ldb permacultura_kent evidence for action pc rd 2013 b

Compiled by T. Rhamis Kent for PRI Australia ([email protected])

“If we are concerned about land abuse, then we must see that this is an economic problem. Every economy is, by definition, a land-using economy. If we are using our land wrongly, then something is wrong with our economy. This is difficult. It becomes more difficult when we recognize that, in modern times, every one of us is a member of the economy of everybody else.” “But if we are concerned about land abuse, we have begun a profound work of economic criticism. Study of the history of land use (and any local history will do) informs us that we have had for a long time an economy that thrives by undermining its own foundations.”

“Industrialism, which is the name of our economy, and which is now virtually the only economy of the world, has been from its beginnings in a state of riot. It is based squarely upon the principle of violence toward everything on which it depends, and it has not mattered whether the form of industrialism was communist or capitalist or whatever; the violence toward nature, human communities, traditional agricultures and local economies has been constant. The bad news is coming in, literally, from all over the world.”

“We need a continuous supply of uncontaminated water. Therefore, we need (among other things) soil-and-water-conserving ways of agriculture and forestry that are not dependent on monoculture, toxic chemicals, or the indifference and violence that always accompany big-scale industrial enterprises on the land.” “Therefore, we need diversified, small-scale land economies that are dependent on people. Therefore, we need people with the knowledge, skills, motives and attitudes required by diversified, small-scale land economies. And all this is clear and comfortable enough, until we recognize the question we have come to: Where are the people?” - Wendell Berry, “In Distrust of Movements”

“A businessman would not consider a firm to have solved its problems of production and to have achieved viability if he saw that it was consuming its capital. How, then, could we overlook this fact when it comes to that very big firm, the economy of Spaceship Earth and, in particular, the economies of its rich passengers?”

Quoting E.F. Schumacher, author of the seminal text Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered, from Chapter 1 - “The Problem of Production”:

“One reason for overlooking this vital fact is that we are estranged from reality and inclined to treat as valueless everything we have not made ourselves.” “Now we have indeed labored to make some of the capital which today helps to produce a large fund of scientific, technological, and other knowledge; an elaborate physical infrastructure; innumerable types of sophisticated capital equipment, etc. - but all this is but a small part of the total capital we are using.”

“Far larger is the capital provided by nature and not by man - and we do not even recognize it as such. This larger part is now being used up at an alarming rate, and that is why it is an absurd and suicidal error to believe, and act on the belief, that the problem of production has been solved.”

“The Industrial Revolution degraded human life to the status of coal. People became fuel for machines. Bought cheap, people are used until unneeded and then discarded like slag. Individuality, talent, imagination, originality—the best attributes of human beings—are suppressed to the point of extinction. The Industrial Revolution sucked the humanity out of the human race; people became things.” - John Kozy, “The Collapsing Western Way of Life”

“The human brain has enabled mankind to discover and create wondrous things; it has also been used to inflict horrendous suffering and destruction. In fact, it would be difficult to design an economic system more destructive, wasteful, and dehumanizing than the industrial, and much of the destruction it has wrought may be irreparable. Industrialization does not efficiently allocate resources; it squanders them. So, is mankind smart? Of course, but that is not the question. The ultimate question is, Is mankind smart enough to keep from outsmarting itself? The answer appears to be no!” - John Kozy, “The Collapsing Western Way of Life”

“- there are no economies without environments, but there are environments without economies.” - The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) Report

The Money-Sucking Octopus Economy (Masanobu Fukuoka)

Politicians & The Military İndustrial

Complex (The Heart of the Octopus)

Maintenance of the transportation network, including road,rail, and air transportation

Control of agencies administering transportation

Supervision of communications

Establishment of an economic information network

Education and adminstrative advising

Control of financial institutions

Control of information

Control of citizens’ personal computers & registration

"Without understanding what it is to know things intuitively, people have sought knowledge and have become lost. Because people do not really understand what natural water is, they believe that water from the tap and the water in a river are the same." - Masanobu Fukuoka, Sowing Seeds in the Desert: Natural Farming, Global Restoration, and Ultimate Food Security

“We are the octopus congratulating itself for becoming fat by eating its own legs.” – Masanobu Fukuoka

“We are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it GDP.”

Dambisa Moyo: 'The world will be drawn into a war for resources' The controversial writer and economist on why she believes the economic rise of China, combined with the west's complacency, leaves us facing a future of terrifying global instability

Investment Opportunities

The Land = The Product

Self-Imposed Scarcity

VS.

Effortless Abundance



Speculative Value

VS.

Functional Worth



Production & Consumption of Goods & Services

VS.

Ecosystem Function



Managing a Problem

VS.

Solving a Problem



Abandonment Ecology (Conservation)

VS.

Participatory Ecology

(Regeneration)



Aesthetics (Style)

VS.

Functionality (Substance)



Rentier Capitalism (basis of Industrial Capitalism)

VS.

Natural Capitalism



Extractive Enterprise

VS.

Regenerative Enterprise



Assessing Risk

VS.

Assessing Fragility



Biological & Economic Systems:

Fragile systems – designed for efficiency, optimized

Robust systems – designed for redundancy

Antifragile systems – designed for degeneracy (functional redundancy)

Provisioning services • food (including seafood and game), crops, wild foods, spices • water • pharmaceuticals, bio-chemicals, and industrial products • energy (hydropower, biomass fuels) Regulating services • carbon sequestration and climate regulation • waste decomposition and detoxification • purification of water and air • crop pollination • pest and disease control

Ecosystem Services

Supporting services • nutrient dispersal and cycling • seed dispersal • Primary production Cultural services • cultural, intellectual and spiritual inspiration • recreational experiences (including ecotourism) • scientific discovery

Ecosystem Services (cont.)

The Eight Forms of Capital Regenerative Enterprise: Optimizing for Multi-

Capital Abundance (E.Roland & G.Landau)

Investment Opportunities (cont.)

The Land = The Product According to the UNEP report “Dead Planet, Living Planet: Biodiversity and Ecosystem Restoration for Sustainable Development”

Ecosystem Restoration: • Benefit/Cost Ratio = 3 – 75 • Rate of Return = 7 – 79%

Comparative Ecosystem Services Value (Organic VS. Conventional Agriculture): • Market value 21 – 25% higher for Organic • Non-market value 76 – 89% higher for Organic


The Land = The Product Natural Capital Asset Management approach based on the latest understandings of the integrated utilization of: • Ecology • Entomology • Soil Science • Hydrology

Focused on the development of PROCESSES, STRATEGIES, & TECHNIQUES - not products, resulting in: • Higher Benefit-to-Cost Ratios • Higher Returns-On-Investment

Functional Ecosystems as the Engine of the Green Economy John D. Liu, Senior Research Fellow, IUCN, Director, Environmental Education Media Project (EEMP)

“From the study of natural ecosystems comes an economic answer that goes to the fundamental question of ‘what is wealth?’. Although everything that is produced and consumed comes from the bounty of the Earth, according to current economic thinking, the value of ecological function is zero. We now calculate the economy and money as the sum total of production and consumption of goods and services. By valuing products and services without recognizing the ecological function from which they are derived, we have created a perverse incentive to degrade the Earth’s ecosystems.”

Source: Estimated returns from ecosystem restoration (The Economy of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, TEEB, 2009)

Fertility

Stability

Productivity

Biodiversity Profitability

Based on the intelligent management of Natural Capital Assets achieved via Agroecological Natural Technology Systems (ANTS) & the re-establishment of living systems.

ANTS include: • Permaculture (Permanent

Agriculture)/Agroecological Systems • Regenerative Agriculture • Biological Farming • Carbon Farming • Holistic Management • Keyline Design • Pasture Cropping • Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration • Biologically Active Compost/Compost Teas • Water-harvesting Earthworks • Bio/Myco/Phyto-Remediation

Fertility

Stability

Productivity

Biodiversity Profitability

Earth Repair Work (ERW)

Agroecological Natural Technology Systems (ANTS)

Practical Design Considerations of ANTS

• The systems we construct should last as long as possible, and take least maintenance.

• These systems, fueled by the sun, should produce not only their own needs, but the needs of the people creating or controlling them. Thus, they are sustainable, as they sustain both themselves and those who construct them.

• We can use energy to construct these systems, providing that in their lifetime, they store or conserve more energy than we use to construct them or to maintain them.

Practical Design Considerations of ANTS (cont.)

The Goal: Don’t waste the “Technological Opportunity” presented with the tools made presently available.

1 Horsepower = 12 Manpower

Practical Design Considerations of ANTS (cont.)

Questions to think about:

• What kind of work is worth doing?

• What resources are required to perform this work?

• What is necessary to gain access to the resources which will allow for this work to be performed?

Permaculture (permanent agriculture) is the practical conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way.

Permaculture, as a design system, attempts to integrate fabricated, natural, spatial, temporal, social, and ethical parts (components) to achieve a functional whole. To do so, it concentrates not on the components themselves, but on the relationships between them, and on how they function to assist each other. It is in the arrangement of parts that design has its being and function, and it is the adoption of a purpose which decides the direction of design.

Permaculture is a design science that seeks to create arrangements facilitating the highest possible system functionality & yield for the lowest possible energy input required to produce and maintain it.

Natural ecosystems provide the best possible example of this operational principle.

ERW = Auto- & Hetero- trophic Reconstruction



“Stolen/Cheated Time” Energy (Fossil fuels)

VS.

“Real Time” Energy (The Sun)

Classical physics defines energy as the ability to do work. Money REPRESENTS the ability to do work. Fossil fuels FURNISH the ability to do work. Quite alot of it - and, for the moment, relatively cheaply when one accounts for the finite nature of its supply in relation to what it facilitates. Before the advent of fossil fuel (and modern finance), the ability to do work was represented by the possession of human chattel - or slaves. History - in its politics, economics, and social development - can be condensed into the unfolding of how our human needs are provided for and subsequently how wealth is generated.


The Land = The Product Any holders of natural capital/land-based assets (i.e. - aggregators of capital): • Nation states; local governments, municipalities, etc. • Financial Institutions; Sovereign Wealth Funds • Corporate entities; Land developers

• Global NGOs • Individuals/Private owners, etc.

• Community groups/cooperatives (i.e. – land trusts)

Land = Natural Resources = Ecosystem Services = Natural Capital Assets

Degraded Land/Loss of Ecosystem Services = Loss of Production Capacity

Loss of Production Capacity = Loss of Revenue/Profit

Global Environmental & Ecological Crisis

= Symptom of Global

Natural Capital Asset Mismanagement

“Greed cannot be controlled by any appeal to morality & values. Greed has to be controlled by fear of loss…” - Nouriel Roubini, Professor of Economics and International Business, Stern School of Business, New York University



Biological Decay

VS.

Oxidation/Physical Weathering

Benefits of Using ANTS

For example, CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) operations routinely utilize ANTS. "CSA may minimize some of the negative effects of more conventional systems of food production and distribution because it involves less chemical use, less soil erosion, less food packaging, fewer food miles and more crop and ecosystem diversity."

"Average net return per acre for these CSA farmers is $2,467. This figure is quite high when compared to return per acre of corn ($172.11), soybeans ($134.46) and wheat ($38.10) in the United States.“ (USDA)

With this arrangement (Dervaes Urban Homestead), would global hunger or the stability of the global economy be in danger?

*6,000 lbs. from .1 acre; Produced from the work of 4 people & enough to feed them over the course of a year.>>>Net gross = $20,000+ USD per year *Translates to 60,000 lbs. from 1 acre; Produced from the work of 40 people & enough to feed them over the course of a year.>>>Net gross = $200,000+ USD per year *7 Billion people on Earth; 3.75 Billion acres of land under cultivation>>>Applying the same strategies, techniques, and 4 people per .1 acre: 7,000,000,000 people/4 people per .1 acre = 1,750,000,000 groups of 4 people covers a total of 175,000,000 acres. 175,000,000 acres * $200,000+ USD = $35 Trillon + USD per year (175,000,000 acres/3,750,000,000 acres) * 100 = 4.7% of current area used for cultivated agriculture

4-Month Growth

"In the early 1970s, it dawned on me that no one had ever applied design to agriculture. When I realized it, the hairs went up on the back of my neck. It was so strange. We'd had agriculture for 7,000 years, and we'd been losing for 7,000 years - everything was turning into desert. So I wondered, can we build systems that obey ecological principles? We know what they are, we just never apply them. Ecologists never apply good ecology to their gardens. Architects never understand the transmission of heat in buildings, and physicists live in houses with demented energy systems. It's curious that we never apply what we know to how we actually live." - Bill Mollison, co-founder of the design science of Permaculture

The Loess Plateau Watershed Rehabilitation Project (The World Bank International Development Agency)

Investment: $500,000,000 USD Area Covered: 35,000 square kilometres (3.5 million hectares) Investment per unit area: $142.86 USD per hectare Results: More than 2.5 million people in four of China’s poorest provinces – Shanxi, Shaanxi and Gansu, as well as the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region – were lifted out of poverty. Through the introduction of sustainable farming practices, farmers’ incomes doubled, employment diversified and the degraded environment was revitalized. The projects’ principles have been adopted and replicated widely. It is estimated that as many as 20 million people have benefited from the replication of the approach throughout China.

Most Commonly Cited Causes of Civilizational Collapse (J. Diamond, V.G. Carter, Tom Dale)

1. Deforestation & habitat destruction 2. Soil problems (such as erosion, salinization, and soil fertility losses) 3. Water management problems * All directly related to soil health

Human-Induced Soil Degradation by Region & by Cause, 1945 to Late 1980’s (WRI, UNEP)

World Totals (millions hectares): Vegetation Removal = 579 Overexploitation = 133 Overgrazing = 679 Agricultural Activities = 522 Industrial & Bio-industrial = 23

1.936 Billion Hectares of Human-Induced Land Degradation Worldwide

“The most meaningful indicator for the health of the land, and the long term wealth of a nation, is whether soil is being formed or lost. If soil is being lost, so too is the economic and ecological foundation on which production and conservation are based.” - Dr. Christine Jones, respected Australian Soil Scientist

Soil & Carbon Sequestration: Huge, Untapped Potential

Soil Carbon Sequestration = “Soil Power” (for Photosynthesis)

“Soil Power” (for Photosynthesis) = Increase in Fertility & Production Capacity

Increase in Fertility &

Production Capacity

= Regenerative, REAL Profit &

Revenue Generation

Produced without destruction or loss of Natural Capital Assets

Ecosystems and Human Well-Being. Desertification Synthesis (United Nations)

"Research efforts in the soil science arena have concentrated on reducing the rate of soil loss. The concept of building new topsoil is rarely considered.” - Dr. Christine Jones, Australian Soil Scientist

Soil & Carbon Sequestration: Huge, Untapped Potential (cont.)

Soil Organic Carbon (as humus) = Water holding capacity

Every 1% increase in humus = storage of 168,000 litres of water per hectare

Most soil organic carbon levels have fallen 3% in absolute terms

Represents a storage loss of 504,000 litres of water per hectare

Combating Soil Erosion

“There are only patterns, patterns on top of patterns, patterns that affect other patterns. Patterns hidden by patterns. Patterns within patterns.” “If you watch close, history does nothing but repeat itself.” “What we call chaos is just patterns we haven't recognized. What we call random is just patterns we can't decipher. what we can't understand we call nonsense.” “What we can't read we call gibberish.” - Chuck Palahniuk, Survivor

With that said, the questions that need to be answered are: ● Will we choose to fail by not investing (or failing to mobilize investment) into this vital work? ● Will we choose to succeed by facing a problem that can no longer be either ignored, denied, or dismissed? ● Will we act when it has been made so painfully obvious that we must, with the burden of evidence as enormously heavy as it is?

Masdar City, Abu Dhabi, UAE (Mubadala Development Company)

Investment: $22,000,000,000 USD Area Covered: 6 square kilometres (600 hectares) Investment per unit area: approximately $37 million USD per hectare Results: Work in progress; projected to take 8 years to build. Expected to be home to 45,000 - 55,000 people and 1,500 businesses, primarily commercial and manufacturing facilities specializing in “environmentally friendly” products. More than 60,000 worker expected to commute to the city daily. The City will be home to the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (MIST) - which will be assisted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - and will serve as the headquarters of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).

The Burj Khalifa (Emaar Properties)

Investment: $1,500,000,000 USD Area Covered (floor area): 464,511 square meters (approx. 46.5 hectares) Investment per unit area: approx. 32.26 Million USD per hectare Results: Burj Khalifa has been designed to be the centrepiece of a large-scale, mixed-use development that will include 30,000 homes, nine hotels such as The Address Downtown Dubai, 3 hectares (7.4 acres) of parkland, at least 19 residential towers, the Dubai Mall, and the 12-hectare (30-acre) man-made Burj Khalifa Lake. The decision to build Burj Khalifa is reportedly based on the [Dubai] government's decision to diversify from an oil-based economy to one that is service- and tourism-oriented. According to officials, it is necessary for projects like Burj Khalifa to be built in the city to garner more international recognition, and hence investment. "He (Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum) wanted to put Dubai on the map with something really sensational," said Jacqui Josephson, a tourism and VIP delegations executive at Nakheel Properties.

Moving Beyond Conservation to Regeneration Thinking

Conserving What Is Left VS.

Regenerating What Has Been Lost

Example: The Loess Plateau Watershed Restoration Project

Soil Degradation Types (ISRIC/UNEP)

“The public isn't supporting land restoration. We've forgotten that land is the foundation of life.” - Guðmundur Halldórsson, research co-ordinator at the Soil Conservation Service of Iceland

Quoting Robert Shapiro, CEO of Monsanto:

"The commercial industrial technologies that are used in agriculture today to feed the world... are not inherently sustainable,“ Monsanto CEO Robert Shapiro told the Greenpeace Business Conference recently. "They have not worked well to promote either self-sufficiency or food security in developing countries." Feeding the world sustainably "is out of the question with current agricultural practice," Shapiro told the Society of Environmental Journalists in 1995. "Loss of topsoil, of salinity of soil as a result of irrigation, and ultimate reliance on petrochemicals ... are, obviously, not renewable. That clearly isn't sustainable."

50% Cacao + Shade Species, Tree Crops & Cash Crops

Peak Oil VS. Peak Soil

Carbon Farming Conference & Expo (Borenore NSW, Australia – November 2009)

• 75 billion tonnes of soil lost annually • <80% of the world’s farming land “moderately or severely eroded”

• Soil loss in China 57X faster than nature can replace

• Soil loss in Europe 17X faster than nature can replace

• Soil loss in America 10X faster than nature can replace

• Soil loss in Australia 5X faster than nature can replace

World soil, including European & British soils, could vanish within about 60 years if drastic action [is] not taken. This will lead to a global food crisis, chronic food shortages and higher prices. Increased land pressures aimed at compensating global production losses likely will mean [soil] will run out faster.

"Anybody interested in solving, rather than profiting from, the problems of food production and distribution will see that in the long run the safest food supply is a local food supply, not a supply that is dependent on a global economy. Nations and regions within nations must be left free - and should be encouraged - to develop the local food economies that best suit local needs and local conditions." - Wendell Berry quoted in Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community (1993), “A Bad Big Idea”

The thinking behind the development of the genetically modified organism is a powerful metaphor for our time: born from an attempt to impose an order based on a misunderstanding of natural systems (resulting in an increased "engineered" disorder), fuelled by business-related motives (revenue and profit generated via proprietary technology & intellectual property rights), producing an inherent conflict-of-interest & moral hazard which ultimately begs the question... Is the objective to solve a problem or to sell a product? The two are NOT to be assumed as being synonymous.

"Once plants and animals were raised together on the same farm — which therefore neither produced unmanageable surpluses of manure, to be wasted and to pollute the water supply, nor depended on such quantities of commercial fertilizer. The genius of America farm experts is very well demonstrated here: they can take a solution and divide it neatly into two problems." - Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America : Culture & Agriculture (1996), p. 62

Investment Opportunities (cont.)

The inescapable interconnectedness of agriculture’s different roles