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  • From: Scott Pittman <pci@permaculture-inst.org>
  • To: pcplantdb@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [pcplantdb] hello and everything else
  • Date: Mon, 09 Aug 2004 17:35:30 -0600

Lawrence L. and I just spent an hour on the phone talking about this db and some of the ways that I might be helpful, and interested in participating.

Since the Permaculture Institute is the sponsor for the grant that Stephanie received for the development of this project it seems that I have at least a tangential connection. I also encouraged Stephanie when she first approached me with this idea because I think that the collection and promulgation of plant guild and other permaculture information is critical to the healing of the planet, our home, Gaia.

The PC Institute is a 501c3 which means that we can receive grants and gifts for the benefit of society at large and offer a tax benefit for donors. If the developers of this db are going to seek other grants we will be glad to sponsor or "umbrella" those applications. Lawrence also mentioned that you may seek a domain name that needs an owner, we would be glad to serve as the owner to that domain with the understanding that should you want to transfer ownership in the future it would have to be to another non-profit, that is the law as I under
stand it. I would also expect you to handle fee payments and any administrative tasks and then copying me so that I can maintain a file on the domain.

Further requirements of the PC Institute is that all requirements of the granting organization, should you receive other grants, will have to be met by the writer of the grant. Mostly those requirements are reports on the project and an accounting of the funds received. Those reporting requirements and accounting responsibilities are required of the sponsoring institute, in this case the PC Institute and if they are not fulfilled it lowers the credibility of the PC Institute for future grant applications. I have had some bad experiences in the past when I have umbrellaed worthy projects and then they disappear and I have no idea how the project went nor how the money was spent, which leaves me in a very embarrassing position when the granting organization calls me asking for a final report and accounting. As a result of this the Institute charges a fee of 4% of the grant amount to administer and do the accounting for projects that we think are worthwhile, most organizations charge 8 - 10%.

I spoke with Lawrence about the incredible opportunity this db presents for gathering data from around the world, there is a pc practitioner in virtually every country of the world and most of them have computer access, this presents an opportunity to look at plants in there area of origination and find out what the associate plants were before domestication - an extension of the work done by the immanent Russian plant geneticist Nikolay Vavilov. I have connections all over the Former Soviet Union who are botanists with various university botanical gardens, this is the kind of information they thrive on and they could contribute a lot!

In reading Stephanie's thoughts on the software and how it allows depiction of relationships within relationships I thought of the work of Rolf Dahlgren who developed a system of plant classification that was organized by relationship and which is much more useful than the Linnaeus system based on physical characteristics.

I would like to encourage you all in this endeavor, I wish I were more computer adept, perhaps I would have more to contribute. What I can contribute once this system in up and running is a lifetime of data collection of resources which I will gladly share. Once the data base is designed there is an enormous amount of research needed to find those people who are plant and pattern literate and solicit their contributions. Some of the most valuable information is held by indigenous people who have not yet separated themselves from the world of which they are part of.

Scott Pittman


Permaculture Institute
PO Box 3702
Pojoaque, NM 87501

505 455 0514 Phone
505 455 2003 FAX

<pci@permaculture-inst.org> email
www.permaculture.org WEB




  • [pcplantdb] hello and everything else, Scott Pittman, 08/09/2004

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