LESSONS OF THE PIRAHA

DON'T SLEEP THERE ARE SNAKES
I've been re-reading a brilliant book, "Don't sleep, there are snakes," by ex-missionary and linguist, Daniel Everett.

He goes to live with an Amazonian tribe to learn their language, so that the bible can be translated for them, and so that they can be "saved". His story tells how, far from his Christianity saving the tribe, he came to realise that their philosophy and way of life was far superior to his own:
"I have never seen people facing so many difficulties, with so much grace: it deeply impressed me."
They were happy, lived in abundance, no one ordered anyone else around and they had no fear of death anyway. In the end they "saved" him and he became an atheist. Their saying, "Don't sleep, there are snakes," to each other at night time, is a reminder to be personally resilient and alert to the dangers around them. They only sleep in snatches of a couple of hours at a time.

They live by hunting, gathering, fishing and tending a few simple crops. They gather nuts to trade for the few things they don't make or harvest for themselves: eg machetes and some clothing. Their language is fascinating, they don't have words for numbers or colours, it can be whistled or hummed, and it's based around their immediate experience rather than the past or future.

SO WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THE PIRAHA?

These are a people whose kind of way of life has been going on for millions of years without damaging it's world - unlike ours, which has already half destroyed the world after just 250 years. As we make the transition, like it or not, from an industrial way of life to something sustainable we could learn:

• To regenerate the natural wealth in our locality so we can live mainly from that
• To live simpler lives with as little stuff as possible
• To co-operate without hierarchies

And we could hope to learn to live, like them, happily in the present moment.

Carbon Sequestration for Gardens and Farms

..."we now know how much carbon can be stored and that it could give us enough time to transition to a low carbon society"...

Glomalin and Mycorrhizal Fungi at work - pic from Soil Carbon Regeneration site

I've been doing a bit of research on a key focus for One World Future Farm, Carbon Sequestration, (separate page here). Here's a few articles which I've found really encouraging:
LIQUID CARBON
In an article in Resilience here, Adrian Ayres Fisher describes the process of carbon sequestration by plants acting with mycorrhizal fungi. Carbon leaks out of plants' roots into the soil - why would they let this happen?
..."like canny traders, plants use the liquid carbon, or “root exudates,” as a kind of exchange medium, which they trade to mycorrhizal fungi, bacteria and other microbes not only in return for nutrients such as nitrogen (those free-living bacteria get their own carbon fuel by living in association with growing plants) and phosphorus, but also the wide range of other nutrients plants need to help fuel growth. In fact, in healthy soil plants get 85-90% of nutrients they need through this carbon exchange. In the process, vast networks of mycorrhizae form in the soil, connecting plant roots with nutrients they couldn’t otherwise access." Synthetic fertilisers simply switch this process off. A good read.
ECOLOGICAL GARDENING
Here's another great article, more on the disaster of synthetic fertilisers and how to wean ourselves off them.
And here's an article about a visit to Eric Toensmeier's home where he's been exploring just how much carbon can be captured in a home-scale garden.
I'm really looking forward to getting started in practice with all this! Please help us get off the ground, and back onto the ground, with a small donation - One World one pound at a time - thank you!