Looking Back at a PDC in Southern Ethiopia
Aid Projects, Community Projects, Courses/Workshops, Demonstration Sites, Education Centres — by Pierre Theriault July 29, 2010
A personal account from taking the Permaculture Design Course at Strawberry Fields Eco-Lodge, Konso, Southern Ethiopia, 9-15 June 2010
Together with three Ethiopians and eight other international participants, I recently attended a 72-hour permaculture design course hosted by Alex McCausland and the Strawberry Fields Eco-Lodge in the Konso province of southern Ethiopia.
Comments (0)PermaCooking – Your Goose is Cooked
Animal Processing, Bird Life, Demonstration Sites, Education Centres, Livestock, Processing & Food Preservation, Recipes — by Marcelo Severo
One of several Zaytuna Farm geese
All photographs © Craig Mackintosh except where credited otherwise
We killed a goose at Zaytuna Farm the other day and by my count we served out 60+ student meals from it, plus two day’s worth of wonderful breakfasts for the staff. Not a bad effort I thought. Pretty good use of a bird. Here’s what we did….
Comments (1)Confessions of a Permaculture Aid Worker, Episode 10: Peppi in Malta
Demonstration Sites, Education Centres, Podcasts — by Patrick Blampied
Aerial view of Bahrija valley and surrounding cliffs
 Peppi Gauci |
‘Confessions of a Permaculture Aid Worker’ is a weekly podcast show from PRI Australia aimed at documenting the experiences of people out in the field and making more information available about what’s happening in the Permaculture world.
This week I’m speaking with Peppi in Malta about his project, Bahrija Oasis, which he setup eight years ago in Rabat, Malta.
Click play to hear all about it!:
Episode 10: Peppi in Malta Comments (0)Morocco Observations, Past, Present and Future – Part II
Aid Projects, Courses/Workshops, Demonstration Sites, Education Centres, People Systems, Society, Village Development — by Alex Metcalfe July 28, 2010
Written by Alex Metcalfe. Photo credits to Alex Metcalfe, Asiya Brock, Helen Evans and Houssa Yacoubi. Part II of a Series. Click here for Part I.
Spicer and Asiya Brock shop for supplies in Marrakesh Medina
Consistent with Global Warming trends, Observation from Morocco’s National Meteorological Directorate show rising temperatures, less precipitation, and an increase in drought, widening the gap between water supply and demand. Average temperatures are expected to rise between 2 and 5 degree Celsius by the end of the century, while rainfall is predicted to decline 20 to 30%. – Moroccan Coastal Management: Building Capacity to Adapt to Climate Change through Sustainable Policies and Planning
Deforestation, water management and erosion are all evidently interlinked and inseparable issues faced by rural Imazighen, particularly those living amongst the unique and ever changing weather systems of the high Atlas Mountains.
After my first memorable visit I searched for a project in Morocco I could contribute to. I wanted to have a good reason for returning, something other than purely for pleasure. Morocco is a country where everyone can have a passport, but only those with enough cash in their bank account can get a visa to travel to places like Europe or the U.S. I had a much smaller sum in my account when I went to Morocco the first time and yet I was free to do so. That fact set me apart in some sense from the people I had the pleasure to meet and although they did not appear overly occupied with it, it was something I was keenly aware of. I felt that if I could work with Moroccans I would receive a more intimate education on life in their country than I would as a tourist and hopefully earn their respect by doing so. Like many, many other people who volunteer or work for positive change abroad I wanted, if possible, to side step what can sometimes turn into a series of purely economic interactions. I wanted to meet people’s families, work with them, to eat at their table and to digest their way of life literally instead of just intellectually.
Comments (2)Permaculture Design Multimedia Course
Courses/Workshops, Demonstration Sites, Education Centres — by Julie Pagliaro
 Photo credit: Tagari Publications 2010 |
Kamiah Permaculture is excited to introduce a new kind of Permaculture course, the Permaculture Design Multimedia Design Course. As graduates of a Bill Mollison/Geoff Lawton design course ourselves, we were thrilled to hear about the release of the Tagari Publications DVD set, the entire footage of a Permaculture Design Certificate course taught by Bill and Geoff in Melbourne in 2005, very similar to the course we graduated from.
As a teaching team, no one can claim more knowledge and experience worldwide than Bill Mollison and Geoff Lawton. Our experience at our PDC in Melbourne has forever changed our lives. We have often wished that more people could experience a PDC from these two fine teachers. A short time after becoming PDC graduates we moved to Idaho to live a life using permaculture design principles and established our farm as a permaculture demonstration site. Now we have devised a way to share the Bill and Geoff experience as part of our permaculture design course without the added expense of traveling to Australia.
Comments (0)PDC Interview, Part 3: Chef Aureliano
Demonstration Sites, Education Centres, Health & Disease, Processing & Food Preservation, Recipes — by Harry Schnur July 26, 2010
Photo copyright © Craig Mackintosh
Pumpkins at Zaytuna Farm
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 3, an interview with Chef Aureliano about his experiences cooking fresh, seasonal food at PRI’s Zaytuna Farm. Click play to listen!
PDC Interview, Part 3: Chef AurelianoComments (0)
Solving All the Problems of the World – in a Garden
Aid Projects, Community Projects, Conservation, Demonstration Sites, Developments, Education Centres, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Land, News, Nurseries & Propogation, People Systems, Plant Systems, Rehabilitation, Salination, Society, Soil Conservation, Trees, Urban Projects, Village Development, Water Harvesting — by Craig Mackintosh July 23, 2010
This video can be downloaded in high resolution from Vimeo (see ‘About this video’ section on lower right side’).
I hope you’ll enjoy this clip. More, I hope it encourages you to dare to be different, and dare to have your work noticed. The garden we profile in the video above, as you’ll discover after watching it, has just won a national competition held by the Jordanian Department of Education – for schools who incorporate environmental projects into their curriculum. This means that thousands of schools, in what is arguably the most water-stressed country on the planet, now have the possibility to learn from this humble example of permaculture in action – and get inspired to do similar.
Special thanks to Lesley Byrne for her enthusiastic support, and to Nadia Lawton for her vision and determination to help her own people – and in so doing setting such an excellent example for us all.
Morocco Observations, Past, Present and Future – Part I
Aid Projects, Community Projects, Conservation, Deforestation, Education Centres, Irrigation, Regional Water Cycle, Rehabilitation, Society, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Urban Projects — by Alex Metcalfe July 21, 2010
Written by Alex Metcalfe. Photo credits to Alex Metcalfe, Asiya Brock, Helen Evans and Houssa Yacoubi.
The view from the course site ‘Ourthane’ which means ‘gardens’
Background
In 2004, during my first visit to Morocco, one night in the desert with the full moon at its zenith I climbed an enormous dune with Francois and Vincent, two Québécois I had met on the bus journey south.
Ascending that great pile of sand, every step forward seemed to take us three steps back. Our beleaguered progress was painfully slow. The nameless mountain of sand we were climbing stood far above neighbouring dunes to shelter a small and equally anonymous oasis a few hours slow and ponderous journey by camel from Merzouga, a small, one road collection of pisé houses and auberges that sit amidst the bleak and stony Hamada. The only movements to catch the eye was the shimmering heat rising from the Earth and the tall, thin and spectral twisters that listlessly faded into existence only to fade out again, as if exhausted under the unforgiving glare of the desert sun from the effort of giving form to the eddying winds of the Hamada.
Comments (3)The Challenges and Rewards of Implementing Permaculture in Ethiopia
Aid Projects, Community Projects, Courses/Workshops, Demonstration Sites, Developments, Education Centres, Village Development — by Alex McCausland July 20, 2010
Editor’s Note: This is the most pleasureable part of my work – seeing people soaking up permaculture goodness, being empowered by it, and benefitting from their labours. Alex gives us a great update on his selfless labours in Ethiopia – nicely loaded with documentary images. If you appreciate the work Alex is doing, and haven’t yet taken your Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) course, you might want to consider studying in Ethiopia – so your course fees will help fuel the juggernaut project described below even further. The August 02 – 12, 2010 course will be particularly relevant to you if you live in a semi-arid climate zone.
Our international PDCs use the schools’ project in its learning exercises;
Participants act as judges for our schools’ competitions. This both helps to
motivate the schools (prizes for best school, best parent, best child and best
teacher are awarded bi-annually) and is a learning exercise for the
international participants.
 Tichafa, our facilitator/consultant, trainer for ReSCOPE – 15 years experience around southern Africa |
In much of Africa, environmental problems and rural depravation are closely tied together. The rural poor lack access to education which means they have no chance to earn better incomes. Stuck in a poverty trap, they often resort to practices which degrade the very environment that supports them; clearing indigenous woodland to make charcoal, overstocking animals, or planting harmful species which give fast cash rewards such as Eucalyptus and so on. Population growth, of course, worsens all this. As a result land is wrecked and won’t produce enough food to feed them.
In the case of Ethiopia we are all familiar with the dust bowl image and the starving kids. Geldof’s Live-Aid was supposed to put an end to all that in the 80’s, but 30 years on many communities there are still reliant on handouts. In fact it’s the same in much of Africa. Why? It’s not that the land does not have the capacity to produce the food. There are many places on earth which are less productive but people manage to grow what they need. It’s not that the people are lazy either. Women especially, live a life of constant toil and drudgery in many areas of the continent.
Comments (0)Confessions of a Permaculture Aid Worker, Episode 9: Andy in Morocco
Aid Projects, Community Projects, Demonstration Sites, Developments, Education Centres, Networking Sites, People Systems, Village Development — by Patrick Blampied July 19, 2010
Editor’s Note: I made a boo-boo. When I put this post up the other day, I checked the podcast code was working as it should, so you could all play and enjoy. It checked out okay. After that I added some code for a Digg/Reddit plugin, but failed to notice this clashed with the podcast code and broke it! Then the post slipped down the main page, as posts do, without my realising people couldn’t play the podcast. As such, I’m putting it back up top to ensure it gets heard, as it’s a great discourse deserving of a good listen. Apologies to all.
‘Confessions of a Permaculture Aid Worker’ is a weekly podcast show from PRI Australia aimed at documenting the experiences of people out in the field and making more information available about what’s happening in the Permaculture world.
This week I’m speaking with Andy of Tribal Networks about his project in Morocco and the Irish NGO he’s set up which supports and networks connections to remote areas of the world.
Click play to hear the interview (and read further below for more details):
Confessions of a Permaculture Aid Worker, Episode 9: Andy in Morocco
Subscribe to Confessions of a Permaculture Aid Worker.
Take an Exciting PDC in Ethiopia and Your Course Fees Will Support Crucial Aid Work
Aid Projects, Community Projects, Courses/Workshops, Demonstration Sites, Education Centres — by Alex McCausland July 16, 2010
Certified 72h Permaculture Design Course, Konso, Ethiopia: Permaculture for the Rural African Environment – Oriented towards food security development for rural communities, lead by Tichafa Makovere; Strawberry Fields Eco-Lodge (SFEL): August 02 – 12, 2010.
Tichafa Makovere, lead trainer for the re-SCOPE (Regional Permaculture in Schools and Colleges) initiative and the Fimbadzanai Permaculture Centre in Zimbabwe, is to lead a 10-day residential PDC (English language medium) in Konso, South Ethiopia in August 2010. This PDC focuses on application of Permaculture to semi arid environments in rural Africa, of particular relevance to those wanting to apply PC in the rural developing world. Attention is given to appropriate technology, soil and water harvesting, indigenous knowledge systems and Permaculture in schools as a key focus point for the community, and a chance to influence the coming generation.
We use SFEL’s model PC site as the primary example for demonstration, as well as visiting implementation sites on our Permaculture in Konso Schools Project (PKSP) for design examples (more info on PKSP here). We also look at Konso’s renowned indigenous agricultural system and incorporating IKS (Indigenous Knowledge Systems) into Permaculture Design. We can also include day long field-trips to wet-highland Afro-montaine, wet-tropical lowland and dry agro-pastoral lowland agro-climactic zones, upon request, and can incorporate design examples from these environments into the PDC.
Comments (0)Confessions of a Permaculture Aid Worker, Episode 9: Andy in Morocco
Aid Projects, Community Projects, Conservation, Demonstration Sites, Developments, Education Centres, Networking Sites, People Systems, Podcasts, Village Development, Water Harvesting — by Patrick Blampied July 14, 2010
Comments (0)Notes from a PRI Internship Graduate: Permaculture Boot Camp; a Design Project in Action
Community Projects, Courses/Workshops, Demonstration Sites, Developments, Education Centres, People Systems, Social Gatherings, Society, Urban Projects, Village Development — by P. David Stockhausen July 9, 2010
Before venturing to Australia and The Permaculture Research institute this past January, I’d found myself answering the same query over and over again “…okay, wait, tell me again, what is Permaculture anyway?” And now, since returning from the PRI to the San Francisco Bay Area, I’ve encountered the same questions from friends and family though now with more of a peppered interest in where Permaculture might lead me. My answer is often less about where Permaculture is going to lead me, but instead where it’s going to lead us.
Being a trained observer of natural patterns, it’s pretty difficult not to notice an obvious dearth in awareness around the subject of Permaculture. Furthermore, I feel that it goes without saying that there’s an urgent need for permaculture education that is a direct conduit to action. Once one knows and deeply understands our global state of affairs and environmental situation through the educational lens of a Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC), it is difficult not to have a sense of urgency about permanent cultural repair. To me, it appears that this type of urgency isn’t often shared by those who don’t see the issues and the solutions through the lens of Permaculture and whole systems thinking.
Comments (6)Flavours of Kinesi
Aid Projects, Aquaculture, Biological Cleaning, Community Projects, Conservation, Demonstration Sites, Education Centres, Irrigation, Plant Systems, Soil Conservation, Waste Water, Water Harvesting — by Darren Bell July 8, 2010
It’s 2am. I’m sitting on a nice toilet in a nice hotel room in a nice little town in Africa. But I don’t feel very nice. Three weeks ago I arrived in the town of Musoma on the eastern shore of lake Victoria, Tanzania. It’s my second time here. It’s unusual to return to an old permaculture posting so it felt both strange and comforting to visit old friends. They had assumed I would return again as to them I was family and family never leaves for long. But I am mzungu, white man. And in the West, we never stay for long. But I had not been sick then.
I contracted diarrhea two days after arriving. Not crippling, but enough to make my trips to town short, consciously timed ones. Not bad enough to panic. Perhaps that is why three weeks later I’m sitting on the toilet once again at 2am in the morning. Only this time it’s a little more serious. I contracted malaria two days ago and had moved from the delirious, early stage effects of high fever to feeling just plain horrible. On top of that, I had unknowingly overdosed on a western folk remedy and have been violently vomiting for the past eight hours. My one small cause for relief was a by product of my tiny bathroom. I could release my bowels and vomit into the hand basin at exactly the same time. This I had adeptly managed several times this past evening although I over shot the bowl the first time. Must remember to tip the cleaning lady extra in the morning.
Comments (2)Permaculture Takes Off in Tanzania!
Aid Projects, Community Projects, DVDs/Books, Demonstration Sites, Developments, Education Centres — by Global Resource Alliance July 2, 2010
Editor’s Note: It’s with pleasure I introduce you to a fantastic and fast-spreading permaculture movement in Tanzania, kicked off by Geoff Lawton’s PDC in 2007 (see Geoff’s articles on his experiences and observations there here and here), and organised by our partner the Global Resource Alliance. Below is a trailer for an upcoming documentary, and some background on it.
From the Mara Soil – Film Trailer
 GRA’s office plot in Musoma, Tanzania |
GRA was introduced to permaculture in 2006 at a workshop with Geoff Lawton, one of the world’s leading experts and promoters of permaculture. Permaculture offered a path to connect and expand GRA’s current programs in organic gardening and tree planting, and GRA’s future plans for sustainable building, rainwater harvesting and alternative energy.
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