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Terra Humana
ENDEIT
Several hands planting a young tree together

Chapter 11 of 12

People and community

Rehumanisation: the place of people inside the cycles, and what communities can do together.

0 of 6 pages read. Read them all for the stamp in your travel passport.

Permaculture has never been only about land. Bill Mollison widened the word from permanent agriculture to permanent culture, because in his view economy, law and community belonged to the design as much as trees and ponds. People care, the second of the three ethics, asks how people live, learn and work together on the land and with it.

For Terra Humana this chapter has a name: rehumanization, restoring the human being as a conscious, caring participant in the living world, the human counterpart to ecological restoration. It stands near the end of the journey because everything before it needs people to carry it on: knowledge that is shared, seed that passes from garden to garden, work that is done together.

Two places in Portugal's Alentejo show what this can look like. Tamera, a living and research community, has been building a water retention landscape since 2007 to keep the rain on the land. Herdade do Freixo do Meio, an organic estate of 584 hectares, renews the montado oak landscape with keyline lines, small retention basins and agroforestry. The pages below tell of the ideas and of the places.

Pages in this chapter

Try it yourself

Pass on a surplus

  1. 1Look for something you have more of than you need: dried seeds from beans or flowers, a cutting from a houseplant, part of a harvest, or something you know how to do.
  2. 2Offer it to a neighbour, a friend or a colleague, with a few words on how to use it.
  3. 3Ask in return what they know about gardening or about the land around you.
  4. 4Write down what came back to you, in things, in knowledge or in contact.

At Sa Medada

Project Eden at Sa Medada has been meant for people from the start. The plans include a permaculture academy, spaces for encounter and seminars, and non-profit hosting of volunteers and researchers. For Terra Humana, working on the land together is where rehumanization begins.