Nature and Society: Building Bridges, Upending Paradigms

Lucas Dymit – University of Montana

Where is your food from? Many of you might say the grocery store, but how did it get there?
Who drove the truck, flew the plane, captained the ship? Perhaps more importantly, who picked
your apples, dug up your potatoes, shelled your walnuts, and raised the cow that now nourishes
your body? Food is such an integral part of being alive, yet we are so separated from the very
roots of our being. Flipping this paradigm is what Alma Verde seeks to do. Alma Verde is a
Permaculture farm in Puerto Guadal, Chile. It started with one man, Chris, who decided he had
enough perpetuated the problem of our environment being destroyed. With a bike, a chainsaw
and a wheelbarrow, Chris set out to live a sustainable life and share with others how beautiful it
can be.

I had the great opportunity and immense pleasure to spend two days at Alma Verde
experiencing something I have idolized in my mind for many years yet felt paralyzed to make a
change– living sustainably. Permaculture, meaning permanent culture, is a philosophy and
practice of building a culture that is in harmony with nature. There are three ethical principles of
permaculture: take care of people, take cake of nature, and share-– sounds nice, doesn’t it? Along
with these simple ethics are twelve principles:

1. Observe and interact
2. Capture and store energy
3. Always obtain a yield
4. Apply self-regulation and feedback
5. Use and value renewable resources
6. Minimize waste
7. Design from patterns to details
8. Integrate more than segregate
9. Use small and slow solutions
10. Use and value diversity
11. Use and value the edges and marginal value
12. Use and respond creatively to change

These guiding principles are a way to see the Earth in a vitalizing and sustainable way.
Walking along the property, we dove into each of the principals talking about how they
interconnect with one another. It was a great time of reflection for me and my consumption. It is
so easy to not think about your own waste and where it goes. Take plastic packaging for
example, it is everywhere and so easy to accumulate. Chris shared a great insight about this
which is the practice of refusing. It seems simple but it struck a chord in me. If I, even
sometimes, choose not to buy that wrapped piece of candy or overly packaged produce, I can
make a positive impact. Seeing and observing waste before it becomes such. Our eyes constantly
inform us about our surroundings, so why is it that so many neglect to see the destruction to the environment. Convenience? Perhaps it is easier to simply block out the consequences to our
collective actions. In a world so big, I know I feel helpless at times thinking how my little life is
going to make an impact. That’s just it though, no one life is little. Society is not going to flip on
a dime, living a sustainable life doesn’t require you to move to Patagonia and start a farm, it can
begin as simple separating your compost or choosing organic produce and ethically raised meat.

We also got to visit and work with Naturaliza Publica, a non-profit with the goal of
reconnecting people with nature by making it more accessible. They do this by propagating
native plant species and synthesizing projects highlighting them in public areas in towns across
the Aysén Region of Chile. At the heart, they are a collaborative organization that connects
culture to the environment through education and empowerment– a bridge that has been widely
lost in today’s world; a bridge that enlightens observation of the natural world. Amidst the
constant rain, we helped clean seeds which entails separating the actual seeds from the other
plant matter.

Unlike your home garden of basil and thyme, you cannot typically go to the store and buy the
seed of native species, so one must venture out to the wild places of our surroundings and
manually harvest species of interest. In addition, native seeds have not gone through years of
domesticate breeding selection to make them more viable and likely to grow– making
propagation even more challenging.
Leaving the soundscape of rain hitting the porch roof, we got our hands dirty, quite
literally, building demonstration plots that Naturaliza Publica can show and educate town
officials on how planting native species in their cities can be beautiful. These gardens are
designed to be more self-sustaining which includes several key adaptions. After the plants were
in the ground, we took recycled cardboard and created a cohesive layer blanketing the bare soil
around the plants. This acts as a barrier to weeds, cutting down the amout of maintenance. It also
acts to retain moisture while it decomposes. On top of the cardboard, we spread a layer of gravel
that we heaved in wheelbarrows from the shores of Lago Chilenko (the largest lake in the region
shared by Chile and Argentina). The gravel acts as a barrier against weeds, and for drier adapted
species, keeps them from being too saturated. In other plots, mulch was spread over the carboard
which acts to maintain moisture. The integrative forethought did not stop there. Emulating the
Japanese technique for growing dense forests of native trees in small spaces known as the
Miyawaki method, the plants chosen in each plot help each other to flourish. With some growing
taller providing shade to others and varying nutrient requirements, planted together they thrive.

While these are but two examples of integrating sustainability back into culture, these are not the
only ways. No matter how often you find yourself wandering through the forest, listening to the
birds, sorting your trash or using a dry toilet, small actions make an impact.