Ldb Permacultura_Kent evidence for action pc rd 2013 b
1. Compiled by T. Rhamis Kent for PRI
Australia (rhamis@permaculture.org.au)
2. “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.”
3. “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.”
4. “We need a continuous supply of uncontaminated water.
Therefore, we need (among other things) soil-and-waterconserving 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”
5. Quoting E.F. Schumacher, author of the seminal text Small Is Beautiful:
Economics as if People Mattered, from Chapter 1 - “The Problem of
Production”:
“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?”
6. “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.”
7. “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.”
8. “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”
9. “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”
10. “- there are no economies without environments,
but there are environments without economies.”
- The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) Report
11. The Money-Sucking Octopus Economy
(Masanobu Fukuoka)
Maintenance of the transportation
network, including road,rail, and air
transportation
Control of
citizens’ personal
computers &
registration
Control of agencies
administering transportation
Supervision of
communications
Politicians & The
Military İndustrial
Complex (The Heart
of the Octopus)
Control of
information
Control of financial
institutions
Establishment of an economic
information network
Education and
adminstrative advising
12. "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
13. “We are the octopus
congratulating itself for
becoming fat by eating its
own legs.”
– Masanobu Fukuoka
14.
15. “We are stealing the future, selling
it in the present, and calling it GDP.”
16. 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
27. Investment Opportunities
The Land = The Product
Biological & Economic Systems:
Fragile systems – designed for efficiency, optimized
Robust systems – designed for redundancy
Antifragile systems – designed for degeneracy (functional
redundancy)
28.
29. Ecosystem Services
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
30. Ecosystem Services (cont.)
Supporting services
• nutrient dispersal and cycling
• seed dispersal
• Primary production
Cultural services
• cultural, intellectual and spiritual inspiration
• recreational experiences (including ecotourism)
• scientific discovery
31. The Eight Forms of Capital
Regenerative Enterprise: Optimizing for MultiCapital Abundance (E.Roland & G.Landau)
32.
33. 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
34. Investment Opportunities
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
35. 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.”
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42. Source: Estimated returns from ecosystem restoration (The Economy of Ecosystems and
Biodiversity, TEEB, 2009)
43.
44.
45. Fertility
Stability
Productivity
Based on the intelligent management of Natural
Capital Assets achieved via Agroecological Natural
Technology Systems (ANTS) & the reestablishment of living systems.
Biodiversity
Profitability
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
46. Earth Repair Work (ERW)
Fertility
Stability
Productivity
Agroecological Natural
Technology Systems (ANTS)
Biodiversity
Profitability
47. 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.
48. 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
49. 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?
50.
51. 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.
52. 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.
70. 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.
71.
72.
73.
74.
75. Investment Opportunities
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)
76. 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
77. “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
86. 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)
87.
88.
89.
90. 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
108. "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
109. 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.
110.
111.
112.
113.
114.
115.
116.
117.
118.
119. 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
120.
121.
122.
123.
124.
125.
126.
127.
128. 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
129.
130. “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
131. 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
135. "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
136.
137. 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
147. “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
148. 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?
149. 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).
150.
151.
152.
153.
154. 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 tourismoriented.
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.
155.
156.
157.
158. Moving Beyond Conservation to
Regeneration Thinking
Conserving
What Is Left
VS.
Regenerating
What Has
Been Lost
Example: The Loess Plateau Watershed Restoration Project
165. “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
166.
167.
168. 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."
193. 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.
194.
195.
196.
197.
198.
199.
200.
201.
202.
203.
204. "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”
205.
206.
207.
208.
209.
210.
211. 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 businessrelated 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.
212. "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
