Dead Sea | Permaculture Research Institute of Australia

We’ve uploaded our famous Greening the Desert flash movie to YouTube after converting it to a Quicktime movie. Here it is.

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.

Geoff Lawton and Sindhu are internationally renowned Permaculture teachers and design consultants who rely on the Australian born system of Permaculture as the basis for their work. Their story in the Middle East is a success story, rare in the politically tumultuous climate which rules the lives of many in this part of the globe. They have solved and offered positive solutions to many of the environmental problems typical to the Middle east; water shortage, highly salted land, agricultural production, and unsustainable housing.

Exporting this system to over 17 different countries around the world they are part of a growing global movement which uses permaculture techniques to provide human needs in an environmentally responsible way. Their work has led them all around the world and has focused on relieving drastic environmental problems in many places of great need and often conflict.

Commissioned in August 2000 by a Japanese aid organization to work in association with a Jordanian aid organization their first visit involved the design of a flat 10 acre, highly salted, very alkaline, piece of land in the Dead Sea Valley, 400m below sea level and just a few kilometers from the Palestinian border. The aim was to demonstrate sustainable farming practices. A plan was drawn up and accepted and arrangements were made for them to return in December during the cooler time of the year.

During the December visit they each taught the 72 hour Permaculture Design Certificate course, Sindhu to the women and Geoff to the men; when working in a Moslem culture they have found this to be the most beneficial way to teach. Also on this trip they directed the installation of permaculture earthworks, which included the construction of one and a half kilometers of water harvesting swales, (contour ditches, with an un-compacted earth mound on the lower side which is typically used as a tree growing system). As well, a small in surface area, but deep dam was also installed as part of the design. This method of dam construction is essential in an area where evaporation is extreme.

Due to an inspiring collaboration between Rainforest Information Centre and Permaculture Research Institute teaching a permaculture design certificate course in Australia, a surplus profit of $AUS1, 500 we have been able to direct towards permaculture extension in Jordan. The same amount was also directed to a Rainforest Information Centre in Ecuador.

Five women actively involved in permaculture home garden development in Jawfa and Jawasari, poor Palestinian refugee villages in the Dead Sea Valley.

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.

–== Live from Al Joffah, Jordan in The Dead Sea Valley! ==–

Welcome to first Permaculture Research Institute newsletter coming to you live from one of the front lines of permaculture activism Al Joffah in The Dead Sea Valley in Jordan, the lowest place on earth (400m below sea level)!

In fact, just a few kilometres from the border of the Palestinian-occupied territory of the West Bank — one of the world’s most tense conflict zones — is where you’ll find the Permaculture Research Institute working on demonstration projects, consulting, designing and teaching courses for over 3 years now. These valuable actions have all help contribute to more sustainable future not only for Jordan but the Middle East region and set examples for arid land systems world wide.

Just recently, a concentrated effort has been made to demonstrate productive home gardening techniques with workshops on fast compost making using the 18 day berkley method, and some extremely hot piles have been constructed using goat and pigeon manure mixed with garden leaf litter and pruning material that would normally have been burnt. Many of our permaculture design course graduates now have exceptionally good and productive home gardens and some are now taking on teaching their own small groups in a mentoring program.