July 2004 newsletter
We’re coming to you live from the Dead Sea Valley again, the site of lowest permaculture project on the planet and central to the Holy Lands of the Middle East.
After arriving back in Australia in February this year Geoff and Nadia were immediately engaged in the designing and directing permaculture earthworks at Clunes in Northern New South Wales just inland from Byron Bay. A complete design consultancy job for total life style self sufficiency comprising two dams three swales with a total length of over one kilometer, plus some driveway work and levels.
In March we taught our first permaculture design certificate course in Cooroy, Queensland at the same site and time as the permaculture national gathering, which ran simultaneously during the three days in the middle of the course. The course was a great success with the students getting a unique experience with the national gathering as a bonus. During the national gathering the annual general meeting of Permaculture International Limited was held and directors for the year were elected from the membership. Geoff was elected as one of the directors standing as a representative of the itinerant teachers of the seventy-two hour permaculture design certificate course. This is the original teaching system promoted by Bill Mollison and taught by all teachers registered by The Permaculture Institute. It is the original institute of permaculture where Tagari Publications distribute books and certificates.
In the following months Geoff and Nadia teamed up with Greg Hallet and Jane Oliver of Footprint Directions on many design consultancies. These were mainly very large project developments on the Gold Coast in the new professional consultancy arena created by the local governments stipulations for “environmentally sustainable design” criteria. These ESD criteria will be enforced through out Australia and around the world hopefully. This field of professional design consultancy is enjoying a rapid growth spurt in many parts of Australia and any permaculture design consultant with some degree of experience can easily facilitate such design requirements. One of our ongoing engagements involves the implementation of the Currumbin Valley Eco-village. A state of the art development specifying best practices for sustainable development and we will direct some of the initial earthworks early in December.