LET THE

WATERS
FLOW
& THE
FRUITS
GROW
Earth
Restoration
In Arid
Portugal

Thomas Lüdert describes how an arid, barren landscape is being restored in

southwest Portugal, practically demonstrating that large-scale tree planting
can transform the land and local climate.

D
uring the winter of 2004-5
more than 10,000 young trees
were planted and nurtured by
the ecovillage community of Tamera
on their 134 hectares (330 acres) terrain
in arid Portugal. This is a significant
practical step in the project to create a
peace village, a ‘healing biotope’, where
people can live in harmony with each
other and nature.
Retired shepherd Laurenco still
rightly remembers that ‘Monte Cerro’,
the terrain of Tamera, had been like a
paradise garden some decades ago: olive
trees and grape vines, cork oak groves
with meadows and cornfields, vegetable
patches and field crops wherever you
looked. Even in the summer there was

www.permaculture.co.uk No. 49 Permaculture Magazine 21

rain every now and then and the creek in
the orange grove always had some water.
Many old people from the surrounding
area worked here in former times – and
loved the land: ‘Era muito bonito’ – it
was very beautiful, they say.
Traces of this southern Portuguese
landscape can still be glimpsed here and
there, at least in winters with a lot of rain.
But those who drive through the brown,
dusty Alentejo in summer – or in a dry
winter like the last one (2004-5) – see
a landscape which is about to turn into a
desert. A disastrous and complex vicious
circle of deforestation, cork oak dying,
eucalyptus monocultures, devastating
forest fires, migration into cities and
climate changes threatens to make the
natural ecosystem collapse completely.
The old cork oaks die one after the
other – nobody really knows why – and
almost all the old orange trees on Monte
Cerro froze to death during the few last
years as the winters became colder. After
torrential rains in 1999, the 2m (61⁄2ft)
22 Permaculture Magazine
high earth wall at the orange garden was
flushed away.
Now the creek only runs for a few
months a year, and is often uncontrol-
lably heavy. The rainy period in the
winter months of the region gets ever
shorter, but is often more intense. Or,
like the last winter, hardly at all, a
situation which threatens the very
survival of people in these places. There
is no rain in summer and even at places
where there would be enough water
available, the people who are able to or
want to continue the labour-intensive
cultivation of the land are absent.
Working in the Algarve, in Lisbon or in
Germany, is just more lucrative and so
the land remains fallow or gets depleted
by industrial monocultures.
It is no coincident that the research
community, ‘Healing Biotope Tamera’,
settled here more than 10 years ago
after almost 20 years of work mainly
in Germany. Today about 100 people
are developing a living model for an
almost collapsed world in this almost
collapsed landscape. They do not only
develop it ecologically, they also work
on social design, spiritual connection
and concrete, material life praxis.
Within the framework of this vision,
the ecology group started to develop and
realise a concept for a nourishing and
healing landscape. First some smaller
‘green oases’ were planted. These are
small parks with fruit trees, tarns, places
and alcoves, shadow trees, berry bushes
and small corners with vegetables, quasi
acupuncture-like, which predate and ani-
mate the ‘sound’ of this new landscape.
The replanting of trees and the est-
ablishment of a new forest is the most
important need for the land. The
meaning and the advantages of the
reforestation in arid areas are known:
shading of the surface and balancing of
the (micro) climate, increasing improve-
ments in the ability of the soil to take
and hold water, plus the building-up of
humus and the creation of habitat for
further plants and animals.
Of high importance in a peace village
is the emotional impact of forests for
human beings visiting from stress or
conflict situations. (Tamera has strong
links with groups in the Middle East
and South American countries like
Colombia.) The power and the beauty
of the trees and forests create calmness,
relaxation and zest for life – especially
No. 49 www.permaculture.co.uk
 years, about 1,000 fruit and other
specimen trees have been planted
beside paths and in special places in
the landscape, including fruit trees
from the region and a large variety of
specimens from our own tree nursery.
The speed of growth and the robust-
ness of these trees was proven to be
much higher than bought-in trees; this
is due to the tree nursery keeper’s great
love for them. Most of these specimens
were planted with a simplified drop
watering system and an automatic
watering hydrant system was installed
in the landscape park.
In the winter 2004-5, the first level
of the landscape reforestation project
followed. More than 10,000 saplings
were planted on 24 hectares (59 acres).
The reforestation areas were very care-
fully chosen and pegged out: valleys
that qualified for agriculture were left
unplanted and here and there glades
were made. Footpaths, roads and a
1,000m (3,300ft) lake were also planned
so that a forest-park landscape with a
fine structure will develop. In a big ritual,
the whole of the Tamera Community,
the landscape and all the beings of the
area were informed about the plan in
detail – a co-operative spiritual procedure
which is commonly used in Tamera.
We get in contact with the ‘dream’ of
the landscape, its being, as an essential
part of the planning and the enhance-
ment of the ecology in Tamera.
After this, the machines started work.
Where necessary the Maccia (maquis,
a secondary woody cover, Ed.) was
removed to make space for planting.
A caterpillar with a 90cm (3ft) tooth
opened the compacted earth to form
planting lines along the contours,
especially necessary in clayey areas.
Then a 60cm (2ft) plough created
furrows 4 to 5 metres (13 to 161⁄2ft)
apart parallel to the slope. This created
a water catchment system so that the
saplings could be planted.
This method of contour planting

in such a hot area like the Alentejo.

Last but not least there is the practical
use: a mixed forest offers fruits, cork,
timber and firewood. If the forest park
is further developed with agroforestry
and an edible permaculture landscape,
large quantities of many different foods
will be available locally.
This means planting trees. From the
very beginning and with a lot of engage-
ment, thousands of trees have been
planted and tended each year. Un-
conventional methods of foresting, like
spreading seeding pellets were tried for
some years, but like manual planting,
they proved to be unsuccessful on this
extensive arid terrain. In addition, it was
not possible to loosen the soil manually
to the depth needed for certain trees.
Almost only Casuarina (she-oak) and
Acacia molissima survived the hot, dry
summers. In the wet winters the meagre
soil was so poor that one could hardly
dig big planting holes, even with a pick.
With the support of guests, trees were
planted on a slope above a water source
and, in a time-consuming way, watered
again and again for two summers. This
was quite successful but the work
required to reforest the whole terrain
in this way would take over a decade!
So we decided to dig mechanically.
A steam shovel was used to dig big
holes with the soil being improved by
sand and compost. Over the last three

www.permaculture.co.uk No. 49 Permaculture Magazine 23

 big way. With improvised tank lorries, the planning of the Solar Village.
long tubes and a lot of dedication from In the former orange garden of
visiting volunteers, each single tree was Monte Cerro, where the old trees died
watered three times during the summer. some years ago, apples and peaches
And it was worth it! The trees that are now growing. A new sense of
were already partly desiccated in May paradise and the sound of the
recovered during the summer – this is Alentejian landscape, is already perceiv-
very unusual – and are now in a better able in this park garden. And further
state than after a normal winter of rain. up in the valley where it is warmer,
Autumn ’05 brought rich and mostly the ground is being prepared for a
soft rainfall – even lots of the old cork new grove of oranges and lemons
oaks which we thought we had lost in
summer ’05 regenerated, their branches For more information on the Tamera
now grow deep green leaves once again: Community, the Solar Village Project
a spring in November. and the University Programme please
In the Tamera Community new plans visit: www.tamera.org
are also developing: the reforestation
will be continued and enlarged, further Thomas Lüdert is a German tree planter
large vegetable gardens will be planted and landscape gardener. He is the
and a whole new model village with focaliser of the outdoor ecology group
its own energy and food supply will be at the Tamera Community where he has
developed, the Solar Village.1 Australian lived for more than five years. Contact:
created kilometres of water catch- permaculture designer and teacher, ecology@tamera.org or luedert@gmx.net
ments, ridges which are filled with Max Lindegger, has also become
water during rainy periods that then involved in the project and started 1 Please see PM42 ‘Grassroots Solar
slowly drain away into the bottom of teaching here in summer ’05. His Solutions’ for an article about the
the furrow 90cm (3ft) below where the presence has added greater impetus to Solar Village project.
trees’ roots will search for water. This
way, the water remains on the hillsides
even during short, heavy rainfall and
the humus can begin to build.
Then finally the trees were planted.
Thousands of small cork and stone oaks,
medronias, stone pines and cypresses
(Quercus suber, Q. ilex, Arbutus unedo,
Pinus pinea and Cupressus spp.) were
planted into the loose soil of the
ploughed hills. The ideal place is in the
middle between the wet valleys and
the dry hill.
The plants were chosen to create a
mixed forest on two levels. The
medronias are smaller bushes and the
oaks and conifers are the higher
pioneers. Later on we planted other
trees in appropriate places: legumes
like Acacia molissima (mimosa),
Casuarena spp. but also Juglans (walnut),
Castanea sativa (chestnut) and Alnus
(alder) on the edge of the more humid
valleys. And although the small trees
are hardly visible, we can already feel
the new vibration of the landscape
even after a short time.
Then we waited for the winter rain
but it was almost totally absent in 2004-5
(120mm / 5in instead of 600mm / 24in
in 12 months), a bad start for the newly
planted trees. When we had given up
hope for rain by May ’05, the Tamera
Community decided to intervene in a

24 Permaculture Magazine No. 49 www.permaculture.co.uk