Miami Dade College, Miami Florida, October 31, 2012

By Pramod Parajuli, Ph.D.

Doctoral Program inSustainability Education

Prescott College

pparajuli@prescott.eduwww.prescott.edu

Annapurna Pluriversity for Biocultural Regeneration: Creating a Collaborative

There are planetary boundaries, nine are

identified• Ozone Depletion• Climate Change,

CO2 emission levels greenhouse gas

• Biodiversity loss• Phosphorous cycle• Nitrogen cycle• Ocean acidification

• There are human needs for survival and thriving for 7 billion humans within this biosphere

• OXFAM has identified 11 basic indicators of safe space for humanity while we are also facing limits to fresh water and land use

Why is temperature rising?

• Top 10% of Humanity is increasing the average temperature on Earth

• 80% due to fossil fuels including how machinery and chemicals are used in industrial agriculture

• 20 % of the temperature increase is due to deforestation and and degradation of land.

The tragedy of (the) ‘carbon’

• Since the Industrial Revolution, humans have greatly increased the quantity of carbon dioxide found in the Earth's atmosphere and oceans.

• Atmospheric levels have increased by over 30%, from about 275 parts per million (ppm) in the early 1700s to just over 390 PPM today.

• Scientists estimate that future atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide could reach an amount between 450 to 600 PPM by the year 2100.

• The major sources of this gas due to human activities include fossil fuel combustion and the modification of soil structure and natural plant cover found in grassland, woodland, wetland and forested ecosystems.

Impacts on the biogeochemical cycles from industrial sectorsIndustrial Sector Activities and Influences Local Effects Cycles Impacted

Agriculture Fishing, irrigation, meat production, crop production

Deforestation, nitrification, overfishing, biodiversity loss,

C; N; H; H2O; P

Energy Coal mining and burning, petroleum mining and combustion

Mountain top removal, surface water contamination; accidental spills, public health concerns; atmospheric warming

C; O; S; H2O;

Manufacturing Factories, production of chemicals and pharmaceuticals, accidental releases into environment

Water, air and land contamination; public health concerns; air quality deterioration

O; N; S; H2O;

Mining Logging; soil removal; geological reshaping

Erosion; sinkholes; groundwater contamination; biodiversity loss; impact on native/indigenous peoples

C; O; P; H2O

Transportation Traffic congestion; air pollution; road building; urban sprawl; concretization; habitat fragmentation

Nitrous oxide releases; carbon dioxide releases; particulate releases; smog; increased stormwater runoff

C; H; N; O; S; H2O

Despite all this, there are planetary opportunities

• How could we reorient ourselves to operate within the planetary boundaries?

• How could we take that shift and transition towards that?

• How could those transitions be socially just and equitable, ecologically sustainable and bio-culturally diverse?

• But we need to create new priorities. What should be those?

• Indications are clear that solutions will be found NOT separately but in the intersection of the natural and the human social systems. We call them the “biospheric” and the “ethnospheric” realms. We add the “learningspheric” to create a new synthesis in between the biospheric and the ethnospheric realms.

Learning sustainability (I prefer Learning sustainability (I prefer abundance) in the age of Ecology abundance) in the age of Ecology

is…is…“to re-orient human species to become beneficial members of an abundant biosphere.”

-Pramod Parajuli

The Emerging Pluriverse

• A pluriverse and deeply conversational global classrooms are now possible to dream and design.

• Is not the time ripe to bring to fruition such a pluriverse world through conversations, collaboratives, inter-and-intra generational learning and mutual learning?

Design Gurus are seeking and Design Gurus are seeking and proposing Nature-based solutions proposing Nature-based solutions

and designs!and designs!Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute

Paul Hawken, Bioneers (www.bioneers.org)

Janine Benyus, Biomimicry

Paulo Soleri, Gaviotas, Colombia

William McDounough, Cradle to Cradle

Gunter Pauli, Zero Emission Research and

Innovation www.Zeri.org

Bill Mollison and David Holmgren,

Permaculture www.patternliteracy.org

Vandana Shiva, Earth Democracy

www.Vshiva.net

John and Nancy Todd

EcosaInstitute, Prescott

www.Practicalaction.org

Principles for Natural Economy? Could Principles for Natural Economy? Could Ecological Literacy teach us do it?Ecological Literacy teach us do it?

• Waste = FoodWaste = Food

• EconomyEconomy runs on runs on current solar income.current solar income.

• Productivity requiresProductivity requires, in return, enormously enormously diverse biological diverse biological pathways.pathways.

• SeekSeek not only efficiency but effectivenesseffectiveness!!

(Source: William McDonough, Janine Benyus, and David Orr, visit www.TED.com)

William McDonough, the William McDonough, the ArchitectArchitect

• Zero-Impact• Carbon Neutral• Closed-Loop • Smart Growth

We can integrate built environments with ecosystems that inspire…

He wants to designHe wants to design:- buildings that are like trees - cities that are like forests- automobiles that live and run like buffaloes, that poop their micronutrient into the soil.

I have proposed a Partnership Model I have proposed a Partnership Model for Sustainability for Sustainability

Biocultural Regeneration is central in our work in South Asia, Andes or the Amazonas. Indigenous

peoples, peasants and women are at the forefront in India

Could Food and Gardens be a gateways to deeper and delicious new priorities?

• It is not only about what we eat but:

• Food coming from WHERE we eat?

• How we prepare and

eat it?

• What food we eat in what seasons?

• With whom and with what sociality do we eat?

What can soil do? What may food and agriculture do?

• Amazonian Dark Earths

• Farm to Cafeteria, schools, Colleges, hospitals• Edible Schools Yards

• Learning Gardens• Food and Garden

Based Education

• Regenerative Agriculture

• Ecological Agriculture• Agroecology• Soil to Supper• Teachers in the

Learning Gardens• Parents in the learning

Gardens• Rooftop Gardens

Is soil a good carbon sink? From Slash and burn to slash and

char• Soil holds more than three times as much carbon as the amount found in above-ground vegetation or in the atmosphere.

• If the bank of carbon held in the world’s soils were to drop by just 0.3 percent, the release would equal a year’s worth of fossil fuel emissions.

• Burnt organic matter, biochar, can account for up to 40 percent of carbon in some grasslands and in boreal forests.

• While still holding considerable promise, recent research shows that biochar decomposes faster than remaining bulk organic matter — with 25 percent lost every century.

• Because it provides suitable habitat for soil microbes, biochar remains a viable part of the mechanism to decompose organic matter, capture carbon dioxide, produce energy, and sink carbon into the soil.

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/337548/title/Soil%E2%80%99s_Hidden_Secrets

Between Learning to garden and

Gardening to learn• In the Amazon

everybody seems still connected to the Chacra and knows about how to garden

Building on that agro-ecological tradition, today, we are working with schools in the Peruvian High Amazon to develop gardens where children can learn all subjects in and from the garden.

Learning Gardens as site Learning Gardens as site for Experiential, ecological, for Experiential, ecological, adventure and leadership adventure and leadership educationeducation

•Build school gardens as Build school gardens as interdisciplinary living interdisciplinary living classroomsclassrooms

•Make every school Make every school lunchroom a classroom lunchroom a classroom

•Farm field trips, connect Farm field trips, connect farms and gardens with farms and gardens with watersheds and foodshedswatersheds and foodsheds

•Build direct relationship Build direct relationship between schools and farms between schools and farms modeled on Community modeled on Community Supported Agriculture systemSupported Agriculture system

Vision for the futureVision for the future

Soil to Supper: Can Food be a Soil to Supper: Can Food be a Gateway to Life and Learning?Gateway to Life and Learning?

Eating…

is an Agricultural Act. I extrapolate this as:

Agriculture…

is an Ecological Act

Ecology…

is an Pedagogical Act

Pedagogy…

is a transformational Act

says Wendell Berry