An example of
Permaculture philosophy
http://permaculture.org.au/
Permaculture
and the Western Syndrome
In
my Permaculture education and design work in the West
African country of Liberia, I have found myself often
in a face-off with the Western Syndrome in its quest
to cull life from communities to gain a profit, mostly
for large western corporations. I soon found that one
of my roles as a permaculture educator coming from the
so-called “developed” world was to dispel the myth
that the “western world” only leads to a glorious
future. In Liberia, many of the people, young and old,
will adopt nearly anything “western” as a personal
sign of status and progressiveness. Where I was first
confronted with the reality of this is when I went to
visit one of the student’s midwifery clinics, which
was close to where I was facilitating a permaculture
design course.
When I arrived at the clinic, which was well made of
mud bricks and palm thatching, there were women, some
pregnant, others with babies and children all about on
benches, playing, sitting next to a cooking fire, and
others were weaving baskets as they they shared
stories, laughed and tended to the little ones. One
particular woman was walking about with a spray can
pumping away to keep the spray mist constant on all
the leaves of the plants that were all about.
My curiosity
hoped it was a compost tea she was using to fertigate
the plants, yet my intuition knew differently, so I
went to see what the magic concoction was that was so
necessary to spray around this clinic for women and
children. It was DDT. I was shocked. As I read the
label on the can she was re-supplying her sprayer
with, it only had the warning, “fatal if swallowed”
and the name of an American Chemical Company. My heart
sank in the dark reality of standing face to face with
the Western Syndrome.
I asked the woman who was spraying the DDT, what her
reasons for spraying were, and if she knew about the
repercussions of using this biocide. She replied, “We
have to use it to kill the bugger-bug which destroys
our crops. They have got so bad since the war that we
have no choice but to use most of the few dollars we
make to buy this chemical or we lose our food.” She
also shared that she knew it would make her sick if
she drank the chemical, but nothing else.
Later that day in our Permaculture Design class,
consisting of 25 students, some of whom were respected
elders in their community, others who were barely
adults, and all who are from a wide range of
backgrounds in education, traditions, tribes,
languages, and beliefs, I asked them, “what is this
bugger-bug?” It was as if I had incited the devil
itself as the translator shared in the common tribal
language my question. Everyone stirred, some even grew
fiery red in the face as they explained how the losses
of their crops from this little beast could mean the
difference between life and death for whole families
and communities.
They also shared
how they were told that they should spray to kill
mosquitoes that bring them malaria. When I asked them
about the DDT they used, they spoke to it as a type of
savior, yet a costly one for people who on average
make $2 a day for 8-10 hours of hard labor. None of
them knew anything of the long-term travesties that
are caused by this chemical and why it is illegal to
use in ost “western” countries in the world including
the country of origin of the spray found at the
midwifery clinic – that being the USA.
I spent some time gathering some information about DDT
to better inform them and myself of the chronic
effects of this toxic substance. I shared the gamut of
research that detailed how DDT is an endocrine
disruptor and has other chronic effects on the nervous
system, kidneys, liver, the reproductive and immune
system, it is a carcinogen that contributes to cancer
and is one of the nine persistent organic pollutants,
which more importantly for the midwifery clinic,
accumulates most intensively in mammals in the
mother’s milk. Needless to say, they were horrified.
When everyone began to settle down a bit, one elder
asked the very important and relevant question, “So
what else can we do about the Bugger-Bug if we don’t
use DDT?” I certainly did not have the answers, as
often I don’t when it comes to regional knowledge of
place. So in full Permaculture style, I replied,
“Let’s go ask the Bugger-Bug?” So right then and
there, with very quizzical looks abounding, we all got
up from our makeshift classroom and went out into the
adjoining landscape to ask the bugger-bug what can we
do to survive together.
We all walked into a recently cleared area of
rainforest where the debris had been burned-off and
the land was laid bare and exposed except for patches
of mono-cropped maize and cassava. The bugger-bug
abounded, busily gathering. Their growing mound
looked like a miniature forest mountain, rich in
diversity and nutrients.
We then left the middle of the clear-cut and went to
the edge of this mono-cropped farm where the forest
and the maize intermingled and to everyone’s surprise,
the bugger-bug was significantly less prevalent and
the damage to the crop was minimal. In-fact, anywhere
we went that had diversity of plant species with a
mulch layer on the ground there was minimal damage by
the bugger-bug.
We finally ventured deeper into the forest to observe
how the bugger-lived there in a natural setting and
found that they were so diminished in numbers within
the forest that we had a difficult time finding any
damage at all from them on the understory plants. They
seemed to only be feasting on the leaf drop from the
canopy trees and had significantly less numbers than
in the clear-cut areas.
In true detective fashion we then assembled our
observations and clues that we gathered and low and
behold, a story of true
forest stewardship emerged. Our little bugger-bug was
a “keystone” pioneer in the forest regeneration
process. It seemed that this termite would live
peacefully in the forest until the time where a
complete devastation of the forest occurred, then it
would spring into action to assist the forest in
rebuilding its structure. Its numbers would increase
and then they would search out plants, especially
unhealthy stands of plants, to begin its soil
building, mound-raising process. As their mounds grew
from their efficient gathering, they would soon be the
highest point in the landscape where birds of all
sorts would perch. Thanks to the birds, their mounds
were seeded with myriad types of plant life and from
there, the forest would regenerate outward in
concentric ring-like patterns.
The spell of the bugger-bug had been broken. We
excitedly went back into class where we applied our
new learning into the design of a food growing system
that incorporated diversity in both annuals and
perennials, layering in both space and time, and deep
mulching that is most analogous to the structure of a
natural forest. We then began building our
demonstration farm using these practices learned from
our bugger-bug teacher. One elder shared with me while
pointing to their 150-foot high ancestral
tree, “I will give thanks to these little bugs for I
know without them we would not have our forests.”
At the very root of Permaculture is the knowing that
we must live in integrity with the world which
sustains us. The Western Syndrome cunningly distorts
our ability to take responsibility for our lives
through the many faces of globalization and often
leaves us barren of integrity whether we are aware of
it or not. The bugger-bug story illustrates that with
our work as Permaculture teachers and designers, we
have a duty to honestly read the pattern languages
around us and incorporate them into the
conscious design of how we live in support of that
which gives life.
Warren Brush is a certified Permaculture designer and
educator as well as a mentor and storyteller. He has
worked for over 20 years in inspiring people of all
ages to discover, nurture and express their inherent
gifts while living in a sustainable manner. He is
co-founder of Quail Springs Learning Oasis &
Permaculture Farm (a few of their offerings include:
Permaculture Design Certification courses for Youth
called Sustainable Vocations, PDC for Adults and
Sustainable Aid Courses among many other offerings),
Wilderness Youth Project, Mentoring for Peace, and
Trees for Children. He works extensively in
Permaculture education and sustainable systems design
in North America and in Africa through his design
firm, True Nature Design. He can be reached through
email at w (at) quailsprings.org or by calling his
office at 805-886-7239.
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