were due to their returning too soon, believing the wave series had ended, or they were new residents from foreign countries who didn’t appreciate the wisdom in the calls to flee.

PRI Chile seeks to help

We came to Dichato because Grifen, Javiera and the others from Ecoescuela El Manzano (The Apple Tree Eco School) team wished to speak to the town’s mayor about ideas on sustainable building and community design. You’ll begin to understand their motivation behind this meeting when you see the pictures to follow.

A makeshift depot outside Chile’s second largest city, the heavily damaged
Concepción, loads prefabricated emergency housing onto trucks, ready to
erect into instant villages in destruction zones like Dichato nationwide.

The people of Dichato call this new tsunami refugee camp outside of town
‘the big neighbourhood’. This one camp will have 519 ‘homes’ in it, each
measuring 3×6 metres (18 square metres, or 193 square feet). The borders
of Dichato will host four or five more such camps,
albeit much smaller, before they’re done.

As much as we might wish we were, permaculturists are just plain not ready to roll out new sustainable communities of low-energy, earth-friendly, but low-cost eco-homes on the scale needed, and in the time frames needed, to address the immediate housing needs of survivors of such disasters. We have to be realistic here, as local mayors need to be in this respect. But, we can also recognise that our inability to fill the housing voids created by disasters such as this is largely because of a deficiency of common sense in our mainstream educational systems, a moderate supply of which could in turn bring a corresponding deluge of investment in appropriate preparedness via knowledgeable people throughout society. While we may not be geared up to take on the present challenge of housing thousands of people right now, we could be tomorrow if we are today showcasing the potential of appropriate housing to the right people and engendering their support and promotion of the same.

This is exactly what Grifen, Javiera and Co., with the backing of PRIs worldwide, are seeking to do.

Grifen and others talk to the mayor of Dichato

As it stands, the people moving from their temporary tents and hastily improvised shacks in other parts of the town (see pics at bottom) into one of these ‘beauties’ are being told that they should expect to put up with them for "no longer than one or two years". But, they have not been told what should happen after that…. In these tiny, uninsulated hutches, with winter arriving and a hot summer after that, one or two years will seem like an eternity – and yet, I think these dates are highly optimistic. Chile, like more and more countries today, is already dealing with acute energy problems. With an increasing likelihood that energy shortages and their associated economic woes will deepen global crises, I can easily predict these poor people remaining in these camps indefinitely – unless they can find a way to take control of their own futures.

There’s more to the article after the following short tour of ‘the big neighbourhood’:

The Chilean military coordinates the relief effort…

… and the resulting construction looks incredibly like an army compound.

Urban planning, army style. The emergency housing are all facing
the wrong way – away from the sun.

The new residents are moving in.

The 3×6 metre room – ready to move into.
[This and the next two photos are taken with an ultra wide angle lens,
so they look much bigger than they really are.]

They’ve brought their appliances, but we’re not sure when or if they’ll receive
power to run them. Water will be dispensed from centralised collection points,
delivered by truck to the new township.

I observed the buildings having many holes in the already thin cladding,
particularly where there were knots in the wood. These people
are in for a particularly unpleasant winter.

Someone scored the big chemical toilet contract….

The mother of this child described how after the tsunami many of her friends
returned to find at least something of their house and belongings left,
but she couldn’t find even a trace.

Families live roadside, awaiting their invitation into ‘the big neighbourhood’.

Demonstrating alternatives

It is politically correct for authorities to promise only a brief stay to new camp occupants, although unrealistic expectations and false hopes can entrench a feeling of waiting, and a feeling of dependency, in these makeshift communities. Such ingrained thought can ultimately lead to bitterness and unrest. Most of these people have little in the way of money – they cannot just buy their way into a better situation.

Even in these strait circumstances, however, there are ways the people can improve their lot, and right now. To showcase this, two weeks ago Grifen, Javiera and team ‘Expostsismo’ (a play on the words ‘Expo’, and post-earthquake – ‘postsismo’) ran a highly successful emergency housing exposition in the city of Yumbel, where they took one of these generic emergency houses, donated by the local municipality, and modified it in different ways over the course of a weekend. This demonstration was observed by hundreds of people and was so well received that it resulted in several other towns from different parts of Chile hearing about it, and requesting the same demonstration to be shown to their citizens and officials.

These invitations are not surprising as team Expostsismo – around forty volunteers in total – had wowed people with some simple but effective options. One was to turn the walls inside out, so the ‘pretty’ side was on the inside, and the ’support beams’ (hard to call them support beams when they’re only 2×2"…) were on the outside, where they easily added some simple shelving before being filled with earthen mortar (straw, clay, a little sand and water) for significantly increased insulation. Other alternatives were to do the aforementioned, then separate the inner wall from the earth wall and utilise it as a ceiling panel, which can also be insulated above. (The generic emergency house has no ceiling panel and nothing but builder’s paper for insulation.) Other options shown were to re-shape one corner, utilising the material to construct a dry (composting) toilet. Officials and citizens were also taught about water harvesting potential, biological greywater cleaning systems, worm farms and their combined potential for both improved sanitation and rapid garden development.

Such simple techniques require almost nothing by way of investment – rather, it’s simply an educational process to show people healthier, low carbon alternatives that can improve their situation right now and which promise meaningful, skill-building activities that can help people to begin to take charge of their own lives and well-being.

The effect of the Expo was to inspire people with hope – they turned disaster into opportunity, hopelessness into enthusiasm. I wasn’t there, but from the volunteers I spoke to the spirit-lifting atmosphere emitted from observers was palpable.

Expo to run at Dichato

The mayor of Dichato would now like to see such an expo run in what’s left of his town. This has been roughly scheduled for May. The Expostsismo team have nothing less than a captive audience to showcase all kinds of permaculture goodness.

This is the kind of work permaculturists have a profound privelege to be involved in. The results can reach well beyond these disaster refugee camps, as such knowledge and the benefits thereof, once implemented, will ripple out to the wider community, and reach not only into subsequent disaster relief but into the very heart of mainstream thinking. This is particularly appropriate, even critical, as, in one way or another, increasing disaster frequency and intensity are likely expectations for all of us in the months and years ahead.

Continue on to read Part III: Who Gets the New House?

Please consider contributing to this worthy cause – you can do so via donation links on this page!

Additional images to follow:

The lopsided sign hanging outside a damaged and barricaded shop reads:
"Let’s go Dichato – Let’s get up! It’s time community!"

Chilean flags wave over an impromptu shack village erected post-tsunami

Even the livestock are roughing it

This large fishing boat was washed a kilometre inland from the coast. It has
since been hoisted up onto supports to protect the hull.

Most of the industries, including fishing, have collapsed. But, people start
to build again, start to live again, and we try to provide them with skills and
knowledge to increase their resiliency and optimism.

Dichato has seen better days, but now it’s up to the people to rebuild,
cooperatively and with intelligence.

What’s left of a small house in the El Manzano village, Bio Bio region, Chile
All photos © copyright Craig Mackintosh

Señora Nadia makes the best of the situation

I awoke suddenly this morning at 6:03am. Despite being jet-lagged, my deep sleep quickly gave way to alarm as I felt the bed sway violently and heard the walls creak. I groped around in the darkness for some clothes, whilst wondering, drowsily, in the style that’s typical of my weird sense of humour, how many people die whilst delaying their exit in this way – just so they can look half-decent as they watch their world collapse around them?

The 5.9 magnitude quake, centred only 58 kms to the south-west and 35 kms deep, was the largest aftershock people have experienced here at El Manzano since the big February shocker. But, thankfully, it started to subside before I even made it to the front door. I met Javiera Carrión, the hostess of the house, just as the swaying stopped. After reassurance from her that it was safe to do so, I made my way back to the comfort of my pillow, and then lay there, imagining what the much larger quake of less than two months ago would have felt like. I remembered Grifen’s description of the 3am chaos – the house shaken so hard that the floor ended up being covered in everything that belonged on the walls and shelves and in the fridge, etc.

A partially destroyed house in El Manzano – all the main structural beams
shifted and broke away from their below-ground segments

The February 27 quake had a significant impact on the El Manzano community, but, strangely enough, that impact has mostly been positive.

Let me explain.

Over the last two years, in the lead-up to the February earthquake, Grifen Hope, his wife Javiera Carrión, his brother-in-law Jorge Carrión and his wife Carolina Heidke, along with other family members and volunteers, had been working with the local community, trying to develop ‘a culture of meeting’ – a culture of discussion, planning, collaboration and support. The community here is made up of poor families and individuals – many making just a subsistence living from seasonal agricultural work – yet, despite the poverty, the western cultural disease of ‘every man for himself’ is still strong here, and, with an uncertain future ahead, Grifen and family knew this needed to be addressed if the community were to survive.

Following the Transition Town planning process, that seeks to raise community awareness and subsequently facilitate discussion on issues such as peak oil and climate change, and how these will effect food supplies and other necessities, the family sought to inspire the community with what they could achieve, if they only wanted to. Although generally appreciating the concern, many of Grifen and Javiera’s ideas were shrugged off. Community members just didn’t feel the need to listen. With their low-carbon existence and their tiny ecological footprint, it didn’t seem that these warnings should apply to them. They weren’t causing the problems, so why should they need to do anything?

But, then came the quake….

Grifen Hope stands by what’s left of the Carrión family’s irrigation channel,
destroyed just days before a new power-generating turbine was to be installed

Although only a few buildings in the small community were damaged or destroyed, other aspects hit them. People couldn’t buy food – the closest markets were quickly looted and empty and fuel was rationed. The entire country was without power for several days, and the El Manzano community for ten. Since all the water here arrives to taps via small electric pumps, no power also translated to no water. The well-intentioned but somewhat annoying family now became a lifeline – as people lined up to use their well’s hand pump, one of the items the family had encouraged community members to obtain over the last two years.

The post-quake meeting saw the entire village come along

Seizing the moment, Grifen, Javiera and family quickly organised a community planning meeting. Instead of a handful of attendees, now everyone from the village – all 82 of them – met at the village school to discuss the situation. The turnout was without precedent. The meeting resulted in organised bartering of food and other items to help everyone get through the difficult time. The Carrión family gave lots of food from their organic farm, while those that had smaller surpluses in specific areas shared theirs. The village families soon discovered that, between them all, they had sufficient food and water and didn’t need to look elsewhere. They were thus able to avoid the chaos and dangers reported from larger centres nearby, where looting was rife.

As well as creating problems with physical needs, the earth’s violent upheaval left many in the village with clear signs of trauma. Slight aftershocks would send women and children into shrieks of fear. The community action and cooperation really helped here also, as people came to realise they were not alone and that people in the community cared for them. The realisation they were part of a larger cohesive whole noticeably helped the mental healing process.

Ultimately, the earthquake resulted in the village placing greater value on the invisible structures within their immediate community, and the necessity, and opportunity, of strengthening them and building additional resilience into their lives. Where people had until now been keen to find a way out of this small village, the natural disaster has, it seems, shifted their priorities and made them look towards each other, and their own respective ability to contribute, to create a better life for themselves – right here, right now. Like I was this morning, but in a more meaningful way, this community may well have been shaken awake.

Postscript/Video: Meet Doris. Prior to the quake, before the little El Manzano community decided it was pertinent to seriously consider things they could do to build resiliency into their village, Doris was already paying attention. She took the advice of the Eco Escuela El Manzano team and got herself a hand pump, so if the lights went out, it didn’t have to mean she and her family would be without water as well. Hence her describing the fact that the community had TWO hand pumps to supply water after the quake hit.

Now the whole village wants to get a hand pump. Imagine that.

Continue on to read Part II: Visiting Dichato – the Town That Was

Please consider contributing to this worthy cause – you can do so via donation links on this page!

Grifen stands on a pile of adobe bricks retrieved from destroyed buildings
in the neighbouring town of Cabrero – which he’ll use in constructing new
houses. What can’t be used will simply be broken down and composted

SOPI provides a unique blend of permaculture education, new model demonstration and what we call Culturequake education. Our book, Culturequake: The Restoration Revolution and future courses describe how we got to where we are now, what the obvious impacts are and then how to design new community and economic models that blend what has worked well in the past with what we have today.

“It is really hard to design new solutions that do not add more unintended consequences and do offer real long-term solutions. Our institutions keep offering more of the same infinite growth, consumer culture, private property, owner–labor separation, dominion–Taker stories.” SOPI is being brave enough to not only say what is wrong with modern culture but also to offer alternatives and to create a platform for people to discuss and develop completely new models.

By combing permaculture with real cultural solutions, SOPI will offer true whole systems thinking. We will teach people how to think a new way, how to see the connections between all of the elements and to act with ethics that emphasize care for the earth, care for people and sharing the surplus. Anything we do will follow these ethics.

For example, we will follow a common-work model that starts by designing landscapes for the sake of the land first and then identify the livelihoods within the land. We will work with nature instead of seeing what we can take from her without giving back.

We need to take education to a new level. Future leaders and the average person are entitled to know how everything is and can be connected. We can no long externalize costs and expenses thereby fowling our nest. Nature is the model—nature is the teacher. To be completely honest, all we have achieved with civilization is a lot of stuff that will soon end up in the dump, an unhealthy and depleted landscape for future generations and a whole society that no longer knows how to take care of ourselves and cannot live without distractions because we are not grounded.

SOPI is for those who want to learn how to and want to put their time and resources towards creating new working alternatives. Creating new models that will out-compete and then replace our current Taker culture will be extremely difficult. But starting with permaculture design skills and where Culturequake leaves off gives us a context of what worked well for a 150,000 generations and where we went wrong during the agricultural revolution.

Courses to New Model

We will be teaching the Bill Mollison Permaculture Design Course, advanced permaculture design and much more. Come take a weekend tour of Restoration Farm. In one place you will see a working permaculture and CSA farm, young food forest, solar electric, greenhouse, rainwater catchment, and green building systems.

Our goal is to develop a program of courses than will become a type of whole systems certification—graduates will be able to think and see the whole big picture and to begin to design new cultural and economic models.

SOPI also offers affordable Permaculture Introduction courses on first Sundays. Restoration Farm and the Village Farm offers a CSA, farm stand and U-pick blueberries. So give us a shout and we look forward to seeing you on the farm.

Ashland Oregon and the Rogue Valley

“Things are happening in the Rogue Valley.” The Rogue and Southern Oregon has among the highest concentration of skills in the country—more permaculturist, herbalist, healers, gleaners, green builders, craftsman and innovators per capita.

Ashland, Oregon also offers every amenity from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Southern Oregon University, fine and health dining, independent book stores, many bed and breakfasts and of course beautiful Lithia Park

~~~~~~~~

Chuck Burr is a permaculture farmer, teacher and founder of the Southern Oregon Permaculture Institute and Restoration Farm in Ashland, Oregon.

Visit www.sopermaculture.org to learn about permaculture education in Ashland, Oregon including the Permaculture Design Course, June 13-26.

Donate via PRI USA (USA residents)* Other non-paypal methods of donating here
Donate via PRI Australia (rest of world)* Other non-paypal methods of donating here
*Please be sure to click on the ‘Add special instructions to seller’ link, and then type ‘CHILE’ in the field provided, to ensure these fund are correctly diverted.

El Manzano in Transition – Towards Community Resilience, by Design

by Grifen Hope of Ecoescuela El Manzano

1. PROJECT AIM
2. BACKGROUND
3. PROBLEM & LOCAL CONTEXT
4. OBJECTIVES & ACTIONS
5. NETWORKS
6. FINANCIAL INFORMATION

1. PROJECT AIM

The primary objective of this project is to assist devastated communities of Chile to plan and design their own resilient settlements, to quickly recover from the devastating Earthquake of February 27 2010, and to build long-term resistance to the future effects of natural disaster, economic, climate, and energy disruption.

This project presents a call for regional, national and international investment in living examples of good practice in the planning and design of resilient human settlements. Evidence of the outcomes from this approach will be used to influence regional and national government officials and policy makers to replicate the model throughout the affected regions of BìoBìo and Maule.

2. BACKGROUND

On February 27th 2010 Chile was hit by a ´Mega-earthquake´ that shook the very foundations of Chilean society. In total 4.2 million people have been affected, many of whom are still without basic public services. Approximately 1.5 million homes have been destroyed or heavily damaged, with an estimated 1 million people left homeless. Initial estimates suggest the recovery will cost US$30 billion and take 3-4 years.

On reflection it could have been much worse. While the quake was 500 times stronger than that in Haiti and devastation is enormous, Chile has fared relatively well. Compared to Haiti the death toll and damage to buildings and infrastructure has been moderate. With a long history of devastating earthquakes the Chilean government and people are well prepared to withstand, respond and recover from a large earthquake.

At this point in time the priority is still on the relief response and providing basic needs to hundreds of thousands of affected people. However, attention is now turning to planning for the reconstruction phase. I think some concise reference to the vulnarabilities of modern industrial systems to multiple likely future impacts of peak oil, climate change, etc. is warranted to explain why this local resilience approach is so important to advance, rather than using existing local national and international capacity to rebuild communities on the old pattern.

3. PROBLEM & LOCAL CONTEXT

The village of El Manzano, home to 28 families, is the first official Transition Town in Latin America and in a pre-earthquake process of redesigning itself for resilience to disaster. The village remains highly vulnerable to the systemic crises of natural disaster, economic, climate, and energy disruption. Many of the basic necessities such as water, food and medical care are dependent on external resources, and existing housing is not fit for human habitation. These poverty related issues have been compounded by the recent earthquake. As El Manzano is out of the main disaster area it is very low on the priority list for recovery. In response the community has identified its own vulnerabilities;

1. Dependence on electricity for water for drinking, irrigation of crops and animals.
2. Lack of access to land for subsistence crops, low fertility and low moisture holding capacity of existing soils, with dependence on unhealthy external food sources.
3. Earthquake damage to two houses making them uninhabitable, and a general state of substandard housing for the majority of village residents.
4. Reliance on septic tanks for household and human waste disposal, subsequent excessive use of water and contamination of shallow groundwater used for drinking.
5. Low participation in community activities and the design of a community plan for the development of local resilience.

4. OBJECTIVES & ACTIONS

The community of El Manzano has identified the following priorities for disaster response and recovery in coming months. These activities will provide practical training opportunities for local residents and permaculture trainees in construction of simple systems, and in regenerative design that can be replicated in other communities.

1. To ensure water supply for 28 families independent of the electricity grid for drinking and irrigation.
   (a). Implement appropriate solutions for the supply of gravity fed household drinking water and irrigation systems to generate resilience in drought times or black out.
   (b). Manufacture of PVC hand pumps for extraction of clean shallow groundwater.
   (c). Recovery of existing deep wells which can extract water without electricity.
2. To ensure local food security for 71 people by increasing natural fertility and water holding capacity of soil using locally available materials and recycling of organic wastes.
   (a). Establish 1.2 hectares of community garden to meet the vitamin and calorie needs of 71 residents.
   (b). Cultivate 1.9 hectares of community compost and grain crops for the food self-reliance of 71 people.
   (c). Implement a local food cooperative so residents can purchase bulk food in the village.
   (d). Development of soil improvement techniques and organic soil amendments.
3. To rebuild two houses made uninhabitable in the earthquake (affecting 2 families: 3 children, 3 women, 4 men) as a model for other residents to improve substandard housing conditions.
   (a). Rebuild the 40 m2 house of Don Oscar and family using locally available natural materials to be earthquake resistant.
4. To ensure appropriate sanitation for 28 families, reduce need for water and reduce groundwater contamination.
   (a). Reduce water consumption and contamination of ground water with construction of dry composting toilets.
   (b). Implementation of simple bio-filters for the safe re-use of grey water in gardens.
5. To support the community design process in EL Manzano and develop a Community Resilience Action Plan.
   (a). Provide a model of community-led planning and design for community that can be replicated widely in the affected regions of BíoBío and Maule, and around the world.
   (b). Disseminate the results widely to local and regional authorities to attract attention and replication in other affected communities of BíoBío and Maule.

5. NETWORKS

Ecoescuela El Manzano (EEM) is uniquely positioned to make a big difference in the reconstruction process. EEM has developed strong relationships with the El Manzano Neighbourhood Association and Youth Group, and assisted a core team to begin the Transition planning processes here. Relationships have been formed with the mayor and local council of Cabrero and their PRODESAL programme supporting rural women in small enterprise. A partnership has been formed with the regional demonstration centre Centre of Education and Technology (CET) Yumbel to share resources and expertise. EEM is working with the foundation Work for a Brother to duplicate the El Manzano project in some of the worst disaster affected communities on the coast of BíoBío. An existing contract with the Ministry for the Environment (MfE) through the Environmental Protection Fund exists to install appropriate technology during 2009 in a community demonstration centre, and in 2010 in all houses in the village. In 2009 El Manzano was recognised as an example of best practice in community development by national organisation Territorio Chile. At a national level Ecoescuela has been instrumental in forming the Instituto Chileno de Permacultura and training a network of 140 permaculture designers and teachers. At an international level Ecoescuela is a regional training centre for sustainability in partnership with the Permaculture Research Institute, Holmgren Design Services, Gaia University and the Transition Towns Network.

6. FINANCIAL INFORMATION

Ecoescuela El Manzano has committed to raise US$50,000 to augment an existing US$17,500 for this ambitious and important project in 2010.

A donation from you will help turn disaster into opportunity. Through redesign of damaged settlements we can alleviate emergency need, and invest in long term resilience.

Gracias from Chile!

advance to the worldwide permaculture community for getting behind this work. You never know – in the future you may be the recipient of such assistance.

Donate via PRI USA (USA residents)* Other non-paypal methods of donating here
Donate via PRI Australia (rest of world)* Other non-paypal methods of donating here
*Please be sure to click on the ‘Add special instructions to seller’ link, and then type ‘CHILE’ in the field provided, to ensure these fund are correctly diverted.

At 6:00 am the tsunami warning sirens starting going off, waking me up.

I laid there for a moment contemplating what the sirens might be for. For some reason leaning towards tsunami warning probably because of the signs around stating that you are entering a Tsunami Evacuation Zone. Needless to say when I realized it was stil dark out I started getting confused, then I heard someone calling my name and upon opening my tent Todd preceded to explain to me that we were indeed having a Tsunami warning because of an earthquake off the cost of Chile. And that we were going to have to evacuate.

Well after retreating into my tent I said a few expletives to myself and then quickly searched online to discover that yes an earthquake did occur off the coast of Chile and yes there was a tsunami warning for the state of Hawaii and which was the most surprising fact was that the news story was already 3 hours old. It appears the rest of the world knew of Hawaii’s potential trouble before we did.

I'm pretty sure this is fake

I quickly got up and headed for the kitchen to see what the heck was going on. I soon found out that the tsunami was expected to reach Hawaii around 11:00am and that the big island was going to get first impact, and also that we were about 1/4 mile outside the evacuation zone and also about 150 ft above sea level. We decided we should seek higher ground just incase.

We were all set to leave when our neighbor (long time local) showed up telling us of the madness near town, from residents stocking up on all manner of supplies and fleeing the coast. He proceeded to tell us he thought  us better off staying put then go out into the madness and he doubted seriously that we were in any danger from the oncoming Tsunami Potential.

We decided to put our hands at the mercy of mother nature as opposed to mass hysteria.

Our descion was proved sound as we watched the tsunami play itself out on TV as some severe and rapid tidal changes. After a short while we became board and returned to the house where the radio kept us up to date and where eventually we heard that the tsunami warning had been lifted.

Half relieved half disappointed but mostly mentally exhausted form the anticipation we went about our day. One thing that continued to demand attention throughout this whole non event is the vulnerability of Hawaii, over 2000 miles from the nearest land mass there is no better situation that demands self reliance as this one. And yet the vast majority of resources are imported, food being one of them which seems insane in a place so easy to grow so much food. Lets hope we have some true self reliant safe guards in place if and when another such event occurs.

Those who watched Greening the Desert II will recognise some of my footage from Jordan as well.

Having the mainstream media peek at our work is getting to be a habit. Now we just need to move them from looking at this as a ‘novel idea’ to regarding it as an urgent necessity.

We’re pleased to announce that we’re partnering with the makers of the video above, WeForest, to help establish self-replicating permaculture reforestation demonstration sites in accordance with our Permaculture Master Plan, in several worldwide locations – starting in Zambia in the first instance. Our Geoff Lawton has just agreed to be on their advisory board, and we’ll be working to supply guidance, knowhow and staff to pioneer these projects.

This is just one example of the many encouraging collaborative results we get as people boil current events down to their only logical conclusion – discovering we need to quit battling nature and get busy harnessing biological synergies to repair the earth and rebuild sustainable community interactions.

In the United States, there has been a surge of interest in eating fresh local foods, corresponding with mounting concerns about the climate effects of consuming food from distant places and about the obesity and other health problems associated with junk food diets. This is reflected in the rise in urban gardening, school gardening, and farmers’ markets.

With the fast-growing local foods movement, diets are becoming more locally shaped and more seasonal. In a typical supermarket in an industrial country today it is often difficult to tell what season it is because the store tries to make everything available on a year-round basis. As oil prices rise, this will become less common. In essence, a reduction in the use of oil to transport food over long distances—whether by plane, truck, or ship—will also localize the food economy.

This trend toward localization is reflected in the recent rise in the number of farms in the United States, which may be the reversal of a century-long trend of farm consolidation. Between the agricultural census of 2002 and that of 2007, the number of farms in the United States increased by 4 percent to roughly 2.2 million. The new farms were mostly small, many of them operated by women, whose numbers in farming jumped from 238,000 in 2002 to 306,000 in 2007, a rise of nearly 30 percent.

Many of the new farms cater to local markets. Some produce fresh fruits and vegetables exclusively for farmers’ markets or for their own roadside stands. Others produce specialized products, such as the goat farms that produce milk, cheese, and meat or the farms that grow flowers or wood for fireplaces. Others specialize in organic food. The number of organic farms in the United States jumped from 12,000 in 2002 to 18,200 in 2007, increasing by half in five years.

Gardening was given a big boost in the spring of 2009 when U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama worked with children from a local school to dig up a piece of lawn by the White House to start a vegetable garden. There was a precedent. Eleanor Roosevelt planted a White House victory garden during World War II. Her initiative encouraged millions of victory gardens that eventually grew 40 percent of the nation’s fresh produce.

Although it was much easier to expand home gardening during World War II, when the United States was largely a rural society, there is still a huge gardening potential—given that the grass lawns surrounding U.S. residences collectively cover some 18 million acres. Converting even a small share of this to fresh vegetables and fruit trees could make an important contribution to improving nutrition.

Many cities and small towns in the United States and England are creating community gardens that can be used by those who would otherwise not have access to land for gardening. Providing space for community gardens is seen by many local governments as an essential service, like providing playgrounds for children or tennis courts and other sport facilities.

Many market outlets are opening up for local produce. Perhaps the best known of these are the farmers’ markets where local farmers bring their produce for sale. In the United States, the number of these markets increased from 1,755 in 1994 to more than 4,700 in mid-2009, nearly tripling over 15 years. Farmers’ markets reestablish personal ties between producers and consumers that do not exist in the impersonal confines of the supermarket. Many farmers’ markets also now take food stamps, giving low-income consumers access to fresh produce that they might not otherwise be able to afford. With so many trends now boosting interest in these markets, their numbers may grow even faster in the future.

In school gardens, children learn how food is produced, a skill often lacking in urban settings, and they may get their first taste of freshly picked peas or vine-ripened tomatoes. School gardens also provide fresh produce for school lunches. California, a leader in this area, has 6,000 school gardens.

Many schools and universities are now making a point of buying local food because it is fresher, tastier, and more nutritious and it fits into new campus greening programs. Some universities compost kitchen and cafeteria food waste and make the compost available to the farmers who supply them with fresh produce.

Supermarkets are increasingly contracting with local farmers during the season when locally grown produce is available. Upscale restaurants emphasize locally grown food on their menus. In some cases, year-round food markets are evolving that market just locally produced foods, including not only fruit and vegetables but also meat, milk, cheese, eggs, and other farm products.

Food from more distant locations boosts carbon emissions while losing flavor and nutrition. A survey of food consumed in Iowa showed conventional produce traveled on average 1,500 miles, not including food imported from other countries. In contrast, locally grown produce traveled on average 56 miles—a huge difference in fuel investment. And a study in Ontario, Canada, found that 58 imported foods traveled an average of 2,800 miles. Simply put, consumers are worried about food security in a long-distance food economy. This trend has led to a new term: locavore, complementing the better known terms herbivore, carnivore, and omnivore.

Concerns about the climate effects of consuming food transported from distant locations has also led Tesco, the leading U.K. supermarket chain, to label products with their carbon footprint—indicating the greenhouse gas contribution of food items from the farm to supermarket shelf. Sweden is a recent pioneer in labeling food with its carbon footprint along with nutritional facts.

As agriculture localizes, livestock production will likely start to shift away from mega-sized cattle, hog, and poultry feeding operations. The shift from factory farm production of milk, meat, and eggs by returning to mixed crop-livestock operations facilitates nutrient recycling as local farmers return livestock manure to the land. The combination of high prices of natural gas, which is used to make nitrogen fertilizer, and of phosphate, as reserves are depleted, suggests a much greater future emphasis on nutrient recycling—an area where small farmers producing for local markets have a distinct advantage over massive feeding operations.

In combination with moving down the food chain to eat fewer livestock products, reducing the food miles in our diets can dramatically reduce energy use in the food economy. And as world food insecurity mounts, more and more people will be looking to produce some of their own food in backyards, in front yards, on rooftops, in community gardens, and elsewhere, further contributing to the localization of agriculture.

Adapted from Chapter 9, “Feeding Eight Billion People Well,” in Lester R. Brown, Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009), available on-line at www.earthpolicy.org/index.php?/books/pb4

The new internship program is run three times per year, each beginning just after the first three PDCs end. The base requirement is that interns have taken a recognized PDC somewhere in the world. If a prospective intern has not completed a PDC, they can simply take one with us, then continue on with the ten week internship after that is complete.

Look for the internship indicator in our course listings to see more details.

Snippets of footage from the July 2009 Earthworks Course
Thanks to John Alexander Ericson and Misty Music AB for the music

Recently we had a whirlwind tour of Atacama in the north of Chile, the driest place on earth. This was a learning experience rather than teaching – in this hostile and vulnerable landscape that has been occupied for thousands of years we find strategies for building resilience.

In November 2009 we were invited by Daniela Martinez and Claudio Pereira of the new organisation Permaculture in the Desert to run a weekend Introduction to Permaculture workshop. At first we were a little apprehensive about our ability to provide useful ideas and strategies to desert people, but we took this as an opportunity to learn as much as we could about desert ecosystems and the people that live there. At first a seemingly hostile landscape has revealed its beautiful and friendly face to us. This is an inspirational place. We are just as unconvinced as the locals that this dry salty place can be greened. But there are remarkable signs here of resilience. And while many of them remain completely dependent and vulnerable the desert people of Chile have much to teach the rest of us about living lightly.

Atacama is apparently one of the driest places on earth, and according to NASA may have been dry for some 40 million years. In some places the desert is sterile, and comparable to the moon in terms of life. NASA has taken soil samples south of Antofogasta that contained no life. Despite these adversities parts of the Atacama have been occupied by humans for thousands of years.

Antofogasta by the Sea

We arrived by plane to Antofogasta – hot, windy and dry – and quickly caught a bus to Calama. The dry barren landscape all around was perplexing, a vulnerable industrial city on the edge of the sea. This mining centre, founded on extraction has been here for two hundred years or so, fueling an industry. The extraction has moved from guano to potassium nitrate to copper and the provision of services to the mining industry. We shouldn’t beat around the bush; this home to some 300,000 people is a completely unsustainable city inherently vulnerable to change.

The road to Calama is busy 24 hours with trucks of sulphuric acid and consumer products moving back and forth, and busses full of workers. A train rumbles past every few hours loaded with some metal or nitrate. Some 50% of the Copper from Chile leaves these shores for yours from Antofogasta. I am reminded about the lorax, just before the last tree had been cut. This is an industrial landscape, connected intimately to millions of households all over the planet. Someone is getting rich, but the fragile desert environment and thousands of people are being exploited and poisoned. Atacama brings home to roost the reality of a globally connected extraction culture at climax.

Calama the Town in the Middle of Water

We arrive in Calama late in the afternoon, from the bus we see a patch of green in the distance against a backdrop of red and brown desert as the sun sets. We stayed at 2400 metres above sea level for a night, in Calama, meaning "town in the middle of the water". The river Loa, Chile’s longest, flows from the slopes of the volcano San Pedro, runs through the city, then curves north through the desert. Once upon a time this place would have been an abundant watering hole in the middle of dryness. In Google Earth you can see some revealing images of the landscape and the river system that tell us a lot about the patterns of this landscape. Calama with a population of 143,000 is certainly one of the driest cities in the world with average annual precipitation of just 5mm.

Lolo, a student who traveled 1500 kms from the desert to El Manzano once a month for 8 months to attend our design course in 2008, gave us a bed for the night. We were entertained by Felipe and Carolina, talking late into the night, they share stories of life here and their families, tell us about the mining town up on the hill that has been closed because people were being poisoned by arsenic. The air water and soil in this city is contaminated by it. We are later told by a mining executive that this was not the case, the city was moved because the mining operation has grown so much that the town had to go. Who to believe? We ask the locals many questions, gathering as much information as we can about climate and water, soils and wind, cultivation and communities. We are given conflicting stories; "rain… never", "once a year in January.. the main street gets flooded and full of mud", "it hasn’t rained for a long time", "it rains every year in january, a lot of rain", "its just a few spits of rain". We are not sure who to believe. 

We rise early in the morning, and resisting the temptation to stay, feed the dog and pack Lolo´s little red truck. We stock up in the mega mall with water and fruit and head out through the desert for San Pedro de Atacama. 

San Pedro de Atacama

As we drive a plume of dust rises high into the air in the distance, some kind of mining industry in the middle of nowhere. It seems every part of this place has been scraped and dug. There are signs of water everywhere, but none to be seen; rivers and bridges, erosion and dry cracked clay flats… and dust devils appearing on the side of the road, vanishing just as quickly. I am expecting San Pedro to be an uncomfortable dry and dusty place. As we drop over a ridge and down into the valley a broad landscape emerges in front of our eyes, Los Andes fading into the distance in the south. There are big volcanoes in the distance, one of which is Licancabur we later learn, over 5000 metres above sea level. There are big brooding clouds high in the mountains in Argentina, but the entire mountain range is snowless. The valley looks dry from this distance, no life to be seen. I have NASA’s data in my mind as I survey the surrounding desert – no life detected… not even a drop. The geology is exposed, a patchwork of colour, layers upon layers, stratas of rock, crumbled and folded, twisted and worn, layers of lava, and pyroclastic flows.    

San Pedro is a small community, an oasis, with a population of about 4000. The climate is obviously very dry, and with an altitude of some 2400 metres, daytime temperatures are mild year round with 25-30 degrees celcius in summer and 18-25 in winter. At home in New Zealand in spring at this altitude we find a lot of snow, perhaps some lichen… but here we can find lemons. We are closer to the equinox, above the tropic of capricorn, in what, with a little water, might be more sub-tropical. The nights are cold and temperature drops quickly, routinely below zero and as low as minus 10 in winter. They say this place receives almost no rainfall, and the locals tell us that rainfall is reducing, but that it does rain normally in January, sporadically, a mosaic pattern.

The water has a naturally high level of arsenic, much higher than the recommended levels safe for human consumption. We are retold a story by a local woman that the irrigation water arrives from the mountain in two streams. High in the catchment the water is sweet and life giving, but it curves around a large salt deposit and accumulates a higher concentration of salts. There has been talk for many years about diverting the river around the hill to reduce the salt problem, a big engineering solution.The reality is that the locals have been irrigating with salty water for thousands of years. With a rising population, pressure on irrigation water has risen, and today locals have 1.5 hours of irrigation by channel every fifteen or twenty days. They inundate small paddocks of alfalfa to feed their crops.

Desert Food Forest

There are three or more hardy desert legume trees that are growing everywhere; Prosopis tamarugo / Tamarugo, Prosopis chilensis /Algarrobo, and Geoffroea decorticans /
Chañar which all produce sweet edible seeds. These trees provide the main canopy species in the oases and are used for construction fuel and fodder. We are told that the best way to make them germinate is to feed them to pigs, and to take their excrement and bury it in a hole to wait for moisture. We find many fruiting species underneath this canopy in places. There are three or four species of adapted pear species which produce small sweet pears. Quince and Pomegranate are everywhere, peaches and grapes, some citrus, no avocado or olive to be seen. We meet Macarena who takes us on a tour, first to her site where she plans to build a house, and then to a friend on the edge of the city.

Here we encounter what appears to be a 200 year old food forest, with seven layers of food producing species from the canopy of legumes to a rich dense groundcover in the shade and root crops. There are many of the elements of a permaculture system here, but in need of some rearrangement and reconnection for functional diversity. In the valley of Jerez we find an amazing oasis in a canyon with a fast flowing stream, full of life and green. The emergent tree here is poplar, spaced widely, with big old fig trees and legumes making up the main canopy. The valley is divided into small parcels, under lock and key, where people from the village co-manage to produce their own fruit. This place is inspirational. If complex polycultural systems are possible here in such an extreme environment, then we can do it almost anywhere. For more information watch the Permaculture Research Institute’s Greening the Desert, where they had it easy compared to Atacama.

Corporacion Gen

After a few days in San Pedro we return to the coast and deliver a public presentation "Hope & Despair" in the university. We hope that we inspired a few more people to participate in the permaculture network. The next day we traveled back out into the desert to the site of Corporación GEN to start an Introduction to Permaculture Course. Corporación GEN started in the 80’s with a group interested in environmental sustainability and social networking. One of the remaining associates gave us a brief history of the organisation and its efforts to create an education centre just out of Antofogasta.

The site is around 30 hectares – a speck of green in a shimmering desert. They rely on a water supply from a pipe that brings fresh water from Bolivia. A recent leak in the pipe that flowed for a few weeks carved a one metre deep river channel that now divides the site in two. With a monthly consumption of 300 cubic metres they pay a hefty price for this lifeline. The team has established a small area of legume and Shinus molle to create a shaded and sheltered garden with various small homes, animal systems and gardens. As they all begin to age and get tired they are looking for a succession plan, to engage more young people in the project to continue the process. This place is an example of what is possible with limited resources in an extreme environment. They have applied basic strategies that are really common sense. Once again we find that with a little redesign, new elements, and the integration of existing elements like animals and compost/mulch systems productivity could be increased and maintenance decreased. 

In the shade and shelter we join with new friends committed to a simple way of living. We share food and join in important conversation about the future of our communities and strategies for building resilience back into our communities. Together we explore the reality of the current global crises as a crises of culture, one that we choose everyday. We overview the design science of permaculture as a tool we can apply now of we choose. We learn the basic principles of permaculture, and the process of design. With a new understanding of desert systems we explore various dry land characteristics and strategies. Together we discuss the realities of an extraction culture in a vulnerable desert landscape. We realise that it is not so much the ecology that is our challenge, for it is possible to live here. We already know how to design, build and live in resilient communities and need only look back a few hundred years to draw lessons from a vibrant desert people. Sure they didn’t have a perfect life, probably a hard existence, but they certainly knew that over consumption and contamination of water would wreck havoc on their future. 

Thank you Atacama! We look forward to seeing you all again in April 2010 for a Dryland Permaculture Design Course in San Pedro de Atacama. We hope that this event is a catalyst for integration and the beginnings of a transition initiative in the north. See you soon.

For more information about the design course in April please contact Grifen Hope; contacto (at) ecoescuela.cl or visit the website www.ecoescuela.cl.
The Permaculture Design Certificate course is a prerequisite to participate in the Applied Permaculture Design Diploma and in action learning degrees with Gaia University.