"When Suzanne Forsling moved to Juneau Alaska from Iowa, she found that it was a little bit harder to get her garden to grow. Frustrated by cold soil, scarce sunlight, hungry slugs, root maggots, porcupines, cats, bears and ravens she got resourceful. She got her crops off the cold ground and into the light by afixing gutters to the wood siding of her house on the sunny side and using them as planters."Original Link: DYI
Originally published on Youthradio.org;
(All photos taken from Youthradio's public Flickr account)
By Nora Barrows-Friedman
"Back in my hometown of Berkeley, California, the practice of permaculture is associated within a feel-good, hippie-elite framework. It's a choice, just like buying locally grown organic heirloom tomatoes from an independent grocer instead of buying conventional Chilean-grown tomatoes hawked at Safeway. But inside the occupied West Bank, permaculture is not just a decision of conscience but a necessary means of empowerment within an ever-changing, uncertain landscape.
The reasons for this earth-friendly approach include accelerated loss of water-rich land to Israeli settlements, and Israeli restrictions on certain types of fertilizer and restrictions on what types of vegetables can be exported out of the occupied-territories. Out of creative necessity for food security, Palestinians have begun to re-green the land; reclaiming the ancient ways of growing crops.
Palestinians in the area say they are excited to participate in this burgeoning permaculture movement. "I was born here," Munther Rishmawi, a Beit Sahour resident says. "My grandfather farmed here on this same ground. And I'm learning to be a farmer in a new way...in Palestine, we don't have a lot. We just have land."Alice Harrison, an environmental scientist from the United Kingdom, came to Palestine as a tourist and was moved by the humanitarian and environmental fallout from the Israeli occupation. She helped start the Bustan Qaraaqa farm last year after working on water development at a Palestinian NGO. "We were writing these reports about the environment being destroyed," Harrison says. "From the top-down development level, nothing was happening to prevent the destruction of Palestine. So, instead of saying this is terrible, something must be done, we thought, this is terrible, what do we do now?"
Harrison says the practice of permaculture in Palestine is multi-faceted. "We're developing simple things that anyone can do in order to salvage something from the occupation...We're also responding to the economic crisis and the food security crisis."
Farmers at Bustan Qaraaqa say that over 70 different species of native plants are being propagated and rooted throughout this wadi (Arabic for desert valley). Tiny sprigs of ricinus and pale green thyme reach for the sky in their little pots made from the bottoms of plastic juice bottles. Sage and mint grow in soil-filled car tires, and almond and apricot saplings nurture wildflowers at the base of their skinny trunks. Permaculture is not a tidy, clean-cut way of farming. Instead, plants and trees are packed in all together, grouped by need for certain nutrients, sun or shade, The term "weeds" does not apply; permaculture insists that every plant has its place and can offer something beneficial to the landscape. In the nursery at Bustan Qaraaqa, long, thick blades of wild grass protect new sprouts from the blazing sun.Across the Green Line, Israeli agri-business flourishes and Israelis enjoy unrestricted access to land and water resources. Water grids and sophisticated irrigation provide an abundance of crops and full swimming pools during the summer. Even illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank enjoy these privileges, while Palestinians in surrounding villages and refugee camps struggle with a fraction of the water supply.
According to a report published this week by the World Bank, the average Israeli receives access to four times as much water as the average Palestinian, resulting in what it calls a "near catastrophe" for the Palestinian Authority's current water system.
The green fields of vegetable and fruit crops in Israel are fed from water aquifers and the Jordan river as settlements across the West Bank are deliberately placed on top of the most fertile land and the biggest underground water tables. On the other hand, Palestinian farms, villages, towns and refugee camps (all of which are restricted from accessing the same water tables and the Jordan river) must then rely on rainwater-catching tubs on top of roofs and beside homes -- a meager source of water especially in the hot summer months.
Bustan Qaraaqa addresses this water crisis head-on. Volunteers are building a massive cistern on the southern edge of the property that will catch and reserve rainwater to be used for irrigation and fish farming; schools of tilapia will be introduced both as a form of mosquito control and as a source of food for the community.
"Palestine could lead the world in arid-zone agriculture," says Alice Harrison. "Already, 80% of the farming is rain-fed. It's a sustainable set-up to begin with -- but, it's predicted that, because of global climate change, rainfall in this area will decrease 20% by 2050. We should be prepared for it."
Working to re-green a drying land within an expanding humanitarian crisis, Bustan Qaraaqa farm volunteers are beginning to coordinate with Palestinian refugee camps, helping develop ideas for rooftop gardens and water re-use. "This isn't a movement for yuppies," Harrison continues. "This is a very grassroots concern. These are real problems people are facing." She quotes a Bedouin friend of hers. "He says that in the [Palestinian] environmental movement, this is a case of us recognizing ourselves."
"Practical Solar wants to bring solar thermal home, but in a somewhat unusual manner.
The company has created a system for harvesting heat from the sun to heat up a house. It plants heliostats – i.e., metal poles festooned with an array of mirrors – in your lawn or a nearby patch of real estate. The mirrors collect heat and then beam it into your living room.
A computerized control system guides the heliostats to maximize the harvesting of heat.
Although you'd think that something like this might sell best in the South, where it's hot, Practical is mostly targeting New England. It's the region where people need to heat their homes.
Solar thermal water heaters have been used to replace or supplement home water heaters or pool heaters for years. A number of companies – Sopogy, Chromasun, Millennium Solar and others – now want to expand how solar heat can be exploited. Chromasun, for instance, has a device that collects solar heat to run air conditioners. Some other companies use the heat for fluid pipe heating systems."
Read the full article here: Heating you home with Mirrors!
Visit Practical Solar's website here: Practical Solar
"Beijing Shenzhou Daxu Bio-energy Technology Company Ltd (Daxu) has succeeded in developing an innovative stove design that replaces coal by burning widely available crop waste as well as burning wood much more efficiently. Most families in China still cook using stoves that burn coal or wood which has led to severe deforestation and dangerous levels of indoor air pollution, particularly from coal use. Crop waste is widely available in China yet very few stove designs have been able to burn this waste effectively. The Daxu stove is not only designed to burn crop waste, either loose or in briquettes, it is also 40% efficient, produces hardly any smoke, cuts cooking and heating costs by 50% and, if it replaces a traditional coal burning stove, it can saves around eight tonnes of CO2 emissions per year. With its two hot plates, it also allows families to cook a stir-fry dish and steamed rice at the same time. Some Daxu stove models also come with a back boiler which provides hot running water and heating to rural families, often for the first time. It is hardly surprising that since September last year, 25,000 models have been sold, with 10,000 sold in the first three months of 2007. There is enormous potential for introducing this technology throughout China, since over 20 million wood and coal stoves are sold each year."
Click here for the Ashden Awards YouTube Video: DAXU
Bioenergy, when produced on a small-scale in local communities, can play a significant role in rural development in poor countries, according to a new report jointly published by FAO and the UK's Department for International Development (DFID)
"The study, "Small Scale Bioenergy Initiatives: Brief Description and Preliminary Lessons on Livelihood Impacts from Case Studies in Latin America, Asia and Africa," covers 15 different "start-up" bioenergy projects from 12 countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia involving a diverse array of technologies. "The furious debate around bioenergy has largely concerned liquid fuels used for transport," said Oliver Dubois, a bioenergy expert in FAO's Natural Resources Department. "Yet more than 80 percent of bioenergy usage in the world involves other sources, mainly wood, which are used for basic household cooking and heating in poor areas of the world." Concern over the impact these transportation biofuels will have on the environment, water resources and food security has obscured many of the positive benefits for poor rural people. The study shows quite clearly that there are a number of huge possible benefits of using new technologies for biomass-based rural energy, some very basic, others more sophisticated.
Biofuel benefits for poor
Some of the possible benefits of bioenergy highlighted in the study include:
- An increase in natural resource efficiency as energy can be created from waste that would otherwise be burnt or left to rot is put to use
- The creation of useful by-products such as affordable fertilizer from biogas production
- The possibility of simultaneously producing food and fuel through intercropping
- The creation of new financial capital with growth cycles by making use of marginal land
Saving local resources
"Virtuous cycles are shown to develop within communities where people have access to the energy services needed for development without money flowing out of communities for fossil fuels or local natural resources used up". The study also shows how the use of bioenergy has often played a role in partially insulating poor rural people from the vagaries of the fossil fuel market used in times of an energy crisis, but then typically abandoned when the oil price drops. In none of the cases studied did bioenergy production appear to jeopardise food security, either because the bioenergy is produced from crops not used for food or grown on very small plots or stretches of unused land. "
Read the original FAO Press Release: bioenergy benefits for rural poor
Read the actual study: Small Scale Bioenergy Initiatives: Brief Description and Preliminary Lessons on Livelihood Impacts from Case Studies in Latin America, Asia and Africa
Researchers at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom, are well on their way to develop a method of transforming certain African crop waste—banana waste, in particular—into a useable, efficient fuel source which doesn’t require intensive labor or use of sophisticated equipment.
In some places such as Rwanda, bananas are a staple crop, used in food and beverages in a variety of different ways. The remaining parts of the banana—the leaves, stems and peel—are not utilized, according to doctoral candidate Joel Chaney. Chaney realizes the potential for such waste, and is optimistic about the possibility of using banana waste to produce briquettes for cooking and heating purposes.
The leaves and skin of the banana are ground into a pulpy material using a meat mincer, and in order to create a moldable material, mixed with sawdust. In Africa, the banana pulp would be mixed with dried banana stems. After being compressed into briquette shapes, the material is then baked in an oven—in Africa, it would be left out to bake in the sun for a number of days. . . .. . . .An efficient wood-fired stove was one of the appropriate technologies selected for development, Clifford said. “The stove work started with building a bread oven for a Ugandan village, then a PhD project looking at making an efficient stove for Eritrea. Joe’s (Chaney) work flowed on from the stove projects—it seemed natural to look at the fuel as well as the stove.”
Clifford said he has another project looking at how crofters on the Isle of Lewis (Scotland) can turn waste cardboard into briquettes. At present, they have no recycling facility for cardboard, so it ends up in a landfill.” In the meantime, said Clifford, crofters are burning coal and even returning to cutting and burning peat due to increased fuel costs, so briquetting the cardboard may be an appropriate solution. “Appropriate technology isn’t just aimed at the developing world,” he said.
Fuel efficient stoves and ceramic water purifiers are two examples of appropriate low-tech innovations that can help people in poor countries improve their quality of life. Because appropriate technology usually requires fewer resources and is easier to maintain than high-tech, development agencies and non-profit groups have promoted its use. In this third in a series on technology in developing countries, Cathy Majtenyi reports from Nairobi on appropriate technology including a well-publicized effort to provide low-tech laptops to children in poor countries.
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