Bill Mollison | Permaculture Research Institute of Australia

This is a rare event and one that shouldn’t be missed. Having been born and reared on the island of Tasmania, Islands hold a special place in Bill’s heart and fascination. In this course Bill will focus on Permaculture Design for tropical and sub-tropical islands. This will be a wonderful experience to study and spend time with the founding father of Permaculture.

When: Wednesday, July 16 through to Saturday, July 19, 2008
Where: Bocas Del Toro, PANAMA
Cost: $1500 AUD
(includes accommodation & food)

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It’s on again!

Bill Mollison and Geoff Lawton will once again teach the full Permaculture Design Certificate Course at Trinity College, Melbourne University . This is a 12 day, 72 hours Permaculture Design Certificate Course. It commence on Monday the 22nd of September 2008 and runs through to Saturday the 4th October 2008.
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Bill Mollison and Geoff Lawton

Combine forces to teach the

PERMACULTURE DESIGN CERTIFICATE COURSE

Monday 7th - Saturday 19th January 2008 • Melbourne University

“This course has already changed a lot of the world –
Come help us finish the job!” ~ Bill Mollison April 27, 2005

BILL MOLLISON, the legendary Permaculture teacher, promoter and designer - who, over 26 years of non-stop travelling, designing, teaching and writing, personally planted the seeds of Permaculture in over 120 countries. Bill is the founding director of The Permaculture Institute, the first and longest running Permaculture Institute in existence.

And
GEOFF LAWTON who is world renowned for field expertise and extensive teaching experience in the ecological “badlands” of Earth, areas of extreme cultural conflicts, as well as more friendly environments. Founding director of the acclaimed Permaculture Research Institute, Geoff is working in more countries and co-ordinating more projects on the ground than any other Permaculture Institute today.

Earth’s ecosystems are in crisis. Permaculture offers practical, sustainable solutions. You can be part of the exciting adventure of positive world change.

Tagari Farm is a 148 acre property owned by Bill Mollison’s The Permaculture Institute of Australia, situated in the sub tropics of Northern New South Wales in the ancient volcanic crater of Mt Warning which is the first spot on the continent of Australia to receive the sun’s light every morning. The Pacific ocean beaches are just 45 minutes drive away. Close to the outer western rim of the volcanic rim the farm sits just below a striking geographic feature called The Pinnacle. It’s a sharp edged pointed ridge line rising 2000 feet, the lower slopes include a large fertile river flat with a long frontage to South Pumpenbil creek.

The property was originally used for dairy and cattle grazing and has been extensively designed and established by Bill Mollison over 10 years as a permaculture model farm. There are 43 bodies of water — dams, ponds, canals and many miles of water harvest swales throughout the lush landscape. Gravity water is set from large high dams as main grid water cover the majority of the total landscape, part of this system includes 6 fish ponds set up for continuous water exchange flow through capable of holding 20,000 fish, also chinampa canal growing systems with the potential of the highest production of any system ever documented.

Living systems also include very diverse and extensive plantings of forestry including, timber, bee forage, animal forage, 60 species of timber and food bamboo, plus food forest fruit trees with over 300 mangoes.

The building infrastructure includes the original 90 year old farm house, a large 5 bedroom farm house, a straw bale barn used as a classroom, a large classroom/tea room with kitchen and toilets/bathroom, a very large open hay barn/machinery shed and numerous out buildings used for animal housing.

The property is ideally suited to permaculture education, demonstration and diverse sustainable organic production.

A Permaculture Practical Certificate course being held at Bill and Lisa Mollison’s property, Sister Creek, Tasmania is a completely hands-on course in permaculture project establishment.

Specifically designed to give a reference and realistic expectation of the requirements to establish a project. Every day a different discipline is tackled taking into account the seasonal variation of the farming year. The days are long, the work is hard for some, but it is always interesting and informative.

Starting 9 April 2007 and running for 13 Days, you’ll learn by working with us on real jobs. You will sleep well.

We normally cover home gardens, nursery, propagation, seed saving, irrigation, food forests, tool maintenance, farm forestry, weed control, small and large animal systems, composting, bamboo, worm farms, fencing, aquaculture, surveying, micro and macro earth works when possible, and straw bale building.

Dates: Monday 8th - Saturday 20th January 2007

Venue: Melbourne University

Taught by: BILL MOLLISON & GEOFF LAWTON

“This course has already changed a lot of the world – come help us finish the job!” ~ Bill Mollison April 27, 2005

Spring 2007 Permaculture Design Certificate Course

Quail Springs Permaculture Farm and Learning Oasis in the Cuyama Valley of Southern
California (dry land agricultural setting)

DATES: May 14-27th, 2007

LOCATION: Upper Cuyama Valley in the Southern California Mountains

COST: $1200 for registration paid in full by September 30, 2006; $1350 for full payment
received by January 31, 2007, and $1450 for payment after February 1, 2007. (camping and
meals included)

Dates: Monday 8th - Saturday 20th January 2007

Venue: Melbourne University

Taught by: BILL MOLLISON & GEOFF LAWTON

“This course has already changed a lot of the world – come help us finish the job!” ~ Bill Mollison April 27, 2005

BILL MOLLISON, the legendary Permaculture teacher, promoter and designer - who, over 26 years of non-stop travelling and writing, personally planted the seeds of Permaculture in over 120 countries. Bill is the founding director of The Permaculture Institute, the first and longest running Permaculture Institute in existence.

GEOFF LAWTON, is world renowned for field expertise and extensive teaching experience in the ecological “badlands” of Earth, areas of extreme cultural conflicts, as well as more friendly environments. Founding director of the acclaimed Permaculture Research Institute, Geoff is working in more countries and co-ordinating more projects on the ground than any other Permaculture Institute today.

Earth’s ecosystems are in crisis. Permaculture offers practical, sustainable solutions. You can be part
of the exciting adventure of positive world change.

EXPAND YOUR HORIZONS! BE PART OF THIS HISTORIC EVENT!

To book and for further details visit the web pages below or contact:

THE PERMACULTURE INSTITUTE
31 Rulla Road, SISTERS CREEK 7325, TASMANIA AUSTRALIA
Ph: 61 (0)3 6445 0945 • Fax: 61 (0)3 6445 0944
Email: sales@tagari.com
Web pages: www.tagari.com & www.permaculture.org.au

The last six months of 2005 were very busy for The Permaculture Research Institute, with activities in diverse locations around the world.

Nadia and Geoff Lawton flew to Jordan early in August 2005 for six weeks of work on permaculture projects in the Dead Sea Valley. The demonstration farm and the numerous village home gardens involved in PRI’s on-ground funding scheme were looking strong and secure especially considering the mid-summer high temperatures of 50 centigrade plus.

Flying straight into Melbourne from Jordan to co-teach a Permaculture Design Certificate course with Bill and Lisa Mollison at Melbourne University, Geoff and Nadia were met by course coordinator Tony Watkins. Tony, a long-term permaculture worker and one of Bill’s very early students, organized an exceptional, professional course of the highest standard, with 65 national and international students in attendance.

During the two-week course, Bill taught most morning sessions, which were full of great wisdom and global experience and spiced with great stories and humor. Geoff taught most afternoons and did his best to follow Bill’s great ability. Most evenings, students presented their projects from different locations around the world. On the day off in the middle of the course, many students attended a tour of Ceres City Farm with Bill as one of the guides. Bill recounted the early days of the establishment of the farm, in which he played a founding role.

Greetings and welcome to The Permaculture Research Institute Newsletter for June 2005.

Griffith University in Brisbane was the venue for the final Permaculture Design Certificate course taught by the permaculture research institute in November 2004. This was the first course for us to be taught in an Australian University and was co-taught by Geoff and Danial Lawton. Students attended from most states of Australia with a few coming in from overseas. The universities auditorium classroom setting worked well with state of the art information technology in place for audio, digital projection and direct web link all on hand.

This course was set up in such a way that the students organized their own accommodation and food requirements with many choices available in Brisbane and lunch available for purchase on site at the university. This allowed the lecturers to concentrate on a high quality course delivery. An organized site visit tour of Northey Street City Farm and a course design process on one the students local suburban blocks completed a very successful dynamic Course.

The Boxing Day tsunami in Indonesia immediately created rapid response action on the part of all The Permaculture Research Institute directors and project workers. Communications were sent out all our contacts within the impact zone and we are very please to say all responses came back having survived the disaster and most were in action helping the recovery.

We already had been involved in the 1998 New Guinea tsunami when thousands of lives were lost in minutes when a huge wave hit the North West coast centered at the remote fishing community of Sissano Lagoon.

We held fund raising events and were given free airfares from New Guinea Air to send in a team of consultants to research and assess the impact damage to come up with design solutions for future security of people in similar tsunami events. Over the following period of six months, two teams of permaculture teachers taught permaculture design certificate courses and set up a demonstration site in the area. The research we conducted concentrated on the areas deep within the impact zone that escaped major damaged and why. Rather the opposite of the global media and global research organizations, which seemed to be fixated on the sensationalism of the horrendous damages caused by the natural disaster.

Our research team of consultants came up with some very interesting findings that seemed to have been missed by most other people. Wherever there was a dense coastal tree belt more than one hundred and fifty meters deep on the foreshore all infrastructure on the leeward side escaped with minimal damage. Such tree belts dramatically reduced the impact and all large potentially dangerous objects being carried by the wave and were filtered out, becoming a slow surge of water carrying nothing but fine floating organic mulch. This mulch was left piled up in long windrows up to three meters high on the landward side of these tree belts.

The local people, who had run to the leeward side of the tree belts and wrapped their arms around a tree and particularly large clumping bamboo stems, which have great tensile strength bending and recovering under impact, told a repeated survival story to our researchers. These survivors recounted sliding up the tree trunks and bamboo stems like a sliding fishing float up a line and back down again repeatedly as each wave surge came through, but with all large objects filtered out that could potentially dislodge their grip they survived to tell us their story.

Bill Mollison added some of his research from working in Hawaii recording ancient systems of dense coastal tree belts planted by the old Hawaiian culture concentrating mainly on five rows of coconut palms across the mouths of settlement valleys susceptible to tsunami damage.

Immediately following the Boxing Day tsunami disaster armed with the New Guinea and Hawaiian research information our directors were in action Paul Brant and Andrew Jones in New York, Julia Harris in Canberra. The United Nations agencies involved were contacted, as were numerous aid organizations and all governments whose countries that fell within the impact zone. We received many emails thanking us for making our research freely available and the planting of large coastal tree tsunami buffer belts are underway as part of the future security planning. With the inclusion of many appropriate and productive species to add value to the work and function of this designed system.

With many years experience in emergency response aid work Andrew Jones was offered the job of heading up the post tsunami re-habilitation assessment consultancy team for the United Nations Environment Program based in Jakarta. Andrew in still in Indonesia based in Jakarta going back and forward to disaster area working in environmental management support for the UNEP with permaculture design and education at the top of his agenda.

Geoff and Nadia Lawton were invited by Jo Pearsall and Bryan Innes to present lectures and workshops at the New Zealand Ecoshow 2005, March 3rd to 6th at The Trusts Stadium, Henderson Waitakere City, Auckland.

Geoff presented four lectures with digital slide show presentations on different aspects of permaculture work performed by The Permaculture Research Institute. Nadia presented three hands on practical workshops on Bedouin cooking on an open fire. Both Geoff and Nadia also sat on a panel of experts to answer questions on the effect of permaculture globally. This whole event was very well attended and organized with extremely professional presentations and exhibits, demonstrating the high level of environmental consciousness in New Zealand.

After the Ecoshow they were invited to co-teach with Robina McCurdy of Earthcare Education Aotearoa and her partner Huckleberry for three days of a permaculture design certificate course at the Taranaki Environmental Education Center at Inglewood just inland from New Plymouth. This turned out to be a very beneficial sharing, caring and connecting experience for all involved, with a great group of students and a fertile cross pollination of teaching experience making it possible to assist in mentoring new local teachers into action by honing their skills.

After Taranaki Xavier and Caralina Meade invited them to Raglan to be guests in their beautiful rammed earth house over looking the famous surf break and to take part in the Raglan Permaculture Week. Nadia as an experienced beekeeper was also very happy to help Caralina with her bees helping to smoke and inspect her hives. They attended farm and garden tours, consulted on a Maori community and participated in a catchment management-planning meeting. One highlight was a tour of Extreme Waste, Raglan’s highly successful waste and recycling center.
Next stop was Rainbow Valley Farm, Matakana near Warkworth north of Auckland a world-class permaculture demonstration site, education center owned and run by Joe Polaischer and Trish Allen. This turned out to be another highly beneficial set of connections with many ideas, experiences and stories exchanged. They helped out with a cob oven building workshop with Nadia adding a great deal of traditional Middle Eastern knowledge and experience in building techniques and cooking using cob ovens. Nadia also made many types of Middle Eastern dishes and baked fresh bread both in the cob oven and flat breads an up turned wok on the open fire sharing recipes and techniques with the students.

Koanga Organic Gardens was another classic permaculture site where they visited and were hosted by Kay Baxter and Bob Corker. A permaculture community property in action and flourishing with an excellent nursery and garden shop offering all kinds of appropriate products plus many varieties of heritage fruit trees saved by Kay’s long term thorough research. Geoff and Nadia joined Bob on a consultancy job on the West Coast near Kaipara, with a client’s brief to find land appropriate for a large-scale permaculture community development.

An advanced permaculture design workshop was held by Geoff on a eco-village community in the Kaipara Harbour area and was well attended by many of the Northlands long term permaculture consultants and teachers, resulting in many shared ideas to focus the movement into the future.

Manganui in Northland where Geoff and Nadia were hosted by permaculturists Richard and Alix, was the venue of a one-day permaculture design workshop at a local school where Yvonne Stynneman has established a great example of a permaculture food forest.

On returning to Australia Nadia presented a slide show and lecture on the Jordan Permaculture Project at the Women Earth Change Conference in Northern New South Wales. She also sat on a panel of speakers representing permaculture. In this situation Nadia was able to explain how permaculture has been able to help women in her culture and those women were creating positive change.

As soon as Nadia finished her presentation both Geoff and Nadia jumped in the car and headed straight for Melbourne to attend the National Permaculture Conference. Stopping over night in Western New South Wales with one of our directors Julia Harris and Majdy Adwan on their large grazing property at Premer. During the conference Geoff presented a talk on Global Permaculture Projects, which was very well attended and very well received.

After the conference Geoff and Nadia had the opportunity to meet with Bill Mollison for two days to talk about the up coming Permaculture Design Certificate to be held at Melbourne University in September 2005, co-taught by Bill and Geoff. This course will be filmed with the intention of producing an educational documentation.

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The annual general meeting for Permaculture International Limited was held at the end of the national permaculture convergence and Geoff was re-elected as a director.

Following on from the Geoff’s talk at the National Permaculture Conference in Melbourne he was invited to present a talk at the university of Wisconsin. The invitation came from their Global Environmental Management education center to keynote speak as part of an international seminar series, 2004-05 theme global security, Geoff’s requested topic “Permaculture development projects to enhance global security”. Geoff spent five days at Stevens Point College of Natural Resources and initiated enough interest in permaculture design to propose a future permaculture design certificate course and the set up of a typical local farm conversion to permaculture demonstration site. Also making links to our permaculture trained professors in Louisiana teaching permaculture in universities there, a very interesting connection as Wisconsin is almost at the top of the Mississippi water shed and Louisiana the bottom.

While in the USA Geoff was able to visit Paul Brant in Brooklyn, New York who has been working on a very big proposal involving permaculture in Turkey. Also Andrew Phillips from Hancock Permaculture Center organized a meeting with the Brooklyn Botanic Garden environment group and a talk in Hancock up state New York. Many new contacts were made on this visit and future courses are now being planned.

On the 13th June 2005 Geoff and Nadia started teaching a permaculture design certificate course at Murra Murra a 97,000 hectare (239691.3 acre) property owned by the Kooma Traditional Owners. Murra Murra is just east of Cunnamulla and west of Bollon in the Southwest Queensland outback. It is planned for this to be a Permaculture Outback Aboriginal Education Center and demonstration site. The course has been very well received by all of the participants who have accepted Geoff and Nadia as part of the family.