Hi folks,
It's hard to escape the horrors of war nowadays - the horrors being experienced by the people of Gaza and Syria and other regions are all over our screens. Is there anything
Permaculture can do to actually bring peace to places like these? Very often they are environmentally utterly degraded - eg the Gaza Strip is an ecological wreck. It's probably the case that there is never
enough stability to look at growing things or putting systems in place that will yield benefit in a long term, when people are just living each day at a time. Yet
permaculture can bring hope and positivity to even very bleak situations, regardless of what is happening on a geopolitical level. When I look at what
Geoff Lawton has done in Jordan, it's clear that
permaculture can work in the Middle East, even though the littoral climate of Gaza is a bit different from that further East. But principles of self-reliance can ease the bite of blockades, appreciation of the wider picture can reduce despair and radicalisation, establishment of real personal networks can allow discourse to flourish. Of course a seed can only grow if it's allowed to; maybe hoping for anything is unrealistic in that scenario.
I get the feeling that the geopolitics are going to have to work themselves out, but has anyone any examples of
permaculture operating while the shells are falling?
-S
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