A Bridge to Somewhere
Oct
27
Written by:
10/27/2011 6:59 PM
Sustainability is a concept with many meanings. To designers and architects it means one thing, to economists another, to businessmen something else, and to an ecologist completely something else. Even with diversity of definitions, sustainability comes down to practical elements and a time-line to sustain a process, a structure, an environment, or a business over a long period. To the people of Meghalaya State in northeast India, sustainability means something essential, generational in time, and amazing.
Meghalaya is one of the wettest spots on Earth with rainfalls that can reach nearly 600 inches/year. It’s name literally means Abode of Clouds and the landscape is covered in tropical forests, mountains, gorges, and raging rivers. Even by standards of the trans-Himalayan region, Meghalaya is remote and difficult to visit. However, even in their isolation the people there have evolved a biological based design methodology worthy of any definition of the word sustainability in practical application anywhere.
Generations of forest “gardeners” have guided, trained, and pruned the roots of trees from the genus Ficus to form bridges across their numerous rivers. The network of fig roots have become living bridges crossing not only chasms but surviving the torrential rains of Meghalaya and thriving for centuries. The remarkable story of the bridge builders of Meghalaya can be viewed here:
The Living Bridge
A Nobel Prize should be given for approaches as creative as these people’s for learning to live sustainably in their own landscapes. The people of Meghalaya have really built a ‘bridge to somewhere’.
WHB