My permaculture class went on a field trip to learn more about dealing with water in permaculture designs. One of the first things you notice in the areas around San Francisco: The hills are brown. During the summer time, there is virtually no rain browning all the grass on the hills in East and North Bay. I always thought of that as natural: No rain, no green grass. I didn’t stop to think about why there is only grass on the hills! The MA Center, the site of our field trip, visually shows that things could be different. On one side, the hills are the usual brown, dried-out grassy areas. But on the other side are hills that are lush with green! The difference? The green hills have trees! Trees are important for retaining water (and can also help make rain). And, of course, the absence of trees is not natural. The trees were cut down for building material. Then the hills were parceled out to sell them to farmers. The farmers brought cows onto them. Since the parcels are too small for moving the herds, the cows just grazed on the grass that was there, eating it beyond regeneration, destroying the soil. Now the hills are bare. The soil is dead. The small area with green hills was for some reason spared that fate. There are now lush forests there and water run-off does not threatened soil erosion downhill. The water is slowed down, spread throughout the forest, and sinks into the ground for storage. There is a healthy ecosystem on those hills.

In addition to attending the Urban PDC, I am doing independent reading to ground what I learn during the PDC in philosophical theories. The field trip coincided with my reading of David Schlosberg’s book on environmental justice. The juxtaposition of the brown and the green hills brought home his arguments: The thoughtless destruction of the forests on the hills is unjust. It is environmentally unjust – current generations are paying for the overgrazing of past generations – and it is ecologically unjust – it disrespects a functioning ecosystem. The beauty of permaculture is that we can slowly undo the damage by regenerating the soil. It will take time and work. But it can be done.

The brown hills aren’t the only damage, though. The droughts that we are experiencing are also, at least partly, created by the destruction of the hills. We know that trees on ridges can help us create rain. By cutting down the trees, we are breaking that cycle. Worse, we expose the hills to the full power of the rain, when it does come. The water runs downhill without being slowed starting a ripple effect: Soil erosion, which then makes soil even less able to capture the rain, drying it out more, causing more soil erosion. This is known as a negative feedback loop – spiraling down into completely useless brown hills. So, the injustice of destroying and not regenerating the hills goes further: We are altering the climate, not just with CO2 emissions. Again, it’s important to break this loop – not only because green hills are pretty. It’s the just thing to do!

What do you think? The tools are there, so do we have a moral obligation to regenerate the soil to undo the damage? If not, why not? If yes, why?

(Cross posted here).