social permaculture: the Krameterhof after Holzer dies?

Hi all,

One of the big questions lingering on my mind is what is going to happen the Sepp Holzers land after he dies.

I live in a community, and we have thought long and hard to build an organizational structure that can (and is) transitioning stewardship of land, tools, knowledge, and living systems from one generation to another. It is a large part of what I think We can offer to the permaculture conversation.

I wonder if anyone (perhaps mister Wheaton?) knows about Sepp's plans for the krameterhof after he is gone? Maybe someone has had this conversation with him before?

I am interested in any persons response to how to create a sustainable social environment that can steward the physical permaculture systems, and the land-knowledge to take care of it.

Cheers,
Andrew

I have no idea, his son seems some what interested to help out.
However I dont think that it is really that important.
His "homestead/farm" is a living book, he has shown us what and how to do it.
It more important that we worry about how soon WE are going to create our own permaculture homestead and teach the next generation.

Sepp Holzer has already transferred ownership of the Krameterhof to his son.

At this point it would take more work to undo the work of the Holzer clan than to just leave it alone. I think the goal of a community should be to have an ecosystem that can manage itself through time with or without the residents. That way the residents are part of the system, NOT rulers over it.

When a system works well, there's no reason to change it when somebody dies or leaves.

I am glad that they are going to do that and not what his neighbors are doing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cwwkO7m4bpY

Craig Dobbelyu wrote:At this point it would take more work to undo the work of the Holzer clan than to just leave it alone. I think the goal of a community should be to have an ecosystem that can manage itself through time with or without the residents. That way the residents are part of the system, NOT rulers over it.

When a system works well, there's no reason to change it when somebody dies or leaves.

interesting line of thinking Craig.

I agree the the goal of (my sort of) permaculture is to create something which go perpetuate itself more or less naturally without human interference. However, this is a very lofty goal. Even for someone as sophisticated as Sepp.

As far as I know, he still plants seeds, and thus the krameterhof would still need human attention to retain it's level of productivity to humans. So there would be some substantial changes in the land if people stopped caring for it.

I would also add that that physical permaculture system is there (at least in part) in order to support a human community. If the human community no longer retains the political leverage to stay on the land, then Sepps work will likely go feral unless some organization which is aligned with Sepp's Values can get political control. (I use the world "political" control, to differentiate between ultimate control. as that is impossible as Craig pointed out).

One of the large, often overlooked, aspects of creating a sustainable culture, is how assets get passed from generation to generation.

We have a prevalent model that property and assets get passed down through a family lin (through genetic lines). There is some downsides to this, as there is often little connection between the economic conditions and desires of the generation that founds something as awesome as the Kramaterhoff, and the next generation who grows up within the context of what was build. There is no telling if anyone's children will actually retain a continuity of interest in alignment with their parents.

Howe and Strauss go into this pattern to great depth in there work The Fourth Turning, where they map out examples of how family-lines often go from riches-to-poverty in a matter of four generations.
That's why I feel it is important that there be a much more notable conversation about workeable "social permaculture" systems that can preserve land, land-knowledge, ecological stewardship values, connections in the wider community, tools an resources, etc...

Through my studies I have found that Corporations, Monastaries and Intentional Communities are perhaps the best cultural models we have for the intergenerational stewardship of land and resources.

It is of great importance to me, given that I am part of a community who has been working to transition leadership and stake-holding in out intentional community. These organizational structures allow that the people who inherit the resources there be some kind of continuity of values and vision that can transcends generations. The people who inherent a company, a monastery or an IC are not often the genetic relatives of the people ran it before. instead, the people who manifest that they are capable of "moving the mission forward" and share the values and similar world-view of the people who stewarded the organization beforehand.

It is such a model that me and others at Windward are working to model. hence my interest in What Sepp is doing in this regard. I have seem countless life-work project in the vein of the Krameterhoff be failed to be sustained by the model of inheritence by genetic kin. I hope Sepp's son can be an exception to this.

While it may take a lot of energy to destroy what Sepp has done physically to his land, it would be a a shame to see it all go feral an underutilized.

How many permaculture farms are out there? WHat is going to happen to them in 30 years? We are in a time of great uncertainty, and the price of such a wasted endeavour seems unreasonably high.

I hear ya on all those points. I assume that if the Holzer clan disappeared (literally) tomorrow, the farm would be ok for quite a while on it's own. Would it be as productive in the long run? Probably not 100 percent. But that depends on what you consider productive. All the perennial crops would keep on going. The animals that aren't fully caged in would be just fine. The water would keep flowing. So even if it was totally neglected the end result would probably be a really nice place to forage and hunt. I suspect if there was nobody to harvest the annual veggies, some would likely reseed themselves too. AND Being that not much produce, meat, trees and such would be leaving that land annually, there would be even more biomass being deposited on the land. I suspect most of Sepp's work is just keeping up with replacing what he sells.

Most of the video I've seen of Sepp, usually shows him taking over a new piece of land so that's why it looks like he/they work so hard to keep going all the time. I suspect that when they aren't renovating new land, they have a fairly relaxed work load.
If it were abandoned and then rediscovered in 50 years, it would still be somewhat productive I bet. Certainly more so than the surrounding pine forest (desert).

Land trusts can help ensure the continued use of land for a particular purpose.

Tyler Ludens wrote:Land trusts can help ensure the continued use of land for a particular purpose.

so can creating a corporation that includes such stipulations in it's charter.

I am under the impression that Sepp is constantly tinkering with his water works. Without maintenance, a plugged monk could lead to a breached dam, which could result in a catastrophic failure that washes the entire system off the mountain. It is an amazing and complex managed system, but I wouldn't assume that it will last without good management.

Hopefully his kids will keep it going, but I wonder what the lot could bring at an open auction today? Especially compared to his neighbors.