This could be paradise. Mother Earth lies brown and soft under my feet, golden light shines through the leaves. Leaning against an old cork oak, I look into a little valley; the air is shimmering in the heat of a summer afternoon. The branches above give home to birds and beetles, and ferns are moving softly in the breeze.
This could be paradise. But in fact, it is not. The green of the little valley before me is created by rock roses – pioneer plants on devastated soils throughout the Mediterranean. Through their monotonous surface here and there the corpses of corks oak arise like sunken ships in a sandy bay. The opposite side of the valley is already clear, no oaks, no grass, not even rock roses – only grayish eucalyptus on top.
The cork oaks of southern Portugal are dying, and still no government and no university has found a formula to stop it. Even the proud tree at my back shows the unavoidable signs of the coming death: brown stains in the bark from fungi. Old farmers here say that the tree is crying.
And I am crying as well. It is not only about the century-old traditional culture that shaped the look of the Alentejo that is coming to a close. Desert is also developing right before our eyes. Southern Europe is turning into a second Sahel Zone.
I wonder why nobody runs shouting through the towns, ringing a bell, sounding the alarm: Watch out, wake up – our land, our mother is dying! What will we eat tomorrow?
The Sahara is coming north. Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Greece all suffer under increasing summer droughts, forests are burning, and in Portugal every twenty minutes a farmer gives up his farm. More than 80% of the population lives in big cities and on the coast; 80% of the food is imported; and the “delicious garden,” the fertile land of the Moors in the Middle Ages, is turning into dust.
“Who cares?” city people may say. “We get our food from the supermarket.”
An incident in June of this year showed how weak this argument is and how thin the layers of peace and richness in Europe might be. A strike of fuel truck drivers hit Portugal. On the second day the first gas stations had run out of gas; on the third day the first supermarkets had empty shelves; and then two people working to block some fuel trucks trying to break the strike were run over deliberately.
If this kind of thing should happen more in the future, we have to ask: What will we eat? Where will our water come from? Our electricity? How will we survive? When the last fuel has been used, these questions will not be answered by global systems, but in our neighborhoods, our communities, and through our relationship to the land we live on.
How can we save the cork oaks? Pancho, a nature walker and ecologist in Tamera, gives a surprisingly sober answer. “By healing the water balance. Water is the only sustainable solution for the trees.”
Tamera, a research center and peace university, works on peace – not only between people but with nature as well. On three-hundred-fifty acres, the ecologists of Tamera develop local solutions for global problems.
“Droughts are not a natural law,” Sepp Holzer states. This Austrian mountain farmer is one of the ecological advisors of Tamera. “They are the consequence of deforestation, monocultures, and overgrazing. After decades of wrong treatment, it´s not small steps that are needed, but bigger steps of correction.”
Sepp takes us on a tour through the growing water landscape of Tamera. In the middle of the Alentejo, where the summer has turned everything brown, where meadows are as dry as straw, we have entered a different world. Fresh green shoots are sprouting on the terraces. Fruit trees, berry bushes, and reeds are growing. The densely-growing leaves on the terraces are edible plants such as radishes, cabbage, turnips, lettuce, and old varieties of cereals which all grow here abundantly – not in straight lines and rows, but as mother nature would have sown them herself. As visitors we are allowed to eat from this abundance. This first impression of the new Tamera water landscape is convincing – and tasty.
The first lake of Tamera was started last August. It is part of a comprehensive concept for the retention and saving of the winter rain, for renaturation of the landscape, for reforestation with mixed cultures, and for food cultivation. The winter rain filled the lake; now in the hot summer season, the lake supplies the surroundings with water.
“Water is information. Water is life. Water is capital,” Sepp Holzer states. The lake is indeed a elaborated system of self purification and regulation of different temperatures. The flatter shorelines serve to clean the lake, and to grow tropical plants. Natural marble stones are standing on the shore and in some shallow parts of the lake, they are useful giants working like a tiled fireplace. At night they radiate the heat to their surroundings.
Deeper zones of the lake create the differences in temperature leading to water movements which carry oxygen into the lake and help the fish thrive and prosper.
“Edible landscapes” is a term which makes the mouths water of some participants on the walk. In many places the mixed plant cultures which were sown last year are already growing. As much as possible original species are grown – plants which will later sow their own seeds. Sepp Holzer: “In nature it is the same as with human beings: community is better than solitude.”
100,000 tons of soil were removed for the construction of this first water retention basin. The design of the lake incorporates a gently rising dam with an overflow and an outlet discharge structure that regulates the water level and makes the population of water plants and fish controllable.
Beyond its task of ecological regeneration, the water landscape can become an important economic factor. The ecologists of Tamera think that future communities will produce their own food and take care of nature. Together with the solar energy systems which are developed in Tamera, this “lakescape” is a model for decentralized sustainability in times when the supermarkets can´t take care of us any more.
Maybe this could be paradise after all.
The key to reversing the destruction of the biosphere by our species is the emergence in the last millennium of sociological mechanisms conferring a competitive advantage on groups of people who exploit the destruction of native vegetation and surface water. Much can be done by informing the people of the world of the resulting exponential increase in drought but until the massive profit available to exploiting groups is switched off the destruction will continue. Equally, there are massive rewards available to groups who take control of surface water, who destroy rivers and take water from lakes. Groundwater is being increasingly brought to the surface and again their is profit for the small numbers of people who arrange tom control this process. Only elimination of the economic structures and current social which fosters the advantage to be gained by a few in this destructive will be effective in arresting exploitation and destruction of the biosphere.
Above all, the continued use of surface and fossil groundwater must be stopped and put into reverse. For this reason the diversion of surface water as described in Tamara may have a local effect in improving the environment but is misguided and unfortunately continues the damage that has resulted from our dependence on rain and the exploitation of surface water.
I have said* that there are only two unlimited and ecologically sustainable sources of water. These are the air and the sea. In the case of the sea such systems as Reverse Osmosis add to entropy and are easily exploited profitably by small groups exercising power of the rest of humanity. Pure water however can be brought inland, distilled by solar and wind power and the salt returned to where it belongs in the sea. In the case of water from the air a simple calculation that provided a mechanism can be found for the rapid removal of heat from air, and I believe I am developing such a mechanism, then potentially all the water used by the worlds population could be obtained by the extraction of water from the ambient air with no deleterious effect on the world ecosystem. The difficult step is to develop such systems by the formation of local positively motivated groups of people rather than as further means of exploitation by small groups with the aim of gaining advantage of the mass of humanity.
* 224 Int. J. Global Environmental Issues, Vol. 8, No. 3, 2008
Copyright © 2008 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.
Two proposals for unlimited fresh water
M. Whisson
Interesting article: I have seen a doco on the amazing Austrian alpine farm of Sepp Holzer.
In Australia, back in the 70's, 2 scientists, Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, by observing nature developed the inspiring and practical Permaculture system which is embraced by growing numbers in cities and towns. Water is used so differently and sustainably. One leader in the field of Permaculture is Geoff Lawton who has successfully developed a thriving food farm in the Jordanian desert [and other countries] and can be viewed by searching for 'Greening the Desert' on the internet.
There are also successful dry-land planting systems using innovative water condensation collection by simply piling rocks around plants in desert areas in USA.
We can all do so much with so little without the need for extravagant high-tech solutions.
The author fails to mention that traditional corks for bottles of wine are being replaced by plastic corks. Industry has no need for the cork trees
This is not really true. Cork has become very expensive, as it is used for insulation purposes. And high quality wine producers have never replaced the cork. The EU is spending millions to save the cork oaks.
Kind regards: Leila
Though I wouldn't recommend this measure except in the most extremely dry climates where nothing else will grow, I would suggest kudzu as a good plant for climate modification. Even one vacant lot filled with kudzu will noticeably lower and dampen the atmosphere around it. Kudzu is a hardy vine that grows rapidly. It might be started in desert areas where there is still a well or aquifer with some water left in it. Once established, the plant becomes nutritious food for livestock. It also fixes nitrogen in the soil. Chopped and composted (or just plowed under), it becomes fertilizer and soil conditioner. The vines can be woven into baskets or provide fibre for fabric. The thicker ones might even form a latticework for furniture or huts. Every part of the plant is edible. It also has medicinal properties and sells in health food stores for $4.00/ounce. The harsher climate of the Sahara would probably curtail the rapid growth that has made kudzu a pest plant in the South. A patch of it can quickly be cleared out by confining goats to that area. Drastic problems call for drastic solutions!