A pasture system in Andorra, hay milk in Austria, areas growing chestnuts, white ginger and waxberries in China, flood-spreading gardens and a walnut cultivating region in Iran and an all-female fishery in the Republic of Korea –– these are all among the latest agricultural systems to be recognized by a UN group aiming to preserve and encourage traditional farming and fishing systems around the world. It’s like UNESCO but for food. The designation may help protect and fund such traditional cultures, but the UN groups have very little control in protecting systems, ecosystems and culture around the world.

We understood this when UNESCO heritage sites like Jonah’s tomb (from Jonah and the Whale in the Bible) were blown up in 2104 by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Terrorists went from town to town wiping out Jewish, Christian and other non-Sunni Muslim religious and cultural sites in 2014 and 2015, videotaping their exploits the way in a similar fashion to the Palestinians who joined the Hamas raid on October 7, did to Israelis and foreigners in kibbutzes and at the Supernova dance party. These people will never return and the heritage sites lost forever in the name of extremism.

But the UN says that by recognizing and supporting agricultural systems, this know-how can be passed down from generation to generation, alleviating poverty and giving people a better chance of avoiding a life in violence. The Slow Food movement is doing something in Europe. Read about the Slow Cheese Winners of the World.

Like UNESCO heritage sites, the UN is recognizing sites of agricultural significance. They are called Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) – and are part of a new database created by the UN to recognize and support culturally-rich agricultural practices around the world.

The systems, formally designated during a meeting of the GIAHS Scientific Advisory Group taking place in Rome from November 7 to 10 included the first ones to be approved from Andorra and Austria. Meanwhile, additional sites in China, Iran and the Republic of Korea highlight the key role played by Asia’s traditional agricultural practices in food security and combating climate change and biodiversity loss.

Under the flagship programme of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the selection criteria stipulate that sites must be of global importance, have value as a public good, supporting food and livelihood security, agro-biodiversity, sustainable knowledge systems and practices, social values and culture as well as outstanding landscapes.

“Now over 20 years strong, GIAHS has proven to be a great model for showcasing longstanding practices to render agrifood systems more resilient to climate change,” said Maria Helena Semedo from the FAO.

With the newest addition to the global agricultural heritage systems list, FAO’s worldwide agricultural heritage network now consists of 86 systems in 26 countries around the globe.

Pasture systems in Andorra

The subalpine and supraforestal pastures of Andorra reflect the longstanding agropastoral system developed in this tiny landlocked country which lies almost 2,000 metres above sea level on average in the Pyrenees mountains. The local population has combined spontaneous pastures and cultivated feeding. This supports the production of livestock, bovines, ovines, horses, on free-range and extensive grazing, which can be traded for other goods and food with the neighbouring regions.

It is based on common lands and shared pastures, with the animals’ owners paying a shepherd or taking turns to protect herds from predators, freeing the rest of the farmers for other tasks.

Hay milk in Austria

The production of hay milk, from cattle fed on fresh grass and hay rather than fermented fodder, is as old as the keeping of dairy animals in Europe. Using hay as a nutrient-rich winter feed helps get ruminants through the vegetation-less cold season, thus ensuring the livelihood of farming families.

Hay milk used to make up most of Austria’s milk production but now it accounts for only 15 percent. Austria’s 6,500 hay milk farmers and 60 major processors have come together in the ARGE Heumilch Österreich community. It aims to preserve hay farming and communicate the benefits of this sustainable method so that a fair milk producer price can be obtained in the marketplace.

Chestnut, White Ginger and Waxberry heartlands in China

The Kuancheng Traditional Chestnut Eco-Planting System in northern China’s Hebei Province is located in one of the first and most important areas in China to cultivate chestnuts, dating back to the Han Dynasty (206 BC to 220 CE). A traditional cultivation system with chestnuts as the core together with other crops, medicinal materials, and poultry industries was gradually established.

It forms an important part of the global chestnut variety resource bank and it is rich in cultural content, respecting nature and based on a form of social organisation that promotes agricultural production.

The Tongling White Ginger Plantation System forms an important part of Southern China’s ginger planting area. There are 17 varieties of ginger in the Tongling White Ginger Plantation System, and white ginger is the main variety. Semi-late rice is the main crop for rice cultivation in Tongling, with fewer early-season and late rice varieties. There are 31 main varieties of rice.

Tongling has developed key techniques for ginger plantation including ginger pavilions for seed-preserving and germination-accelerating. There are many processing recipes dating back over nearly 1,000 years such as Salt-pickled Ginger, Sauced Ginger, Sweet-and-Sour Ginger, and Sugared Ginger.

The Xianju Ancient Chinese Waxberry Composite System in eastern China’s Zhejiang Province is in an area where the cultivation of these fruit trees dates back more than 1,600 years, with many villagers tending them in combination with tea, chickens and bees. There are 100,000 farmers in the GIAHS site, of whom 26,000 are engaged in waxberry cultivation, composite planting and breeding, and other related industries.

The site has accumulated a large number of ancient waxberry genetic resources with diverse types and rich varieties. In May 2015, China’s first county-level biodiversity conservation action plan was released by the local government of Xianju County.

Flood-spreading gardens and walnut cultivation in Iran

The traditional Gardens of Qazvin, northwest of Iran’s capital Tehran, are a flood-spreading system that dates back thousands of years. Situated in the foothills of the Alborz ranges, the creation of the gardens surrounding the city has protected its inhabitants from floods adapting to and taking advantage of the watershed to produce nuts and local delicacies.

By capturing, redirecting and sharing floodwaters, local communities have been able to cultivate and grow fruits all around Qazvin. Today, the system provides food and employment opportunities for people but also cools the temperature of the city and serves to replenish groundwater tables.

The Traditional Walnut Agricultural System in Tuyserkan, Iran is known not just for its walnut orchards but also for its delicacies as well as its landscapes and historical monuments.  Based on family-farming, the cultivation of walnuts supports the livelihoods of a major part of the households in the area.

This cultivation is mainly developed in valleys and is irrigated using water canals designed at different levels and fed mainly by rivers and springs as well as Qanats.  Among the local practices is irrigating walnut trees in the cold and frost season, which farmers believe helps to eliminate pests and diseases.

Unique all-female se women fisheries in the Republic of Korea

The Jeju haenyeo fishing practice is a traditional subsistence fishing system predominantly carried out by women. The Haenyeo” (“sea women” in Korean) dive underwater without the aid of breathing apparatus and collect seafood such as disk abalone, horned turban, and sea mustard. They have long been engaged in a half-farming and half-fishery lifestyle.

This system is believed to be the sole fishery globally that is managed solely by women. Its primary purpose is to serve as a source of household sustenance rather than engaging in commercial fishing.The diving skills and traditional wisdom of Jeju haenyeo represent a living social system that has been listed as an intangible world heritage by UNESCO.

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Water is life. Any civilisation from the Bible or anywhere needed to live. Archaeologists in Israel uncover an ancient aqueduct in Jerusalem, one used for 2000 years to supply water to the city residents. The archaeologists marvel at the engineering and design. 

A segment of the Low-Level Aqueduct to Jerusalem has been exposed over the last few weeks in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Armon Hanatsiv. 

The Low-Level Aqueduct winds along a route of about 15 miles from Solomons Pools located south of Bethlehem to the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem with a very slight gradient – descending by about one yard along every mile.

This amazing water system, started by the Hasmonean kings in order to increase the water supply to Jerusalem and in particular to the Temple Mount where Jews worshipped God, “astounds us until this very day, and due to the aqueducts ingenuity and quality, continued to be used until the British Mandate 100 years ago when the invention of electric pumps replaced it,” the researchers report.

“Two aqueducts brought water from Solomons` Pools, located between Bethlehem and Efrat to Jerusalem- the Low-Level Aqueduct and the High-Level Aqueduct,” says Ya`akov Billig Of the Israel Antiquities Authority, who has researched the ancient aqueducts to Jerusalem:

“It amazes us to think how they managed in antiquity to make the accurate measurements of elevation along such a long distance, choosing the route along the mountainous terrain and calculating the necessary gradient, all this without the modern sophisticated instruments we have today”.

Remind you of Iran’s water qanat? 

Presently, segments of the Low-Level aqueduct are being revealed under Alkachi street in the Armon Hanatsiv, in an excavation directed by Alexander Wiegmann of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

Following the excavation, conservation experts will do preservation work along the remains towards their exhibition in a park for visitors and the public.

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When you go deep into a desert, whether it’s Iran or Sinai, it has a similar effect of being in a forest. The stark nature of the planet holds you. Deserts may offer less distractions in your peripheral vision but the clouds and sand come to life as you feel yourself expanding within the expanse.

That perhaps was the mood for a new conceptual hotel in Iran designed by Margot Krasojević and uses ancient Iranian methods for desert survival using underground flowing water, called the qanat. In Arabic, this type of channel is more often called a kariz.

Long-ago tribesmen found underground springs in the foothills of the region of Iran and Oman, and engineered a technology that channels the water over the land, irrigating farms and oases and supplying households with water as needed. Although some say that qanat is a concept 3000 years old, others claim 5000 years. But they were definitely engineered before the Roman aqueducts were built. 

We’ll explain more about qanat below.

The hotel in this dreamscape is located in Makran, a semi-desert coastal strip stretching from south-eastern Iran to Pakistan’s Baluchistan, and bordering the coasts of the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman.

Krasojević sees an eco-tourism resort that uses wind, heat, and aquifers to create a modern wind tower and qanat system: ancient air conditioning! 

Windcatcher towers were designed for ventilation and evaporative cooling while the hotel provides much-needed shelter in a shapeshifting landscape where survival is not always an assumption.  While qanats, vertical shafts and tunnels, ferry water to the ground service without the need for pumping. The hotel sits on an existing qanat, attempting to make it more efficien

A self inflating PVC canopy and condensation pool collects water from thin air.

The hotel, if it were built, would encourage a more even distribution of water further into the desert to water remote farms. 

About Margot Krasojević Architects

Margot Krasojević completed her architectural education at the Architectural Association School of Architecture and University College London and worked with Zaha Hadid Architects as lead undergraduate and masters studio director for sustainable design programs, at UCL, University of Greenwich and University of Washington.

She has since opened a multidisciplinary architectural design studio focusing on integrating environmental issues, renewable energy and sustainability as part of the design process. She is currently working on projects in Asia, where she is integrating and harnessing renewable energy as part of a buildings service infrastructure. 

More about Iran’s qanat

Throughout the dry regions of Iran, farms and settlements are supported by the ancient qanat system of tapping water at the heads of valleys and then conducting the water along underground tunnels by gravity, often over many miles. The Romans had aqueducts, the Iranians qanat.

Each qanat comprises an almost horizontal tunnel collecting water from an underground water source into which a mother well is sunk to the appropriate level of the aquifer. Qanat were also built in Oman, and countries like the United Arab Emirates. 

Well shafts are sunk at regular intervals along the route of the tunnel to enable removal of debris and allow ventilation. These appear as craters from above, following the line of the qanat from water source to agricultural settlement.

Video of how qanat work

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zockOFKKX2E

The water is transported along underground tunnels, so-called koshkan, by means of gravity due to the gentle slope of the tunnel to the exit (mazhar), from where it is distributed by channels to the agricultural land of the shareholders.

The levels, gradient and length of the qanat are calculated by traditional methods requiring the skills of experienced qanat workers and this wisdom has been handed down over centuries.

Many qanats have sub-branches and water access corridors for maintenance purposes, as well as dependant structures including rest areas for the qanat workers, public and private hamams, reservoirs and watermills. The traditional communal management system still in place allows equitable and sustainable water sharing and distribution.

Margot Krasojević’s eco hotel pays homage to the qanat and will teach visitors from around the world that low-tech may still be more inventive than the technology that runs on polluting oil. 

We are looking forward to the Qanat hotel being built in Iran. No doubt Zaha Hadid‘s legacy lives on through Margot, and more female architects and their worldviews are needed in the Middle East where unliveable phallic towers are becoming the norm, even in more sensible cities like Tel Aviv.

Love this ancient low-tech solution from Iran? Learn more about making today more sustainable from the past. Learn about Iranian windatchers from Yadz. Learn here how ancient Iranians keep ice cool with ancient ice houses. 

 

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Falaj, also known as qanat or aflaj, is an ancient water management system, that has watered the Arabian Peninsula’s arid lands for centuries. Qanat comes from the Semetic word meaning to dig and some say that the qanat systems are as long as the distance from the earth to the moon. Long-ago tribesmen found underground springs in the foothills of the region, and engineered a technology that channels the water over the land, irrigating farms and oases and supplying households with water as needed.  Although some say that falaj is a concept 3000 years old, others claim 5000 years. We reported on the Al-Baydha project for regenerative agriculture in Saudi Arabia with similar aims here.

What we do know is how admirable and sustainable the falaj system is, built entirely from local materials and hewed out of rock and earth by hand.  First deep wells were dug, or  underground springs redirected, to flow into tunnels that emerge on land and into stone channels containing the streaming water. The waterflow moves across miles of land, as determined by the ancients, entirely by gravity. 

Shafts whose function is to regulate the flow of water are sunk in the channels about every 20 meters.  Today, field irrigation is managed by government-appointed overseers, who monitor which fields receive water, and for how many hours. This is done in some areas by removing covers of brick, stones and sheep fleeces from the openings of the shafts to let the water run in another given direction, then replacing the covers to force the water back.

The Aflaj Irrigation Systems of Oman are ancient water channels from 500 AD located in the regions of Dakhiliyah, Sharqiyah and Batinah. However, they represent a type of irrigation system as old as 5000 years in the region named as Qanat or Kariz as originally named in Persia. This one is in the UAE.

In other falaj,  slab-like barriers are inserted into points built into the channel walls to divert the water, then put back as needed.

Falaj comes from the word aflaj, meaning split, or divided. As the photo above shows, the channels may be split to provide field irrigation on one side, and household water on the other.

Walk through a village in Oman, and you’ll  see pure, channeled water flowing in the streets and between houses. Some channels may be partially covered with slabs of stone placed at regular intervals over the top, to prevent night animals that come to drink from falling in and polluting the water.  

There might even be a bath house for the community, with the water provided by the falaj. In the 14th and 15th centuries, governments whose falaj systems had deteriorated rebuilt the tunnels and overland channels. Recognizing the huge value of the ancient waterways,  today’s Emirati and Omani governments have repaired many and put them back in use. Some areas in Oman have over 50 working falaj.

In the UAE there are seven oases, the largest in Al Ain. The stream rippling and burbling between thriving date palms and water greenery is a beautiful thing to see, and it also irrigates 1.200 acres of land, supplying over 550 farms. 

Community areas were once cleared around the mouths of the channels, where the tribes met to take their share of the crop and hold festivities.  Forts and castles were built around the Al Ain oasis to protect it from marauders, and important archaeological discoveries have been made there. UNESCO declared five of the UAE falaj systems to be heritage sites in 2011. 

The falaj system is said to have originated in ancient Iran early in the first millennium BCE, spreading to China and India.  Tribal laborers known as muqannis hand-built and maintained the water channels and shafts, as their descendants do to this day. 

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Refrigeration is perhaps one of the greatest inventions of modern man, but it has come at a price. Not only do they require a great deal of energy to stay cool, but they also rely on ozone-depleting chloro-fluorocarbons (CFCs), or freon, though some countries have phased these out.

As an increasing number of people walk away from the grid to build their homes and villages and seek more sustainable lifestyles, yet keeping food cool and having ice for summer beverages remains one of the most significant challenges. Of course there are root cellars but they can’t keep cooked food cool enough for a few days. For meat hunted in the fall, you have to cure it or find a freezer on the grid. For a potential solution, we look to the Iranians and their ancient domed ice houses.

Used up until about 50 years ago, these ancient ice houses were typically constructed as domes with earth bricks. Others are walled and some contain underground chambers.

Built on the outskirts of desert areas where it’s almost impossible to get ice unless its trucked in from the far north, the ice houses were built with channels at the back.

In winter, these channels were then flooded with water, which was likely derived from the Iranians’ qanat irrigation system that funnelled runoff from mountains to areas at their base, according to Dr. Hemming Jorgensen, who has compiled the first extensive documentation of these structures.

Overnight the water would freeze and custodians of the ice house would wake up early the following day, before sunrise, and break up blocks of ice that they would then relocate to the ice houses.

They would do this for as many nights as necessary to ensure a sufficient supply of ice that would last through the summer.

Jorgensen has documented the existence of 129 such ice houses, which Amusing Planet says are much bigger than similar ice houses built in the United States.

However, remnants of only 104 remain, and Jorgensen expresses concern that the absence of concerted preservation projects could result in their destruction.

Already some of them have been transformed into informal trash dumps. According to Jorgensen, “The traditional Persian ice houses were built at villages on the perimeter of the large deserts on the Central Plateau. Their cone-shaped domes, up to 20 meters high, consisted of mud and mud bricks from the excavation of the deep ice pits protected by the domes.

“The ice houses served as reservoirs that stored blocks of ice in the winter for further use in the summer. The ice was either hauled in from nearby mountains or produced in open basins at the ice house site. Such local ice production plants were typically supplied with fresh water from qanats, the ingenious water supply tunnels, that brought water for human settlements and irrigation from the distant mountains.

“The ice houses, whose origin is believed to go back more than 2000 years, gradually became obsolete with the advent of electricity and the introduction of the refrigerators to the households. Because they were made of perishable materials, most of the ice houses have disappeared and the rest are facing a grim future,” he says.

Ancient Iranians were well attuned to their natural environment and engineered all kinds of coping mechanisms. In addition to well-insulated earth buildings, they pioneered wind catchers that circulated natural cooling during hot winter months.

And although so much of that knowledge has been lost, we are mindful of a small but definite trend to reincorporate ancient wisdom into contemporary developments.

Read more about the qanat water systems here.

Image of ice houses in Iran and Kashan ice house via Shutterstock

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