Bill Mollison speaks November 2003 brought opportunity for a road trip that I simply could not refuse. Heading south to New Mexico, I was drawn to an all day seminar with Bill Mollison, the Œfather¹ of permaculture. Last visit I made to Santa Fe was over twenty-five years ago. My little truck surfs the highway lifting up and down as Interstate 25 moves over the land. Outside the window I catch glimpses of the graceful flight of raptors and even white gulls, also graceful on wing. Little round pinyon and juniper trees spring up on golden dusty hillsides. Choya cacti seem uncaring and unmoving in the wind while the grasses dance a frantic beat. Pikes Peak is now far behind as I pass other front range peaks that I know, Greenhorn, Mount Blanca and, further south, the Spanish Peaks loom blanketed by a row of clouds crashing like waves against peak-top beaches. Finally, at the summit of Raton Pass, I hit snow. The landscape has slowly changed from the familiar foothills of Colorado to choppy, rocky buttes, knuckle-y outcrops and knobs of wind-swept, wide open New Mexico. The flats spread white and bright before me like a fresh sheet upon a bed. Deciduous trees follow the arroyos like dogs on a scent. Water and wind carve echoes of the Grand Canyon into the earth. Forested New Mexican foothills are dark as night standing in front of the distant Sangre de Christo range. Windsong whistles through the window and the climate dries out. The snow begins to mist and evaporate in the sun. Off in the distance steam rises like smoke.   The New Mexican foothills seem entirely claimed by pinyon and juniper trees, a common tree association. Deciduous trees are fully leafed out in frozen brown leaves. Here I begin to witness Ips bark beetle damage to the pinyon trees. In the absence of natural fire and the presence of drought, Ips beetles are sweeping through the forest. Fire by beetle having the same result: red pinyon pines. Dying red trees outnumber the still-living green ones; over ninety percent of the pinyons are gone. It¹s all very sad. It¹s nature. As a permaculturist, I have come to meet and hear the wisdom of Bill Mollison, an Australian author and creator of the permaculture concept. In the flesh he is just as he appears to be in the Global Gardener video series: Aussie accent, twinkly-eyed, eager to smile and friendly. But Bill Mollison didn¹t come here for the fun of it or on a vacation. He came to Santa fe to speak directly with Americans. ³George Bush is the permaculture angel. Wherever he goes we are needed. We (permaculturists) are in Iraq and Afghanistan. I myself have four bullets in this body.² He said looking down and patting his belly then began again. ³Your news media is in hiding. See no truth... Hear no truth... Speak no truth.² The audience was stunned more than once by the man. The world outside of American society is in an uproar. Several important incidents of censored news stories that never came to American mainstream media were noted. Stories of environmental hazards and stories we should be aware of are never told. ³Entering America is like entering a darkroom: no real news. You people are only five percent of the world population and you¹ve annoyed the shit out of the rest of the world.² Bill said Œshit¹ more than once. Relating a story of a recent radio interview, he told of being ³bleeped.² Answering questions on common-water-sense and how our society deals with rain water, Bill stated ³Clean rain falls on the roof, runs down the downspouts, through the dog shit in the yard and into the street to be swept away where the water does no good. That water is lost to the soil, the plants, the trees.² The radio station censored the words dog shit and missed the entire point he was making. Next time he was relating similar sensible information, he inserted the words Œpuppy poo.¹ The interview continued with nary a pause. ³Disney-speak.² He said. ³You can say anything you like with Disney- speak, anything at all. It just sounds silly.² He laughed and accused Americans of being very, very bio-phobic. I would have to agree. He encouraged us to stop irrigating and drilling wells in the aquifer. ³All the water you need to live drops on your own roof.² meaning homes can be designed to catch clean drinking water for the residents¹ use, rather than be tied into a public water grid system. Of course, this grid gives the false impression of limitless water. We are all guilty of using too much water. Our inane water laws need to be changed too. (For example, it is legal in New Mexico to catch water from your own roof. Not so in Colorado. Hmmm. I feel chained to antiquated water-laws.) Mollison brought first hand knowledge of drought from Botswana, Africa. Those droughts happen in  twenty year cycles. Drought has no quick cure. Children starve to death. Botswana¹s cattle, three million head, overgraze and reduce the ability of the land to heal itself, making the droughts more severe, with slower recovery.  The cattle, introduced by Commonwealth interests, not the Botswana people, are primarily raised for dog food. In his off-handed way, Mollison quipped, ³The children die for dog food. It would be better to kill the children humanely and feed them to the dogs.² Starvation is terrible. If three-fourths of the cattle were removed, the land would bounce back sooner and the children wouldn¹t have to starve. Money interests are creating starvation within indigenous populations and tearing down the ecosystems as well. Do we desire cattle for dogfood or healthy children? We Americans face similar questions as well, we just deny them. Speaking on the plight of the pinyon forests, Mollison noted how our soil is so delicate. He acknowledged the very real potential for washouts and floods if the forest isn¹t replanted. Flood waters can deepen arroyos and gullies, causing the water table to drop. Leaving dead and dying trees to stand puts the forest back into its time-honored position of sustaining itself, which it can do very well, thank you. Trees will drop those red needles, creating a natural mulch that will begin to build up the soil. Dead standing snags will offer shelter from weather and perhaps shade for a young replacement sapling. Insectivore birds, like downy woodpeckers and red-shafted flickers, will busy themselves hunting wood borers and grubs or perhaps drilling cavity nests to inhabit. Other smaller birds will benefit from the woodpeckers¹ work. Downed branches can embrace new tree seedlings, buffering the winds, catching erosion. Dead wood is critical to whole system forests, a primary element. A dead tree may be more alive than a healthy tree. Dead trees provide for the entire forest. ³Every system is going somewhere. You can¹t stop it.² Mollison said smiling. He acknowledged the need for the living pinyon forests to be thinned (a function naturally provided by fires and, of course, beetles.) Thinning will also increase water harvest. Rebuilding an ecosystem involves becoming aware of our own human participation in the doing or un- doing of the whole. With research behind him, Mollison spoke of how the trees and water are intimately connected. When we log the trees on ridges and mountain sides, localized rainfall diminishes by up to forty percent. ³The ridges should never be logged, nor have homes built there.² Permaculture has ethics and a major principle is placing human homes on the least valuable land, leaving the more important land (in this case the ridge tops) undisturbed to continue its service to the ecosystem (in this case, keeping the water in the system.) His diagrams on swaling showed us how to recharge a hillside of water for those areas where we are too late to make the proper choices. In the audience a woman whined and complained about the great tree die-off, her home and her personal trees to which he promptly replied: ³Grow up! You act like this is happening only to YOU. It¹s not just happening to YOU but to the world!² I felt her embarrassment, but he was right. We Americans need to change our wasteful ways and see ourselves for what we are: the largest, most selfish consumers of natural resources in the world. Our culture has wreaked havoc. We are greedy little pigs in the eyes of the rest of the world. We are self-serving in our pursuits and bow before the power of the almighty dollar; never considering the intrinsic rights of the rest of the world. Ouch! Truth hurts. Permaculture seeks alternatives that consider the health of the planet first. The health and well being of the people will follow. Mollison spoke about native lands and the idea that native animals, bison, deer, elk and pronghorn, provide sixty percent more productive biomass and return than cattle ranching. Native animals do not upset the system, but live within the natural confines of the system. Dave Foreman, of Wild Earth and the Wild Lands Project, speaks of these ideas. He supported the vision of Buffalo Downs, a far-reaching concept of returning the short grass prairies, already struggling under the heavy load of industrial agriculture, to native animals. Buffalo Downs would allow the land to heal itself with the help of native animals, especially the buffalo, and reseeding. Man would simply leaving the land alone. Research shows the prairie would produce much more abundance if allowed to return to its natural state. No chemicals, no fertilizers, no further meddling, would bring more productivity than standard business-as-usual agriculture. Bill Mollison would agree. As he crossed the stage to applause of the crowd, Mollison was embarrassed by the hoopla. (Applause is very American, not Australian.) He had so much to say, so much message to deliver. On a white board he wrote: global warming, rising oceans, acid rain, invader species. Then he wrote DOOM in big letters and laughed. ³Doom doesn¹t happen if you keep on the move. Permaculture can fix things! Nature notices what you are doing and responds with abundance.² I believe him and I believe in the power of nature to heal to the damage. In recent years I have given up more and more of my ³controlling ways² and have begun living in ³faith.² Not faith as religion would ask of me, but a deep faith in the abundance of the vast omniverse and the rightness in things as they naturally are. A well-known Manitou artist once shared: ³It has taken me half my life to realize that I don¹t need to worry. If I am doing what I am supposed to be doing; I will have what I need.² She was referring to paying her monthly bills and living as a Œstarving artist.¹ I was thirty two at the time with young children and struggling with exactly that: monthly bills and wolves at the door. Eighteen years later, I find myself taking that concept of faith further. My daily chores line up and add to the realization of my earthly ³work.² I indeed do have what I need and so much more. That blessing of faith allows me to follow this path that is leading to sustainable living. Living on the planet in New Mexico for a few days was splendid but I was grateful to begin the journey home. I missed my own personal backyard foothills, my own growing permaculture, and my beloved community of Manitou. The future awaits me there.      c   Becky Elder   12-2003