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Permaculture in Vanuatu

by Zaia Kendall, PRI Maungaraeeda, Sunshine Coast, Australia


We hope to help the Ni-Vanuatu people restore their soil and improve the diversity of
their gardens and their diet through permaculture

We recently went to Vanuatu on a sponsored trip to initiate a long term permaculture project there.

We were invited to come to Vanuatu in August, to go to two small villages and conduct workshops, do a consult on a property and to talk to government and NGO officials in relation to setting up an ongoing permaculture project in Vanuatu.

Upon arrival our generous sponsor met us at the airport in Luganville, on the island of Espiritu Santo. We drove around Luganville, looking at the markets and had some dinner at a Chinese restaurant. We boarded "Lightship", our sponsor’s catamaran, to start our nine hour journey to Tasmate on the west coast of Santo, at 10pm that night.


Our first night in Vanuatu on the catamaran "Lightship"

We arrived in Tasmate at around 7am the next morning. We were able to sleep in one of the cabins on board for the night. After the supplies were taken to shore in a small motorboat, it was our turn. We landed at a beach with dark, course sand and were shown the guest house — a beautiful bamboo hut with a concrete floor, where the local women had made up our beds (mattresses on the floor). It had a little kitchen with a gas stove to boil water. Our food was cooked for us by the locals, who were very hospitable and generous.


Our beds in the Tasmate guest house, night two and three.


The shower outside our guest house in Tasmate

We had a short rest and started the workshop that day. Most of the villagers came to have a look and listen. As Tom had already been to Vanuatu to teach a PDC the year before, he had noticed problems on the islands, which were again evident. Topsoil is disappearing at alarming rates — the locals do a lot of burning of organic material. Due to villages moving from forests to beach (due to the urging of Westerners), their food sources were sometimes hours away (six hours away in the second village we visited). Their diet consisted mainly of root vegetables, some canned meat or fish and white rice, with very little greens. They have a diabetes epidemic, with people in their early twenties dying or getting limbs amputated. Protein sources have diminished, as the ocean is being fished out and they do not kill as many wild fowl as they used to.


Water Taro plantation in Tasmate, about 20 minutes walk from village


They diverted some of the river water for their water taro

Their animals roam around freely throughout their villages, thus making it extremely hard for them to have a productive garden close by their house. Tom explained about managing the animals so that they work for you, having gardens close by their houses, so that mineral-rich greens are easier grown and used and replenishing topsoil through composting. We found that the local people had all been taught to compost, but they did not understand why they had to. As their population has now increased, burning is no longer a viable method for them as the recovery time for the burnt area is now less and less, so they are losing topsoil. Another problem is that they are putting in plantations of peanuts, cacao, coconuts and cattle — monocropping areas that used to be forested. This now causes issues with nutrients, which are no longer replenished by a diverse forest environment. The topsoil is washed away whenever there is a big rain event (which happens every year in cyclone-prone Vanuatu).


Burning off is common practice in Vanuatu. This will be planted with Yam.

Local people also want what Westerners have: their food (e.g. white rice, white flour, cookies, bread, etc.), which does not agree with them at all, their buildings (concrete and brick), which does not work at all in their climate as they retain the heat, and other Western material things, which means that people from villages are growing things like peanuts in large quantities (and eating them in large quantities as well, which is causing allergic reactions with many of the local villagers) to sell so they can buy things.

After we were in Tasmate for two days, we got up at 3.30am on the second night to take a small motorboat down the coast to another small village, called Bareo. This village had only moved down to the beach five years ago, because the missionaries built a school and church on the beach. Their gardens were some six hours walk away, still in the forest where their village used to be. They are slowly creating more gardens closer by, and people are aware they need to make a change.


Motoring to Bareo from Tasmate early in the morning


Kids climb coconut trees to get a drink for us all after we climbed a steep hill on arrival at Bareo

They recognise that harvests are no longer as abundant as they used to be, so they see there is a problem. We stayed in a lovely bamboo hut with an elevated bamboo floor. We slept on the floor on a bamboo mat, and rigged up our mosquito netting. As soft westerners we weren’t that comfortable on the floor, but another few days and we would have gotten used to it I reckon! Again the hospitality in Bareo was amazing and the people were very receptive to Tom’s advice and observations. They loved making a compost pile, they thought it was very funny to use cow manure (which the village children were told to collect, and was brought to us in palm leaves…). The compost pile was covered with palm leaves to keep the rain off and Tom told them when to turn it, as we were only there for two days.


Tom building a compost pile in Bareo

On the second night we were there we were invited by the chief for dinner at his house, where we were given a bamboo mat. Dinner was on the ground on bamboo mats, with some lighting from the fire in the hut and solar torches. That night we got up at 3.30am again for our trip back.


Wild pig caught and slaughtered for our arrival in Bareo


Excess nutrient in the river in Bareo, making "la num num",
a green weedy substance in the water
.


A bamboo hut by the river was our accommodation for two nights in Bareo


We slept on bamboo mats on the bamboo floor in Bareo

We arrived back at Tasmate at around 8am, and were taken up to our sponsor’s property, where Tom consulted them on future developments and gardens. We left late afternoon, to take the catamaran back to Luganville later that night. We spent the day and night in Luganville at a lovely B&B, organised by our sponsor. The next day we flew to Port Villa for our discussions with government and NGOs.


The absent owner of our accommodation in Bareo started a
garden and is very keen to learn permaculture

Everyone was very receptive in Port Villa and understood what Tom was talking about in relation to fertility loss. They are aware there is a soil loss problem and that the health of the population is severely declining. We pointed out the lack of diversity in the diet, and that diversity in the gardens will lead to diversity of food consumed. To help educate local Ni-Vanuatu people, we have suggested we start a PRI in Luganville, followed by one in Port Villa. They will be permaculture demonstration sites where we will run PDCs and longer term practical experiences for local people.

The sites will be set up with buildings that are traditional to the villages (bamboo walls, thatch roofs, elevated bamboo and/or dirt floors). This is to show the local people that their style of building works for their environment — they are sustainable and easily rebuilt, should a cyclone destroy them.

This will also show people that Western style buildings (with their imported concrete and bricks) are not something they need to strive for. We aim to show them that they have such wonderful traditions and such an abundant natural environment, that they will be able to support that abundance by learning how to work with nature in the Permaculture way. We are currently negotiating with government and NGOs in order to set these sites up, and are hoping that we can run our first PDC there by the end of 2015.

Zaia Kendall

Zaia grew up in a family of musicians in Holland, and has a background in top sport and web development and design. She co-founded the PRI Luganville and PRI Sunshine Coast Inc with Tom, and runs all the background stuff, like finances, business administration, website design and maintenance, writes articles, records and edits videos and also organises the cooking and the kitchen on site. She has been researching and studying nutrition and health for 20+ years, has a certificate in Nutrition and continues to study by research, reading and daily observation. She is a certified member of the International Institute of Complementary Therapists and is a holistic food, health and lifestyle coach. She is also an active member of several musical projects and bands, involved in community music and runs occasional percussion workshops. Visit Zaia's website at DIY Food and Health.

11 Comments

  1. Excellent report and we applaud your good work! Having spent significant time in the Marshall Islands, I note that one of the root sources of “wanting what the westerners have” was the television, which also served to accelerate the breakdown of traditional society there. Do you see this as an issue in Vanuatu?

    1. Hi Will, thank you for your comment!
      The villages we visited did not have electricity and no access to television. One village did have a generator and a tv and dvd player, but no access to commercial television. I think it is a real blessing that television has not made its way there yet, and I hope it remains that way. Unfortunately any contact with western people, our clothes, shoes, cameras etc, gives them that desire to want what westerners have. We tried to go as basic as possible, so that they could focus on the information and knowledge we gave them, rather than distract them with material things. In the larger towns any western contact, whether it be television based or tourists, creates the desire to move away from their traditional lifestyles. We are hoping to encourage them to move back to their traditions in a sustainable way, by showing them that their village lifestyles has so much to offer, and that it is so much more sustainable and in tune with the environment than western culture. The only way we think we can do this is by ensuring the Permaculture Demonstration sites have buildings that are traditional and that the sites require as little westernised input as possible.

  2. Hi Zaia, it is really easy and cheap should you be able to stop off in Port Vila on your next visit to get either a “mother hubbard” dress, or a typical Vanuatu sarong to wear with a t-shirt. This get up is common in Vanuatu, as you would know from your visit, Thongs or crocs make good and somewhat unremarkable footwear when you are not trekking and need better protection for our soft feet. Wearing the local garb really endears a person to the community, especially the women, and makes it easier for the locals to be concentrating on what you are saying to them. There is no way of getting around the camera issue that I know of! But sharing the Ni Vanuatu good food is a terrific way of reinforcing how very, very good and yummy it is. The other factor is that rice and tinned fish is really easy on the women on whom the big burden of preparing meals falls. Six hours walking to fetch manioc, grating it and then cooking it in the stones with coconut milk prepared from scratch, compared with flinging some rice into a pot? I know what I would plump for!

    1. Hi Estrella,
      Thank you for your comment and tips. We were dressed very modestly whilst in Vanuatu to try and keep their focus on the information we wanted to share.

      I agree that their traditional food is yummy and good, as it is mostly grown organically. Unfortunately they do not have enough diversity in their diet, eat very little greens, and now they also eat white rice, bread made of white flour, sugar and canned meats/fish. This is killing them. Diabetes is a plague in Vanuatu and people are dying in their early twenties or have limbs amputated because of this. Rice in a pot might be quick and easy, but is it worth dying for?
      For the health of these wonderful people, it is absolutely vital they steer away from things like rice and flour, as these are not their traditional foods and do not contribute to their wellbeing. These foods are also not sustainable, as rice and wheat are monocrops and not grown in Vanuatu and need to be imported and shipped out to the villages by boat or truck. The Ni-Vanuatu people then need to pay for these foods, causing them to plant monocrops of coconuts, peanuts or other foods to try and make money, which in turn causes soil depletion and erosion issues.

      A 6 hour walk for food harvesting is too far, and that is why we would like to educate them how be able to have permanent gardens close by, with a great variety of edible plants. Once they experience the ease of gardening closer by their homes, we hope they will be happy to make time to prepare their fresh produce from scratch, and that they will no longer find eating imported products appealing. And we will try to achieve this by showing this to them on the demonstration sites.

      I myself prepare all our meals from scratch, mostly freshly harvested from the garden. We do not use rice or flour, as these come from monocrops and are unsustainable. I prepare meals for up to 25 people here on the property, all from scratch, so I am aware that there is time involved. However, for our health and the health of the planet, I feel that it is time well spent.

  3. Hi again Zaia,

    You and I agree fully about nutrition. I think it’s a shame if the Ni Vanuatu are no longer growing and eating aelan kabij, a wonderful green that grows just about anywhere, even outside the door. It is fabulous in lap lap and around small rolls of grated manioc or yam and boiled in coconut milk, yummmm. Pumpkin shoots are pretty awesome too.

    I wonder whether the fact that the relocated people haven’t moved their gardens closer already is more to do with ownership of traditional lands than anything else? You can’t just set up a garden any old place in Vanuatu, it is all owned by someone even if it’s not under crops.

    Anyway, good luck with your project with a beautiful people.

  4. Our daughter who lives in NZ but was raised on our permaculture farm in Hawaii just got back from a week on the main island of Vanuatu She blogged about it on her website , thedreamstress.com. She asked me on the phone about the slash and burn agriculture. She also was impressed with the wide variety of fruits and vegetables in the market in town. Obviously there are still a lot of greens being grown in some places. I have attempted to send her a link to this article but my computer skills are weak
    Robin Gorsich

  5. Hi there,
    We are looking to promote bamboo as a clean up plant for treated sewage water and for a sustainable fiber and bio-char source…. My father tells me he saw bamboo being used for this purpose in Vanuatu many years ago, he has forgotten exactly where it was as he visited many places there……. Are you please able to ask around if you are still there and let me know what you learn please? May be you know some official people there that could help?
    Best Regards,
    Grant Simpson

  6. Hey, just been looking around the net and found this article detailing that you’d been to Vanuatu. I was looking for work OS or volunteer positions. I can’t find any mob selecting volunteers for emergency long term response to the situation in Vanuatu. Permaculture is an obvious response, as I reckon you’re already aware of. Other mates in development aid have said to me “just go over and get to work.” But of course before i do that i’d try and get some contacts in permaculture over there. I’m PDC and community development qualified. I’m skilled in food security issues and responses/approaches, and development issues; gender, social justice, human rights, etc. Want to let me know a little bit more about the situation in Vanuatu? and pointing me in any right directions would also be very much appreciated! Cheers in advance! Nat

    1. Hi Nat, we are going through the logistics to get our project started. Obviously in the early stages. There will definitely be a need for volunteers. We will shortly put up a website and facebook page that will provide relevant information. Thanks for your interest and support.
      Tom

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