Permaculture site is a sight to see in the city
ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS have existed even before the 21st century. However, it was not prevalent as it is today. Due to the emerging environmental threats, many organizations, agencies, and individuals are taking actions to revive the planet.
These people and organizations have their own way of lessening the damage. Some may reduce the use of plastics or even to completely eradicate it while others are switching to sustainable alternatives. Bert Peeters is one of these people, and his way of promoting sustainability is through building permaculture sites.
Peeters is the founder of the Philippine Permaculture Association (PPA). A product developer by profession and a permaculture designer at heart, the Belgian national finished his Masters in Product Development at the University of Antwerp in Belgium. His passion for permaculture compelled him to acquire an eco-village design degree from Scotland. He also took permaculture design and teaching courses from Australia and Hawaii, respectively.
Working for about 30 years in the Philippines, Peeters’ design skills are applied in building permaculture sites, cultivating farms, and various social activities like teaching permaculture design courses.
Before Peeters started building the permaculture site located in one of the cities in Metro Manila, he started by building Cabiokid Foundation Inc., a 13-hectare organic farm located in Cabiao, Nueva Ecija. From a rice field, it was converted to a permaculture site with gardens, crops, and bamboo structures. Peeters and his team started this project in the year 2000. Then he decided that permaculture must be spread to other places to promote the advocacy of a sustainable environment.
PERMACULTURE SITE IN AN URBAN AREA
Based on the PPA, “permaculture is a design system that works like and with nature.” It focuses on system thinking, simulating, or directly utilizing the patterns of how natural ecosystems work. It revolves around three principles: care for the earth, care for people, and fair share.
The ultimate goal of PPA is to connect minds and creativity to come up with ways to improve the ecosystem. To achieve this goal, PPA offers relevant permaculture knowledge through teaching activities such as permaculture design courses, natural building, building with bamboo, bamboo bike making, and permaculture-based enterprise.
Aside from these activities, PPA applies everything that they preach by being a model of a permaculture site: their facilities located at Marikina City and Cabiao Nueva Ecija are both made from natural materials such as bamboo, and not only their facilities but also some of their furniture are made from a discarded native tree trunks.