Los Maklenkes community and farmer’s nature reserve
Colombia, Santander, Floridablanca
2016
Type of Technology
Transition Area
Fair Energetics
- Relationships integrating different energy uses
Type of Technology
- Permaculture
- Food sovereignty and autonomy
- Cooperation and solidarity
- Solar energy utilization
Since 2002, the process of the Agroecological School guided by the teacher Mario Mejía Gutiérrez (r.i.p.) focused on the integrality and energetic autonomy of the agricultural and livestock systems of the farming families, where recycling nutrients was a premise. From that moment on, they approached a vision of community energies.
During the last 10 years, the Los Maklenkes reserve has promoted community water management, seeing in it the possibility of articulating the community around the care, defense and rational use of water and the territory that provides it. Similarly, the bird school brings children and young people closer to the recognition of environmental heritage, to the encounter with biodiversity, understanding that the dynamics of community conservation guarantee its permanence over time, even in times of global climate crisis.
Bio-construction is one of those skills that are in decline. The current circumstances of shortages and isolation due to the pandemic prove the importance of techniques such as the tapia, which incorporate local labor and inputs and popular knowledge, making it a real alternative to this contemporary crisis and others that may arise.
The reserve is part of the Collective of Peasant and Community Reserves of Santander, which has been the opportunity to integrate aspects of agroecology, community water management, community monitoring of biodiversity and the adoption of alternative energies in a participatory manner, which has led to the creation of the Santander Community Reserve. has allowed them to recognize that, beyond the technologies in each territory, energies, in plural, constantly enter into dynamics that allow or promote good living.
Each minga or meeting around the community aqueduct, the rescue and use of the tapia pisada, each day of the bird school, the exchange of native seeds and the implementation of clean energy, has offered them the opportunity to understand that energy and autonomy is also in each of the young people, girls, boys and women, who transform their way of life from their experiences: the energy is in the bird that migrates, in the knowledge that protects the water, the seed, the soil, the food traditions and life.
Technical characteristics of the proposal
Photovoltaic panel with two batteries that supply power to 6 9-watt lamps and a computer. At the moment, plans are being made to share one of the lamps with a neighboring house in order to help that family reduce costs.
Bioconstruction: they have completed the construction of an access gate to the reserve, which is required:
- Tapiales or molds, which must be made of resistant wood with a thickness or caliber of 5 cm, and are responsible for ensuring that the pressure does not deform the walls. These are the length of the work, lateral.
- Wood of the same caliber as the walls, they are the width of the work.
- Rammers: one-piece wooden tools obtained from a tree or branch that allows good weight and resistance; they are used to uniformly strike the soil deposited on the wall.
- Needles or dowels; pieces of wood that determine the thickness of the wall.
- Zurrón: bag made of cowhide that transports the soil to the wall and can be dragged.
Knowledge and knowers as a source in the community dynamics. In the case of the gate, it was built as a test with the purpose of sharing knowledge with young people and adults in mingas. The construction technique mastered by don Andelfo was transmitted to him by his parents and now, thanks to this sharing, three people are already trained in this technique. Also, several people (specifically 3 families) are interested in building their homes or part of them with this type of work.
Productive, community, environmental, or economic processes or activities that were positively impacted by the implementation of the community experience of TEJ.
From agroecology, an economic benefit is to reduce the costs of dependence on external inputs; food for the family and animals has come to be provided after the enrichment or diversification of agrosystems.
Beneficiaries of the experience
- 12 families composed of 7 women
- 9 men, 8 young people (between 13 and 18 years old)
- 12 boys and girls (0 to 12 years old)
Achievements and problems encountered during implementation
ACHIEVEMENTS:
- It highlights the possibility of seeing agroecology as a way of life that incorporates knowledge, natural heritage such as seeds, water and soil, where women, youth and children can contribute and enrich the experience in their practice.
- The opportunity for popular education. Each strategy has its own orientators, but, as Mario Mejía Gutiérrez mentioned, the best learning occurs when neither the learner nor the teacher is distinguished. Here everyone can learn and share knowledge.
- The replicability of our strategies, our methodologies provide tools, bases and guidelines to undertake new experiences at a local or family level.
PROBLEMS:
- The photovoltaic panel was dependent on technical assistance, which in turn led to the deterioration of some parts, resulting in unforeseen costs.
Women’s participation in the TEJ community experience
Difficulties have arisen because the subject is very sensitive, for example, girls may have less permission from their families to go on hikes in the Andean jungle or to other types of workshops, they are assigned household chores or are still considered physically weak to face a field trip.
Within the strategies, they have sought an active presence of women in the different minga spaces, workshops and meetings, avoiding different treatment based on gender issues. Thus, they have had outstanding biodiversity monitors to guide them on the important issue of water in the Peña Blanca community aqueduct.