permaculture

[Pacific Edge Permaculture <pacedge@magna.com.au>]

on 3/6/00 5:26 PM, Judith Hanna at jehanna@gn.apc.org wrote:

> Dear >Russ Grayson and Fiona Campbell
> 
> At 17:48 29/05/00 +1000, you wrote:
>> In her recent email announcement of this August¹s Permaculture Designer¹s
>> Gathering at Djanbung Gardens, Nimbin, Robyn Francis writes: "You are
>> encouraged to use the time until the gathering to commence dialogue on
>> important issues via the net". >I would like to kick off that process by
> raising for discussion issues which >I believe are pertinent to the future
> of permaculture.
>> 
> Can some of us who aren't in Australia and won't get along to the
> conference join in?


Yes - please do. Permaculture is a network of practitioners, so all who are
interested should have a say in any issues raised. As Bill Mollison has
pointed out, only the nodes of a network which contribute something are
likely to last!



> permaculture is much more mainstreamed in Australia -- but that many
> who say they are 'into permaculture' see it as organic home-growing of veg
> and fruit, composting and recycling, being nice to wildlife -- but will
> casually motor twenties of miles in daily commuting or hundreds of miles
> for a weekend. 


Partly, the use of private transport is a result of the structure of our
cities, I think. I agree with your comment about the view of permaculture as
a type of organic home gardening and so on. A few of us are trying to lift
permaculture out of the home garden and into the community -  I guess we see
it as a community development methodology. I remember Bill saying that
permaculture is not about gardening and that you don't need a garden to
practice permaculture.

> 
> I'd pick out for strong agreement your point that:
>> All of these ideas have been promoted in permaculture since its beginning.
>> While they have become institutionalised, however, they are still far from
>> widespread. Is our role as permaculture activists now to educate the public
>> about them and to lobby local government for their adoption?
> 
> Absolutely -- how? Seems to me that:
> 
> 1) Permaculture's 'unique selling point' in catching people's imaginations
> and enthusiasm is the emphasis on demonstrating solutions in practice, so
> that people can see how to make their own.

Dr Robert Gillman, the US-based leader of the Context Institute and ex-NASA
scientist, said just this when in Sydney some years back. He said that the
challenge of the present time for change agents like permaculture people is
to demonstrate the practicality and desirability of sustainable solutions
and to show that are not 'freaky'.


>The permaculture garden centres
> in Fremantle are good for this -- everyone I know in Perth knows of them
> and enjoys the excuse to visit them. And they look like businesses that pay
> their way, helping people earn a living from working for sustainability,
> rather than depending on chasing hand-out grants. (Is this the case in
> reality?)

Last I visited it, the Sustainaing Settlements nursery/ centre in Framantle
was doing just this - providing paid work and operating as a commercial
business. I don't want to become tiresome quoting Mollison (he's a good
source of quotes, though), but he did say that permaculture projects should
be economically viable (one of the 'characteristics of permaculture', if I'm
correst?).

In Sydney, we've managed to create a couple part time jobs in community
garden development which have been filled by permaculture people. The job
ads stipulated that a Permaculture Design Certificate was desirable.

As for making permaculture part of your income stream, I am aware of PDC
graduates going out, full of enthusiasm, to try to generate income form
permaculture. For instance, I've lost count of how many 'Edible Landscaping'
start-ups I've come across over the years. Seems that, were there time,
small business planning could be introduced into PDCs. I know of one
instance where that has been done in Australia.

I believe that the small business model is relevant to permaculture where
people seek to make it part of their livelihood. It's also encouraging to
see compatible goals for larger business such as Natural Step being
popularised.
> 
> 2) Campaigning groups -- often single-issue in focus -- are natural allies
> in making the arguments and getting them through to the press and
> politicians. What they need, and are often short of, are practical examples
> of what they are talking about as solutions. This is what good permaculture
> projects should be able to provide. From roughly biennial visits, I don't
> get a picture of how effective a relationship there is or is not in
> Australia between the environmental campaigners and the permacultural
> examples relevant to what they are campaigning for.

Depends on what element of the environment movement you refer to. Generally,
permaculture offers to the environment movement a methodology which goes
beyond their lobbying (though that is of great importance to the realisation
of their aims) - a do-it-yourself methodology of 'if you want something done
then get a few people together and go and do it'.

A good example in Australia is August EcoForest. With forests a long-running
debate in this country, August offers an investment opportunity headed by
Damien Lynch who started off ethical investment in Australia in t 1984. It
offers the environmentalists an alternative to conventional investment
opportunities. It offers a practical example of how to go about ecologically
sustainable, mixed forestry. This, I think, would qualify as a 'practical
example' you refer to Judith.

Many environmentalists here are fixated on the question of weeds to such an
extent that they go around hand-removing, injecting or spraying Round Up on
any plant that isn't Australian and on Australian plants out of their
ecosystem. I know these people are well intentioned and I don't want to
irritate them, but their action is reminescent of an 'ethnic cleansing'
program for the plant world. Some of these people have been critical of
permaculture and some see it as a source of weeds in the environment, others
have time for permaculture.

Environmentalists are a mixed bag.

> Certainly in the UK, this relationship is generally lacking or weak. I say
> this as someone who belongs to both camps -- and finds great gaps in
> understanding and relevant contacts of the others on both sides.
> I tend to think of it as a matter of human ecological niches -- one reason
> is that effective campaigning requires tight logistical organisation and an
> element of aggression, that doesn't sit easily with (for instance)
> remembering to water the office plants.


Mollison again: "Beware of revolutionaries who do not garden'.


> 
> 3) > Australia is fully a part of the global economic
>> system, a fact which has brought social, environmental, political and
>> economic change over the past twenty years. These changes have been
>> discussed by, among others, social analyst Hugh Mackay (Mackay Research),
>> who has identified:
>> - a persistent rate of unemployment
>> - underemployment (30% of the Australian workforce has been Œcasualised¹ in
>> part-time, unreliable work)
>> - an increasing polarisation of wealth and increased poverty
>> - a persistent social ambience of insecurity
>> - changed gender relations
>> - changed working lives
>> - reduction of government services at the same time as increasing 
>> regulation
>> of life 
>> - fear of the future mixed with a belief that things will improve.
> This is the social milieu in which permaculture must operate. And to operate
>> successfully ­ with relevance to the daily life of people ­ permaculture
>> activists must address the issues.
> 
> By comparison with the UK, Australia has started from a much more
> egalitarian, secure and relaxed base and life there seems still much more
> relaxed and secure than here or in many other parts of the world. That
> said, one of permaculture's gaps has been in 'social ecology' or
> peoplecare. 

As for the social ecology side of permaculture you mention - we have found
that the thing which works against the success of permaculture projects is
not technical, it's interpersonal. Permaculture has taught few people
skills. That's why we have three days of them in our PDC.


>This seems one area in which British permaculture seems to be
> ahead -- lots of people packed into a small island means emphasis on urban
> problems and solutions.

We need urban solutions here too - although Australia is much the same size
as the US, something like three-quarters of its 19 million people live in
cities. Most along the Pacific east coast.


> Of course, the LETS systems that are mentioned in the Permaculture Design
> Manual are a good practical start on tracking non-monetised exchanges and
> values -- but there is a whole lot  more permaculture could and needs to
> get to grips with. And maybe places like Maleny and the Blue Mountains are
> doing so? 

LETS systems here are characterised by a severe participation/
nonparticipation pattern of usage, from what I understand. Yes, Maleny
Community Credit Union is a good example and continues to serve people
locally in the hills behind the Sunshine Coast.

To popularise the idea of LETS, what we do in our permaculture design
courses is to assist students set up a LETS system for the duration of the
course. Learning by doing, and it's been successful. (We run 18-day, 110 +
hour part-time PDCs).


> 
> But such such small-scale local initiatives seem pitifully tiny set against
> the Global Economy -- which takes us back to making the links between
> permaculture's action-exemplars and education focus and the campaigning
> movements. 
> 
> Enough for one oar into the discussion..
> 
> Cheers, Judith
> Judith Hanna
> jehanna@gn.apc.org
> 15 Jansons Rd, Tottenham, London N15 4JU

...Russ Grayson


---------------------
PACIFIC EDGE
Permaculture & Media
Russ Grayson and Fiona Campbell

PO Box 446, Kogarah NSW 2217 AUSTRALIA
Phone/ fax   02-9588 6931   (IDD-61+2+9588 6931)
Email: pacedge@magna.com.au
WWW: http://www.magna.com.au/~pacedge/

PERMACULTURE/ COMMUNITY BASED ESD: permaculture education + Australian
City Farms and Community Gardens Network (NSW contact) + organic gardening
training + overseas development aid project services.
MEDIA: publication design + desktop publishing services  + website design +
journalism/ photojournalism.


> 
>