9 minute read
Revisiting indigenous knowledge-based practices
1. Living root bridges in Meghalaya, India are made using the technique of training the aerial roots of Ficus elastica trees (Indian Rubber Fig) planted on the banks. © Sketch by Sandeep Menon based on Josiah Wood Whymper’s original illustration published in ‘Himalayan Journal: Notes of a naturalist in Bengal, the Sikkim and Nepal Himalayas’, The Khasia Mountains, p.269, J. Murray,1854
Living root bridges in India and floating agriculture in Bangladesh provide inspiration for ingenious responses to achieving resilience in the climate emergency.
Landscape architecture has traditionally been seen as a field of practice that is primarily concerned with designing and beautifying open spaces. The advancements in scientific knowledge in the last century have allowed both the professional practice and the pedagogy of landscape architecture to include intra-disciplinary subjects from the social and environmental spectra.
However, the act of construction and the knowledge of materials in landscape architecture still seem to originate primarily from the architectural industry and are often modified to suit landscape applications. The focus on ‘state-of-the-art' technology and ‘innovation’ seems to be the buzzwords that drive this discourse, the aims of which are either to find ‘solutions’ for issues encountered with traditional materials or to allow for spatial exploration which may not be restricted by the inherent limitations of traditional building materials. This quest for innovation has also taken on an added significance in light of the current climate crisis and the growing global worldview regarding the dependence on nonrenewable resources. Many studies point out to the embodied carbon content of construction materials which are commonly used world over. The United Nations Environmental Programme’s 2020 Report on ‘Resource Efficiency and Climate Change: Material Efficiency Strategies for a Low-Carbon Future’ confirms that the emissions from material production globally are comparable to those from agriculture, forestry, and land use change combined, yet they have received much less attention from the climate policy community¹.
The floating agricultural beds in the highly flood prone lowlands of Bangladesh have been identified by the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the UN as a ‘globally important agricultural heritage system’.
© Sectional sketch by Sandeep Menon
In the increasingly urbanised world of today, material usage is mostly dictated by the complementary forces of ‘desired aesthetics’ and ‘economic profitability’. Many of the modern landscape projects may also be scrutinised through the filters of sustainability and ethical suitability. However, most of the materials used in these projects could be traced to standardised, industrially-produced origins. This may seem as an acceptable practice for our profession having been shaped by the market forces for the past two centuries or so since the industrial revolution. But it is interesting to note that there are many unrecognised yet ingenious ways in which indigenous communities across the world have experimented with ‘unconventional’ materials to adapt and survive in the biogeographic peculiarities of the regions they inhabit. These practices are encoded into their collective memories through centuries of coping and adapting to the ecological conditions especially climate and its consequences on their habitats.
Indigenous philosopher and climate justice scholar Kyle Whyte (University of Michigan) defines indigenous knowledge as “systems of monitoring, recording, communicating, and learning about the relationships among humans, non-human plants and animals, and ecosystems for the society to survive and flourish in particular ecosystems subject to perturbations of various kinds.”² The material outcomes of such indigenous knowledge-based practices can be found around the world reflecting a reciprocal sense of belonging of the indigenous cultures to the larger environment.
In the Eastern edge of the mighty Himalayas, lies one of the wettest spots on the face of the earth –Meghalaya, India. (The name Meghalaya in ancient Sanskrit language literally translates to ‘the abode of clouds’). Some areas in Meghalaya receive about 11000mm of rainfall, gushing into torrential rivulets and streams rendering the communities living in the steep terrains of the mountains cut off from the rest of the state. This geographic isolation, as well as the innumerable drainage channels crisscrossing the terrain, have made construction of bridges a necessity to survive in this region. The native Khasi Tribes, aware of the challenges posed by the soft hill slopes already eroded by the heavy rains have shaped an ingenious technique of planting Ficus elastica (Indian rubber tree or Rubber fig) trees and training their prop roots to form ‘living bridges’ that can conduct pedestrian travel across the waterways.
3. Eichhornia crassipes (syn. Pontederia crassipeswater hyacinth) is an aquatic plant native to the Amazonian basin, imported to the Indian subcontinent during the British raj as an ornamental water garden plant. Also known as the ‘Terror of Bengal’ for its highly invasive nature and devastating socioecological consequences in its introduced habitats.
© Sketch by Sandeep Menon
The chief crop of this region is Arecanut (Betel nut palm, Areca catechu). The various settlements are connected to the nearest accessible market through such living bridges. Ficus elastica trees, like many other species in their genus, have distinctive prop roots which are strong aerial roots that eventually touch the soil and act as an additional support to the main trunk in holding up the heavy branches. These roots are pliable when young and can be trained on a primary structure of logged Areca palm trunks tied together and laid across the channels. The prop roots are woven along the Areca palm trunks encouraged to grow over decades to form strong living bridges. The bridge develops over a generation but once established will live for hundreds of years. The logged arecanut trunks may eventually decompose due to the high moisture and constant wetness but the woven prop roots form a strong exoskeleton-like reticulate structure with increasing load-bearing capacities over time since the Ficus trees keep maturing. They stabilise the soil on the edges of the river as well as provide refuge for the local biodiversity. Julia Watson in her book ‘Lo-TEK: Design by Radical Indigenism’³ refers to these bridges as imitable, sophisticated examples of human-nature symbiosis offering resilient solutions for areas threatened by increased flooding due to the climate crisis.
A couple of hundred miles south west of Meghalaya, is Bangladesh which lies in the deltaic mouth of two mighty rivers –The Ganga and The Brahmaputra, both snow-fed from the Himalayas. Almost two-thirds of the extent of Bangladesh is covered by water or wetlands. The geographic location of Bangladesh and its topographical character of dynamic deltaic clusters renders it highly vulnerable to frequent floods either due to snow melt in the echelons of the Himalayas or due to the Monsoonal variations in the Bay of Bengal region. A recent report by the BBC predicted that climate change related reasons will displace one in seven Bangladeshis by the year 2050⁴ (BBC Future Planet, 2020). Agriculture is the backbone of the economy, yet about 50% of the population does not own land of their own, making them highly vulnerable and also pointing at a future food crisis.
While most of the traditional farming communities affected by flooding have migrated en masse to urban centres for alternative occupations, there are communities in the south-central wetlands of Bangladesh which have revived a centuries old farming technique of ‘floating agriculture’ locally known as ‘Baira’ or ‘Dhap’. Such planted floating rafts can swell up and subsist on the surface of the water during floods thereby eliminating the fear of losing the crops on inundated land. The technique involves creating rectangular floating island like rafts of paddy straw, locally spun jute strings and an invasive species Eichhornia crassippes (syn. Pontederia crassipes - water hyacinth). This is an Amazonian import to the Indian subcontinent as water garden ornamental plants during the time of the colonial Raj. The plant is often referred to as “the terror of Bengal” due to its aggressive invasiveness.
Ficus elastica trees, native to South Asia have thick, shiny, oval shaped leaves. They often develop sturdy aerial roots to support the heavy branches. The plant when injured oozes out a thick milky white latex giving it the name ‘Indian Rubber Fig’. Often used as an ornamental indoor plant, in its natural habitat the tree can grow up to 50 metres in height.
© Sketch by Sandeep Menon
The natural adaptation of the water hyacinth includes a certain level of brackish water tolerance and the presence of buoyant bulb-like nodules at the base of the leaves which help it to stay afloat. These plants when beaten and tied together in layers to form the raft, eventually decompose and form an organic substratum for the crops to take root in and grow. This also eliminates the need for artificial fertilising. Moreover, this technique uses an invasive plant which is abundant in the region for the benefit of the local communities. These rafts are used for cultivating locally consumed leafy vegetables and shallow rooted vegetables like tomatoes, okra, cabbage, cauliflowers and even in some cases rice paddy.
The Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations has identified these Dhap gardens as one of the “Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS)”, giving it global attention. This nature-based practice is now being revived by the active involvement of both local and international NGOs and governmental support.
These are excellent examples of how nature-based indigenous knowledge could be used for addressing the current challenges faced by humanity and provide a counterpoint to the discourse about ‘innovation in materiality’ by shifting the focus from a ‘lab-tested’ and ‘industrially’ manufactured imagination of material production to one that is an outcome of ingenuity shaped by generations of indigenous communities trying to innovate with naturally abundant local resources and nuanced knowledge of their biogeography. These could easily be construed as unconventional or even unsafe in a ‘tried-and-tested-safety-standards’ obsessed world. But they have been successful in addressing the infrastructural challenges faced by these communities. It is also imperative to note that these practices are based on locally available resources and hence could be argued as not being feasible to be replicated elsewhere but the possibility of use of such practices can definitely push for radical shifts in new imaginaries for the future of landscape architectureone that can be resilient in the true sense of the word and be ethically rooted to the nature-cultural continuum of the place.
Further details of living root bridges in Meghalaya and floating agricultural beds in the lowlands of Bangladesh can be found on the Landscape Institute blog: www.landscapeinstitute.org/blog/
Sandeep B. Menon
A practising landscape architect and university tutor at Manchester Metropolitan University. His research interests include ecological urbanism, socioecological resilience of communities in the global South and wetland ecologies.
1 IRP (2020). Resource Efficiency and Climate Change: Material Efficiency Strategies for a Low-Carbon Future. Hertwich, E., Lifset, R., Pauliuk, S., Heeren, N. A report of the International Resource Panel. United Nations Environment Programme, Nairobi, Kenya.
2 Whyte, Kyle Powys, “Indigenous Climate Change Studies: Indigenizing Futures, Decolonizing the Anthropocene” (February 28, 2017). English Language Notes, Duke University Press, Page 153-162
3 Watson, Julia, “Lo-TEK: Design by Radical Indigenism”, Taschen, Italy, 2019
4 Sunder, Kalpana, “The remarkable floating gardens of Bangladesh”, BBC Future Planet published on the 11th September 2020. The webpage can be accessed at https://www. bbc.com/future/ article/20200910the-remarkablefloating-gardens-ofbangladesh referred to on 03-12-2022
