Romania – Permaculture in Practice
What a beautiful country Romania is, offering the opportunity to get away from the usual tourist destinations. Choose the right areas and you will glimpse landscapes that are a reminder of the way the countryside used to look across much of Europe and the UK. For anyone who loves nature, it is possible to see permaculture farming at work, enabling people and nature to co-exist in balance. This is not just a few smallholdings here-are-there, but as an organic farming system that is part of the whole rural economy.
Northern Romania - small roads weave through the beautiful landscapes
The agricultural landscapes across northern Romania and Transylvania appear to be less mechanised than we have become used to seeing in the UK. More people own and work on the land and, in the rural communities at least, they provide for much of their own daily food requirements. This is ‘Permaculture’ in practice. Permaculture involves a deep connection between people and the land (and all the creatures that share the land with us), recognising that one supports the other. Of course mechanisation has its benefits, but when this is combined with modern economics in which success is measured by continuous ‘growth’, something has to give - normally this is the natural world which cannot defend itself. Another casualty has been jobs.
Traditional farming practices work perfectly on smallholdings following organic farming practices. Today we refer to this as ‘Permaculture’ - a rediscovery! There are many course in the UK teaching Permaculture.
But it is not just farming jobs that have disappeared in the UK. The experts tell us that in the UK we have lost 95% of our natural meadows. As a result, we have lost bird, butterfly and insect species and many wildflowers and grasses too. Many of the species that are surviving are close to the edge of extinction. It is the same for the microbes that we can’t actually see with the naked eye but which provide the bottom of the food-chain. It doesn’t need to be this way, as seen in Romania. In Romania there are almost no fences and walls to be seen. The smaller fields and farms and organic farming practices mean the whole landscape is far more resilient and full of diverse natural life. Compared to the UK’s 40 species of butterflies, Romania still has around 240. It also has around 3,400 flowering plants – 1,200 wildflowers in Transylvania alone.
An area of meadow on a smallholding near to the cottage in which I stayed. Crop rotation is normal, maintaining a rich variety of flora and fauna
King Charles III visited Transylvania, Romania, in 1998 (when he was a Prince Charles) and was captivated by the landscape and by the organic agricultural practices he saw still working successfully. What he saw was close to his own heart – how things should be done, with the villagers and farmers living in tune with nature rather than subjugating it. He knew he was witnessing something precious that was under threat by modern changes that had already overtaken farming practices in much of the UK. But he saw that in many areas the rural communities were dying as a result of a huge exodus of people of German origin back to Germany in addition to many young people moving to the cities to the universities and for work opportunities. With this exodus, villages were being left almost empty. This meant knowledge of the old ways of living off the land was disappearing. So, he decided to try to help, by investing (both financially and personally) in the development of a small property in one village, to try to stem the decline.
In the courtyard of one of King Charles III’s Romanian properties. The property exists around a typical courtyard and now has an exhibition area and also a renovated house containing the typical mainly wooden furniture and utilitarian artifacts that traditional inhabitants would have made and used
His investment drew welcome international attention to Romania’s wonderful flora and fauna, with artists commissioned to illustrate many of the beautiful meadow flowers, creating the Transylvanian Florilegium. Some of these illustrations now form part of the exhibition at the King’s village house. The impact of the King’s involvement has been phenomenal, bringing new people to the village. Old and empty houses have been bought and renovated. The whole village has taken on a new lease of life. There are many daily visitors too, who go there to see first-hand the impact of the British monarch. Village life is being restored in a controlled way that brings money into the community while emphasising the quality of the original architecture and the importance of the natural environment.
Where once there were derelict houses, now there are restaurants and a few shops discretely located behind gates and walls - meeting the needs of modern visitors, without damaging the traditional village character
Many traditional artifacts can be seen in the renovated house
I thought I would end this blog with a mention of the crafts that evolved in the past to maintain the sustainable lives of the villagers. The term ‘folk art’ is the all-inclusive term often used to include utilitarian items that made comfortable life possible. They were often made ingeniously from wood as this could be sustainably sourced and worked by hand. Clay, also very important for all sorts of crockery items and containers as well as roof tiles, was locally sourced and kiln fired too. Wool was gathered and flax was also grown and used to make cloth. Folk art items are generally modest in design. They were often modified by local craftsmen and women to add beauty and to create a local product identity. In the past, these items were traded between villages. This was permaculture in practice - a system that worked for the benefit of people in tune with the natural world.
Happy Gardening!
The above Text and all Photographs are copyright of Wincenty (Wicek) Sosna. Please contact SeeHow (07939 226417) for permission to reproduce in any way, in part or as the complete text.
Wicek, now semi-retired, is an award-winning architect. He is also an author, horticulturalist and keen gardener and lives in Macduff on the dramatic north Aberdeenshire coast. He invented the unique interactive SeeHow gardening book concept, to actually show gardeners how plants and veg grow throughout the calendar-year. Because SeeHow books work visually, anyone can use them - from children to garden design professionals. Pictures really are worth 1,000 words!
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