Subject: Re: reprise: guilds

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 1997 08:25:57 -0400 (EDT)

In a message dated 10/6/97 12:37:34 PM, [email-masked] wrote:

>I think the problem here is that we're assuming that everyone knows that
>permaculturists are supposed to interplant different species together as
>opposed to monocropping.  When Mollison came up with the "guild" concept,
>that was far from obvious, and still is to many people that we would teach.
>
RESPONSE;  Well that is not true.  Any of it.  In the 70s the issue of
polyculture vs monoculture was long since old hat.  The persistence of
monoculture has nothing to do with a lack of alternatives but is a direct
result of the industrial model, heritage of Eli Whitney, being applied to
agriculture.  I don't want to get deep into this theme as it is beside the
point and we are all limited in our time.  What Mollison did was what we
honor him for--incorporated the concept of multiple plants into a DESIGN.
 The design was a system of design.  The term permaculture pertains to that
system of design.  Most of permaculture elements are not new, of course,
newness not being the point.  However they should be valid.  Polyculture is a
far cry from what Bill means by guilds.  Recipes of any sort have no place in
the fundamental permaculture design.  We already have an excellent, valid
Mollisonian term for things arrangements that tend to repeat in enough
designs to be formalized.  We call them Standard Designs.  This can be a
species assembly, where one is know to work.  We don't have to pervert the
English language, thereby creating confusion, to use this term.  Using two
terms for the same thing violates the conservation principle, which Bill was
surely stressing in the course I took in 1981.

>My understanding of a guild as Mollison defines it is any group of diverse
>species that are in beneficial relationship to each other (and that
>includes us). I think what Dan is trying to say is that we should never
>stop thinking about what might make up a good association and that's why he
>doesn't want to follow any prescribed list.  I agree that we should never
>stop observing and experimenting, but I also think it's OK to look at what
>has worked for other people.  This is the way other cultures used to pass
>on knowledge to each other and they DID survive quite well before one
>culture (us) decided to flaunt the basic laws of survival.
>\

REPLY;  Yes, I agree with all that.  So long as we don't call it something
that means something else.

>In the course I took from Bill Mollison he emphasised many times that the
>knowledge we pass on to others must be simple and easy to pass on to more
>people in turn, including people who are "uneducated", of a different
>language or culture, and have little scientific knowledge.  In coming up
>with guilds, he told us to keep in mind the basic concepts: you should take
>advantage of layers (canopy, understory, herb, root, vining plant, etc.),
>and think in terms of what each of the plants need and what could give it
>to them.  That is, if a plant is plagued by a particular pest insect, plant
>something with it that will attract predators of that insect, such as a
>dense ground cover that snakes or lizards might like.  If a plant uses a
>lot of nitrogen it can be planted with a nitrogen fixer, etc.
>
RESPONSE;  I disagree with Bill, or at least Lee's account of Bill's views,
here.  I've worked teaching permaculture in many places and I have not found
any great difference in intellectual capability between peasants and college
professors, except that probably the peasants have less in the way to
understanding what we are talking about.  What people of limited means and
limited formal educatio need is some space to work out their permacultures,
not being talked down to, being given the Dr. Suess version of permaculture.
 Living close to survival margins does not allow for the risk of change, even
very, very promising change.  That is the central difficulty, not that these
peopel can't think permaculturaly.  In is my personal view that literacy is a
barrier to permaculture-type thinking.  Non-literate people have more of an
"of course" reaction.  When I taught permaculture in the prison system, it
was the illiterate students who first grasped the principles.  As a
professional writer, this is a bit disquieting, but nonetheless I think that
a literate society probably cannot avoid its own extinction.  Well that is
yet another topic and one which requires more continuity that email excanges
to explore.  However the last thing we need is recipes for those poor
ignorate bastards who haven't been to college.  They are already way ahead of
where we were when we began permaculture.

>As to how to determine what works and what doesn't in your climate and
>microclimate, Mollison suggested two things: 1) observe what works well in
>natural systems and try to find out through research what characteristics
>make them work well, and 2) the first year, plant out as many diverse types
>of species as you can get your hands on.  Be prepared to have to control
>some species that try to take over!  But you will observe out of 50 or 100
>species that you might plant, that 4 or 5 of them do exceptionally well
>together, a larger number will do well but not quite as well, and some will
>fail altogether.  The next year, plant more of the successes, less of the
>failures, and try the neutrals in different associations along with some
>that you didn't plant last year.  But the important thing is that if you
>plant out hundreds of species right away, SOMETHING will grow, and you will
>both learn something and have something to eat, probably even if there's a
>bad drought or other adverse condition.
>
RESPONSE;  This is good advice right up until the last point, which is
irresponsible.  Something might indeed grow and choke out what you had going
that was right.  Experience is what we need and we can't afford to take short
custs on wisdom.  In a situation such as most Eastern North American forests,
where widespread decline is rampant and unlikely to be reversed, this is good
advice.  Throw it all out.  Plant New York City by air with kudzu and red
cedar (which already is growing in eaves of 40 stories up, apparently wind
planted), and other rampant species.  Fine.  But we need experience to know
what places are so far gone that we are in an "anything is better than
nothing" situation.  And we need to understand that the more isolated places
are, e.g. island, high valleys, etc., the more sensitive they are to being
irreparably damaged by a shotgun approach.

>As for Dan's comments that we think we know too much about nature, I'd like
>to restate another Mollisonism that is often understated:  ANYTHING we know
>about permaculture is ONLY applicable to that 4% of the earth's land mass
>that we should need in order to produce our own food.  If a natural system
>exists well on its own we should LEAVE IT ALONE.  However almost anything
>will help heal the land by comparison to monoculture farming, strip malls,
>and places that have become desert due to deforestation.  These are our
>areas of focus and we should not attempt to "fix" the rest of the world,
>unless we have ourselves damaged it and it needs to be healed.  Nor should
>we step up our present rate of food production simply because we can now
>get a higher yield from the same space.  That would only result in a
>population increase.  The idea is to decrease the amount of space and
>resources we are currently using to produce food, and that doesn't need to
>be rocket science.  Other cultures and species have fed themselves just
>fine by simply being observant of natural patterns and passing their
>observations on.
>
>= Lee =

NO RESPONSE.  I can't figure the point here.  If we are in a bind, we need to
be more careful, not more reckless, no?

For Mother Earth, Dan Hemenway, Yankee Permaculture Publications (since
1982), Elfin Permaculture workshops, lectures, Permaculture Design Courses,
consulting and permaculture designs (since 1981), and now correspondence
courses via email.  Next starts in Oct. 1997. Internships available.
Copyright, 1997, Dan & Cynthia Hemenway, P.O. Box 52, Sparr FL 32192 USA
 [email-masked]  

We don't have time to rush.

---

From: Lee Flier <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 07 Oct 1997 10:58:18 -0500

Dan wrote:

>In the 70s the issue of
>point and we are all limited in our time.

Actually I think it isn't beside the point and it's a very important point:
I didn't mean to imply that NO ONE knew about polyculture.  However because
of the reasons you state above, the AVERAGE PERSON did not.  Still doesn't,
in fact; you can (and I do) still mention it to the average farmer and it's
a new concept to them.  This is no insult to their intelligence; as you say
it's just something they were taught to do and most alternatives are not
widely advertised.  Bill Mollison's idea was to distill this information
into a system which would not just educate the student but allow the
student to turn around and educate others.  This would get the word out to
the greatest possible number of people who need it.

Why does this matter?  Because to a farmer or a starving person or anyone
else who isn't a "professional" permaculture student or teacher, it doesn't
matter by what terms you call these things - they need answers, and they
may need to have something to go on in a very limited time.  As Mollison
told us in class: "You may feel that you aren't qualified to start
designing after only a two week class, but you've got to get out and try
because you can't really do worse than what's been done!"  It sounds as
though you don't agree with this philosophy Dan.  Well that's OK, but I do.
 And for some people it's a matter of survival that they agree with it and
get on with it.

>Recipes of any sort have no place in
>species assembly, where one is know to work.

OK (sigh...), but a guild isn't necessarily a Standard Design either.  It's
a concept for a species assembly and not a specific assembly.  That doesn't
mean we can't have some standard designs for guilds.  But it doesn't
matter.  You have a problem with the terminology and you have a problem
with the guild concept, and of course you're entitled to your opinion but
some of us don't have these problems with it and would like to discuss guilds.

>not being talked down to, being given the Dr. Suess version of permaculture.

Has nothing to do with intellectual ability and it isn't talking down to
anybody.  It has to do with "appropriate technology" in education - the
ability to put a lot of people to work and quickly.  It's more of an insult
to people to give them a lot of analysis they can't use than a conceptual
idea they can apply themselves to their own circumstances - and a lot of
college educated people just don't have any clue how to talk to a
"peasant".  I mean that as an insult to the professor much more so than the
peasant!

Is it an insult to a village to give them 300 shovels instead of one
bulldozer? Considering that the shovels will allow everyone in the village
to go to work immediately using equipment they can maintain themselves, no.
 A hand tool is a simple, elegant concept - and by no means an insult to
anyone's intelligence, even though it doesn't represent the most complex
technology available for the job.  Likewise the idea I got from Bill
Mollison was that he is trying to find those gems of essential knowledge
which people of any culture or means can apply.  Anything else is
extraneous and possibly disempowering.

We see so many bad examples of oversimplification in our culture that we
sometimes forget the essentials of survival really are simple, elegant,
beautiful, and obvious once we learn to look for them.  I'm not talking
recipes; I'm talking the conceptual tools to come up with these ideas on
your own, and perhaps a few starting recipes if you happen to know what
will work in that bioregion.

>"of course" reaction.

I agree!  So, non-literate people don't care by what term you call
something as long as they can put it to work.  I'm with them.

>>But the important thing is that if you
>cuts on wisdom.... we need experience to know

Agreed.  And I believe Mollison's comments applied pretty much to Zones 1
and 2, anyhow - which I should have stated earlier.  Beyond that of course
we must be more careful, particularly as you say if we're trying to restore
a badly damaged natural system which is a different task from producing our
food outside our front doors.

That having been said, I see no problem with such an experimental approach
with guilds outside our front doors.  You seem to be saying that you don't
want to give out what you call "recipes" for guilds, and that we need
experience to determine what will work, but you don't approve of the
experimentation required to gain that experience either.  So then how do we
gain this experience?  Only by having access to a permaculture "guru"?  I
don't buy that.

>be more careful, not more reckless, no?

I'd say probably some of both.  Sometimes you have to make a risky move in
order to bail out of a desperate situation.  If the world were paved over
with parking lots and we were running out of oxygen and topsoil, you'd have
to dig up the parking lots, forthwith, and plant something - ANYTHING would
do just to start up some sort of succession again.  Kudzu would be great.
Any sort of fast growing tree would be necessary to produce oxygen and
biomass for soil building.  Well, for some people that's really how it is -
they have to get something growing within the year or they'll lose everything.

If we can afford to be careful and deliberate, we should of course.  But we
should learn what to do when we're dying too, because we probably are.

= Lee =

==================================
Lee A. Flier
[email-masked]
http://lflier.home.mindspring.com
Atlanta and Ellijay, Georgia, U.S.A.

---

From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 1997 17:30:13 -0400 (EDT)

> Dan wrote:
[.]
> Bill Mollison's idea was to distill this information

.. a handy glossary of terms (even "buzzwords") to help them remember
permaculture principles & methods, to learn more about it and feel at home
doing it, something tangible to keep them motivated.

> because you can't really do worse than what's been done!"  

Amen to that!

>  And for some people it's a matter of survival that they agree with it and

This is very true here in the US where you have lots of folks getting
involved with permaculture design/implementation/teaching and
food-production/shelter/community building who in some cases were
uncertain as to what to do with their lives or were dissatisfied
with their current lifestyles and needed a positive change. 
Whatever works. 

> >species assembly, where one is know to work.

What would an ecologist call "plant guilds" or "standard designs"?
Ecological communities, natural cycling of ecological communities affected
by regularly occuring environmental conditions. It seems to me this term
describes a continually evolving process of discovery, experimentation and 
application of newly learned methods. Consider all the variables in the
ecology of the food garden. Possibilities for "discovering" and
replication of "plant guiilds" are numerous.  

Dan: How do you define a "Standard Design"? Is this a "macro" approach
that would, in reality, utilize the development of "plant guilds" within
a permaculture design for a given area of land? 

> "peasant".  I mean that as an insult to the professor much more so than the

Well asid!
 
> technology available for the job.  Likewise the idea I got from Bill

The mind-body-handtool-Earth connection is rich with latent creativity
and life-sustaining energy.

> extraneous and possibly disempowering.

Amen!!! This is worth doing! Lets build a databank rich with this sort of
information. NOW.
How about an incoming ftp directory for uploads of files? mail2html
archive, newsgroup, another mailing list, just name it & I'll set it up.
WEe need this yesterday.

> >barrier to permaculture-type thinking.  Non-literate people have more of an

I'd have to disagree with Dan here. There are many non-literate people
who posess excellent powers of adaptability, survival, observation and
inventiveness who could easily learn an put into effective practice most
permaculture principles. Being able to read is not necessary.
...they could always surf the Web and look at educational graphics if
provided with the necessary technology.