Barefoot Farming

On Friday our Ecologia Humana class visited an organic farm for our salida del campo to experience ecologia humana in the field. A little way outside Tumbaco (just outside Cumbaya, where USFQ is located)

Permaculture, as it was explained to us is the "permancy of culture" or the "culture of permancy", going both ways in thinking. It relates to both the idea of sustainable agriculture as well as creating a sustainable lifestyle.

The farm we went to is run by a family of 3 brothers and their wives/girlfriends. Acting as both a dairy, farm, school, and homestead, it is a modest operation more focused on perpetuating its values rather than growing economically.

Each semester, students from the US come to the farm and take classes (homeschool-style) while working the land and learning sustainable practices and other things such as culture, agriculture, cooking, and everything else. Basically, they live at this hippy homestead and learn all kinds of cool things for credit. It's tempting, actually. All the brothers live in hand-built houses made from resources all found in the area (eucalyptus, no bolts, adobe, etc) in their naturally occuring environment (building around the rock formations, not really cutting down any trees, etc). It was really cool. The houses were beautiful too, not just shacks or anything.

The entire property is run sustainably, with the majority of the energy produced by solar panels on top of the dairy stables (the one large fridge is the only thing connected to the grid; "the only thing tying us to Correa!" according to one of our guides). The water all comes from the land (clean, drinkable tap water, who knew it existed in Ecuador?) and most everything made by hand. The toilets use the composting-system which they then use for their crops. It was an almost completely closed system. So cool. We got to see their solar oven and dehydrator, which I thought was a perfectly logical example of sustainability: The sun heat is captured between a pane of glass glass and long, slanted, black sheet metal and forced upwards towards a black box (via convection), inside which had fruit and other food being dehydrated. A slit in the box keeps the air circulating and preventing the fruit from rotting. So logical and so efficient!

While we were there we also met the Katy Cow, which was quite curious (the most adventurous of all the calves) and jumpy at the same time. Ironic? It licked my hand, which tickled, so I laughed, and that scared it and she scampered away, only to come back a minute later. Who knew that cows’ tongues were so rough?

After our tour around the property, we ate a delicious lunch (all food from the farm) then went out and planted trees! To better connect with the earth, we all took off our shoes to feel the dirt between our toes and on our skin. It felt so good to be barefoot again! It was wonderful. During this whole time I was reminded of Dr. Snyder again and our discussions of conservation and its relations to spirituality. This day once again brought up my fantasies of growing up to be a farmer. All in all, a wonderfully sustainable day that left me smiling and oh so very happy.

Ambientalismo y El Ultimo Hora

I have a midterm in 20 minutes, so there's clearly no better time to go on an environmentalist rant. Please excuse me while I get my mind out in words.

We just finished watching the 11th Hour in my human ecology class and it's safe to say that this is one of my favorite movies still. Yes, it is one of the most hippy, tree-hugging, environmentalist movies of all time, but it really gets to me and really reminds me of why I am so passionate about environmentalism and the like. I also find that more I learn about ecology, the more it shapes my views on life and environmentalism and the like. However, my ecology class has also been leading to a mild inner conflict as I try to tackle the idea of global warming while still realizing and learning about historical global climate patterns and receding glacial patterns and whatnot. The conclusion I've come to is that humans are going to go extinct. It is inevitable. No one species has ever survived throughout the entire history of the globe, they always go extinct (there are a few exceptions, but humans are not one of them). [It is at this point that I added the "ominous doom" tag to this blog post.] From this I have decided that this is not where my passion for environmentalism lies. It never has. (Sorry all you Powershift amigos, but climate change has never been my main fight, instead just an aspect to it.) Instead, it lies in the maintenance of the balance of the world and biosphere. Not between humans and nature, but rather of the entire system itself, which includes humans and all resources and all other organisms here on earth. I find myself at the pragmatic side of environmentalism, and really not agreeing with non-anthropocentrism very much (a point that led me to argue with Leeor a few times, actually...).
Environmentalism, for me, is so much a full spectrum issue. It's not just about saving the trees or the pandas or the whales or anything, it's about preserving life and our ability to live. Yes, I have an anthropocentric view on environmentalism, but in the way that humans are a part of the larger ecosystem and thus their actions have effects and consequences much larger than ourselves. We must maintain the natural balance that works. Nature has mastered this art, whether its the purification of waste and decomposition, or the balance between photosynthesis, cellular respiration and the creation of oxygen and carbon dioxide used for both of these. Humans cannot replicate these processes, not to any comparable degree, anyways. In order for us to survive we must maintain these, and the lifestyle we have today only disrupts that. It throws off this balance and degrades our quality of life. With the balance of the world, comes health and happiness for humans.
End Rant.