Wilderness – nature as the ultimate teacher. There is no human intervention in Zone 5 apart from the observation of ecological processes. Here, we are visitors not managers; it is “where we learn the rules that we try to apply elsewhere” (Bill Mollison).
In many systems, Zone 5, or wilderness areas, are places furthest away from the centre of human activity because they require the least amount of human input. At NGP, our situation is a bit different for a couple of reasons:
- We inherited our land and buildings from a previous owner and the most established wild areas are situated quite close to our buildings
- Capital Hill Dairy, the larger farm we are a part of, is home to some of the last areas of natural woodland on the Lilongwe plains – so we need to protect it
- Fires and wood cutters are serious threats to our Zone 5 and therefore we need to keep these areas under a watchful eye and a discerning ear.
We have actually zoned well over 60% of our land as wilderness areas, but as long as wildfires and tree cutters threaten the farm, the areas furthest from our centre of energy are unlikely to reach climax succession.
