"We're going to reforest the world," Brian exclaimed, minutes after I arrived at his home slash farm, nursery, education center and reforestation site. Bosque Village, meaning 'Forest Village' in its official language of Spanglish, is also an experiment in "living happily and comfortably in a post fossil-fuel world." Since founding Bosque Village in 2004, Brian's has been proving that humans can coexist with forests. From his wealth of experience I've complied Brian's "Three Principles for Reforesting the World."
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| "Plant a Tree!" slogans in a village near a Conafor restoration site |
1. Encourage a Forest-friendly culture
– There's no reason why our culture should admire someone who
throws footballs more than someone who plants trees. Brian's first
strategy is to “make planting trees cool again.” By planting in
public places, distributing trees for others to plant and spreading
the word through social media, Brian believes our culture will gradually value reforestation as more people understand its importance. It'll be a exercise in “memetics,” Brian says, meaning the
spread of ideas. (I.e memes).
2. Earn income from forests – As
much as we hope idealism will drive world reforestation, economics
are a much more powerful motivator. “We have to find ways to make
forests worth more,” says Brian. “We're in a competition against
industrial agriculture.” Why would a small landowner for example, who has a family to feed, preserve a mostly unused
forest when he can clearcut and replace it with a profitable avocado
plantation? Conserving and restoring forests has to make economic
sense; “it has to pencil out,” as Brian often says. By
calculating inputs and outputs, by considering costs in time and labor as well as money, he
can prove composting toilets are more efficient than flush, for
example, or that solar water heaters are less costly than gas. “I'm
not dogmatic, I'm just interested in the equations,” says Brian.
The equations will especially tilt in favor of sustainable methods in the future, when industrial methods lose their major
advantage: cheap energy through fossil fuels.
In the case of sustainably profiting
from forests, honey, pine resin, charcoal, furniture, a variety of
artesanal goods like carved wooden masks and pine-needle baskets, as
well as fruits, nuts and vegetables, are all products from Bosque
Village. Further income sources include tourism and
education, operating the Bosque as a retreat, nature center, yoga
studio, language school, or training center for permaculture,
forestry or any number of skills.
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| A day's harvest in the Bosque's 'forest fire garden.' |
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| A journalist interviewing Alicia about the Bosque's products at the local market. |
3. Plant for Climate Change
“The plants here
now weren't here 10,000 years ago,” said Brian. And given the
current rate of climate change, they may not be here much longer.
“If all these pines die in 100 years,” pointing to the
surrounding hills, “Michoacán would become desert.” Therefore,
Brian advocates raising plants from a wider variety of climates
around the world. These “biodiversity incubaters” would ensure
something would survive if the existing vegetation became unsuitable
in a changed climate. At Bosque Village, Brian currently has over 350 species of plants identified and hopes to introduce many more (with
care not to spread invasive species). “I want the most powerful
trees here from around the world,” says Brian.
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| Yours truly gathering yuca seeds for the nursery. [see Trees of Mexico] |
Earning a living, earning respect from society, surviving climate disaster—these Principles serve as motives to reforest the world. Progressing simultaneously are the means to do so, as this blog details. Beyond that, we must entirely “redesign culture to be compatible with forests,” a topic Brian has written about extensively [see links below].
Further Reading
Further Reading
Brian Fey, "How can Afforestation be Increased?" Quora
Brian Fey, "What is the Bosque Village Reforestation Plan?" Quora
Brian Fey, "What is Planting for Climate Change?" Quora
Brian Fey, "What is Planting for Climate Change?" Quora
Related Articles at Next Succession:
-Communities Protecting Monarch Preserves
-Forests for Communities; Reforestation at El Carmen
-Conserving a Valuable Lake: Yuriria, Mexico
This post is absolutely stupendous. It combines themes of environment, human nature and society which are all encapsulated in the form of a post that exhibits practically woven text and vibrant pictures. A splendid job indeed.
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