In Part 3 I left off with talking about herbicides and how they affect the soil physically. Now it is time to look at the biological aspects of soil conservation.

Part 1 touched briefly on the ecological knowledge expressed in the metaphors of Polynesian mythology, where the soil is pictured as the domain of a cyclical process in which death and decay turns into new life, which eventually dies and decays, and so on it goes. The point I’m making with this analogy is to show how certain interventions in these processes reverberate through the chain and have disastrous consequences for soil retention and fertility. And of course armed with this insight we will be able to implement practices that actually help.

The two sides of this coin are like yin and yang, feminine and masculine, etc. The two of them together is what makes life in this world possible. Take away or change one of them, and the whole system collapses. If you constantly remove all decaying organic matter to get a “clean” look, the soil becomes unable to sustain life. Chemical “fertilizers” do not fulfill the same biological function and therefore cannot restore or maintain soil fertility in such a situation.

Herbicide application can overload the decay cycle with a sudden burst of dead plants that need to be processed. In the field, this often results in a very brief spike in nitrogen production followed by a steep decline. Not a recipe for healthy crops or landscape plants. The beneficial microbes, worms, insects, and other organisms that live in the soil are disrupted and often killed both by direct contact with the applied toxins and by such artificially induced swings in the nutrient balance. Also, because large parts of weeds killed by herbicides tend to remain standing up for long periods of time, they decay by weathering instead of being incorporated into the soil. This is a radically different process in which most of the nutrients contained in those parts end up in the air and are lost to the soil.

It is clear that in order to achieve and conserve optimal soil fertility, vitality, and retention, any cultural measures undertaken must support and enhance rather than disrupt the natural background processes taking place in the soil. A simple principle you can bear in mind as a guideline is: “Feed the soil life, not the plants. The soil life will feed the plants.” In other words, find out what the soil needs for ITS health, and cater to that, and you’ll be able to leave it to the soil to cater to the needs of the plants. How can  this principle be put into practice?

• As already mentioned, avoid herbicides, chemical fertilizers, and any other substances that harm the life forms that inhabit the soil.
• Compost all organic wastes such as food scraps, leaf litter cleaned from hard surfaces, livestock manures, prunings, and weeds.
• Work ground up rock into the soil. This is a way of adding mineral nutrients that doesnt’t circumvent or disrupt, but actually enhances the natural soil processes.
• Avoid using fresh chipped tree waste mulch, especially that of the usual medium size. It sucks all the nitrogen out of the soil and forms a shingle-like surface that makes the rain run off it. Extra finely chipped tree waste can be composted together with a high-nitrogen waste such as chicken manure. Very course chip - chunks of several inches long - can be spread very thinly or placed in small piles in woodland landscapes.
• Space plants as closely as possible without crowding them.  Wherever plantings need to be widely spaced and leave patches of soil bare and weed-prone, plant soil-improving ground covers, e.g.  clovers, in between.

Beside helping to prevent erosion, these measures also dramatically improve plant health, and in the case  where the plants grown are food crops this translates into copious yields of foods with much higher nutritive value than their counterparts grown in dead or no soil. This in turn obviously promotes human health.

More detailed how-to information on these practices is coming soon in the resource pages. In the meantime, post your burning questions about biological soil conservation here.

Some years ago, before caring for the natural environment had become semi-mainstream, I used to hear this wise mantra, “Think Globally, Act Locally”, being said all the time in the green circles I frequented. It has now been many a year since I have heard anyone utter it, much less seen anyone “green” live by it.

I’d like you to take a few moments to ponder these words. Think…globally….act…locally. Just repeat that line to yourself slowly a few times and think about the meanings it conjures up in you. What would a world look like where people think globally and act locally?

Here’s my take:

“Think Globally.” Think? People who think at all have become such a quaint and rare sight, they surely need to be put on the endangered species list. At the least there seems to have been a change in habitat. Long, looong ago they used to concentrate in places called universities. Those places have largely been colonized by some invasive other species. The thinking people only have a very marginal presence there now. Where has the rest of them moved to? Anyhoo, the mesage is THINK. Whether you consider yourself part of the thinking species or not. Just think.

Think. Globally. Think outside the box. Expand your mind. Broaden your vision. Be humble. From where you are you may be the center of the Universe, but you’re not alone. Diff’rent strokes for diff’rent folks. (Another one of those wise old sayings we never hear anymore!- Oh, yeah, that’s right, there are no diff’rent folks anymore, we’re all supposed to be exactly equal now,)

“Act Locally.” Act? ….ACT? Who, me? Yes, you! It means you’re an agent, not a patient. It says act. It doesn’t say wait for your neighbor, your favorite movie star or your president to act. It says act. Our bodies are not designed to slump on a couch in front of a tube, they’re designed to move. Shake it baby! Rise and shine!

Act. LOCALLY! That means where you are, what you can, with what you’ve got and with whom you know. Again, be humble.Don’t try to bite off more than you can chew.Do you really believe a handful of boffins can control something as huge, powerful and intricate as the climate of the entire planet on your behalf? Back to square one. THINK! They’ll be very glad to control YOU on your behalf, and rob you blind on your behalf. Thanks but no thanks. Act locally. Me control me, you control you, etc. OK?

All in all, the phrase “Think globally, act locally” strikes me as a highly individualistic adage. It most certainly does not suggest we go along with all the atrocious flimflam that is currently foisted upon us in name of “saving the planet”, like demanding a poor African goatherder be taxed out of existence because his handful of goats farts greenhouse gases. To me it suggests things like eating real food that was grown nearby, walking or cycling if my destination is less than a couple of miles away but driving without guilt if it’s further, drying my clothes outside on a clothesline (you can’t beat the fresh smell and crisp, clean feel), helping somebody out who personally asks me for help, delivering the highest possible quality and value to my clients, listening to my loved ones, and so on. Thinking globally and acting locally is sensuous, pleasurable, gainful, ingratiating, celebratory, and voluntary.

When someone tells you you must suffer in order to save the earth, don’t walk, RUN!

On my last errand into town, the precious sight of this sign made my day with a healthy dose of uncontrollable laughter.

Im in ur malls.... er, doing what exactly?

In light of where things are currently headed with the economy, it strikes me as darkly comical to build a brand new big shopping mall. With established businesses cutting back or closing down left, right and center on the local stage, I’m envisioning a mall populated by ghostly merchants and shoppers.

Or perhaps the building will end up as a shelter for the rapidly growing numbers of homeless people?

Wait a minute, what, or rather who, is that dark shape in the foreground of the picture? Is it Gandalf? Or the Coyote Angel? Or……?

I wonder if some extraordinarily savvy kind of graffiti artist had similar thoughts to mine upon first seeing the billboard.

LOL captions anyone? Or more thoughts on the identity of that magical-looking visitor? Please post your comments here.

(originally posted 11/14/2007)

One more serious cause of runoff and the resulting erosion is excessive herbicide spraying.  Earlier on, we saw the importance of maintaining full vegetative cover over the soil. In practice, herbicides are used 99% of the time to achieve the opposite effect: bare soil. You only need to take a quick look around some yards, roadsides and farms nearby to see firsthand how the use of herbicides leaves large areas of soil lifeless and bare. These areas are constantly getting stripped by the rain.

There are many alternatives to spraying, alternatives that enhance the soil instead of destroying it. Before naming some,  let’s look at the outcome we want to achieve: all soil covered with vegetation. Preferably vegetation other than what you usually refer to as “weeds”. Some of these so-called weeds can actually be helpful as soil-enhancers, especially in agricultural settings where looks aren’t first priority. In any case the ones you always need to eliminate are invasive species. You’ll want to end up with beneficial groundcovers and in most situations you’ll want the result to look attractive.

• Determine which weed species are truly undesirable in your situation and eradicate these as much as possible by manual/mechanical means.
• Control the others by mowing, weedwhacking or - more-or-less level areas only - cultivation.
• Plant suitable ground cover species, preferably ones indigenous to your region, at such a spacing that they may be expected to fill all gaps within about six months.
• Keeping the area handweeded will get easier and easier as your plantings start to fill in their allotted space.
• The time you spend doing this is you are getting healthy exercise without the need for expensive gym memberships or equipment. And gardening nourishes your soul as well as your body.

We have now covered the three most important mechanical causes of soil erosion, the last of which also has a strong biological impact on the soil. The rest of this series will address the biological aspects of soil conservation.

P.S.  I will be adding more pages to the website  full of valuable infomation and resources to help you with your soil conservation projects, so be sure to bookmark this site and check back in every now and then for updates, or use the subscribe box above to receive free updates by email.

Here is an example of how mismanagement of land situated in a watershed led to extreme runoff and a costly flood disaster last December in South Kona.

A misguided land lessee grubbed and graded a parcel of sloping land completely disregarding its natural features such as forestation and streambeds. When the region was subsequently hit by several hours of extraordinarily heavy rainfall, the land had no capacity left to deal with the enormous amounts of water being shed by the mountainside. Wherever streambeds had been artificially modified in any way, the water had to force new courses on its way down to the ocean. The resulting devastation to private and municipal property was mindboggling. Here are some pictures taken during and after the deluge to illustrate the situation.

Streambeds and gullies that hadn’t run for 10-20 years were brimming over with a furious mix of water, mud, rocks, and debris within a few hours of it beginning to rain. Wherever these streambeds had been modified by devegetation, grading, filling, fording, or dumping of weeds or trash, the raging streams were diverted from their proper course and started blindly scouring out new beds. In cases like this the water simply seeks the path of least resistance. Too bad if that happens to be through your orchard, your house, your business premises or the road you drive to work every day. In this particular case the flash floods caused hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of exactly such kinds of damage.

All responsible parties were all too eager to pass the buck, finally calling the floods an “act of God” and washing their hands of any liability. Sure, the rains fit that classification perfectly. But the flood damage was 100% man-made and preventable.

If you are developing or managing a parcel of land of any size and want to avoid flood damage to your property and avoid liability for flood damage to the property of others, there are a few simple principles you can follow to minimize the risk.

First of all, find out if your area is classified as a “flood plain“. Possible sources for this information are county and state authorities, USDA/ NRCS, FEMA or Army Corps of Engineers. If it is, you need to find out when it was first classified as such. Generally, the longer ago this classification took place, the more likely it is that the area is a genuine floodplain. More recent reclassifications as such, however, are usually bogus. In that case, your area is more correctly called a watershed.

If you are on a genuine floodplain - an often large, low-lying, flat area bordering on a river, that has been regularly flooded since the dawn of history, there is very little you can do. Such places ought not to be built on. (Unless you build on stilts and move around by boat.) Seasonal cropping or grazing, coppicing and wetland restoration are more suitable uses for them.

If your area is not a real floodplain but a watershed, keep it that way. Do not ever allow your area to be reclassified as a floodplain, or two very bad things will happen:

• Your flood insurance premiums will be jacked up through the roof.
• Everyone will start believing that flooding is normal and natural for the area and nobody will want to do anything to correct the situation and prevent flooding.

Here’s how to physically deal with a parcel of land in a watershed area:

• Thoroughly survey the terrain, especially noting all possible past and present streambeds, high, low and steep areas and vegetation types.
• Respect, preserve, and enhance any possible watercourse, whether it has run recently or not. This means first of all don’t grub, grade, fill, or build over it. If it needs to be crossed, a bridge with decent clearance is much better than a ford.
• If an old streambed is choked up with rocks, logs, trash, or other debris, clean it out.
• Make sure that at least one bank - the one on the side where the most sunlight is coming from - is well vegetated with shrubs and trees so that the actual path of the water is shaded.
• Landscape the upper part of the property with lots of trees / forest, especially if it is a hilltop.
• Build good neighborly relationships, especially with all those upstream from you, and educate them about the proper watershed management techniques mentioned above.
• If this fails and an upstream neigbor plans to destroy a streambed as part of his development (or has already done so), make it clear you won’t hesitate to sue him for any flood damage that may happen to your property. If a group of properties stands to be affected, organize a stakeholders group.

Again, the vast majority of catastrophic flooding, especially in historically non-floodplain areas is caused by incompetent artificial modification of the landscape and is very preventable. Taking some simple but smart  measures can prevent injury, death, litigation, damage to property, and loss of income.

Please feel free to share your flood story here.

(originally posted 10/25/07)

Dirt. The lowly stuff we look down and tread upon every day, often thoughtlessly. Actually we should spare it some thought and respect for we owe our life to it.

The mythologies of many ancient tropical planting cultures, especially those of the Pacific, contain stories of how staple food plants sprouted from the buried body of a sacrificed deity. In The Power Of Myth, Joseph Campbell says:

”… so in the forest and planting cultures, there is a sense of death as not death somehow, that death is required for new life.”

The ancient Polynesians thus likely celebrated life and death equally, as two sides of one coin, spinning in a continuous cycle to sustain the culture.

The concept may be uncomfortable for some of us to grasp, but it is well worth the effort to try. Through their traditions the tropical planters of old expressed a remarkably acute insight into the immense powerhouse contained in our soil as home to the cyclical process of life and death. Understanding these ancient concepts offers us a key to a future of improved health and prosperity for Polynesia and the rest of the world.

The first step toward this goal is to address the alarming rate of soil loss through erosion we are experiencing. Secondly, we can explore ways to conserve our soils with their biological processes intact. Reviewing some principles that govern soil health and retention reveals several simple things we can do to preserve our soil and its vital qualities and hopefully inspire others around us to do the same.

An important occurrence that influences soil erosion happens when rain hits the ground. Rainwater will either be absorbed into the soil or it will run off the surface. Runoff can cause serious problems. As raindrops run off, they consolidate into ever larger and more powerful rivulets that scour the earth and carry off an increasing amount of soil with them. Often valuable soil is eroded from a place where it is needed and deposited where it literally mucks things up and causes damage.

Rainwater’s absorption into the soil is a far more desirable option. Rain diffuses into the soil as it is absorbed making it available to the myriads of plant roots and surrounding organisms. The remaining water spends considerable time filtering through the earth into underground aquifers. These aquifers are the source of pure refreshing spring water that resurfaces or remains in storage underground. When the soil gets over saturated with water the surplus is not absorbed but drain into streams or rivers that generally lead to the ocean. Water naturally tends to stay contained within the banks of these established waterways except in the most extreme flood conditions.

In a healthy soil ecosystem most rainfall is absorbed while very little runs off. Unfortunately, many modern cultural practices have tipped the scale in favor of runoff. Deforestation is one of the primary causes for this imbalance.

Established trees and shrubs hold lots of soil with their root systems. But in addition to that, they do another important thing in terms of erosion prevention, something so overlooked, it\’s like the Secret, the Holy Grail of soil conservation. They provide shade. When the blazing sun beats down on our landscape the ground heats up. Without trees or other vegetation in place to keep the soil cool by intercepting the solar energy to create growth and oxygen, the exposed hot soil repels the cool rain causing run off. Of course, the steeper the grade, the worse the effect.

Here\’s what you can do:

• Plant trees and shrubs to provide at least dappled shade to every square foot of your property that isn’t used for vegetable gardens, lawns, or other sun-loving purposes. The steeper the slope, the more densely shaded it should be.
• Minimize sunny areas and choose the flattest possible spots for them – create more level areas by terracing if necessary.
• When clearing for construction, select the site carefully and clear plants only from areas that are really needed for the project.

We’ll explore more causes of runoff and erosion in a subsequent article. In the meantime, please post your comments and questions about erosion prevention here, or contact me if you are looking for helpful and effective advice on your soil conservation challenges, whether small or large, homestead or mining company.

In part one of this series, we introduced the concept of looking to the traditional ecological knowledge contained in the myths of the ancient Polynesian cultures. There are to be found clues to the importance of soil and to simple, actionable ways we can conserve this resource. We looked at rainwater runoff as a key factor in soil erosion, and its first cause, deforestation and consequent lack of shade, plus ways to counterbalance it.

Now, let\’s continue exploring the causes of excessive runoff. The next one that needs to be discussed is the proliferation of non-permeable surfaces. A non-permeable surface is any that collects and then sheds rainwater rather than letting it through into the soil beneath it. In practice this basically means roofs of buildings, and all paved surfaces such as roads and parking lots, most man-made objects that occupy surface space on the earth. Of course we need buildings to live and work in and roads to travel on, etc. So I am not proposing that we eliminate all such things from the landscpe. However, the way we situate, design, and construct these objects has a tremendous influence on the runoff situation. This means there is a lot you can do in that area to minimize their negative impact.

Many roofs still shed directly onto the surrounding ground , eroding it right there and then. Others have gutters diverting it to a sewage system, turning valuable pure water into destructive waste. Every roof needs to have gutters connected to catchment tanks. The supply of clean fresh water is dwindling very fast on this planet and wars are already at this moment being fought over it. Forget oil for a moment, without water you won’t live to enjoy another drive in your car. Even if you’re currently hooked up to a municipal water supply, catching the rain off your roof is extremely beneficial to your security and will save you tons of money in the long run.

Roads and parking lots are part of a complex, large-scale polluted runoff problem. Good solutions are already being applied in some places in the public and private infrastructure. On a smaller, down-home scale, you can minimize problems associated with paved surfaces in the following ways:

• Make driveways and other paved surfaces only as large as they need to be to function.
• Construct flat or gently sloping driveways and parking spaces out of a thick bed of open-grade gravel or cinder.
• Construct steep driveways with two concrete “tracks”, with turf, gravel, or ground-cover plants in between.
• Another good alternative for all paved areas where locally available is interlocking pavers with holes or open spaces.
• Wherever water sheets or gushes off existing paved surfaces onto the ground when it rains, create small ponds and gardens with moisture-loving plants to retain the water.

For more detailed recommendations please visit our rainwater catchment resources page.

(This was originally posted on 10/09/2007 with videos embedded. This time, to lighten up the page loading I’m just linking to where they can be viewed.)

Hawaii currently imports more than 85% of its food. Imagine this….  If starting tomorrow - and this is by no means far-fetched as a possibility - ships and airplanes full of  mainland supplies stopped coming to the Hawaiian Islands, what would happen?  The average estimates say that all the food in stock will be eaten in about 15  days. Then what? In order to envision ways to prevent such a disaster from happening, this last weekend the Hawaii Island Food Summit was convened.

Since I see food security as one of the most essential conditions for human survival, I made a point of attending. The beautiful opening ceremony set the reverent, energetic and passionate tone for the day.

The lineup of speakers was impressive and included leading local and national experts: farmers, distributors, policy-makers, scientists, educators and more.The first speaker to address Saturday’s gathering  was Dr. Manu Meyer, Professor of Education at UH Hilo. Tying into her thought system of Hawaiian Epistemology, she emphasized the importance of knowing in addition to knowledge, the knowing being more in the traditional and doing side of things. The primary thing I walked away with from this talk was the powerful reminder that “responsibility is something you’re drawn to doing because it’s your destiny.” It could very well be Hawaii’s responsibility to show the rest of the world the way to sustainable and secure food supply systems.

Next up was Dr. Bill Steiner, Dean of UH-Hilo’s College of Agriculture, Forestry, and Natural Resource Management, who has worked relentlessly for decades to promote sustainability in those fields.

This was followed by a report by Lionel Bony and Laura Schewel from the Rocky Mountain Institute on their research into the existing food system on Hawai’i Island and ways to move that system toward self-sufficiency. One notable and somewhat surprising finding in their report is the fact that tourism accounts for only 11% of local food consumption, meaning that the dominant market for food on the island consists of its residents. This indicates that there is a lot of room for a partial shift in focus toward commodity food production for local consumption. One of the challenges in achieving this is the current lack of efficient processing plants on the island.
Regarding further development of the visitor-oriented production, agro-tourism holds a lot of potential because many visitors express a desire to be educated about the foods they are buying.

Then the mike was passed on to the keynote speaker of the day, Claire Hope Cummings, a widely known environmental lawyer and food & farming journalist. She shared her experiences in the development of a strong local food system through land trusts, farmers markets and local labels in Marin County, California. I’d like to highlight some very poignant data provided in this talk: Industrial agriculture is the world’s greatest source of pollution and uses 70% of all available fresh water on earth and 20% of all energy produced. Another thing Cummings strongly empahsized is the message that the true leadership comes from the people who are actually working the land.

The rest of the day was filled with panel sessions on the following topics:

• Why Sustainable Agriculture?
• Traditional and Modern Practices
• Land And Policy
• Challenges  and Opportunities for Marketing and Distribution of Food on Hawai’i Island
• Home Production: Food Security Begins at Home
• Agricultural Education Opportunities from Keiki to Kupuna
• Producers on the Edge: Dairy, Egg, Cattle, Honey,and Ocean Resources

In the middle of the day we paused to recharge our batteries and process the overwhelming amount of high-quality, actionable information over a scrumptuous lunch especially prepared from local ingredients. For more  details on the panels, plus  full  video coverage, you can go to the official media page of the Food Summit.

As if the conference by itself wouldn’t have been enough to make any food lover’s day, the Summit was followed by a local food producers exposition that was open to the public at no cost. The turnout was absolutely phenomenal, the place was overflowing with many hundreds of people taking the opportunity to sample a wide variety of local produce and build relationships with the people producing it. All in all, the massive energy of this day leaves no doubt that many, many valuable connections were made and that the meme of local, sustainable and secure food systems is spreading like wildfire.

Mahalo,

Nicole

After a few months of technical difficulties due to hack attacks etc. The Biospheric Resonance Journal is back up and running again.  All the posts that were here will be re-posted shortly, and then I’m starting a new series with “Surviving And Thriving Sustainably In Times Of Economic Decline” as the central topic. The resource  pages old and new will be made available on the main website and linked to from the blog.