can we really restore degraded landscapes?

New and exciting things are happening at the Permaculture Skills Center. The Eco-Landscape Mastery Course is already underway! It couldn’t be a more opportune time to continue our work educating our communities and ourselves! 

It’s a degraded world out there. So many acres/hectares of landscapes have been destroyed and it’s having negative consequences for humans as well as the environment. Can we really restore these degraded landscapes? Is it possible to scale regeneration? Can we actually create businesses that focus on this vital work? The answer is…YES, YES, YES! Anyone and everyone can do this with the right knowledge. We know YOU can too, and the Eco-landscape Mastery School want to give you the roadmap to make it happen.
The course is ideally suited to:

• Anyone who wants to start a business in ecological landscape design and contracting.
• Beginning landscape designers who want to learn best practices and quickly grow a successful landscape design business.
• Experienced designers, landscapers, and contractors ready to grow their business to the next level through having professional mentorship and business development support.
• Landscape and maintenance workers who want to grow out of manual labor and into higher paid positions or start and run their own companies.
• Permaculture practitioners and designers who want to professionalize their work.
• Consultants who want to establish a successful and professional consultation business.
• Regenerative agriculturists who want to educate and mentor their clients, neighbors and communities to help them grow and develop successful regenerative agriculture projects.
• Newly Certified Permaculture Designers who want to add to their learning experience with professional tools to create a permaculture based business of their own.
• Ecological design educators who want to support their students and colleague’s interests in  providing ecological design professionally to the world.

Are you or someone you know looking to start or scale a regenerative business? Don’t wait! Registration for the Eco-Landscape Mastery Course closes November 14, 2017

Click HERE to read more about the course.

restorative agroforestry proposed as a solution to climate change related forest fires.

credit: Rafael Marchante/Reuters

Forest fires have become an increasingly significant issue in the last decade and it seems as though nowhere is safe from the death and destruction that they bring. Few places have to contend with fires on a large a scale as Portugal. The fires this year killed 64 people and destroyed tens of thousands of hectares of forest and farmland.

In addition to climate change, one of the major issues in Portugal is urbanisation. In recent decades populations who once inhabited the land have been moving to urban areas in search of work, abandoning their land. This has lead to a lack of maintenance and an abundance of undergrowth which is in turn more vulnerable to these all consuming fires.

“This was an area where families had their small properties and they lived off the land. That ended in the 1970s, they left, and the owners of the land now live in the cities…The landscape we now have is the result of abandonment.”

– Antonio Louro, deputy mayor of Macao

Forest fires in Portugal account for a disproportionate amount of the total number in Europe. Despite accounting for less than 3% of the EU population, this year Portugal had to contend with 40% of the forest fires.  Louro, the architect of land reforms in the area has proposed a novel solution to the problems in the region – namely ‘village companies’ that practice shared land management of abandoned land. This would see the reintroduction of native crops such as citrus trees and olives and the profits generated would be shared among the community.

It is so wonderful and inspiring to see innovative solutions take hold and gain traction in the face of environmental and social catastrophes. To read the full article, click HERE.

wonderful job opportunity in the country at the schumacher centre for a new economics.

credit: NASA

The Schumacher Centre for a New Economics is seeking a Development and Communications Director to join their non-profit organisation in Western Massachusetts, to further the transition to a new economy. The centre’s mission is to educate the public about an economy that supports both people and the planet.  They believe that a fair and sustainable economy is possible and that citizens working for the common interest can build systems to achieve it. Much of the work of the Schumacher centre is in the area of sustainable local agriculture, land access, land trust with an ever present focus on communities and the commons.

wright-locke farm’s speaker series july 19th 2017 – molly anderson

As part of their 2017 speaker series, Wright-Locke Farm are hosting their second monthly speaker, Molly Anderson, on July 19th. Molly is a professor of food studies at Middlebury College, a member of the Network Design Team of Food Solutions in New England and is co-author of  A New England Food Vision 2060: Healthy Food for All, Sustainable Farming and Fishing, Thriving Communities, which explores that potential futures of the food system in New England which can support a high quality of life for everybody by supplying food that can nourish a social, environmental and economic landscape that works for everybody.

Location: Wright – Locke Farm, 82 Ridge Street, Winchester, MA

Time: 7.30 PM

Other Details: Cost is free however the organisers request that you email them to reserve a seat on kkneeland@wlfarm.org

You can find the full paper A New England Food Vision 2060 HERE

crops of the future.

When portrayed by the film and TV media, the one thing that all fictional futures seem to have in common is a coffee shortage. Only the elite and the lucky manage to get their hands on a coveted cup of joe. In the dystopian fictional future, coffee is a black market product and in the wake of climate change, future coffee shortages may not be such a far-fetched concept after all. In 2016, Climate Institute, an Australian non-profit released a report that stated that in the next number of decades, the area of land suitable for growing coffee will decrease by about 50%. In addition to this, increased temperatures in the southern hemisphere, where much of our coffee comes from, encourages the spread of diseases and pests that affect the coffee plant, which can only grow well in a stable climate with steady levels of both heat and water.  If you are anything like me, the thought of having to start your day without a cup of freshly brewed coffee may strike fear in your heart, but fear not!

watch: in our hands

The Landworkers Alliance, is an organisation based in UK made up of farmers, growers and land workers working together to find solutions to the shared challenges they face, and raising awareness about the contributions that they make to their communities. In Our Hands, is their documentary, made to share their quiet revolution with the world. It is a beautiful and inspiring documentary which reminds us that we hold the seeds of a better food system and a sustainable environment in our hands. 

To read more about the Landworkers Alliance and the work that they do click HERE

don’t back down on DAPL, SEND PUBLIC COMMENTS TODAY!

Friends, it’s clear to us that the activism bug is sweeping the nation. Suddenly even my once-apolitical mother is calling her senators every day. It’s beautiful, and it’s important. On this note, we’ve got one URGENT request for you today: please, please add the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to your call and write lists. President Trump may have put the fast track on the Dakota Access Pipeline, but you still have the opportunity to voice your opposition to this dangerous and unnecessary project!

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ public comment period on the proposed 1,172-mile-long pipeline is open now, and the Water Protectors at Standing Rock need your support before the comment period closes February 20, 2017.

 

Send your public comment now and continue to stand with Standing Rock in opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Given this week’s current events,  we think the the sooner, the better!

*Photo by John Wathen, Hurricane Creekkeeper

talking about transitions

If you weren’t able to get to the “Our Land” symposium in Santa Fe and Albuquerque this November (a lot of us couldn’t), you can still catch a bit of the goodness. Agrarian Trust just uploaded some more of the video lectures from the event.

“land restoration economy”

This falls under the category: Things I Didn’t Know About but Feel Like I Should Have Known About But Are All-the-same Absolutely Fascinating

what thanksgiving looks like at standing rock

Photo cred to Deborah Kates of the NYT

Ever late to the party, The New York Times is finally giving Standing Rock some much-deserved coverage. This gorgeous and inspiring video (and its accompanying article) gives sober context to Thanksgiving celebrations all over this country last week.

Caitlyn Huss, 25, a manager of a vegan hostel in Los Angeles, was closing up late one night last month when the tent flap opened and someone dropped off a deer that had just been killed by a car.

“We knew we had to find an elder from the sacred fire to come and bless it, then find someone who could skin it for us,” she recalled. “It was crazy.”

Not incidentally, Severine and Krista spent the afternoon making saurkraut to send to Standing Rock. And foraged apples from a 150 year old tree..

The events that are transpiring in North Dakota, though horrific, are providing a context for new agrarians, Native Americans, veterans, peace activists, climate activists and people from all across the country to unify in a land occupation that is about protecting the commons. We are moved and we are hopeful.

harry, friends, we cannot wait

We can do this

.

our land 2: moving towards an autonomous food system, NM, nov 9-15

OUR LAND 2!

November 9-17th, in Albuquerque and Santa Fe New Mexico.

ALL THE INFORMATION IS HERE: www.agrariantrust.org/2016symposium

This will be the second Agrarian Trust OUR LAND symposium, and once again we’ve got speakers from around the country and around the region focusing our attention, analysis, activism and collective agency on issues relevant to your regional foodshed.

This event is presented by Agrarian Trust and has a focus on Land access, land transition and the issues underlying ownership and management of the territory required for an autonomous and sovereign food system.

The central themes of this symposium center on land-use and governance regimes of the southwest region.  We will learn about the acequias, a system of irrigation ditch commons brought by the Spanish. The history, management regimes and future prospects of this system represent a powerful curriculum for other commons-based systems. Can these ditch commons be explained to include their uplands and headwaters, or will ditch rights be lost to privatization and sold to developers?

eeee, acequias! our land symposium, northern NM, nov. 9-17

OUR LAND 2: Tracing the Acequia Commons

A Symposium about land transition, continuity, and commons.

NOVEMBER 9-17th 2016
Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico

Films. Talks. Exhibit. Acequia Walk.

• Can our regions shift towards food sovereignty?

  Can our agrarian systems become more harmonious with their wild habitat?

  Can we maintain our traditional commons?

The complete program, speakers bios, schedule and locations are all on the website www.agrariantrust.org/2016symposium (or scroll down to see the full schedule of events)

You can learn about the work of the speakers at the event’s facebook page, where we’ve posted videos, articles, and links.

Speakers include:  Mary Wood, Ruth Breach, Rick Prelinger, Kim Stringfellow, Sylvia Rodriguez, Allyson Siwik, Tezozomoc, Eric Holt-Gimenez, Miguel Santiestevan, Devon Pina, Stanley Crawford, and Alex Pino.

Artists include: Sharon Steward, Kim Stringfellow, Emily Volger, Ildi Carlise-Cummings, Kaitlin Bryson, Nancy Dewhurst, Erin Fussell, Bill Gilbert, Andrea Gohl, Ryan Henel, Catherine Harris, Jeanette Hart-Mann, Cecilia McKinnon, Sarah Molina, Hollis Moore, Hamshya Rajkumar, Kacie Smith, Molly Zimmer, Rachel Zollinger, and more!

OUR LAND 2 has a focus on the lessons of the acequia irrigation commons, a 400 year old system that supports dryland agriculture.

declaration against the criminalisation, persecution and judicialization of the struggle for the defence of life, rights, land, water, seeds and mother earth

International Conference on Agrarian Reform

La Via Campesino, The Peasant’s Movement
Marabá, 15 April 2016

From 13 to 17 April 2016, in Marabá, Pará, Brazil, more than 130 delegates from 28 countries around the world were brought together as part of La Vía Campesina and allied movements, as part of the International Conference on Agrarian Reform, a symbol of the fight for freedom for men and women in the fields, the mangroves and on the sea. The aim of the conference was to draw up a much-needed proposal for Popular Agrarian Reform to override capitalist and neoliberal expansion. 

At this time of struggle and resistance for peoples of the world, we debated thecriminalisation, persecution and judicialization of the struggle for the defense of life, rights, land, water, seeds and mother earth, promoted by capitalist interests imposing political, economic, military and social terrorism. This all occurs with the consent of State Governments by means of their lethal projects such as extraction-based infrastructure projects, or capitalist ‘development’ (tourism, carbon markets, mining, hydroelectricity, monoculture, agribusiness, industrial agriculture and mariculture), as well as the militarisation of our lands. Deprivation, social instability and repression are widespread as a result of systematic assassinations, massacres, forced disappearances, high rates of femicide, imprisonment and arbitrary detention, intimidation, harassment and threats, prosecution of leaders, forced migration and wars against ordinary people.

On top of this there is political instability with the purpose of maintaining an imbalance among populations over the world, as well as frequent coups on the US government’s radar, a state which begins by creating unstable, failed states, as is the case in Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Paraguay, Ecuador, Bolivia, South Africa, and the current attempted coup against the Brazilian people and the systematic meddling in the Venezuelan process.

We see collusion between the State, private companies, corporations and elites who create a culture of impunity that allows perpetrators to escape unpunished.

Faced with this wave of unbridled criminalisation of those of us who defend water, land, mangroves, sea, territory and life, we denounce and call for the punishment of those responsible for thousands of assassinations of social leaders, we denounce the legal prosecution of thousands of campaigners, we call for the liberation of thousands of political prisoners, we denounce the extreme case of the assassination of Berta Cáceres, one of the most symbolic leaders in the fight against capital plundering and a campaigner for peace in Honduras. We urgently need an end to the criminalization of the fight for land, mangroves and sea, and the social struggle.

Today, more than ever, we reaffirm that our fight is part of the defence of human rights and life. For life we give everything, for death we give nothing.

Throughout our lifelong struggle, not one moment of silence for our dead!

 

La Via Campesino is an international movement  that seeks to unite peasants, landless, woman farmers, and rural youth to fight to defend and promote small-scale sustainable agriculture as a lifestyle and livelihood. Read more about their work here! And check out our 2011 blog post about their food sovereignty youth training program.

sweet little info video on efficiency on large v. small scale farms

This video was release in the build-up to last weekend’s World Forum on Access to Land in Spain. March 30-April 2, 400 participants from 70 countries discussed the human, economic & ecological impacts of land grabs. Was anyone out there in attendance. We’d love to hear your stories and feedback in the comments section!