On one the first days of my stay at Kasungu National Park I am sitting in the car with Amanda (Wildlife vet from Lilongwe Wildlife Center) on the way back to camp when she says “let’s go visit Remi”. I have no idea who or what Remi is but, always curious, fine, I say. We turn down a side track and pull up by a little bungalow and are greeted by a tall, very skinny blonde woman. This , it turns out, is Remi, a former LWC volunteer who stayed on and is now running a small charity foundation to protect the few remaining Elephants in Kasungu ( see links: Kasungu Elephant Foundation.) She tells us they have been having problems with some Elephants, probably a small gang of bachelors, who regularly raid a village just outside the park to steal maize from the farmers; in doing so they make a lot of damage and are a real danger. She has come up with a solution: installing be-hives along the (unfenced) park boundary. It seems Elephants are scared of bees! The villagers also go in to the park for various illegal purposes, mainly fire-wood “poaching” and now Remi in collaboration with a Malawian NGO (WESM – Wildlife Environmental Society of Malawi) is hoping to wean them from this by improving their livelihood with organic Mushroom culture and a permaculture vegetable garden. When I hear this, my ears prick up; I tell her I have a little experience with permaculture and she literally begs me to come out the site and give a hand. I am delighted, Amanda is happy to be rid of me for a while, so we make a date and a day or two later Remi picks me up and we drive out to Mandaka, the village where all this is happening.
Charles, Remi and Msaya
Our first stop is at a small homestead near the main road. We are supposed to meet Charles, the WESM officer running the project, here. This is the home of Msaya, the carpenter who built the bee-hives for the village and contributed his expertise in bee-keeping. He is also making a sofa for Remi and she wants to check on it’s progress. However , when we arrive neither Charles or Msaya are present. Msaya’s wife offers me some freshly harvested honeycomb (delicious) and I take a look around. This place is very different from the surrounding area. There are trees everywhere, it looks pretty much like the forest inside the park. Bee-hives hang here and there and some very healthy looking goats, pigs and chickens are restricted to pens. Talk about permaculture!
Msaya’s Goats
Finally Charles shows up, Msaya arrives on a bicycle, sofas are discussed and we set off to the village, not before I leave two empty plastic bottles to be filled with Honey ( I thrive on this Honey over the next days, on toast, in porridge and just a spoonful now and then – it is the best honey ever, no exaggeration).
Today is a big day for the project. Charles has brought several bottles of Oyster Mushroom culture with him and its time to prepare the first sacks of chopped up and washed Maize stalks , inoculate them and set them up in the growing house. The men and women from the village are dressed in their newest and brightest clothes, they listen and make careful notes as Charles explains the procedure and a lively chant accompanies the actual work around the new bore-hole and pump set up by Remi’s donors. Here’s a short video I made:
Lots of excitement, Charles is busy running around and making sure everything is done correctly ( he has also brought some heavy-duty transparent PE for the growing house roof to replace the flimsy stuff it has been built with, so there is a team up on the roof removing thatch, replacing the plastic and putting thatch back on). It’s far to busy to talk about permaculture design so I walk around, think, observe and enjoy myself. I make a little promotion video (in dutch) with Remi in the adjacent woods where the bee-hive line is. The ladies make us a splendid lunch and Remi brings out some crates of Coca-cola, Fanta and Sprite to celebrate.
Charles explains
Remi explains (note the beehive behind her)
Making lunch
Finally I manage a few minutes talk with Charles and we make a date for next week when he will be here again. Then Remi and I drive back to Msaya’s place, pick up the honey and back to the park. I spend the next days in the forest with Vervet Monkeys (see previous post) but thinking a lot about the village, permaculture, Msaya and the other people I have met.
Land seeks permaculture design
When the day comes, Remi drops me off at Msaya’s where Charles is again late – his car has broken down and he shows up eventually on a motorbike. I bravely sit on the back for a scary ride along the rutted track to Mandaka where the villagers are much amused to see me climb gingerly off and shake my body. After Charles takes care of some Mushroom business I invite him and the villagers for a first Permaculture excercise: we are going to create a design called a “sponge”. It’s very simple, a large pit with raised edges. You chuck all kinds of organic waste in to it and plant stuff around it. Compost and detritus loving organisms thrive in the pit which retains moisture well (especially as the plants grow around it and shade it) and plants send their roots in to it from surprisingly far away. The villagers understand the concept straight away and before long the first sponge is ready to be started off with a couple of buckets of water from the bore-hole. To my delight a pair of Lanner Falcons choose that very moment to fly low over us , circle around and dive in to the woods nearby. Good, good.
The first “sponge”
I tell them to throw a few buckets of water in now and then, keep it topped up with leaves, branches, Elephant dung etc. and suggest some plants they could add. We also make some plans for protecting the area from wildlife – a cactus hedge. I make drawings of layouts for vegetable beds, lists of fruit trees and nitrogen-fixing plants, possible crops and then it’s time to go.
It’s not much, but it is a start. Remi and Charles have proposed to me that if a little funding can be found we could set up a small bungalow here for volunteers; I could come and stay for longer and do a proper design with help from shorter staying volunteers who would also be learning at the same time. This would then be a demonstration site for permaculture practices and techniques for the whole area. It’s a great idea and I am very keen – let’s see. The money needed is not enormous: building the house costs about 2000 euros; travel and living costs for say a year might be 10,000 and add something for equipment, seeds and other materials – 20,000 euros would cover the first year easily. hmm….
Back in Belgium I do a lot of research: I read about Permaculture, conservation, poaching and the connections between these and related issues. I make a little presentation at the Permaculture Festival we are hosting ( I am also cooking for 200 people at the time), just to get some ideas – I don’t really expect to raise any money from this crowd!
Permaculture Festival, Kasteel Nieuwenhoven July 2016
It’s a “no-brainer” as they say. Conservationists are struggling (not very successfully) to protect vanishing wildlife. One unfortunate consequence of this is increased “militarization” of anti-poaching measures; this is probably unavoidable and necessary but it doesn’t really address the forces driving poaching: poverty and food insecurity in the source areas and demand in other areas. It also further antagonizes and alienates the local people around protected areas. Attempts to provide benefits to locals (through employment in tourism for instance) sound good on paper and in some cases maybe really work; mostly it’s not very realistic.
There is plenty of data showing permaculture (or similar) increasing food security and resilience of subsistence farmers; it is also beneficial to bio-diversity. It seems the obvious way to go especially in areas bordering protected areas. ( if this interests you here’s a well written article on the subject: Permaculture-Food-Security-and-Development-Projects ) So now what? I’m not sure – you tell me!
After another harrowing motorbike ride, Charles leaves me at Msaya’s to wait for Remi ( she is in town running errands for – it seems to me – about half the people living in the park). Msaya shows me around his little kingdom and I am totally enchanted. He is a very special person, a true visionary. He is also a pretty good speaker, so I will let him have the final word here (watch video below):