Subwatersheds in the Applegate, Oregon. From Applegate Partnership

I remember working with the Rogue Institute for Ecology and Economy 20 years ago in Ashland, Oregon when we were working on a ‘watershed level’ and trying to convince the politicians there to overlook political boundaries. Present were the Applegate Partnership, BLM, Forest Service, and other groups holding collaborative meetings to overcome barriers in governance and policy and to create a watershed management plan. This was truly innovative, trans-watershed work that was exploratory, just as was Jeff Goebel and Bill Gardiner’s work with with the Colville Confederated Tribes in Washington and their incorporation of Allan Savory’s Holistic Management in the mid and late 90s. There are many examples of pushing the envelope in this sort of effort.

Why, however, is it still news? A watershed approach to management should be so rudimentary and widespread that we are alerted when it does not happen. Unfortunately, the paradigm is so entrenched that non-linear thinking confuses, threatens and will stall decisions and actions on the level of government. The only difference between government and private business in this case is that a private business or corporation will be confused and threatened, but will take action faster than government, be it good or bad in the long run.

One very positive direction in the article is the potential for new products and creative marketing.

The hope is to market cattle from the region as salmon-safe or salmon-friendly, perhaps charging a premium, says Salewski, a longtime resident of the logging and forestry community of Vanderhoof.

Whatever your thoughts on cattle aside, adding value through physical change or in this case through ecological benefit via a change in management and Nuance Marketing is extremely attractive. Kudos to those in and around the Murray Creek watershed in their efforts; I just hope that one day such a management effort would be routine and commonplace.

Launched by Richard Branson in February 2007, the Virgin Earth Challenge is a $25 million initiative for the successful commercialisation of ways of taking greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere and keeping them out with no countervailing impacts.

The VEC is currently looking to bring in partners to help it bridge the gap between these pioneering ventures and commercially viable businesses. “We are collaborating with other groups to help responsibly further the work being done by these organisations,” explained Dr. Alan Knight, VEC Director. “There’s no silver bullet but each option can do its bit. We are looking at how we can make sure the Virgin Earth Challenge is a useful catalyst for all of the good work out there.”

the Albuquerque conference features an address by Bill McKibben and Bill Debuys; a matching party for interns/apprentices and mentors; a workshop by Jim Gerrish; and a focus on the growing number of younger farmers returning to the land with passion and smarts. Register by October 25 for best pricing. Over 400 people attended last year.

This year’s Clarence Burch Award goes to the Three Rivers Alliance (www.threeriversalliance.org) in the Republican River watershed of Colorado.

http://whatcom.wsu.edu/carbonmasters/documents/Urban_C_Sequestration.pdf

Two nights in a row now. Final two. Discovering myself.

Military style tent. Dry season. Completely open. No bugs. No mosquitoes. Just the dirt.

The three little dogs bark at anything that gets their attention. They’re the best night watchmen. Growling now at who knows what, a jackal, kudu, warthog.

There are lions about. The night watchman asked me if I herd it. No, I said. Were you sound asleep? Probably, I said. What time, I asked. 4:00 AM, he says. No, I was asleep, I say. Although I went out at 4:30 AM to relieve myself. (The stupid roosters had already started). It was still dark with the full moon casting its ghostly essence over the dry bush. I didn’t need my torch (flashlight).  In fact, that only makes seeing worse.

We walked out here from the main campus without once turning it on.

I never felt more alive. Walking under the full moon, in the savanna, in the dry season, the warm African breeze dissolving time.

There is no time here. Time is a human construction, an arbitrary dissection of the continuum.

There is only sun and moon, and heat and dirt and animals, and dung and urine, and grass, and trees, and crickets, and ants and spiders, and people in dusty cloths with big smiles, and women with babies wrapped on their backs, and buckets of water, and jeeps with radios, and the occasional herd of something, and stories of great game, and hunters from overseas, and adventures and tragedies, and a world, like Narnia, that used to exist, but now only echos through relics.

My last night here. I should have stayed in the bungalow and did a million things in preparation for tomorrow – copy over computer files, notify my credit card company, and, oh yeah, pack!

But no. I had to have one more night in the savanna, under the moon, in the vented canvas tent, feeling the night breeze roll through while being serenaded by 500 ruminants just meters away, making soil, reversing desertification, and countering climate change.

I came seeking a hut with a view of the future, but I’ve found that from this burlap enclosure, I can feel it.

****

Is there a price to pay to step out of your tent and be under the full moon and stars of an African sky, and not be on a tour with a guide, but among local herders?

What would we pay?
What is the cost of salvation?

***

I left a gift and note for one of the young herders who befriended me – setting them outside his tent, under a rock.  He is 19 and has been a herder for three years. His name is Knowledge.

The tree watch dogs greeted me, but did not bark, as that would have woken everyone, and now they knew better.

It’s 5:30 AM.  The moon is still out, but it’s getting light. I’m walking home.

______________________

I woke this morning to my first sunrise in America. The early light seared through prism drops on wet autumn leaves and broke into a thousand fantasies. Color. Moisture. Decay. It was good to be home.

Mid October in New England – I can’t deny the joy of seeing and smelling fog. Do they even have fog in Zimbabwe? There is a morning mist in the valleys. I’ve seen that, and in the high plains there is no doubt cloud fog, but fog of the New England variety, and with the smell of sea salt? There is a weather anomaly in Southern Africa that brings moisture and cold air up from the Indian Ocean which can be devastating for people and livestock, causing temperatures to plummet 60 degrees or so (Fahrenheit), in a matter of hours – going from hot and dry summer conditions to near freezing and wet.  Allan told about one such event that overnight caused the deaths of a dozen herders and thousands of cattle.  No, even we don’t have swings that severe.

I mentioned Knowledge in the previous post. He is the 19-year old herder who has been with the ranch for 3 years. His 24-year old brother also has been with him for the same period, so, putting it together, two brothers entered the ranch to become herders at the same time, one at 16, the other 21. It’s easy enough to want to ask, what are the social and economic realities that make this a desirable choice? Herding is popular in Zimbabwe, but paid herding is probably rare, and this job also comes with meals and tents. Those aren’t things to sneeze at.  Any job that includes meat and “sadza” (a meal made from maize) is a good thing. The meat is provided, typically, I believe, in the form of biltong, dried meat strips, similar to what we would call jerky, but without the packaging and sweetness. The raw and seasoned strips are hung to dry on wires or strings. This is everywhere.  Flies find these, but apparently, the sun and seasoning prevents spoilage, and in fact, it’s quite delicious and relished by both subsistence villagers and middle class city dwellers.  According to wikipedia, the seasoning is typically vinegar, salt, coriander and pepper, and that jibes with my experience. I’m not sure if the herders get the meat as biltong, of if they just get freshly butcher animal and have to slice and dry the strips themselves. Biltong is chewed plain, like jerky, or thrown in a pot with hot water to make stew.  The meat is beef or game, and during my time there, I also had kudu, sable, and probably at least one more type of animal. During my last day, I saw the ribs of a goat hanging to dry on the branch of a tree, with the head, innards, and skin, lying at it’s base. I wasn’t sure if these remains were going to be used in some fashion, or just discarded. It’s not like there would a place to discard them, so at the base of a tree was as good any other. I asked Knowledge about that, and he just kept saying, “It’s goat”. 

Of course I wondered if it was one of the goats I’d seen just the morning before baaing in chorus with it’s kin in the mini kraal next to the cattle.  Lying next to the goat remains was an ax that I assume is used to cut the teak branches which everyone uses for fire, but also could have been part of the butcher process, and then I wonder, who did the goat butchering. Did Knowledge or his brother do so? And whether he or someone else did, that whole process is certainly as common and non-eventful to them, as reaching in a cupboard to draw out a box of cereal is for us – but, instead of reaching inside a cabinet, you reach inside a stockade, and instead of pulling out a box, you pull out an animal, and instead of pouring out the cereal, you cut off the meat, and instead of turning on a stove, you build a fire, and instead of throwing away the leftovers, you leave it for ants and hyenas, and after all, there is no “trash”. That’s a Western invention.

Vegetables are the responsibility of the herders, but these are harvested, as far, as I can tell, from the gardens at the compound. Many crops are grown and a common dinner green is a type of collard-like leaf cut in thin strips and often served with grilled onions and other species. It is delicious, or as they say “kumnandi”, but I apologize for not having greater detail.

The Washing of Hands

One of my favorite experiences was the simplest – the washing hands ritual before dinner. Come back with me now, if you will, to my final two nights at the kraal. I am sitting with Knowledge and this brother, who’s Ndebele name I was never able to even pronounce, let alone remember, and why one brother would have a traditional Ndebele name, and other an English word name like Knowledge is probably a question I’ll never have the answer to, although, also at the Center was a fellow who’s last name was January. It is so odd, then, that I’ve always imaged naming a child Netscape Garcia, in honor of the day when both Jerry Garcia died and Netscape went public, marking the end of one era and the start of another? Did you know they were the same day? (August 9, 1995).

So, back to Knowledge and his brother. The ritual is just to have the host pour hot water over your hands. The host will hold the hot water in one hand and a receiving basin in the other. You will put your hands in the middle and rub them together as the host pours the water. This is a public event meant to be witnessed by everyone else who will be eating. Although we often had individual plates and a serving utensil, in the rural areas, and certainly at the kraal tent site with Knowledge and his brother, there was none of that. Just two pots, one for the beef stew and one for the sadza and you would put your bare hands in both. I can honestly say that sharing this hand cleaning event with these two young men, who really, to me, were just boys, was probably one of my most pleasurable moments. It was just us, and the moon, and the cattle, and a few tents, and a small wood fire and some maize meal, meat stew, hot water, and a simple, timeless, and practical ritual. They were both pleased and amused, that I knew how to eat African style, by taking the sadza with the right hand and rolling it into a ball, before dipping it in the stew.

After dinner, which lasted only a few minutes, we sat around the fire and had silly fun talking and joking in the limited spoken vocabulary  shared. They both smoked cigarettes which the older brother rolled from a pouch of tobacco he had. I asked to share it with him and he handed it to me. After making my meager attempts to draw, Knowledge looked at me concerned and said, “You have to inhale”. At which point which we all started laughing hysterically.

Seth

In Australia, several experimental projects have been launched to explore the benefits of moving away from cattle grazing and introducing more traditional fire management regimes to reduce wildfires and cut land-based carbon emissions.

Tim Flannery and Tony Lovell suggest the issue is far more nuanced than government policy and programs.

For the full article:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/focus-on-flames-of-climate-change/story-e6frg6z6-1226164267983