DoomsdaysCW#NewZealand / #Aotearoa - The transformative power of urban #FoodForests
1 April 2025
"#IndustrialFarms depend on #FossilFuels – making them significant contributors to climate change, says University of #Auckland professional teaching fellow Daniel Kelly.
"He is researching ways to produce food without fuelling climate change, while helping grow a food forest at #PapatūānukuKōkiriMarae in #Mangere.
" 'Growing food has given me faith that humans can be a positive force for #ecological #restoration.
" 'There’s this narrative that being human means being an ecosystem destroyer, but that’s only a story about one type of human.
" 'Perhaps the biggest challenge facing us as a society is learning how to become another type of human, who cares for and enriches their place,' says Kelly, who teaches psychology and sustainability and is involved with the University’s Centre for #Climate, #Biodiversity and Society – #NgāAraWhetū.
"Kelly stumbled across gardening while flatting in his early twenties and became focussed on climate change while completing an environmental law degree.
"Now 36, he’s trying to refine the art of growing food while sequestering carbon – and tackling social inequities in the process.
"Five years ago, Kelly learned about #syntropic #agroforestry at a workshop at PermaDynamics in Northland. It’s a new technique for growing trees and food that is inspired by pre-modern farming in Europe and contemporary #Indigenous practices in #Brazil.
"#SyntropicAgroforestry is aligned with #agroecology, a political movement that aims to hand control of land and food production back into the hands of ordinary people.
Agroecology aims to address hunger, #FoodInsecurity and ultimately #Social Inequality.
"In #Aotearoa, food inequality disproportionately affects urban #Māori and Pacific people, who more often live in areas with poorer access to healthy food and are less likely to be able to afford fresh fruit and vegetables, says Kelly.
" 'That can be traced back to #colonisation and the large-scale dispossession of Māori land to support the establishment of European farms from the 1860s onwards.'
"In 2020, Kelly started experimenting with growing a syntropic food forest at Papatūānuku Kōkiri marae in Mangere.
"That food forest has become part of his PhD thesis on #FoodSystemChange - and from bare clay five years ago, it has grown 12-metre tall trees, berries, bananas, peaches, figs, #pawpaw, peppers, and many other crops.
"The bounty is distributed by Papatūānuku marae as part of its efforts to support people facing hunger in the community."
Read more:
https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/news/2025/04/01/the-transformative-power-of-urban-forests.html
#SolarPunkSunday #FoodSovereignty #Decolonization #FoodSecurity
Canadian Association For Food Studies
Animal Rebellion NL