Course Schedule for 2009 Finalised
Courses/Workshops, News — by Craig Mackintosh
 Study at Zaytuna Farm, NSW |
We’ve just posted all the courses for 2009 - and we’ve added several new courses to the mix. Aside from the very popular Permaculture Design Certificate course (PDC), we’ve added the following new courses:
- Introduction to Permaculture Course (A two-day weekend course to get you started on the Permaculture path - an ultra concise version of the 72 hour PDC)
- Permaculture Food Gardening Course (Another weekend course: More and more people realise that growing their own food is more than just a lifestyle choice now, but a necessity - this course will give you the knowhow and confidence to work efficiently and productively)
- Permaculture Design Certificate Teacher Training Course (Already a Permaculturist, and want to teach PDCs? This course will help get you started!)
- Permaculture Earthworks Course (Learn from the best! Learn how to drought-proof your land and optimise productivity with that most essential of elements - water!)
- Permaculture Project Aid Worker Course (This course is intended to prepare you for project aid work worldwide, where you can help people whilst gaining valuable Permaculture experience)
Click here for course dates, descriptions and for registration.
Comments (0)Posted on: October 17, 2008
Food Forest DVDs Being Shipped
DVDs/Books, Food Forests, Food Plants - Perennial, News, Plant Systems, Trees — by Craig Mackintosh
Profuse apologies to all the eager Food Forest customers. We had a slight delay on their arrival. But, they’re here now! We are presently shipping them out to all who have ordered. It’s great to see the interest. There’s never been a better time to establish a Food Forest!
Order here.
Comments (1)Posted on: September 26, 2008
PRI Update - September 12, 2008
Aid Projects, Courses/Workshops, Developments, Education Centres, News — by Craig Mackintosh
Every now and again we’ll try to keep you all in the loop as to progress and activity with our work here in the little village of PRI. As always, there is a lot going on, and a lot more in the pipeline. Some of you may well wish to get involved yourself!
Here goes:
Comments (3)Posted on: September 12, 2008
Convergence of Issues Leads to Southern California Permaculture Convergence, August 29-31, 2008
Conservation, News, Presentations/Demonstrations, Social Gatherings, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Storm Water, Water Contaminaton, Water Harvesting, peak oil — by Craig Mackintosh
Cooling off after the first day of the Southern California Permaculture Convergence,
hosted by the Quail Springs Learning Oasis and Permaculture Farm
Yesterday the Southern California Permaculture Convergence got underway. The word ‘convergence’ is the operative word here, and, ironically, to me at least, has a double meaning. Over the last couple of weeks, being here at Quail Springs just reminds me of the convergence of issues we face as a race, just as we ‘converge’ to network, share instruction and ideas, and find new ways to work together to face those same issues.
Let me explain, using an example very close to where we are today.
Comments (4)Posted on: August 31, 2008
Geoff Lawton - “All the World’s Problems Can Be Solved in a Garden”
News, Presentations/Demonstrations — by Linda Buzzell
Linda Buzzell, M.A., M. Journalism, M.F.T. is a member of the Santa Barbara Permaculture Guild. She took her Permaculture Design Course in 2006. She is the founder of the International Association for Ecotherapy
Photo credit: Craig Mackintosh
On Thursday August 28, 2008 one of the world’s top permaculture designers, Australian Geoff Lawton, spoke to a standing-room-only audience at Santa Barbara City College in Santa Barbara. The presentation was sponsored by the Santa Barbara Permaculture Network and the SBCC Center for Sustainability, led by biology professor Dr. Adam Green.
Comments (1)Posted on: August 30, 2008
The Santa Barbara City College Hears ‘The Plan’
News, Presentations/Demonstrations — by Craig Mackintosh
The Quail Springs Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) course (for 2008) closed Wednesday - and with a bang. Six groups of students put forth impressive design proposals for the design brief they were given, resulting in 47 new PDC graduates joining the worldwide permaculture community - a community that we are inspired can become a powerful ‘peace army’ to bring hope and real solutions to a beleaguered world. We look forward to hearing from these new friends as they build on their knowledge and carve out avenues for practical application. It was a privilege and inspiration to meet them all.
No sooner was the course ended, and Geoff and Nadia were off to Santa Barbara to answer an invitation to speak to an attentive crowd at the Santa Barbara City College. Thanks to Wes Roe & Margie Bushman for the invite and organising.
Comments (0)Posted on:
Permaculture Design Course In Liberia - a Resounding Success
Aid Projects, Courses/Workshops, News — by Warren Brush
by Warren Brush, Co-Founder of Quail Springs Learning Oasis
The first graduates of a Permaculture Design |
Back in March we celebrated the first graduating class of a Permaculture Design Course in Liberia’s history. Liberia had been in the throws of a brutal civil war since the late 80’s when the Permaculture movement was making its way around the world and was unable to get into Liberia until now, four years after the cease fire and peace building ensued.
We had 19 official graduates of the course which took nearly a month to complete as we had to translate into the local Lorma language. There were six other attendees who completed 3/4 of the course and who will complete it at a later date which will bring the graduating class to a total of 25. Many of the graduates shared how this was a historical moment for Liberia as Permaculture is seeding new ways of agriculture and living into their part of the world and deeply into their world-views.
Comments (0)Posted on: June 21, 2008
PermacultureJordan.org Coming Soon
News — by Geoff Lawton
A new website for The Permaculture Research Institute Jordan will be launching soon.
Comments (0)Posted on: April 11, 2008
Permaculture Cairns takes off
News — by Nick Ritar
Permaculture Cairns is a recently formed permaculture group, located in the wet tropics region of Far North Queensland, Australia. Cairns has a Tropical climate, with generally hot and humid summers and milder drier winters. The cyclone season is normally confined to between December and April and the average annual rainfall is 1992mm. Nowhere else on earth do two World Heritage listed sites sit side by side –With the education of Permaculture at its core, the aim of the group is to spread permaculture throughout Cairns and the Far North, and give demonstrative examples of permaculture at work in such a unique and challenging environment. The Great Barrier Reef and Australia’s Tropical Rainforests. Both are in severe danger of being lost forever, in part due to the unconscious urban design for an ever-increasing populous and destructive agricultural practice.
Since being formed in July, a great deal of interest has been shown and the number of members (all ages) on our forum site has rapidly grown to its current level of 42. The group has been successful in attracting new members, particularly through its participation in two notable local festivals: the annual “Empower Energy Festival” and “Envirofiesta”, a community event, this year attended by more than 5000 people, that showcases the natural and cultural diversity of the region.
Comments (0)Posted on: December 4, 2007
IDEP emergency response to flash floods in Aceh & North Sumatra
Aid Projects, News — by Geoff Lawton
Dear Friends of IDEP, Two years after the Indian Ocean tsunami devastated the province, Aceh is struggling with a new disaster. Torrential rains over the past week have triggered flash floods and landslides which have forced around 300,000 to flee their homes on the island of Sumatra, with Aceh and North Sumatra provinces the worst hit.
As of yesterday reports showed that about 100,000 people were stranded by floods which have claimed at least 110 lives. Water levels, which rose to as high as five meters in some places, have been receding, but today the sky was dark again with clouds. We pray that the rains will not start again.
Officials say a combination of heavy rains and widespread unregulated deforestation are to blame for the flash flooding. By removing dense vegetation the ground is less able to absorb heavy rainfall, creating torrents of water that quickly overwhelm river systems.
Click for more…
Posted on: January 3, 2007
More on the PRI: Vietnam
News — by Administrator
The Permaculture Research Institute (PRI) – Australia and The Centre for Human Ecology Studies of Highlands (CHESH), Vietnam agree to set up a Memoradum of Understanding as follows…
Responsibilities of The Permaculture Research Institute
- Provide qualified teachers to organise education, demonstration and research sites based on permaculture design principles
- Select, promote and support local permaculture teachers
- Organise and arrange in conjunction with CHESH the exchange and internship of Australian and international students to Vietnam and other countries involved in the permaculture network with the aim of allowing students to gain experience in the following areas:
- On the ground - implementation, establishment and maintenance of project
- Administration - office procedure, media and communication
- Education - curriculum and course teaching
- Organise and arrange in conjunction with CHESH the exchange and internship of Vietnamese students to Australia and other countries involved in the permaculture network with the aim of allowing students to gain experience in the areas described above
- Ensure all students are holders of the accredited permaculture design certificate as recognised by Bill Mollison’s Permaculture Institute of Australia
- Ensure all teachers are accredited with Bill Mollison’s Permaculture Institute of Australia
- Facilitate the exchange of relevant research information to and from both institutes
- Facilitate translation of relevant permaculture text and curricula
Posted on: April 20, 2006
It’s official! PRI Vietnam is alive!
News — by Administrator
It’s official! The Permaculture Research Institute Vietnam is form signed and sealed a full working exchange agreement. It’s going to be a great two way arrangement!
See the rest of the article for more pics!
Click for more…
Posted on: April 19, 2006
Greetings from New Orleans
Aid Projects, News — by Andrew Jones
I’m beginning this en route to work, in the traffic jam that now characterises New Orleans morning traffic flows between 7-9am, seems that half the daily population is currently living outside the city limits and commuting by pickup….
The city is a busy hive of worker bees, or a disrupted ant colony, with a lot of energy going into the process of reconstructing what was, at least in more prosperous parts of the city. Other areas such as the lower 9th ward remain largely unrepaired, with spraypainted messages from rescuers still on the houses (’dangerous pit bull’, ‘no pets’, etc) and questions still remaining for residents regarding levels of compensation for the uninsured.
For a good overview of the issues and a grass roots response, see the Common Ground website. Kevin mentioned this group to me before I left and they are doing great work here on a broad range of social, political, economic, and environmental fronts, including the use of effective microorganisms (EM) in dealing with mold affected houses, and bioremediation of soils affected by lead and arsenic and some persistant organic pollutants (POPs).
Click for more…
Posted on: April 1, 2006
Permaculture Research Institute news from the front
News — by Administrator
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.
Comments (0)Posted on: January 20, 2006
July 2005 newsletter
News — by Administrator
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.
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.
