Who are YOU to say?

Okay, welcome to Discover Permaculture, the podcast and we're coming to you from Australia here by me and Sam, he's back in Australia and Eric's in Sacramento and Ben is in Mississippi. So we're all in a normal spot for once and today we're going to talk about Aidwork, Ethics and Self-Reliance in relation to that and something I want to bring in here straight away is a statement is Aid designed to solve problems or manage them? Is if a crisis ends, does the funding end or do we keep Aiding? Now, my personal entry point into Aid was in 1999 in Macedonia after the Coservo crisis and I've realized at that point that Aid was an industry. There was even Aid trade shows where you could see the latest winterized tents. So most people don't realize that it's such a boom industry, Aid and refugees and the ongoing set of crisis. So what we are going to look at is critiquing systems, not attacking good-hearted people who have good intentions, but what is the system about? I was involved in the Coservo crisis in Macedonia with the refugees and Chagrini was the largest refugee camp in Europe at that time since the Second World War. There was over 100,000 people and it was quite an experience. Who else has been involved in Aid you guys in any form? Yeah, a bit. Well, my introduction to Aid and Aid as a business was working on the Jordan project and that was eye-opening for many, many reasons, but I think you can connect Aid to the healthcare industry. There's more money and constant treatment than a cure. So Aid's the same thing. Unfortunately, there's a lot of salaries to get funded first before any actual problems get solved. Yeah, Aid as a business and it is a business. It's an industry. It's a career for a lot of people. So the funding. I saw something a little bit more sinister than it being just a business. I also, sorry, it is a bit of a means to an ends. So I mean, when we were working in Northern Iraq, we were working in Mosul area, a city that had been heavily bombed, 200,000 buildings had been bombed in Mosul, which is, I don't know, what percentage Mosul values? But when you think it's like a population of a few million people, I mean, how many buildings do you have, a proportionate to the amount of people that are there and driving through it? It's the majority of buildings are rubble. And we were working in that region and the most expensive bits of equipment I saw getting around with these big trucks with like radars and stuff on top of them and I asked the people we were working with on the Aid projects, the local people, what the trucks were for and they had big GIZ stickers on the side, the second largest aid organization in the world, the German aid organization. And they said that they were looking for oil, they were oil trucks. And so on the Aid projects that I was working on, I started putting, joining the dots and I think we were just building the infrastructure for them to export the oil that they were quite sure was in the region to report. So I mean the roads, the hospitals, the housing, all these sorts of things, how I would be very interested to know what percentage of it, I use to how's or facilitate industrial or commercial interests such as exporting oil, exporting exporting things to be refined. I think it's Aid and the conflicts that center around Aid, the dots I joined it seems to be a little bit more than more than just people having careers but like stage stage events for very rich people to get much, much richer. That being said that's not to say that there isn't exciting Aid, there isn't interesting Aid that actually has made a difference in people's lives. I've been involved in some of it. I know you guys have to, there's some exceptional things that can be done but what eyewitnesses they're often designed curated, directed by people that are invested in the local community and their small organizations. I can't say much about the big stuff because I don't know how much of that is actually for the greater good. Looking at revelations coming out of the Epstein files and knowing that deep state utilize these types of organizations to go in and do whatever intelligence operations or regime change operations or corporations like you're saying trying to map and take advantage of resources. Within you have things like Bill Gates or you know the Clintons showing up after disaster and refugees that be. I saw Bill Gates or the Clintons show up. I'd be looking to move refugee camps. I don't know but you know it's testing vaccinations or biometrics, crypto currencies. These unfortunately these poor refugees are already just been beaten down so much. They're kind of guinea pigs in a lot of ways. So you know I see a lot of insidiousness surrounding it. I'd be very leery about raising the flag and support of the UN or war-leconomic forum. Operations for sure. I mean if you've done work for the UN like do you see it as possible to to create good results from an institution that can be suspect on a lot of levels like how compartmentalized are the programs that are under the umbrella of the UN which is you know obviously a massive global organization right. Yeah we've tried very hard to get good results and I thought we pulled it off on the last last project but I think that is literally the last project. It's just enormous amounts of inefficiency and answering to bureaucracy. I mean literally creates jobs within our organization that don't have to be there. It could be documented much easier. And then at the other end once we get a result and we've got great results it doesn't really get promoted and extended like they write in the criteria for the project. So we do all this work to get an end result that extends into something that gives people some independence and the dependency just continues. It's pretty awful actually. It's really really good at being inefficient and very very long-winded and in the worst case the very small amount of funding actually hits a ground so it can be less than 5% actually hits a ground. It looks like it's going to hit the ground the talks big the level of efficiencies extremely low and it just keeps the aid workers the middle management well funded and the people on the ground not really seeing the good result even like I say even when we achieved incredibly good results it wasn't then there was no funding put into extending that information or extending that teaching and getting it to people in a way where they could actually use it. Very disappointing very disappointing and we tried with our own as often NDA 6 sign documents say you're not supposed to use any of any of the information for your own promotion you're not supposed to take photos but we have we've used them but it's just not the same. Age should be redundant. The aid at a large level like the United Nations is a good enough reason for us to need aid. You need aid to help the aid organizations. How about the reorganizations influence? The results of aid the influence of aid is a good enough reason to need aid and Bill Moloton states that in the permacup to design his manual. It's a pervertion of aid itself. I do just before we we dive into this deeper I do want to talk about some of the successful aid that I've personally been involved in or the aid that I view as being having been successful and the situation in which it happened. I think there is a context to aid that could be helpful like the reality for the parts of Northern Iraq where we were working is during the bombing campaign of Northern Europe, people lost so much. And people, I think, is coming to light now after Gaza, but I don't think most people are aware of how many atrocities are committed during American led wars, how much horrible things happen. So I was working on a farm, working with this man who had lost everything, before the war he had a food forest, got an extremely diverse food forest and all got burnt down to the ground to the point where he had like rocks and dirt left. And he talked about how old it was, it sounded phenomenal. It sounded like it would have been an incredible place. And he was visibly heartbroken. And it had been a long time. It had been 20 years since the war had happened. I've heard all sorts of horrendous stories. And in those circumstances, there really is a lot of good, but invigorated people from outside of a conflict context, financial support and those sorts of things can give to the setting. So people who have the energy, have the physical capacity, have the funding behind them can come in and do a lot of good, given a good structural situation. And what we were afforded because of István, who's a Hungarian guy that I think we've mentioned quite a few times on this show, a guy that we work with. He was very wise in how he went about setting up his relationship to this aid organisation. He was the director and head in chief and how things should happen on the ground. And he had put himself in that position and negotiated that position. He didn't commit to projects or working with this organisation without having pretty much 100% say on how it went down on what happened, on how funds were allocated. And he absorbed the funds into his business and directed how it went. He reckoned during the time we were there, and I can attest to it just visually from the amount we did with the amount of funding we received, that only 30% went to administration. And if anyone who's worked in aid says this, I don't know what an achievement that is. Only 30% going to administration, like when it's all said and done, is phenomenal. And so that's 70% of the funds that were received hit the ground. That was thousands of chicken tractors. It was hundreds of nurseries, hundreds of fish ponds. It was many, many courses. It was demonstration sites worth today worth millions of dollars more than what was put into them. Lots of publicity, lots of support. We worked with the Ministry of Agriculture. A lot happened for the small amount of money we received. And I would say on that metric, it was successful. It was successful at work. I think we should all be very impressed with what he's found pulled off. And he pulled it off in many tangent, tangental ways that set up other opportunities for what could be done in the setting. I mean, he brought me in to do a wastewater treatment system for a whole village. And we pulled off the model. It might not have been the best funded or the most successful thing of what it could have been. But it showed him principle what was achievable and gave us a way to cost and doing that kind of work in the region. He set up a chicken tractor manufacturing business for locals. He set up chicken businesses for locals. He helped them with purchasing and distribution, selling of their product. He really did have an impact on some people's lives. Sounds I'm sure you're paid is what that sounds like. Yeah. And that's what it is. And that's because of how it was set up. That's because of the position he put himself in. And I have seen, I guess similar things with Warren brush and that top. But they're working as part of such a big base. I don't know, but as part of the UN and the World Food Program and stuff like that, I don't actually know how much of their actions go towards a different prerogative than their own. I don't know how much success they've had. We'd have to have them on to actually understand the success they've had. I think one other main issue about the conventional aid organizations is our systems are too complicated for them to understand for the most part. So there's no box to check that says permaculture system. So it's usually very singular issues like water wells or toilets or solar panels, which is fine potentially, but they have no larger design or context to connect them to. So then it's like, okay, if the whatever technology they bring in fails, nobody knows how to fix it. So then it just becomes like a trash heap there, which is, you know, part of the issue with the, you know, the US tech-based people who want to bring in all these fancy gadgets. And then they last a couple years and then fail. And then they're just sitting there and it's garbage because nobody can do anything with them. Yeah, that that there was a reflection also on the paper that received the aid when I was when I was in Iraq, where there was a man who had this well that was drying up. And he was asking us, I mean, quite desperately because his farm was on the verge of collapse that we dig a deeper well for him. I said, oh, you just run into the same problems later on. And he had a set up, we had a situation where he had this huge ridge behind him, quite a large catchment that went through his farm. He had like this little, this little gully that ran through his farm that obviously had a lot of water that went through it because it was quite a deeper erosion channel. And I suggested quite a large swale behind his property to drop the water into into where he was getting the water from with the well. And I mean, he was excited for the concept, but it was the first time he'd ever heard something like that before. It only ever approached aid organizations for digging a deeper well. There wasn't that opportunity provided to him or that context provided to him by anyone else that had come through. That is one of the classics. You know, if you're going to put in a well, I'll put in the recharge. Yeah. And some of our aid in Morocco, we've insisted that for the depth of a well in relation to the area of recharge. And then an example of what you can do with the water. So one, how you recharge it, and you don't you know, you don't deplete the the groundwater itself. And then if we put in say one hectare or one acre of a display site of how sustainably you can use water with good design, then 20 times that area in landscape rehabilitation water harvesting works. It doesn't happen to be in high quality, hard to maintain species. It can be in long term forestry, desert forestry, hardy trees, they're easy to grow, they're more or less grown selves. And in a long term, I produce from firewood, but definitely reduced dust storm and that, you know, deposits of wind becomes something of value because the trees in the water harvesting systems harvest the dust and that organic matter that's blowing in the wind, where there's a lot of material. So people then understand are the trees don't just do this, they actually do that as well. They make the water harvesting systems more shaded, more wind buffered, and they also deposits. And that helps the water not be depleted in the well. So it's kind of one thing leads to another. But that's typical permaculture, it's fundamentally different, it doesn't take on singular issues ever much at all. It's always a connected diversity and it's crucial to get it right, especially in drylands. And where people want to, they want some help, but they want to be able to understand how they take it on and keep it going because so often when the aid organization funding stops, the project just stops. Nobody understands how to take it on. I've often noticed now that if people aren't interested in their own personal health, they often aren't interested in the health of the environment. We don't even care whether you've got physical health, yourself, as a human being, you've got a healthy body and you've got good immunity system and you purposely change your attitude and change how you live to achieve that. Then you've prepared to sort of think about, oh well maybe it's good idea to do the environment as well. It's not just a water issue and if people say it's often just water. And then what do you do with the water? Oh, your mix of chemicals up and degrade the soil as you grow a quick crop, but not a long-term, resilient crop. So permaculture aid is often leading to demonstration sites like this one here. We're putting in a system where with part of the aid is to demonstrate how well you can use the resources that we can naturally harvest and how it can go on indefinitely. Our goal is to work ourselves then out of a job. The locals have to understand how that demonstration site works, how they can keep take it on and you become redundant and the quicker you can do that the better you are at this job. Not extending the wages. A lot of things. times we're giving people skills of resilient skills of sustainability rather than shipments and shipments of more food aid or more technology aid or whatever it is, you know, a dependency aid. So local capacity over external inputs, are you going to bring some of info people like teach them how they manage it and keep it running rather than once fun stop just stops because no one knows why it's even there. They've just said yes because they'd say yes to anything and we arrogant come in and think oh of course they're going to take it on nothing. No, this is your strategy and approach kind of change when it's a refugee camp versus like a town that's been hit by a disaster or war or something. Yeah, it doesn't. They don't have the same type of ability to manipulate that terrain maybe. Yeah, I mean you can do the refugee camp itself, especially after it finishes and everybody's been either sent to a host country or they've gone back home but in a refugee situation a lot of people don't have any heritage to the land they're on and they're and they're all they're thinking about is where they're going next either to a host country and hopefully a wealthier one they're thinking or they're going back home. Now your teacher and to take up a sustainable design approach to their home country or the country they're going to because you just it's not just going to be also easy going to a host country. You're going to be taking on refugee type jobs and this the lowest paid jobs often the base worker jobs. So having a design literacy is something that gets you at a dependence because you need your teaching people to become design thinkers. I've got a I've got a I guess it's initially a success story and then has a really tragic ending about a job we did in near the border of Iran in Iraq for Kurdish refugees that were from Syria. They're Kurdish um Syrian Kurds who I don't know if you if you anyone who's been tracking what's been happening in Syria the the area the Kurdish area of Syria was hit really hard by what was going on in Syria it was really really sad what happened in in um Kurdish Syria and all these people ran away from Kurdish Syria to be in um Iraq the guys that ran away to Iraq they were given some support by Iraq to to be there um but the I mean the support was as basic as it could be because well I mean they're a poor country absorbing poor people so they they built these little concrete houses these little little setups and there had been aid organization there before we came in who had been managing this sort of permaculture garden types setup and I can't say it was giving anything particularly to anyone before we got there besides the people who were making the aid money which you know they want the foreigners that were coming and making making the money administering it all they make good money I mean it's it's good good wages by any standard that they they get paid better wages than they would if they were staying in their their home country in an aid situation and there's all sorts of reasons why people can justify that but the locals are getting nothing the people that need the aid aren't getting paid that money and I we go and we see there's a nice nursery that that one Kurdish man was very passionate about and he was getting paid maybe 500 US dollars a month to to maintain it and look after it um and there were two other workers that were coming and going and looking after that little things that were going on the site and Estvan's concept was we will teach them um three different systems would be fish fish ponds which which is the potentially quite lucrative we do chicken system which could could make some people money and at least give them food and and nursery systems and we can tie it in together and give everyone a little bit of a garden space as well so they can they can supplement their own food but small areas amazing how we we ended up being able to divide it and figure it out and so we gave them an education how to do this we did courses and we we taught them and they were very enthused they were very excited and because I think because the context of these people as well lots of them were rural not not not actually that many of them were from the city and this was all a lot of them had farms that they missed and they were they dreamed about and and so they they really like one one man put his own investment in and bought a bigger pump for his fish pond and there's all sorts of stuff happening um that that was really quite exciting about what happened and we because we did it on the minimum budget and we we were pulling off the biggest result we could have pulled off with the result was very exciting but the man who um the camp director he was so set on like that I mean that that is trying to do something a little bit cheeky and that he had tried to put the the control of the land to the people rather than to the camp director so he had put a clause in the contract that allowed the perpetual control from the the refugees so they had a bit of say over the land they had a bit of control over their little parcel their little plot um and so the camp director ended up lying he said that they were he found a bomb in one of the fish ponds um and said that for for everyone's safety the fish ponds had to be filled in and he bulldozed the site bulldozed the whole site that's how we fish down here in Mississippi yeah good on you good on you but I mean in reflection to that I think the the big thing that I took away from that the like the successes of it of how how engaged people became and not the tragedy of it was the education part of it how that has to be an integrated part getting people motivated and collaborating together talking about um how things are happening I think there's a lot of social work in the education that needs to be done for for people to be engaged and or interested in what you're doing it has to be relevant to them that's to meet financial needs there has to be a concept that I will make money from this and I will I will get something that's valued valuable to me from this it's an opportunity it's a leg up it's not just um sack of rice an aid it's not just just something like that um and and then for people to be educated about the context and possibility of it um and then the delivery of it to hold hold people's hand through it to to put it in and and be able to be there with them to help them execute it but I meant that the the more control you as a as a organization have over the system if you're ethical if you're an ethical organization the better because that that camp director was um I was a horrible man a really nasty man one of our projects in Jordan we were teaching composting and waste water cleaning so because there's such a limited amount of water we felt that composting can fertilize and with compost and mulch you can extend the moisture that's on on the ground and in the ground even around a basic crop like olives which is which is the main crop of Jordan um but um using red bed gray water system and even black water we can we can recycle all our water we back onto crops so just by putting in the right system biologically we can actually clean waste water up not to a stage where you could drink it but we can clean it up we can use it as irrigation and um that became a trade in this local village this became you know there were there were teams of people putting them in and getting paid to put them in because they also got a really good result they weren't just put in the water into leech fields they were actually put it into water tanks and I think that would be illegal here but they were actually filling irrigate tanks that water tanks were irrigation and making compost was another part of the program which included the reads when they got to choked up in the red beds um all organic matter that was in surplus with composted and put around olive trees an extra water was put around olive trees from the from the biologically clean water and in a year when there was no olive production in Jordan there was no commercial olive production in Jordan all the olives were too small too shriveled up in a long drought long summer drought how a village produce good olives so it made national news now what do you know and one village gets good high quality olives and everybody else has got nothing to sell because they don't meet the basic standard and that exposed our project to these two elements compost and the way it would have been composted in with recycled waste water so that created two small business enterprises within the area teams of people teaching people animate compost making compost and then also the waste water system how you put them in how you build them it's a building exercise so people don't often see compost as an industry but more and more and more compost is an industry and as an industry you can teach to in aid. There's almost anybody anywhere can make compost and the time and effort you've been in relation to what it ends up being worth is quite a good return. So that's one of the best little ongoing, sustainable aid projects that we've created. And our exit strategy was once you can do this, you don't need us. Now once you can demonstrate you've got the skills, we don't need to come any more. You can teach your own people. And compost has a result that you can cage and waste, you know, wastewater, biological treatment, wastewater has a result you can assess. So it's almost like, well, if it works, it doesn't smell any more. It's like perfectly clean water, but it looks quite clean, looks quite good and doesn't smell. And compost has an ability to grow trees and plants well. And it becomes quite quickly that it's what obviously it's working. But just as an example of how compost could be very valuable, there's a company near me here in Sacramento about like 45 minutes north and they're making very high quality what they call anoculum compost. So you would use it primarily for extracts and to introduce very high quality biology into other systems, but they sell it for $6 to $700 a cubic yard. Yeah. And like, you know, so there's stuff, I mean, you need to know, obviously, you need to be able to make the very high quality stuff. But yeah, I mean, usually what passes for municipal grade compost is kind of worthless. So yeah. And I think that's also highlights the difference in a permaculture aid setup is we're actually trying to create livelihoods for people with everything so interconnected and interdependent where most conventional aid is just constantly on the dependence hamster wheel. Well, we've created a project in Jordan where people come because we have an organic coffee shop and they also get to experience food forest in the system. And along with that, we've got Airbnb when there's no students taking up the bedrooms. So people can come and sort of dip their toe in the water and experience what it's like to live in amongst these sustainable systems infrastructure and biological structures and systems. But now we've extended it to health and wellness because and nothing opened up the locals more interest than health and wellness. They were all interested that all these Westerners kept coming to take courses with us and some of the locals. But always the Westerners helped fund the project extends. So it was self-funded through its own educational programs that attracted international people. Well, at this moment in history, that's probably not going to happen. I've just heard that what the gas supplier, Jordan just got cut off and the water supply. So you really have only got a month because you haven't got any water and you haven't got any gas. You've got to come from Israel and it's just been cut off. So we're seeing water supply being cut off now. Some of these places, the big cities of that region and Middle East, they really don't last long without water. And it's a heavy stuff. Yeah, there's a lot of desalination operations. What percentage of drinking water is supplied through desalination? Enjoy the amount of water. Not in Jordan, but in its all groundwater. And it's the worst ratio of unsustainable water to population in the world, Jordan. But when you're looking at six million people in ReAD, all their water is coming from one of the biggest desalination plants in demand. And that's a few hundred kilometres away. So there's a lot of piping infrastructure as well. Very vulnerable. It's just been taken out. Six million people without water and they've got a long way to go to get away from there. I don't think the one in demand has been taken out. The one in Qatar has been damaged. And it's just as catastrophic. But in demand, it was one of the biggest oil refineries in the world. That was damaged. So these are the mainstay of their economy. Van, vulnerable situations, if you don't know how you can create an alternative and at least be ready. It's like the, also the fuel prices go skyrocketing right now. I'm talking to people who are like going to go and buy large strums of. I'm going to be the same. But it doesn't make any difference. You've been much better off putting an effort into some good goods. You've got an impact systems where you, you know, at least, you're going to have some self-reliance. This is, if these things extend like this, we put ourselves into aid. We become aid dependents. But it can't, it just can't, the industry can't go at this level. It can't extend at this level. So, you know, if you're going for big institutions, they're going to be swamped. You know, first off, we might have ethical tensions about big institutions. They have massive reach. They have massive impact potential. But they're often, it seems, corrupt in the way the money's spent. So, they can be really efficient, but not spending the money well. And then you have very small aid organizations, a very ethical and they're very honest, but they're often not very efficient. It's rare that you find a small aid organization doing fantastic work and it's really efficient because it just doesn't have that massive reach and impact. And then you've got to look at, you know, is political and funding entanglements, part of the situation. Is there collaboration compromises or leverage? As soon as you start dealing with millions and billions of dollars, all of these things were a potential where if we had billions of small aid organizations that were efficient, we'd be much better off. It's very much like gardens against, you know, broad scale industrial agriculture, which is highly inefficient and everything shipped in from massive distances to support it, same with aid. We've been much better off doing billions of small aid organizations that initially we go in and teach how to operate efficiently. So, can you read again? Can you redirect large institutional resources forward to regenerate, you know, to regenerate instead of dependency? The only way I can see to do it is training lots and lots of small teams. Immediately, people are getting work, but can you keep them honest? Does work in inside, you know, from the inside, you know, legitimized problematic systems? Can we work inside of them? I'm finding I can't. I've got some great results. It hasn't extended anywhere near as far as it could. So, where's the ethical line? Where's the line? The way we work. I have worked for small aid organizations that have 200 funders only and are run by a husband and wife, but they only work in a small area. Get a great job done. Prove that a small organization can be efficient. Can you duplicate the efficiency in that small scale and get the job done? There's actually nothing stopping us making a redundant. We don't exactly how to do it. Exactly. Most children die. I've just, I've cholera and malaria. Those are two very solvable, you know, very solvable medical conditions. I've had both of them twice, but I'm not a poor, I'm not a poor person in developing country who doesn't have access to resources and hasn't got a very good immunity system. But we can solve all the aid. It's no problem. We should already be redundant. Can we redirect large institutional resources towards regeneration aid, regenerative aid? Yes. You know, it's all over the way. What's the link to our go fund me? That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. Well, you're going to say something, Eric? Yeah. Well, I just, I think it's kind of ironic that people largely donate to these massive aid organizations because they think they're trustworthy and it's going to have the most impact when, in fact, you're funding lots of bureaucracy and corruption, but they get, you know, they have a lot, you know, they have the money to do the outreach, to do the advertising and, you know, the small organizations, nobody knows about, that are actually doing the real valuable work on the ground. Or the individuals that need direct help and have bank accounts. Right. But you could just put money straight in, you know. And then you can just put it straight into their account. I think that's definitely more common now with, you know, digital digital payment systems. You can literally just pay some, an individual in a situation rather than an aid organization. for the large organizations, it's a tax deduction. But a lot of the reasons they've got a tax problem, they can donate. And then there's a certain amount of collaboration there. There's certain political entanglements and industry entanglements that make it convenient. But can you set the model up? Can you teach the model? Can you offer the model? Can we take an up and a sort of Gandian level of aid? And people will sort of say, are that's the model I want to follow? And we can do this in a small way. There is a situation here as well where you have very, very hard situation, like positions sometimes, cultural sensitivity and misunderstanding through cultural sensitivity. Just not realizing you'll be culturally insensitive. It is a real skill on being a neutral aid worker who doesn't offend anybody and is very observant of culture and gives off an impression to the local, do you at least try to be culturally sensitive? You're not blatantly coming in and upsetting people and offending people. And expecting everybody to think, well, we just believe everything you say and we're going to do exactly what you say. No? Because often it won't be culturally sensitive. And there can be very hard situations when you're dealing with fourth world. Instead of first world and third world, which are misnamed, because it's really the one third world and the two thirds world. There's one third of the people live in that first world and two thirds of the people live in the third world. You could call it the overdeveloped world and the never to be developed world. The never to be developed world conveniently has to never be developed 'cause there's your cheap labor for the overdeveloped world that keeps overdeveloping. It's the wordage we use often, but there's a fourth world and the fourth world is where indigenous people are displaced within their own landscape. And that's the hardest world to work in because they feel totally collapsed but they're still in the indigenous land. They might be on the scalar land that they were once but their culture is collapsing but they've still got an attachment to their local indigenous culture and they're not displaced. They're within their country boundaries. And the funny thing is if you research the fourth world like the Aboriginal people of Australia, the hill tribes of Thailand, the Greenland Inuit, the North American Indian reservations. They all have the same Somalia. You all have the same situation where you have adult onset diabetes, you have obesity, you have social dysfunction, you have family violence, you have problems with very crude drugs and alcohol. - Sounds like America. - Petrol sniffing. Yeah, it's kind of, well, the dejected people within their own cities that are in the homeless back, it's pretty scary actually if you go into those back alleys of America, there is kind of a fourth world in there. But you actually have your North American Indian tribes nations of people that are not recognized by the United Nations, hundreds of nations and languages, same in Australia. They all have, it doesn't matter what climate they're in or landscape they're in, they all have the same health issues, social issues and they all, you'll find out the same attitude. And if you're honest about it and you listen to it, they all abuse the local language that they speak the local, the native languages disappear and they try and hold onto it, but the local language of the nation and they abuse the way they speak it, but all of this attitude, they kind of think, we're just gonna not take anything much seriously, we're not gonna worry about our own health really and all our problems because these first world people are going to eventually go away. And we're gonna go back to our indigenous dream time and it looks like they might be right. - I don't know, have you seen Terminator? - Yeah. - Well, it doesn't look like we're gonna be running out of aid work anytime soon. I mean, you could say the whole world's one big aid project, but we're gonna need a lot more people who are effective in aid world, so how do you identify people who would be a good fit for aid work, Jeff? You've trained a lot of people, but not so many of them would be a good fit in a lot of these harsh conditions. - Yeah, and we try never to send people alone into aid because you definitely start to lose your mind and you can be psychologically affected. And it's a known fact that you can't go into war zone without being psychologically affected. Absolutely no. Nobody comes out the same psychologically. And a lot of people are damaged forever. So it's having dog in persistence and being able to put up with real disappointment and being quite disillusioned and having people that you can communicate with or people on the ground that you can work with directly that you can use as a sandboard because there is a lot of disappointment and it often takes a lot longer than people think. Nobody's gonna change quickly, it just doesn't happen. So you kind of need 10 years to change people on the ground. Most aid projects disappear after 10 years. A good aid project gets better and better for 10 years, but starts much slower and so people can keep up with what you're doing. You just stop a massive amount of money that suddenly comes in and makes a huge, impressive change. You know, a great week open day and every day from then on gets a bit worse and after 10 years you've collapsed. You start small and get bigger. And at about halfway point, local people start to pay attention. That's what we've found. But a lot of people are not prepared to put in 10 years. Not on the same project. They want to change to a new culture. They want to change to a new landscape. Teachers can come in, but someone has to keep the hard yards going. So, failure that taught the most is a big one you have to consider. What failure has created the best lessons out there? A lot of good lessons are what doesn't work. And you can extend that knowledge to people. It's not just what does work. Right? In theory, this should work, but it hasn't worked. Bringing too much technology into people who are not ready for it, accept it. And as soon as you turn around, they're not using it's scrap. I mean, fancy irrigation systems often, or be working while you're there. As soon as you leave, it's all just not everyone's just got a finger on the end of a hose. There's no technology use. - I know for me, accepting that you're not going to get much done was the hardest lesson I learned between Jordan. Just you can't, you feel worthless. You're like, I'm here, I'm not doing anything. And but you realize just the fact that you're there and you're keeping things going, sometimes is the most important accomplishment you're doing. So I know just, that was the biggest I think I open for me, is just realizing how long it's actually going to take to do something. And all the change that does work is incremental and precious, you have to look after it. And the work that doesn't work has to be written as a lesson. You can't just be, oh, we'll get, if you don't, they're going to make the same mistake again. And so you're saving time, put your effort into what does work. And a lot of time with different systems, that gets you bigger and bigger and more impressive. Yeah. The thing I wanted to add on to what you're saying before Jeff, that I guess people's, they're the psychological effect on people and those sorts of things in it. I think the big part of that is the people living there, the psychological effect it's had on the people living there, watching what's happened to their own family. I mean, it's really hard not to be affected by their psychological impact. And I think it's actually really important. If you were to go do aid, before you go go to aid is to listen to these stories, really expose yourself to the stories of what has happened and what is happening around the world before you go and try and engage in it. Because if you caught completely a guard, and ignorant to the situation, it is that's why you will get, so it's so deeply affected psychologically. If you listen to the stories beforehand, if you go, and you go, I can't handle that, then you're not a fit, don't do it. Don't do it. It's not going to help you. Are you patient? Are you adapting? acceptable. Can you be uncomfortable with being uncomfortable? Yeah, except in that. Yeah, and low tech solutions, not high tech solutions. And often when there's a scarcity of water, people find it hard to believe that you're actually putting water harvesting systems. It doesn't, to them, seem any water compared to deep well pumps with high tech solutions, which cost a lot of money and can't actually remain tame. So that has to be really well explained. And often it's a lengthy process. And you have to ask people if we can put in these demonstrations, and you can see it for yourself over time. Now, technology does help there with photography and things like Google Earth time lapse. Because Google Earth can see things over time. Yeah, it's a marriage of appropriate technology and appropriate solutions and a patient's to get that message across to people. And then obviously they'll still often say, well, kind of just have the money for a high tech solution, get it done quick. But you know, you'll automate larger, bigger mistakes that way as well. It's not necessarily something that goes on indefinitely. So, um, think of buy one of those fancy Bill Gates toilets that converts sewer sludge to drinking water. Yeah. Good idea. Yeah, I mean, for prior to very membranes that you can only buy from Bill Gates and go graded. Yes. If it breaks, you kill children with color. I mean, when, when systems and toilets and sanitary systems aren't working and Sam's just been through this and they get unseasonal rain, then all you can do is smell sewage all the way through town. And it's a bit of a warning. Yeah. And kids like plain with water, particularly kids in dry places, and it rains, kids like plain in the rain. If there's poop in the water, it's not something that necessarily deters kids. And I get really, really sick. But that's like, that's not even the hardest part of aid. That's not even the saddest part of aid. All right. The sad parts is all the personal stories that people have of what happened in conflict and then the emotional rifts between people. They're really full on. They're like the tribal stories. Because when there's such harsh conditions and such difficult scenarios, communities just just implode, totally destroy themselves. And the relationships between this group of people and that group of people become really full on, really sad. And you have to be really sensitive to that stuff as well. And where culturally aware of who you're involving and what and who's getting involved and what and connected to what. And those stories, you have to listen to them. You have to read up on them. There are podcasts and there are things that you can listen to before you go into a war zone that do prepare you somewhat mentally for the stories that are happening, like hearing the stuff that's going on, actively seeking out those stories. And then the context in which you do the aid, like I said in the beginning. So if you don't have, sorry, I just. Aid can change. Aid can change your view of the world. And can definitely definitely change the way you teach permaculture. Because you reflect on the basics that you used in aid to get a success. Instead of looking at all this fancy gimmicky things that people like lean towards, you go get grounded back to the main systems. And that changes your worldview as well. A lot of people could go into an aid permaculture aid scenario. Because it will, it will transform them. And I'm repeated statement from third world people who take up permaculture positions. Like just like in the first one, there are always a few students, local students who think they've really got it. They sort of got terminal. I can see that the view of their personal world and the broad view of the world has changed. They will all say after a while, I realize how lucky I am. They've been born in the third world. Because they have basic skills that we don't have. And when losing faster, then they are much faster. They've gone through a very quick first world, third world head on collision. There's a lot of casualties. But they're still in the collision. They still know how to pluck a chicken. They still know how to, you know, set up a fence. They still know how to make their own clothes. They still know how to grow certain crops that we've lost. And we lose it rapidly, especially with AI and mobile phones. AI means we don't have to go and get educated anymore. We have everything we need to know. Not only is it online, but we don't even have to try searching. We just ask AI, and it tells us within seconds. So that is your education. I know he had it ask AI. Now I know everything I need to know. And that's completely changed what people now know. I mean, people don't know where the frogs are dangerous or not. I mean, I've got them here now on the farm. I've got people scared of the silliest things. It's a really, you've not only grown up with a computer and a phone, you've grown up with AI, haven't you? Oh, yeah, of course. Oh, okay. So now you have no sensitivity to natural world whatsoever. Maybe scared everything in Australia myself. I am, I just ask AI. Frogs are dangerous just to prove your point. Yeah. And it says most frogs are not dangerous, but some species can be harmful or even deadly if handled or ingested. In case you're wondering. But you know, I think the point is people have lost the ability to find information that's not on their phone. Right? Can you know how to look up something in a book? How's the analog, right? I think some other, you know, kind of practical characteristics or skills that have helped me out. And I think they're just general. They just be good to have for anywhere you're traveling, whether it's aid work or not, but being clean wherever you go. I've never not be asked back where I've gone because I don't mind cleaning and particularly doing the dishes and cooking helps, but it's not mandatory. But I kind of find that it's helpful to do what would be considered women's work in a lot of the developing countries because the men don't do it and the women find it very hilarious if I'm in the kitchen cooking or cleaning. But it seems endearing and least is my experience that I'm willing to do it and don't mind do it. And I don't care if the men think I'm like, you know, a fancy boy or something. It doesn't bother me a bit, but because I in my experience, if you don't get the women on side and more traditional cultures, it's never going to work because they really, despite the men thinking they run everything, it's really it all goes through the women. So I actually think that that's a Western thing. Men thinking they run everything. I think it's some accepted fact. Right. And in most traditional cultures that women run everything. In Somalia, the men have a really good system. Whether women build the house. I don't know if that makes sense to you, but it was a mind-blowing thing to me that like most places I've been that the men build the house to the women's needs and the traditional societies I've been being often the woman has different requirements that change over time. There'll be different things that someone has to then do to their house. But in Somalia, the women build the house and they build amazing houses. I thought that was just a very smart idea from the get-go. If it was a good concept. When it's the house different because how the women were building it, then other places you've been in similar cultures. I guess it was exactly what the woman wanted. The house was exactly what the woman wanted. Be a lot of communication. The women communicate a lot. They don't have an ego that gets in the way much in the village life. Whether men still have this ego and sarcasm and anybody doesn't, they get continuously criticized and teased. The women actually cooperate and discuss whether something works or it doesn't work because it's all about that health and wellness of the children. You do extend information through the women better because of that communication factor. There's bigger things out there as well that we're now having deal with like the climate instability that we're seeing more, you know, more floods and droughts and more, you know, stronger storms and things like that. Our food suppliers is fragile, could easily be interrupted and soil degradation is just everywhere. There's any kind of industrial agriculture or thoughtless agriculture. It's not just a stationary situation. It's a an extended situation. And because of our activity, it's just getting worse. It's accelerated. So should every project be approached like an aid project? Should your home be approached like an aid project? At this point in history, I think it should. If imports stop tomorrow, could your region feed itself? Probably not. Most there is no. I mean, most people wouldn't even know how to navigate by the stars, but most desert better in wood. You wouldn't even know how to get away from the place. If all the mobile phones went down, all the information technology went down, and the supply line stopped, how long would you last? That was an interesting thing when I was working in Iran. And it wasn't aid work, but I was invited to work there by the Ministry of Agriculture. And they told me they don't import any more than they export. They export more than they import. So if either stop, they'd be fine. It's a national policy. And they've had to survive all these sanctions all this time. So they're pretty resilient. And they've done enormous amounts of water harvests and infrastructure. In fact, I think they lead the world. This point in history is a big subject I've heard. But if you want to see some interesting things, go on Goodle-Earth and have a look at all those donuts in straight lines going across the desert. They're connects, they're underground canals, a permanent water supply. These are very clever people. And they haven't broken away from a lot of very clever traditional technology. The core design systems are quite resilient. So you really need to think about if imports stopped. Now what would you do? And maybe the future of permaculture isn't foreign aid. Maybe it's learning to treat every landscape like it really does matter. It really does matter how we treat every landscape matters to somebody somewhere where you are. It has a value. It's not something you can just degrade without feeling like I'm doing something very, very bad here. And it's easy to check out if landscape is degraded. It's becoming less diverse and the soil, fertilizer, the eavesdropping, all the soil quantities are depleted. That's a case. You're going to extend. It's definitely not sustainable. As long as your grass is moored in your HOA is happy and always right with the world, you know? HOA. What's a HOA? A home association authority. Yeah. The Nazis, neighborhood Nazis. Right. Yeah. Well, in our community we don't have a short-crust policy. But I just did move two dairy cares and a horse onto the nice bit of grass this morning. Right. And one's transport and one's milk supply. And a calf supply as well. So they're pretty happy. And I think we're doing okay here. Do you reckon Sam? They're only just behind you. I think we're doing all right. Yeah, we should be reasonably good. But we could do it a lot better and we could get more people doing really well. So think of yourself as potential aid at any second and make sure you've got a good design backup somewhere to at least put in mainframes. And this is a sad but nice podcast to bring up at this point in history. We'll see you next time. Hello.