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Albert Bates 4 Stages of Life

Prolific advocate, Albert Bates is famous for his work promoting Biochar and much more, Here he talks about his 4 stages of life and how he stays hopeful. Each stage of our lives has is a unique facet. Many of the key elders in the Permaculture movement began with an awareness, grew hopeful, then skilled and empowered. Finally they seek to be sharing and nurturing others. Here are Albert Bates 4 stages of his amazing life – in his own words.

Our interview with Albert Bates on his stages of life

Highlights of his career so far

Albert says his life is a work in progress. “I just turned 76 a week ago and I figure I got another 25 years So I got a quarter of my life still to go. And I’m having to figure out what can I do that would be different. And better. How can I do a a fourth act here. And up my game.

The Game of Life – Stage 1

So, let’s go back first stage of the game childhood through you know holding onto your mother’s skirt up to where you’re able to cause real trouble and then um I went to law school with the idea of being perhaps a one of the first cannabis attorneys who would uh who would redirect the legal system to make uh psychedelics legal that didn’t pan out all that well they didn’t Legalize It by the time I got out of law school so a lot of my courses that I took were wasted. But I got out of law school and I decided to put the city out of my blood get away from it for a while.

a hen looking back over her shoulder as she stands on a peak above a sea of mist

Walking in Elders Footsteps

So. I hiked the Appalachian Trail from north to south. That’s a trail that runs down to eastern North America along the Appalachian Ridge 200 miles. And this formed a circular perspective because my great great great great great great great great great great grandfather [Seven Generations removed] was Issachar Bates who was a Shaker poet.

Issachar was a revolutionary war soldier with George Washington throwing off the British yoke and he then fell in love with the Shakers and started to dance. He was a fife and violin player, a dancer and singer. And he wrote 400 Shaker hymns and became a missionary for the Shakers. The Shakers sent him on these long treks out to talk to the colonies. Out into the distant wilderness. He walked the Appalachian Trail [probably the same route I took out into the Ohio Valley]. This was in the late part of the 18th century.

He set up two utopian communal colonies in the wilderness. And had a confab with the prophet who was the brother of Tecumseh and was thinking about throwing off the American yolk. He was a protector of the native peoples, as well.

Issachar Bates - A Charismatic Shaker
Issachar Bates

I found that I had these commonalities in my life. And I was recapitulating my ancestors journey through life. Editorial note: Lucky for Albert Bates, the family did not stay celibate, else he would not have been born.

Common Trails with Ancestors

Here was I, walking the same Mountain trails, starting utopian communities in the wilderness, learning to make friends with adversaries [in our case the redneck Tennesseans who didn’t understand hippies]. And so, I was finding myself in my second phase age 25 to 50.

The garden of earthly delights by Bosch

Second Life Stage – Building Community

Life in that Community Building phase, I was developing the the farm as a village. We were developing businesses like our mushroom people business that was doing medicinal forest mushrooms. And our second Foundation was a charitable organization. And our Plenty which is our International charity. I had no use as a lawyer it at first. But after several years at the farm we started noticing that there were these things called nuclear plants popping up like mushrooms after a rain around us.

Rooster warrior

And I said we had to do something about that. Those are pretty nasty and so I got asked to go out and stop that stop that nonsense. I I handled nuclear cases as a law project it was called the Natural Rights Center. And we fought four times in the United States Supreme Court. We ended the Tennessee Valley Authority’s nuclear program which had had 20 reactors scheduled. And we fought them to a standstill in North America.

I then left out of stress and got more into my mushroom business. I found the law office thing was fine for a number of years. Then, I was like the warrior in Bill Mollison’s ‘Travels in Dreams’.

Regenerative Agriculture

After my life as a lawyer I got into regenerative agriculture. And back into the the basics of of agroforestry. And I started working with Chris Nesbitt down in Belize Maya Mountain Research Farm. Chris is a big agroforestry guy using traditional Mayan style that a lot of has gone extinct. But Chris is revitalizing it for climate resilience. So, I’m still working with Chris. Even today doing Ridge to Reef programs to restore the Mayan coral reef.

Life Stage 3 – 50 years Young and Beyond

In this stage I was focused pretty much on climate change full time. I began to live as an emergency planetary technician. So, they’ve you know they dispatched my ambulance to this particular planet. And I’m doing triage. I’m figuring out what we got to do here to stabilize the patient. And I’m using all of the various means of drawdown that Paul Hawkens talks about.

Natural Climate Solutions

I have a full kit of natural climate solutions in my jump bag. And the main thing that I’m probably best known for is biochar. I’ve written a number of books on it. Mexico is my Hemingway machine, my writing space for this age of 76 and beyond.

Albert Bates – Climate in Crisis

A number of years ago I wrote Climate in Crisis forwarded by Al Gore. This was my first book on climate. It came out the same year as I met Bill Mollison 1990. I probably had it with me when I saw him. And then, the next book I’m known for is the biochar solution this one came around 2010 after I went to a permaculture gathering in Brazil.

Charcoal pencils made inside our cooktop fire. Thanks to Albert Bates tip to use a loose fitting container.

Biochar and Me

Andre Suarez introduced me to Terra Preta – the dark earth of the Indians and that led me to the biochar solution. Then more recently we started looking at the non-agricultural uses of biochar. Which led us to this book Burn : Using Fire to Cool the Earth which is now out in German. By the way, if you want to understand the German word for burn is cool down. That’s the translation! Soon it’s going to be translated into Chinese and Italian. And during the run up to the Paris agreement [I was going to the U.N regularly to the conferences], I wrote the story of how they got to the Paris agreement [2015].

Albert Bates with his book BURN: Using Fire to Cool the Earth

Planetary Technician Processes

While I’ve been in here in Mexico I’ve come out with a book number of series on planetary technician processes. One of those is transforming plastic. It is about how to take plastic and turn it from a problem to a solution.

Dark side of the ocean book cover

And as this relates to the oceans, I wrote the dark side of the ocean which talks about the so-called blue economy or blue carbon. The idea that that the oceans are infinite. But they’re not. And how we’re actually destroying them. But we don’t see the destruction. It talks about alkalinity and salinity, sea level rise and extinction of of marine mammals.

fostering a love of animals helps children develop empathy and understanding of nature.

Children’s Books

And because it’s so interesting I decided we needed to create some children’s books. So I started making books for middle school. You could learn about the ocean, and cuddly sea animals. And understand the effects of pollution and maybe what you’re doing what you’re what you’re sending down the trash chute. And then, I wrote a book called Taming Plastic for kids – how they can do reduce their microplastic footprints. Showing how they can separate their different kinds of plastics and find things useful things to do, shaping a new future by using the recycled plastic.

Finally, here, during the pandemic, I came up with a book on a history of plagues. And it’s also about surviving this one. And how we’re failing on the plague the same way we’re failing on the climate. I have problems with the ways millions of people are dying from stupidity.

Beginning the 4th Phase – Publishing

What I’m doing in my fourth phase is publishing. And a lot of why I’m anxious and eager and grateful to get it out to a larger number of people. So it doesn’t just die with me!

Ecolution of an environmental mind

How do you stay hopeful?

Cultivating a sense of humour helps. As does a Buddhist non-attachment. You know, we may have been screwed before I was born. The trajectory we were on could well have been set well before I was born and I’m just along for the ride. Now, I have a bailing bucket in his sinking ship. So, I’m gonna bail. Because it makes me feel good to be doing something positive. As long as I have the ability to do something I’m going to keep doing it.

If we have just the slimmest of chances that maybe we can have more forest.
We can use algae. We can pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
And we can change our lifestyle. Lets do it.

At some point we will need to. So, it’s necessary that we we show the way. For that reason I stay hopeful. I know that it’s it’s more fun to get up in the morning with a spring in your step because you got something good you can be doing.

Make Life Fun

Part of the solution has to be making it fun. If it isn’t fun – nobody’s going to do it. So, finding solutions is one thing. But then, finding ways to make solutions fun – that’s even more important. And that’s why I write kids books. And that’s why I work with Chris Nesbitt at the Maya Mountain Research Farm. Because he has children’s programs. We do this in Tennessee – we have the Eco Village training Center with a lot of programs with the farm school. And we make it fun.

You know, we make it so that you can get into the mud and make Cobb buildings. And get all muddy. Get your face all muddy and have a party. All of that is is really important. Because if it ain’t fun – ain’t nobody gonna do it!

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Trish Allen’s Circular Economy Cuts Waste

Trish thrives in Matakana 70 km north east of Auckland, New Zealand. She has developed a passion for the permaculture principle – Produce No Waste! With Trish’s leadership Mahurangi Wastebusters actively reduces damage to the environment. In this short video she explains how recycling reduces the environmental damage by reducing the demand for manufacturing, mining and transportation of goods. By leading the change, Trish is forging a circular economy.

Trish Allen on Produce No Waste

Dumping Waste Worsens Climate Change

Waste is a huge contributor to climate change and reducing waste is a passion of Trish Allen. About six years ago she set up a Community Trust a non-profit organization. It is called Mahurangi Wastebusters to do waste education and provide waste sorting services at events. Because events create so much waste.

The Trust grew and became really popular. So, then when the opportunity came up to tender for two Council owned transfer stations they put a tender and got it! Now they run two community recycling centres. And they have converted them from transfer stations (where people used to dump their rubbish for landfill) into processing stations.

Trish at an education stand for Mahurangi Wastebusters
Trish at an education stand for Mahurangi Wastebusters

Better Sorted

They now have 28 different waste streams. And a shop where we sell second-hand items. They send items for ethical processing. For example all the E-Waste goes down to a place in Auckland called Abilities which is an organization that employs about 200 people with disabilities. At Abilities, the employees ethically dismantle everything. So the components can go for proper processing. There are also projects in Waiuku in the Waikato processing plastic bags to make fence posts. This project is called Future Posts.

Mahurangi Wastebusters is also a drop-off point for plastic bags and Silage wrap which goes off to be made into a kind of a plywood. And they are a drop-off point for Tetra pack which goes off to be made into another kind of building material called Save Board.

reclaimed metal waste Mahurangi Wastebusters at the processing facility
reclaimed metal waste Mahurangi Wastebusters at the processing facility

Start Young

Trish is very excited by the progress. “And now I’ve got a couple of wonderful young women working with me and one is going into Early Childhood centres to do waste audits for them. She installs worm bins, compost bins and also educates the children with stories and a little kiwi puppet. She teaches them about waste. And not making waste and not wasting things.

Repair Cafes

Also, I’ve got another young woman who’s doing well organising repair cafes. This is another kind of social permaculture that involves children and adults. It’s teaching people about waste and how not to do it, how to not just reduce waste but going back to a basic principle of permaculture – Produce no waste!

Image By G.Mannaerts, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=97417808

Generating a Circular Economy

“As we know the major environmental impact happens when you extract the resources out of the earth. So the longer we can keep them in in in our system in the circular economy the better!”

Trish has also organised a screening of the film ‘For the Blue’.  It is a film made by young New Zealand surfers and tackles issues around plastic in our oceans. And what we can do about it. The film will be screened at the Matakana Cinema on 5 April and 6pm. Then viewers are invited to actively participate in teams with real-life solutions. These activites include:

– join a town clean up in Wellsford

– join a beach cleanup at Goat Island

– pledge to only use a reusable coffee cup for a month ( no single use cups)

– pledge to only use a reusable water bottle for a month (no plastic bottles)

New Zealand MOVIE POSTER For the Blue

And Trish is co-teaching in New Zealand a 2 week PDC in April 2023.

Thank you for being part of a better future for all.

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Rowe Morrow – Permaculture for Refugees

Rowe challenges Permaculture Teachers to think globally thanks to her work with refugees in Bangladesh, Greece, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and more.

Interview with Rowe Morrow – Patron of Permafund

Global Thinking Learned From Refugees

Rosemary tells us “I could see how very Western, middle-class permaculture was, where, in those countries people might say air pollution is easy to fix – just don’t drive cars. But my mind is global now and considers whether such statements are true across the world. My mind is less western. I’ll say, “Well, no, air pollution is not easy to solve for a refugees in Sri Lanka, in Dhaka in Bangladesh, or in Afghanistan. Because all you have there to burn may be plastic bags, to keep warm, or to cook your food. The air pollution from plastic is and poor quality coke is dangerous. Unknowable numbers of people die of air pollution every year. Don’t accept the western response to a problem as global. Certainly don’t teach it as if it is. Western solutions are not always valuable globally”

Evolving from individuality

There are a couple of big contrasts for me. One is the language of individuality which runs through all western speech such as, “My garden, My fruit trees, My place, My chickens, My everything!” Yet most of the people I work with speak of “Our community, Our chickens, Our fruit trees. They’re not consciously ‘eco-villagers’ but they think of themselves with others. And, when you’re living in Afghanistan you live in a compound with either your husband, your children, your brothers and sisters and their children. There can be 20 people sharing a bathroom and toilet. And they speak of We. The extreme individuality of westerners doesn’t help permaculture. It is very possessive.

Rowe Morrow – Photo Supplied

‘

Individuality’ affects the Permaculture curriculum

I have changed my teaching methods. Yes, you still design your place and that’s yours, but you also need to work with your street and neighbourhood. It may be street trees, it might be verge gardens. It could be growing food for surplus and sharing so people can pick apples or oranges freely. In my case it’s kiwi fruit. You think of how your abundance can serve your local community. Move from ‘me’ to ‘we’.

‘This is the space this young participant had. She is using the family’s grey water.’ Rowe Morrow

The Third Ethic of permaculture – Fair Share

And another thing is the way people I’ve been working with for the past decade or so, are working naturally and extensively with the third ethic of permaculture and the gift economy than westerners do. There isn’t so much talk about money. People would like to have money and better incomes but much of the conversation is about giving and lending, swapping and working together.

Starting a garden in Lavrio Refugee camp

Refugee Ecosystem Thinking

The third ethic, distribute surplus to need, as it is written into permaculture, is derived from ecosystem structures. Create no pollution with your surplus. Use everything completely and pass on what you’re not using – that’s your surplus to need. Westerners want to grow an individual garden, retrofit a house or farm. They struggle more with the Third Ethic. We need  to create the conditions under which people can flourish and you can do this  living the Third Ethic. 

Food grown and homes cooled in Bangladesh

No More ‘Sages’

Originally I came up with some very chalk talk ‘Sage on the stage style of teaching’ which I felt was directly opposed to care of people. Teaching is often seen as “I’ve got the knowledge!” I think teaching, which behaves as if there’s care of people, would listen to what they know, what they want to offer and what their queries are.

Discovering contours and how to work with them. Refugee camp
Discovering contours

But these learner centred methods give much more noisy, discussing, interactive classroom. And really, if you are teaching because you want people to look at you, listen to you, or you regard yourself as the source of all knowledge, then you’re not taking care of people. It’s not respectful to just deliver content as if people did not arrive with knowledge and experience. Bored students are sending you the message,  ‘I know, I know’.’

Refugee Women studying plants and seeds
Kahrl – Plant study Syrian women refugees Turkey

Be Respectful, Keen and Deliver Quality Content

Another reason is to change my teaching process was about the quality of knowledge….We have a wonderful curriculum which doesn’t need much alteration. We can add up to date research. Be very, very keen, moral and accurate about content which further confirms permaculture and is growing in depth and, breadth. Deliver quality courses. This is true for everyone, not just for refugees but especially for them. However you need the process we’ve been talking about. – processes of teaching which demonstrates care of people and ensures that everyone  has an opportunity to learn, does learn and and can express themselves. It’s harder than chalk-and-talk, but once you get  good at it, it comes quickly and is deeply satisfying. The process I use comes from a  ‘create peace background’ called Alternatives to Violence (AVP).

Lesvos Refugee camp participants discuss hopes and expectations
‘This participant taught many others’ Rower Morrow

How do you get to help Refugees?

I’m invited and hosted  by NGOs (non-government organisations). You can’t turn up at the gates of a refugee camp say “Hey, here I am, I’ve come to teach you permaculture and I’ve got all this good stuff for you and you need me!’. Realistically, there’s a whole process to go through. We have just finished a book called Teaching Permaculture in Refugee camps and it sets out what you need to do to follow this vocation.

‘Using whatever is at hand’ Rowe Morrow

Multipurpose for each visit

I work out multiple tasks for each visit. I never go and return with one objective. So, I look at other projects. I spend time with the host community, offering seminars with local permaculture groups and looking at new projects.

Refugee Camp Conditions

Plastic rubbish on the ground
Gardens made out of rubbish including old shoes

The conditions are often hard. The food can get to the point when you look at yellow dall heavily laced with chili in week five and think ‘I can’t eat this anymore.’ But you serve yourself some because you’ve got a big session coming up. You can’t afford to be hungry and lightheaded. Someone has prepared the food and others would be grateful for it. You may share a room at night with as many as six others and there can be whining mosquitoes, barking dogs, there are mice in your luggage and other mysterious noises. I’ve had rats run over my mosquito net, and a huge cockroach inside it.

making models in Lesvos Refugee Camp

Challenges working with refugees – Put your needs aside

We ran into a two week long missionary program in Cox’s Bazar. This Islamic program was presented on public loudspeakers. They broadcast loudly all day, and all night. from slightly out-of-sync speakers in the five neighbouring mosques beginning at 3.45 am. You wake up – reach for your ear plugs and mutter “Oh no, I need my sleep!” Well it doesn’t matter what you need – you will still do a full day’s work to the best of your ability and without complaint.

lunchtime line-up in Lesvos Refugee camp

A Secret to a Meaningful Teaching Projects – include NGO Staff

One secret to a really good project is that your host wants you because they know permaculture will significantly give better quality lives. Always include NGO staff as course participants because when the course finishes they will write project proposals to continue permaculture. They know what they need and want and can usually get resources.

Rowe in Turkey with Syrian women PDC graduates

Include Local Inhabitants with Refugee Participants

Include local inhabitants because, as it happened in Greece, the Moria refugee camp. The camp was burnt down. And then the day centre was burnt down. People were walking around Lesvos without food, papers and records and then a group of Nazi Greeks started bashing people. The local residents who had been in the refugee classes set up centres for them. They found a couple of acres of land where people could live safely and grow food and learn how to develop incomes.

https://www.permacultureforrefugees.org/resources/publications/
https://www.permacultureforrefugees.org/resources/publications/

Support Local Leaders

When covid came to the camps, local people were those who took over because the NGO staff left. To maintain the project needs local components to continue. When I come home we include those NGO leaders into the Permaculture for the Refugees group and we continue talking and mentoring. We have left  them two thousand dollars each course and ask them write a permaculture project proposals saying ” Here’s the money, write up a project you really need here: the project you want. Send us photographs and a few words as a report over the next two years.”

Working and understanding in Lesvos

Bright Futures for Refugees

Nearly two years later in Bangladesh they’re implementing big permaculture projects. They’ve multiplied and multiplied. Permaculture is everywhere in some camps.  This way of working is important to embed permaculture in the NGO. And in the country.  Yes, you can tell people to set up a garden and so on. But, it wont endure unless you’ve included local people, taught the NGO staff. And, left some funds and left permaculture in/with the people in the country who will take it over and scale it up.

We’d like to see all NGO organisations who work with refugees make permaculture training compulsory for their staff. We believe we’d see a real change in lives, incomes, satisfaction and even joy, by all who were engaged in social and environmental transformation of refugee lives and camps.”

enrol in the introduction to permaculture course
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Grow Love

Grow what you love. Grow it for those you love. Watch the love grow. Nevin and Linda Sweeney have created a suburban oasis and share it with their community. Nevin and Linda started out with a small suburban lot, on the hot plains of western Sydney.

Nevin Sweeney talks about their experiences

With a focus on making their home and community more liveable, Nevin and Linda used Permaculture design to capture water, intensively grow veggies and shade the home and street. Here are some of the tricks Nevin used.

Oasis Loves Water

Water systems support the plants throughout the changing seasons. Nevin “put in about 18 to 19 000 litres worth of rainwater tanks and so part of the water system is making sure that you have efficient means of delivering it. For the annuals we have Ollas and for the perennials we have deep pipe waterers. And these both work remarkably well.

The second part of the water system is the waster water. “So, the shower or bath water goes into our Banana Circle which means the banana circle has gone berserk! It’s at the back of the house so not only has it provided bananas, it has also provided shade on the back of the house. “

Nevins bananas shading the back of their house

“I set up a diversion valve from the house. so when we do the washing up the wash water is diverted into my constructed wetland. And is then used to water trees”. Also, Nevin put together a wide tube that sat on top of the deep pipe watering system. “So, when I’m peeling the veggies and doing the rinsing, the water goes into a bucket. Then, I pour that bucket through the tube, straight down into the ground. I can do this any time of the day. Because that water is going straight underground. There’s no losses, no evaporation at all.”

Nevin starting out on a small, bare hot patch in western Sydney

Design is Key

“This is stuff that without my exposure to permaculture
I wouldn’t have had a clue about.” Nevin Sweeney

Sydney Morning Herald 2020

Outside the Oasis It’s Getting Hotter

The area around Nevin and Linda gets hot. In fact, in 2020 it was the hottest place on the planet. The temperature soared near 50 degrees. [120 Farenheit] Nevin says “it’s staying hotter for longer and the the seasons are changing.”

“What I found was I had a lot of difficulty growing the vegetables that I was used to growing. and so to get around that I covered most of the veggie growing area there are some things that don’t grow well under 50 shade cloth but most do. Although I am very very stubborn, sometimes stuff doesn’t work. Citrus works great but apples don’t. But there’s a lot of stuff (ie sweet potato) that grows really really well.

Nevins  constructed wetland

Microclimate Support

Part of this success is from improved microclimates, part of that is finding the stuff that you like to eat that actually grows. Years ago, Nevin was keen to try some climbing beans. “I’m not a huge fan of beans but the family likes them. And I eat them because I grow them and um I grew them up the side of the tanks and it worked really really well. And I tried to feed them the kids they went nuts saying “not eating that – don’t like them”. And so I went back to growing the shorter dwarf beans. And we’ve been growing that way ever since.

Grow what you love

Grow what you love

So, it doesn’t matter what grows well at your place you – if don’t eat it – there’s not a lot of point in growing it. So, it’s a case of combining what you like to eat and what grows well.

If you grow your own Chokos (Chayote) you can harvest them when they’re small. And then, they’re amazing in a stir fry. They’re crunchy and nutty. And you can add the choko tendrils to the stir fry. Just like Vietnamese cooking.

“Actually, we can produce enough food to feed ourselves comparatively easily if we were prepared to put up with a restricted diet.”

Nevin Sweeney

Chickens Dig It then Retire

Nevin says “In terms of Veggie patches we have 14 veggie patches. And of course, once I learned about chook tractors… I mean they’re an amazing piece of machinery! They do the digging, they do the fertilizing, you get eggs and you get chooks (chickens). Because chooks are fun!

Nevins seedlings in hand-made paper pots


The Cycle Starts With Seedlings

We grow our own seedlings. We plant into a seedling punnet and then into newspaper pots and then into the ground. And that happens all year round. So, that it didn’t matter what time you came to see us here we would have something growing we would have something that’s going off. We’d have something that’s coming up. We’d have the chooks on one part, and areas ready for the chooks. I’ve got to tell you we don’t eat our chooks.
We have a retirement village which is in shade which I keep filled with straw and the chooks there dig that over and turn that into mulch.

Tried and Tested Process

I’ve been using this process for 16 years. Okay, I’ve added a bit of rock dust, a bit of liquid manure and a bit of compost. But for the most part our fertility has been maintained by the chooks”

You can visit Nevin and linda’s site through Sydney Edible Gardens Tours or contact them directly through their webpage underthechokotree.com