Deforestation has had a devastating effect on local communities in the Amazon Rainforest—and beyond. Permaculture taps on local resources to support resilience, by identifying the community knowledge and tools key for regeneration and environmental conservation.
Almost 30 years ago, the village of Santa Clara, in Ucayali state in the Peruvian Amazon, experienced a major deforestation following the failure of a mega agricultural rice-growing project. thousands of hectares were cut down. Today, there are papaya and camu-camu (a local fruit) plantations; other fields remain uncultivated, and are covered with invasive grass. These wild grasses do not allow local vegetation to grow and recover, and when dry can spread fire. Very few trees are left. I was told this story by leaders of the community—who had cut down the forest themselves. Pointing out an old tree bark, they recalled how it had been before. “The forest was like our market”: meat, fish, fruits, medicines and construction materials, in abundance... The Shipibo-Conibo is an indigenous nation*, inhabitants of the Peruvian Amazon since long before the arrival of the Spanish colonialists; Santa Clara is a Shipibo-Conibo village, with around 300 residents.
The story of the jungle in Santa Clara is the story of rainforests around the world. In the name of development and economic growth huge forests are being cut down around the world, stripping indigenous communities of the natural environment that they have relied on for their livelihood and social/cultural needs for centuries. This loss has increased their reliance on money. When one cannot fish due to pollution or overfishing, or hunt due to loss of wildlife habitats, when the local plants the healers rely on for treatments are gone due to deforestation, the people need money; money is replacing the life-supporting systems that existed before. People with no access to paying jobs face a struggle to survive, and the resiliency of the community is decreasing. Members of the community must travel far to find work; for those who choose to stay, the only work available in many cases is in destructive industries that contribute to the loss of the forest—the palm oil industry in the case of Santa Clara, oil drilling or logging in others, mostly in unsafe work conditions and for low salaries.
The over-exploitation of the Amazon rainforest is the continuation of colonization processes that started half a millennium ago. Indigenous communities that managed to stay independent and far from colonization are being pushed out of the forest as more industrial pressure emerges. Humans, animals and plants are losing their habitats: this important ecosystem, “the lungs of the earth,” is in grave danger, and so are we.
These industrial and economic projects are framed as development projects, and thus are seen as necessary to increase wellbeing and quality of life. But at the same time, we are experiencing climate change and an accelerating environmental crisis, which raises questions: Who and what is being developed? Whose wellbeing is being improving, and at whose expense? In rainforests around the world, these processes may in turn bring improvements, and increase the wellbeing of some people. But it is a mistake to ignore the social costs: the loss of language, tradition and knowledge, as well as malnutrition, health hazards, pollution and violence.
How can modernity and development expand, in order to contain the diversity of our globe? How can rural and indigenous societies participate in decision-making over their lives and maintain their self-respect, instead of being the victims of changing policies and economic endeavors? A paradigm shift must take place; Permaculture offers exactly that.
Permaculture was first introduced to the discourse during the 1980s, by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren. Its aim was to create a design approach which will allow human beings to lead a healthy and safe life without creating the alarming damage that comes with industrialized society. Permaculture was designed so as to support an alternative way of living, which will be holistic as possible and would take into account the wide array of dimensions in human societies. Permaculture is mostly known for its creative and beneficial food-growing methods, but it entails much more; regenerative infrastructure, ecosystem restoration, diversity, community and social Permaculture. It is based on three ethics:
• Earth care—the provision for all life systems to continue and to multiply
• People care—the provision for people to access those resources necessary for their existence
• Fair share/Setting limits to population and consumption—by governing our own needs, we can set aside resources to further the above principles.
These three ethics, together with the 12 Permaculture principles, are the basis for the design’s approach. When examined closely, one may notice similarities with a range of indigenous approaches from around the world. Indeed, the founders of the Permaculture method learned from, and were inspired by, indigenous cultures in Australia and especially in Tasmania. According to the Permaculture approach, these ethics are the guidelines for a sustainable future. Through the integration of human life and ecosystem life, Permaculture perceives them as one system, within which everything cycles. In ecosystems, there is no waste—leaves turn into nutrients for the soil, the dead transform into new life. In Permaculture design, the aim is to create or imitate natural ecosystems, cycling material and energy inside the system targeting sustainability and productivity. If applied in development work, Permaculture can emphasize the advantage of aiming to understand the whole life system, instead of focusing on just one part (humans). Working with the diversity of a community and its environment in a Permaculture design, all the components in the system are mapped: the assets, companionships, conduct of the land, plants, animals, people, and the interactions between them, the system considered as a whole.
In Santa Clara, where until not so long ago people still relied on their environment to answer their needs, the memories and knowledge are still alive. People still go on hunting or fishing expeditions that last few days, healers still treat with medicinal plants and the Shipibo art and language are still practiced. But all of these are on the decrease. As a non-agrarian society, the loss of the ecosystem hits hard, because people are not used to planting and managing crops. The community is not stable, due to periodic work-related travels of the young and old alike. Infrastructures like garbage clearing and sewers are non-existing, and due to this pollution increases. The government is failing to answer the needs of the community, and their wellbeing is impaired as a result. AlianzaArkana, a local NGO, has collaborated with Santa Clara for the past five years, with the aim of finding holistic solutions to these social and environmental problems; and they have found a solution in Permaculture. In order to increase food security in the village, they have turned the village school’s surrounding land into a food garden and forest. Local tree species were planted, which decreased dramatically the invasive grass and allowed the ecosystem to revive and renew itself. The children in the school take lessons in the garden, learning about nutritious food and how to grow it. The school toilets are now compost toilets; this way, they do not pollute the ground water, and materials can cycle on. The integration between new techniques and indigenous knowledge is key for increasing wellbeing in a manner that supports the diversity of human needs. Some of Santa Clara’s youth are interested in staying at the community and reviving Shipibo-Conibo culture, by establishing an art school for traditional Shipibo-Conibo arts. With the help of AlianzaArkana and the youth, the community’s gathering place was renovated; local medicinal and beneficial plants were planted in the surrounding area, and a reforestation area of 20 hectares is being repopulated with local trees. The vision is to found a Permaculture school in the village, specifically suited for non-agrarian Amazonian societies. A collaboration between Santa Clara and another community has already begun, with a delegation visiting Santa Clara to exchange ideas and learn from their experiences. Now, another food-medicinal forest garden is being planned in their village, Paoyhan.
The question of how to offer Permaculture as a solution to people that are not familiar with it will always be there: how to make it accessible and culturally appropriate in answering the needs of a certain community in the best way possible. Since permaculture is a rather new way of approaching wellbeing (the environment, the community and their interactions), it is necessary to learn it properly in order to implement it well. It can be seen as a challenge to industrialist and capitalist views, and can sometimes be understood as the opposite to modern reality. This is where it becomes challenging; offering an alternative perception or way of life is never easy. It takes patience and belief to convince people to trust something new. This is the work of the Permaculture practitioners supporting sustainable development: to bring Permaculture to people who can really benefit from it, to succeed in finding solutions where governments have failed, to invite humans to find solutions to their needs in creative and diverse ways, all the while strengthening indigenous knowledge, which in turn revives unfamiliar resources like medicines, food and many more.
The Amazon is facing great threats to its diversity; Permaculture is offering the tools that can keep both nature and humans in their natural habitats, and can support conservation efforts.
Shaya Bonstein
