Trombe: hydraulic compressor systems

The basic principle of a trombe: Water falling through a Venturi system sucks in air and compresses the air-bubbles, which are extracted at the lowest point of the system. Water pressure will drive the water up again to the height of the working head.

Referring to the figure at the right, water enters the system from the reservoir through the flume, D. It flows up to C, then pours down to B through small tubes (3/8" to 112" diameter), entraining air. The velocity down column E is such that the air remains entrained until it reaches the separating chamber, G. The water returns up column H to be discharged and the air is available via pipe K. The air pressure available is determined by distance G to L and working head of the water is determined by distance M to L. Not shown, a vent pipe may be installed into the separation vessel and extended to the water line. If the air overfills, the water level drops exposing the end of the vent pipe and venting air until the water again rises to submerge the entrance to the vent pipe.



Shown above is the compressor built by Taylor at Ragged Chute, near Cobalt, Ontario, similar to that constructed at Victoria. In the specific case at Victoria Mine, a concrete dam measuring 300 feet long and 10 feet high was built across the river that diverted water flow to a 6,000 foot long canal having a sectional area of 350 square feet. At the end of the canal, the water entered three vertical shafts 342 feet deep leading to an underground air storage chamber 282 feet long, varying in width from 57 feet to 18 feet, and measuring between 22 and 25 feet in height. This underground air chamber had a total capacity of 80,264 cubic feet. On the end of the chamber opposite the entrance pipes, a tunnel, 18 feet by 10 feet by 40 feet long, led to an inclined shaft which carried the water back to the river, a point 71 feet below the entrance point, thus giving the plant an effective hydraulic head of 71 feet. Two pipes lead from the underground chamber, a 24 inch air pipe carrying the compressed air to the mine, and a 12 inch blow-off pipe which served as an automatic governor for the plant. The 12 inch blow-off pipe served as a governor because when the air pressure in the chamber was too low, the water level rose and closed the blow-off pipe, thus preventing any escape of air. On the other hand, when the air pressure in the chamber was too high, i.e. above 117 psi, the water level was forced down, exposing the end of the blow-off pipe, and sending a mixture of compressed air and water to the surface, where it created a geyser effect.

The design production of the unit was 34,000 to 36,000 cubic feet per minute or free air. The performance was measured with the results below:

Air				Water
free air	suction	compressed	horsepower	flow	Head	horsepower	Eff.
cfm	psia	psia	HP	cfm	ft	HP	%
10,580	14	128	1,430	13,057	70.5	1,741	82.2
11,930	14	128	1,623	14.820	70	1,961	82.3
8,238	14	128	1,248	12.710	70.6	1.700	73.5

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Solar refrigeration technology

Gas-absorption refrigerator

The absorption refrigerator is a refrigerator that utilizes a heat source to provide the energy needed to drive the cooling system rather than being dependent on electricity to run a compressor. These refrigerators are popular where electricity is unreliable, costly, or unavailable, or where surplus heat is available, e.g., from turbine exhausts or industrial processes.

An absorption refrigerator is similar to a regular compressor refrigerator in that the refrigeration takes place by evaporating a liquid with a very low (sub-zero) boiling point. In both cases, when a liquid evaporates or boils, it takes some heat away with it, and can continue to do so either until the liquid is all boiled, or until everything has become so cold that the sub-zero boiling point has been reached. The difference between the two is how the gas is changed back into a liquid so that it may be used again. A regular refrigerator uses a compressor to increase the pressure on the gas, forcing it to become a liquid again. An absorption refrigerator uses a different method that requires no moving parts and is powered only by heat.

Principles

Absorptive refrigeration utilizes a source of heat to provide the energy needed to drive the cooling process. The most common use is in food refrigeration. Absorptive refrigeration is also used to air-condition buildings utilizing the waste heat from a gas

turbine or water heater. The process is very efficient since the gas turbine produces electricity, hot water and air-conditioning.

The basic thermodynamic process is not a conventional thermodynamic cooling process based on Charles Law. Instead, it is based on evaporation, carrying heat, in the form of fast-moving (hot) molecules from one material to another material that preferentially absorbs hot molecules.

The most familiar example is human sweating. The water from sweat evaporates and is "absorbed" into cool dry air, carrying away heat in fast-moving water molecules. However, absorptive refrigerators differ in that they regenerate their coolants in a closed cycle, while people drink water recycled outside their bodies.

The classic absorptive home refrigerator cools by evaporating liquid ammonia in a hydrogen environment. The now-gaseous ammonia is then absorbed (dissolved) into water, and then later separated (boiled off from the water) by a small source of heat. This drives off the dissolved ammonia gas which is then condensed into a liquid. The liquid ammonia then enters the hydrogen-charged evaporator to repeat the cycle.

A similar system, common in large commercial plants, uses a solution of lithium bromide salt and water. Water is evaporated under low pressure from the coils that are being chilled. The water is absorbed by a lithium bromide/water solution. The water is driven off the lithium bromide solution using heat.

Another variant uses air, water, and a salt solution. Warm air is passed through a sprayed solution of salt water. The spray absorbs humidity from the air. The air is then passed through an evaporative cooler. Humidity is removed from the cooled air with another spray of salt solution. The salt solution is regenerated by heating it under low pressure, causing water to evaporate. The water evaporated from the salt solution is recondensed, and rerouted back to the evaporative cooler.

Process

A typical absorption refrigerator uses three substances: ammonia, hydrogen gas, and water. Normally, ammonia is a gas at room temperature (with a boiling point of -33°C), but the system is pressurized to the point that the ammonia is a liquid at room temperature.

The cooling cycle starts at the evaporator, where liquefied anhydrous ammonia enters. (Anhydrous means there is no water in the ammonia, which is critical for exploiting its sub-zero boiling point.) The "evaporator" contains another gas (in this case, hydrogen), whose presence lowers the partial pressure of the ammonia in that part of the system. The total pressure in the system is still the same, but now not all of the pressure is being exerted by ammonia, as much of it is due to the pressure of the hydrogen. Ammonia doesn't react with hydrogen - the hydrogen is there solely to take up space - creating a

void that still has the same pressure as the rest of the system, but not in the form of ammonia. Per Dalton's law, the ammonia behaves only in response to the proportion of the pressure represented by the ammonia, as if there was a vacuum and the hydrogen wasn't there. Because a substance's boiling point changes with pressure, the lowered partial pressure of ammonia changes the ammonia's boiling point, bringing it low enough that it can now boil below room temperature, as though it wasn't under the pressure of the system in the first place. When it boils, it takes some heat away with it from the evaporator - which produces the "cold" desired in the refrigerator.

The next step is getting the liquid ammonia back, as now it's a gas and mixed with hydrogen. Getting the hydrogen away is simple, and this is where the "absorber" comes in. Ammonia readily mixes with water, and hydrogen does not. The absorber is simply a downhill flow of tubes in which the mixture of gases flows in contact with water being dripped from above. Once the water reaches the bottom, it's thoroughly mixed with the ammonia, and the hydrogen stays still (though it can flow freely back to the evaporator). At this point, the ammonia is a liquid mixed with water and still not usable for refrigeration, as the mixture won't boil at a low enough temperature to be a worthwhile refrigerant. It's now necessary to separate the ammonia from the water. This is where the heat from the flame comes in. When the right amount of heat is applied to the mixture, the ammonia bubbles out. This phase is called the "generator". The ammonia isn't quite dry yet - the bubbles contain gas but they're made of water, so the pipe twists and turns and contains a few minor obstacles that pop the bubbles so the gas can move on. The water that results from the bubbles isn't bad - it takes care of another need, and that is the circulation of water through the previous absorption step. Because that water has risen a bit while it was bubbling upwards, the flow of that water falling back down due to gravity can be used for this purpose. The maze that makes the ammonia gas go one way and the bubble water go the other is called the "separator".

The next step is the condenser. The condenser is a sort of heat sink or heat exchanger that cools the hot ammonia gas back down to room temperature. Because of the pressure and the purity of the gas (there is no hydrogen here), the ammonia condenses back into a liquid, and at that point, it's suitable as a refrigerant and the cycle starts over again.

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HISTORICAL PRECEDENTS FOR PERMACULTURE

by David Holmgren
David Holmgren: Collected writings & Presentations 1978-2006 — Article Six
http://www.holmgren.com.au

This brief article was written in 1991 but apart from circulation at PDCs has not been published. It has a strong link to my thinking at the time about indigenous agriculture in Australia expressed in article 4 ABORIGINAL LAND USE

The permaculture texts, particularly Permaculture One and The Designers Manual include references to traditional systems of land use which illustrate many aspects of permaculture including systems based on perennial plants including trees.

Aboriginal land use

In Permaculture One aboriginal land use is recognised as a system of sustainable agriculture which provides a reference point for the development of future sustainable systems. Since Permaculture One was written, evidence and wider recognition of the profound and deliberate shaping of the Australian environment to provide the needs of the aboriginal peoples has increased, especially through the work of ecologist and archeologist Rhys Jones.

Garden agricultures

Examples of garden agriculture abound and provide clear evidence that these household based systems are both highly productive and sustainable. The multi layer garden agricultures of Central America and S.E. Asia provided more direct models for permaculture (see Extract from Anderson, E. Plants Life and Man 1952 in Permaculture One) which have been especially applied in tropical and subtropical areas.

Large Scale Food Forests

The tree crop agricultures described by Russell Smith (Smith, J. Russell Tree Crops and Permanent Agriculture Devin-Adair. New York 1950) especially those of the Mediterranean region provided evidence of productive broad acre land uses on marginal lands. A question which arises from the work of Russell Smith, as well as permaculture is; if forest based agricultures are so productive why are there so few examples?

Archeological evidence that forest farming was much more widespread in the Middle East, Mediterranean and European regions before the rise of civilisation with cities, standing armies and extensive grain agriculture is gradually accumulating but why have so few examples persisted into and through the historical period. I have developed a hypothesis which explains the demise of forest farming in these regions over the last few thousand years which is compatible with the evidence that such systems are productive as well as sustainable.

Forest farming is here defined as the management and culture of forests to provide a large proportion of peoples needs. Traditional forms of forest farming generally provided fruit, nuts, honey and animal products in abundance along with wood products. These systems along with intensive garden agriculture provided for peoples needs. The sorts of natural forests from which cultivated systems could have evolved in temperate and Mediterranean climates tend to be soft leaved, mostly deciduous forests with high mineral fertility and "mull" humus soils rather than coniferous forests with acidic "moor" humus soils or sclerophyll systems with skeletal fired soils (typical of Australia).

The favourable forests have a high proportion of nut bearing species (oaks, chestnuts, walnuts, beech, hazels) which provide protein, oil and starch rich foods which can be stored as well as providing concentrated forage for forest ranging animals and birds used for food.(pigs, turkeys etc). While these forests are very resistant to burning, they do not recover well if destroyed by crown fire.

Prior to the development of standing armies, tribal conflicts rarely made much impact on the economy and environment. The New Guinea highlands at the time of contact provides a good model of this type of warfare. The development of city states, standing armies and warfare in the Middle East about 4,000 years ago (Mumford, L. The City In History Penguin 1961) would have had profound implications for peoples dependent for forest farming.

Standing armies provided the resources for conquest and appropriation. Fire became a important strategic weapon in conquest. Food forests could not be easily burnt but the determined efforts of well organised armies with the right weather conditions could have destroyed almost any forest. Recovery from such an attack could have take several generations.

After centuries of warfare with armies moving back and forth across the Middle East it is not surprising that grain agriculture would have developed a distinct strategic advantage. The burning of grain crops and destruction of silos devastated local communities and economies but recovery was possible over a few seasons.

There are many documented examples of the burning of managed forests in more recent times by which dominant peoples subjugated forest dwelling and dependent peoples. The Clearances (firing) of the Scottish highland forests in the seventeenth century is a good example. This devastated the economy and culture of the Highlanders who ran highland cattle in the diverse and productive forests. The ecological effects were catastrophic and the pastoral farming of wool for the British textile industry which replaced the forests ensured no regeneration.

The current destruction of the Amazonian food forests and dispossession of the indigenous peoples by beef cattle ranchers is one of the final stages of a historical process which has spread from the Middle East over the last 4,000 years.

An important aspect in the destruction of forest farming is that in almost all cases the forests, if not the livestock in the forest were part of the commonwealth of the communities which husbanded them. Ownership in the western sense was rare. The invaders often used the legal excuse that these forests where not owned by anyone.

Fire destruction by hostile foreigners was a major cause of the demise of indigenous forest farming. However an equally important contribution to their demise was ironically the very success of cultures based on forests. Naturally rich forests which became progressively modified by indigenous peoples to increase their productivity provided the wealth which allowed civilisation and urban culture to develop.

Little is known about the mysterious Etruscan who predated Roman civilisation in central Italy but it is known that they developed a highly productive tree crop agriculture and that the central Italian landscape which the Romans inherited was the resource base from which the Empire sprang. Once Rome established domination over colonies the inflow of external resource reduced the importance of local systems. Affluence led to land amalgamation and degradation, loss of agricultural skills and dependence on foreign food. When the navy could no longer ensure the arrival of the grain ships from N. Africa attempts to redevelop local production were largely a failure. The natural and cultural resource base had been destroyed. Amongst other impacts, deforestion of the uplands led to hydrological changes which gave rise to the Pontine marshes. These marshes were a source of malaria affecting the people of the area for the next 2,000 years until they were drained and maintained dry by the planting of Blue gums early this century.

The demise of the Mycenaean civilisation in the eastern Mediterranean provides another example of dependence on forests. Marshall Massey (Massey, M. Carrying Capacity and the Greek Dark Ages in Co-Evolution Quarterly no. 40 1983) puts the case for ecological catastrophe in the Greek islands about 1200 BC which prevented the resettlement of whole areas for over four centuries. The wealth and culture of the Mycenaeans was based on land resources but the nature of their land use is not known. However in the eastern Mediterranean mountain cloud forests collected moisture which sustained aquifer systems necessary for productive agriculture and urban development on the lower slopes. Desertification and loss of the soil resource would have followed loss of the high forests. The details of these processes are not known from the historical record.

What these examples illustrate is that once stable productive systems are destroyed by misuse it can take centuries to recover and the original systems and productivity may never be achieved. Forest farming which evolved out of climax forests would have been particularly vulnerable to permanent destruction. It is hard to imagine peasant peoples without external resources creating the grafted chestnut forests from barren hillsides which Russell Smith described on Corsica. These are clearly manipulated remnants of natural forests.

Goat pastoralism, limited plantings of tough tree crops such as olives and carobs and small patches of arable farming on areas of topsoil deposition is the pattern of traditional agriculture in much of the Mediterranean hill country. Restoration of the Myceanaean or Etruscan landscapes would require the dedication of generations of an affluent society assuming it were possible.

Productive sustainable agricultures must include storages of biological wealth which are essential to productivity and provide a buffer against stress. In agricultures based on annual crops soil organic matter is the great biological storage which must be nurtured and can include humic acid structures which are thousands of years old. Forest farming systems include the additional storage of long lived trees. These are much more resistant to destructive social conditions than soil organic matter which can be easily whittled away. However once mature forest systems die as a result of climate or hydrological change brought about by over exploitation of more fragile catchment forests the losses can be sudden and irreversible.

It could be argued that the spread of potatoes as an alternative staple to grains in Europe was so fast partly because potato crops stored in the ground represent an even greater flexibility in the face of warfare which ravaged so many regions of Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries.

The lessons of history are that sustainable agriculture cannot be maintained without a stewardship ethic embedded in an enduring culture which transcends the twin wars against nature and people which have particularly characterised the emergence of western civilisation during the last 4,000 years.

This historical perspective clearly reinforces the permaculture perspective that tinkering at the edges of existing industrial agriculture is largely a waste of effort and resources given the magnitude and global nature of our crisis. The objective of sustainable agriculture is an illusion without addressing the incredibly destabilising forces of militarism, growth economics, consumer culture, global inequity and population growth.

Conversely any stability claimed for forest farming/ permaculture, will be worth little without a culture which can protect such systems from over exploitation, greed and conflict over many generations.

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SUBMISSION IN RESPONSE TO

A REVIEW OF RURAL LAND USE IN VICTORIA

by David Holmgren
David Holmgren: Collected writings & Presentations 1978-2006 — Article Five
http://www.holmgren.com.au

This submission written in May 1991 was a response to the Victorian government's Review of Rural Land Use (draft 1991) which was commissioned to primarily address long standing concerns in Victoria about the loss of prime agricultural land to urban and rural residential development.

This submission and the included substantial extract from a previous submission to the local planning scheme written in October 1989, reflected my involvement in rural land use planning issues at that time. My partner, Su Dennett and I, were active in the local Residents and Ratepayers Ass and the new local planning scheme (the first in our area) was a controversial subject. I recall thinking at the time, that Meldrum Burrows, the Melbourne planning consultants, were having trouble dragging the reluctant and conservative local shire council into the 20th century of segregated land use planning (zoning). My submission was an attempt to lure the consultants into what I believed was the 21st century of integrated land use planning (permaculture). It was doomed to being ignored but in the process I further developed ideas of rural resettlement and cluster (body corporate) development which I had first expressed in print in Prospects for Rural Development published in The Permaculture Journal ( issue 18, 1984) .

The Rural Land Use Review submission was also influenced by my experience as an expert witness in a Planning Appeals Tribunal hearing into a large and inappropriate rural residential subdivision being opposed by a local community group.

The sections on the planning impediments to revegetation and forestry in rural areas reflects my 1987 research work on revegetation and farm forestry later published in 1994 as Trees On The Treeless Plains: A Revegetation Manual for the Volcanic Landscapes of Central Victoria

The ideas expressed here came to fruition nearly ten years later in the Fryers Forest Eco-village development [see Article 21 STARTING A COMMUNITY: SOME EARLY LESSONS FROM FRYERS FOREST] . The environmental development code in the Daylesford Submission is outlines the principles we applied to the planning of Fryers Forest Community.

David Holmgren Hepburn. Central Victoria May 1991

This submission addresses the following issues raised in the Victorian governments draft review:

- Data base on rural land use.

- Rural residential development

- Hobby farming

- Tree based rural land uses

The government and those who worked on the review are commended for providing some sorely needed information on rural land use and raising some of the issues which need to be addressed.

Some of the assumptions behind the following submission challenge those which appear to underlie the review. Within a limited submission it is not possible to fully justify assumptions, assertions and explain recommendations. Background documents have been provided which go some way to achieving this.

DATA BASE ON RURAL LAND USE

The Review makes clear that it is impossible to answer basic questions about critical planning issues such as the loss of prime agricultural land because the base data is lacking. In particular the decision of the Australian Bureau of Statistics to exclude small producers from their statistics is revealed to be a major failure to collect relevant data for planners and decision makers. It would appear from the Review that diversification of agriculture into non-traditional enterprises also goes unrecorded.

The effects of these failures are insidious in that they allow decisions to be made on the basis that fewer larger enterprises represent trends in agriculture industry and rural land use. Larger "more efficient" economic units becomes a self fulfilling reality.

Concurrent processes of experimentation, diversification, niche and local marketing, household (non-monetary) revitalisation and economic efficiency through cost reduction rather than output maximisation all become invisible by this ignoring of the small and the "marginal".

It has been argued by some planners and economists that economic revitalisation, especially at times of contraction, arise out of the margins rather the dominant structures and processes of the old economy. I believe agriculture and the rural economy is in the early stages of such a revitalisation as part of the transformation following the end of real economic growth in the early 1970's.

The failure of planners and decision makers to ask the right questions of their statisticians is not confined to agriculture.

Despite the mounting indirect evidence of long term economic contraction, economists continue to rely on indicators which show growth, albeit problematic. This so-called growth is based largely on economic activity to forestall environmental, social and fiscal debt, paper shuffling and addictive consumerism rather than any sustainable development.

Thus the failure of information systems to answer the issues raised by this Review are part of a much wider and deeper failure by decision makers to grasp the fundamental and unpredictable transformation of the rural economy.

I would now like to address two closely related and powerful processes which are transforming the rural economy and landscape and yet are still not well understood by planners and policy makers, in part due to failure of information systems;

RURAL RESETTLEMENT

We are seeing the third wave of rural resettlement in Australia's history; a process which has been building gradually over 20 years and now affects most rural areas, but especially those within commuting range of urban centres. The resettlement process has predominantly involved urbanites of Australian birth but has been right across the socioeconomic spectrum. It has been unplanned and unpredicted by government. It has been driven primarily by lifestyle considerations and has often been at apparent economic cost to the participants. The economic, social and information impediments to rural resettlement have been substantial. The fact that it has persisted under these conditions indicates we are dealing with a fundamental and powerful process.

Because of the poor information base, inappropriate land tenure patterns and options and contradictory values and desires on the part of the migrants, many negative effects have been noticed.

The Review discusses the effects of rural resettlement as two issues; rural residential development and hobby farming. The division between these is arbitrary because there are many (in fact most in areas of low land cost) rural residential blocks over 2 or 4ha which produce no substantial agricultural produce. On the other hand small scale production of horticultural and other produce (often from rural backyards and small allotments) is rising again after continuous decline since the 1940's. Much of this produce is consumed in producing households, bartered, or sold in ways which escape the agricultural statistics. Hobby farmers are almost all driven by the same sorts of values that drive other ex-urban rural residents. Although substantial agricultural produce from hobby farms does enter the market, land management is in the final analysis driven by residential and lifestyle values not market driven.

In many ways it is more appropriate to the see the difference between the two as one of class. The well-to-do buy larger acreages and generally invest their surplus capital in agriculture (and forestry), be it traditional or innovative and experimental. Those of limited means buy smaller allotments and often fail to develop the productive potential of their land because of a lack of time or capital and information.

The review quite correctly points out many of the positive aspects of hobby farming which usefully counters the prejudice common amongst the agricultural establishment. The review considers hobby farmers as part of the larger grouping of part time farmers which includes many who once made a living from the land but have responded to severe economic conditions by obtaining outside income.

If the figures quoted from the 1981 survey (Barr and Almond) on proportion of part -time farmers are correct then poor commodity prices must have greatly increased that proportion over the last decade. In my own shire, one which is still considered rural by any standard and with a significant amount of prime agricultural land, there are between 5 and 10 farmers who would not be part time or semi retired living partly from sale of land.

The Review also correctly identifies hobby farmers as aggressive information seekers, and frequently, as innovators in new industries and methods. The role of self directed farm research and innovation is critical in developing new,more appropriate forms of agriculture given the clear evidence that formal research is not capable of responding to all the new factors affecting agriculture. Organic agriculture serves as a dramatic example. Individual organic farmers who have done their own research under highly unfavourable social and economic conditions over decades are providing the technical basis for the current explosion of organic farming while the agricultural establishment is just in the process of an about-face and has begun some work in the face of grass roots demand.

In contrast to the favourable analysis of hobby farming the Review identifies rural residential development as a process taking agricultural land out of production in ways which cannot be reversed and reducing the viability of commercial agriculture on adjacent land through a variety of processes. In addition it suggests (in section 2.3) it is unsustainable on the basis of servicing costs, energy use, loss of agricultural land and land management problems. On face value these points must be accepted as effects of current forms of rural residential development.

I agree that the problems associated with this form of land use are severe but I think the Review fails to acknowledge (mainly due to lack of any appropriate data) the substantial contributions rural resettlement (in all forms) is making to rural and regional economies and great potential for this process to be the economic engine of revitalisation of rural communities, restoration of land and development of new forms of agricultural intensification which are truly sustainable.

In addition, the comments on social equity ( section2.2) fail to recognise that policies preventing rural resettlement on small allotments represents a severe inequity on class lines. It is ironical that the very people who are willing to accept lower "standards" of physical and other services in return for a greater sense of control over their own environment and a better quality of life would be denied this on the basis that it is cheaper to provide them with the services they do not want in cities.

It has been pointed out in the Review and elsewhere that new rural residents often do demand services and that to avoid adverse environmental and other impacts of the land use, governments must provide services. These effects are symptomatic of either the urban lifestyle that new rural settlers bring with them or the inappropriate physical design and tenure forms of current rural residential development based on either old titles or new "cookie cutter" subdivisions which are offered to them by the market place.

These two issues are at the heart of the problem of rural residential land use. If they could be solved then the bold vision stated above could be realised.

Urban vs rural lifestyle

The first problem is essentially a social one. New settlers bring with them a mixed bag of urban values evolved during the post war golden age of consumerism and affluence. They generally seek a cleaner environment, simpler lifestyle, independence and self reliance. Many, often unconsciously, mistrust the capacity of the "system" to go on providing the jobs and the goods indefinitely. However, they also generally choose land and build houses which more reflect the dreams of affluence, locking them into commuting to work to pay the mortgage. The very process of commuting, while it results in significant capital inflow to the local community, ties people to the urban system they have tried to escape from. The personal and financial costs of commuting are often underestimated. Neglect of property development and management, lack of community involvement and increasing need for services such as mains electricity, sealed roads, convenient town water, child care and other social services plus demand for consumer compensations for the hectic lifestyle can all become dominant. Thus the country is urbanised with all its attendant problems long before the arrival of the suburbs.

On the other hand, many new settlers follow a different path. They often have less capital to start with and buy cheaper land further from centres of employment . They generally become owner builders through necessity or choice, living in partially completed houses for years, commuting part time, taking any local work or living on social welfare. They spend more time in the natural environment and on developing their properties even if with less capital, frequently producing some of their own food and developing small enterprises. They get to know neighbours and develop local networks. In the process they become poor by all the standard measures and there is no doubt about some of the difficulties they face. Some slide into lethargy and lose vision but many of these are people who, if they had stayed in the city, would have been worse off and more of a problem to the rest of society. Some become hard working country people, develop new skills often embodying their ideals of environmentalism and frugality and a few become a new breed of farmers or self-employed bootstrap entrepreneurs.

These two portraits show the problems faced by new rural settlers. If people could be assisted by social policies, appropriate information and financing to reduce their demands on services, become more self reliant and focus their considerable energy on home based employment including appropriate forms of agriculture then rural settlers could lead the way in developing more sustainable ways of living while revitalising their local economies and communities. My assumption is that virtually all current economic and landuse processes are unsustainable and it is only through the radical change which individuals and families are capable of will sustainability be achieved. Urbanites, as a group, are less likely and less able to provide a model due to the regulatory and social constraints of urban life while commercial farmers are so critically dependent on global economic forces which are the very source of unsustainability.

Land tenure

Most rural resettlement occurs on freehold titles. People often buy as much land as they can afford to maintain control over their living environment or provide a base, real or imagined for an agricultural enterprise or self reliance. Many settlers are aware of appropriate design principles such as those embodied in permaculture and some seek professional advice. However allotments are poorly located or too small to allow any rational planning of appropriate land use, water supply, access, shelter, fire protection, solar access or house siting.

The Review suggests that residential development should be confined to lower quality land to protect prime agricultural land. As pointed out in the attached extract submission to the Daylesford and Glenlyon Rural Areas Planning Scheme the prime agricultural land is also best for rural residential development and all the other environmental, servicing and planning problems of subdivision become much worse on lower quality land. While this may been seen as acceptable from the point of view of the agricultural establishment it will be strongly resisted by environmentalists and planners generally. The enclosed presentation to the AAT about the adverse affects of a 75 lot (2ha) subdivision at Riddells Ck graphically illustrates the issues (pages 3&4).

Smaller numbers of new settlers share land in various ways on collective titles for the sake of community or economic necessity. However, the inability to get home loans means development is even more constrained than on private allotments while the absence of good land use planning and other factors leads to neglect of the commons with people focusing their resources on owner built monuments.

New forms of land tenure, such as cluster development have the potential to solve the environmental impact and service provision problems while giving people what they seek. The submission (October 1989) to the Daylesford and Glenlyon Rural Areas Planning Scheme describes the benefits of cluster development, the impediments to its spread and proposes an Environmental Development Code as a mechanism for encouraging and regulating cluster subdivision across and rural land use zones.

The new subdivision act makes any distinction between conventional and cluster development irrelevant. The key issue is the existence of a body corporate which is accountable to the lot holders and has control over common land and infrastructure. This creation of another tier in local planning control is the key to three critical issues;

• • the residents' desire for a secure environment
• • the economic provision of physical (and social) services
• • the sustainable and productive use of land

Of particular relevance to this Review, the planning scheme submission provides a positive way address the issue of agricultural productivity showing how it can be maintained and increased through appropriate rural residential developments. I am claiming that the adverse effects of current development on agriculture can be replaced by benefits rather than simply ameliorating those effects or transferring the costs to other sectors including the natural environment. This claim must either be dismissed as absurd or further investigated since its ramifications are so great.

It can be correctly argued that rural residential cluster developments which are already beginning to emerge, are up-market developments where the lifestyle will be distinctly urban and the land use recreational (eg horses) rather than agricultural.

Any innovative developments tend to be up-market but as the process and form becomes well established costs will fall and a wider market will emerge.

Secondly, the fact that no significant agricultural production may occur is not a fundamental criticism, in that unlike conventional subdivision, the bulk of the land can be returned to broad acre uses in the future (by decision of the owners in the body corporate).

Thirdly, the more fundamental problem of unsustainable urban consumer lifestyle in a rural environment must be addressed through the combination of social policies indicated above while the body corporate tenure pattern provides a physical and self regulatory framework which can be used to facilitate the development of local employment, productive land use and community.

Recommendations

Conventional forms of rural subdivision should be severely restricted. Existing subdivisions and old titles will continue to supply market demand for conventional freehold title. Body corporate type development should be supported by appropriate physical and social infrastructure policies, land use planning controls, subdivision guidelines, community education, and agricultural and silvicultural extension services. Development of prime agricultural land should be allowed where the capacity for agricultural use is largely preserved or equivalent productive capacity is developed through diversification and/or intensification.

The second recommendation will be essential to avoid severe inequity. Without any alternative a policy of containment of rural resettlement will lead to social discontent and eventual failure of the policy.

The connection between these issues and the burning issues of urban sprawl and infrastructure costs addressed in the current discussion paper Urban Options for Victoria. are obvious.

REVEGETATION

For the purpose of this discussion, revegetation is defined as the whole range of tree and woody plant natural regeneration, seeding and planting on rural land whether it be production oriented or not. Thus I am including farm forestry and new tree crop enterprises along with revegetation to stabilise degraded landscapes and local ecologies and improve amenity.

In the same way that rural living and hobby farming are different manifestations of the same underlying social movement, the myriad forms of tree planting are parts of powerful underlying social movement. The current decade long increase in rural revegetation follows a pattern similar to previous waves of tree planting in rural Australia late last century and again in the 1930's when economic recession combined with intense interest and innovation around what today are called environmental issues.

There is no doubt in my mind that trees and tree based land uses are, along with increasing soil organic matter are the real solutions to the critical problems of land degradation, unsustainable rural economies and greenhouse imperatives. However, at present there is a conceptual rift between revegetation for environmental and economic needs. This is artificial and counterproductive. There is a bewildering array of state and federal policies and programs to encourage revegetation. While integrated productive systems like agroforestry are supported by lots of motherhood statements, the net effect of policy and resource planning has been to encourage very limited forms of industrial forestry concentrated in areas close to major processors.

Forestry

Because of the experience with industrial forestry, tree growing for timber is being increasingly seen by both traditional farmers and many new rural residents as a noxious and unsustainable industry. Thus while traditional agricultural land use remains largely unregulated, forestry is subject to stricter controls.

We have the absurd situation around Ballarat where intensive chemical farming (potatoes) is allowed on private and public land in water supply catchments with only the most limited controls while the conifer plantations can better protect soil and water resources and return a greater income from the same land. Data from existing plantations of the Ballarat Water Board clearly show that a perpetual Redwood forestry system (no clear felling) on much of this land could increase returns from timber even further while improving amenity and water values.

Other forms of forestry based on native species also have potential to economically compete with traditional agriculture given the right regulatory and financing framework and market development. Environmental benefits, local employment and economic development opportunities from many of these systems would be far greater than from current industrial forestry.

While the Review acknowledges trees as a valid "agricultural crop" much more will be needed to be done if forestry is to achieve its appropriate place as a rural land use. One of the enduring changes brought about by the last great wave of interest in trees (the 1930's) was the establishment of the softwood industry. I believe the rural and wider community is ready to take up the challenge of appropriate forestry for the next century if government got serious about addressing the financial, information and market impediments to farm forestry.

Recommendation

Planning controls should encourage forestry, not agriculture where it will better protect soil and water resources, generate more local economic development and especially where the species, silvicultural systems and plantation design provides multiple values.

Revegetation and rural resettlement

New rural settlers and hobby farmers are major participants in revegetation, probably being responsible for more natural regeneration of native vegetation, woodlots, shelterbelts and amenity plantings, timber and tree crop plantations than traditional farmers despite the undeniably substantial activity by traditional farmers in recent years. The simple process of destocking during subdivision and sale of partially treed hill country in central Victoria and other parts of the Murray Darling basin is creating new hardwood (mostly durable species) forest resources in critical ground water recharge areas at a faster rate than all the farmer initiated and government funded revegetation work combined.

Recommendation

That Federal and State governments fund the product and market development research as well as appropriate silvicultural and processing systems to economically manage forests of durable hardwoods being created by natural regeneration as a result of rural resettlement and more environmentally sensitive attitudes of land holders generally.

In many grazing and more intensively farmed areas, loss of trees has been severe and low cost natural regeneration is not possible (due to severe grass competition) and on prime agricultural land would represent poor use of the land resource. On the other hand it is the lack of well designed shelter which is the greatest impediment to agricultural intensification of Victoria's prime agricultural land through high value horticultural (including tree) crops (See Holmgren, D. Trees On The Treeless Plains: Revegetation Manual For The Volcanic Landscapes of Central Victoria for detail design information relevant to intensively farmed landscapes.) .

In these areas subdivision results in an explosion of tree planting. It can be argued that this process is unplanned and will not generate economic land use. However, it is more appropriate to view much of this activity as a form of chaotic experimentation which, given the abysmal level of appropriate silviculture information in Australia is quite adaptive. As a result of these experiences, the information and skill base is developed and the local genetic resource is expanded with better adapted species, provenances and varieties being recognised. In this way non commercial plantings function as arboretums and trial plots for future tree-based land uses appropriate to a more intensively settled rural landscape.

The problems of pine plantations near rural subdivisions may be seen by some planners as an example of the incompatibility of residential development and primary production. However, from a designers' point of view these problems simply reinforce the need for rational design and control of land to gain the benefits of integrated uses without the conflicts.

The separation of land uses which has dominated planning this century is no longer economically, socially or environmentally appropriate so the design issues involved in integrated land uses must be addressed. Local government planning schemes are a very blunt instrument for this purpose while body corporate design of rural residential development can and must integrate forestry as well as agriculture with residential development. Without appropriate design, conflicts associated with unplanned natural regeneration and tree planting in rural residential areas will become worse than those experienced in already forested residential areas. The net result is that trees eventually are regarded as a "cost" rather than the highly productive multi-purpose solar energy harvester which they truly are.

Recommendation

That government encourage appropriate forms of residential development on prime agricultural land as a mechanism to fund and facilitate sustainable agricultural intensification of our best farm land.

Extract from 1989 submission to Daylesford & Glenlyon Rural Planning Scheme.

CLUSTER SUBDIVISION

The Cluster Titles Act provides the ideal legislative framework for integrated rural land use patterns focused on residential needs. As an alternative to "cookie cutter" traditional subdivision which eliminates rural land uses in favour of a super suburban landscape, cluster subdivision has many advantages.

The recommendations in the consultant's report to allow subdivision in either a cluster or traditional form are a substantial advance over the past situation where the Shire Council has knocked back a cluster subdivision proposal in Hepburn but then allowed a traditional subdivision plan for the same site. However, it will require more than simply allowing cluster subdivisions if developers are to take up this more complex process let alone use it to best advantage of the local community.

Cluster subdivisions which retain most of the land in common ownership under the body corporate would make continuation of existing agricultural uses possible. Infrastructure development can provide services at lower total cost to the community and the environment than in conventional subdivision.

AGRICULTURE IN CLUSTER SUBDIVISIONS

Appropriate land use prescriptions for the common land can be incorporated into the development plan of a cluster subdivision which then has the same force of law as a planning scheme. Within the limitations of land use and environmental prescriptions it is in the interests of the body corporate members to maximise the return from the land by lease to farmers who are in a position make use of it.

Problems for farmers, such as stray dogs and noxious weeds, usually associated with rural residential development, would be resolved by the combined effects of appropriate internal bylaws (which would apply to all residents), and the economic leverage of anyone negotiating a lease.

Low levels of equity and need for capital to develop and diversify farming are major problems for the agricultural sector of the economy. Cluster subdivision is an alternative to both subdivision and sale of lower productivity sections of a farm, or schemes to involve outside investment.

Agricultural productivity of the deep volcanic soils within the shire are not maximised by the current usage pattern of livestock and broad acre cropping. Intensive development with tree crops and market gardens would be provide livelihoods from small acreages of volcanic soil. However the greatest impediment to intensive use of this land is the absence of appropriate infrastructure development (particularly water supply, shelter, and access). While this infrastructure is normally seen as part of the costs of the enterprise, appropriately designed residential subdivisions can effectively create the ideal environment for these intensive land uses at little extra cost. Thus appropriate residential development can actually foster more intensive agricultural use of land by providing internal infrastructure at a lower cost than in conventional agricultural development.

There are many other planning and land use issues such as effluent disposal, fire planning, provision of water supply, power and other services, revegetation and conservation of native vegetation, which can be positively dealt with within the framework of properly designed cluster subdivision.

The cluster titles act provides a flexible land tenure and development framework for integrated land uses. Innovative rural residential developments in other states such as Crystal Waters, north of Brisbane have had to use less suitable legislation but show the potential to resolve land use conflicts and provide people with access to developed rural land at reasonable prices.

IMPEDIMENTS TO CLUSTER DEVELOPMENT

1. It is clear that while developers can make substantial profits without much effort, and while planning schemes provide no incentive to developers, these more sophisticated forms of subdivision are unlikely to eventuate.

2. Cluster developments which incorporate agricultural uses of the common land, especially broad acre cropping and grazing will require large parcels of land around the same size as current economically viable farms. Clearly where the ownership pattern is already fragmented, integrated development is highly unlikely. The most suitable properties (from a planning perspective) are those close to existing services, especially those on the fringe of the townships. Properties with at least some deep volcanic soils for ground water supplies, effluent disposal and intensive agriculture as well as some treed sedimentary country for multipurpose dams, natural regeneration recreation, wildlife and wood supplies would be ideal. Properties which fulfil these criteria are few in number.

3. There are very few examples of rural cluster development so that costs and returns to developers are unclear. Because the land development process will generally involve provision of water supply, power, framework tree planting as well as fences and roads, capital requirement will be greater than for conventional subdivisions where lot holders pay for many of these costs following purchase. SUBMISSION IN RESPONSE TO A REVIEW OF RURAL LAND USE IN VICTORIA However, purchasers of small rural allotments are becoming better informed about the costs of providing electricity, water supply and access on undeveloped land. Therefore it is more likely that they will recognise the value in well designed and developed lots in a rural cluster development.

4. At present, there is only the choice of "serviced" town blocks, undeveloped rural land or owner developed small blocks. My experience in designing infrastructure on rural allotments and hobby farms has convinced me that the costs of integrated infrastructure development are considerably less than individual development and that allotments serviced by integrated developments would be highly sort after. However, as with any innovative process, investors expect high returns and without a favourable regulatory environment only the most committed developer is likely to provide an example.

ENVIRONMENTAL RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT CODE

A separate set of regulations should apply to cluster subdivisions which meet strict environmental and land use criteria. These regulations should be framed as functional criteria which can be applied to different landscapes and zones. This would result in different solutions in land use allocation, ratio of common to private land, infrastructure systems and actual size of lots. The incentive to developers would be the ability to increase the number of allotments allowable under the proposed zones.

A similar set of regulations should apply to multiple occupancy development by registered community settlement co-operatives.

The concept of an environmental living zone has been proposed locally based on innovative examples such as Village Homes in Davis California where urban developments have occurred following similar criteria to those proposed here in a rural context. The real difference is that this proposal uses tenure system rather than zoning as its primary regulatory mechanism. In this way it would function as a proactive planning mechanism which would stimulate desirable development against a background of zoning control.

The code should involve the following elements (with specific examples in italics).

1. A survey of the property recording all the natural characteristic of the land and all existing infrastructure. (A land systems format and topographic base map with appropriate contour intervals, soil types, springs and surface hydrology existing vegetation and any land degradation, existing improvements and land use, as well as any natural or cultural heritage features of local significance)

2. Analysis of microclimate, fire risk, soil hazards including impeded drainage, erosion, salinity, water resources, access and views.

3. A land use plan based on the above surveys and analysis showing all allotments, access and service reserves, and land use allocation of the remaining common land. (Catchment protection areas for water supply dams, service reserves, road reserves, drainage line reserve, effluent disposal reserves, managed native forest, agricultural land, land management service centre.)

4. An infrastructure plan showing all services and infrastructure associated with the designated land uses.(Roads, power supply, telephone, fencing, water supply and distribution systems.)

5. Requirement to provide a water supply system which would allow reliable supply for domestic and modest garden at each allotment. (Water supply dams or bores, pumps, pipes, header tanks and distribution systems)

6. Substantial reserve capacity to ensure adequate supply to houses gardens in drought years and allow development of appropriate irrigated cropping or horticulture on the common land.

7. Reticulation and/or fire fighting equipment adequate to deliver water to all houses and any other substantial buildings on the property in a fail safe manner in the event of a bushfire.

8. Well designed access roads constructed to service all allotments and integrated with a system of farm tracks to give access for fire fighting, land management activities and recreational use of the land by the residents. Standards of construction to ensure minimal environmental impact and where possible integrate roads in multi-functional roles.(Sealed roads in higher density developments.All earthworks to involve topsoil stripping and replacement on finished work, roads designed as divisions between land uses, using roads as routes for underground services and fire breaks, use of dam walls for gully crossing where possible, contour road table drains as feeder channels to dams.)

9. Provide adequate common parking areas close to allotments to allow safe parking for non-resident vehicles without adverse environmental impact.

10. Site all allotments to allow effective effluent disposal in an effluent reserve planted to suitable vegetation which, where possible, performs secondary functions.(e.g. a common orchard which acts as a fire break for the house allotments.)

11. Provision of underground grid power to all allotments or where extension of the grid would involve excessive environmental impact and/or cost, then an autonomous system to service an energy efficient house on each allotment and any facilities on the common land.(Where grid power/allotment exceeds $15,000 at current prices, autonomous systems based on solar voltaic cells, batteries and standby generator.) 12. Produce a revegetation plan which include appropriate tree planting, direct seeding and/or natural regeneration to perform the following functions:

• a. wind shelter of allotments and agricultural land.
• b. privacy screening and framing of views of and from allotments
• c. wildlife corridors
• d. water body and drainage line protection
• e. effluent and storm water absorption areas
• f. reinforcing fenced boundaries between different land use areas.

(Well designed multipurpose shelterbelts and natural regeneration areas all fenced will perform many of these functions simultaneously)

13. Areas of existing native vegetation or plantations should have management plans which reflect sustainable use. Any clearing of forest for agricultural or residential use should be minimal and be compensated for by the revegetation plan.

14. The proportion of the land under permanent vegetation will vary widely but should never be less than 20%

15. Species selection for revegetation should be on functional criteria but with preference for local indigenous, over Australian native over exotic species. SUBMISSION IN RESPONSE TO A REVIEW OF RURAL LAND USE IN VICTORIA

16. Planning controls for any agricultural land which indicate permissible and prohibited uses and procedures for allocation of leases over whole or part of the land.

17. Site all allotment to allow construction of a energy efficient house with 70% solar access during midwinter.

18. An internal building code specifying energy efficient and fire resistant house design.(Long east west{within 20o} axis with >50% of glazing facing north and >75% of the north face glazed, slab on the ground construction, internal thermal mass, R2.5 wall insulation, R3 roof insulation, enclosed eaves, roofs fixed as for high wind areas.)

19. Size of allotments should be between 0.2 and 0.4 ha depending on the land type. (Positioning of allotments may or may not be clustered but any adjoining allotment should be separated by a privacy planting on common land reserve at least 10m wide)

20. Ability to create between 2 and 4 times the number of lots allowable under the zoning controls. (Actual number would depend on the degree of infrastructure development and management systems which are in place before lots go on sale.)

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Aboriginal land use

by David Holmgren
David Holmgren: Collected writings & Presentations 1978-2006 — Article Four
http://www.holmgren.com.au

This edited article is based on lecture notes from a presentation to Landscape Architecture, Planning and Design students at RMIT (University of Technology) Melbourne in March 1990, 91 and 92 as part of a course unit called Environmental Context. In presenting my version of the new conception of the aborigines as interventionist land managers, I used Odum's systems ecology framework to draw out some of the lessons for modern society. As with many other subjects on which I write, the ideas were developed in relative isolation from the new academic and scientific work which was being done in the field, so much so, that the notes for the first lecture had virtually no relevant references and it was only by referral from others that I discovered references which might give credibility to the ideas. Publication of Tim Flannery's Future Eaters has since raised these issues to public prominence.

INTRODUCTION

As we enter the final phase of industrial culture it is essential that we have the intellectual framework to comprehend the changes all around us and move towards appropriate new forms of society, technology and economy. Design will play a central role in this transformation. The permaculture concept of land use, developed by myself and Bill Mollison in the early 1970's uses design and ecology as its foundations.

The changes underway involve coming to terms with the limits to industrial culture. Some understanding of the means of existence of the 95% of humans which have existed on the planet over the million-odd years of human culture before industrial urban society should prove useful in this task. The particular pattern of Australian hunter-gatherer society prior to the arrival of Europeans was the most durable example of human culture having spanned at least 40,000 years (through at least one ice age) on the driest and most infertile continent on earth.

In comparing and understanding the way of life before and after European settlement, land (or natural resource) use can be a good starting point. Ecology provides a framework and criteria for understanding hunter-gatherer and modern industrial societies and economies. Within this framework a deeper understanding of land use in the two cultures is then possible.

Ecological Comparison of Hunter Gatherer and Industrial Society



GLOBAL INDUSTRIAL EXPANSION

From an ecological perspective, the major elements of global industrial urban culture were already established in western Europe at the time of Australia's colonisation. Colonisation was in fact one of the major elements of this new global culture. It is the pioneering edge or wave front of industrial society which moves across the globe, extracting resources and overwhelming indigenous peoples.

The decimation of the Celtic clan culture in the Scottish highlands1 and takeover by sheep grazing enterprises to supply the English textile industry last century graphically illustrates that this wave was advancing on many fronts.

Today, the displacement and dispossession of the Amazonian and Indonesian indigenous rainforest peoples, is the last advance of this pioneering edge of global industrial culture. In these cases as their forests are converted into wood products for consumption in Japan, Europe, N. America and Australia

ABORIGINAL LAND USE

Within this conceptual framework it is possible to make sense of Aboriginal land use patterns prior to white colonisation. Aboriginal society made use of the whole landscape, though to varying degrees, with some areas heavily populated and managed while some areas (extensive rainforests) were virtual wildernesses. In Victoria the most extensive areas of rainforest occur on the Errinundra plateau in East Gippsland. This area was only populated by small groups of banished individuals from both the Gippsland and Monaro tribes. In Western Australia the tribes of the S.W. regarded the dense Jarrah and Karri forests as evil places to be avoided with only rarely used paths traversing them. 1 MacKenzie, A . A History of the Highland Clearances 1883

The most densely populated and used areas tended to have one or more of the following characteristics:

• High mineral fertility
• Moderate rainfall
• Edges along permanent streams, lakes, wetlands and coastlines as well as between major land systems supporting different food and other resources.
• Vegetation structure tending to open forest or woodland but with sharply defined edges of denser vegetation along gullies and other sheltered sites
• Pockets of elevated mineral fertility and organic matter.

While the first three characteristics may be seen as fixed aspects of the landscape even these changed quite dramatically over the long cultural memory which directed aboriginal land management. Ability to adjust to these changes with no substantial cultural changes evident in the archeological record is indicative of the great adaptability of the culture.

The last two characteristics were to a large extent a creation of land management practices over centuries. In fact it is appropriate to regard the landscape at the time of white colonisation as a cultural landscape well suited to human habitation rather than a wilderness. This is well support by historical and ecological evidence.

Some examples:

• The demise of some animal and plant species (eg. Hare-footed rock wallaby in N.T.) can be traced to the cessation of aboriginal management indicated long co-evolved dependence. The Hare-footed rock wallaby is now increasing in numbers with the revival of aboriginal style mosaic burning.
• Open woodlands where forest now exist (eg Piliga Forest in northern NSW)
• Very old large trees in areas where today period bush fires make the survival of trees beyond 200 years highly unlikely.
• Pockets of mature fire sensitive rainforests with fully developed soil profiles within fire prone landscapes (eg. Arnhem land, Wilson's Prom.)

EUROPEAN ATTITUDES TO ABORIGlNAL LAND USE

A superficial assessment of the historical record suggests that early observers regarded the natives as disorganised foragers of the meagre sustenance available from a depauperate and hostile environment. There is some truth that this was their understanding. Myopia on the part of the Europeans was natural enough for an invading dominant materialist culture trying to comprehend a subjugated and essentially non-material culture. In addition the early soldiers, convicts and bureaucrats were products of the newly emerging urban industrial chaos of late 18th century England. They were the first truly decultured people on earth, disconnected from nature.

The foods they brought with them were products of industrial/colonial culture (white flour, tea and white sugar), and their comprehension of land and nature was minimal. Is it any wonder they failed to understand the people or the cultivated landscapes they found in Australia?

However there are two other factors which complicate the picture.

Firstly, by the time any literate person recorded observations of the natives in particular parts of the country, the people were already suffering from the onslaught of infectious diseases introduced by the Europeans. In many areas the diseases preceded the whites via infected aborigines.

Secondly, it was policy of the colonial authorities not to acknowledge that the natives "worked" the land because under English common law "working" the land by indigenous people was evidence of ownership in lieu of title documents. Many early settlers and other observers noted in quite matter of fact terms that the aborigines managed the land through deliberate use of fire and other means.

All this is rather ironic when one considers where and how exploration and settlement of the country by whites actually occurred. It was the amenable and accessible nature of the indigenous cultural landscapes and the often helpful local people which were critical to early success of the whites. Attempts at exploration and settlement of wild areas little frequented by aborigines generally ended in failure.

Pastoral grazing, particularly of sheep is well known as our greatest industry and that until recently Australia was said to ride on the sheep's back. The pastoral wealth which was the economic base of the colonies before the gold rush represented a direct harvesting of the accumulated biological capital of the most productive of the terrestrial systems managed by aborigines, the fertile grasslands and open woodlands. In most grazing regions the final replacement of native pastures by sown and fertilised pastures has only been completed in recent decades. Aboriginal wealth has been, in a very real sense the source of our wealth. Widespread recognition that the balance of native pastures and the sheltering and soil maintaining native trees and shrubs which was found by the early graziers was in fact the optimal balance has come very recently (through Landcare). More slowly dawning is the realisation that this balance was a culturally maintained one.

LAND MANAGEMENT PRACTICES

The seasonal movements of aboriginal groups followed specific and culturally-embedded patterns which allowed for the harvesting of food and application of management practices to the particular land system. Harvesting and management were often effected by the same activity done in (apparently) the most casual manner. Timing of these activities was determined by precise synchronous cues in the natural environment.

The major management tool used by aborigines to shape whole landscapes, make them habitable and comfortable places to live and most importantly, productive of traditional foods, was fire. Pre historian Rhys Jones coined the term "fire stick farming" to describe this land management process. There is considerable debate about the frequency and intensity of aboriginal burning, but there is substantial evidence that the net effect was far from random or chaotic. In fact I would say the landscapes Europeans found could not have evolved without great regularity and precision in the use of fire over thousands of years.

USE OF FIRE

It is my view that over much of Australia fire prone land systems such as heaths and grasslands were burnt as often (annual dry season) and as soon as they would burn. By this process only the driest sites will burn (generally northwest aspects and ridges with shallowest and lowest fertility soils). Gullies, southerly slopes and more fertile sites would act as fire breaks.

The effects of the fire regime were manifold:

• it created open accessible ground along all routes used to traverse the particular land system.
• it shaped mature trees creating nest hollows where burnt branches died back and base hollows which were used for shelter including ancient revered birthing trees.
• it stimulated the growth of lush green grass high in protein which attracted kangaroos and other herbivores, stimulated flowering in heath land plants (rich sources of nectar) and was frequently critical in stimulating germination, fruiting or tuber formation of a diverse range of food plants (orchids, yams and beans.)
• it created, over time, an incremental decline in the mineral fertility and organic matter content of the soil with an associated ecological drift to more fire prone vegetation. Although this may appear to be a form of land degradation the nutrients lost from the burnt areas in smoke and water are mostly absorbed by unburnt areas adjacent and often down slope. Over time, these areas become more fertile with ecological succession to less fire prone rainforest type vegetation. Consequently these "islands" provided different food sources and habitat for food animals which utilised the seasonal productivity of the burnt areas.

CAMPSITE ENRlCHMENT

A second land management practice which reinforced the patterns created by fire was camping at the same traditional sites. These sites were always subject to the most gentle fires which protected them from hotter fires and allowed the nutrient accumulation mentioned. By eating along the way but defecating around camps, hard seeded berries and fruits such as native cherry and kangaroo apple were casually planted. Over time selection on the basis of sweetness and size as well as ability to use the elevated fertility of the midden site produced improved strains similar to cultivated varieties of fruit developed by agricultural people.

Collected and hunted food brought to camp for preparation and consumption obviously contributed to nutrient accumulation at middens. Black soil profiles up to 3m deep under middens on otherwise low fertility sand 150 years since these were last used, testifies to the substantial and permanent changes created by these habits. Historical and ecological evidence suggest these sites were gardens of selected food plants growing in ancient fire- free, closed canopy groves within otherwise open country.

CULTIVATION

A third management technique was the disturbance created during digging to harvest important tuberous rooted staples such as Myrnjong or Yam Daisy. By digging to harvest yams, crowding which would otherwise limit growth was avoided. Introduction of food species to other suitable sites has also been recorded.

AQUACULTURE

Aboriginal use of aquatic food resources is well known and the most extensive midden sites are often located adjacent swamps, estuaries and rivers. Substantial structures described as fish traps were common up the Murray river before they were blasted to allow passage of boats. What is less well known is that these structures were also used to culture fish by separation of young from adults and predators from prey. While the european invaders had a natural understanding of the use of the grassland ecosystem by grazing stock, they had no cultural experience of the use of wetlands to culture food resources (aquaculture).

LESSONS FOR US FROM ABORIGINAL LAND USE

This new view of aboriginal land use has substantial implications for Australian society in the post-industrial era. Firstly, coming to terms with the past is an important aspect of forging a new future. Recognition that our wealth is largely a heritage of unsustainable exploitation of natural resources which were husbanded for millennia by the aboriginal stewards is important in that it may reduce our arrogance at being creators of our own affluence and puts into perspective land and other claims by the descendants of these stewards. Learning to own the barbaric genocide which is part of our heritage without counter productive personal guilt is important. At the same time it is essential that we recognise that the process is continuing on the last frontiers in the tropical rainforests of the underdeveloped world on behalf of the affluent (us) in the overdeveloped world.

Secondly, the view that arises from a reaction against industrial culture sees nature as pristine and pure while humanity is a destroyer of nature. Implicit in this view is the assumption that we are separate from nature, the same assumption which sustains its ruthless exploitation. The heritage of aboriginal society and landscape shows us that being a part of nature does not mean passive acceptance of all elements of nature without intervention to direct and channel its forces for our long term benefit.

Thirdly, the changes which have been wrought on Australian ecosystems since white settlement have been so deep and fundamental that we should regard reconstruction of indigenous ecosystems to be, at best a form of gardening, rather than establishing self- sustaining nature. Without the original land managers and their "songs", restoration of these ecosystems is futile dream. Remaining wilderness areas should be valued as exactly that, rather than representative of the environment in which aboriginal people lived. Fourthly, forging sustainable patterns of land use in the post-industrial era will demand that we fully accept and make use of the foreign species we have introduced while learning to value and use the species and ecosystem fragments of the indigenous environment. This is beginning to be expressed by the current wave of interest in cultivation and selection of native food and fodder species as well as a review of the value of our native timber species. The emergence of a truly indigenous agriculture will take generations and will involve a fusion of our foreign and indigenous heritage.

Finally, the 'greenhouse effect' (climatic change) and other global environmental changes may force us to rapidly redevelop a flexible generalist culture and land use pattern, where aboriginal modes of behaviour, if not specific practices, will be the only survival option after the rapid collapse of our specialised industrial culture.

What is certain is that there are no more frontiers to exploit and that a sustainable economy on this driest and most infertile continent will demand that we invest the substantial wealth we have to repairing the productive capacity of the land. Without that urban culture will rapidly decay.

In the design professions, most of the present areas of work are at best irrelevant, at worst destructive. If we are to see an adaptive response to real issues then the focus for design will shift from the urban to the rural environment, from the built to the cultivated landscape, from creating new infrastructure and buildings to learning how to adapt and refurbish existing ones. Perhaps most important of all we will see a devolution of design skill from elitist professional practice for government and corporations to practical integration of design into all aspects of ordinary domestic, commercial and community life.

RECOMMENDED READING

Odum, H.T & Odum, E. Energy Basis For Man and Nature McGraw Hill 1981 Use of ecological and thermodynamic principles to provide an integrated understanding the physical foundations of the natural and human world. Puts environmental, economic, political and technological issues in a comprehensible context. This book is possibly the single most useful text I could recommend for understanding the world around us.

Mollison, B. & Holmgren, D. Permaculture One Tagari 1978 Along with the other permaculture books by Mollison this first one explores the principles and some of the practices of sustainable land use for the post-industrial era.

Crosby, A.W. Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe 900-1900 Cambridge Uni Press 1986. Excellent ecological history of the biological sources of european success in N.America, S.America, Australia and N.Z. showing the importance of disease, weeds and pests along with domestic plants and animals.

Rolls, E. A Million Wild Acres: Two Hundred Years of Man and an Australian Forest Nelson 1981. Documents the changes in the natural environment and land use history of the Piliga Scrub since settlement. Includes excellent documentation of the emergence of massive forest regeneration on open pastoral woodlands last century to create the Piliga forest.

OTHER REFERENCES

Hallem, S. Fire and Hearth Aboriginal Studies Institute Canberra. An excellent review of the historical evidence on the use of fire by aboriginals in the S.W. of Western Australia.

Jackson, W.D. Ecological Drift: An argument against the continued practice of Hazard Reduction Burning in The South West Book: A Tasmanian Wilderness A.C.F. 1978. A description of the concept of ecological drift in the context of S.W. Tasmania and the effects of burning, aboriginal and european.

Gee, H.M. Aboriginal Man in The South West Book Refers to the journals of G.A. Robinson 1829-1834, a major source of original observation of the Tasmanian aborigines and the work of pre historian Rhys Jones who coined the term "fire stick farming"

Hynes, R.A. & Chase, A.K. Plants Sites and Domiculture: Aboriginal Influence Upon Plant Communities in Cape York Peninsula in Archeology in Oceania 17(1), 1982. Gives ecological evidence for the creation of plant communities(gardens) a campsites by aboriginal people.

Rose, D.B. Exploring An Aboriginal Land Ethic in Meanjin vol.47 no.3 Spring 1988. Excellent description of the use of the land by Yarralin people in N.T. and the contradiction between modern and aboriginal views of wilderness.

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The Man Wo Farms Water

By Brad Lancaster

First published in the Permaculture International Journal Issue No. 60 Sept ~ Nov 1996

When the wells of Mr. Phiri’s neighbours run dry, his still have water. This Zimbabwean farmer has created a food garden amongst dry-lands and is teaching others how to harvest water successfully.

Last summer, Brad Lancaster went to meet him. A long, slow bus trip into the southern and driest region of Zimbabwe led to the small rural town of Zvishavane, set amongst dry grasslands often capped with barren outcrops of granite. In a row of single-story houses Brad found the simple office of the Zvishavane Water Resources Project (ZWRP). This is Brad’s story of the meeting and what he found.

There on the porch, reading the Bible, sat the water farmer. As my ride came to a stop he sprang up with a huge smile and warm greetings, Here at last was Mr Zephania Phiri Maseko. When he learned of how far I had travelled he burst into a wonderful laugh. He told me that lately visitors from all over the globe seemed to be pouring in almost daily. Nonetheless, each one is an unexpected surprise.

In the 4WD vehicle bouncing over worn and eroded dirt roads towards his farm, Mr Phiri was talking, laughing and gesturing - endless streams of poetic analogies and stories. The best story of all was his own.

'RECREATING' THE TIGRIS

In 1964 he was fired from his job on the railway for being politically active against the white Rhodesian government. He was told by the government that he would never work again in any position. Having to support a family of eight, Mr Phiri turned to the only two things he had, a three- hectare family landholding and the Bible. He didn't just use the Bible for spiritual guidance or inspiration, he used it as a gardening manual. Reading Genesis he saw that everything Adam and Eve needed was provided by the Garden of Eden. "So", thought Mr Phiri, "I must create my own Garden of Eden". Mr Phiri also realised though, that Adam and Eve had the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in their region - he didn't even have an ephemeral creek. "So", thought Mr Phiri, "1 must also create my own rivers". He has done both.

His farm is on the slope of a hill facing north-northeast (Southern Hemisphere). The top of the hill is a large exposed granite dome from which storm runoff once freely flowed. The average annual rainfall is 570 mm (just over 22 inches). However, as Mr Phiri points out, this is an average based on extremes. Many years are drought years when the land is lucky to receive 12 inches of rain.



When he began, it was very difficult to successfully grow crops let alone make a profit, due to the frequent droughts and zero equipment or capital for irrigation from groundwater. He spent time observing what would happen when it did rain. In small depressions and upslope of rocks and plants, the soil moisture would linger longer than in areas where sheet flow went unchecked. Thus began his self-education in rainwater harvesting and his work. Over a period of 30 years he has created a sustainable system that provides all his water needs from rainfall alone.

"You start in the catchment upstream and heal the young gullies before the old/deep gullies downstream," said Mr Phiri. Beginning at the top of the watershed, he built unmortared stone walls at random intervals on contour. Acting much like gabions, these walls slow the flow of storm runoff as the water moves through the spaces between the stones. This makes the water running off the granite dome more manageable as it is directed to unlined reservoirs, which like everything else were built with nothing more than hand tools and the sweat of Mr Phiri and his two wives.

The larger of the two reservoirs Mr Phiri calls his immigration centre.

"It is here that I welcome the water to my farm and then direct it to where
it will live in the soil", laughed Mr Phiri. "The soil”, he explained, "is
like a tin".

"The tin should hold all water. Gullies and erosion are like holes in the tin which allow water and organic matter to escape. These must be plugged".

Mr Phiri's 'immigration centre' is also a water gauge, for he knows that if it fills three times in a season, enough rain will have infiltrated to last for two years. The smaller reservoir directs water via a culvert to an above ground ferro-cement cistern which feeds his courtyard in dry spells. He also has a ferro-cement cistern, shaded by a lush granadilla creeper, collecting water from his roof. Aside from these two cisterns, all other water harvesting structures on the farm aim to filter water into the soil as soon as possible.

Near the home is an outdoor wash basin from which all greywater is drained to a covered, unmortared, stone-lined, underground cistern where the water quickly infiltrates. From the top of the watershed to the bottom there are numerous water harvesting structures such as check dam walls, gabions, terraces, swales, and fruition pits. The government had put in large swales many years ago throughout the region, but they had put them just off contour so that they'd stop sheet flow erosion and carry the storm runoff to a central drainage. The erosion problem was solved, but all the lands were being robbed of their water. So Mr Phiri dug large "fruition pits" about 10' x 6' x 4' in the basins of all his swales. When it rains the pits fill with water and the overflow runs into the next pit and so on up to his property line. Long after the rain, water remains in the fruition pits percolating into the soil. Around the pits thatch grasses are grown for erosion control, building, and sale.

TEACHING THE TREES

Many thriving fruit trees have also been planted by Mr Phiri along the swales to provide food, shade, and wind breaks. They're watered strictly by rain and the rising groundwater in the soil. As Mr Phiri explains. "I am digging fruition pits and swales to plant the water so that it can germinate elsewhere.

"I have then taught the trees my system. They understand it and my language. I put them here and tell them, 'Look the water is there - go and get it'''.

No basin and berm for holding and denying water is put around them, but rather roots are encouraged to stretch out and find water. A diverse mix of open-pollinated crops such as squash, corn, peppers, eggplant, reeds for baskets, tomatoes, lettuce, spinach, peas, garlic, onion, beans, granadilla, mango, guava, and pawpaws, along with such indigenous crops and trees as matobve, muchakata, munyii, and mutamba are planted between the swales. This diversity gives him food security for if some crops fail due to drought, disease, or pests others will survive. The use of open-pollinated varieties enables Mr Phiri to collect, select, and use his own seed from one year to the next.

Nitrogen fixing plants abound. The pigeon pea is one example, and is also used for fodder and mulch. Mr Phiri has found that fertilised soils don't take and/or hold water well. As he says, "You apply fertiliser one year, but not the next and the plants die. Apply manure and nitrogen-fixing plants once and the plants continue to do well year after year. Fertilised soil is bitter".

WATER IS LIKE BLOOD

Mr Phiri propagates his trees in old rice and grain bags near one of three open wells near the bottom of his property. Mr Phiri describes the open wells with another analogy.

"Water is like blood - it is always attracted to the wound. Gullies are wounds. Blood goes to the wound to coagulate and heal it. It does this with gabions and swales where the gully is filled with fertile soil".

With this knowledge, Mr Phiri dug his three wells at the bottom of his land knowing the water harvested throughout his land would seep into the soil and make its way to the wounds below. The soil is his catchment tank. In times of drought, his neighbours' wells go dry (even those that are deeper than Mr Phiri's) yet Mr Phiri's wells always have water "into which I can dip my fingers", for he is putting far more water into the soil. Except for one well, which is lined and has a hand pump for household water use, the others are all open and lined with nmortared stone. "These wells", explained Phiri, "are those of an unselfish man."

"The water comes and goes as it pleases, for you see, in my land it is everywhere".

In times of severe drought Mr Phiri will draw from these wells to water annuals in nearby fields. He uses a donkey pump, also known as an Egyptian Shaduf, which is simply a hand pump that uses an old tractor tyre to pump the water.

NATURAL WETLANDS AND AQUACULTURE

A lush natural wetland lies below the wells at the lowest point of Mr Phiri's property. Here, Mr Phiri practises aquaculture in a series of three reservoirs. As the smaller two dry up the fish are harvested or relocated to the largest. It is also here that Mr Phiri densely grows bananas. There are drylands all around him, yet here on Mr Phiri's farm is a thick forest of bananas! Sugarcane, reeds, and grasses such as elephant grass, are also grown on, and leading up to the banks to hold the soil. His livestock benefit from the dense grasses, grown to sift the water as it enters the reservoirs.

When Mr Phiri began he was forced to appear in court three times for violating laws that prohibited cultivation in wetlands. These were laws that had been around since colonial times. Finally, on his third court appearance he was able to convince the magistrate to come and see his farm. The magistrate was so impressed that he dropped all charges on the spot.

Within the soil of the farm lie the Tigris and Euphrates rivers; the reservoirs are where they surface. The cycle of Mr Phiri's Garden of Eden, starting to be noticed after 30 years of obscurity and sometimes scorn, continues to grow. Of the last three decades Mr Phiri says, "Sure, it's a slow process, but that's LIFE. Slowly, you implement these projects and as you begin to rhyme with nature soon other lives will start to rhyme with yours".

Mr Phiri and the Zvishavane Water Resources Project, which he created, are spreading his techniques. He has influenced CARE International in his region to the point that, rather than giving away food, they now implement Mr Phiri's methods so that people can grow their own food. He has also gone to schools where the teachers were striking due to lack of water and the harsh conditions in dusty, wind-scraped classrooms. He taught the teachers and students how to harvest the rainfall, and together they've turned the schools into lush gardens.

"Remember children are our flowers", says Mr Phiri, "give them water and they will grow and bloom".

Mr Phiri's project is very much at the grassroots level (a big reason why it works), yet it is always in need of funds. If you'd like to help write to Mr Zephania Phiri Maseko, ZWRP, PO Box 118, Zvishavane, Zimbabwe.

This is an edited article, reprinted with kind permission from the Permaculture Drylands Joumal (No. 25), a publication of the Permaculture Drylands Education and Research Institute, PO Box 156, Santa Fe, NM, 87504-0156, USA. Tel: Int +1 +505 983 0663.

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