An investigation of the work of PA Yeomans

Looking beyond CAT’s setting of incredible beauty and the fleeting moods of the Welsh sky it is clear that both theory and industry are at home here. Vernacular architecture, of slate, wood and mortar, sited in the old quarry that gives CAT its unusual topography, are fused with renewable technology and modern natural building materials. They sit so well with each other it’s seamless and so unnoticeable. After a few days one realizes that beyond the technological application of micro generating renewables, the superficial changes to our visual environment, due to the presence of panels and turbines, they are really no great hardship. I believe that, en masse, we will quickly grow accustomed to them. CAT is all laid out with a child’s sense of discovery and adventure yet everywhere are to be found structures that evidently provide seriously applicable solutions to the problems we face in creating sustainable human systems.

Starting in September meant my first module was ‘Environment and energy in a world context’. This included lectures on; anthropogenic climate change, adaptation strategies, an ecosystem services approach to master planning, policy at national and international level, sustainable architecture, social perspectives and much, much more.

For all of this, I am immensely grateful to be participating in this Masters Programme. Often when considering the challenges that lay ahead, I have wished, as I am sure many people do, that I could be provided with pointers as to where to look for the most accurate data, reports or case studies, to be given a leg up to where I felt, knowledge wise, I needed to be with regards to climate change, sustainable design and the built environment. Even in just one module I felt that this was already happening. What facilitated this further was the learning atmosphere generated by my surroundings and the emphasis that we, as current or future design professionals, need to embody the change we want to see in the world by ‘walking the talk’. This is highlighted by learning about sustainable architecture from the very people who designed and participated in the build of the exemplary WISE building, the very same building in which all the lectures were given. It is an immersive learning experience. What particularly made me smile to myself was that the terms, language and principles that were employed during lectures were so familiar, from my background in permaculture that it made me feel confident I was in the right place to learn what I need to know.

What really ‘made’ my first module and in fact my first ever visit to CAT was not only the quality and attitude of the course teaching and non teaching staff but the level of awareness and enthusiasm of my fellow students. I quickly felt a connection and communication with them that was uncommon in my experiences at undergraduate level.

 by Alex Metcalfe October 16, 2010

This is Part IV, the final part of this series.

by Alex Metcalfe. Picture credits: Alex Metcalfe, Asiya Brock, Helen Evans and Houssa Yacoubi

Large house clusters would have originally had extended family groups living in distinct but connected households. The largest of these we saw had only certain parts being inhabited. As in other parts of Morocco labour migration has significantly reduced the local population.

The Journey to Igourdane: Igourdane

The local sheik or headman of the tribe came to meet us. An evidently old man yet of indeterminate age as was the Fakir, the local man responsible for religious instruction in the village.

The Journey to Igourdane: From left to right; Water diviner,
Nasser’s Dad, the Sheikh

The journey to Igourdane: The Faqr

We all gathered in a large, open grassy stretch of ground, dotted with small trees to witness the diviner at work. Once he had found the area he thought showed most promise, he took his forked stick and began pacing the land. With a cry and leap, made with an energy surprising for a man of his years, his divining rod began to identify various points which he had the rest of us mark with piles of stones. Gradually a large circle began to form, outlined by the stone markers.

The Journey to Igourdane: Diviner at Work

The Journey to Igourdane: Divination marker

The diviner then focused in on the interior of the circle with a pendulum technique. Tying a rope around two rocks each the size of two fists he would swing the pendulum a number of times counting and chanting before letting it land on the ground in front of him. He would start the process again marking points with stone as before till he had his central point, the place where we would drill for water.

A sincere and heartfelt ceremony of prayer followed. Palms turned upwards to the sky and the local men and a few of us prayed to Allah the merciful, the compassionate to grant us the good fortune of finding drinking water for the people of Igourdane.

I also took the opportunity of the visit to Igourdane to photograph and survey the project site – a short walk from where the diviner performed his ancient task. It is uncultivated sloping land bordered by wheat and barley on all sides but the one facing the track. A great manageable size.

Journey to Igourdane: Tribal Networks Project site.
Watch this space for cooperation and abundance.

Regenerating naturally, it is full of plants I have not yet seen elsewhere in morocco. I can’t wait for the first work camps, to get our hands dirty with the locals and students, to learn about the local area.

The journey to Igourdane: Down the Mountain

The trip up the mountain was very transformative for all the students. It really gave the second week an extra boost of energy, solidifying the reason we were all there. The students were quick to identify possible areas for water harvesting and offer ideas where the techniques they had learned on the course could be applied to the benefit of the locals.

Group session

There was also a really healthy amount of questioning about our role as aid workers – relativism, appropriate approaches and project models were all debated enthusiastically during and between sessions. This was ideal as during the final few days the students were formed into groups to work on their design projects.

Dave takes us through soil samples from around the farm

Soil that has been washed away by flooding, separated,
settled and baked in the sun

It is evident that the way to gain the most from such a diverse and knowledgeable group of people is to remain open to learning from them, whilst facilitating their understanding of the design process. No matter how many years I am lucky enough to be involved with the permaculture movement and practice permaculture design, I will never stop learning from other people and from my environment. I feel that during my first course as a teacher I gained important experience in making space for others, in listening and in humility.

The designs were tailored around traditional land use patterns. This is particularly challenging in Morocco as land is passed down through a system of patrilineal descent. This has formed a patchwork quilt system of ownership which has to be taken into consideration when working with individuals as members of communities.

Amine and Laurent talk through their design work with David Spicer

The farm where we taught the course belonged to two families, who, while living very close together, shared resources and yet drew distinct property boundaries. Some groups designed for only one half of the property while others assumed cooperation as the basis for their designs. Everyone had the opportunity to communicate with the two young men responsible for their respective households about the land and their openness to design ideas.

Pedro explains his dream design to Asiya and Helen

Asiya, Helen and Houssa working on their design

On the last day of the course the different designs were presented. They displayed a wonderful understanding of the course material and a great range of innovative and original design solutions.

The students’ feedback was heartening to say the least. They had enjoyed the course thoroughly and all felt they were taking a great deal back home with them to work with. There was a great sense of anticipation in the air as the students couldn’t wait to apply what they had learned.

Despite a challenging start I feel the first permaculture design course in Morocco was a great success. In my time after the course I had the privilege of visiting communities that completely lacked the broken and ‘in need’ feeling of Igourdane – communities with the blessing of water, greater biodiversity and strong associations. I met Moroccans from the agro ecology organisation, Terre Humanisme, and members of the Accueil Paysan network, who were all doing truly great work. It is important to remember that Morocco has its own experts, networks and committed individuals. Meeting them and learning from them was an inspiration. It gave a real sense of what is possible in Igourdane.

I am really looking forward to working with Tribal Networks in the future to improve conditions in Igourdane, develop the demonstration site and to work on further courses in Morocco.

Written by Alex Metcalfe. Photo credits to Alex Metcalfe, Asiya Brock, Helen Evans and Houssa Yacoubi. Part III of a series. Be sure to check out Part I and Part II.

Journey to Igourdane: Large communal extended family home.
Only the part on the far right is now inhabited.

The days on the course were spent going through the theory and wandering about on the farm trying to apply it to surrounding landscape. Every now and then we might be given some mint tea, batboot and olive oil.

Pattern in design session

Spicer officanalis and Lucerne

David and Alex

Berber garden: olives, almonds, pomegranates, lucerne, broad beans,
fenced by dead hedge and native cardoon.

Irrigation at Ourthane, the course farm

Lunch was eaten at the spring, usually a tagine or couscous and salad eaten with bread. The day of the souk we had an outstanding dish of sardine meatballs in a very tasty stock.

We were so lucky to get such a rich and diverse bunch of students. The knowledge and experience they contributed to the course was truly invaluable. I don’t think Dave would argue that we learned something new every day through our exchange through the students.

The sessions were structured along the sections of Bill’s A Designers’ Manualalthough there was a certain freedom to discuss and reinforce the material we were going through. Many thanks go out to the multilingual students who helped us clarify the material at each stage to make sure everyone understood it before we moved on.

And so the days passed: learning, food, discussion, practical sessions, mint tea and sunshine. Donkeys brayed, turkeys gobbled and cocks crowed.

Break time. Atay (mint tea), hobbs (bread), and zitoune (olive) oil

On the Sunday in the middle of the course some of us chose to visit the Cascades du Ouzoude, a system of waterfalls a few windy mountain kilometres away.

The visit to the falls provided us with a good break from the course. The first week of a PDC is always going to be intense with so much to take on board and comprehend. We spent the day taking full advantage of the relaxed pace. Rainbows, thundering water and Barbary apes all blessed our visit.

Cascades du Ouzoude: Barbary Macaque and young

Cascades du Ouzoude

The Cacades du Ouzoude is part of a larger watershed fed by highland areas such as Igourdane. The falls are a natural wonder and are truly something to behold and yet they represent so much more. Tourism has blossomed around the falls with restaurants, tea shops, craft and antiques shops studding the terraces and paths around the water. On the day we visited the vast majority of tourists were Moroccan with a few visitors from elsewhere.

This highlights how interconnected places like Ouzoude and Igourdane are when considering permaculture design over larger areas, ecologically and economically. These centres of human activity are interdependent and it is our job as permaculture designers to cultivate the awareness of such relationships and their relevance to the designs we are engaged with.

Cascades du Ouzoude

Cascades du Ouzoude: Waterfall powered flour mill

A real highlight of the course came at the beginning of the second week. The journey to Igourdane was a transformative and emotional experience, a real turning point. The students got to tread in the footsteps of the villagers by taking the route they take to fetch water down the mountain and back albeit in reverse.

The Journey to Igourdane

We held a morning session and after another lip-smacking lunch, this time under venerable shade of the carob elders, we set off on foot, on mules and donkeys for the road into the mountains.

The journey to Igourdane. The journey begins.

Marwane had engaged the services of a water diviner with a track record of locating water for agribusinesses. He was to locate the place we could drill to find potable water. He was an elderly yet ageless, spritely man full of laughter. He always had a smile lurking behind every other expression and a roguish twinkle in his eyes. He took off ahead on a donkey before we set off, we wouldn’t see him again till we reached Igourdane some hours later, where he greeted us with the villagers as if he were the tortoise and we were the hares.

The journey to Igourdane: dried up river bed and ruined Ksar

The way to Igourdane from the farm led through sparsely planted olive groves, a seasonal water course and a dried up river bed, before we reached the road itself – a rough limestone track that would allow two pannier laden donkeys to pass each other comfortably. The track climbed gently higher before turning in the twisting hairpin bends of a mountain path.

The journey to Igourdane: Traditional buildings

I rode a mule up the mountain having only ridden camels before. I actually did very well all things considered. Advice on how to ride comfortably from the others was just as well as my mule refused to let the pace be set by the other animals and took me off a fair way ahead of the rest of our train. I assumed he wanted to be rid of such a heavy burden as quickly as possible.

As the path lifted us steeply out of the foothills, allowing us a wider view of mountains, the stone track was patterned by water and covered with small stones and scree. I fell in such a rhythm with the mule that using the movement of my body I was willing each step he took to be sure and firm, as every now and then he would slip on pebbles and the polished rock before correcting himself without breaking the rhythm of his doleful stride.

It was an incredibly hot and arduous journey for those of us uninitiated with travelling through mountains (not including Dave of course). However it was the ideal way to impress upon the students and me, as to what life was really like for the people of Igourdane, to tread in their footsteps even just a little, to put ourselves in their position, to try and understand.

As the path levelled out, dwellings, carob and olive trees came into view. Sadly the first house we passed belonged to a family who had had to leave the area, mainly due to a lack of potable water.

The journey to Igourdane: Immature carob pods

It was not long before children appeared from here and there, hollering news of our arrival through cupped hands and thus, thanks to the Berber telegraph Igourdane knew our exact whereabouts and estimated time of arrival. Faces familiar and new greeted us and our caravan and led us to the shade of ancient carob trees that had been planted long ago in the shape of a horseshoe – the roots of which had been mounded up with rocks to form a shady and cool corral for stock. The welcoming party consisted of the local men, farmers, boys and elders. We exchanged warm greetings before resting and taking stock of the place we had all been thinking of for so long; in my case for well over a year.

Igourdane dam. Heavier than usual seasonal rains have given a
false impression here. This was taken in May. By August this will be dry.
As will the surrounding land. Just look at that unused catchment above….

The village consists of homesteads and house clusters dotted about terraces and plateaus amidst dry-stoned walled fields of barley, wheat, lentils, olives and carobs. The buildings are constructed out of stone and pisé with traditional roofs made of long poles laid over modular square rooms and piled with earth and sods with grass growing above.

Cross breed calf

Morocco Observations, Past, Present and Future – Part II

Aid Projects, Courses/Workshops, Demonstration Sites, Education Centres, People Systems,Society, Village Development — by Alex Metcalfe July 28, 2010

Written by Alex Metcalfe. Photo credits to Alex Metcalfe, Asiya Brock, Helen Evans and Houssa Yacoubi. Part II of a Series. Click here for Part I.

Spicer and Asiya Brock shop for supplies in Marrakesh Medina

Consistent with Global Warming trends, Observation from Morocco’s National Meteorological Directorate show rising temperatures, less precipitation, and an increase in drought, widening the gap between water supply and demand. Average temperatures are expected to rise between 2 and 5 degree Celsius by the end of the century, while rainfall is predicted to decline 20 to 30%. – Moroccan Coastal Management: Building Capacity to Adapt to Climate Change through Sustainable Policies and Planning

Deforestation, water management and erosion are all evidently interlinked and inseparable issues faced by rural Imazighen, particularly those living amongst the unique and ever changing weather systems of the high Atlas Mountains.

After my first memorable visit I searched for a project in Morocco I could contribute to. I wanted to have a good reason for returning, something other than purely for pleasure. Morocco is a country where everyone can have a passport, but only those with enough cash in their bank account can get a visa to travel to places like Europe or the U.S. I had a much smaller sum in my account when I went to Morocco the first time and yet I was free to do so. That fact set me apart in some sense from the people I had the pleasure to meet and although they did not appear overly occupied with it, it was something I was keenly aware of. I felt that if I could work with Moroccans I would receive a more intimate education on life in their country than I would as a tourist and hopefully earn their respect by doing so. Like many, many other people who volunteer or work for positive change abroad I wanted, if possible, to side step what can sometimes turn into a series of purely economic interactions. I wanted to meet people’s families, work with them, to eat at their table and to digest their way of life literally instead of just intellectually.

Finally, in early 2009 I found Tribal Networks, a small NGO working to provide advanced communications equipment such as radio broadband to remote indigenous peoples so that they may communicate with centralised authorities and participate in decision making processes that affect them, their way of life and their ancestral lands.

I got in touch with Andy Homer co-founder and director of Tribal Networks and told him who I was and what I thought I had to offer. As luck would have it the project was at an ideal stage for me to come onboard as a project coordinator and from then on I have never looked back.

Tribal Networks

Tribal Network’s initial plan was to provide radio broadband for the remote village of Igourdane where they had been invited to work via a family connection in County Cork Ireland, where Tribal Networks is based. However on travelling to the community in April 2008 the visiting members of Tribal Networks soon realised that the people of Igourdane had much more pressing concerns that needed to be addressed before digital communications could become an urgent priority.

Igourdane, nearly 1000 feet above sea level is a Tashelhit (Tamazight dialect) speaking community in the High Atlas Mountains.

En route to Ourthane, the course farm

As with much of Morocco the wider area has become heavily deforested. Overgrazing is increasing pressure on the land. With limited vegetation to mop up rainfall and hold it in the higher landscape flash flooding has become a yearly occurrence causing regular fatalities. With the loss of tree cover the higher land cannot allow water to percolate slowly downward to traditional wells and springs, causing the water table to fall further and further. The loss of traditional water sources means that the villagers must travel down the mountain to a well in a dried up river bed which can often be contaminated by runoff and animal faeces. The other choice being to drink the filthy stagnant water that collects in the village. The journey down the mountain to the well is a round trip of about 10km (and even further to reach a spring) fetching perhaps 40 plus litres at a time using donkeys and mules.
As with many other communities in Morocco and indeed the rest of the world, the young and able of Igourdane are migrating to the cities and the rapidly growing new urban centres are swelling with the influx of the rural poor. The lack of a local source of potable water is in fact causing whole families to leave the area altogether.

In response to the problems faced by the people of Igourdane, Tribal Networks contacted the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia to see if they could help in any way. Geoff and Nadia Lawton subsequently paid a visit to Igourdane in December 2008. Geoff, after having made some preliminary recommendations regarding the rehabilitation of the watershed then encouraged long time friend and colleague David Spicer to become the principal designer for the project site purchased by Tribal Networks.

Tribal Networks is developing a Permaculture demonstration site and education centre in Igourdane that will also act as a community space and as a school for local children.
After visiting Igourdane in 2009 Dave came up with a design for the site including the Education centre.

Now that we had a design we had to plan out the process that would make it possible.
The people of Igourdane are open and happy to have interest in their community that might have some kind beneficial impact on their economy and livelihoods. However after some bad experiences with NGOs they are understandably cautious and discerning. A few years ago an NGO promised to bring water to the area from a distant source via a pipeline and pump station. When the money ran out they abandoned everything they had built and disappeared. In their desperation the villagers smashed the pipes open to see if they contained any water. They did not. After a couple of years talking and meeting with Tribal Networks the community was impatient for something tangible to occur to prove to them that our enthusiasm to help could be backed up by action.

It was therefore of vital importance then that the next steps in our plan began to manifest positive change for the people of Igourdane.

We had already been facilitating the networking of Moroccans interested in or already practicing Permaculture. Andy had created a user driven French language Permaculture networking and resource web page. We were using that page to raise awareness of the work we were doing whilst at the same time facilitating the growth of a national Moroccan Permaculture network. The flow of information from that resource in addition to the correspondence we had built up through other contacts had brought us to the stage where we could feasibly hold a course that would attract enough students.

Tribal Network’s plan is to hold Permaculture courses, full PDCs, work camps and intro courses in Morocco to raise both funds and awareness for the project in Igourdane whilst simultaneously boosting and working with existing associations and grassroots organisations present in Morocco.

The first course was an ideal opportunity to; test our capabilities, attract international students and to raise funds for our work in Igourdane.

The villagers’ main concern was the lack of potable water in the community – before anything else was going to happen they needed to see an improvement in that respect. A borehole might not be an ideal action in an area with a falling water table however as a short term measure that can both alleviate the suffering of the local people and gain Tribal Networks some credibility in the area, we saw it as a viable choice – besides the fact that without that source of water we would also be unable to kick start our implementation plan for the demonstration site.

Break for tea en route to Al Garage

Our primary aim has to be to get the earthworks, ‘the bones of the system’, as Dave calls them, completed before we even contemplate putting on courses at the site. This is because practical examples are so vital to germinating a working understanding of Permaculture design, especially if the students can help to build them. We would need cover crops and trees to be ready when the earthworks are completed and those elements would need a nursery to raise them. That in turn would need a dependable source of water.

It was all hinged on putting on that all important first course. We couldn’t yet concentrate on training people from Igourdane for the first course as we did not yet have the linguistic resources to facilitate that. We couldn’t descend upon their community with demands for the comfort of a group of students, especially during the first course, while we were still finding our feet logistically. No. This course was to be the first step in a process that would lead to Tribal Networks being able to work with the community to produce a demonstration site; where we can actually show the local people the social, environmental and economic benefits of a well designed system, a place where they can participate and work alongside students from around the world to comprehend Permaculture on their own terms and within their own community.

Morocco is beautiful, exotic and vibrant. It can also be equal parts challenging and rewarding working there. With people day to day to organise and run the course I was forced to cultivate an awareness of my limited local knowledge. The understanding of how to get things done that I had brought from my own culture, the way I communicated this, and the pace at which it should happen, were all potential clash-points if I let them be. I like to think of myself as a laid back person with an above average level of patience when dealing with others and I am sure those who know me would agree. It’s a standing joke that the pace of life in Morocco is more relaxed and that certain things may take longer to happen than you’d expect elsewhere. I felt that this was good for me in that it made me decide what I really thought was truly urgent and the rest of the times I began to submit to the pace of things and relax.

I don’t like the term developing country. My dislike is not out of some flaky and misguided sense of romanticism where I’d wish all the quaint and exotic places I like to visit stay the same, unchanged by time and globalisation. I simply reject the notion that where I come from somehow denotes that I am more advanced or further along than someone from Morocco for example. I agree that there is often a huge disparity in financial wealth and access to resources and opportunities, however that does not make me a more capable or able individual.

For the past year or so myself, Andy Homer, David Spicer and our man in Morocco, Marwane Ammazine, had been organising the first PDC in Morocco and on the 18th of May this year our efforts bore their hard earned fruits.

Introductions… Hello my name is Marwane… I am from Marrakesh….

After working and communicating mainly online, with very limited resources and despite losing three students to a volcanic eruption, we managed to get ten budding Permaculture designers to attend our very first course.

The Course

I arrived in Marrakesh on the 14th of April – a few days before the course was due to start. My flight found itself in a queue spiralling high above the city. While circling Marrakesh I could make out the boundaries of development and the agricultural land immediately outside of it. Bright green irrigated squares and irregularly shaped patches were etched with the familiar order of 21st century agribusiness. Everywhere without exception I could see a second type of plot adjacent to the rest, a bright sandy colour dotted with the remnant tufts of vegetation and the broken lines of stunted crops. That land was plainly exhausted. It had evidently ceased to be productive enough to make a return and had been abandoned to time and the wind. It was clear from this small snapshot that the type of modern agriculture being practiced in Morocco was inappropriate at best and destructive in the long term.
After meeting up with Marwane in Marrakesh we had both intended to head off to mountains with supplies and materials, to check on the course accommodation and generally ensure everything was ready and as it should be.

View across the course site. Olives and barley.

Enter Eyjafjallajökull, the Icelandic volcano that erupted a day or so after I had flown to Morocco, shrouding much of Europe in an enormous cloud of smoke and ash and seriously affecting flights from all over the world. Would our students make it? Was it the beginning of the apocalypse? Would we have to cancel the course?

In the end the three students who were unable to fly out of their respective homelands were Chloe, Simon and Tom. After three to four days of trying and with no hope of even getting on a train or a boat, all of which were jammed with other people in the same predicament, we were sorry to lose the privilege of meeting them. We had also lost three vital days waiting for those students who might make it through the ash cloud to Marrakesh.
We spent a long hectic day shopping around and haggling for course materials and foodstuffs, all things that would be either expensive or unavailable once we arrived in Al Garage.

Spices for sale, Souk day, Al Garage

After picking up Asiya (Australia) and then Helen (British, living in Spain) we packed two cars with people, supplies and equipment and headed for the hills.

Al Garage is a small town with a wild west frontier feel to it. A few roads criss-cross each other surrounded by an ever growing number of new concrete homes. The main road is lined with all manner of kiosks, grocers, open butcher shops and men selling cigarettes on upturned wooden fruit crates. Piles of watermelon stand next to scrubby wastelands, strewn with trash and fetid pools of water. Dogs lazy in the midday heat sleep under the trucks parked in front of the butcher shops, hoping for scraps. People, families live there, it’s full of the regular daily movement of the young from school and back again, people living and making a little business.

Marwane dishing out lunch

As Andy once said “it’s a place that has never made any concessions to tourists”; rarely do any ever stop there. Cars and trucks park along side donkeys and carts. Men, some in western dress and some wearing jellabas hold hands with old friends sharing news and gossip. It is not a pretty place but after a few days of finding its rhythm it holds a certain charm over you. Families will often promenade especially on a souk day or on Friday and a Sunday, in what we would think of as the late evening. The cafe culture is mostly male orientated however nobody bothers you to order again or move on. The cafes were a great respite for Dave and I to order some strong coffee and go over the days teaching or simply people watch and pass the time. When the muezzins calls go up from the minarets, they synchronise and harmonise their call to the faithful, invoking a peaceful sense of domestic order, communality and togetherness. The call to prayer around seven is also the signal that the Hammam is open for the next three hours. Considering the hot water was out of order at the house, the Hammam felt like an opulent palace bath when in fact it was the community wash house.

The rest of the students found their own way to Al Garage and we met them at the course house.

Altogether the first class of 2010 came from as far afield as Spain, Australia, Switzerland, and Britain, urban and rural Morocco.

Once we had surmounted the challenges of lost time and settled into the house and found our cook Rabha, the course found its own rhythm. Rabha is a highly renowned cook who caters for weddings, festivals and visiting dignitaries and we were very lucky have her.

Rabha: Making Batboot

Our days began with breakfast. Fresh bread, crepes, jam, cheese, olives and olive oil washed down with fresh mint tea and coffee. On some days Rabha treated us to the wonderfully named batboot. A lighter naan like bread.

The course took place on an Amazigh farm just outside Al Garage in the Ait Attab tribal region of the High Atlas mountains. We held it there because it was as close to where we could accommodate the bulk of the group in Al Garage with the rest camping on the farm. It was also the closest location from which we could practically access our partner community, Igourdane.

Marwane, Said (Marwane’s brother) and Nasser (his cousin) would take us by car and minibus to a kilometre or so outside of town. We passed groups of women and families harvesting lentils, fields of barley, children and old men on mules and donkeys.

As the country turned into Olive groves we were dropped off in a clearing by the side of the road. Marwane and co would return with lunch in the early afternoon.

Local people fetching water

Following a path downhill through the olives trees we came to the spring – three short pipes jutting from a slab of rock feeding a stream. This is where people from miles around come to fetch water with mules and donkeys. Great rubber or wicker panniers carrying 20-25 litre drums are filled, secured and taken back home into the mountains. The water appears clean, tasty and healthy. Hundreds of frogs and tadpoles live in and around the water.

After exchanging warm greetings to whomever we met that morning at the spring, we made the short walk through olive trees, under-planted with wheat and barley, to the farms of Hassan and Yousseff. The sea of barley shone like golden hair as it waved dreamily around us.

The classroom

Our classroom was the shade of two ancient Carob trees one male and one female. (Apparently, if the wild grape vines, a type of Muscat, grow up a Carob tree the carob imparts a delicious flavour and fragrance to the grapes. The carob pods mature some weeks after the grapes.)

Aside from the two families living there we were not alone! A few berber/fresian cross cattle and calves, several chickens, a duck, turkeys and lovelorn donkeys kept us company and on occasion let their opinions be known on some subject or another.

Morocco Observations, Past, Present and Future – Part I

byAlex Metcalfe July 21, 2010

Written by Alex Metcalfe. Photo credits to Alex Metcalfe, Asiya Brock, Helen Evans and Houssa Yacoubi.

The view from the course site ‘Ourthane’ which means ‘gardens’

Background

In 2004, during my first visit to Morocco, one night in the desert with the full moon at its zenith I climbed an enormous dune with Francois and Vincent, two Québécois I had met on the bus journey south.

Ascending that great pile of sand, every step forward seemed to take us three steps back. Our beleaguered progress was painfully slow. The nameless mountain of sand we were climbing stood far above neighbouring dunes to shelter a small and equally anonymous oasis a few hours slow and ponderous journey by camel from Merzouga, a small, one road collection of pisé houses and auberges that sit amidst the bleak and stony Hamada. The only movements to catch the eye was the shimmering heat rising from the Earth and the tall, thin and spectral twisters that listlessly faded into existence only to fade out again, as if exhausted under the unforgiving glare of the desert sun from the effort of giving form to the eddying winds of the Hamada.

Earth bricks dry at the oasis of Oaroun near Guelmime, southern Morocco

In the midst of that seemingly abiotic plain lay the Erg Chebbi. A favourite with tourists and travellers, this patch of Saharan dunes seem to have wandered off from the true Sahara to the south, or from nearby Algeria, in search of a new home. It was this nomadic patch of sand that I found myself surveying while my companions and I stopped to catch our breath after reaching the summit of the great dune. The entire scene that lay before us was coloured an iridescent midnight blue – a sea of sand frozen in time, bathed in the milky glow of the full moon.

What had really struck me as I travelled the length of the country was how different the many parts of the country actually looked and felt. The Mediterranean coast and the Rif Mountains, the Atlantic coast, the middle Atlas and the east, Marrakesh and Central Morocco, the Souss, the Anti Atlas and the Western Sahara are all unique in their peculiarities of climate, endemic species and subsistence patterns. I was surprised at how green much of Morocco can be and how much food is grown in the mountain valleys by the tribes who live there. Visiting the old cities of Morocco you feel a great sense of the grandeur of antiquity. Palaces, tombs and Kasbahs abound.

Courtyard garden, el badi palace, Marrakesh

Ceiling detail, el Badi palace – it took Artisans 14 years to complete their work

After piecing together the order of the dynasties who built them, that either swept into Morocco with the green tide of Islam or erupted from within, I began to look at the wider landscape and what it could tell me about how it had been used. Which land use strategies had fallen into disuse and which were still being practiced? How much had human activity shaped the country as I saw it now? How did Morocco look and function a hundred, five hundred or even a thousand years ago and which elements and consequently functions/ecosystem services had been lost. During my first visit these questions were still only in an embryonic form and despite my enthusiasm for Permaculture, I didn’t have the right eyes with which to comprehend what I was seeing. I wasn’t ready to understand the relationship between humans and the land holistically.

Once I began to think about the historical ecology of Morocco, and after experiencing the most heartfelt warmth and genuine hospitality of its people, I found I was irrevocably and unashamedly hooked.

Calf at the Tuareg camel souk, Guelmime

What is truly remarkable about that desert experience is how, despite reflecting what is often depicted as the archetypal Moroccan adventure, it represented an incredibly myopic vision of the country – a classic case of ‘the map is not the territory’. I had been sold an arid land of desert and Kasbahs; inevitably Morocco is a far more complex and rewarding place than I had previously understood it to be. I feel it important then, that I provide some general information on Morocco, the challenges the country faces and to clearly demonstrate why Permaculture aid projects, such as that being undertaken by the Permaculture Research Institute and Tribal Networks, are appropriate responses.

Exhausted, salted land. Biomass burned after harvest. Guelmime.

Morocco’s 2,008km (1) coastline stretches along the Mediterranean in the north, round past Tangiers and down alongside the Atlantic to Tarfaya in the south. Depending on which map you happen to be using, La Guera at the southernmost tip of the disputed Western Sahara region can be considered the southern limit to Morocco, in which case this extends the country below the tropic of cancer by approximately 280km and bringing the total length of the country’s coastline to around 3,500km (2). With such a vast coastline and with much of its economic activity being primarily fishing and tourism, clustered around coastal areas, Morocco is particularly vulnerable to predicted rises in sea levels.

The two mountain ranges of Morocco – the Rif, where I had travelled in 2004, and the Atlas (where Tribal Networks arranged the first PDC in Morocco) – feature prominently not only in the topography of the country but also in the national psyche. The Rif Mountains skirt the Mediterranean for most of their 290km, home to fiercely independent tribes that have resisted attempts to subdue their independence at every turn throughout recorded history.

The Atlas Mountains act as a dividing line between the two main climatic zones, the Mediterranean northern coastal regions, and the southern interior which borders the Sahara. As in many countries throughout the world that have suffered successive colonial occupations, these two mountainous regions have long been strongholds of Berber tribes, their traditions and culture.

Understanding the land use patterns and the movement of the many tribes and peoples in Morocco are no simple matter. Communities that seem well established may actually have originated elsewhere. Patterns of subsistence may have changed many times as tribes migrated across the country. Some sedentary tribes are in fact long established whilst others may have settled more recently and many were nomadic for at least part of the year moving with their flocks from lowland to highland pastures. Certain tribes used to speak Berber and now speak Arabic whereas for other tribes they began speaking Arabic and now speak Berber. What is clear is that of the 31,627,428 (3) Moroccans, 99.1% are of Arab-Berber ethnicity. Berber, or Tamazight as it is increasingly becoming referenced as, is only in recent years gaining more respect as a language and as a respected core element of Amazigh culture. There are a few Tamazight language newspapers and television broadcasts. Yet despite some positive developments and comprising at least 45% of the population, Imazighen (plural of Amazigh) are still, for the most part, socially and economically marginalised (4), suffering high illiteracy rates and chronic under investment in historically deprived areas (5).

Harvesting wheat in the Souss

The main environmental issues faced by Imazighen are deforestation, erosion, water resource depletion, erratic rainfall and subsequent flash flooding interspersed with prolonged periods of drought and the dumping of raw sewage into water courses.

Deforestation

Deforestation in morocco merits close attention not only as an environmental catastrophe as it does anywhere in the world but because of the colonial narrative upon which much of modern thinking on desertification and deforestation is based. All of this has demonised, displaced and disrupted indigenous land use methods in Morocco for the last hundred years.

Sparsely wooded foothills. Is this a natural or entirely manmade landscape?

Authoritative commentators such as the 16th century travel writer Leo Africanus writing in his ‘A Geographical History of Africa’, and historians of antiquity; Herodotus, Pliny, Procopius, Strabo and Ptolemy have all been quoted time and time again to support the now dominant view of North African historical ecology when in fact the conventional environmental history of North Africa most widely

…accepted today was created during the French colonial period. Before the conquest of Algeria, North Africa had been most commonly depicted in French and European writings as a fertile land that had lapsed into decadence under the “primitive” techniques of the “lazy natives.” (6)

During this period the Arab chronicler Ibn Khaldoun was often selectively quoted so as to racially stereotype Arabs and Berbers as destructive and therefore undeserving of their own lands.

In less than two decades, there emerged a colonial environmental narrative that blamed the indigenous peoples, especially herders, for deforesting and degrading what was once the apparently highly fertile “granary of Rome” in North Africa. The declensionist story that quickly developed was used throughout the colonial period to rationalize and to motivate French colonization across North Africa. This narrative and its utilization reached their apogee between 1880 and 1930, precisely the period during which colonial activities caused the most deforestation. (7)

It has now been established that until approximately 1000 BCE forest cover varied considerably from region to region throughout the Mediterranean and the Middle East (8). The physical evidence available today such as carbon-14 dated pollen core analysis suggests ‘that there has been a long history of a comparatively treeless landscape with a dynamic and migrating vegetation’ (9).

Morocco has in fact been the subject of more paleoecological research than any other country in North Africa. Whilst there is evidently disparity between depletion of natural forest cover and new cover provided by replanting initiatives, modern data suggests there is no definitive overall pattern of massive deforestation on the order of the frequently claimed 50 to 85 percent over the last two millennia (10). Some species such as the deciduous oak declined sharply around three thousand years ago probably due to climatic conditions however other species have increased in number, with minor fluctuations, including oaks, cedar, juniper, pine, and other trees.

Forests cover 5 814 000 ha, made up of 63 percent deciduous species (holm oak [Quercus ilex], cork oak [Quercus suber], argan [Argania spinosa] and Saharan acacias [Acacia spp.]) and 20 percent conifers (cedar [Cedrus spp.], thuya [Tetraclinis articulata], juniper [Juniperus spp.], pine [Pinus spp.], Atlas cypress [Cupressus atlantica] and fir [Abies spp.]), while the remaining 17 percent are low formations (scrub and secondary species)… (11)

There are reforestation initiatives in Morocco, ‘planted forests cover nearly 500 000 ha and are expanding at an average annual rate of 8 percent’ a year however this is ‘well below the optimal rate (15 to 20 percent)’(12) for maintaining a basic, functioning level of ecosystem services.

In the U.K where we replant and manage (the efficacy of which is debatable) what forest cover we have left, deforestation still wreaks ecological havoc. The 2007 flash floods cost the U.K over £3 billion with scores of people yet to return to their flood damaged homes. Moroccan plantations, even if implemented as part of a well designed system, cannot replicate the ecosystem services provided by natural forest cover overnight. Land repair takes time. Permaculture design aims to facilitate and speed up the natural process of regeneration by creating the ideal conditions for the land to heal itself.

It is important to balance research and established opinion with indigenous knowledge and personal intuition. In researching for this article I found many supposedly authoritative sources echoing the colonial narrative despite finding contemporary academic studies that provided data to the contrary. It is clear that though Morocco is the most highly forested country in the Maghreb it is suffering from deforestation and environmental degradation. Undoubtedly there are multiple threats to forests in Morocco; felling for timber and fuel (for home use and particularly for Hammams) and non coppice based charcoal production. Yet in accepting without question the flawed and defunct colonial fiction of Morocco’s environmental history we perpetrate the further demonization of Imazighen. The very people we need to work with and learn from in order to repair damaged landscapes in Morocco.

Erosion

Erosion around a seasonal watercourse. High atlas.

Erosion in Morocco is wide spread and highly destructive. Without forest cover to mop up run off in the highlands, seasonal and increasingly erratic rainfall careers unchecked through the landscape – causing flash floods which claim lives every year. Vital roads are regularly washed away and rebuilt and washed away. Some indigenous land use strategies that have been disrupted from the colonial period onwards can be seen as contributing to the erosion problem: concentrated as opposed to sustainable nomadic grazing, cultivation of marginal and brittle landscapes, timber extraction for fuel and charcoal production and the loss of the labour force needed to maintain traditional agricultural systems such as terracing. The over grazing of goats is often ironically singled out as a major hindrance to natural regeneration and as a major cause of erosion and soil depletion. Inevitably this is an overly simplistic account of the situation and an attempt to neatly parcel off the problem as yet another tragedy of the commons. However goats are an essential part of the rural economy throughout Morocco. Argan trees, a major economic resource, are browsed by goats and the nuts are traditionally processed only once they have passed through the animal’s digestive system. I have personally seen Carob trees thriving above a goat browse line. If managed properly as part of a considered conservation grazing plan, they are an essential feature of the landscape which can be highly beneficial to the maintenance of the systems they inhabit.

Water

Debris, left over a metre above water level by flash flooding

Water is becoming an increasingly scarce resource in Morocco. Over 80% of the surface water is used by agriculture, often in flood irrigation systems. In the south this is usually done under plastic. In marginal croplands the ground becomes heavily compacted and salinated. Once the use of chemical inputs becomes ineffectual the land is abandoned as worthless and cultivation is moved to another area. Up until the 14th century irrigation was provided where needed, apparently sustainably, primarily by the use of canals and diversions from larger water courses in lowland areas, and the diversion and redistribution of springs and rivers in mountain communities. A good example of an indigenous water management system is the Khettera.

Dave Spicer & Olivier Vuillemin investigate the Khettera at the
Brainseeder project near Guelmime

After the breakup of important economic centres, such as Sijilmassa (A.D. 757-1393) (13), which often acted as hubs for water harvesting and distribution, the Khatterat system was widely employed as a way of sustainably harvesting and democratically distributing water – predominantly in the plateaus, plains and deserts of Morocco. Khatterats are underground galleries dug at a gentle slope and intersected with deep service shafts. Khetterats draw water from an aquifer, often at the place where mountains meet the level ground in an alluvial fan, and can stretch over 20km to carry water to agricultural settlements such as Oases (14, 15). The Khetterat…

… management system … operates on the basis of utilizing a man-made gradient to draw water from aquifers. Water withdrawal in such traditional systems: (a) is achieved under gravity and without application of an external power source; (b) minimizes evaporation losses because water storage and transport is mostly underground; and (c) can only withdraw water which is available in the aquifer through natural recharge, avoiding any over-exploitation of groundwater resources. This traditional technology is a particularly effective system considering the water scarcity, weather conditions and low-level technology generally available in this region. In communities working together to maintain these systems, long-term benefits can be enjoyed by all without a major capital investment and with nominal operation and maintenance cost. (16)

Very Large disused Khettera, at the Brainseeders project site near Guelmime.
Evidently still the most hospitable place for plant life.

Socio-economic changes in Morocco have altered land use strategies and ‘globally important agricultural heritage systems’ (17) are being gradually abandoned in favour modern water management systems. As systems such as the Khettera fall into disuse, so declines the knowledge of how to manage and repair them. Major water infrastructure projects such as the construction of dams, have lowered the water table available to Khettera user communities. The green revolution and the subsequent introduction of petrol pumps have only served to lower water tables even further. (18)

References:

1. http://earthtrends.wri.org/pdf_library/country_profiles/coa_cou_504.pdf
2. http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/Blogs/atlantic_rising/321827/atlantic_rising_adapting_to_climate_change_in_morocco.html
3. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/mo.html
4. http://www.amazigh-voice.com/history.html
5. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/03/16/MN145053.DTL
   (RESURRECTING THE GRANARY OF ROME — 2007, Environmental History and French Colonial Expansion in North Africa, By Diana K. Davis.)
6. http://www.ohioswallow.com/extras/9780821417515_chapter_01.pdf
   ibid.
7. http://www.ohioswallow.com/extras/9780821417515_chapter_01.pdf
   ibid.
8. http://www.ohioswallow.com/extras/9780821417515_chapter_01.pdf
   ibid.
9. http://www.ohioswallow.com/extras/9780821417515_chapter_01.pdf
   ibid.
10. http://www.ohioswallow.com/extras/9780821417515_chapter_01.pdf
    ibid.
11. http://www.fao.org/forestry/country/57478/en/mar/
12. http://www.fao.org/forestry/country/57478/en/mar/
13. Moroccan Khettara Dale R. Lightfoot
14. Lessons Learned from Qanat studies: A Proposal for International Cooperation – Iwao Kobori
15. UNDERGROUND WATER GALLERIES IN MIDDLE EAST AND CENTRAL ASIA: Survey of historical documents and archaeological studies, Renato Sala, Laboratory of Geo-archaeology, Institute of Geology, Academy of Sciences of Kazakhstan
16. Seeing Traditional Technologies in a New Light, Using Traditional Approaches for Water Management in Drylands The United Nations World Water Assessment Programme, Insights, World Water Assessment Programme Side publications series INSIGHTS United Nations, Cultural Organization
    Edited byHarriet Bigas, Zafar Adeel and Brigitte Schuster United Nations University International Network on Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH)
17. http://www.fao.org/nr/giahs/en/
18. The Ground swell of Pumps: Mulitlevel Impacts of a Silent revolution, Francois Molle, Tushaar Shah and Randy Barker.

http://nowthensheffield.blogspot.com/2009/02/nt05-may-dan-mumford.html

Check out my article on page 9. Its from a while back but there’s more coming soon…

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