Earth Restoration in Morocco
We received a very nice communication from Latifa Oumlil, a permaculturist working on an Earth repair project in Morocco called the Perma Atlas Foundation. Perma Atlas is mobilizing for the re-greening of the Atlas Mountains and enabling the local population to cope with the large floods and prolonged droughts caused by global climate change.
Perma Atlas has nearly completed its 2-ha demonstration site. They expect to have a school building complete by the end of the year. You can see the way this group works in the videos attached below. They do weekend workshops with village members teaching permaculture and restoration principles and helping support a group design process for the project. After the workshop, the village members self-organize to realize the project. Phase 2 will be applying the restoration techniques practiced at their demonstration sight to a 100-ha area.
Perma Atlas works in a very degraded landscape. Very tough, but there are some shrubs remaining and some bunchgrasses. The videos show work they’ve done building swales (very well reinforced). I assume there are safe outlets for them in case of flooding. There are examples of boomerang catchments and a gabion (cage, cylinder, or box filled with rocks, concrete, or sometimes sand and soil for use in civil engineering, road building and landscaping.). There’s a demonstration of an A-frame level.
Michael Evanari’s book, “The Challenge of a Desert,” would be very appropriate here.
Their work is very impressive and much needed. I asked Latifa if there are other projects like this in Morocco. You can contact us too, if you are involved in Earth repair somewhere or you know of interesting projects.
Michael “Skeeter” Pilarski
Perma Atlas, Morocco
Perma Atlas: L’ecologisation de la Montagne (Perma Atlas: The Greening of the Mountains)
