If I was a whale / Organic dreams

I suppose most people have their dreams about what they would do if they became dirty rich. Today I would like to share my own fantasies on the things I would do in such a scenario for various reasons.

Source

One is to create some content for Steemit, but a more relevant one for my personal journey is to create a sort of manifest that might empower and energetically fuel these ideas that often ramble in my mind.

The first couple of things I would do are not very original. I would buy land and build a place to live in, preferably a geodesic dome. Power up the house with solar energy and from there on the craziness starts to branch out.

I would divide the terrain in several sections that would look pretty much like this:

• Organic farming of known vegetables with permaculture methods such as Ruth Stout, Hügelkultur and compost fed beds.

Source

• Semi-controlled sector, where I throw known seeds once or twice and allow unknown weeds to grow along with them. The idea would be to encourage adaptation of the known plants with the natural ecosystem. Productivity would be of little relevance, but if diversity can be achieved it would be a success.
• Minimal control space, destined to let wild herbs grow freely. I would study them, find out names and uses. This also encourages healthy soil and abundant micro-biology, as well as a nice spot for pollinators to gather. The only control here would be to remove growing trees so it doesn’t become a forest area, remaining reserved to smaller plants.

• Experimental mushroom cultivation, which would consist on a shadowed area where I pile up different kinds of organic matter (leaves, bark, manure, small branches, hay).

Each pile would consist of only one type of material, for example if it is oak bark, then the pile is only oak bark. Under shadow and with constant moisture added, it should be a perfect breeding ground for different types of mushrooms which I would also like to study, and hopefully feed off them.

Source

• Fruit forest mixed up with native trees. Having native trees in between each fruit tree can avoid plagues, depletion of soil resources, and also encourage diversity of the ecosystem.

Source

• Fully-wild-nature-take-its-course space. Only intervention would be to make paths in between so this place can be walked around, admired and studied. It would also be a source of firewood when dry branches fall and trees die out.

Source

I believe that this focus would generate much abundance of food, medicine and knowledge which I would turn partially into income.

“But why? You’re already a whale”?!, you’re probably asking.

Well, the idea of this project would be to invite others to replicate it, or at least gather some of the insights it might provide to allow them economic growth along with the preservation of Nature.

Source

If results were good and I find myself to be living nicely, in harmony with nature, I would build a second dome. This would serve to house volunteers that want to come help and learn. I would pay them a percentage of the profits made monthly. Which leads me to a little rant on volunteer work.

I have served as a volunteer many times and my conclusion is that all voluntary work is destined to rich people who just want to have a novel experience and feel that they do good. That’s fine but what about people with little resources? They get excluded from these experiences because most projects benefit from volunteers, but give nothing substantial in return.

Source

I mean, if you already sleep in shitty conditions and have trouble ending the month financially, why would you want to go to a place where you have to sleep in a tent, and leaves you at the end of the process just as poor as you came in?

No, people who would go to do volunteer work in this project would get a good bed, lots of food and would leave with something in their pockets to improve their condition. Maybe it wouldn’t be much, but it’s going to be something and they’ll definitely be better than when they arrived.

I would avoid treating volunteers as “lesser” players in the game, but show my gratefulness in every turn. I swear, I have worked voluntarily in places where they think they are doing you a favor for receiving you there. It is they that receive the big favor and often return it poorly.

Source

Volunteers would also have the opportunity to stay as long as they wanted, provided they are contributing to the project and relationships are good. They could indeed live the rest of their lives there if they wanted to.

I would keep building domes with certain distance from one another so that eventually a central larger dome would be built. This would be a kind of research center, meeting place, cultural development area, and just a spot to chill and have fun.

When all this was done I think it would also become a very interesting place for tourists to visit, so that would become another source of revenue. Personally I would leave no money to fatten my pockets even further, just keep reinvesting in the growth of the community.

If money kept coming in I would keep replicating the same previous steps until a real, hardcore-no-bullshit ecovillage was finally in place. What I mean is not a place with more trees than a normal village, but a community fully inserted into the ecosystem.

Source

Unfortunately this project would have a discriminatory aspect. All activity done within would have to be vegan and that is probably something that would drive some people away. This is not only because of ideological reasons, but also practical ones.

Imagine all the extra work needed to keep away raised cattle from the crops and the space for wild growth would be reduced. In fact, any place where cows, sheep, chickens or pigs roam won't be able to become a forest again, for they eat sprouts in massive amounts and step on any growing trees.

I think this would probably make only vegans want to come, but I wouldn’t demand that they be. I’ll admit though I would prefer recruiting animal lovers over any other kind of people.

So that’s kind of it in the large scheme. Many details left out, very general overview, but it’ll do for now.

Source

So, what would you do if you were a whale?