(Ka’Way Mallki is Quechua for ‘Tree of Life’)

The Impending Social Crisis

Humanity faces an unprecedented and imminent crisis (or opportunity, depending upon your perspective!) the scope and magnitude of which it has never, in the history of its evolution, ever faced before.

Pertinent details;

• In the history of this planet there have been many species groups that have boomed in population.
• When they do it is always due to the presence of a resource/environmental condition that favours their survival.
• When the resource is exhausted/the environmental conditions change, the population then crashes due to there no longer being sufficient survival needs to sustain the inflated population.
• The crash of the population drives evolution as the most adaptable/intelligent adjust to the changing conditions and reproduce, whilst those that do not adapt do not reproduce.
• The recent and rapid sevenfold increase in the human population is due to the presence of the resource of oil.
• The oil resource has favoured the human population boom due to providing petrochemical fertilizers, pesticides and pharmaceuticals, allowing more food production, better health and longer life spans.
• There is not enough nutrition in the soil of this planet to sustain the current population, let alone a still growing one, without petrochemical fertilizers.
• The oil resource is now in decline – therefore there will be less fertilizers, pesticides and pharmaceutical medicines.
• The declining oil resource means that those commodities that have enabled the population to boom will become more and more scarce and expensive.

Necessities for Human Societal Survival

Human beings have four survival needs;

• Food,
• Water,
• Shelter
• Fire/Energy

Human groupings, known as society, have a further four survival needs;

• Education,
• Healthcare,
• Just social governance
• Interpersonal skills/love/consciousness development.

Now, a question that is important to consider when looking at possible solutions to the global problem, is to ask ourselves how is it that we have come to this juncture? The answer is blindingly simple;

Nature exists in a state of ‘dynamic equilibrium’. That is to say that balance always exists in Nature but fluctuates across a base line. It is self correcting. You could call it karmic balance.

Our bodies also operate to maintain

in homeostasis. There is a constant co-operation and self correcting correlation between all the cells. They co-operate. Co-operation is, in fact, the very mechanism that makes multi cellular organisms such as you and me even possible!

Survival of the fittest is indeed the driving force of evolution but it is survival of the most co-operative that in fact determines the greatest ‘fitness’ – not competition as we have been raised to believe by a couple hundred years of societal programming!

Well, for a good old while now, humanity has not been co-operating with Nature, intelligently replicating her principles and designs. As a species we have been greedy and have raped and pillaged our Mother.

Current Solutions and the Causes of their Failures

• Many individuals have recognised the need for change and have demonstrated their commitment by investing their life savings in buying land and have set about building communities of like minded individuals. They have relationships with the indigenous communities that surround their properties.
• These individuals are most often from the ‘fringes’ of society. They are generally free thinkers, not overly indoctrinated with excessive societal education and therefore generally lack the discipline, social integration and necessary expertise necessary to successfully implement viable alternatives. They can see a bigger picture, think outside the box and have the necessary commitments but not the necessary knowledge of the relevant skill sets. The words well meaning, naive and idealistic might well be used to sum up these individuals.
• Those with the necessary high level of education, discipline and social integration have undergone many years of societal programming and have accrued debt accumulating their knowledge, which now needs to be honoured, thus keeping them trapped in a certain lifestyle within society. They are traditionally academic, studious types who have learnt their knowledge within a traditional structured educational environment. They traditionally have one or two masters degrees and/or PhD’s. The terms overly pragmatic, practical, embedded in societal ‘norms’ and focused upon minutiae might be used to describe these individuals.
• Many NGO’s exist with admirable humanitarian principles and have access to financing and both skilled and willing workers. They have sought to implement social improvements in many indigenous communities around the world. However their projects invariably fail due to the lack of a permanent presence in the areas they work and hence a lack of understanding of the mindset, needs and desires of the local communities they seek to serve. They have generally provided infrastructure in communities but not the long term follow up training essential to ensure that the necessary knowledge is permanently seeded into the local consciousness and its operating paradigms.

Ka’Way Mallki’s Proposed Solution

There are several factors that need to be considered in designing sustainable alternative models by which humans derive and distribute their survival needs;

• 1 Hectare can sustainably support 4 humans.
• The human brain can only recognize approximately 150 faces and therefore is limited to that number in its ability to generate the emotional bonds necessary for societal cohesion. Both anthropologists and Amish communities have both found that the optimum group size for problem free human communities is 150 members. As numbers rise above this, competition for resources increases and emotional bonds become weaker such that one does not empathize as strongly with another’s situation. This leads a lack of factoring the wellbeing of others into decisions.
• Decision making processes involving more than 8 voices are highly inefficient.
• Excessive private property leads to unequal distribution of wealth over the long term.
• Excessive communal property leads to a lack of sense of appropriate stewardship, investment and personal involvement amongst individuals in any community.
• Purely democratic processes inevitably lead to fragmentation and division within communities as majority rule marginalizes the minority.
• An economy based upon ‘getting’ invariably leads to unhappy, unfulfilled individuals (due to the fact that individuals perform actions in the present moment that they don’t wish to, based upon the idea of ‘getting’ something they do wish for in the future), greed and unbalanced distribution of wealth.

Therefore;

• In order to ensure that there is not an excessive demand upon natural resources, each community, allowing for buffer zones able to accommodate resource requirements for a slightly larger population prior to splitting, should be situated within 50 hectares.
• The maximum size of a community should be limited to a permanent population of 150 but with space to accommodate up to approximately double that. When communities grow and start to regularly have more than 200 members then the community would start to prepare to split and seed a new one.
• The community of 150 would be subdivided into 7 ‘pods’ and each ‘pod’ would be further subdivided into 7 residential units.
• Each residential unit is ascribed a modest area of land for private management but can claim its full hectare from the overall community management, provided they can show plans for more productive use of that land (within sustainable parameters) than the current usage.
• The overall community leadership, formed of a council of seven, is responsible for the management of all communally held lands not yet claimed by individuals or ‘pods’.

• Representatives are elected democratically yet in the decision making processes where that representative speaks for those who elected him/her, decisions are arrived at by full consensus.
• An economy based upon giving allows individuals to share and distribute resources, creating a more even distribution of wealth. It also allows one to dedicate one’s time to that which enthuses one so that one’s work is its own reward and is self fulfilling.
• All human survival needs – food, water, shelter and fire/energy – as well as the societal survival needs – education, healthcare, just social governance and consciousness development – are to be human rights to the basic levels necessary for continued life. In return for this each community member is obligated to dedicate 13hrs a week to tasks, assigned by the community council, that rotate one through all the endeavours necessary to the continued functioning of the community, from the most menial to more skilled. If one wishes to further improve one’s standard of living, one has the freedom to do so in one’s extra time. This mechanism also serves to ensure that all members are cognizant of all aspects necessary to the successful functioning of the model, creating built in redundancy in knowledge sets.
• Food forests will be implemented such that with 15 years trips to the supermarket and pharmacy are replaced by walks with a basket, through engineered natural environments.

Investing in sustainable food production, water management, housing and energy production as well as enlightened education, true healthcare, just social governance, interpersonal skills and consciousness development requires large amounts of capital and highly trained skill sets for successful implementation. The total turnaround time for return on this investment is long (1-3 generations) due to the necessity of ensuring the seeding of the necessary information and practices into the wider consciousness group of communities.

However, with the rising price of oil and its derived products, this is obviously an intelligent long term investment as when the rising oil price tips the scales in favour of sustainable options, these communities will be in an incredibly strong and profitable economic position with low costs and high margins, as well as healthy lifestyles and high levels of education, all without dependency on centralized organizational structures.

• Sustainable energy endeavours start to produce financial benefits immediately but require a period wherein their infrastructure costs are offset against the greatly reduced energy costs. The duration of this off-setting depends upon the specific energy production methods optimal for each site plus the current local costs of existing energy sources.
• Food production and intelligent water management will produce real economic and lifestyle benefits within two years, becoming fully economically viable within 10-15 years.
• Sustainable, efficient housing depends upon the materials native to each zone, the timeframe of producing the appropriate materials and the existing material costs in the area and can be anywhere from immediate financial benefits to taking anywhere from 15 to 50 or more years.
• Educational benefits and lowered healthcare costs can be derived within 6 months to one year; however this is more safely projected on a generational timeline so as that the information is seeded as baseline operating knowledge with in the populace. After one generation (20 years) the necessary knowledge will be a part of a large percentage of the populace. After two or three generations it will simply be a natural part of the communally held knowledge.
• The same generational timeline should be used for projecting benefits in just social governance and interpersonal skills/consciousness development, although benefits will again be perceived with in shorter time frames.

In order to create the large amounts of long term financing necessary for the successful implementation in all the above areas, Ka’Way Mallki will have an income generating division which generates surplus finance. This side of the operation will focus upon deriving finance from;

• Sustainable transportation services, both people and cargo, along the Peruvian coastline and in the Amazon basin. This will be based upon WIG technology.
• Sustainable energy production derived from;
  1. Amazon basin river flows
  2. Coastal solar and tidal activity
  3. Extracting usable oils from waste plastics
  4. Ethanol production from waste materials left over after permaculture production
• Ayahuasca and plant medicine based consciousness raising healing retreats.
• Sale of community memberships.
• Donations from philanthropic individuals who wish to support the vision.

The profit generated from the first three of these enterprises will be divided thus;

• 25% distributed as shareholder returns
• 25% reinvested for the expansion of profit generating projects (always within sustainable and consciously responsible parameters)
• 50% used to support the long term implementation of sustainable social development projects

However, all initial profit will be reinvested to ensure the first three income generating streams above are online and productive. Once this is achieved then the profit divisions operate under the above guidelines. The first three financial streams will be funded by private individuals who wish to make a socially responsible investment. Sale of community memberships will finance individual communities in their development and donations received from philanthropic individuals will all be channeled into realizing the sustainable social development plan.

In order to create a model of sustainable social development that can expand as rapidly as possible, Ka’Way Mallki will first use the 50% of profitascribed to sustainable social development projects, plus any donations, to identify and hire experts in each of the 8 skill sets necessary for the development of a successful societal alternative.

Finance will also be used to identify developing sustainable communities, to travel to them and to develop a directory of those that would be interested in receiving support from Ka’Way Mallki.

Ka’Way Mallki’s paid experts will then rotate through those communities that wish to work with us. There is an order that development should follow;

• First the permaculture experts go in and capacitate soil improvement, water management, identify suitable symbiotic species blends for the creating of food forests that contain both food and medicines.
• Next sustainable energy experts go in and identify the most optimal production methods for the site.
• Next comes sustainable structure development, again based upon the specific resources available on each site. Sustainable construction crops are seeded into the developing permaculture base and structures are erected for the next phases.
• Then come the education experts who start establishing programs that will operate out of the previously built classrooms and will provide practical hands on education in the aspects of the growing community.
• Healthcare services and education will follow on naturally from the successful implementation of the educational programs.
• By the time the above are implemented, the communities will be growing in size and complexity and it will be necessary to start focusing upon just social governance measures to ensure clear, fair decision making that avoids as many of the historical pitfalls of human governance as possible.
• Essential to minimalizing potential social problems is that each community member be educated to have a high level of consciousness and awareness. People stuck in low levels of consciousness – following excessive egoic self interest at the expense of one’s environment – will be highly detrimental to the successful implementation of the vision. Therefore experts in the raising and development of consciousness will come into the community and instill educational processes to ensure a high level of intelligence.

As stated, these skill sets will regularly rotate through those communities that choose to work with us, thus ensuring that there is long term follow up and development, so overcoming one of the reasons for the failure of most NGO activities.

The communities that are being started are generally done so by motivated private individuals who are not native to the area they have chosen to live. Because of their personal investment –of time, finance (often their life savings) and energy – they are committed and can be considered a permanent presence in the area. They will each naturally develop relationships with the pre-existing indigenous communities and will therefore be able to identify the natural leaders from those communities that are also intelligent and motivated enough to learn the principles to be taught.

These natural leaders will then be hired by the private community for each capacitation event wherein experts from Ka’Way Mallki come in to the community to facilitate infrastructure development. This will ensure that the practices being taught and implemented during the capacitation in the private community will naturally and more easily be able to spread into the surrounding indigenous community once the associated benefits are obvious to the leaders due to their repeated work visits whereby they witness firsthand the developing process.

As stated, Ka’way Mallki will support the wage costs of the experts. The private communities will then be responsible for the cost of housing and feeding the experts on their visits to the centre. They will also be responsible for the wage costs of the local labor and the infrastructure development costs. If they are unable to meet the full costs of these last two themselves, then they will be able to apply for a grant from Ka’Way Mallki, assuming the foundation is generating sufficient finances to support that.

It is hoped that as each private community progresses, they will share the benefits they have received and will facilitate, in whatever way possible, the spread of the model into their surrounding indigenous community – providing both financial assistance and sharing the knowledge we have shared with them and which they are by now well versed in. Indeed, the agreement that they do this will be a prerequisite to Ka’Way Mallki working with the private community and sharing our resources with them.

The above is a summary of the Ka’Way Mallki project.  If you would like a detailed copy of the plan or have questions about how to participate in the project, please e-mail alex@thewayinn.org

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