[Scpg] Best permaculture design ideas for fire country?

[LBUZZELL at aol.com]

Thanks Bob for really interesting ideas.  We could use permaculture  methods 
and become the missing beavers!  By recontouring land, using  gabions to block 
erosion, building dams into keyline points on the land, we  could rehydrate 
it.  Also by planting deep rooted perennials, as you  describe.  What 
perennials would best perform that function in our  area?
 
And I love the idea of someone starting a goat-renting service to clear  
brush.  Is anyone doing that yet here? Great businesss for someone, with a  
secondary yield of chevre plus wonderful manure and, when a goat gets older,  goat 
meat for birria... Talk about stacking functions and maximizing  yields!
 
I love the idea of heritage cattle, too...
 
Really exciting ideas.
 
Linda
 
 
In a message dated 11/16/2008 4:24:44 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,  
rwthor at earthlink.net writes:

Some  natural historians maintain that California did not have a fire based 
ecology  until the megafauna extinction coincident with the invasion of peoples 
over  the Bering Strait.  The vegetation that co-evolved with the large herds 
 of browsers and grazers (and their predators) rarely burned.  Also there  
were dams engineered and built by prehistoric beavers.  Deep rooted  perennials 
and ponds ameliorated the droughtiness of summer.

It would  be hard to bring back those beavers, mammoths, and saber-toothed 
tigers, but  we can build the right kind of dams and use well managed grazers 
and browsers  to reduce fire based vegetation.  There are businesses renting out 
Boer  goats to clear brush.  Certain heritage breeds of cattle are suitable  
too.

Allan Savory has more to say in his book "Holistic  Management".

Bob
Deep Roots Ranch

-----Original  Message-----
>From: LBUZZELL at aol.com
>Sent: Nov 16, 2008 1:47  PM
>To: sbperm2006 at googlegroups.com, sbogc at yahoogroups.com,  Scpg at arashi.com, 
sbfoodfuture at googlegroups.com
>Subject: [Scpg] Best  permaculture design ideas for fire country?
>
> 
>Hoping  that  all who receive this are safe from the fires ravaging the 
South  
>Coast and  So Cal. 
>Today Gov.  Schwartzenegger  admitted that because of global climate 
>disruption, Central and   Southern California now have an extended fire 
season  
>stretching  from late February through December, instead of late June 
through mid   
>October as it used to be. And Jan and Feb are Flood season (if  we're  
lucky!) 
>What are some  of the most helpful design and  planting ideas permaculture 
can 
>offer our  community in this  changed situation, both at the individual 
>backyard level and   also for our whole town? Certainly we need to implement 
all the  
>permaculture  water harvesting strategies to lock moisture into  our 
>landscapes, but what  else?  The mainstream media seems  to be advocating a 
fairly 
>denuded,  barren, "scorched earth"  landscape with little understory as the 
safest  
>approach -- what  alternatives does permaculture have to offer? 
>I'm going to   compile a list of "best practices" and would love your input, 
>tips  and  ideas! 
>Some examples  of possible kinds of ideas to  include... the notion of 
>greenbelts of  heavily-watered avos and  citrus protecting homes from 
wilder,  
>burn-prone outlying  areas... the use of various water-holding plants like  
sedum as  
>groundcover in backyard food forests.   
>Also it  would  be good to address the issue of plants to avoid and plants  
to  
>include. 
>One thing I'm  very interested in is  the bad rap the media and fire 
officials 
>are giving  eucalyptus  trees.  Australian permaculture teacher Geoff Lawton 
>on his   recent visit urged us not to completely avoid all eucs as fire 
hazards,  
>but to  learn about cultivars that can be useful.  Does  anyone know which 
>eucs are  a good thing to include in local  landscapes, and which to avoid 
or even 
>cut  down?    
>Would love to  hear your thoughts... 
>Linda  
>
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