Permaculture Talk in La Cumbre - on fire, water and other messes

I visited the English Language Prep school and addressed about 40 students aged 14 through 17. Most of them were too shy to interact much so I monologued my way through an hour of Permaculture. The teachers were quite interested and I think that the students were also intrigued but not a word. Maybe next time….

T.V. station in La Cumbre is a room in a strip mall kind of situation with a table and three chairs. There is a rubber plant positioned as background. Diana translated for me as I was interviewed. The monitor for the camera faced me so I was a little distracted by my image talking to me as I talked.

It was a good interview the woman who did it was interested and asked good questions, primarily about the water reservoir that supplies the town. A year ago there was a big fire that burned right down to the water, killing trees, shrubs and wildlife. Then the rains came and washed it all into the reservoir. The question is how to remediate this situation and prevent it from happening in the future. My concerns are that nothing has been done to clean up after the fire. Dead trees are still lying in the water along the shore and erosion continues to fill the reservoir. It seems that the mayor has already been tooting his horn about the clean up he has initiated and I wasn’t informed of his statements so mine were not the most discrete suggestions in this circumstance. The truth always gets one in trouble in a political environment.

To add insult to injury the city poured cement to the top of the existing dam to increase the volume of water that can be held which caused the water to rise on the banks further killing the trees and shrubs that escaped the fire. For me step one is to clean up the mess, step two is to start building contour check dams on the slopes above the reservoir to stop runoff and slow down the overland flow of rain water. Then use the contour dams as enriched zones for starting to restore the vegetation. Some kind of fire break needs to be established to prevent this from happening in the future.

Fires are a major threat in this area because of drought and deforestation – the same sad story being repeated around the globe. Mankind is mindlessly and greedily destroying his habitat.

There was a great gathering of citizens and the city counselors to hear me speak about permaculture and the environment. Seems that I struck a chord and there was a lot of talk about organizing committees to deal with recycling, water, and fire. I hope this is something that will continue into the future, there certainly was a lot of enthusiasm and hope the evening of my talk.

In spite of the hospitality and beauty of La Cumbre I must say I was glad to be headed for the warmer climes of Brazil. Everyone kept insisting that it was an unseasonable cold fall in La Cumbre but even after searching successfully for long johns and a sweater I was cold; it seemed that the brick and stone walls and floors sucked all of the heat out of me. Solar orientation and technology would go a long way in improving life in La Cumbre.