[Scpg] Thoughts on Vocational Training Centers for Ecological Restoration John D. Liu

Wed Dec 19 08:39:18 PST 2012

Thoughts on Vocational Training Centers for Ecological Restoration
Community Projects, Conservation, Consumerism, Development & Property 
Trusts, Economics, Ethical Investment, People Systems, Rehabilitation, 
Society, Village Development — by John D. Liu December 20, 2012

http://permaculturenews.org/2012/12/20/thoughts-on-vocational-training-centers-for-ecological-restoration/

John D. Liu

I’m often asked “What can I do to help?” to restore the Earth. Overthe 
years I’ve struggled with the answer.

Sometimes I feel like it is unfair to ask me what someone else should do 
because even if I told them what I thought they probably wouldn’t do it. 
I think that each person should look inside their heart and decide what 
they will do.

However, gradually I’ve come to see ecological restoration as the “great 
work” of our time — the one most important thing that all the people who 
are alive today need to understand and do together. I’ve come to realize 
that to do restoration at scale requires some very specific skills and 
also requires a type of lifestyle change. It also requires a change in 
the way we perceive work and the economy.

One of the highlights of my year was meeting and beginning to work with 
Geoff Lawton of the Permaculture Research Institute. We met in Jordan 
and then again recently in California and it has been eye opening to see 
the work that Geoff and other permaculturalists have been doing. Merging 
their work with large-scale ecosystem restoration can serve both local 
communities and the wider global goals of mitigating and adapting to 
climate change and achieving sustainable development.

Geoff and I publicly discussed these issues in “Green Gold” co-produced 
by VPRO and the EEMP and broadcast on VPRO in April. You can see the 
English version here:

Gradually I’ve come to consider what we need, to ensure that we have the 
skills necessary to restore the degraded parts of the Earth and have the 
type of collaboration and dedication needed to do this effectively 
together. The conclusion I have come to is that we need to build 
Vocational Training Centers for Ecological Restoration in every 
continent to serve as the vanguard for the Earth’s restoration.

In looking at what is the correct structure for such centers I have 
considered “Community Land Trusts” which essentially means that the 
members of the community own the center. This means that communities 
that voluntarily choose to dedicate themselves to long term, large scale 
ecological restoration would replace the type of 3- to 5-year projects 
that the development ‘industry’ has been promoting. These have shown 
some excellent methodologies but have often been too small and too short 
to bring about the type transformational change that is needed. Making 
vocational training centers for ecological restoration the purpose of 
community land trusts would mean that these centers would be permanent. 
While projects might come and go the overall center would absorb each 
project and grow stronger rather than end at the close of the funded period.

The types of facilities needed are seed saving and propagation, soil 
creation, water retention technologies, nursery systems and of course 
all the other requirements of successful communities such as culture, 
recreation, education, health care and permanent agriculture.

Geoff Lawton’s research farm in Australia shows many of the things that 
must be done and can be seen here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASNVqSEEk1U&feature=player_embedded

The ideal situation would be communities that provide full employment 
for everyone in all the various aspects of restoration — the study of 
restoration, the training needed for restoration and that they “Live 
Well” in the sense that they have clean air, water, healthy food and 
strong families and communities and that they have substituted a more 
profound purposeful life for the materialism of the current global 
economic model.

This type of structure could be supported by management, technical 
support, human resources and capital arranged by the new Natural 
Resilience Initiative (2.3mb PDF) being led by Willem Ferwerda. 
http://www.permaculturenews.org/files/Natural_Resilience_Initiative.pdf

This could help merge the needs and aspirations of communities with 
global efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate changes, to restore 
ecological function to broad areas of the planet where they have been 
degraded by human beings over historical time.

Can we learn to live and work together for a common goal? Can we trade 
selfishness for collective security and sustainability? Can we work to 
ensure that the air, water, soils are clean and pollution free?

This is the way that I would like to live the rest of my life in helping 
to restore degraded landscapes and I believe that there must be millions 
more who would also like to do this.

I’d like to hear your thoughts on this.

Thoughts on Vocational Training Centers for Ecological Restoration 
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