Food Forestry for the Desert and Famine Belt - Eco-hydrology Training Program
Eco-hydrology for the
Desert and Famine Belt and
Consultant Course
Lecture 1:
Progressive Anthropogenic Succession
Origins of Permaculture:
To many who experienced the ferment of the late 1960’s, there seemed to be no positive direction forward, although almost everybody could define those aspects of the global society that they rejected, and these include military adventurism, the bomb, ruthless land exploitation, the arrogance of polluters, and a general insensitivity to human and environmental needs.
From 1972-1974, Bill Mollison spent some time with David Holmgren in developing an interdisciplinary earth science (permaculture). The permaculture movement has no central structure, but rather a strong sense of shared work. If a job is not being done, we can form a small group and do it (when we criticize others, we usually point the finger at ourselves!) It doesn’t matter if the work we do carries the "permaculture" label, just that we do it.
By 1984, it had become clear that many of the systems they proposed a decade earlier did, in fact, constitute a sustainable earth care system. Almost all that we had proposed was tested and tried, and where the skills and capital existed, people could make a living from products derived from stable landscapes, although this is not a primary aim of permaculture, which seeks first to stabilize and care for land, then to serve household regional and local needs, and only thereafter to produce a surplus for sale or exchange.
Permaculture” is:
- The designing of sustainable human settlements by means of the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way.
This means the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems and are linked to the necessary inputs and default outputs of human habitation.
- The preserving and extending of natural systems.
The word “Permaculture” implies the interconnectedness of a permanent agriculture and a sustainable way of life or culture. Without the permanent integration of holistic agriculture with human habitation and culture there is no possibility of a stable social order. To empower the powerless and create "a million villages" to replace nation-states is the only safe future for the preservation of the biosphere. Let interdependence and personal responsibility be our aims.
Permaculture design is
A system of assembling conceptual, material, and strategic components in a pattern which functions to benefit life in all its forms.
The philosophy behind permaculture is
One of working with, rather than against, nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless action; of looking at systems in all their functions, rather than asking only one yield of them; and of allowing systems to demonstrate their own evolutions.
The word "permaculture" can be used by anybody adhering to the ethics and principles expressed in the Permaculture Design Course Curriculum which this course covers.
“Permaculture covers aspects of designing and maintaining a cultivated ecology in any climate: the principles of design; design methods; understanding patterns in nature; climatic factors; water; soils; earthworks; techniques and strategies in the different climatic types; aquaculture; and the social, legal, and economic design of human settlement.
It calls into question not only the current methods of agriculture but also the very need for a formal food agriculture if wastelands and the excessive lawn culture within towns and cities are devoted to food production and small livestock suited to local needs. The world can no longer sustain the damage caused by modern agriculture, monoculture forestry, and thoughtless settlement design, and in the near future we will see the end of wasted energy, or the end of civilization as we know it, due to human-caused pollution and climate changes.”
Bill Mollison.
“Most of us were deceived by the climate change fraud, including David Holmgren and Bill Mollison, the cofounders of Permaculture, but it did motivate them to open the sustainability debate. No carbon taxes were made available for sequestration projects by the climate change fabricators. What did happen is that El Gore got as round as a ball and then signs of autonomic sequestration began to show up on the satellite images, including autonomic desert reclamation.
Nevertheless, Bill did encourage “the debate that must never end”. He didn’t expect to be the last word on the question of sustainability. He replaced dysfunctional “scientific” methodology with lighthouse design principles and got us started on our own voyages of discovery. Scios: to know is a revelationary gift available to those above the level of unconditional love on the Hawkins consciousness scale. “That which begins in the spirit cannot end in the flesh.” The Bible. Once on this level of discernment the limitations of deductive logic stick out like a sore thumb and Bill gives examples of this later when he discusses the art of accurate discernment. Indications of the climate change fraud began to present since decades ago:
I found an article in the Farmers Weekly showing how the replacement of cattle with gemsbok had transformed karroid scrub into perennial grassland within eighteen months. (Writing in the first person is a Mollisonian precedent.) This begged the question: Could default human impacts also invoke natural responses that provide better for humans? Several years later we had a severe drought in Pietermaritzburg. The flat topped African thorn trees, Vachellia sieberiana, the paper bark thorn, between the natural sciences library and Malherbe residence had lost all of their leaves, with one exception which presented a green dome shaped canopy. Close inspection verified that the tree with the dome canopy was also a Vachellia sieberiana tree. Under the dome where the remains of a mulberry tree and a lantana bush which had been slashed to the ground.
Before this directed assault had been executed light competition from the mulberry tree would have redirected the typical flat topped shape into a dome, which then kept the fallen autumn mulberry leaves from being blown away.
This would have, in turn, generated organic acids which would have multiplied the effectiveness of the paper bark root action in opening up the impermeable Scottsville shale under the shallow soil along with solid humus generation flocculating the milled shale, which, then, would have stopped overland flow by raising the soil level and sucking moisture into the ground. Lantana camara is a water use efficient mobilizer of chemically locked phosphates and would have been aiding the overall micro-environmental upgrade in homeostasis and productive capacity in this way.
This multiplication of the productive capacity of a shallow juvenile soil on an impermeable bedrock was made possible by the default introduction of mulberries and Lantana camara by settlers from the cold and wet latitudes of Europe where mold is the greatest threat to survival, making hygiene and garden manicure necessary. The name of the Vaal River confirms that there were never any indigenous ecological engineer species that could repair the damages to the sub-tropical drylands of Southern Africa, inflicted by the fire climax cattle culture of Nguni migrants who probably originated from the Congo tropical rain forest where slashing and burning was necessary.
This is an example of spontaneous progressive anthropogenic succession multiplying human carrying capacity along with the carrying capacity of everything that lives by accelerating soil genesis from a juvenile soil profile to a deep organic loam.
I was also taken to a garden in Bryanston, Gauteng by Valerie Worth where I was shown how senescent black wattle trees had opened up the ouklip, known internationally as hardpan. Later communication with Valerie confirmed that the opening up of the hardpan had multiplied growth vigor in that garden beyond any previous performance.
Black wattle requires fire or prolonged saturation to germinate, both of which occur on perched water tables. When the perched water table has been opened up, black wattle cannot germinate there again unless people damage the soil profile again.
If we can cure our populous of inappropriate knee jerk reactions that bypass the brain black wattle will not become the monocultural climax land cover of Southern Africa.
That black wattle was introduced for tanning leather indicates that it is our only hope of restoring soil profiles that have been damaged by the fire climax cattle culture. It is common knowledge that indigenous trees can only germinate on the south side of hills in KZN. This indicates that the soil is not able to absorb and retain sufficient moisture to make establishment of indigenous trees possible on the hotter side of hills. This is an example of how Introduced species can restore the indigenous forest that once stretched from the east coast to the west coast of South Africa.
Brambles have proved to restore indigenous grasslands. Ecological engineer species are necessary to make the restoration of indigenous fauna and flora possible. Retrogressive succession is always driven by the invasion of people into macroclimates beyond their macroclimates of origin and their ongoing imposition of inappropriate knee jerk reactions and incorrect situation of built environments.
Micro- and meso- climates are determined by the nature of land design and management. They are anthropogenic. In wet macro-climates the human herd instinct gravitates towards norms that dry the air and the ground out and in dryland meso-climates the human herd instinct gravitates towards norms that soak as much water into the ground as possible. The three major macro-climate types are:
1. Cold wet macro-climates:
Appropriate Knee jerk reactions:
a. Manicure syndrome
b. Drainage
c. Vigorous hygiene
The threats are:
a. mold and
b. laundry not drying on the washing line.
2. Warm dry macro-climates
Appropriate Knee jerk reactions:
a. Swaling of lower reaches of the landscape
to stop surface runoff.
b. Maintenance of mulches comprised of organic fiber and manure to accelerate soil moisture infiltration by maintaining solid humus content in the soil which in turn multiplies soil moisture retention capacity.
c. Situation of productive and built environments to equate average runoff interception with the average potential evaporation rate.
The threat is failure of soil moisture reserves to keep up with the evaporative demand of the atmosphere. Species that are adapted to resisting the evaporative demand of the atmosphere are not water use efficient and herein lies the conflict of interests between the protection of indigenous flora and authentically sustainable agriculture and forestry.
It is important to note that the old South African departments of agriculture and forestry intended introduced species to be used in bottom land productive systems. The planting of introduced species from ridge line to ridge line is a bonfire waiting to happen. Coming from institutions that are deemed to be authorities in their field is genocidal vandalism.
Indigenous flora can be appropriately included in the built environment mosaic. This is where species with high transpiration coefficients can be expected to dry out soil moisture reserves and become a fire hazard and where the ancient narrative about the indigenous species being better adapted to the climate does apply.
This does not however over rule the fact that whatever plant species invade spontaneously are always mother natures’ best bet for repairing the soil and in this context can be expected to be followed by indigenous species. Indigenous seed can be broadcast in pelleted form into whatever secondary pioneers naturalize and will present when it is their time in the natural succesionary process.
3. Hot wet macro-climates:
Appropriate Knee jerk reactions:
a. Slashing and burning.
The threat is being eaten by all mobile organisms great and small related to the rapid biomass turnover of the tropical rain forest.
Repair and progressive succession are always driven by introduced “alien weeds” and the correct sighting of built environments. The only successful veld rehabilitation projects that I know of happened of their own accord when the “alien weeds” were left alone. The ecological advice department of KZN Ezemvelo has only ever succeeded in replacing “alien monocultures” with permanent alien monocultures.
Fortunately there is a proven science to cure the population of inappropriate knee jerk reactions, which we will get to later. It was applied by Jesus Crist in the structure of His twelve disciples. Certain disciples where subjected to greater conditioning than others and His message reached the utmost end of the earth from where it started: New Zealand.
All mobile organisms impact the environment including us and not only does the photosphere have an amazing way of responding benevolently to these impacts, according to Alan Savory, without them desertification sets in. Only humanity can inflict retrogressive impacts and this happens when their autonomic herd instinct, their “values”, originate from macroclimates where the ratio of the evaporative demand of the atmosphere and precipitation is opposite to that of macroclimates that they have invaded.
I have been hearing the popular narrative about the alien weeds amensalizing our cherished indigenous flora since I was in high school. The truth is that they are repairing the soil so that the indigenous flora and endemic species can revive. The popular narrative recognizes that our potential evaporation rates exceed precipitation and argue that the transpiration coefficients of introduced species allow too much moisture to transpire into the atmosphere.
The more recent recognition of water use efficiency puts this one sided pseudo since concept into perspective. It’s not about how much water goes into the air. It’s about how much human, animal and soil food we cycle for the water that goes into the air.
A woman once asked me why her garden was so dry. Her home was in the far north end of Pietermaritzburg where Vachilia siberiana paper bark thorn trees on shallow clay on impermeable shale bedrock prevails. I asked her what state her garden was in when she first moved onto the property and she told me that it was terribly overgrown and that they cut all the vegetation back and removed it from their premises, so I asked her how dry it was before they cleared the garden and she told me that it was so wet that they had to take their socks off to squeeze the water out of them.
I have heard various opinions on the cause of the ecological collapse of the Great Karroo, none of which took cognizance of the North European manicure syndrome, which in my opinion is not to be under estimated. The greatest limiting factor to survival in South Africa or anywhere in the sub-tropical drylands is not mold. It is that the macro-climatic potential evaporation rate is a multiple of the precipitation rate and that with insufficient biospheric water storage capacity presents at best a dry season and where extreme vandalism of soil flocculation is committed prolonged droughts, albedo effect and desertification.
Yes the British colonial steam locomotive gobbled up the trees too fast, but that was because of insufficient carbon emissions in atmosphere-biosphere circulation. We need to get more carbon out of the fossil fuel bank and into eternal circulation to provide for our fuel needs forever. The more carbon goes into the atmosphere the more the trees grow with less water. This was indicated by Silvan Witver soon after El Gore launched his nefarious propaganda machine.
Pseudo-science typically ignores context and process because the rational range of Hawkins’ consciousness scale cannot see the wood for the trees. At the level of peace the subconscious rapidly processes context and process. In his treatment of pattern understanding Bill points out that everything is an event with a beginning, a process and an end. In this course I will be using image compilations to cultivate rapid intuitive logic. Infinite patience yields instant miracles and revelations.
This necessary treatment of Bill’s climate change clangor invokes two essential design principles that need to precede Bill’s original list of design principles when designing and managing settlements in the subtropical drylands:
1. Progressive Anthropogenic Succession:
2. Water Use Efficiency:
Progressive Anthropogenic Succession:
My identification of the principle of progressive anthropogenic succession invokes the possibility that carbon emissions could be beneficial for global food security. Sylvan Witwer confirmed that it was and history shows that we can expect them to restore global soil flocculation. The opening point of James Lovelock’s Gaia Hypothesis is that the composition of the atmosphere is far from chemical equilibrium and is maintained by the biosphere. The answers are not in the clouds.
They are under our feet. Default explosions in water use efficiency shows that we can situate built and productive zones to systematically maximize national water use efficiency to the benefit of both human basic needs security and the conservation of our biodiverse and unique fauna and flora.
Water Use Efficiency:
Water use efficiency is greatest where soil moisture infiltration equates the potential evaporation rate. This means that runoff distribution and infiltration needs to be directed to this end in order to balance the sustainable carrying capacity of the land with the needs of the people. Where this happens by default spontaneous progressive anthropogenic succession occurs. Filling in open caste mines is not sound ecological management. It is a genocidal crime against humanity.
Hilton Quarry is a good example of the natural beauty that evolves in open caste mines after they have been abandoned. A forced fix eliminates this potential and loses the default improvement in water use efficiency. It is essential that we give nature the latitude to translate our impacts into progressive anthropogenic succession. That is how nature is supposed to work.
For example, in Gauteng the average potential evaporation rate is three times the average precipitation rate. This means that all surface runoff should be redirected into a third of the total area to support food forest ecosystems and the other two thirds of the total area should be under built environment to serve as runoff surfaces. This is our only hope of equating sustainable carrying capacity with the needs of the people.
Alan Savory noticed that where there are no people desertification set in. We have also established that desertification follows the intrusion of in appropriately programed people. John Seymour wrote: “Put a true husbandman on five acres of wilderness” and both the farming system and the wildlife will flourish. The second international conference on public open space management at TECNICON PRETORIA hosted a presentation on urban conservancies, which advocated the introduction of owl and bat boxes. Over the years that followed I met several people who had put up owl and bat boxes but no owls or bats moved in.
When we introduced an anthropocentric ecosystem in Fourways owls and porcupines moved in and proved to assist the functionality of our food jungle. The capacity of our natural resources to sustain us and everything that lives is not a function of the presence or absence of people. It is a function of the consciousness level of the human element. We have inherited these major land use types:
1. The urban municipality:
that assumes a right to ignore all issues related to the responsible management of natural resources and assumes that popular mindless knee jerk reactions can and should over rule the laws of nature and brutally imposes cost transferal systems such as over densification to raise “profits” on water and electricity supply. Who exactly is profiting from these gangster grand thefts. The electorate? People who can vote with their money choose peri-urban small holdings. There is no intention to give the electorate what is best for them. The only intention is grand theft which will result in wholesale mass destruction:
2. Factory Farms:
3. Nature Reserves:
That prefer plastic pollution to sustainable productive ecosystems around their guest camps and staff lodges and engineer flood and drought cycles by eradicating tree recyclers resulting in prevention of soil flocculation.
These major land use types are maintained by all the popular knee jerk reactions that we are all familiar with. On the edge between the cities and the factory farms we have a peri-urban transition belt where the spatial ownership pattern that could accommodate some sanity, situated where resources required to install sustainable systems are accessible. This land needs to get into the right hands, by education and by buying out Satan’s slaves.” Jamie Shepherd.
“On the Strategies for the necessary changes in social investment policy, politics itself, and towards regional or village self-reliance are now desperately needed, and examples of these strategies are given. It is hoped that this manual will open the global debate that must never end, and so give a guide to the form of a future in which our children have at least a chance of a reasonable existence.”
