Posted by: Lis Bastian in Untagged on
Nov 02, 2009
Draft project proposal for a Foundational Permaculture Curriculum (FPC) and Learning Centre at East Timor Coffee Academy, Ermera, Timor Loro Sae
Background
Country past and needs
Timor Leste has a long history of colonisation, which began with the arrival of the Portuguese approximately four hundred years ago. Occupying the land, and harvesting and exporting the valuable timbers from the forests, the colonisers altered the natural landscape irrevocably, reducing forests to a monoculture of coffee with an overlay of shade trees, and enslaving the Timorese people to serfdom.
Posted by: Lis Bastian in Untagged on
Feb 23, 2009
“What permaculturists are doing is the most important activity that any group is doing on the planet”
David Suzuki
The distribution of atmospheric water vapor, a significant greenhouse gas, varies across the globe. During the summer and fall of 2005, this visualization shows that most vapor collects at tropical latitudes, particularly over south Asia, where monsoon thunderstorms swept the gas some 2 miles above the land. (Credit: NASA)
If humanity is to survive it is imperative not just to reduce future CO2 emissions but also to find ways to take CO2 out of the atmosphere AND to sequester water in the natural systems which stored and cleaned it so well for so long.
"We now think the water vapor feedback is extraordinarily strong, capable of doubling the warming due to carbon dioxide alone."
The rehabilitation of soil and aquifers with water sequestration programmes may help us reduce climate extremes by helping us deal with one of the main consequences of global warming - desertification.
Posted by: Lis Bastian in Untagged on
Feb 20, 2009
Professor Stuart B. Hill is a Social Ecologist who has championed the work of P.A.Yeomans and his Keyline Principles in Farming. He sees Yeomans as someone who exemplified reflective thinking, progressive change and creative approaches to issues and who understood that everything we do, individually and collectively, impacts on ourselves, our community and our environment.
Posted by: Lis Bastian in Ugandan Orphanage on
Jan 21, 2009
Sowing and Growing - and Reaping a Sustainable Future
By Amanda Cuyler
Anyone who has ever planted a seed, seen a small green head emerge from the soil, and then tended to the plant’s needs whilst observing its growth, will recognize that wonderful sense of satisfaction that comes from harvesting the fruits of one’s labors and savoring a truly tasty outcome. As the seasons change and
Posted by: Lis Bastian in Ethiopia, Dams on
Jan 20, 2009
In 2008 Rowe Morrow began the process of recording the practices of the Konso people to preserve them for future generations, with the hope that one day their language may be written down and that they will then have a document that can be translated.
This is the first of a series of 3 articles written by Rowe. It first appeared in The Permaculture Activist.
Because the Konso people have been
Posted by: Lis Bastian in Untagged on
Jan 19, 2009
I’m intrigued by the serendipitous nature of how knowledge spreads and how this knowledge can then alter collective consciousness. Click
here then scroll back to the top of the page to read more.
Posted by: Lis Bastian in Untagged on
Dec 30, 2008
Ancient forests destroyed to make paper
Up until now the publishing industry has largely managed to escape public scrutiny in the battle against global warming because attention has been focussed on large scale manufacturing as the main source of greenhouse gas emissions.
