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Before planning to travel to work on a site, Principle 0 invites us to review our intentions and to honor that every place already comes with existing ecological knowledge or practices. We must explore instead how one can complement and enable the local approach as the main design frame for a permaculture intervention. © Gumay Tenda Local indigenous leaders from Kalinga present their site plan facilitated by Green Releaf facilitator, and co-founder of Sarayo Forests, Drei Castillo Engaging through Inclusive Ecosystem Leadership Acknowledgement is not enough. Indigenous peoples protect 80% of the world’s biodiversity, but are only 5% of the world’s population. They are some of the most climate vulnerable people on Earth and this means that as we depend on them greatly, their vulnerability is our vulnerability. We must engage with them and local wisdom bearers who hold key tacit knowledge and practices that protect and restore their ecosystems, having lived in their places over time, and across generations. Inviting them to lead and design the solutions that impact our shared habitats will prove to be a more regenerative, and not just a sustainable, approach. Inspired by the many gifts permaculture brings, many practitioners and teachers venture out into indigenous territories, the Global South, and into vulnerable, ‘developing’ or ‘underdeveloped’ nations, with intentions to share their practice. While this is a noble cause, it may create more harm than good. I reflect on this for myself as well, as I am not indigenous, but my organization is often invited to share our work in indigenous territories, whether to address climate vulnerability or to support the restoration of indigenous food systems. Over time, we realized the best way to approach this is to partner with local organizations and support them to enable the solutions with the local indigenous group. This saves time and resources for travel, and fosters long-term commitment. Before planning to travel to work on a site, Principle 0 invites us to review our intentions and to honor that every place already comes with existing ecological knowledge or practices. We must explore instead how one can complement and enable the local approach as the main design frame for a permaculture intervention. If we must be there, we might consider ensuring that our presence will truly empower the locals to lead (and not the opposite!). Some effective inclusive collaborations can come in the form of exchanges in learnings, the showcasing of best practices from their part of the world, and ways to highlight the local partnered programs to the international movement. One movement that does this well is Re-Alliance,4 a network of regenerative practitioners in humanitarian aid and development. 62  | www.permaculture.co.uk
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Narrative Sovereignty To see the big picture as designers enabling social and ecological solutions, permaculturists can step out of a circle, and be the holder of the circle as if holding a container  –  inviting holders of the local Traditional Ecological Knowledge to be in the center and in charge of the narrative, and be its storytellers as much as possible. Considering that many places that still hold TEK and indigenous wisdom operate more with oral cultures rather than written ones, such knowledge is passed down by word of mouth and may have limited ways of documentation in a written format. Principle 0 requires our presence on the landscape to take time to listen, dialogue, and with consent, eventually collaborate for collective impact. It also encourages us to ensure proper consent for the documentation, use and reference of this knowledge. A passion project I have been prototyping called Kalikhasan – Living Story Landscapes5 works with multimedia artists and culture bearers using photography and video among other media to practice an approach called narrative sovereignty. Principle 0 offers ways for local partners to share their own experience from their own lens and voice, rather than tell it for them in its entirety. If storytelling is not easy, engaging more relatable communicators or sectors to facilitate may help locals. One example is working with an indigenous facilitator to deliver the session to indigenous communities. This can also include engaging one more local person closer to the community to ensure a familiarity of language, the history of the landscape and the local flora and fauna. Engaging counter-mapping tools so locals can map their own territories and landscapes is one way we can engage them to define the scope and definition of their ecological interventions. One inspiring initiative that we are collaborating with is the work of the Indigenous Peoples’ and Community Conserved Areas and Territories (ICCA) in the Philippines6 that uses digital 3D mapping of ancestral domains. This includes the many dimensions of a place – from natural to political and from economic to spiritual – that need to be identified in terms of geographic locations. © Sarah Queblatin Kankanaey elders of Sagada drafting a vision for their DRR plan in a workshop with Kankanaey farmer and cultural worker Dom-an Macagne and Sarah Queblatin From one indigenous person to another. Reymondje Apinohon, an indigenous Green Releaf permaculture facilitator from the Higaonon tribe, sharing ways with the Tobog and Biga tribes in Kalinga. issue 110  winter 2021 Te n d a G u m a y © |  63

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Narrative Sovereignty To see the big picture as designers enabling social and ecological solutions, permaculturists can step out of a circle, and be the holder of the circle as if holding a container  –  inviting holders of the local Traditional Ecological Knowledge to be in the center and in charge of the narrative, and be its storytellers as much as possible.

Considering that many places that still hold TEK and indigenous wisdom operate more with oral cultures rather than written ones, such knowledge is passed down by word of mouth and may have limited ways of documentation in a written format. Principle 0 requires our presence on the landscape to take time to listen, dialogue, and with consent, eventually collaborate for collective impact. It also encourages us to ensure proper consent for the documentation, use and reference of this knowledge.

A passion project I have been prototyping called Kalikhasan – Living Story Landscapes5 works with multimedia artists and culture bearers using photography and video among other media to practice an approach called narrative sovereignty.

Principle 0 offers ways for local partners to share their own experience from their own lens and voice, rather than tell it for them in its entirety. If storytelling is not easy, engaging more relatable communicators or sectors to facilitate may help locals. One example is working with an indigenous facilitator to deliver the session to indigenous communities. This can also include engaging one more local person closer to the community to ensure a familiarity of language, the history of the landscape and the local flora and fauna.

Engaging counter-mapping tools so locals can map their own territories and landscapes is one way we can engage them to define the scope and definition of their ecological interventions. One inspiring initiative that we are collaborating with is the work of the Indigenous Peoples’ and Community Conserved Areas and Territories (ICCA) in the Philippines6 that uses digital 3D mapping of ancestral domains. This includes the many dimensions of a place – from natural to political and from economic to spiritual – that need to be identified in terms of geographic locations.

© Sarah Queblatin

Kankanaey elders of Sagada drafting a vision for their DRR plan in a workshop with Kankanaey farmer and cultural worker Dom-an Macagne and Sarah Queblatin

From one indigenous person to another. Reymondje Apinohon, an indigenous Green Releaf permaculture facilitator from the Higaonon tribe, sharing ways with the Tobog and Biga tribes in Kalinga.

issue 110  winter 2021

Te n d a

G u m a y

©

|  63

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