Event #3 also provided a special treat for the late-nighters who stayed to hear Cacau Arcoverde and Ileana Santamaria perform music and dance from Pernambuco, Brazil! We even had a roda de capoeira going for a minute (thanks to Samir).
DJ Drummerman (Jeff Duneman) and I helped out on percussion too.
photos by Chris Kreussling aka Flatbush Gardener
Tonight’s Sustainable Flatbush Event #3 | Urban Permaculture is ON…
with an added BoNuS:
Vocalist/dancer/songwriter/percussionist
*** Ileana Santamaria ***
will treat us to some of her favorite classic Brazilian tunes!!
“Cuban-born Ileana Santamaria grew up in a musical household with a
dream to carry on the legacy of her father, Cuban percussionist and
Latin Jazz pioneer Ramon “Mongo” Santamaria.”
(http://www.myspace.com/ileanasantamaria)
Don’t miss it!
(text version follows) (more…)
Sustainable Flatbush Event #3
Friday, June 15th, 8pm until midnight
at Vox Pop Cafe/Bookstore
1022 Cortelyou Road, Flatbush, Brooklyn
Q train to Cortelyou Road, walk 5 blocks west to Stratford
Our regular (ish) monthly (or so) event will be on Friday June 15th from 8pm to midnight. The subject will be “Permaculture and its Applications in an Urban Environment” (or something along those lines). Featured speakers Joan Ewing and Wilton Duckworth are former Flatbush residents now living upstate on a functioning permaculture site. They will give a presentation on Geoff Lawton’s “Greening the Desert” project and talk about their own experience with sustainable environmental design as the focus of their lives. Before and after the talk we will enjoy music from resident DJ Drummerman, visuals by Keka, Vox Pop’s lovely assortment of food and drinks, and scintillating conversation with smart, charming people. Don’t miss it!
I met Sean Maley from Green Phoenix Permaculture’s NYC Chapter on my visit to Epworth Camp a few weeks ago, and invited him to do a little guest blogging about the Permaculture Design Course. (Doesn’t “guest blogging” sound like an appropriate way to reconnect with the urban whirlwind?) Sean is a resident of Upper Manhattan, and works with several community gardens in his neighborhood. Here’s his report:
I’m just returning to the cacophony, today. The full two week Geoff Lawton experience was intense. Some days went from 6:00AM to 11:00PM, but by the end, most were beginning to oversleep the 6:30AM compost turning (every other day).
Geoff and Nadia may not be back for quite some time, if ever. They have enormous amounts of work lined up, especially in the Mideast. He will be working directly with several ministers of agriculture in that part of the world to rethink their infrastructures, especially in Persian Gulf nations like Qatar, where he is presently. He also formally launched Permaculture Across Borders during his stay. Projects are lining up from Afghanistan to Nigeria; sort of a Robin Hood pattern while he sets up eco-resorts and food systems for energy wealthy nations and uses that money to set up Permaculture Education Centers in third world nations.
Last weekend I took a bus ride up to Epworth Camp in High Falls, NY to drop in on a Permaculture Design Certification course taught by Geoff Lawton. Geoff is an internationally-recognized permaculture expert who has overseen projects all over the globe, from soil restoration at a former refugee camp in the Balkans to creating a food forest in the Jordanian desert. I had heard that this course will be the last one he teaches for some time, as his services are much in demand from governments and communities around the world; so it seemed worth the trip to see what was going on up in High Falls.
I generally feel like a fish out of water in the country, with few skills to offer in an outdoor setting. The truth is, while I love the IDEA of composting my food scraps, I am still somewhat intimidated when confronted with an ACTUAL pile of steaming horse manure, even though it is a crucial component of the process and therefore Special. My biggest contribution was tearing up cardboard boxes for sheet mulch, while scanning my pant legs for ticks. But despite non-starter status in the realm of farming, I was truly captivated by Geoff’s lecture about the chemistry behind soil renewal, the promise of farming without pesticides, the ability of natural systems to remove toxins from soil and water, and the potential to make design serve humans and the environment equally. As he stated more than once, our species has the potential to do as much GOOD as we have already done BAD… translation: we have screwed the planet up, yes, but we can also fix it!
So my question once again is how to translate these concepts into an urban setting, with its specific needs and agenda. Collecting rainwater in the city has less to do with irrigation than with Combined Sewer Overflow; composting food waste is less about making plant food than about NOT making massive quantities of garbage to be trucked off to a landfill at huge municipal expense. The “nutrient” byproducts of these efforts are a side benefit; the big payoff is in finding ways to relieve stress on our urban infrastructures, ever more burdened as cities grow denser. But the methods and practices are much the same, and whether you call this “permaculture” or “sustainability” or common sense, we’d be better off applying it now – voluntarily – than waiting until we are forced to. That is an effort I’d like to be part of.
The past week has been a whirlwind of permaculture activities for me. I am fascinated by this subject, though I still have trouble adequately explaining what it IS when asked. Fundamentally, permaculture is a practice of sustainable design based on ecological principles, and although usually associated with farming or gardening, it can also be applied to urban settings. It addresses all aspects of a human habitat from food and shelter to disposal of waste. To be more specific, a permaculture site can be anything from an organic garden that includes plant “guilds” and a compost heap with a super-fast 18-day cycle, to a water purification system that uses gravel and reeds to “lock up” toxic contaminants. It has been said that permaculture contains “everything we need to be doing voluntarily, but will ultimately be forced to do.”
For a variety of reasons permaculture is capturing the imagination of a diverse group of sustainability-minded people in the NYC area at the moment. Energy efficiency folks like the idea of resource-efficient design. Food activists like to see infertile or unproductive land (including vacant lots and suburban lawns) turned into plentiful food gardens. Those who believe the world’s oil supply will run dry at any moment like the idea of being able to produce all one’s essentials locally.
So where do I fit into this picture? What would a permaculture site in Flatbush look like? These are the questions I’m trying to answer by observing permaculture in action.
To be continued…
Permaculture-based systems offer a broad range of solutions to making NYC more sustainable, and the alliance of folks presenting this event reflects that range. Whether you are interested in growing your own food, making efficient use of land and energy, or just keeping it together when the oil pipelines go dry… this gathering should be of interest.
This looks like a really great local event for permaculture fans!
Sponsored by Permaculture Across Borders, Tri-State Food Not Lawns, and our friends at Neighborhood Energy Network.
Celebrate with us as we launch Permaculture Across Borders, a globally-focused permaculture non-profit. PAB’s aim is to provide technical expertise to further the practice of sustainable and integrated practices that create permanent abundance. We commit to using local knowledge, to connecting people to resources, and to training teachers and leaders of regenerative development in their communities and countries. We commit to listening to and giving you a place to share your knowledge.
