permaculture - policy connect · lal estimates that agriculture, forestry, and ecosystem...

Permaculture:top down thinking and bottom up action for ecosystem health and

action on climate change

Presentation to the All Party Parliamentary l Climate Change Groupl 6th December 2016

l Andy Goldringl @andygoldring l CEO, Permaculture Associationl www.permaculture.org.uk

The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between how nature works and the way people think.

Gregory Bateson

l www.permaculture.org.uk


Permaculture = learning to think and act like an ecosystem

Top down thinking = strategic systems thinking

Ethics - Principles – Design(then ACTION)

Ethics

Earth CarePeople CareFair Shares

= one planet living

Ecological principles

Design

The Permaculture Association supports people to learn about and use permaculture in the UK

and internationally.

Bottom up action

Inkpot, Lincolnshire Ragmans Lane Farm, Gloucestershire

Tap O'Noth, Scotland

Many hundreds of projects (farm, school, park, business, etc)in the UK and 10,000+ across 130+ countries globally.

= eco-jobs, sustainable produce,biodiversity and carbon sequestration

Meet Eric Toensmeir- he's done the maths...



Carbon Farming knowns

Sequestration rates and lifetime SOC rates for many techniques and practices

The polycultures can have much higher Land Equivalent Ratios than monocultures(and greater resilience to pests, disease and climate variability) = more crop per unit area

Tree based polycultures have the greatest sequestration rates

Heterogeneous landscapes (diverse & 'patchy') are best for wildlife

The French (and others) are investing heavily in agroforestry

Prince Charles, Baroness Scotland (Secretary general of the Commonwealth), and many others at Cop21 & 22 are putting Carbon Farming at the centre of their adaptation plans.

Lal estimates that agriculture, forestry, and ecosystem restoration can reduce atmospheric CO2 by 50ppm

Improved Annual Systems

conservation agriculture organic annual cropping organic no-till

Protective Systems

windbreaks living fence/ living fenceposts riparian buffer hedgerow

Contour Intercropping

Support Intercropping

FMNR evergreen agriculture alley cropping

Perennial Crop Intercropping

irregular intercropping strip intercropping pasture cropping

Silvopasture

Herbaceous Monocultures

herbaceous crops perennial grains biomass grasses

Woody Biomass Systems

bamboo coppice short rotation coppice

Woody Crop Monocultures

orchard

Multistrata Agroforestry

Biochar

Infrastructure & Design

terracing keyline

Practices for the UK include: Ready for Scaling Up Experimental or Early

Adopters

Conservation agriculture Organic no-till

Organic annual cropping Support agroforestry systems e.g. alley cropping

Crop rotation System of Rice Intensification

Cover crops Pasture cropping (cool-season)

Residue retention, minimum tillage, mulching

Contour hedgerows

Windbreaks

Perennial intercrops

Riparian buffers

Contour grass strips



there is a growing network of existing farmers and growers

keen to move this forward

and a network of new entrants keen to engage

We have many farmers ready for retirement

and soon we will need to develop a new (out of the EU) agricultural / land use strategy

We need to support a rapid transition to carbon farming

and ecological land use

Proposal 1 : Mitigation – reducing energy use

Introduce a carbon tax

Send market signals to reduce the use of fossil fuels(including farm chemical inputs)


Proposal 2: Sequestration / Adaptation / Mitigation

Develop an Eco-Design support service(permaculture / agroecological)

Enable farmers & land managers to do 'top down thinking' (training & design support)

So they can deliver bottom up action.


Plus...

* Greater support for agroforestry* More succession planning for farmers to hand on their businesses

* Greater integration of flood planning with agricultural practice & design* Increase research funds for agro-ecological practice

and carbon farming* Et cetera


Q: What can policy makers, businesses, civil society and communities do to protect ecosystems and embed natural

capital into ways of working.

A: Change the way we think (and therefore how we act).

Supporting the development of eco-design training, research

and practice.

Thanks for listening

l Andy Goldringl @andygoldring l CEO, Permaculture Associationl www.permaculture.org.uk

And thanks to Eric Toensmeir for some of his slides

permaculture - policy connect · lal estimates that agriculture, forestry, and ecosystem...

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