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  • From: Wesley Roe and Santa Barbara Permaculture Network <lakinroe@silcom.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] The Guardian article/Bill Mollison obituary
  • Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2016 03:33:26 -0700

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/oct/10/bill-mollison-obituary

Bill Mollison obituary
Ecologist and one of the co-creators of permaculture

Bill Mollison, who has died aged 88, was one of the co-creators of
permaculture, an agricultural system that works with, rather than against,
nature, on the basis that the natural world holds the key to stable and
productive systems. Having developed the concept, he then travelled from his
native Tasmania <https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/tasmania> for 30
years to embed his approach worldwide. His ideas have spread widely –
permaculture is practised in more than 140 countries and by more than 3
million people – even though in the 1970s the idea was considered, in
Mollison’s words, “the highest form of sedition”.

Much of what he espoused was based on his great respect for the wisdom of
subsistence farmers around the world, who have long used sustainable methods
to grow their crops. In agricultural terms, this means planting diverse sets
of crops, using perennial species to form productive stable systems, and
ensuring the conditions for soils to be regenerated.


Other characteristics that he observed in the Tasmanian wilderness informed
permaculture, for instance that the interfaces between different habitats are
the most productive and that elements such as plants and animals need to be
placed together so they are mutually beneficial – as once when he pointed
out: “You don’t have a slug problem, you have a duck deficiency!”

Mollison pointed to further beneficial ecological consequences: “The only
safe energy systems are those derived from biological systems. A New Guinea
gardener can walk through the gates of his garden taking one unit of energy
and hand out 70. A modern farmer who drives a tractor through the gate takes
1,000 units of energy in and gives one back. Who is the most sophisticated
agriculturalist?” He held that “although the problems of the world are
increasingly complex, the solutions remain embarrassingly simple”. Ecological
systems would enable people to meet their own needs, take back control of
their lives and reinforce nature rather than deplete it.

Born in the fishing village of Stanley, on the north-west coast of Tasmania,
Bill (whose given name was actually Bruce), was the son of Roland Mollison
and his wife, Amy (nee Harmon). His parents ran a butter factory, and later
built the village bakehouse that Bill took over at the age of 14 when his
father died, delivering bread with a horse called Topsy.

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In his 20s, he worked as a fisherman, forester and trapper. He understood and
celebrated the self-reliance of rural life in the 1930s and 40s, and his love
of the natural world led him to join the Commonwealth Scientific and
Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in 1954, working in agricultural
research for 10 years before leaving to study biogeography
<https://www.britannica.com/science/biogeography>, the study of the
distribution of plants and animals, at Hobart University.

He was appointed a lecturer at Hobart in 1968, and some years later developed
a new discipline, environmental psychology. At this stage he could have
settled into a comfortable academic life. However, he felt increasingly
trapped by traditional academia and sought instead to marry his studies in
psychology with the natural world, seeking an elusive operating system that
would inspire people through a systematic design process to build abundant
and resilient lifestyles.


At the age of 50, after his university peers had roundly rejected his plea
for a cross-disciplinary holistic approach to their work, he turned his back
on formal education. Joined by an environmental design student, David
Holmgren, Mollison started to sketch out the origins of what we now know as
permaculture. Nobody had put together the architecture for a regenerative
design approach that drew on knowledge of traditional cultures while adapting
to the opportunities of new technologies and systems thinking. It simply did
not exist.

Into this framework they introduced concepts from other ecological pioneers,
indigenous cultures and peasant farmers, combining them with a keen
observation of the natural world. In 1978 Mollison and Holmgren published
Permaculture One, the precursor of Mollison’s more detailed Permaculture – A
Designers’ Manual (1988). This was to become the “permaculture bible”, and is
still used as a reference text for teachers. It expands the concepts at the
heart of agroecology, agroforestry, carbon farming, regenerative agriculture,
sustainable architecture and local money systems, providing the intellectual
framework that supports the continuing evolution of his ideas.

Thereafter Mollison wanted to spread his ideas, and decided to teach an
informal two-week course in permaculture, operating from what he dubbed “The
People’s Republic of Strickland Avenue”, the street in Hobart where he and
Holmgren lived. He devised a curriculum and shared it with anyone who might
turn up – a move so audacious that it was laughable. As his students grew in
confidence they taught similar 72-hour courses, and after 10 years of
continuous touring and teaching, Mollison – with the help of his network of
loosely affiliated teachers – had spread his ideas across five continents. In
1981 he received the Right Livelihood award
<http://www.rightlivelihoodaward.org/>.


Although his original principles remain in place, the courses have evolved to
expand beyond agriculture and into areas such as design, engineering,
construction and architecture, all based on an ecological approach, and his
ideas have been taken up by the international Transition Town
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jun/15/transition-towns-way-forward>movement.

Mollison had a brilliant mind. He observed, he catalogued, and his systematic
approach helped him to weave seemingly disparate ideas into the most detailed
tapestry. In this sense he was a true visionary. He was also challenging,
angry, driven by a deep sense of injustice, and merciless if crossed. He used
to say: “First feel fear, then get angry. Then go with your life into the
fight.”

He is survived by his fifth wife, Lisa, four daughters and two sons.

• Bill (Bruce Charles) Mollison, ecologist, born 4 May 1928; died 24
September 2016




  • [permaculture] The Guardian article/Bill Mollison obituary, Wesley Roe and Santa Barbara Permaculture Network, 10/11/2016

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