Tag Archives: land-use

Co-op’ing Ways of Thinking

In a conference webinar session about cooperatives (as a business model), we discussed how what we are taught about economics is not cooperative.

The myths of our capitalist culture tell us the commons is tragic, despite the authors of that myth (tragedy of the commons) building their arguments on shaky foundations, and having that myth refuted by a high quality scientist who won a Nobel prize for that refutation and clarification of managed commons.

In this discussion, someone made the great point about one reason we all benefit from passing leadership to indigenous and black leaders:

“I feel that that is one reason we need to lean into Indigenous Values and have BIPOC leaders in building Coops– because they have been holding it down for so long….and they know how to lead from a different reference point of conditioning and community resourcing…”

A Need for Black and Indigenous People of Color in Leading the Healing of Food Systems

As Sylvanaqua Farms has said:
“Racism, environmental decline, animal welfare, and human health are tied in a Gordian Knot around the issue of food. Common sense would suggest untying it be left to people with demonstrated expertise in its varying facets:

– Indigenous land/water protectors (which includes farmers) who protect 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity
– People of color who are most familiar with the intricate nuances of American racism
– Livestock and hunting cultures around the world that regard the sanctity of all life (animal and plant) equally and in ways utterly unfamiliar to Euro/Western minds
– Members of strong, older food cultures that enjoy robust health without an industry devoted to nutrition”

– And as came up in a PASA 2021 conference conversations bout cooperatives: indigenous people and people of color are much closer to a cooperative mindset, compared with European men experiencing generations of learning to be competitive.

Related to https://www.agriculture.com/news/business/justice-bill-would-transfer-up-to-32-million-acres-to-black-farmers

Agroforestry Cooperative: Succession for Success (and Long-Term Land Tenure)

Temperate-climate agroforestry offers the potential for long-term ecological mutualism with humans and trees, and while it is time-tested in having sustained millennia of our ancestors, there are many hurdles to shifting lifeways toward agroforestry in 2020. In this post I introduce the main challenges I have identified, and I outline a potential approach to overcome these challenges. In short, that approach is an agroforestry worker cooperative that ‘owns’ (has rights of control, and rights to returns) land and practices stewardship so to advance tree crops and sustain itself.

I hope this clarifies opportunities that we can turn into realities, to support multi-generational stewardship of trees for basic needs in a way that is mutually beneficial to all relations involved.

Continue reading →

Lowering? Entropy of Wet Landscapes

Small-Scale Distributed Integrated Resilient Agroforest Ecosystems…Buzz words buzzin’ like bees and birds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GINQvtKaZGY
“So here is a way to get a wet area to be a pond, well-drained raised garden beds, focused nutrient delivery system, and a propagation space for hardwood cuttings, in an area that was just kind of mucky and filled with grass and shrubs.”

Here’s a nice video on entropy and order. Is forest gardening lowering or increasing entropy in its local system, in our Earth system?

Carbon Circuits

Related comments in response to someone doubting anthropogenic global warming and the importance of our effects on the carbon cycle:

I see both large-scale data from climate experts and see wackier weather in my own neck of the woods over the past 20yrs. Anthropogenic climate change or not, I’ve seen first hand that humans are degrading ecosystems we live in and/or rely on. Regardless of political agenda, we shouldn’t shit where we sleep.

That said, humanity is changing the carbon cycle, storing more carbon in the atmosphere; how is pottery made? concrete? steel? What happens to carbon atoms when gas goes from underground to our car’s engines? Or the natural gas as it goes from underground to our home furnaces and water heaters? Thus, I disagree with you saying “quit worrying about carbon”. Let’s actively store carbon in ways beneficial to us – trees, wood, soil – and not let it go haphazardly to oceans, where simple & advanced science experiments can show it is not helpful for us or most other organisms.