Permaculture Lessons from a Wild Food Forest in Harriman State Park

Permaculture design is an emerging field of study that seeks to create human settlements that are integrated into, rather than built in the place of, natural ecology's.

http://photos4.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/8/2/a/c/600_273993452.jpeg In Permaculture design, nature is our greatest teacher, and we therefore seek to model our food growing systems on our observation of high functioning and highly efficient natural systems.

In this discussion with Jonathan Ramirez we will take a walk in a wild area in Harriman State Park where a natural and abundant food forest has formed over the years. We will talk about the different layers of food production that exist there, what food is growing, how the ecosystem functions, and how we can integrate lessons from this wild land into how we design our food systems.

As we take a walk amidst this wild savannah-like forest, we will discuss the importance of creating "edible ecology's" rather than traditional "farms" to meet our needs as a collective human culture. We will also briefly talk about how the natives in this area interacted with the land, what remnants of their actions still exist, and what we can learn from how they teamed with nature.

The permaculture event is free! Donations highly appreciated.