BELIPOLA
Belipola is an Analog Forest and center for sustainability education in Mirahawatta, Sri Lanka. It serves as the center for the International Analog Forestry Network for all of Asia.
The idea of Analog Forestry is to take degraded land and rehabilitate it by creating a mature forest in a tiny fraction of the time they take to naturally form. You achieve this by planting strategically so that you are filling in gaps in what a forest needs, as well as paying attention to what stage the forest is in and choosing plants that will move it to the next stage. This process all comes together in Analog Forestry design.
When I first arrived at Belipola, I was introduced to a piece of land that had remained relatively untouched. Once I had familiarized myself with Analog Forestry, I was tasked with using those principles to create a design for that underutilized section of forest.
Analog Forestry design has a pretty structured method, which became the outline of my progression:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀1. Record the structure of the natural forest using physiognomic formulae
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀2. Map the area to be reforested
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀3. Research properties of plants to be used
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀4. Design the forest
1. Recording the Structure
The first few days of the project, I spent a lot of hours just walking the forest and reading more about Analog Forestry theory surrounded by such a brilliant example of how successful it can be. Then I started recording.
Ultimately, after going over the entire plot with a visual fine-tooth comb, I determined the formula for the present state to be: B6p;U4A;G3c
2. Mapping
For my purposes, the dimensions themselves were less important than the proportions. I needed to know things like: where the elevation changes were, where the sunlight hit the land, where the river was and how the water would flow and percolate.
Vision
There is one step in planning an Analog Forestry design that is not described in these four steps: deciding what you want from the space you are designing.
Knowing what your vision for the land is is crucial to Analog Forestry design. You should think both about what you want the land to be like soon after planting, and many years in the future.
In this case, I had the broad goal of a food forest. A more specific goal is for it to be economically profitable. In the short term, this means a goal of harvesting from the land in the first year. In the long term, this means being able to make a profit selling the fruits of the land. Another goal, typical of Analog Forestry, is to make the plot biodiverse. I want the design to be good for the land as well as the people. All these goals really boil down to a good balance of ecological stability and socioeconomic productivity.
3. Research
The next step is to go to a database. You search for plants that meet the criteria of what you need in terms of structure and function to complete your vision. In a case like this, where there is no existing database, you can look at the plants that are available to you, their structures, and their functions. Then you can decide which ones to use among them. For example, there are banana trees at Belipola. A banana tree meets the goals of harvesting within a year, eventually being sold for a profit, and adding biodiversity.
4. Design
All these tools come together in a final design. In this case, one design could be to have banana and papaya trees as the main crops. They are ready for harvest in less than a year, and are common fruits at market. The back of the plot is near the forest canopy, so Kithul and ICB would not block the sunlight if planted there. They would also be easier to harvest from an above terrace (more likely to eat/sell fruits). Ginger, turmeric, and fenugreek are good shade crops, so as the trees grow to partially block the sun, they would still thrive. Vining crops like vanilla and pepper are good ways to add biodiversity without taking up much space. Thinking of the environment, ice cream bean and fenugreek are both nitrogen fixing plants, which will keep us from adding more artificial nutrients.
Going back to the numbers, this new, proposed forest would have the formula:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀B6p; P6r; K6r; H5c; U4a; C4r; K2i
You can easily see how much longer it is than the original formula. This is what designers mean when they talk about filling in gaps in the formula. Before there were no nitrogen fixing plants (shown here with a K), nor was there much diversity in structure or biodiversity. The only thing that the new formula is missing is the graminoids. This is an example of the seral progression of the forest. The bigger plants have moved in and replaced the grass, an earlier seral stage.
