pcplantdb

[Scott Pittman <pci@permaculture-inst.org>]

I sent this out yesterday and am not sure that it arrived, if it did please 
forgive double posting.
Scott Pittman

To: pcplantdb@lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: hello and everything else

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
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505 455 0514 Phone
505 455 2003 FAX

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