During this summer on Orcas Island, I was lucky enough to participate in constructing one of the most interesting forms of vernacular environmental engineering bred on the American continents pre-European occupation: chinampas.
The Bullocks had flooded a previously drained wetland to reestablish wildlife habitat and potential for thriving riparian vegetation, aquaculture resources, and water storage. They had set out over several years to construct chinampas by essentially pilling cut reeds and mud from the wetlands to create floating islands rich in nutrients.
The community labor proved to be the most enjoyable part, as a transient community coming together during our Permaculture Design Course to build something ancient and innovative that used what the wetland offered, rather than draining it from fear.
The result was a sturdy and fertile substrate for beneficial riparian and aquatic plants to utilize–willows, water chestnuts, etc. This effort also represents the permaculture mainstay of looking to obscure indigenous agricultural methodologies to develop the most productive and syngergistic utilization of extant conditions.
