Chile – Good News for a Change

Chile Trembles and the World Changes: by seconds and degrees

Hola Friends, We are just over three weeks out from the big shake with the dust now settling in Chile, and have a clearer picture of the damage. We realise that we are blessed and uniquely prepared to make a big difference in the restoration of Bio Bio Chile. In coming months we will be living up to our destiny as a regional centre and living university of Transition, fully engaged in regenerative design for eco-social regeneration.

Can you help us to invest in the resilience of our small rural community in Chile post quake as a living model of local resilience that can be replicated throughout this devastated region of Chile?

Vision is seeing things as they will be

We intend to quickly establish a model of disaster response that can be widely replicated in the Biobio region, and invest in the foundations of long term resilience in other communities like ours. We have established a strong foundation over the last few years here, and now we need your support to make the most of disaster as an opportunity for catalysing change.

We intend to install basic systems for water and food security for 80 people and to reconstruct two damaged houses for 9 people in two families. This will be implemented in coming weeks and months in collaboration with local, regional and national government, the permaculture institute of Chile, and international friends the Permaculture Research Institute, Holmgren Design Services etc. We have a multidisciplinary team of permaculture professionals and volunteers on standby willing to go, supported by a large network of people throughout Chile and around the planet. We want your help, the collective intelligence of our international learning community. Invest in our transition. 

There are many ways you can help

1. Donations can be made through the Permaculture Research Institute here – please reference "chile".
2. We need information. Do you have design(s) for permanent / emergencia small quick houses 35m2 with local bio materials. We are thinking round pole timber post and beam with earth bag footings (with recycled adobe), light straw clay (harvest time now) insulation walls floor and ceiling.
3. Construction details for Ferro cement tanks in Español, or any kind of water tanks.
4. Information on pumping solutions for shallow groundwater, and for drip irrigation – on flat sandy soils with no stream flow and 1300mm rain.  
5. Anything about grain mills.
6. Ideas for large water storage in sandy soils.
7. Woodstove / rocket stove stuff in Español.
8. Recommendations for machinery that may be available in Chile.
9. Advice on small scale solar generation.
10. Advice on round pole construction techniques, and milling and drying of small diameter eucalyptus glutens y nitens, large old macrocarpas and of 25 year untreated pine.
11. Volunteer; we need more hands, especially people who are skilled in construction and technology, in working with people, managing groups, facilitating etc, food growing and preservation, communications and reporting etc, etc etc.

Some News

We are well in El Manzano Biobio Chile, 130 kms from the epicentre. Despite the full-on quake the damage has been minor for most. Concepcion and coastal towns worst affected. Many in those areas are homeless and without basics. Aid has kicked in and things are normalising. The main problem is the minds of the people… their fears and addictions… as we are learning, their personal resilience. We are in a state of curfew for most of the region from 6pm till 12 midday. Food is scarce in most communities, supermarkets closed and empty…. most were ransacked within 8 hours of the first shake. The military are on the streets… the situation is a little tense… but improving rapidly. Many regional roads and bridges on the main highway Ruta 5 are severely damaged and transport is limited. You probably know as much as we do. There is a lot of stuff on youtube.

In El Manzano we are somewhat more prepared than most. We are 80 strong; 21 children, 27 women (two pregnant) and 32 men (during the event we were 140 with an additional 24 men, 28 women and 8 kids). And lucky. No one received even as much as a scratch. The trees didn’t fall. The ground didn’t swallow us up. And we were far enough away from any big urban centre. We have some minor damage to buildings, with two substandard shacks / homes in our village made inhabitable. Many are still sleeping in tents for fear of more quakes and building collapse. We have given our bioconstructions the best possible test and they passed with flying colours. We have manual pumps for water supply and abundant shallow ground water. The dam and a few bridges were destroyed, and we are doing a quick repair to get irrigation going again… materials are hard to come by in the area, we are improvising.

We have grown a lot of food this summer, and were in preservation mode until the earth moved… most of our produce survived with last minute redesign of shelving for earthquakes. We have 5 hectares of wheat and rye to mill, with 1.5 hectares of potatoes, maize, quinoa, amaranth, onions close to harvest, plenty of fruit (apples, blueberries, mushrooms etc.) we are drying, and plenty of veges. The two cows are still milking, eggs and meat. The electricity has now returned and we can irrigate the gardens a little better, have light, turned the freezer back on, and can communicate with the world.

As a community we have gathered together and reinforced our interdependence. We have realised that community is the key for our well being. That we are resilient and adaptable. The divisions between us are only illusion. Our little insignificant village has emerged stronger, with all its inherent unsustainability and barriers and its long chaotic history. There is life here, abundance, simple clean ethical living, humble loving peasants. We have ensured the safety of everyone and security of water and food. We have reassessed our vulnerabilities and our priorities for increasing our resilience drawn into sharp focus. The work we have done in the past two years investing in our community has been rewarded. El Manzano is a light of calm – a sane awake quality of not striving, of letting go into the unknown.  

Participatory Design

A meeting of emergency was held to refresh our plans for 2010. We currently have some funding to invest in the community with a pre-existing strategy to install appropriate technology in all the houses in the village, and to mobilise the community to participate in design for climate change. Our priorities have been redirected a little, and with blessings in disguise we now have full support and commitment from our community and the draft of a shared plan for action. We identified the following priorities:

• Regular community meetings with full participation
• Celebration together
• Manual and or solar / wind pumps
• Large water storages
• Food preservation
• Community gardens – winter is coming (seeds, tools, land)
• Community plant nursery
• A multi use community safety centre with public services
• Community storage of bulk foods
• Grain mill
• Small animals
• Diesel generators
• New more efficient wood stoves
• Composting toilets
• Communications
• Security response plan
• Machinery – rip saw, chainsaw mill, chainsaws etc.
• Energy production for simple needs
• Shared transport
• A plan for the development of community and individual resilience
• Tools for construct and food preserve

This is a work in progress. Detail plans will emerge soon. Please be patient with us.

Resilience and Vulnerability

We have learned that resilience is a natural inbuilt characteristic of the natural world. And, she is much bigger than us. We need not worry about the future too much, we will survive. Resilience is something that we have to remember from our past, and to cultivate in our communities. It means the capacity to cope with life’s adversities, overcome and even be transformed by them (Grotberg). Resilience means functional connections, networks and community, taking care of the whole system. By experiencing adversity we can adapt, and if we heed the message well, we can build resistance to future crises, and provide living examples for others to practice.

We can move beyond sustainability and mere mitigation, towards a more resilient way of living, one that rolls with nature and rebounds quickly – not a blind bounce back from crisis, but a practical transformation. We can let go of the old, let go into not knowing, and we can create the new. With every breath we choose, we speak into the world and so design, and so co-create the world around us. By leveraging the capacities of our networks, by starting small, and thinking big, we can catalyse fundamental change.

This great transition has never been more urgent, we need not wait for disaster to act. It is never to late to adopt common sense. It´s never too late to invest in resilience.

Any help you can give us will be very wisely applied.

There was a large fire, the moon was in its glory and animals in the distance warned us that the earth was still trembling, in the circle around the fire passed the tobacco of the word. And word for word the people did nothing but confirm that he understood the message and that resilience also involves the "relationships" human, spiritual and multiple connectivity we have between us and nature. – Ruben

Love from Chile

Grifen, Javiera and the families of El Manzano.