Designing Ecological Habitats - Gaia Education

agroecology anD ecovillages 259
This precedent was set on our planet
Earth a long time ago.
The more we understand its
‘mystery’, the more we will be able to
surrender ourselves to the emerging
flows always moving through the
system. The more we open our eyes to
these flows, the more we will be able
to see the underlying dysfunctions
in the mechanical production of
agriculture.
Our approach pays special attention
to the evolutionary aspects of
the ecology in productive agroecosystems.
Any mode of agriculture
will have its ecology, by definition,
considering that ecology means
essentially relationship and strategies of interaction. But those interactions
take place on different scales: there are time, space and species-dependent
considerations. As mentioned before, all these interactions are dynamic and
no species can survive apart from a community. ‘Community’ here is
understood as a group of populations interacting, and that is a useful
metaphor for the ‘ecovillage’.
Within an agro-ecological system we, as human beings, are always an
active part of the total ecology, and our presence should be considered
systemically. What this means is that we should be very conscious of the
connections we are creating, judging whether each decision we make is
enhancing or diminishing the long-term health of the system as a whole.
One could ask, “But from an evolutionary perspective, do we really have
that much power? After all, life has been on planet Earth for 3.5 billion
years”. We wish to share the idea that the evolutionary process is taking
place right here and now. From that perspective, each decision we make
becomes vitally important; our persistence in either making or breaking
beneficial connections can certainly influence planetary evolution.
Now, in order to understand how these principles may be applied, we
want to present our experience of promoting resilience in agroecosystems
at Terra UNA, our ecovillage project based in Minas Gerais State, Brasil.
Agroecology
What is agroecology? In this paper we share two definitions: agroecology
can be defined as the study of the interactions between plants, animals,
humans and the environment within agricultural systems. Agroecology can
be seen as a discipline, therefore, which covers integrative studies within
agronomy, ecology, sociology and economics.
We would combine these two definitions into a single conception, where
Having fun with a
heliotrope.