Thursday, 11 October 2018

Photo celebration of small farmers (exhibition)

 
300 photographs, 50 farming communities, 47 photographers, 6 continents. In London and simultaneously all over the world. 

An exhibition celebrating small-scale farming and agro-ecology. This is about people, not production lines; farms not factories; agri-culture, not agri-business. This is about a fair and just farming system that regenerates the Earth and does not cost the planet. For the last three years, We Feed the World has captured the triumphs and challenges of 50 communities around the world. These extraordinary images and their incredible stories aim to forge a new and positive narrative about the farmers who really feed the world.

Monday, 8 October 2018

Crop nibblers and how to stop them (online)

Crop Nibblers; Who Else is Eating Your Crops

Victoria Burton of The Permaculture Assciation Britain and Alice Ambler of The James Hutton Institute present three articles looking at common or gaden pests; invertebrates, birds and small mammals. The articles cover how to find out what's nibbling your crops, why they want to, and some environmentally friendly ways to stop them.

Tuesday, 11 September 2018

Evidence for permaculture principles (journal)


Permaculture—Scientific Evidence of Principles for the Agroecological Design of Farming Systems

Permaculture practitioners have long been using design principles without them ever being scrutinized. Here, the authors review the scientific literature to evaluate the scientific basis for the design principles proposed by permaculture co-originator, David Holmgren. Scientific evidence for all twelve principles is presented. Even though permaculture principles describing the structure of favorable agroecosystems were quite similar to the agroecological approach, permaculture in addition provides principles to guide the design, implementation, and maintenance of resilient agroecological systems.

Tuesday, 4 September 2018

Agroforesty is climate resilient (online)

 Planting water – Agroforestry research at Ernst Götsch in Bahia

The agroforestry movement is growing fast under the Brazilian sun. In all corners of the country, people are now turning bare lands into bountiful food forests. All of them inspired by one man who, 40 years ago, set out to plant a system that would take agroforestry to a higher stratum. His name is Ernst Gotsch. New research at his cocoa farm suggests that agroforestry creates greater climate resilience in forests.

Permaculture principles in the PhD process (online)

A Permaculture PhD

Mary Loveday outlines twelve points, based on David Holmgren’s Permaculture design principles, for a sustainable approach to the PhD process.

Permaculture is a holistic based design practice which aims to enhance quality of life without causing harm. Given what I think is permaculture’s potential for useful application to a range of activities, I am going to outline how one might approach doing a PhD through the twelve Permaculture design principles articulated by David Holmgren in his Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability.

 

Free Liveable Cities Little Books (books)

Liveable Cities: The Little Book Series

The following books comprise the Liveable Cities Little Book Series. All are free to download as pdfs.

The Little Book of Car Free Cities
The Little Book of Circular Economy in cities
The Little Book of City Principles and Practice
The Little Book of Ecosystem Services in the city
The Little Book of Energy and the city
The Little Book of Governing the city
The Little Book of Low Carbon Eating in the city
The Little Book of Mobilities in the city
The Little Book of Natural Capital Accounting and Finance
The Little Book of RezoningThe Little Book of Sharing in the city
The Little Book of Smart Cities
The Little Book of Wellbeing

Thursday, 16 August 2018

How fast the carbon clock is ticking (online)

How fast the carbon clock is ticking

"In the Paris Agreement, all countries worldwide decided to limit global warming to well below 2°C (ideally as much as 1.5°C) compared to pre-industrial levels. This is extremely ambitious and essentially means that we are tightening our carbon budget. In concrete terms, it means that reaching the 2°C target with a medium probability would allow us to emit at maximum only about 720 gigatonnes (Gt) of CO2 between 2018 and 2100 into the atmosphere (stand 1.1.2018).¹ However, at present the world is still emitting 40 Gt of carbon dioxide.⁴ This equals 1,268 metric tonnes per second."

Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change have produced an online, interactive carbon clock. It allows you to explore different policy options and how much time different scientific thought would allow.