Human impact on Central European forests dates back thousands of years. In this study we reanalyzed 36 published pollen data sets with robust chronologies from Polish Lowlands to determine the ...patterns of large-scale forest decline after the Migration Period (fourth to sixth century CE). The study revealed substantial heterogeneity in the old-growth forest decline patterns. Using new high-resolution studies, we could better understand the timing of this transition related to increasing economic development. After the Migration Period, forest expansion continued until the seventh to ninth centuries cal. CE, when the dawn of Slavic culture resulted in large-scale forest decline, especially in north-western and north-central Poland. Later, forest decline was recorded mainly in north-eastern Poland and was related to Prussian settlements, including activities associated with the Teutonic Order, as well as with new settlements from the fourteenth century. The composite picture shows a varied spatio-temporal forest loss and transition towards the present-day, human activity dominated landscapes. However, some sites, such as in north-eastern Poland, are characterized by a less abrupt critical transition. The pristine nature of the oak-hornbeam forest had already been destroyed in Early Medieval times (eighth to ninth centuries cal. CE) and the potential for recovery was largely lost. Our study has confirmed previous assumptions that the decline of hornbeam across the Polish Lowlands may be an early indicator of local settlement processes, preceding severe forest loss, and establishment of permanent agriculture.
Grow Free, a grassroots social initiative, emerged in South Australia in 2013. Grow Free advocates for the sharing and exchange of free seeds, seedlings, fruits, and vegetables among neighbors. The ...number of Grow Free participants grew to about 230 throughout South Australia as of 2022. This article explores the agri-social characteristics of Grow Free participants, drawing on 50 postal survey respondents and 17 semi-structured phone interviews. This study finds that diverse non-governmental organizations in addition to residential households are actively participating in the Grow Free network, including community gardens and community centers. Moreover, many household-type Grow Free participants are linked to an array of other grassroots social initiatives including Permaculture South Australia and Trees for Life. The study notes that Grow Free along with other alternative food networks has facilitated collaborative food production and consumption at a local scale. Through grassroots organizational mechanisms, Grow Free participants have been committed to fostering community building and resilience through food sharing.
•Examines how knowledge systems within alternative agricultural niche (Permaculture) develop and interact with the mainstream regime’s AKS.•Distinctive knowledge systems emerge to support learning in ...niche.•A boundary between the Permaculture niche and the mainstream regime knowledge system exists.•The boundary is characterised by tension between strong internal processes in the niche and weaker external links across knowledge system boundaries.
This paper examines how knowledge systems within alternative agricultural niche develop and interact with the regime’s Agricultural Knowledge Systems (AKS). It frames the analysis around transition, knowledge systems and boundaries literatures. Specifically it explores the extent to which niche knowledge systems confront and, or enhance the regime’s AKS. The paper draws on empirical data from a study of the Permaculture community in England. The analysis describes the boundary between the knowledge systems of the Permaculture niche and the mainstream agricultural regime. Rather than a simple notion of PKS confronting or enhancing the AKS there are multiple knowledge processes operating which both maintain and permeate boundaries between the two knowledge systems.
The many benefits of agroforestry are well-documented, from ecological functions such as biodiversity conservation and water quality improvement, to cultural functions including aesthetic value. In ...North American agroforestry, however, little emphasis has been placed on production capacity of the woody plants themselves, taking into account their ability to transform portions of the landscape from annual monoculture systems to diversified perennial systems capable of producing fruits, nuts, and timber products. In this paper, we introduce the concept of multifunctional woody polycultures (MWPs) and consider the design of long-term experimental trials for supporting research on agroforestry emphasizing tree crops. Critical aspects of long-term agroforestry experiments are summarized, and two existing well-documented research sites are presented as case studies. A new long-term agroforestry trial at the University of Illinois, “Agroforestry for Food,” is introduced as an experiment designed to test the performance of increasingly complex woody plant combinations in an alley cropping system with productive tree crops. This trial intends to address important themes of food security, climate change, multifunctionality, and applied solutions. The challenges of establishing, maintaining, and funding long-term agroforestry research trials are discussed.
The radical changes required for Earth to 'remain fit for human habitation' require a change in worldviews from 'mechanistic' to 'ecological'. A key question is: how can those working on the built ...environment - a field with major impact on global resources and systems - best support a smooth and timely transition? It is proposed that design practitioners can facilitate that response in the built environment through the development, application and evolution of comprehensive new methodologies, explicitly shaped by a regenerative sustainability paradigm. It is further proposed that successfully evolving a regenerative practice requires going beyond just adopting new techniques to taking on a new role for humans and designers, and a 'new mind', and learning how to work 'developmentally'. As an example of how a consciously held worldview shapes a practice, an actual regenerative methodology, developed and evolved over 16 years of practice, is explored in detail. A framework, adapted from accepted scientific methodology protocols, is used to structure this exploration, differentiating the different elements and levels, showing how they work as an integrated system and revealing the underlying premises and assumptions behind the choice of aims, strategies, methods and progress indicators.
Les changements radicaux nécessaires pour que la Terre « demeure propre à l'habitation humaine » exigent que les visions du monde évoluent du « mécaniste » à « l'écologique ». Une question clé qui se pose est de savoir comment ceux et celles qui travaillent sur le cadre bâti - un domaine qui a un impact important sur les ressources et les systèmes mondiaux - peuvent le mieux contribuer à une transition harmonieuse et rapide. Il est proposé que les praticiens du design puissent faciliter cette réponse dans le cadre bâti par la mise au point, l'application et l'évolution de nouvelles méthodologies globales, explicitement modelées par un paradigme de durabilité régénératrice. Il est en outre proposé que, pour réussir à faire évoluer une pratique régénératrice, il est nécessaire de dépasser la simple adoption de nouvelles techniques, de façon à ce qu'un rôle nouveau soit assumé par les hommes et les concepteurs, ainsi qu'un « nouvel esprit », et qu'ils apprennent comment travailler « développementalement ». Un exemple de la manière dont une vision du monde consciemment partagée façonne une pratique, une méthodologie régénératrice réelle, élaborée et développée sur 16 ans de pratique, est examiné en détail. Un cadre, adapté des protocoles de méthodologie scientifique reconnus, est utilisé pour structurer cette étude, en différenciant les différents éléments et niveaux, en montrant comment ils fonctionnent comme un système intégré et en révélant les prémisses et les postulats sous-jacents qui sous-tendent le choix des objectifs, des stratégies, des méthodes et des indicateurs de progrès.
Mots clés: systèmes vivants permaculture lieu développement régénérateur et conception régénératrice histoire
This article applies the transition approach to a novel food production context, via an examination of the food production side of permaculture. More specifically, it examines attempts by the ...permaculture community in England to interact and influence the Agriculture Knowledge System of the mainstream agro‐food regime. Strategic Niche Management and Communities of Practice theory are combined to examine the ways in which the permaculture community has evolved and has sought to develop its agro‐ecology message and influence the agro‐food regime. Evidence of second order learning and networking with stakeholders outside the community of practice is limited. A tension between internal activities that reinforce a boundary between the permaculture knowledge system and the wider Agriculture Knowledge System are evident. Some external activities designed to cross boundaries are noted. However, activities designed to translate permaculture ideas into mainstream agriculture have had limited success. There is some evidence of interaction and lateral linkage with sub‐regimes to enhance capacity but this is usually in individual capacities. Examining the evolution of radical niche innovations such as permaculture thus reveals the way that beliefs, values and epistemologies make the process of sustainability transition challenging and complex, particularly when different knowledge systems clash with one another.
Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ) was developed due to analysis and mostly for dealing with artificial engineering systems in 1950th of the twentieth century. Permaculture was developed as a ...method of engineering of artificial natural living systems in 1970th of last century. Permaculture (which is portmanteau word – PERMAnent + agriCULTURE) is ecologically balanced agriculture or ecological engineering and architecture of artificial super- productive ecosystem, which requires minimum of human interference and create minimum of negative environmental impact. Permaculture designs living eco-systems like engineers design and operate machines made of inanimate materials. Both methodologies were developed independently, but have a lot in common. In our paper we are going to compare these methodologies and show the points of mutual enrichment. We argue that both processes of knowledge transfer “from biology into engineering” and “from engineering to biology” can be done via TRIZ – Theory of Inventive Problem Solving.
Natural and anthropogenic rates of soil erosion Nearing, Mark A.; Xie, Yun; Liu, Baoyuan ...
International Soil and Water Conservation Research,
June 2017, 2017-06-00, 2017-06-01, Letnik:
5, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Regions of land that are brought into crop production from native vegetation typically undergo a period of soil erosion instability, and long term erosion rates are greater than for natural lands as ...long as the land continues being used for crop production. Average rates of soil erosion under natural, non-cropped conditions have been documented to be less than 2Mgha−1yr−1. On-site rates of erosion of lands under cultivation over large cropland areas, such as in the United States, have been documented to be on the order of 6Mgha−1yr−1 or more. In northeastern China, lands that were brought into production during the last century are thought to have average rates of erosion over this large area of as much as 15Mgha−1yr−1 or more. Broadly applied soil conservation practices, and in particular conservation tillage and no-till cropping, have been found to be effective in reducing rates of erosion, as was seen in the United States when the average rates of erosion on cropped lands decreased from on the order of 9Mgha−1yr−1 to 6 or 7Mgha−1yr−1 between 1982 and 2002, coincident with the widespread adoption of new conservation tillage and residue management practices. Taking cropped lands out of production and restoring them to perennial plant cover, as was done in areas of the United States under the Conservation Reserve Program, is thought to reduce average erosion rates to approximately 1Mgha−1yr−1 or less on those lands.
There is much debate about architectural education and its usefulness in the face of vexing global issues and problems. Pia Ednie Brown examines the roots of Cranbrook's pedagogy and assesses its ...relevance in this contemporary context. Her polemic piece calls for a fresh approach to architectural education, and the development of imaginative ecosystems to help it on its way.
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