[Lapg] Food forests at Pine RIdge reservation - need your help!

[Cory Brennan]

We will be planting three or more food forests at Pine Ridge reservation the first two weeks of May, of 2012, and we need your help!  

We need volunteers now, who can help from your home with setting up logistics for this huge permablitz. 

We need volunteers experienced in water catchment, irrigation, cool temperate drylands, building, food forestry from April 25 to approx May15-25. There is some chance this could lead into temporary teaching gigs there. 

We need donations of trees, bushes, seeds, irrigaton piping, water tanks, hoses, and money for travel, food, fuel for machinery (for swales, tree holes, etc), and for education

For trees, we need bare root or potted fruit trees and windbreak trees (we have a list but are open to anything that may survive in that climate), and bushes. 


You can make a tax deductible donation on our web site at www.permacultureguild.us. Scroll down and hit the "donate" button for Pine Ridge reservation. The more money we get, the more we can do. We will be installing ponds, rain catchment tanks, greywater, gardens, swales, etc, in addition to the food forests depending on how well funded we are. We will be doing the minimum to ensure the trees get water and are stable. But we want to get as much self-sustaining elements as we can into the systems we're working with, to show just what permaculture can do. So please, consider sending $10, or $20 or $50. We make the money go a LONG way!  We get all kinds of things for free, make cool stuff out of garbage, etc. We will make sure that we increase the value of your donation 10-100 times, using permaculture tools and design! 

We hope that this spreads so fast that we cannot handle it ourselves. We are looking for partners and co-creators for this project. The movement is bigger than us, it is already spreading to other reservatons (we got requests from two others this year we cannot fulfill), and we welcome your experience, creativity and drive to help.  These organizations and others also need natural builders (many opportunities arising there), rocket stove experts, greenhouse experts, alternative fuel, etc, etc - the rez needs the whole gamut of permaculture tools.  

BACKGROUND: 

Pine Ridge reservation is a severe food desert, with the closest organic, fresh food being 100 miles or two hours away for many people on the rez. The diabetes and heart disease rates are sky high, as many people depend on highly processed, low nutrition government commodities to eat. There is a movement on the rez to create more gardens, but most people do not know how to garden and the climate and land are harsh, and hard to garden in. 

We've been working at Pine Ridge reservation, South Dakota, with Oglala-Lakota Cultural and Economic Revitilization Initiative (OLCERI.org, facebook.com/olceri)  for several years with experimental permaculture and doing two PDCs there. One of our students initiated the building of two natural buildings there and planting a community orchard, and others on the rez have gotten interested in permaculture as a result of this work. Last year, we planted 600 trees at the OLCERI ranch, the first phase in creating a food forest.  This year, as a result, we've been asked by several other organizations and individuals to help establish food security with more food forests. 

We feel food forests are very appropriate for cultural revitalization of the Lakota people, as they align with their hunter-gatherer culture. There are a number of wonderful native edibles and medicinals that we'd like to include in the forests and we are consulting with elders in the community in regard to that. Additionally, creating food sources in stable ecosystems means they are more likely to survive and people are more likely to enjoy the bounty from them. 

This year, Thunder Valley (facebook.com/thundervalleycdc), an organization dedicated to creating sustainability and food security on the rez, has pledged to create a food forest in the front yard of their offices, located near the second busiest intersection on the reservation. They are engaged in youth activities and community outreach, and can reach many people. We want to train people how to do this, this year, while we are planting the forest. They are getting a number of other organizations involved and this could spread pretty fast!  They plan to construct a greenhouse and create other support infrastructure that can facilitate the reach out into the community.  

OLCERI is working on various programs to reach out into the community as well, potentially in some major ways, and has been engaged in the Beginning Farmer-Rancher program in the past.  There are a few other organizations and individuals that we are in discussions with currently, who work with the community on food issues. 

This project has economic implications as well. We are researching how trees that would enhance an agroforestry system respond to the climate at the OLCERI site, and want to expand that experiment. 

We will be carpooling from Tampa, FL on April 23 to Pine Ridge and are looking for others in the area to travel with us.  This is going to be quite a fun adventure with many learning opportunities.  If you have any questions, please write! 

To the return of forests on the lands of our ancestors, 

Koreen Brennan
www.permacultureguild.us
facebook.com/permacultureguild4
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