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16
PAKU VIEWS
ISSUE 4 AUTUMN/WINTER 2012
“We built a beautiful, energy efficient, passive solar earth-roofed house,” Trish says.
“When we excavated our house site we robbed Mother Nature of that area which was
home to many living creatures and it fixed carbon dioxide. By putting this green area
back on the roof we lessened the impact on nature”. As well as insulating the house the
earth roof slows down run-off so contributes less to flooding. Trish adds, “It gave us
great pleasure to watch the bees gathering nectar off the herbs and flowers on our roof,
knowing it may well be part of the honey on our morning toast”. In European cities earth
roofs are encouraged because they moderate the temperature in cities, freshen the air,
absorb pollutants, provide habitats for insects and slow down
water run-off.
Other permaculture ideas they put into practice included a chicken heated glasshouse.
Trish shares, “In this system, we joined a glasshouse onto the northern side of a chicken
house, separated by mesh. The body heat from the chickens kept the temperature up in
the glasshouse at night and free of frost in winter; the carbon dioxide breathed out by the
chickens is good for the plants. This simple design enables beneficial interactions to take
place that would otherwise not happen.”
Similarly, the chicken tractor or pig tractor or rabbit tractor make use of the birds’ and
animals’ natural behaviour for a useful purpose. Joe and Trish used all three in the early
stages of preparing the ground of their orchard site. The birds or animals were housed in
movable cages on wheels which were moved every day. They ate the grass, scratched
or rooted and fertilized the soil ready for planting of an edible landscape. This saved both
human labor and eliminated the need for fossil fueled rototillers.
Nothing was wasted on the farm and that included humanure. “Our food came off the
land,” Trish says, “and the humanure went back into it, after having been thoroughly
composted in different models of compost toilet.”
Permaculture
in Action
P
ermaculture is much much more than a system of gardening – it is a
design system for creating sustainable human environments, working
with rather than against nature. It has been described as a harmonious
integration of people in to the landscape in a way that enhances the land
so it prospers in richness and beauty.
A well-designed system using permaculture principles should be able to self-regulate,
and require the minimum of intervention and maintenance, like a woodland ecosystem,
which requires no weeding, fertiliser or pest control.
By observing natural systems and learning from traditional practices, as well as making
use of sustainable, appropriate technology, we can create a system that is ecologically
sound and economically viable that works for farmers and city dwellers alike. These
concepts work in spaces as small as a window sill to vast hectares of land.
The concept of permaculture was developed in the 1970s by Australians Bill Mollison
and David Holmgren. It emphasises inter-relationships and the interdependence
of all things.
The threefold ethics of permaculture are:
• care for the earth
• care for the people
• share the surplus and limit consumption
David Suzuki, the famous Canadian ecologist has this to say: “What permaculturists
are doing is the most important activity that any group is doing on the planet. We don’t
know what details of a truly sustainable future are going to be like, but we need options,
we need people experimenting in all kinds of ways and permaculturists are one of the
critical gangs that are doing that.”
And one of the most renowned “gangs doing that” is Rainbow Valley Farm in Matakana
North of Auckland, developed over 23 years by Joe Palaischer and Trish Allen. The land
they developed became famous around the world as a model of sustainability, a place
where people could learn and be inspired. Trish and Joe took over a 50 acre block of
run-down farmland, eroded and weed and pest infested. Over the next 20 years, they
transformed it into a productive eco-system that provided over 80% of their food needs.
“The Earth’s eco-system cannot sustain current levels of economic activity and material
consumption”, Trish explains. “Current resource harvesting and waste generation
deplete nature faster than it can regenerate. The bad news is that the economic
mainstream shows little sign of recognising bio-physical constraints of any kind.” But it’s
not all bad news, she admits. “Permaculture has many solutions to offer.”
BELOW L-R: Chicken central heating for the
glasshouse. Joe’s Austrian-style firewood igloos
on Rainbow Valley Farm. Placed in windy spots
for good air-flow and topped with overlapping
shingles to keep the rain off, the igloos were a
convenient way to season, dry and store firewood.
ABOVE: Harvesting dinner from the garden in
front of Rainbow Valley Farm’s grass roofed
house is Trish Allen (holding the corn cobs) with
friends, organic growers and permaculturists,
Gail and John Aitken from the Hokianga.