Permaculture – The Soft Foot Alliance Trust

Permaculture is used to design all aspects of our work, though it is mostly known for its application in agricultural practices. This is a big focus for the Soft Foot Alliance, with much of our time spent on sharing and training the community around Hwange National Park to improve soil quality, catch rainwater and grow abundant and varied food on smaller parcels of land without using any chemical pesticides or fertilizers.
This work we have done to-date includes:

Training in highly water efficient wicking-bed construction and compost making.
Water harvesting and introduction to permaculture.
Holistic grazing planning and training.
Training in the construction of fuel-efficient earthen rocket stoves and hot boxes.
Training in community permaculture gardens and homestead gardens.

As the community is exposed to and applies more-and-more of this knowledge, there is a real sense that simple techniques exist to create harmony with one another and the natural world. But this is not only about introducing new information, it also harnesses traditional knowledge, which re-connects people with their historic skills, land and the biodiversity. There is nothing more exciting for the Soft Foot Alliance than seeing the growing number of people testing permaculture techniques in the community.

Along our journey we have learnt many lessons, one such lesson is that to make lasting change we must each walk the talk. Living by the ethics and principles that we are sharing in every way as SFA team members this is deeply important. Secondly for real change to happen on a landscape, start small, work as a community and demonstrate, then grow from the tangible results.

The Sobajimba permaculture garden has been a learning journey, where a degraded piece of land has been restored and is on the way to regeneration. The site was worked on by 2 villages either side of an erosion gulley to design a garden and demonstrate how this was possible on eroded land. Along with regenerating the land and water table around this garden. This demonstration site is now the inspiration for other villages and communities to to see what is possible and implement.

The third lesson is that we must constantly work on personal, cultural and social regeneration to achieve any level of environmental regeneration. Where the vision is coexistence through abundant landscapes, scarcity can be a reality for many and this in our hearts and minds and lives creates more conflict. This in turn makes the environmental regeneration challenging, so both must happen side by side to reach the vision.

In permaculture every element must serve several purposes, this can be seen in the inter-connections with our work at the Soft Foot Alliance. Herders working together to regenerate the land, and protect livestock from lions. In turn, this herders learn skills that bring economic opportunities for them such as making bee hive fences and zero visibility mobile bomas. The bee hives protect fields from elephants and improve pollination of crops. They protect the bees from having their hives destroyed and create economic opportunities for the community to sell honey and wax products. The bomas increase crop yields and fertilize fields for many years, livestock are protected and so are the lions.