Bricolage is doing things economically

Bricolage, iteration, A/B testing, and beginning with the end in mind

This is a bricolage protocol; which means we are building it in public! Some pages are under construction — but check back soon its updating fast!

This protocol is different than other protocols. We are developing it in public.

Here is why:

• Humility = how to build things. We can't let our egos and fear of criticism get in the way. We're big fans of the "shitty first draft". The desire to present a fait accompli has led to slowed development pipelines in this space, a lack of critique, and serial instead of parallel processing.
• We feel a sense of urgency. The planet is making a pivot, and all our talking heads are still talking, while the people closest to the reality are screaming that the house is on fire. "We don't eat money." is perhaps the most succinct version from Gilmar, a Tupinamba Indigenous protester at COP30 in 2025. We're in a planetary emergency and need to start acting like it. This doesn't mean sloppy work, but opening the kimono on a development pipeline that could help someone else with their build is the right action right now.
• We practice open science. To benefit Indigenous authors, we do have copyrights and royalties for people who make a profit off the implementation of this work. It's basically a sliding-scale pricing system that includes an open-source component.

Bricolage

We are impossibly proud of doing things "LatAm-style". Getting them done with the materials that are available now. One example of this might be Mackelmore's song Thrift Shop. There are billions of people on the planet who don't have good funding for academic-level reforestation projects, but have two hands and seeds. This protocol is for them.

Figure 1. Savimbo founder Jhony Lopez opening Savimbo´s first Indigenous-led Amazonian reforestation plot.

There is an ethos in a world of late-stage capitalism of watching conspicuous consumerism on social media, and looking for a better, perfect, peer who does things prettier and with more resources. We truly admire some of the formal professsional reforestation projects we've seen, and we truly can't afford them.

Then we decided, so what if we don't have more resources? We get our projects done the best we can anyway. There is an art to getting things done when you are broke, and it starts with not being ashamed of being broke.

The people we represent, and work for, did not convert their resources, or other people's resources, into money. That means they just have less of it. That does not mean they are lesser people.

This entire protocol was done cheaply, with not-famous, not-rich people who were really smart. They all put what they did have to contribute into it, and that's bricolage.

Iteration

A/B testing