Three World Change Visionaries:

Ken Fern, Bill Mollison, Rabindranath Tagore



PLANTS FOR A FUTURE in 1990



Plants For A Future is a Vegan Alternative Plant Project that has just started in Cornwall. Its aim is to demonstrate the wide variety of useful commodities such as food, fuel, fibres, medicines etc. that can be obtained from plants grown in this country. We have over 20 acres of south-facing land and a rapidly increasing variety of useful plants—at present, well over 1,200 species.

We aim to become self-sufficient in food, fuel etc; and to show others that these can be derived from the plant world without recourse to animal exploitation or environmental damaging methods. We feel that human survival depends on this, and on the use of a wide variety of plant species, especially when there is a threat of rapid climatic change.

Perennial plants are emphasised, because once these become established they require minimal disturbance to the soil, minimal environmental impact, and minimal work.

Since we are only in the early stages, the majority of the plants are still quite small—but every oak tree once started life as a little acorn!

Future plans include planting a woodland and more hedges; expanding our stock of plants—both in terms of numbers of plants and numbers of species; building a compost toilet; building a wind generator for lighting, building a stone fruit store (preferably partly underground) or a cellar; selling plants and education. However, all this needs more time and more resources. We are also hoping to become a Registered Charity soon.

Anyone interested in self-sufficiency and living in harmony with the environment is welcome to come and help—including those who have bricklaying and carpentry skills! Long and short stays welcome.

We are also looking for l or 2 environmentally-aware people to join us on a co-operative basis: i.e. shared work, shared expenses, income from the land etc. Accommodation is basic (either caravan or room in converted shed).

Ken Hennessy and Addy Morris [later Fern], Permaculture News, ed. by Graham Bell, Autumn 1990, p.19

Bill Mollison explains why freeing land for wilderness matters:



Even anthropocentric people would be well-advised to pay close attention to, and to assist in, the conservation of existing forests and the rehabilitation of degraded lands. Our own survival demands that we preserve all existing species, and allow them a place to live.

We have abused the land and laid waste to systems we need never have disturbed had we attended to our home gardens and settlements. If we need to state a set of ethics on natural systems, then let it be thus:

* Implacable and uncompromising opposition to further disturbance of any remaining natural forests, where most species are still in balance;
* Vigorous rehabilitation of degraded and damaged natural systems to stable states;
* Establishment of plant systems for our own use on the least amount of land we can use for our existence; and
* Establishment of plant and animal refuges for rare or threatened species.

…

In a world where we are losing forests, species, and whole ecosystems, there are three concurrent and parallel responses to the environment:

1. CARE FOR SURVIVING NATURAL ASSEMBLIES, to leave the wilderness to heal itself.
2. REHABILITATE DEGRADED OR ERODED LAND using complex pioneer species and long-term plant assemblies (trees, shrubs, ground covers).
3. CREATE OUR OWN COMPLEX LIVING ENVIRONMENT with as many species as we can save, or have need for, from wherever on earth they come.

We are fast approaching the point where we need refuges for all global life forms, as well as regional, national, or state parks for indigenous forms of plants and animals. While we see our local flora and fauna as “native”, we may also logically see all life as “native to earth”. While we try to preserve systems that are still local and diverse, we should also build new or recombinant ecologies from global resources, especially in order to stabilise degraded lands.’

Bill Mollison, Permaculture: A Practical Guide for a Sustainable Future, 1990, p.7

Mother Earth has enough for the real needs of all her children … but she has not nearly enough for a whole generation of greedy children who know no limit to their desires.

Rabindranath Tagore, “City and Village”, 1928