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  • From: Wesley Roe and Santa Barbara Permaculture Network <lakinroe@silcom.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] Declan Kennedy about Bill Mollison – from Declan’s facebook A better translation than what Google offered - from German
  • Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 11:41:47 -0700

Declan Kennedy about Bill Mollison – from Declan’s facebook

A better translation than what Google offered - from German



I am mourning my friend Bill Mollison.



In 1981, my wife Margrit (+) and I got to know one of the most important
approaches to networking environmental measures - from the individual house
or smaller settlements to the planning of entire regions. A year later, we
brought Bill Mollison from Australia to Europe. This approach is called "
Permaculture " (put together from the two word “permanent” and Agriculture)
and, for me, it transmits the principles of ‘closed’ ecological cycles in
nature to the planning of



Although I had known Bill for almost 24 years - and Sepp Hölzer just one day,
I was really surprised to see a resemblance in their attitude to change and,
at the same time, the contrast between these two men. Similar : both as
"Agrarian-Rebels ", as creative practitioners, in their " gardening with
nature ", in their discerning gruffness, their love for story-telling and
their charisma – two men in completely different climate zones who were
innovative, far-sighted and practically at the same time and dedicated to the
problems at hand as long as was necessary for a solution to be found. The
contrast was for me was in the concentration on his own project by Hölzer
who was just then 64 years old, whereas Mollison despite his old age, with
78, had still the same global openness with which he had gotten involved in
new projects (over the decades) no matter where they were or how challenged
they might be.



I would like to concentrate now, however, on my friendship with Bill and go
back to the beginnings of our intensive collaboration – he was very generous
in sharing his experience, he was as six year older man immediately both a
friend, and teacher. He was an uncomfortable visionary who, for instance, in
1982 in Canada at one of the largest and most successful ecological meetings
in North America of that time, coined the the phrase as a motto: "think
globally - act locally".



Born In 1928 in Australia, he lived between his 15th. to 28th. years of age
alone in the Australian Bush, and worked as a trapper, lumberjack, fishermen
and farmer - often together or in close neighbourly relationship with the
Aborigines - the Australian indigenous people. From that time he had a wealth
of stories, all of which were received by his listeners with great
enthusiasm. From the kangaroo-hunting, where the aborigines made contact with
the animals and gave them appreciation, explaining

why they had to have to kill them, so that virtually the animal would lay
itself down at the hunter’s feet. Or from the story of the black swans, that
Bill was observing - and how they came to him and sat themselves down in a
circle around him. The stories were always about man and nature in deep
contact and harmony with each other, something that hardly exists in our
western civilization.



After Bill found out that this civilization destroyed the territories of the

Aborigines, more and more, he went back to study again in 1955 - in order to
stop this development. Already during these studies, he went into research
and academic teaching and– as an environmentalist - began to actively
participate in the environmental policy of his country. He helped prevent dam
projects, fought for the declaration of nature conservation reserves and
supported the aboriginal people in their fight for their rights.



As an incorrigible optimist, he wanted to restore the Garden of Eden - for
everyone. Furthermore, he tried to create the basics for a concept, which was
not only open to new information, but also could integrate the knowledge
about sustainable, ecological techniques from all parts of the world.



During the campaign against the dam on the Franklin River in Tasmania in the
1970’s – while he was a lecturer at the University in Hobart - he met his
later co-Author David Holmgren, a landscape planning student. They started to
discuss why the agriculture of the aborigines had survived the times and why
modern agriculture was only good fior a relatively short-term period – a fad.
Furthermore, he learned what could be learned from the aboriginal people and
how their concepts could be brought into harmony with new technologies and
new scientific findings.



Mollison and Holmgren began to experiment, to design and to write. With the
help of the Japanese-speaking Aussie, Andrew Jeeves they pulled in the ideas
of Masanobu Fukuoka (The One-Straw Revolution, 1975), they took over the key
line concept from Ken Yeomans (Water for Every Farm, 1954) and F. H. King’s
Observations of the highly productive agricultural concepts of Asia (Farmers
of Forty Centuries – Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan, 1911).
Out of these, they created a design concept for permancy in human activities
with landscapes, water-scapes and forestry, which they called "Permaculture".



As permaculture has no dogmas or fixed boundaries but rather a series of
basic principles which are applicable to everything, he found always new and
more contenders - like the architects Ian and Lecki Ord in Melbourne, the
engineer and farmer Max Lindegger (designer of Crystal Waters Permaculture
Village, Queensland), or Sonja Wallman (with her

productive lean-to greenhouse near Boston, Massachusetts, USA) and many other
people in Australia, Europe and North America. The Permaculture-Design System
was being defined and integrated into supposedly unrelated subject areas and
he began a movement to link these separate sciences and areas of classical
university departments.



Now (2016) - more than 40 years later - over thousands of independent
permaculture associations and learning institutions have - in almost all
languages - all over the world, serve people who are working on sustainable
agriculture, reforestation, Bio-Architecture, environmental education and
regional economics - and also those who are in search for a holistic concept
of loving and life. Bill's commitment and enthusiasm continuously helped to
advance the multidisciplinary quality of the concept and made it to a
permaculture system. For me, his most beautiful definition is: "Permaculture
is a dance with nature - in which nature leads."



The first book of Mollison and Holmgren Permaculture One (1978) was soon
followed by Bill's Permaculture Two (1979) and both made a circulation of
over 100 000 copies by 1985. The two books have been translated into German,
Portuguese and Italian, at my request, in the mid-1980’s. They are based very
heavily on the experiences in Tasmania and they had to be transposed too for
other climates as some methods were only partially transferable. Spanish and
French translations followed later under the collaboration of Emilia Hazelip,
soon to be a most well-known permaculture practitioner and teacher on both
sides of the Pyennées - as she spoke all three languages.



However, the principles are so good and transferable and innovative, that
they are turning established concepts in schools of agriculture and forestry,
of rural, water, urban planning and architecture upside down. They are
building on the experience in design of holistic ways of life - in different
cultures and countries - and take little or no consideration of modern
recipés or conventions. For me, and many other world-change messengers, they
offered many new pathways and a new lifestyle.



Bill’s first visit to Germany, at the invitation of the students of the

Faculty of Architecture and the British council in Berlin - both of which
helped support his travel and lecture fee – happened at the beginning of May
1981. He was supposed to do 7 other lectures in West Germany

organised by Rudolf Dörnach. Due to exceptional circumstances
(Persching-Deployment-protests all over Germany) the rest of the lectures
were cancelled. So Bill stayed a whole week - yes 10 days – in our house in
Berlin-Schlachtensee. He talked continuously - every day from morning to
evening - about his theories, his plans and projects in Australia. And since
we were both working within the broad theme "Urban Ecology" – I was in the
Technical University as a professor of urban infrastructure - and Margrit in
ecological construction as part of the preparation for the International
Exhibition (IBA) Berlin 1987, we look off time to listen with full attention
to this brilliant man. Our questions showed Bill that, in 1981, we in Europe
had very similar problems to his in Australia. From the forests to the
climate change, from the poisoning of food; to the wasting of water, etc.
etc. - everything was covered. His analysis was brilliant too. Everything
that is still going on to-day but maybe even on a larger and/or worse scale.
But the most important to us was that we were able to discuss solutions with
him, as that was behind ors and his design orientation.



The 5 days were not only fun but also terrifying – especially when Bill’s
cited facts and details about the global ecological situation we presented.
Until then, these insights were known only by very few decision-makers and
mainly being ignored by politicians. But his unusual solutions convinced us
both. He started with his statements at 9 o’clock in the morning and
pontificated until midnight. We had a concentrated private Permaculture
Designer Course (PDC) which usually takes 14 days - with many practical
examples, drawings and graphics. The costs were modest: 2 packs of cigarettes
and a bottle of Irish whiskey per day.



We started planting our 6 by 12 metres row-house garden with him, gathering
plants in the woods around the Schlachtensee, and bringing them back as Bill
kept saying that “life starts in your garden”. Margrit was a vegetarian and
loved the idea of self-sufficiency in veggies and herbs. He agreed. In the
evenings, however, we ate out as Bill was an avid meat-eaters – we would go
to a restaurant for lamb or to order a decent steak for him. Once, in the "
Paris Bar " in the Kantstrasse in Berlin-Charlottenburg, he ordered - as
always - a German wine – he was interested in trying out local products. The
waiter, slightly embarrassed, said that as we were in a restaurant called
Paris Bar, they only served French wine. Quickly Bill replied: “I’ll have a
Hardy Wallbanger " (orange juice with vodka). Then, even the waiter had to
laugh. Such cultural contrast-situations Bill loved - and somehow he produced
them everywhere.



We went several times with him to Kreuzberg to the rehabilitation areas of
the International Building Exhibition, where we both worked with different
groups in the squatter scene. Even though he didn’t generally like cities and
saw no good reason for their survival, he had immediately creative solutions
for the people, who were poor and ill-treated by the authorities: a
city-farm; or you can build your herbs and vegetables on balconies; he even
wanted to draw up the solutions for them (this was 1981). He loved the energy
saving devices that the squatters has thought up and implemented on a
shoestring - and their grey-water systems with urban plants. Other
interesting models were also good for him to see - and so it was the
beginning of years of intense exchange of ecological knowledge across
national borders and continents.



In the early 80’s, Mollison tried to write a kind of "Permaculture-Bible".
About half of his Designer s' Manual (1988) is brilliant, especially the
chapter on patterns and design. There is hardly any other book of which I
know that is a " multidisciplinary design manual for Life”. Other chapters in
this manual leave a lot to be desired. It was only in 2009 that Margaret
Hölzer and Dr. Marlis Ortner in Austria translated and published it into
German.



Another book: Introduction to Permaculture, that Bill together wrote with
Reny Slay, illustrated by Andrew Jeeves, was published in 1991 and explains
permaculture for the first time in a generally understandable and systematic
approach. It also offers practical experience of many permaculture-activists
in Australia and other countries. But above all, it is the result of the
research carried out by Bill and Reny, in the 1980’s with the Australian
Permaculture Institute in northern New South Wales, where Bill and Reny had
moved for their work with Marilyn Wade. Also other numerous helpers there
experimented with plants, buildings and technical infrastructure, while Bill
was often on lecture-travel around the world.



Margrit and I (with the help of many other professionals), translated und
edited Permaculture One and Permaculture Two e.g. in the second edition in
German. A very good successful article with coloured images was published in
1984 in a Basel Newspaper (no.40, p. 10-15) and contained what we ourselves
had developed in environmental planning and building and what we had learned
from Bill and David and the movement. I heartily thank both individuals for
their ideas, their perseverance and commitment.



It was Bill and Reny, who taught the first European Permaculture Design

course in Jagdschloss Glienicke in Berlin (with me as an assistant teacher
and co-ordinator) in the summer of 1982. Because it was held in English,
there were 24 participants from 7 countries of Europe and 2 interested
participants from Brazil who at the time were studying landscape planning in
the then still divided city. It wasn't easy for these people with English as
their second language to understand Bill’s Tasmanian, particularly because
half the time he had a pipe in the left corner of his mouth. Antja - our then
21-Year-old daughter - not only did the course as a participant but also did
a repetition in the evening in German - 2 hours, for the German, Swiss,
Belgian and Austrian participants who hadn’t understood everything.



Over three-quarters of a year immediately after the course, 7 participants
met all day, every Saturday to prepare the first 72 hour Permaculture Design
Course (PDC) in German which was subsequently held on a farm in Wetzhausen,
Bavaria.



After that, I started my new career as a " Mr. Permaculture Europe "

(East and West) with Bill’s full support. Except for the one course in

Germany and another Brazil in 1983, I held the first and / or two
permaculture design courses (from 1983 to 1995) in Denmark, France, Greece,
Ireland, Italy, Croatia, the Netherlands, Norway, Austria, Poland, Russia,
Scotland, Switzerland, Slovakia and Slovenia. Each of these courses was
partly financed by the Gaia Trust, Denmark (run by Hildur & Ross Jackson,
also PDC students of Bill and Margrit).



1993 the book of Bill Mollison about Ferments and 1996 another

entitled Travel in Dreams were published but could not attain the success of
the first 3 books. But the international permaculture movement had now grown-
on the basis of the first books and because of the numerous two and
three-week designer courses, held all over the globe. In Europe, the widening
of the concept to suit the northern climate was in full swing. This met - in
part – the sharp criticism of the scientific community (partly who felt
threatened) and from the conventional farmers because of the unusual ideas
and methods, propagated by this growing movement.



I have learned so much from Bill and David. 1985, I was so enthusiastic about
the permaculture-vision that I dropped my academic career and decided to go
for it – for real, as a practitioner and multiplier of the design system.
Many other men and women did the same on many continents. We sold our home in
Berlin, I quit my professorship at the Technical University and Margrit her
job at the International Building

Exhibition, and we moved to Steyerberg in Lower Saxony in order to build up a
permaculture experimental plot on 2.6 hectares (10 acres) of poor quality
land but near the ecological community of Lebensgarten. There, in this
settlement that had been built in 1939, we renovated two houses according to
permaculture principles and got a planning office and a whole series of
permaculture experiments going. For a while, I headed the Permaculture
Institute for Europe in this budding ecovillage. Bill was so enthusiastic
about my work and the development of Lebensgarten that he came each year for
more than 11 years - and once brought with him the Community Award of the
Permaculture Institute of Australia which he bestowed on me like mediaeval
warrior being knighted.



On the whole, the thinking in permaculture-categories has spread wide and
bright. I am glad and grateful that I copped on to it relatively early –
already in 1981. I was perfect that I came into contact with Bill, and that I
had the chance to spread this design concept and to try it out in our climate
zones.



Margrit’s work shifted (in the late 80’s) more and more towards the
introduction of sustainable money systems, and with her book "Interest and
Inflation Free Money" she became a galeonfigure of the complementary currency
movement. These ideas were taken up by me and Bill - and integrated into the
permaculture concept. She was asking: “How can we create a permanent culture,
if we do not have a permanent money system?” These last few years with the
crash on the international financial markets and in the global economy, and
the CO2 crisis and other even more pressing environmental problems - show how
strong economy and ecology are interwoven. In the permaculture "Bible", Bill
has devoted a chapter on the monetary system, which is built upon and filled
to a large extent on Margrit’s theories and writings.



Bill still smoked and drank a bit too much and, a couple of times, he got so
sick that he had to break off his lecture tours - and yet he lived to 88
years old. Strong genes, I quess! He was a positive thinker – yet - It hit
him more and more to see how the general ecological situation in the world
was getting worse and worse, and in spite of the ever-increasing permaculture
and organic movement, nothing seemed to change this general negative trend .
That is why Bill has been depressed for quite a while, a situation he himself
pretty well ignored. In the last 10 years he also felt abandoned by many
former allies, because they were ready to make compromises that he felt he
couldn’t. In between times, however, he recovered, and found again his sharp
critical attitude (which sometimes threatened to turn into cynicism). This
brought him back to his original joie de vivre. In Istria in June 2005 with
his sarcastic jokes he often lost the younger people in the permaculture
movement, who didn't know him yet. He not very good at diplomacy – but soon
with his many stories, jokes and lively contributions, he found his rightful
place as a co-Founder, a multiplier and the grandfather of the permaculture
movement - then for the final days of the Convergence – the last time I saw
him in person - <>he was celebrated by all those present.



He will be missed by all of us.



Declan Kennedy, Steyerberg, 25.09.2016




  • [permaculture] Declan Kennedy about Bill Mollison – from Declan’s facebook A better translation than what Google offered - from German, Wesley Roe and Santa Barbara Permaculture Network, 09/27/2016

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