- The Hondarribitarra Mayi Lekuona Artola has been immersed for years in the world of permaculture, when she lived in Canada. “We bought a small land there, and then we started with the garden, with the chickens… with a simple life,” he says. After biology and oceanography studies, he became interested in permaculture and began to read and form. The Maïa Permaculture project has been launched just over a year ago, thanks to the knowledge and experiences that have been acquired over these years, after Canada, also in Japan. “At this time I carry out advice and design for projects based on permaculture.”
Permaculture is based on three ethical principles: land husbandry, caring for people and equitable distribution. “These are the principles we think about when making any design, and although at first it seems that these bases are applied in the garden or garden, it can actually be carried to all areas of life,” says Lekuona. These are the pillars upon which Lekuona is based in early childhood education, personal life or group formation.
What is permaculture translated into agriculture? So for example, a sustainable forest that has just been designed by Bidarrai, Hondarribia sums it up as follows: “We look at diversity, the existence of many different species, as well as the use of resources. It takes into account what each species contributes, for example, by planting those that give nitrogen to the soil for the benefit of other plants that need it. On the other hand, native plants and compost are used for fertilizer”. It is therefore a question of understanding and taking account of the system as a whole, and of properly selecting each of the elements that make up it according to its functions.
In the Basque Country and in the Basque Country, in its beginnings
During the presentation of the Lekuona Maïa Permaculture project in Bioterra, and speaking with its coordinator, they realized that there are hardly any contents about permaculture in Basque; later, the only web found in Basque was yours. “One of my goals is to promote permaculture in Euskal Herria and in Euskera. Well, there are people who are here, but no, for example, movements like in Catalonia,” he says. It says that in the Northern Basque Country it is much more developed than in the South, but also there, in Basque, little.
As Lekuona explained to us, some people and projects are trying to fill this gap. Ivan Tellaetxe de Orduña, Kiribilore Permakultura en Vitoria-Gasteiz, Victor Barahona, who launched the Aralar Permacultura project in San Sebastián… “We are building the network gradually and for the next year, our intention is to start workshops. In the end, people know little about this, and it is necessary to disseminate, implement projects to reach citizenship,” concludes Lekuona. A nice challenge, therefore, what they have/have at hand.