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--- forest_gardening [2010-02-01 09:37] – theunkarelse
+++ forest_gardening [2010-02-10 12:55] – 145.50.39.12
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 === Forest Gardening ===
-====== Intro ======
+=== Intro ===
 Forest gardens represent a farming technique radically different from Western (mono-)agricultural models and concepts. For many primary people around the world the cultivation and redesigning of patches of forest to create a reliable source of foodstuffs is elemental to their survival. For some Amazonian people (supposed hunter/gatherers) for instance it is calculated that 90% of their diet is produced in their gardens. The fact that many trained observers (like ethnobotanists) can completely miss a forest garden when they are right in front of it indicates that they are not just an accomplished and ecological sound cultural achievement, but that they inhibit a conceptual space beyond our immediate cultural perception.
-====== A Counter Example from the Amazon ======
+=== Vegtable Gardening as Hunt Preparation===
+A large qoute from Darrell Addison Posey that indicates that forest gardens are well planned.
+''Another of the major misconceptions about slash-and-burn agriculture is that fields are abandoned to fallow after two or three years because the soil loses its fertility, and weeds and insects take over. Loss of fertility of the soil, however, is not the factor that determines that agriculture takes a shifting pattern.
+Soil analyses shows that the soils are not exhausted after two or even three years. Furthermore, soils are totally rejuvenated after 10-12 years of fallow. Yet no Kayapó field in Gorotire in replanted in less than 15-20 years. Kayapó Field plots in most cases are scattered three to four hours' journey away from the village, although suitable, adequately fallowed, old plots might be only 15-20 minutes away. The Kayapó ordinarily seek to minimize effort and work so that this seems to be a great inconsistency in their cultural pattern.
+The Kayapó recognize that the high forest is relatively sparse in animal life, while forest clearing furnish habitat for smaller leafy and bushy plants that attract wildlife. They know that leaving 'abandoned' fields to the natural reforestation sequence artificially creates domains that stimulate wildlife populations. They also know that the more widely their 'abandoned' fields are dispersed, the greater the area available to attract game - and the easier the hunting. Dispersed fields also naturally limit viral, fungal, and insect crop pests.
+This sensitivity to forest succession explains why the Kayapó are willing to let close-by old fields remain fallow. Although it might be easier to replant nearby fields more frequently, it would just mean having to go further away to hunt for game and for the essential gathered products from the secondary forest. ''
+=== A Counter Example from the Amazon ===
 Mark Plotkin in Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice gives a fascinating review of western agricultural techniques when applied to Amazonian soils from the perspective of Amazonian forest gardeners:
-““Look at that garden,” Kamainja whispered. “I've seen better-looking agriculture inside a leafcutter ant's nest!”
+''Look at that garden,” Kamainja whispered. “I've seen better-looking agriculture inside a leafcutter ant's nest!”
 To my untrained eye, the peasant garden did not look at all different from Indian agriculture. Once Kamainja stopped laughing, I asked him to explain.
 “Look at that manioc! It is planted too far apart. You saw how we put ours together; the leaves form a canopy like the forest's, which keeps the sun and rain from directly hitting the soil. And they have only one kind, whereas in our garden we have more than twenty. That plantation is an invitation for the bugs to move in.”
@@ Line 16: / Line 31: @@
 “I don't see any.” I said.
 “Exactly! In our gardens we always leave some behind it binds the soil in the rainy season. The peasant's garden is probably cleaner than his house!”
-“And another thing,” said Kamainja. “You look at the plantation and you know the man doesn't understand the forest. A well-planned garden should look like a hole in the forest opened up when a giant ku-mah-kah tree falls over. Small openings in the forest are filled in by fast growing weedy plants that attract game animals. When you cut down too much forest, the little plants can't seed in from the surrounding jungle and you don;t have any birds or peccaries coming in that you can hunt.””
+“And another thing,” said Kamainja. “You look at the plantation and you know the man doesn't understand the forest. A well-planned garden should look like a hole in the forest opened up when a giant ku-mah-kah tree falls over. Small openings in the forest are filled in by fast growing weedy plants that attract game animals. When you cut down too much forest, the little plants can't seed in from the surrounding jungle and you don;t have any birds or peccaries coming in that you can hunt.''
-====== Origin of Forest Gardens ======
+=== Origin of Forest Gardens ===
 From 'The forest-garden farms of Kandy, Sri Lanka' ([[http://books.google.com/books?id=G3QPo7lThXsC]] full view) by Douglas John McConnell:
@@ Line 36: / Line 51: @@
 A garden is never fully abandoned, after three years a garden may be completely overgrown with weeds and thorny bushes, and the people using it may migrate, they will come back often to harvest it. see [[Ecosystem_gardening]]
-For forest people, gardening is a state of mind, a mode they are never out of. The entire Amazon is now believed to one huge man-made landscape kept intact by contant pruning and weeding as humans move through it.
+For forest people, gardening is a state of mind, a mode they are never out of. The entire Amazon is now believed to one huge man-made landscape kept intact by contant pruning and weeding as humans move through it, a practise partially covered by [[nomadic agriculture]].
-(Theun: I disagree with much of this; in my opinion [[Ecosystem_gardening]] is much less anthropocentric than suggested here and has nothing to do with growing crops. The tribals we met in India, living in stone-age conditions, had little knowledge about plants beyond their use. Human pressures simply never were high enough to need any management. And lastly being in the rainforest for just a few weeks made me quiet sure that its metabolism is way beyond our capacity to prune and weed it. In fact you can't even keep it from invading your body.)
+[[Further Local Discussion about the Anthropocentric Jungle]]
 ====== Gary Snyder and the Artistic Imperative  ======