The April 11 Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) course at Zaytuna Farm (home base for the PRI, in northern NSW) is now full. People keen to attend this particular course are welcome to email education (at) permaculture.org.au to register your interest, and we’ll put you on a waiting list in case any of the existing registrants cancel.

Alternatively there’s Morocco on April 17 with David Spicer, otherwise our next Zaytuna PDC is on July 11 (there are still a few spaces left on this one).

As the time for our design certificate course in Morocco draws near, we have plenty of local people, and some from Warsangeli in Somalia. Warsangeli is a Sultante of peaceful people unfortunate enough to be surrounded by war. Supplies are difficult to get in and people are starving, and drinking dirty water. Permaculture could solve the food and water problems very well.

Current circumstances mean we could not open up courses in Somalia to international students, but a Warsangeli organization in london has secured funding and wants to work with us to spread permaculture there. Inviting a few people from Warsangeli to our course in Morocco would enable us to make much better progress over there.

We do not have enough paying students yet to make the course viable. We’ve been told that many people leave it until the last minute to book, so please, if you’re coming on this course, let us know as soon as possible so that we can confirm it with the African students.

Spring is an ideal time to be doing the course in Morocco, as the weather is fine and warm. This is a wonderful opportunity to get qualified and make a massive difference to the lives of many people by helping us promote permaculture in two areas where there is almost no knowledge of it. (Starting to sound like a missionary!) A lot hinges on the success of this course. As an incentive we will waive the price increase for late booking.

Book here!

Information is the critical potential resource. It becomes a resource only when obtained and acted upon. - Bill Mollison

There is a moment, according at least to Geoff Lawton, when a permaculture student becomes ‘terminal’; forever destined, perhaps, to spout interesting (to some, anyway) facts/theories about ducks and lofty (but totally do-able) plans for future garden designs and/or the ‘edible meadow’, all the while flicking off light-switches everywhere and drying seaweed on the clothesline in between those telltale permaculture dreams….

Well, I can’t say for sure at this stage that we have any new terminals among the 18 students who just completed the first ever Permaculture course in Samoa, (and I dare say the Samoan incarnation of a permaculture addict might differ on specifics) but I definitely saw familiar sparks in a few eyes over the last 2 weeks, which means at least – they are infected!

From the 25th of January to the 12th of February, these 18 brave pioneers (who are also already certified Life Skills coaches) lodged with us in humble but comfortable headquarters in Fagalii, to test out for the first time METI’s Permaculture Demonstration and Training Centre. Personally, I was thoroughly impressed with the participants and their willingness to learn, interact with and use the information made available.

The course was not a certified PDC, but covered all basic design principles and concepts. More culturally specific than the universal PDC, the course focused more on theory than technique because most of the participants have extensive practical knowledge already. (We have found under the cobwebs of western misinformation that the skill and feeling for living naturally/ethically/harmoniously is still very well intact in Samoa.)

All participants received a fully-translated copy of a 50-page booklet which was written over the last 12 months specifically for the islands of Samoa. (Contact me at tamlyn.dae (at) gmail.com for a copy of this document in English or Samoan.)

So, what was learnt? What did the people actually get from this pilot course? Well, first of all, since Permaculture is a totally new term for almost all Samoans, I believe this course was effective in casting the first rays of light and understanding on so important a concept for the islands. I also believe that the information given was almost entirely received with appreciation and affirmation.

Aloema Fretton told me that when her husband, Alesana, who also successfully completed the course, gets back from NZ, they are going to get started on designing their dream permaculture home:

It is a huge relief for us to hear that we don’t have to use chemicals. Before we could only use land for a few years, but now we understand that we can actually increase the fertility of our land over time. It is cheaper and better for us. But I can see that permaculture is not just about us right now, but it is about doing the right thing for the future of our country and the world. My children will benefit from us using permaculture because the land will be fertile; instead of us making money now but destroying the soil and leaving nothing for the next generation.

And here are some photos to really drive the point home (and as evidence that YES, this really happened!):

The beautiful and theatrical ladies perform a highly educational role-play – a very
effective way of communicating information (and bringing some serious hilarity
into the classroom)

A few keen participants listen to a talk by local beekeeper extraordinaire,
Lester Dean, on small-scale beekeeping as a livelihoods project in Samoa
(and learn that keeping bees = double or triple mango and avocado yields!)

‘Designing in harmony with Natural Patterns’ day was a fun one. One student found
this leaf which in its natural context contained at least 4 of the generic pattern
models on the whiteboard.

Seed-saving, an all important aspect of any sustainable growing system.
Here are eggplant, green bean, mung bean and chilli seeds from
our very own demonstration garden

Three cheers for the first batch of compost tea in Samoa! The makeshift
brewer (with this cheap electromagnetic pump) functioned flawlessly.

Getting practical – Uunu returns an unwelcome esi (papaya) tree to the
hungry banana circle.

Leativa and I check out the compost in a practical lesson

Participants set loose in the veggie garden

Information is the critical potential resource. For me, 12 months of work were easily paid off in the split second of seeing those ’sparks’ in response to information given – and I believe that the necessary action will follow. I would like to extend a huge THANK YOU to METI and all people involved in this event, and offer my most sincere blessings for the future of this project, and the work of all those dedicated to creating harmony.

The Permaculture Design Certificate course is an internationally-recognized, seventy-two hour course resulting in a Permaculture Design Certificate. It provides an introduction to permaculture design as set forth by movement founder Bill Mollison. The course is taught Rhamis Kent, with Geoff Lawton appearing via live stream and video as Special Guest Instructor, and other permaculture and/or sustainability educators.

The PDC serves as foundation for further permaculture work and study and is a prerequisite for the Diploma in Permaculture Design, offered through The Permaculture Institute. Credit for this course is now accepted by a growing number of universities around the world.

To date, thousands of permaculture designers worldwide have been certified in PDC courses, and now comprise a global network of educators, ecological activists who influence major corporations, individuals creating new business alternatives and groups of committed people working together to change the way we view and design into our landscapes.

The course covers sustainable living systems for a wide variety of landscapes and climates. It includes the application of permaculture principles to food production, home design, construction, energy conservation and generation, and explores alternative economic structures and legal strategies supporting permaculture solutions.

The PRI-De PDC includes additional materials intended to give students broader knowledge and experience specific to urban environments. Detroit was selected as our site specifically because of it’s unique position among large cities as being ideally suited to being reinvented as perhaps the world’s first large sustainable city. The combination of extensive green space, unemployment and abundant water are the perfect conditions for growing sustainable design. Detroit currently has one of, if not the, most active urban agriculture environments in the US, and possibly the world.

Students will have a variety of opportunities to apply what they learn in design and practicum elements of the course that are more extensive than is typical. They will have the opportunity to work directly with non-profit organizations, individuals and other groups/businesses to assist in designing and implementing permaculture-based solutions.

Students are also invited to bring details of their own sites or potential sites to consider during the course.

Specific topics include:

• Theory and principles of permaculture
• Eco-friendly house placement and design
• Energy conservation techniques for cold climates
• Recycling and waste management
• Organic food production
• Water harvesting and management
• Ecological pest control
• Drought-proofing
• Soil rehabilitation and erosion control
• Livestock
• Aquaculture
• Catastrophe preparedness and prevention
• Windbreaks and fire control

The foundation for this course is A Permaculture Designer’s Manual by Bill Mollison, which is included in the cost of the course tuition. Attendees are encourages to acquire and read the text prior to the course. Those students who pre-purchase the text will be reimbursed at the beginning of the course.

T. Rhamis Kent, Certifying Instructor

Rhamis completed his Permaculture Design Certifcate certificate, PDC Teacher Training certificate and Aid Worker Project certification with Geoff Lawton, founder of the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia, as well as completing an internship with Geoff. During his internship, Rhamis assisted Geoff in his duties consulting on the landscape architecture & water harvesting design of Masdar City in Abu Dhabi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masdar_City), the most ambitious and significant sustainable development project found anywhere in the world.

Rhamis’ professional work background is rooted in mechanical engineering. In addition to his engineering work history, he spent two years working as a high school algebra & physics teacher in Oakland, California, which included demonstrating a flair for creativity via creation of a physics curriculum interpreted through aviation science using wed-based NASA instructional materials. He also assisted in the development of an environmental science plan based on principles of sustainability for Oakland Aviation High School which resulted in the school being accepted by PG&E into its Solar Schools Program (www.pge.com/solarschools).

Additional experience includes grant writing for nonprofit organizations such as Zaytuna Institute (www.zaytuna.org), serving as a co-coordinator & administrator for Zaytuna Institute’s Summer Arabic Intensive (www.arabicintensive.org) held near the UC Berkeley campus at Westminister House and participation in a Citizen-based Advisory Task Force specifically formed to address environmental issues related to the Port of Oakland tasked with identifying items critical in facilitating a mutually beneficial relationship between the Port of Oakland and the City of Oakland. Our primary focus was finding viable ways to mitigate the environmental impact of the Port’s daily activities on surrounding communities.

Geoff Lawton, Special Guest Instructor

Geoff will appear via video and live feed. He is an internationally-renowned permaculture educator, consultant and practitioner. He emigrated from England to Australia and later studied permaculture with Bill Mollison in Tasmania. He established the Permaculture Research Institute at Tagari Farm in New South Wales, Australia, a 147-acre farmstead previously developed by Mollison. PRI was eventually moved to Zaytuna Farm, in The Channon, where it continues today.

Since 1985, Geoff has designed and implemented permaculture projects in 30 countries for private individuals and groups, communities, governments, aid organizations, and multinational corporations. He has taught the Permaculture Design Certificate course and designed permaculture projects in 30 countries.

Additional info:

Price: $1,400 US, deposit $300

Meals: B, L, D with two snack breaks. This includes both omnivorous and vegetarian meals. A value added meal service is possible at an additional $150 for those with special needs, vegan or special requests if a sufficient number of students request it.

Accommodation: Residential dormitory-style in the hosts home or local church, depending on the number of students. Bedding will likely be on pads or mattresses on the floor. Students should bring bedding/sleeping bags. Participants may opt to tent, but this will not reduce costs and is not encouraged due to the urban setting and lack of secure areas for tents. Individual home stays may be available at an additional cost, depending on meal plan, with sufficient notice.

Up to five fully paid scholarships are offered, with preference given to local residents.

For information on how to book, meals, accommodations, travel, or any other questions, please contact us at:

studentservices@pri-de.org
1 (313) 647-4015

PRI-De
Attn: Student Services
8910 Isham St.
Detroit, MI 48213

What is needed to design a sustainable human society full of abundance and security for all living systems? Information, empowerment and ethics. The Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) teaches students how to use information, resources and ethics to meet local needs on a limited land base. There are no "bad guys" and nothing is inherently evil. It is the designs of the systems we use that are the problem. A large machine can be used to bring down a forest, or it can be used to repair damage and degraded landscapes. In the same way, I can either use a hammer as weapon, or to build a house for a friend. The difference in outcome is one of intention and design.

The fact is that we are working with a system that was never designed to provide a sustainable or secure place for life on this planet. The system we are working with was designed to concentrate wealth, resources and power into the hands of a few. This system produces elite classes, sickness and environmental degradation.

The justification for such destructive ways was one of service to the larger whole. In other words, we tell ourselves that while the present way of doing things does not provide all people in all places with a secure livelihood, it can maximize happiness for a maximum number of people.

A great many good things have come out of this system, like this computer I type with. But it is obvious that the time for change has come. The planet is raising alarm bells. Fancy technological adaptations may give us some extra time, but if we are concerned with the long term survival of the human species, then we had better start evolving and designing our systems using more sustainable models.

At the very core of our problems are the assumptions we make regarding human nature.

We design and build our systems with the underlying belief that human nature is dominated by greed. As a result, we see human interaction with other humans and the environment as brutal struggle, domination and conquest.

Nothing could be further from the truth. What makes us human is not how savagely we can treat each other. What makes us human is our large brain, and our capacity for abstract thinking and creative problem solving. Human nature is one of choice. We as a species and as individuals are capable of just as much positive action as we are negative. In my experience, 99 out of 100 people have good intentions and want to do the right thing. So what is the issue?

The issue is design. The Permaculture Design Certificate teaches how we can utilize today’s tools and technology to shape a more sustainable and equitable world for all species. Permaculture is more than just planting a garden. It is a sustainable design approach that is applicable to all human activities. An organic garden is one element in a total design. Permaculture is about where we place the garden in relation to the house, site topography, climate, water run off, capabilities of the users, where money comes from to finance it … etc. Using a designed approach we place the organic garden in space, time and form so as to gain the highest output for lowest input.

The PDC is an intensive 72-hour study in all things sustainable. It uses the 14-chapter text book "Permaculture, A Designers Manual" as its reference and works through the following topics:

• Introduction to Permaculture
• Concepts and Themes in Design
• Methods of DesignPattern Understanding
• Climatic Factors
• Trees and their Energy Transactions
• Water
• Soils
• Earthworks and Earth Resources
• The Humid Tropics
• Dryland Strategies
• Humid Cool to Cold Climates
• Aquaculture
• The Strategies of an Alternative Global Nation

As you can see from the above list, permaculture covers all aspects of human life. It is grounded in practical real world design and extends into the complex realm of sustainable social design. It extends further into the invisible design of organizing energy exchange between people and communities. The PDC empowers, informs and trains people to be effective designers and agents of active change in their homes and communities. The PDC endeavors to teach teachers, in order to spread and localize this important information. Following this strategy, permaculture has spread rapidly to all corners of the globe without any form of centralized administration or governing body. As a result, there are many collectives and collaborations between different permaculture teachers and institutes, but all operate as independent entities. The permaculture community is unified by the common ethic of earth care, people care and return of surplus.

Permaculture does not ignore the massive challenges we face today. We maintain a healthy understanding of the challenges and difficulties of the modern world. We choose to focus our time and energy on a positive and active approach. Rather than spending a Saturday at a rally protesting something I don’t want, I would rather spend the day with a group of friends and strangers installing a food garden in the community. In this way we actively change the world one garden at a time.

Many of my students quickly move on to be involved in all levels of change from local to global, some for private business, others for NGOs.

Adrian Buckley of Calgary took his PDC in August 2009. This course was taught by Pacific Permaculture on behalf of Ravis Sustainable. Since that time, Adrian has started a small permaculture business called Big Sky Permaculture, which recently hosted its first Introduction to Permaculture Workshop this past January. He is a great example of how quickly a PDC can change the direction of one’s life.

Angela Gentili of Toronto attended the Pacific Permaculture part time PDC in Vancouver in the spring of 2009. She has recently co-founded a non-profit community organization in Toronto known as Reseed.ca. They are involved in all kinds of great community agriculture initiatives using permaculture in their work.

Aaron Elton of Vancouver is yet another student of ours, from the PDC course that Pacific Permaculture hosted last summer on Denman Island. Aaron has initiated a permaculture aid project known as Our Mother Earth Villages, which will be operating in Uganda and teaching its first PDC to local and international students in late 2010.

There is no doubt in my mind that a full education in permaculture design is a positive experience. It’s an investment that anybody can make regardless of profession, background or age.

Pacific Permaculture is offering a second annual installment of a Vancouver part time course starting April 3. If you are interested in the 2-week intensive format, we are hosting a course on Denman Island July 4-17, and teaching another in Saskatoon in the middle of August.

Please visit our website www.pacificpermaculture.ca for more info.

We are not the only group that is offering the PDC in western Canada. Below is a list of other groups and organizations that regularly teach the 72-hour PDC.

• Ravis Sustainable (Calgary)
• Urban Farmer (Edmonton)
• OUR Ecovillage (Shanigan Lake)
• Blue Raven Permaculture (Salt Spring Island)
• Kootaneey Permaculture (Winlaw BC)

The term "permaculture" was coined by Bill Mollison and gifted to the college of graduates of the Permaculture Design Certificate. As teachers, we all agree to adhere to the design curriculum as laid out in the 14 chapters of the permaculture designer’s manual. Only graduates of this curriculum may refer to themselves as permaculture designers and permaculture teachers. However, anyone engaging in activities which relate the ethics and principles of permaculture may refer to their work as permaculture.

Before attending a PDC be sure that the whole 14 chapter curriculum from "Permaculture A Designers Manual" is being presented. The course must cover all the material over 72 hours and should not have extra material included. Good luck and we will see you out there.

We’re very pleased to present the Fusion Farms Compost & Compost Tea Course with Paul Taylor coming up in May 2010 in central Victoria, Australia. It is a practical workshop on how to hydrate, enhance and heal your soils by understanding the soil food web and how to make biologically active Aerated Compost Tea.

As many of you have been following the development of the compost tea and keyline injection rig here on Taranaki Farm, you won’t want to miss the opportunity to attend this very special workshop with both Paul Taylor and Ben Falloon.

Click here for more information on this course.

For full details on this excellent opportunity to take your Permaculture Design Certificate course under the combined tutelage of legendary Permaculture teachers, Bill Mollison and Geoff Lawton, please click on the links below (all PDF files):

• Brochure
• Costs
• Registration Form

This information can also be found in our course listing.

Permaculture education should be in every school, everywhere. If it was, I believe most of the world’s problems could be solved within a decade.

Taranaki Farm is excited to announce its role in the upcoming Keyline & Carbon Farming – 3 Day Workshop being organised by Fusion Farms. Taranaki Farm will play host to world-respected keyline & permaculture designer Darren Doherty as he stages his very popular Keyline course in Central Victoria, Australia, only 65km from Melbourne.

The workshop will be conducted on Taranaki Farm (for the first time), a fully featured demonstration site for keyline design principles, designed by Darren himself. Don’t miss this special chance to learn about keyline and carbon farming inside a complete keyline system that includes earthworks for water harvesting, lock-pipe gravity irrigation, multi-species agroforestry, keyline ploughing, rotational grazing and more…

Taranaki Farm is also the home of the innovative Compost Tea & Keyline Injection rig recently developed by Ben Falloon and featured on this site. See this setup in person and understand the great potential of this combination for healing degraded land.

An intensive blend of technical & practical sessions targeted at farmers, professional land managers, consultants, permaculture designers, earthmovers, tree-changers, landcare enthusiasts and anyone with a strong interest in sustainable land management, soil creation and finding the keys to reversing climate change.

• Whole farm design
• Amplified contour cultivation
• Water storage in farm dams
• Better layout of farm roads
• Quick gravity irrigation
• Contour strip forests
• Subdivision design
• Healing Erosion
• Solving salinity
• Holistic Management
• Pasture improvement
• and heaps more…

Grants for Farmers

If you are a farmer, indigenous land manager, primary producer or in the immediate family of any of these, you can do this course for free through the FarmReady subsidy scheme. You can read how on the Fusion Farms website.

For full workshop details and to book your place, visit www.fusionfarms.com

In 1981, Bill Mollison gave a Permaculture Design course for which Dan Hemenway produced lecture notes. While these originally were made available as a set of pamphlets for a small copying fee, they have been available on the web for quite some time, in PDF form, like here (6mb PDF), for example.

While the social and cultural context has changed quite dramatically in the last 30 years, and this material hence does not reflect that change, these pamphlets still provide quite a useful free resource that explains permaculture in detail. While the Permaculture Designers’ Manual certainly presents many ideas in a more accessible way than these transcripts of Bill Mollison’s lectures, they nevertheless are an often quite useful complementary resource. This holds in particular for a few issues which are presented in a slightly cryptic way in the Permaculture Designers’ Manual and benefit from an alternative explanation.

A re-edited version of this material, both in the form of HTML web pages as well as a PDF (using LaTeX-based typesetting which, hopefully, should be more homogeneous and easier to read than the original) is now available here: http://nmag.soton.ac.uk/mollison

This also provides a number of explanatory footnotes that should help to both provide more background on some ideas, and put them into more recent context.