There is enough evidence of global problems, but still not enough models of practical solutions.

We can live in disorder and pretend order. We can live in lies and pretend truth.

To demonstrate life we act. It is not what any one of us achieves, this will be modest.

It is the sum of small projects, all of us together, that is making a large change. The Permaculture Family has achieved a great deal. Come help us finish the job.

Join us in Melbourne, September 2010. Find out more and book here.

Lisa and Bill Mollison, Nadia and Geoff Lawton, 2010.

is a unique 127 acre botanical garden and historical site jointly operated by the Los Angeles Arboretum Foundation and the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation and located in the city of Arcadia [just outside of Los Angeles]. Home to plant collections from all over the world, including many rare and endangered species… (from the LA Arboretum website)

This respected Los Angeles institution has now broken new ground by being home to a Permaculture “first,” as detailed in the article that follows…

Fun-tastic Permasphere, L.A. Arboretum

by Erin Marteal

The planting methods in the Permaculture Sphere follow two basic Permaculture principles: 1. Make use of the resources you have, and 2. Mimic nature. When you eat a tomato, simply smoodge the seeds out on the ground and let nature take it from there. Look to the fruits of the market to provide your seeds rather than those little expensive packets. The squirrels might make off with some, but they’re bound to leave a few behind to take root in your garden.

Visiting the Permasphere, L.A. Arboretum‘s Permaculture garden was a highlight of the 2010 AHS Children & Youth Garden Symposium in Pasadena. The excursion day offered three options; a public garden tour, a school garden tour and an environmental education tour. The public garden tour included a visit to the Permasphere, which for me was a launch of sorts for my Permaculture travel-research. With so few public gardens in the world that actively engage in Permaculture, and the L.A. Arboretum the only U.S. example I have identified that actively practices Permaculture and calls it that, I was eager to see it for myself. However I managed to get on the wrong bus and about ten blocks after we’d pulled out of the Westin, our tour guide introduced herself and announced the itinerary, which was not the itinerary I had signed up for. I grabbed my bag and asked the bus driver to kindly let me out, then jogged 10 blocks until I found an open business: Bally Total Fitness from whom I borrowed a phone book. About twenty minutes of phone time and two cab companies later, a yellow taxi pulled up and I was off to my true destination: The Los Angeles Arboretum. My cabbie, a lovely Armenian man who spoke of his neurosurgeon nephew and his teenage daughter who excelled in math and science chuckled as I told my wrong bus story, and appreciating my plight, delivered me to the arboretum in what must have been record time. I thanked him and approached the desk positioned out front of the main entrance, which was staffed by what appeared to be day-camp greeters. None of them knew about the Permaculture garden, and directed me to the front desk. I hurried in.

The food forest with banana, figs, and other fruit trees

The woman at the front desk graciously allowed me to the front of the line when she saw the sweat on my brow, conference badge around my neck, and twinge of panic in my eye. A lost duckling, her expression read. She kindly invited me to the front of the line and pulled out a garden map. “Yes, let’s see, I hope we can find it here. Oh, yes, here it is,” she said, as she pointed to the perennial garden. Eager to lose no more time than necessary, I said, “I’m looking for the Permaculture garden.” “Hmmmmm….” she said. “Best to check with Mark – mustache, hat, guy who knows pretty much everything, and you can find him in the gift shop.”

Caitlin explains the art of planting – sprinkle seeds and let nature decide when and where they come up

Moments later Mark was lamenting there was no staff to lead the way; it was nearly impossible to find on my own, he said. He paused, reconsidered, then thoughtfully explained how to find it; “follow this path straight ahead until you get to the circle plantings; bear left then right and go through the gate into the back alley, parking area, and you will see it on the right.” I started on my way and soon realized there were multiple paths spurring off in different directions and with no signage or clear landmarks I abandoned my map and asked a visitor (or maybe it was a camp counselor?) who, fortunately, knew just where it was. I arrived at the Permasphere in time to catch the last half of Caitlin’s tour.

If you’ve ever attended a conference that includes excursions, you know what it is to be whisked along on a time-table that belongs to someone else. Large group field trips rarely allow time to soak in a place or experience. The goal is to introduce a place or project, a whetting of the whistle perhaps, not in-depth exploration. I was fortunate that the group had been split into two and I tacked on to the next group for a repeat of the 15 minute tour of the garden. Caitlin explained the state of the site when it came under her purview not even one year ago. Old furniture and trash filled the site. In addition, thousands of gallons of rain water were swept across the adjacent asphalt, down the drains, and out to the ocean during rain events.

Cob oven heats up to 450 degrees F in 20 minutes,
can get up to 800 degrees F

After ridding the site of the debris, a team of volunteers cut the curb and dug swales to invite rain water in to the garden. From there, the site design emerged. The garden has only been ‘finished’ (in as much as a Permaculture garden is ever ‘finished’) in the last few months and now features a hand-crafted cob oven and welcoming keyhole cob shaded seating area. The food forest includes bananas, figs, rosemary, poppies, tomatoes, chard, among many other species of edible and medicinal plants. The space, though only recently planted, is already becoming lush and inviting. And it all exists on a very modest and replicable scale: about 20′ x 40′ (74 square meters).

Caitlin explains the construction of the cob seating area,
a mix of clay, sand and straw

Caitlin was originally hired as a nursery horticulturist and with the support of the arboretum’s CEO, Richard Schulhof, moved into her current role as Permaculture Curator. By all appearances, it seems the Permasphere and the Permaculture principles demonstrated and taught there have been very well received by the public.

A place for butterflies to land when damp

However, Caitlin is moving to San Francisco in just less than a month, and her replacement has not yet been identified. What will become of the Permasphere in her absence? Technically, the garden is not open to the public, and visitors clearly miss it if not on a specific mission to get there. Will another Permaculture curator be hired to continue the work Caitlin started, or will it fall back into the background that it has recently grown forth from?

Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) Course

The Los Angeles Arboretum & Botanic Garden

Building on the great success and enthusiastic response from teaching a Rain and Grey Water Harvesting workshop at the LA Arboretum last Spring, Caitlin Bergman (SayPermaculture.com) and Owen Hablutzel (PRI USA) are organizing (with Kirstie Stramler [Permaculture.tv]) a full 72 hour curriculum PDC, also to be taught at the LA Arboretum this Fall.

Don’t miss this opportunity to learn Permaculture in this unique, historic venue from a wide-diversity of the top teachers and Permaculture organizations in the US! Register today!

Oct. 2 – Nov. 21, 2010 (8 Saturdays and 1 Sunday), 8am – 6pm

For registration info, visit:

www.SayPermaculture.com

www.Arboretum.org

Permaculture is sustainable land use design based on ecologically sound principles. Its aim is harmonizing habitats and inhabitants, creating richly productive food systems. Permaculture is an eye-opening set of principles and concepts that make a tremendous impact on communities. This experiential course is a practical, project-oriented, support training. It moves beyond theory to hands-on applications. Participants will become certified permaculture designers upon successful completion.

Much more than a gardening program, this lively course covers:

• Habitat restoration
• Rapid soil rebuilding
• Thriving food production
• Rain and grey water use
• Community integration
• Earthworks
• Sustainability
• Urban food forestry
• Recognizing landscape patterns

Course Dates: 8 Saturdays and 1 Sunday, 8am-6pm:

8 Saturdays (Oct. 2, 9, 16, 23, 30, Nov. 6, 13, 20)

1 Sunday (Nov. 21)

Venue: The Los Angeles Arboretum & Botanic Garden

Why: This course is fun and applicable to real world experience, and includes an emphasis on practical hands-on learning, giving participants a solid foundation in Permaculture design. Our work changes lives as it changes the Earth.

An environment of support and unity between classmates is fostered, which will enable collaboration in design projects and a strong network of fellow designers. The subjects to be covered have the potential to generate green jobs and abundance of all kinds.

Course Fee: $200 non-refundable holds deposit due by September 13th deducted from $1200 tuition. Be sure to sign up early as course is limited to 30 registrants.

Instructors: Warren Brush, Howard Yana-Shapiro, Ph.d, Owen Hablutzel, Kirstie Stramler, Caitlin Bergman, Gavin Raiders, Wes Roe, Lindsay Dailey, Lois Arkin, and other special guests…

For registration info, visit:

www.SayPermaculture.com

www.Arboretum.org

Do you aspire to be involved in the permaculture aid sector and permaculture projects in Africa, Asia, South America or the Middle East?

Enjoy the challenge and reward of work and experience in far-flung locales and use it as a springboard for a serious, paid career in permaculture. The September 13 Permaculture Project Aid Worker Course taught by internationally recognised permaculture teacher Geoff Lawton currently still has space for you.

This is a wonderful opportunity to train as a Project Farm Manager, Project Teacher or Administration Manager and is the last course of this type in 2010.

Find out more and book here!

There are two very unique and exciting opportunities to learn Permaculture Design and obtain your certification in Kenya this coming December of 2010 or in March of 2011. Students from around the world are invited to join local Kenyan students and International permaculture teacher and designer, Warren Brush, of Quail Springs Learning Oasis and Permaculture Farm and other teachers from the local culture for this learning journey of a lifetime.

Nyumbani Village

In December of 2010, we will be convening the first course at a village outside of Nairobi called Nyumbani Village. This village stands on one thousand acres of land donated by the Kitui District County Council. The site is within the poorest division in the Kitui District and has a high incidence of HIV and a high number of HIV orphans. When complete, the Village will accommodate approximately 1000 orphans and 100 grandparents living in 100 dwelling units each with a grandparent and 8 – 10 children.

The Village provides a family-like setting for orphaned children under the stewardship of elderly adults and seeks to ensure that the children receive love, sustenance, health-care, holistic education and culture transfer, aiming for their physical, psychosocial and spiritual development, and, at the same time, providing holistic care and support for the grandparents in their later years. Through group homes and community services, the Village seeks to harness the energy of youth and the maturity of elders to create new blended families that foster healing, hope and opportunity. The village also seeks to ensure that the residents in the surrounding communities reach a certain level of self-reliance through the Village sustainability program.

They are ripe and ready for permaculture education to take root in their development process. Local teacher, Joseph Ntunyoi, from the Maasai tribe, will be assisting Warren Brush in the teaching of this course along with an up and coming teacher Ayouba Kamara from Liberia as well as with other special guests.

Badilisha Village

The second course is in March of 2011 at a village development called Badilisha Ecovillage on Rusinga Island on Lake Victoria. Badilisha has been organized by local people to make valuable lasting contributions to the social, economic, emotional, mental, spiritual and physical health of the people and ecology of Rusinga Island in Kenya

The good people at Badilisha Ecovillage are well on their way in establishing a community from which Earth Care and environmental conservation is supported by conscious design and application. They are growing food using permaculture principles, they are working to establish a resource centre for local residents to learn about sustainability through various projects and programs and they are working to improve the economies of the island by developing ecotourism. Their work spans working with school programs, teaching and practicing non-violent communication, assisting people with HIV, and they run a family sponsorship program for the extremely disadvantaged people of their region. This course will be taught by Warren Brush and assisted by local teacher Evans Owuor Odula and international teachers Elin Lindhagen and Loren Luyendyk.

At each of these visionary sites, we will be offering an affordable full two-week permaculture design certification course that will blend both local students with international students in a unique cross-cultural learning environment. These courses will incorporate myriad hands-on learning opportunities with practical permaculture theory and storytelling that is delivered uniquely by Warren Brush and the local teachers.

To keep within our ethics, we are asking that the students who cross the oceans to get to this course also commit to offsetting their carbon emissions for their travel to get to Kenya through designing and applying what they learn in the course. For the local students, we are asking them to commit to taking what they learn in these courses to their communities through applied projects that better the lives and ecologies of their home regions.

May our work in Permaculture around the globe continue to bring healing to place and people as it provides abundance, resilience and stability to our strained world!

Take a PDC in Kenya (PDF) or donate, either way will help to underwrite the course expenses so that local Kenyans can participate without cost….

~~~~

Warren Brush is a certified Permaculture designer and teacher as well as a mentor and storyteller. He has worked for over 20 years in inspiring people of all ages to discover, nurture and express their inherent gifts while living in a sustainable manner. He is co-founder of Quail Springs Learning Oasis & Permaculture Farm, Wilderness Youth Project, Mentoring for Peace, and Trees for Children. He works extensively in Permaculture education and sustainable systems design in North America and in Africa through his design firm, True Nature Design. He can be reached through email at w (at) quailsprings.org or by calling his office at 805-886-7239.

Tongue-in-cheek instructional video

Note: This is an update on PRI’s position and direction, and an opportunity for you to get paid to help!

The short version: We’re now paying you to write for us! Click here to get started.

The background/long version follows:

Over the last two years since I took over the running of this site, I’ve been pleased to see significant growth in traffic. I’m not so narrow-minded as to believe this is just due to my efforts or Geoff and Nadia Lawton’s or the rest of the PRI team, however. Aside from the tremendous support and input from the wider permaculture community, I also note that current events and the spread of information through the internet is threatening to actually wake the world up – and this ‘awakening’ is seeing an unprecedented growth in interest in sustainability, transition and the creation of resilient people systems. This interest certainly isn’t coming too soon, but better late than never.

For whatever reasons, though, this site is today regularly recognised as one of the, or even the, leading permaculture website worldwide. This has come about with a lot of help from readers like yourself, and permaculture project leaders and workers worldwide. This growth is helping increase permaculture exposure, and is helping our aim to drive permaculture into mainstream consciousness. (Examples: CNN, SBS, ABC, etc..)

But, whenever a site or entity grows, there are always questions about its purpose. I want to share the Permaculture Research Institute’s intentions as succinctly as possible here, and also solicit your support to help us in our goals – goals I believe many of you subscribe to. And no, I’m not asking for donations! (Although these are always appreciated!)

The Permaculture Research Institute (PRI) is an independently audited (annually) non-profit entity. But, it’s a non-profit with a difference. While a large part of our focus is on project aid work, where we seek to implement permaculture solutions in some of the most challenging places in the world, we don’t subscribe to the traditional strategies that NGOs often ‘utilise’. It was my personal prediction that many NGOs will, as our energy and economic woes intensify, lose their funding as charitably-minded people and businesses lose their liquidity and reprioritise expenditure. From some of the NGOs I’ve worked with and spoken to over the last couple of years, these predictions seem to be coming to pass. More and more people and businesses are finding they just don’t have excess funds to pass on to ‘feel good’ causes. In a peak oil world, this can translate to huge humanitarian disasters as dependent populations find supports removed.

In other words, if we only ran on donations, we’d be as finite an endeavour as industrial civilisation.

The PRI, instead, wants to see permaculture education and uptake spread – despite a failing/flailing economy. We thus seek to be as resilient financially as our on-the-ground systems are biologically. As such, our methods differ not only in the solutions proposed (we prefer to teach a man to fish, and how to manage fish stocks sustainably, rather than just dump piles of them at his feet) but also in the financial model that keeps our permaculture evangelism growing and working while we’re still, reluctantly, in the ‘money economy’ era of the society we find ourselves in and are trying to transition ourselves out of.

Another point of difference, while I’m discussing this, is that we regard the suburbs of Los Angeles or Brisbane just as ‘challenging’ as rural Ethiopia or Vietnam – in that people in ‘first world’ countries are acutely vulnerable in so many ways (economy, energy, centralised food systems, etc.), but just don’t see it, nor where they’re headed – and thus don’t see the desperate need to transition to a life based on real-time sunlight. In contrast, ‘two thirds’ world people are generally struggling on a day to day basis, so can be highly appreciative of tools that make their lives more productive, resilient and efficient – and they are often barely only a generation or so removed from a sustainable, low-impact lifestyle, so their skill-set is usually far more practical. As such permaculture ‘aid work’ is just as essential in London and Melbourne as it is in Lesotho and Mombai. Given what’s looming on the horizon, some might say even more so….

The Permaculture Master Plan

Anyway, the PRI seeks to develop and support the growth of successful, mutually beneficial, interdependent relationships (both between individuals and communities, and between these and the land at their feet), with these successful interdependencies occurring by largely self-reliant individuals cooperating with each other to meet human needs in holistically sound ways. The emphasis here is that we seek to build relationships that are mutually supportive/symbiotic, and not competitive. Just as in the plants and organisms around us and at our feet, we believe the success of the permaculture movement as a whole is entirely dependent on our leaving behind the selfish ambition that most of us in the west have been programmed with through our education, media and through our participation in the contemporary, competitive economic model almost universally applied today – and instead to find ways to interact harmoniously to support each other.

Furthermore, we seek for our projects to transition to localised resilience in food and other base human requirements (housing, clothing, etc.), but also to become financially self-sufficient. As we do not believe in contributing to globalisation, but, rather, to help transition away from it, we do not encourage projects to be self sufficient through sales of produce or goods, or at least not to make this their primary endeavour, but, rather, to sell knowledge, so the people around them can begin to grow and produce their own goods. The idea, expressed by our Permaculture Master Plan, is to educate the world in permaculture design principles and application – making each project site both an impressive demonstration site of what is possible and achievable by and for local people in their respective regions, as well as a professional education site sharing the ‘how’ of it. Following this demonstrate-and-educate recipe enables project leaders and their teams to concentrate on transitioning/building the community around them while course and consultation fees finance this evangelisation.

We don’t see any losers in this scenario. The ideal and ultimate goal is that these projects will self-replicate to the point where they will saturate the global landscape with mutually interdependent and resilient communities of knowledgeable permaculture practitioners – setting the stage for a softer landing on the peak-oil downslide. Although the income from course fees would gradually diminish over time, as more and more demonstration/education sites multiply – this income would become increasingly redundant/unnecessary as the growth of resilient permaculture sites and communities fills the void created by a crashing money economy.

Time is of the Essence

If you’re following the logic so far, you will recognise that time is of the essence. To have paying students finance the ballooning of permaculture demonstration/education sites worldwide, we need to get a large portion of this ‘evangelisation’ work done before the economic mayhem born of peak oil and climate change begins to hit us even harder than it already has. At the moment, increasingly, people are seeing the need to get permaculture-educated while they still have the finances to do so. Many can still afford to take flights to learn at locations where their hardish western currency can not only train themselves in modern permaculture design systems whilst gaining valuable indigenous knowledge but also subsidise the training of poverty-stricken locals. This will not always be the case. We’re working in a window of opportunity that will close in the ensuing years.

Making the Most of the Time Window We Have

As such, we feel that leveraging the impact of this website (www.permaculture.org.au) is paramount. I note many permaculture individuals endeavouring to develop their own readership in fragmented efforts that, often with the best of intentions, fail to achieve much. The reason they fail to achieve much is that it takes a lot of time and dedication to grow a website, and that growth is largely dependent on a consistent stream of quality content that keeps people returning to, and linking to, your site. People are too busy on the ground to maintain such sites, or dedicate staff to the task. A million small websites sharing intermittent posts is not nearly as efficient as a few larger sites with far higher traffic counts sharing regular engaging content. I like to think of the networking and leveraging of grass-roots permaculture labour and resources – to build mainstream momentum in all things permaculture – as represented by that largest of all biological organisms: mycelium. While various plants and rocks and microorganisms appear independent of each other, there is a common link – in soil biology – that connects them all. In like manner, the internet, perhaps one of the few real gifts the industrial revolution has given us, is enabling us to connect and share our energies in symbiotic and synergistic ways for the benefit of all. For us to reach mainstream consciousness, funneling our experiences and knowledge through reliable website ‘portals’ is, I can say categorically, far more efficient than expecting readers to browse a thousand sites to get the information they need.

How to Leverage Our Collective Energies to Spread Permaculture Fast

The lifeblood of my work, that of trying to drive permaculture thinking into mainstream consciousness, is found in sharing quality reports from around the world. My logic goes like this: when people in mainstream consumer society confront permaculture, if they believe it’s only practiced by a few sandal-wearing souls living on the fringes of society, they’ll conclude "nice idea, but it’s too little, too late", and they’ll write the concept off as being idealistic dreaming. But if, instead, they realise the reality – that this is a movement of many tens of thousands of people working, right now, in almost every country on every continent of this jewel of an earth we call home – then they’ll instead think to themselves – "hell, change is afoot, and I’m getting left behind – I want to get involved, and now!"

The work is happening, and it’s building momentum. But while the word ‘Permaculture’ is now finally in the Oxford English dictionary, it needs to be on the lips and in the hands of everyone if humanity-saving goodness is to reach that tipping point where it’ll take off and meet the enormous challenges we face today.

Those tens of thousands of people are working hard, accomplishing great things, but they’re often too busy to look up and around to view where they fit in the big picture – the big mycelium fungal net, as it were. I would like to say to those people that by writing articles and sharing your work, frustrations, challenges, successes, observations and inspiration, your effort to report, as an ‘element’ in your system, does in itself serve several ‘functions’.

1. You inspire others to imitate/emulate your example.
2. You educate people in the ‘how’ of it.
3. You make your work known. People can’t help and support you if they don’t know you or your work exists. Such assistance can come by way of encouragement, gifting practical knowledge/information that is relevant to you, and actual physical involvement and financial support.
4. You enable us (PRI) to better understand your situation, and tailor support to assist, assuming you are seeking such assistance.

As many of you will know, I regularly undertake to do such reports myself, and have done so in places as far afield as Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Chile, Jordan, the West Bank, Slovakia (and), Australia, (and, and, etc.). But, while I will continue to seek to profile successful examples of permaculture around the world, we want to hear your views, your experiences, your challenges, your successes and gain knowledge and inspiration from your particular observations. You don’t have to understand the science of web promotion – that’s my job. You don’t have to understand how to deal with websites, image optimisation and editing – that’s also my job. I get tired of hearing my own voice, as I’m sure do our readers. We want to hear yours! I want to see the permaculturists out there, from novice to guru expert (we don’t believe in gurus – but rather, real people doing real doable things), sharing their knowledge for the benefit of all.

Get paid to spread knowledge and inspiration

And guess what – we’ll even pay you to do it! Recognising people are very busy, and that in today’s world time is food, we will pay to hear your stories on a per-post basis. Click here to learn more.

We of course still welcome volunteer posts. Again, we’re a non-profit, so the more money we save the more we can inject into starting and assisting projects worldwide. In the last year, for example, we have donated approximately $100,000 to projects worldwide, either by way of direct donations or through teaching or consultation time. Over the next year we anticipate this figure will increase again. And we’ve assisted further through my time – utilising this high-traffic website to bring course adverts for diverse locations worldwide to the attention of our readers. We’ve seen sites where they were struggling to find students, but after an advert here the courses filled up. This is what it’s all about! This is funneling information and resources to spread permaculture as fast as we can!

This website and our forums (which we’ve recently upgraded by the way) have been a gift from PRI to the permaculture community. We’re very glad to see them getting utilised. I still see many people, however, not quite understanding our ’services’. Many almost appear to think we’re some kind of independently wealthy (or even publicly funded?) entity with a duty to spread research knowledge and long term analysis of various aspects of permaculture systems, and share it freely, not understanding that within our current capitalist framework such important but time-consuming work is impossible to do, simply because it’s price prohibitive. We remain financially independent, yes, but only due to the hard work of people within the team – and that work is based on classroom and field education. We’d love to initiate research-and-document projects, and create unending ‘how-to’ videos and articles, but doing so takes time and money. As such, we encourage all permaculturists to undertake these tasks as they are able, and to share them to the largest audience possible. We’ll help subsidise this work, by paying per-post as an encouragement/incentive to take the time out to do so.

So, in the busyness of life, I hope you will see that, as I’ve often said to PDC students, reporting on your work and observations is just as important as the physical design work itself. Make your voice heard. Share your knowledge and we’ll ensure it gets maximum exposure.

I look forward to receiving and sharing your articles!

P.S. Until today we’ve had excellent results from our arrangement with people interested to advertise their courses on our site. In exchange for a separate non-promotional article (i.e. something inspirational or educational or both), we’ve put their course adverts up at no charge. This arrangement will continue.

Journey to Igourdane: Large communal extended family home.
Only the part on the far right is now inhabited.

The days on the course were spent going through the theory and wandering about on the farm trying to apply it to surrounding landscape. Every now and then we might be given some mint tea, batboot and olive oil.

Pattern in design session

Spicer officanalis and Lucerne

David and Alex

Berber garden: olives, almonds, pomegranates, lucerne, broad beans,
fenced by dead hedge and native cardoon.

Irrigation at Ourthane, the course farm

Lunch was eaten at the spring, usually a tagine or couscous and salad eaten with bread. The day of the souk we had an outstanding dish of sardine meatballs in a very tasty stock.

We were so lucky to get such a rich and diverse bunch of students. The knowledge and experience they contributed to the course was truly invaluable. I don’t think Dave would argue that we learned something new every day through our exchange through the students.

The sessions were structured along the sections of Bill’s A Designers’ Manual although there was a certain freedom to discuss and reinforce the material we were going through. Many thanks go out to the multilingual students who helped us clarify the material at each stage to make sure everyone understood it before we moved on.

And so the days passed: learning, food, discussion, practical sessions, mint tea and sunshine. Donkeys brayed, turkeys gobbled and cocks crowed.

Break time. Atay (mint tea), hobbs (bread), and zitoune (olive) oil

On the Sunday in the middle of the course some of us chose to visit the Cascades du Ouzoude, a system of waterfalls a few windy mountain kilometres away.

The visit to the falls provided us with a good break from the course. The first week of a PDC is always going to be intense with so much to take on board and comprehend. We spent the day taking full advantage of the relaxed pace. Rainbows, thundering water and Barbary apes all blessed our visit.

Cascades du Ouzoude: Barbary Macaque and young

Cascades du Ouzoude

The Cacades du Ouzoude is part of a larger watershed fed by highland areas such as Igourdane. The falls are a natural wonder and are truly something to behold and yet they represent so much more. Tourism has blossomed around the falls with restaurants, tea shops, craft and antiques shops studding the terraces and paths around the water. On the day we visited the vast majority of tourists were Moroccan with a few visitors from elsewhere.

This highlights how interconnected places like Ouzoude and Igourdane are when considering permaculture design over larger areas, ecologically and economically. These centres of human activity are interdependent and it is our job as permaculture designers to cultivate the awareness of such relationships and their relevance to the designs we are engaged with.

Cascades du Ouzoude

Cascades du Ouzoude: Waterfall powered flour mill

A real highlight of the course came at the beginning of the second week. The journey to Igourdane was a transformative and emotional experience, a real turning point. The students got to tread in the footsteps of the villagers by taking the route they take to fetch water down the mountain and back albeit in reverse.

The Journey to Igourdane

We held a morning session and after another lip-smacking lunch, this time under venerable shade of the carob elders, we set off on foot, on mules and donkeys for the road into the mountains.

The journey to Igourdane. The journey begins.

Marwane had engaged the services of a water diviner with a track record of locating water for agribusinesses. He was to locate the place we could drill to find potable water. He was an elderly yet ageless, spritely man full of laughter. He always had a smile lurking behind every other expression and a roguish twinkle in his eyes. He took off ahead on a donkey before we set off, we wouldn’t see him again till we reached Igourdane some hours later, where he greeted us with the villagers as if he were the tortoise and we were the hares.

The journey to Igourdane: dried up river bed and ruined Ksar

The way to Igourdane from the farm led through sparsely planted olive groves, a seasonal water course and a dried up river bed, before we reached the road itself – a rough limestone track that would allow two pannier laden donkeys to pass each other comfortably. The track climbed gently higher before turning in the twisting hairpin bends of a mountain path.

The journey to Igourdane: Traditional buildings

I rode a mule up the mountain having only ridden camels before. I actually did very well all things considered. Advice on how to ride comfortably from the others was just as well as my mule refused to let the pace be set by the other animals and took me off a fair way ahead of the rest of our train. I assumed he wanted to be rid of such a heavy burden as quickly as possible.

As the path lifted us steeply out of the foothills, allowing us a wider view of mountains, the stone track was patterned by water and covered with small stones and scree. I fell in such a rhythm with the mule that using the movement of my body I was willing each step he took to be sure and firm, as every now and then he would slip on pebbles and the polished rock before correcting himself without breaking the rhythm of his doleful stride.

It was an incredibly hot and arduous journey for those of us uninitiated with travelling through mountains (not including Dave of course). However it was the ideal way to impress upon the students and me, as to what life was really like for the people of Igourdane, to tread in their footsteps even just a little, to put ourselves in their position, to try and understand.

As the path levelled out, dwellings, carob and olive trees came into view. Sadly the first house we passed belonged to a family who had had to leave the area, mainly due to a lack of potable water.

The journey to Igourdane: Immature carob pods

It was not long before children appeared from here and there, hollering news of our arrival through cupped hands and thus, thanks to the Berber telegraph Igourdane knew our exact whereabouts and estimated time of arrival. Faces familiar and new greeted us and our caravan and led us to the shade of ancient carob trees that had been planted long ago in the shape of a horseshoe – the roots of which had been mounded up with rocks to form a shady and cool corral for stock. The welcoming party consisted of the local men, farmers, boys and elders. We exchanged warm greetings before resting and taking stock of the place we had all been thinking of for so long; in my case for well over a year.

Igourdane dam. Heavier than usual seasonal rains have given a
false impression here. This was taken in May. By August this will be dry.
As will the surrounding land. Just look at that unused catchment above….

The village consists of homesteads and house clusters dotted about terraces and plateaus amidst dry-stoned walled fields of barley, wheat, lentils, olives and carobs. The buildings are constructed out of stone and pisé with traditional roofs made of long poles laid over modular square rooms and piled with earth and sods with grass growing above.

Cross breed calf

Stay tuned for Part IV….

Experience? Well yes, but that’s something that you can learn along the way. You don’t need to be the World’s best Graphic artist or AutoCAD genius, but you do need to be creative, have an eye for landscape patterning and a PDC in hand.

I just finished my first Permaculture design commission and I was hoping to share some of the process with you. Within the 11 years of experience with my own landscape design firm, I rarely put pen to paper with design. I found success even while employing experienced people to draw plans and document. My job then, like now, is main-frame design. I leave the finer points to specialists.

Your job as a designer is to know the process. You have the contacts in place to co-ordinate, instruct, manage, and even educate, if the professionals you engage are not permaculture systems trained.

What’s the process?

The process is the series of events that you will need to successfully master over time and refine to suit each client. Don’t think just because you’re now in the realm of the Permaculture world, full of ethics and good will, that people’s attitude towards paying money for your services will change, or the value they place on your time. I spend a lot of time speaking with my clients on the phone before I even think of getting out of my office chair to go and see them! (Mind you that office chair looks over the Pacific Ocean, and that’s hard enough to leave!)

Google map with topo map overlay for property.

The reason I question my potential clients so much is to look at some basics: 1) What’s their vision? 2) How do they plan to implement a permaculture design once the design is completed? 3) What do they think it’s going to take to achieve their vision? You can go and spend thousands of your clients dollars on reports, colour plans, graphs, and yet a client may still look at your work and won’t be able to find north on the map.

In my experience, it is easy for clients to have grand visions of what it means to live a sustainable lifestyle. Many have romantic ideas about growing their own food, reusing their waste and building compost without considering that yes(!) it is a lot of work: it’s going to take maintenance! I often refer my clients back to question three from above. “What do they think it’s going to take to achieve their vision?" "Oh that’s easy, we’ll just plant some veggies in the corner and use the water from the water tank". Stop!!! At the moment a client says “Oh that’s easy” that’s a warning bell that the clients you’re dealing with don’t understand the undertaking or commitment of what they are dealing with…. and your backside has not event left the seat yet.

The vision they expressed to you was one of abundance. They saw food growing from every corner of their property, water harvesting systems, and miles of food forest and animal systems. Yet, a realistic and practical maintenance schedule wasn’t a part of their vision. Home renovation and landscape gardening TV shows that flood our screens sell the easy 30min crash course of how to construct a garden. From that, so many feel capable and experienced enough to chuck in a garden. The television’s easy sell often misses the accounting related to the cost of design, cost of project management, labour and the amount of people behind the scenes coordinating the process. So often their vision doesn’t match the reality of implementation. As a designer, it’s your job to look at the process and find the best process to suit the client’s needs and, most of all, the client’s time & budget.

It is encouraging that we’ve seen a popular trend in going "green" or "sustainable" these days. Yet, whatever the trend may be, you’re going to get calls from people that have the money to do great things and have all the good intentions but very little of the design skills needed to make a practical system work. If they don’t understand how permaculture systems work and how to use them, it is your job to look at the process with them. There is an education element in that process that will allow you spend time with your client. You can show them how their plan will evolve and come together, realistically. I find it helpful to remember the small steps. Humans are very funny creatures. You don’t want to scare clients away with over-the-top architect plans or overly complicated specifications. These will be the parts of the design process that you will need to break down for your clients and incorporate into your plans: reports that you will receive from the consultants you engage.

Once you’ve worked with your clients to articulate a comprehensive vision, how do your clients plan to implement a permaculture design once the design is completed? Well, if they say to you “we plan to tender it out, get it installed by professionals and have a gardener look after it”. That’s fine and that will happen, but the questions you have to ask your self are: Are you cut out for the massive commitment to do the planning to a standard from where a contractor can pick up the plans and give the client a price to construct based on your plans? Could you set out a bill of quantities? Can you draw scale technical plans?

Your client may express "We want to install it ourselves!" O.K.! But even if they install it themselves, do you know the construction process to document for your client to follow? Will you need to do site visits during the design process? How do you move forward as a designer here? So this is where you need set out what your skill level is; how you could service this client without biting off more than you could chew. Are you capable of setting up a process by where you consult to your new clients, get the vision, and engage your technical professionals? Do you know how to find professionals that have the skills to put full landscape architect designed plans together with your permaculture main frame experience (water, access, structures)? Can you engage a horticulturalist, engineer, drafts person, etc?

These are very important questions we as permaculture designers need to ask before we leave the chair and get our minds around the design process. That’s just the first phone call! A good use of a website in this process can show your potential clients how you work and what services and processes you follow to get them a result. I have found that putting prices for types of design work, like consultation, looking at sizes of properties (urban – suburban – small farms – broad acre) and giving clients prices on deliverables within each design size works well.

Google map overlay with proposed design systems placed as a concept

I have included some concept pictures of plans throughout the process on this first commission. I used Google maps to place a contour map overlay over the Google image to give me very rough idea of how the farm looks and where I can start looking at the big three (water, access, and structures). It is wise to never fully trust a contour map unless you have had a surveyor on site with a highly detailed topographical plan. Being on the ground with a laser level for a day will save you in the long run. Whether a small urban garden or a 500 acre farm, walking the site step-by-step, meter-by-meter, is the only way to do it.

I use a very simple program – Microsoft Paint. I know of others out there using Google SketchUp and other programs that allow more flexibility. You can see where I mark, using different colours, elements that would be used as the base of the concept. I then print out the Google map on A2 size paper. I then use tracing paper to draw in property lines, and contour lines. I mark the swales, dams, farm tracks, roads, swale crossings, and then structures. While on the property the whole day is spent with a measuring wheel in hand looking at revegetation areas and pasture cropping. You might say, “Why don’t you just use a scale plan to mark them out?” You don’t know the farm until you walk them and take notes on what each area is and what it requires. I then, again on the tracing paper, colour it with different markers to show swale trees, bamboo, gabion, fences, rock outcrops for non workable land, etc…. Then once I have enough detail (and you will only know this once you hand it to your AutoCAD genius or in my case a graphic artist, if they can look at it and make sense of it then you job is done), then you end up with what I have shown in the site plan Master Plan.

I like a graphic artist’s finish. It looks more natural in its application and more detailed. On a scale of 1-10, 1 being very basic and 10 being very detailed, this master plan would be about a six. If my approach interests you, I’m setting up (Landscape) Permaculture Designing Courses next year in Victoria, NSW & QLD.

These courses will spend time looking at the steps of consultation, designing, drawing, pricing your time and quoting while also focusing on business management and how to get yourself started. The details are listed below.

The Aim of the Program:

I’m committed to training creative, confident and professionally superior permaculture designers. On completion of your course you will be entitled to design within the permaculture field, fully competent to undertake the following tasks:

• Creating sustainable, functional permaculture designs. (Permaculture design is a system of assembling conceptual, material, and strategic components in a pattern which functions to benefit life in all its forms. It seeks to provide a sustainable and secure place for living things on this earth. Functional design sets out to achieve specific ends, and prime directives. Every component of a design should function in many ways. Every essential function should be supported by many components.)
• Designing concepts and plans for urban, rural and aid projects with water, access, structures.
• Producing concept plans, planting plans, and site maintenance schedules.
• Preparation of concept drawings for land re-contouring and retaining.
• Preparation of construction and working drawings for hard landscaping items (not requiring specialist engineering and when permitted by law).
• Managing the contractor bidding and the installation of the design on behalf of the client.
• Running a professional permaculture design business.

What you will learn?

The Permaculture (Landscape) Design covers every aspect of garden and landscape design as well as other topics concerned with the setting up and running of a professional permaculture design and consulting business. You will learn things a professional permaculture designer needs to know.

1. Project Assessment: You will learn how to talk with the Client about their concerns, assess the potential of the site, ascertain the client’s needs, suggest the best course of action, and give a written quotation for design work.
2. Site Survey: You will learn to measure a site, including surveying ground levels, and use this data to draw an
   accurate and useful survey (base) plan.
3. Concept Plan: Showing a ‘bird’s eye’ view of the proposed design, this drawing is the starting point in the development of a new garden. You will learn to create exciting and functional designs and present them to your clients as attractive concept plans.
4. Planting Plan: You will learn to design the planting scheme to complement the new design. Preparing detailed
   planting plans and schedules are covered for your climate.
5. Hard Landscape Construction: You will learn about hard landscape construction and materials. This will enable you to design viable permaculture hardscapes and structures to enhance your designs.
6. Ground Contouring Design: You will learn to recognize a site’s greater potential through re-contouring, and how to produce concept plans detailing the new ground levels, swales, dams and house pad levels.
7. Running a professional design and consulting business: You will learn all the aspects of running your own business in a professional manner. This includes dealing with Clients, effective communication, getting new business, industry protocols, working to a Client’s budget, bidding and tendering, and writing technical specifications.

How long does it take?

Intro Design (intense 24 hour) courses run over a Fri – Sat – Sun weekend will cover all the areas and give you a basic idea of design to get your business started. There will be one teacher plus two teacher aids per course. This gives the course a very personal touch and attention to detail.

Full Design courses (96 hours) will cover the process in depth and home work set during the week. The course is run over 1 month, 3 days a week. Fri, Sat, Sun for 12 days. There will be one teacher plus two teacher aids per course. This gives the course a very personal touch and attention to detail.

Course Cost

• Intro Course 24hr 3x 8-hour days = $295 per student, limited to 30 students.
• Full Design Course. 96hr, 12x 8-hour days = $1250.00 per student limited to 10 students.

Program Content

This is a brief outline of the main topics included in the program. The course material informative with many pictures and diagrams used to illustrate concepts. You will be taught and encouraged to think and solve problems.

• 24, information-packed study modules covering all aspects of professional Permaculture design.
• 3 relevant, hands-on assignments reflecting the actual work done by Permaculture designers.
• Several useful portfolios to aid you in developing your designs.
• 3 full, real-life permaculture design projects (no installation is required for any projects).
• several small urban design projects (no installation is required).
• continual assessment and feedback to keep you informed of your progress.

The Study Modules

1. Course overview; Equipment and Materials; Drawing to Scale.
2. Classification and Naming of plants; Plant physiology; Soil in the landscape.
3. Introduction to the different types of landscape drawings; learning to draw.
4. The design process; analyzing a site; discovering the client’s needs; introduction to site surveying; writing a design proposals.
5. Site surveying – theory and practical.
6. The drawing sheet and title block; lettering and titling; the concept plan.
7. The zoning and functional placement of areas.
8. Major permaculture design project #1.
9. Design principles and design development.
10. Solving site problems; function and safety.
11. Surveying ground levels – theory and practical.
12. Drawing elevations, cross-sections and working drawings.
13. Major permaculture design project #2.
14. Planting design; color theory, shape and texture.
15. Designing; how to choose the right plants; the planting plan.
16. Water, natural pools and ponds, swales & dams.
17. Hard landscaping materials; site contouring and leveling.
18. Retaining walls; paving and other horizontal surfacing.
19. Introduction to timber construction; steps and ramps; walls; fences and screens.
20. Decorative structures; using trees, shrubs, hedges, vines.
21. Major permaculture design project #3.
22. Natural habitat; maintenance of design; eco-friendly design.
23. Small urban gardens; functional planting; irrigation, estimating installation costs for budgetary purposes.
24. Business procedures; documents and contracts; the client-designer-contractor relationship; specification writing; the bidding process; project facilitation; costing your design services; getting started; promoting your business: final design project – an exploration of design creativity.

Expressions of interest for this course in your area can be directed to Nick Huggins at hugginsn (at) bigpond.net.au

In partnership with Sust`aina ble Molokai and the Ho`ala Hou Program, the Permaculture Research Institute USA is proud to announce an upcoming series of key Permaculture courses on the Island of Molokai, Hawaii.

We are offering the following four foundational courses between October and December this year:

• Permaculture Design Certificate Course with Andrew Jones and Shenaqua Sookhoo-Jones, Oct 10-22
• Practicum: Incorporating Traditional Hawaiian Plants, Foods and Fuels into a Permaculture Design with Andrew Jones and Hunter Heaivilin, Oct 25-29
• PDC Teacher Training Course with Andrew Jones and Shenaqua Sookhoo-Jones, Nov 1-6
• Earthworks with Geoff and Nadia Lawton, Dec 6-10

These courses will be held in conjunction with the Ho`ala Hou Program, a substance abuse and prevention program that works with youth and families to set up up community garden plots. Courses will take place on Ho`ala Hou’s 20-acre site.

This series is also part of an island-wide initiative with local nonprofit Sust`aina ble Molokai to work toward the goals of the Molokai Sustainability Plan, a plan created by the people of Molokai that honors Hawaiian traditional and cultural pathways alongside modern strategies for a sustainable future.

For more information and to register for these courses, please visit the Permaculture Research USA website at www.permacultureusa.org.

Aloha and A hui hou!

Harry Schnur from Taipei, Taiwan, recently completed his PDC with Geoff Lawton at Zaytuna Farm.

He has two shows on the only English community radio station in the region and did a series of interviews for one of his shows during his time at the farm.

Below is part 5, an interview with PDC students, Jarrod, Liz and James. Click play to listen!

Harry Schnur from Taipei, Taiwan, recently completed his PDC with Geoff Lawton at Zaytuna Farm.

He has two shows on the only English community radio station in the region and did a series of interviews for one of his shows during his time at the farm.

Below is part 4, an interview with Lindsay Dailey, permaculture designer and PRI student, at PRI’s Zaytuna Farm. Click play to listen!