Let's turn the Philippines into a giant food forest
So we can feed our communities, undo poverty, restore biodiversity and avoid climate armageddon.
This century, Mother Nature will present us the bill for our selfish and unsustainable behaviour on this planet. Our fairytale ideas of endless consumption and infinite growth are driving many other species to extinction already, and we risk the same fate. We need to stop treating Earth as a resource that's there for us to be extracted, and learn to live (again) as part of Nature.
To restore this sacred relationship, we need to rethink the ways we feed ourselves. Conventional agriculture is leading to an ever increasing number of problems. It takes from the soil without giving back. It destroys entire ecosystems. It cannot be sustained.
Time to abandon this destructive path, and grow food forests.
Why food forests?
A food forest (or edible forest, forest garden or home garden) is a food production system based on trees and perennial plants (like fruits and nuts) instead of annual crops (like corn and rice).
This has a lot of advantages:
- Relatively low maintenance
- More resistant to extreme weather conditions and diseases
- A source of income and quality nutrition for local communities
- A source of construction materials and biofuels
- A save haven for all kinds of lifeforms
- No need for synthetic herbicides, pesticides or fertilizer
- It stores a lot of CO2 in the soil and trees
Will it work?
You bet. Forest farming is already working in many parts of the world, including the Philippines. And home gardens have been a widespread tradition here for decades, with around 70% of the households growing food for their own consumption.
And apparently, we've been doing it for ages too. Several archeological findings suggest that some of the earliest cities may have been built by hunter-gatherers and horticultural societies. Something that was previously thought to be the result of agriculture. And in the Amazon, they found domesticated tree species which had been deliberately distributed throughout the rainforest by indigenous people long before Columbus "discovered" the Americas.
So even though much of modern life is based on agriculture, that might not be exactly how it all started. Maybe the story is incomplete. Maybe our roots lie in the forest...
Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.
So what's the plan?
Map existing forests
Because food forests are nothing new, there are plenty of forests already successfully growing out there. So let's start this project by collecting them on a map.
And why stop there? Any resource, person or organization that could support a growing food forest: let's put them on the map too. Nurseries, bamboo groves, NGOs, people that know stuff about trees.. On the map, so we can visit them, question them and learn from them.
By collecting all existing efforts this way, we paint a picture of what we want the Philippines to look like in the future. Green.
Wake people up
With this project, we also want to create awareness for the climate crisis in general. This is a crucial moment in history. If we don't stop emitting greenhouse gasses, our planet will become uninhabitable to us. Within the lifetime of our children. Maybe a few rich kids will find their way to Mars, but for the rest of us, there is no spare planet. And yet, we live as if we have 5 Earths to 'spend'.
This cannot endure. And I can't emphasize enough how urgent it is that we do something about it NOW. Millions of voices are speaking out all across the world, all saying the same thing: We need to act like our house is on fire.
Sprout new forests
We hope that this project will ultimately encourage others to start planting food forests as well. We want to show people that this works; that this is happening already and that it's doable, affordable and rewarding. Then who knows, food forests may go 'viral' here one day.
Let them become the places we go to on weekends. Let them feed us after a merciless typhoon. Let them (re)connect us with each other, city folk and indigenous people alike. Let them inspire us to take care of each other and remind us that nature is not something dangerous that must be kept at a distance.
We are nature.
